This may be packed full of Persona 3 & 4 fan service but it might not be for you
Up to this point I've really enjoyed all of the other spin off Persona titles yet this one left me annoyed at some of the gameplay mechanics. This doesn't mean the game can't be fun it just left me feeling like I was missing something. Anyway lets focus on the best part first the story. The cast of Persona 3 & 4 have been thrown into a bizarre alternate version of Yasogami high which is full of shadows. Along with some new friends in the form of Zen & Rei. They turn out to be more interesting than you might think and seeing the conclusion of their story was worth seeing. The rest of the cast interact in fun ways and I enjoyed reading all the different situations they got into.
Another point in this games favor was actually the mapping system. It may not be for everyone but I enjoyed mapping out the dungeon on the touch screen. The amount of devious puzzles this game has is staggering so it'll be vital to fill out the map to solve certain puzzles. Combat was also interesting for a while with it having a similar weakness system as the traditional persona games. Also each boss fight adds a new twist to mix up the repetitive combat which is nice.
Unfortunately the fact that the combat can become repetitive after a while lead to me mostly playing the game to see the next skit instead of the battles. The amount of random battles that happen in each dungeon also felt a little drastic. I didn't bring up F.O.E. till now since I really hated them. All they do is add a small puzzle that needs to be figured out and when you run into them all you can do is run away. Sure it is a challenging opponent but at least in my case all they added was frustration. Along with all of that the pacing of the story also seemed to be off. It certainly has moments but getting to those can take hours of dungeon crawling.
Overall I still think this game has it's good points. Finding them make take a while but a if you happen to be a fan of Persona this game is at least worth looking at. Just know going in that the Etrian Odyssey side of this game might not be for you.
