UPDATE: I have since beat this game and yeah, outside of the art style and music, it fucking sucks.
I would like to congratulate Persona Q for being the only video game to actively give me a headache whilst I am playing it. There are so many issues with this game that resulted in me dropping it during Inaba Pride Festival Floor 3 or whatever it was called, please bear in mind I don't know anything about Etrian Odyssey so maybe my complaints extend to that franchise and aren't just unique to this game.
For a starter, why is everything so expensive and why do enemies do such damage? And why is the SP cost for literally any skill so fucking high? After you defeat 2 enemies you practically have to go home and refuel by using a Goho-M.
In general, dungeon puzzles are mind-bogglingly poorly designed, there is only ever 1 incredibly specific and hard way to do them to the point you will just look up a guide and don't even get me started on the FOE puzzles. Those things are just down to RNG and fucking suck, and later in the game it becomes impossible to fight them as some of them regen 9900 health!
And why do people who aren't in my party NOT gain XP? With a game with this many party members it's impossible to mix and match like normal games unless you grind them or just stick with one party (PS, Use Naoto and Aigis).
Props to the music and unique style though, that's really all the positives I can say for this game.
I would like to congratulate Persona Q for being the only video game to actively give me a headache whilst I am playing it. There are so many issues with this game that resulted in me dropping it during Inaba Pride Festival Floor 3 or whatever it was called, please bear in mind I don't know anything about Etrian Odyssey so maybe my complaints extend to that franchise and aren't just unique to this game.
For a starter, why is everything so expensive and why do enemies do such damage? And why is the SP cost for literally any skill so fucking high? After you defeat 2 enemies you practically have to go home and refuel by using a Goho-M.
In general, dungeon puzzles are mind-bogglingly poorly designed, there is only ever 1 incredibly specific and hard way to do them to the point you will just look up a guide and don't even get me started on the FOE puzzles. Those things are just down to RNG and fucking suck, and later in the game it becomes impossible to fight them as some of them regen 9900 health!
And why do people who aren't in my party NOT gain XP? With a game with this many party members it's impossible to mix and match like normal games unless you grind them or just stick with one party (PS, Use Naoto and Aigis).
Props to the music and unique style though, that's really all the positives I can say for this game.
I just don’t think that the Q games have a good combat system. It’s not really fun or anything. And this game in particular feels really difficult? Like why do enemies do so much damage and why is everything so expensive? And you almost immediately run out of SP so you’re always trudging to the next floor or you just have to use a Goho-m to get back. It’s really frustrating.
gameplay is fun
É legal, principalmente agora que tô entrando na franquia e conheço um pouco de cada, mas não fez muito meu tipo, cheguei no 3º labirinto me forçando. Talvez eu volte pra zerar um dia, mas não está nos planos
Quite possibly one of the greatest RPGs I have ever played. I remember trying out this game, confident in my MegaTen skills after beating Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4, only to receive a brutal kick to the face for having no Etrian Odyssey experience whatsoever. I decided to give it another go after beating Etrian 1 and 2, and boy am I glad I did.
The gameplay combines crucial EO elements (Teams of 5 separated into two rows, map drawing, status ailments being somewhat useful), with bits and pieces of Persona elements thrown in the mix (Using personas/Fusing personas, obviously using the casts of Persona 3 and 4, as well as re-using the enemies from said games). It still contains the classic Atlus difficulty as well as the early-on EO difficulty, but this time it only feels challenging, not frustrating.
In terms of story, this game has one of the best stories (In my opinion) in the series. I won't spoil it in case you guys want to play it for yourself, but essentially, the casts of Persona 3 and 4 become trapped in a culture festival in another world, with some of the displays being the labyrinths you traverse through. They then meet two original characters and together, they try to find their way back to their own world as well as find out reason they were trapped here to begin with.
The soundtrack is great (especially the boss themes) and with gameplay that's fun yet challenging and never feels repetitive (One of my biggest gripes with the Etrian series), its no wonder I gave this game 5 stars
But you want to know what the best part is?
