Misterebony Reviews!
Review of: Persona Q
 
Having had a hard day of traveling the dimensions, Ebony was ready to just relax in the holoroom, maybe in a gentle glenn or perhaps a nice cafe.
 
Ebony walked into the holoroom, but was suprised at its current appearence. The room looked like the inside of a rather weird school, decorated fopr what seemed like a culture festival. He blinked as he saw several Japanese kids in school uniforms, as well as a little wolf like dog with red eyes... and a big fat creature that looked like a teddy bear ball.
 
"SHODAN, explain the appearence we are looking at here." He asked. On a monitor on the side wall appeared the beautiful yet frighteneing face of the computer entity, SHODAN. She smiled.
 
"I have recreated a culture festival at a Japanese high school. It is the setting for a game I have found for you too look at claled Persona Q. It was released in 2015 by Atlus and is a massive dungeon crawl game."
 
Ebony ahhed. "You mean the one for the 3DS correct?"
 
"Affirmative. Persona Q is a rather unique take on the Persona universe that also incorperates elements of Etrian Odyssey in it."
 
Ebony nodded, recalling that lengthy dungeon crawl, both the good and the bad of it. "So what is the game about?"
 
The image shifted to a large group of students in two different groups. Leading the groups were two male characters, one with blue hair and holding a weird looking gun, the other with grey hair and a stern look to him. SHODAN explained.
 
"Simply put, the heroic casts of Persona 3 and Persona 4 find themselves in a pocket reality wherein a cuture festival is taking place. There, alongside a quartet of rather unusual masters of Personas, they meet a pair of students who have lost their memory, all of whom want to return to their homes.
 
"Unfortunetly, the way home appears to be on the other side of two large doors, sealed by four chained locks. worse, the only way to get those keys appears to be in four massive dungeons..."
 
"Whoa whoa whoa.. DUNGEONS?!"
 
SHODUN nodded. "Yes. Both Persona games this includes have the main characters going into dungeons, one during whta is claled the dark hour, and the other by being sucked into twisted television shows. But this is something even more different, as the dungeons appear to be an alternate reality filled with deadly enemies called shadows."
 
Ebony nodded. "Like in Kingdom Hearts I am assuming?"
 
SHODAN chuckled. "You assume wrong. These are not just shifting little buglike beings, these are creatures based on enemies from the Persona games."
 
Ebony nodded, watching on another monitor as a group moves through a dungeon, suddenly getting a realization. "Wait a second! This looks a LOT like Etrian Odyssey!"
 
SHODAN nodded. "Atlus uses the system as the basis for this game. You assemble a team of five characters, travel through vast dungeons, and have to make a map as you go. But there are elements from the Persona games as well, such as building conne ctions with other characters, how magic and leveling is used, and the Persona Fusion System."
 
Ebony hmmed some, watching as a silver haired lady in blue fused three monster cards to form a new one. "This looks similar to Shin Megami Tensei. I have a hunch it is the same style of game with the use of magic, but with no summoed monsters."
 
"Correct. Rather than have monsters fighting a;longside your group, you instead use monsters to form your magic and abilities, allowing for a variety of combos since each character has a major one to grant their primary skills, and a secondarey one players can change out."
 
Ebony hmmed. "But I do see some problems. The artwork style seems rather childish for what clearly is a mature game, especially since some of the characters cast their spells by shooting themselves!"
 
He watches as the blue haired protagonist shouts Persona, then shoots himself in the head with the gun. The image is repeated as even what looks like alittle kid shoots himself.
 
"This could make the game misleading. Not to mention that the difficulty is definately not for new gamers."
 
SHODAN smiled. "Agreed. Being a dungeon crawl, the game can take anywhere from 50 to 80 hours to fully complete, but the difficulty can range from simple, where the battles have little strategy to them, to extreme, where death ends the game right then and there. It makes for a dungeon crawl that is very forgiving or very punishing."
 
Ebony looked the game over, finding the music to be somewhat catching as he danced to it. "This is not your typical dungeon music..."
 
"The music was meant to have a kind of rap and upbeat style to it, giving a slightly lighthearted feel, one that is somewhat misleading perhap but is also fitting for each dungeon and battle. There are several songs which are downloadable online or were available as a seperate promo CD."
 
"I can see why. The controls are also fairly easy to learn as wlel. I don't think I ever picked up the manual once, most of the games hidden elements come out through game play."
 
SHODAN nodded in agreement. "Even so the game is challenging and will take a long time to defeat. Afte rbeating it hoever there is little to draw players back sadly, due to the nature of the game."
 
"IF you can beat the game, and I can see players coming back to this to play as the other hero, as well as to find other persona combinations. Besides, it looks like it would be an enjoyable ride."
 
SHODAN nodded. "Still, the rating needs considered for parents. This is NOT a game for kids."
 
Ebony nodded, blinking as he saw a door marked "You in Wonderland." Curiously, he opened it, finding himself somewhere else...
 
"SHODAN!!!!!" He shouted, looking about.
 
"Care to see how deep the rabbit hole goes, Ebony?" the nefarious computer entity replied, already starting the download of the game for Ebony later.
 
If he made it out of Wonderland...
 
 
FINAL RATING: A
 
GOOD:
 
- lots of game to be had
- excellent music and graphics
- reasonable difficulty curve
- engaging storyline
- decent character customization
 
BAD
 
- high amount of questionable material
- mapmaking can get tedious
- higher difficulty formats almost unreasonably so
- little to bring a player back after game completion