Persona Q is one of those games in which I didn’t know anything at all about. I have never ever played a Persona game before so this was an entirely new experience for me. Once I had booted up the game I instantly noticed the awesome Japanese visual style. The textures were great and everything looked vivid, sharp and slick on the 3DS. Slide the 3D up and the game looks even better. Images pop nicely, making it one of the best 3D experiences that I have come across on the handheld so far.
The game starts you off as, well, whoever you name your character to be and then you start enduring what at first seems like a fantastic visual novel. The animation was great during these, later to be found as sequences. I really enjoyed the voice acting too. Once past the initial story phase you find that all is not as it seems and you are trapped in the TV world where you may use your personas to fight off enemies in a turn based RPG. That’s right the game mixes RPG with Visual novel and it does this superbly.
Defeating enemies is tough, organizing your team is key in order to have the strongest at the front and the weakest of your team at the back so that they endure less damage. Items and buffs are all present to help you out whilst traversing the labyrinth. Finding special items by beating enemies is important as you can take them back to the school and have them made into weapons or even armor.
The game uses the top screen for the game and the bottom screen for extra features. This works really well as you can also use the bottom screen to outline where you have already been inside the labyrinth. This helped me immensely as at first I often found myself travelling in circles. The labyrinth luckily, never traps you there and going back on your steps will take you to the exit. This is actually key to the progression as there are many things you can do outside of the labyrinth. Things like healing your team.
Sadly Persona Q has one inevitable issue that may put new comers off. It expects you to already know a hell of a lot about the Persona franchise and the in game cast that has appeared in previous titles. This is a major drawback, but luckily for me, I stuck with the almost confusing narrative. Once I had been playing for well over an hour I managed to piece together what everything was myself. Sure, I only had a vague idea about what was going on but that idea was enough to keep me engaged.
So if you are looking for a new Persona game, I definitely recommend this title. It looks and plays great on the 3DS and you can carry it around wherever you go which is always handy!
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Original Author: Daniel Fisher