THEY FIXED ETRIAN'S MATERIAL GATHERING SYSTEM
Thank the fucking lord for that. Etrian's material gathering system sucked major ass because it forced you waste precious skill points just for a little extra money and more weapons/armor. But this game doesn't have skill points so instead they have it to where you can just gather materials at a power spot 3-5 times without the need for any special skills. I swear to god when I found out, I saw the light and heard God's heavenly choir and trumpets playing.
So yeah, pretty great game overall. If you're an Etrian fan, this is an easy recommendation. But if you're a Persona/MegaTen fan, I recommend playing at least Etrian 1 first.
The gameplay combines crucial EO elements (Teams of 5 separated into two rows, map drawing, status ailments being somewhat useful), with bits and pieces of Persona elements thrown in the mix (Using personas/Fusing personas, obviously using the casts of Persona 3 and 4, as well as re-using the enemies from said games). It still contains the classic Atlus difficulty as well as the early-on EO difficulty, but this time it only feels challenging, not frustrating.
In terms of story, this game has one of the best stories (In my opinion) in the series. I won't spoil it in case you guys want to play it for yourself, but essentially, the casts of Persona 3 and 4 become trapped in a culture festival in another world, with some of the displays being the labyrinths you traverse through. They then meet two original characters and together, they try to find their way back to their own world as well as find out reason they were trapped here to begin with.
The soundtrack is great (especially the boss themes) and with gameplay that's fun yet challenging and never feels repetitive (One of my biggest gripes with the Etrian series), its no wonder I gave this game 5 stars
But you want to know what the best part is?
THEY FIXED ETRIAN'S MATERIAL GATHERING SYSTEM
Thank the fucking lord for that. Etrian's material gathering system sucked major ass because it forced you waste precious skill points just for a little extra money and more weapons/armor. But this game doesn't have skill points so instead they have it to where you can just gather materials at a power spot 3-5 times without the need for any special skills. I swear to god when I found out, I saw the light and heard God's heavenly choir and trumpets playing.
So yeah, pretty great game overall. If you're an Etrian fan, this is an easy recommendation. But if you're a Persona/MegaTen fan, I recommend playing at least Etrian 1 first.
I like the writing of this game, it's kinda funny lol. Gameplay is neat overall. Better than the sequel imo.
Goes on a bit too long for my liking but its charming.
Peak
Party Lineup
Front: Yu, Kanji, Aigis
Back: Makoto, Naoto
Agility Bind + Myriad Arrows sweep
-Played Makoto's side + Yu NG+
-Completed all Nurse quests
-Completed all interactions/walks
-100% Map exploration for every area
-100% Persona Compendium
Front: Yu, Kanji, Aigis
Back: Makoto, Naoto
Agility Bind + Myriad Arrows sweep
-Played Makoto's side + Yu NG+
-Completed all Nurse quests
-Completed all interactions/walks
-100% Map exploration for every area
-100% Persona Compendium
im a big persona fan but i REALLY tried to stick to this one. the gameplay probably sticks better to Etrian Odyssey fans, and I liked how it differed from regular persona but i still wasnt super crazy on it. The story here is pretty bad as well, doing my least favorite thing ever in a story where everyone's memories get wiped at the end, as if everything here didnt happen. There's also a lot of character assassination here, since they cant really make any deep character moments or changes since... everyones memory gets wiped LOL
ill give some points because some of the fanservicey moments are fun, and the visual design and soundtrack are banging as ALWAYS. but otherwise I would tread very carefully around this game. definitely emulate it over purchasing it.
ill give some points because some of the fanservicey moments are fun, and the visual design and soundtrack are banging as ALWAYS. but otherwise I would tread very carefully around this game. definitely emulate it over purchasing it.
