While I won't deny for a moment that one of the main reasons I looked closer into Persona was the inclusion of Joker into Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, Persona has been a series on my radar for many years now. I'll always at least consider something my friends recommend me, give it a shot when I can, and if it's not for me, I let it be. Couldn't really do that for Persona until relatively recently, and when I could, I didn't really have the drive to look into it, as word of mouth on the... shall we say, character design, Atlus use often didn't leave a good impression from an outsiders perspective, and the only game of theirs I've seen in action was Catherine, via a commentary channel I follow on youtube. Game music though is an easy way to get my attention, and with Joker's inclusion, came the songs used for his stage, Mementos. Wake up, Get up, Get out there, Rivers in the Desert and Last Surprise from Persona 5, along with Mass Destruction from Persona 3, made me want to actively look into Persona. With Persona 5 Royal coming out next year on PS4 (hopefully), I figured a good place to start for now was Q2 on the 3DS, mostly because I could still find it on shelves.
As FalselyProfound (https://falselyprofound.tumblr.com/) can attest to, as she thankfully helped explain a lot of things going on), jumping into a crossover game that expects you to know who everyone is was probably not a good place to start when all you have is an absolute basic understanding of what's going on.
So, the story. Through many twisted events, the Phantom Thieves from Persona 5, the Investigation Team from Persona 4, and the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad (S.E.E.S) from Persona 3 (along with the female protagonist from Persona 3 Portable), and their corresponding Velvet Room associates (trust me, it's better to just look all of this up yourself, like I said, I went into this with a basic knowledge of the games) end up inside of a locked cinema, with the ability to jump into special movies, three of which relating to the three team. One movie is a superhero movie where the first major boss of Persona 5 is basically evil Superman, another is a parody of sorts of Jurassic Park where one of the dinosaurs has the head of one of the characters from Persona 4, the third is a sci-fi movie relating to the robot companion the S.E.E.S team has, and the forth is a fairy tale musical movie relating to one of the new characters in the game, Hikari. Inside the movies, the Persona users have the power to change the plot, change how the story goes, and choose to do so in order to correct the harsh story threads within the movie and to rescue their friends who are trapped inside.
While a basic story, the story itself is drawn out a lot due to how much dialogue there is in this game, and unfortunately for many, none of the English voice actors reprise their roles for this game, all Japanese voice acting, with English text. When you consider how many characters there are, it means that there are large chunks of the game that are just cutscenes. While this is faithful to what I've seen of Persona, and the interactions are interesting, I don't think this suits a handheld system very well, as it's not a very good "pick up and play" game, and I think it will suffer in repeat playthroughs when you know the plot twists that are coming. As tired of a statement as this may sound, I think this would have been better suited for the Nintendo Switch instead of the 3DS for this very reason. Many players prefer to play this type of game on a home console, and at least there, you have the option to play this type of game in either form. Personally, I prefer RPG's on handhelds, but even that didn't help me feel at times "Ok, I get it, gotta stop him, can I get back to the gameplay now?"
In regards to the gameplay itself, it's solid for what it is, but it still has a few pacing issues. The game is a dungeon crawler where you have to explore these labyrinths floor by floor, taking out random enemy spawns along the way to level up your characters. Many of the pacing issues come from your inventory, and the sub-bosses you can find in dungeons. Your inventory is limited to 60 items, not counting equipped weapons and gear. Chests and enemy spawns are bountiful, so you'll often be using the "Goho-M" item (an item the game will harass you for if you don't have one in your bag), to teleport back to the central cinema to dump items and heal. I honestly didn't carry dedicated healing items in my bag until I came up to the main bosses of dungeons, I needed the inventory space. The annoying gimmick of the game though is the map creation, how the game uses the touch screen. It's not frustrating to use, but it becomes tedious after a while, and aggravating due to the game tracks how much of the map you've walked across, rather than how much of the map you've drawn. So when you have squares that have powerful enemies on them, and you can't get to them without potentially dying from them depending on where you are in the game, it becomes frustrating to complete the map and open up the special golden chests (though thankfully play coins are an option).
Combat is lifted directly from the Persona games, with an (at most) 5v5 turn-based battle system. Each character can have two Personas on them to assist with covering weaknesses, as it is on you to discover the weaknesses of every single enemy you fight. If you can get a critical hit or use a move that is weak to the enemies you're fighting, you have the chance to use an All-Out Attack, a powerful move that will increase money and experience if you use it to finish the fight. Characters can also randomly get assistance from other members of your party (though to change the main members out, you do have to go back to the cinema), either as a single attack that can lead to an All-Out Attack, or a unlockable Unison attack, where two characters work together to damage your opponents. Some combinations are characters like Chie from Persona 4 and Ann from Persona 5, along with the main protagonists from Persona 4 and 5 (both of which are relatively early unlockables when the mechanic is introduced).
The combat animations are nicely done, and even though you'll be fighting a lot of enemies, especially when you need to do pre-boss level grinding, what helps keep the fights from not feeling mindnumbing is the soundtrack. From reused and remixed versions of songs from Persona 3, 4 and 5, to the original battle themes, with the themes appearing depending on who's in your party. If you have at least one character from Persona 3, you'll get a chance at having Pull the Trigger play, Remember, we've got your back will start to show up if you have someone from Persona 4, and Wait and see for Persona 5's battle music (the weakest one for me personally). The dungeon exploration themes are ok as well, but they go for more atmospheric compared to the battle themes. The art direction is also very nicely done, all the models are expressive, and the animated cutscenes use the simpler art style (compared to the core games) to have some extremely lively moments, even when nothing much is happening on the screen. It's nothing spectacular, but it's fitting of the hardware and one that I'd like to see used in an HD environment.
Though it has problems, it's still a fun game and worth picking up if you really like those wordy RPGs. Would I recommend it if you, like me, barely know a thing about Persona?... Kinda? It's clearly made more for fans, but at the same time, the insanity of coming into this experience blind was entertaining in its own way. There's a genuine sincerity to the insanity of the situations that you kinda grow numb to it. "Of course the dog can use machetes and summons Cerberus as it's Persona. Of course, there's a side mission where these two normally serious characters have to compete in a fishing competition, in the middle of "Not Jurassic Park" (I think the level was called Junessic Land). Of course one of the answers you can give when asked "why did the gym teacher turned evil Superman turn into a giant rabbit with carrot shaped guns" is "he's h!)$%y". Of course there's an entire musical themed movie all about giving up individualism for the sake of being normal, complete with an animated movie intro with a fully choreographed song and dance number. I expect nothing less at this point! This is a niche title, not going to deny it, it expects a lot of patience out of you. but if you're willing to give it, you'll be in for an interesting ride.
