Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth

Genre: First-Person Dungeon Crawler / Turn-Based JRPG

Players: 1

.

Review:

Persona Q, released on Nintendo 3DS in 2014, is a game that combines the characters of the Persona franchise (specifically, Persona 3 and Persona 4) with the First-Person Dungeon Crawler gameplay of the Etrian Odyssey series, with this game’s development team comprised of veterans of both franchises.

For those who have not yet played the Persona games in question, this may be a bit perplexing, as it pretty much tosses you into the middle of each group of characters’ respective stories, with their established relationship dynamics already in place, and doesn’t make any attempt to try to get you up to speed. This feels very much like a game specifically meant for fans of the franchise. It doesn’t help that the localization here isn’t great, which makes for stilted and at times seemingly random conversations between the game’s characters, and the overall story seems like exactly what it is – a shameless attempt to shoehorn Persona 3 and 4’s characters into a plot that has them navigating nonsensical mazes for some reason.

When it comes to the presentation, this game makes use of a chibi art style for its characters that’s undoubtedly going to be an acquired taste that not everyone will appreciate. The rest of the game definitely bears the marks of the Persona franchise, from the imaginative and bizarre 3D world that characters must navigate to the stylized menu design, to the solid anime-style Japanese-language voice acting, to the jazzy soundtrack. There’s no question this is a Persona game, though at times I felt like this presentation was a bit too loud and in-your-face for the sort of grindy, slower-paced and methodical sort of gameplay that tends to go with the Etrian Odyssey games.

As far as that gameplay goes, this is very much in line with the Etrian Odyssey-style First-Person Dungeon Crawler RPGs, with players using the 3DS’s touchscreen to draw out the map as they explore, adding in various elements to make future navigation easier. It works great in the Etrian games, and similarly so here. Likewise, the combat in this game is similar to the Etrian Odyssey games as well, including the front and back rows of combatants and the high level of difficulty. Persona Q adds in the traditional Shin Megami Tensei elemental-based system and collectable interchangeable demons (the Personas themselves), but otherwise this is very much in line with the Etrian Odyssey games.

This is actually one of my bigger complaints about this game. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the Etrian Odyssey series, and what those games do, they do impeccably well. But this was a chance to truly marry two franchises together, and players here don’t really have any influence over when they gain the new Personas they need to customize their characters, and the Shin Megami Tensei series’ traditional fusion system only becomes available after many hours of play. As a result, player choice often seems more limited than it needs to be.

Still, despite these frustrations, Persona Q is still largely a successful marriage of the Persona and Etrian Odyssey franchises, bringing Persona’s characters and style into the Etrian Odyssey style of First-Person Dungeon Crawler RPG gameplay. There’s definitely room for improvement, and probably the ones who are going to get the most out of this game are those who are already fans of both franchises, but it’s overall a solid entry in the genre regardless.

tl;dr – Persona Q is a game that pairs Persona 3 and 4’s art style and chibi versions of its characters, and sticks them in First-Person Dungeon Crawler RPG gameplay straight out of the Etrian Odyssey series. While there are rough edges all around and this is largely a game for those who are already fans of the games this is pulling from, it is nevertheless an enjoyable experience and worth trying out.

Grade: B

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Andy Miller, Exlene, Johannes, Homer Simpin, Ilya Zverev, Eli Goodman, Kristoffer Wulff, Gabriel Coronado-Medina, Francis Obst, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}