As an Etrian Odyssey fan, I kinda liked this game at first, but then it became a chore to play thanks to the annoying enemies and repetitive mazes (the third one being the worst) and lack of skill space. Interesting in concept, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. The sequel did fix a lot of the issues, but not all of them, sadly.
(Abandoned bc I lost my copy but I'd probably have it shelved if I still had it).
(Abandoned bc I lost my copy but I'd probably have it shelved if I still had it).
It’s fine. It drags, and a lot of the characterization is so bad that it ruins the whole hook regarding the P3 and P4 characters interacting, but it’s fine. I like the gameplay loop. I think that drawing out the maps was fun. I remember really liking the final boss, as gimmicky as it was and as much of a chore the boss that precedes it is. Otherwise, I don’t have a whole lot to say besides that it’s as tasteless as Persona usually is and that the original characters/story are unsurprisingly underwhelming.
did not like the gameplay at all
Hooh boy… There’s honestly a lot to be said about Persona Q.
First off - for those who have yet to play the game, PQ switches up the Persona combat formula quite a lot. Demon fusions are still a thing although now every character gets to equip a sub persona on top of their normal persona. The MCs also have to do this and cannot swap freely between personas. Teams fight enemies in a front and back row formation with attacks having various ranges based on this. There’s also no “one more” mechanic. If you hit an enemies weakness or get a crit you’re rewarded with 0 HP or SP cost for your move next turn, which given the cost of moves in this game is VERY helpful.
In terms of exploration it’s a classic first person dungeon crawler like the original Persona or early SMT games. Your location in the dungeon appears on the lower screen of the 3DS, and Persona Q strongly recommends that you use the stylus to update and draw a map there as you navigate (this is basically required given how complex the dungeons get).
Outside of dungeons you have a hub world screen where you can select options to get healed, buy equipment, visit the velvet room, talk to companions, and initiate side quests.
That’s pretty much everything. On to the review.
This game is a mixed bag. The main draw for most Persona fans will likely be getting to see the casts of P3 and P4 interact and just generally getting to see more of their favorite characters. PQ definitely delivers on this and there’s a huge amount of optional conversations, scenes, and side quests where the characters interact. This is done pretty well. Some characters, typically the more serious ones like Yu, Makoto, Naoto, Shinjiro, and Ken are done really well. Unfortunately some of the more comedic or off the walls characters are pretty much only given lines that boil down to one note jokes about their personalities. I don’t think Chie had any lines in this game that weren’t about eating meat. Teddy is given this same simplifying treatment and it causes him to be unBEARable in this game. There are however a lot of really nice and touching character interactions, particularly with Ken, and the good generally outweighed the bad for me in this regard.
The main story is decent but scenes and dialogue that progress the plot are pretty sparse. This is mostly because the actual plot of PQ is rather simple and doesn’t need a lot of explaining. There are some nice and genuinely touching moments regarding the main plot, and I definitely enjoyed its themes and the way it concluded.
Onto gameplay. PQ is shockingly difficult in just about every way. On normal difficulty this is the hardest Persona game by a pretty wide mile. It’s probably harder than some of the easier mainline SMT games. In terms of combat, the added difficulty of the battles is actually a really nice change. You actually have to think about what you’re doing when fighting random mobs. In terms of party and supply management the difficulty is abysmal. Your party will run out of SP very quickly causing them to be severely handicapped in fights. When this happens you have to go all the way back to the hub world to heal and it gets really annoying after a while. The same thing is the case with resources you gather from defeated enemies, which are necessary for side quests and buying upgraded gear. Your party has limited inventory space, so you’ll be walking back to the hub world to off load this pretty regularly.
The dungeon layouts and their gimmicks can be quite convoluted and generally very challenging as well. There’s a nice balance in regards to this for most of the dungeons. To progress you’ll be made to backtrack several times through the dungeons - hitting switches and writing down codes to solve puzzles and also gathering items for quests. What I mean to say is - there’s a lot of walking. This would be fine but the limited resources of your party in combination with the games VERY high encounter rate causes you to move through dungeons at a glacial pace. This game is almost all dungeon crawling, and it can easily take around 100 hours to beat on your first run if you’re trying to do all the side quests and see all the related scenes of dialogue.
So the dungeons have a lot of problems but they can still be somewhat enjoyable. That is, excluding the 4th dungeon, which is probably one of the worst dungeons I’ve ever played in a MegaTen game. The puzzles in this dungeon are incredibly complicated and require an ungodly amount of backtracking. If the pace of the other dungeons felt glacial this one feels positively sisyphean. If you look on forums you’ll see countless people talking about how despite already being 60 hours into PQ they dropped the game at this dungeon because it was just that painful. The only MegaTen dungeons that compare in terms of pure frustration and boredom are probably the world of sloth from SMT IF and the bonus dungeon from Strange Journey Redux.
As a big persona fan this game definitely charmed me, which was enough for me to forgive the immense amount of BS it throws at the player. Not everyone will be like this though, so this is a hard game to recommend. I would only recommend it if you’re a die hard persona fan that has a lot of patience, a big fan of complicated and lengthy dungeon crawling, or a combination of the two. For everyone else I’d recommend you stay away. Don’t be fooled by the chibi art style - Persona Q will kick your shit in if you’re not prepared.
Addendum: If you’re trying to decide whether to play this or Persona Q2, they’re mechanically very similar. PQ2 however, eliminates a lot of the bullshit from PQ. Resource management is easier and there’s less backtracking, which makes the game feel a lot less tedious than PQ. Character interactions in both games are enjoyable IMO. PQ2 is definitely the better game, but I find all the bullshit present in PQ kind of charming for some reason. So if you’re a normal well-adjusted person I’d definitely recommend choosing PQ2 over this. If you’re a bit of a gaming masochist like me and you actually kind of enjoy having to struggle against a game’s design to get through it PQ offers a memorable and at times interestingly weird experience.
First off - for those who have yet to play the game, PQ switches up the Persona combat formula quite a lot. Demon fusions are still a thing although now every character gets to equip a sub persona on top of their normal persona. The MCs also have to do this and cannot swap freely between personas. Teams fight enemies in a front and back row formation with attacks having various ranges based on this. There’s also no “one more” mechanic. If you hit an enemies weakness or get a crit you’re rewarded with 0 HP or SP cost for your move next turn, which given the cost of moves in this game is VERY helpful.
In terms of exploration it’s a classic first person dungeon crawler like the original Persona or early SMT games. Your location in the dungeon appears on the lower screen of the 3DS, and Persona Q strongly recommends that you use the stylus to update and draw a map there as you navigate (this is basically required given how complex the dungeons get).
Outside of dungeons you have a hub world screen where you can select options to get healed, buy equipment, visit the velvet room, talk to companions, and initiate side quests.
That’s pretty much everything. On to the review.
This game is a mixed bag. The main draw for most Persona fans will likely be getting to see the casts of P3 and P4 interact and just generally getting to see more of their favorite characters. PQ definitely delivers on this and there’s a huge amount of optional conversations, scenes, and side quests where the characters interact. This is done pretty well. Some characters, typically the more serious ones like Yu, Makoto, Naoto, Shinjiro, and Ken are done really well. Unfortunately some of the more comedic or off the walls characters are pretty much only given lines that boil down to one note jokes about their personalities. I don’t think Chie had any lines in this game that weren’t about eating meat. Teddy is given this same simplifying treatment and it causes him to be unBEARable in this game. There are however a lot of really nice and touching character interactions, particularly with Ken, and the good generally outweighed the bad for me in this regard.
The main story is decent but scenes and dialogue that progress the plot are pretty sparse. This is mostly because the actual plot of PQ is rather simple and doesn’t need a lot of explaining. There are some nice and genuinely touching moments regarding the main plot, and I definitely enjoyed its themes and the way it concluded.
Onto gameplay. PQ is shockingly difficult in just about every way. On normal difficulty this is the hardest Persona game by a pretty wide mile. It’s probably harder than some of the easier mainline SMT games. In terms of combat, the added difficulty of the battles is actually a really nice change. You actually have to think about what you’re doing when fighting random mobs. In terms of party and supply management the difficulty is abysmal. Your party will run out of SP very quickly causing them to be severely handicapped in fights. When this happens you have to go all the way back to the hub world to heal and it gets really annoying after a while. The same thing is the case with resources you gather from defeated enemies, which are necessary for side quests and buying upgraded gear. Your party has limited inventory space, so you’ll be walking back to the hub world to off load this pretty regularly.
The dungeon layouts and their gimmicks can be quite convoluted and generally very challenging as well. There’s a nice balance in regards to this for most of the dungeons. To progress you’ll be made to backtrack several times through the dungeons - hitting switches and writing down codes to solve puzzles and also gathering items for quests. What I mean to say is - there’s a lot of walking. This would be fine but the limited resources of your party in combination with the games VERY high encounter rate causes you to move through dungeons at a glacial pace. This game is almost all dungeon crawling, and it can easily take around 100 hours to beat on your first run if you’re trying to do all the side quests and see all the related scenes of dialogue.
So the dungeons have a lot of problems but they can still be somewhat enjoyable. That is, excluding the 4th dungeon, which is probably one of the worst dungeons I’ve ever played in a MegaTen game. The puzzles in this dungeon are incredibly complicated and require an ungodly amount of backtracking. If the pace of the other dungeons felt glacial this one feels positively sisyphean. If you look on forums you’ll see countless people talking about how despite already being 60 hours into PQ they dropped the game at this dungeon because it was just that painful. The only MegaTen dungeons that compare in terms of pure frustration and boredom are probably the world of sloth from SMT IF and the bonus dungeon from Strange Journey Redux.
As a big persona fan this game definitely charmed me, which was enough for me to forgive the immense amount of BS it throws at the player. Not everyone will be like this though, so this is a hard game to recommend. I would only recommend it if you’re a die hard persona fan that has a lot of patience, a big fan of complicated and lengthy dungeon crawling, or a combination of the two. For everyone else I’d recommend you stay away. Don’t be fooled by the chibi art style - Persona Q will kick your shit in if you’re not prepared.
Addendum: If you’re trying to decide whether to play this or Persona Q2, they’re mechanically very similar. PQ2 however, eliminates a lot of the bullshit from PQ. Resource management is easier and there’s less backtracking, which makes the game feel a lot less tedious than PQ. Character interactions in both games are enjoyable IMO. PQ2 is definitely the better game, but I find all the bullshit present in PQ kind of charming for some reason. So if you’re a normal well-adjusted person I’d definitely recommend choosing PQ2 over this. If you’re a bit of a gaming masochist like me and you actually kind of enjoy having to struggle against a game’s design to get through it PQ offers a memorable and at times interestingly weird experience.
I wish I could get into this, but I can't because of the actual map-like RPG gameplay. I don't really like Etrian Odyssey. I will, however, watch an all cutscenes video of someone else playing it.
j'ai drop à la fin du 1er donjon mdr c'était chiant dsl
Persona Q is very much a mixed bag for me, I don’t really have many strong feelings on it, but it does do some stuff that I like, along with crap I dislike.
There’s some pretty easy pros and cons that can be drawn here, for example the music is mostly really good, and the artstyle is cute, but then a lot of characters get butchered pretty badly and come off as flat. This is definitely worse for some characters than others,but it’s still prevalent.
The gameplay is an aspect I knew was divisive going in, and unfortunately I wasn’t much of a fan, felt the dungeons were too big and complex for their own good, and running away from FOEs got real old real quick, which is a shame because there are some genuinely cool ideas here, but they just tend to overstay their welcome, and trying to solve puzzles while dealing with random encounters is just annoying.
The game’s story is kinda just a worse version of Persona 1 funnily enough, although it does have some good stuff in it. While I don’t care for Rei much, I can’t deny that her VA did a really great job, and while this is an idea that’s been done before, it’s still pretty effective I feel. There’s dumb stuff like how Zen making an exception for Rei is pretty unbelievable considering he would’ve already farried millions of people to the afterlife, but eh I don’t care much.
Overall, you know it’s fine, like a very flat 5 out of 10, I don’t regret going through it, but also I don’t think I’ll ever do so again.
There’s some pretty easy pros and cons that can be drawn here, for example the music is mostly really good, and the artstyle is cute, but then a lot of characters get butchered pretty badly and come off as flat. This is definitely worse for some characters than others,but it’s still prevalent.
The gameplay is an aspect I knew was divisive going in, and unfortunately I wasn’t much of a fan, felt the dungeons were too big and complex for their own good, and running away from FOEs got real old real quick, which is a shame because there are some genuinely cool ideas here, but they just tend to overstay their welcome, and trying to solve puzzles while dealing with random encounters is just annoying.
The game’s story is kinda just a worse version of Persona 1 funnily enough, although it does have some good stuff in it. While I don’t care for Rei much, I can’t deny that her VA did a really great job, and while this is an idea that’s been done before, it’s still pretty effective I feel. There’s dumb stuff like how Zen making an exception for Rei is pretty unbelievable considering he would’ve already farried millions of people to the afterlife, but eh I don’t care much.
Overall, you know it’s fine, like a very flat 5 out of 10, I don’t regret going through it, but also I don’t think I’ll ever do so again.
extraordinarily fanfic-coded (affectionate)
silly
A solid 7/10 game that just overstays its welcome. The character interactions and gameplay are good and I really enjoyed the dungeon exploration. But by the 4th labyrinth, I started to get burned out by the game and completely lost interest by the second to last boss. This game did make look forward trying the Etrian Odyssey series at some point.
granted I did watch a playthrough before but man this game is just not it for me
Maybe i'm just autistic but I had a lot of fun drawing the silly little dungeon maps on the 3ds touch screen. The gameplay is whatever classic 50+ hour jrpg slop but seeing the persona 3 and 4 cast interact was novel, plus I really liked the OCs of this game.
The game has an extremely slow start to it, but it has an extremely well built up mystery that talks about an extremely heavy handed topic wonderfully.
IT was fun probably for the first 2 mazes... but MY GOD they get so long...
It’s a mid-tier Etrian Oddyssey game with some pretty boring labyrinth designs but if you like Etrian Odyssey, want some Persona fanservice, and don’t mind some flanderization it’s fine.
i keep putting this off but it's so banger. i love marriage between men
I like drawing maps but the combat can be unfair in a not very fun way
Combat's fun and it's got some good character interactions, but it doesn't do a good job of representing Etrian Odyssey's great level design. Seriously, whoever designed the Evil Spirit Club and Inaba Pride Exhibit needs to be sent to a mental asylum and locked there for about a year at least.
Music goes hard though, shoutouts to the final dungeon OST.
Music goes hard though, shoutouts to the final dungeon OST.
i loved creating my own map tbh
This review contains spoilers
i loved it until halfway through the 3rd dungeon, where i started getting tired of the puzzles and foes. then the 4th dungeon made me drop the game for literally 2 years. then i finally decided to finish the game and just used a guide for the 5th dungeon bc fuck all that. also the flanderization of certain characters was really annoying, BUT it is also the game that made me fall in love with shinjiro.
it was really cool before that tho; i especially loved the bosses of dungeons 1-3 (i dont even remember the 4th and 5th ones). idk if i'll ever replay this game but uhhh yeah!
it was really cool before that tho; i especially loved the bosses of dungeons 1-3 (i dont even remember the 4th and 5th ones). idk if i'll ever replay this game but uhhh yeah!