So Persona Q is a crossover game that involves the Persona 3 and Persona 4 casts meeting up with each other in a strange nether dimension (filled with labyrinths). I bought this back in December, expecting just a fan servicey non-story that would be good for a couple of hours of smiles and inside jokes before everyone packed up and went home.
What I did not expect from the thing was a story driven 73 hour RPG epic that would take me about 6 months to get through. From beginning to end, Persona Q surprised me. It surprised me with the surprisingly depth of character customization. It surprised me with its simple but compelling story. It even surprised me with how much character development the cast got. And even after having beat it, I'm still surprised that this thing exists.
Which I guess is a fancy way of saying that I thought PQ was in fact quite good (with some caveats).
Let's talk about why that might be...
1) Character exploration.
At the beginning of the game, you get to pick whether you want the story to focus on the Persona 3 side or the Persona 4 side of things. I've played both games, but needless to say I picked P4 because its cast is vastly superior. For those curious, if you've only played P4 then I don't think that'll really affect your enjoyment of the game. Prior knowledge of who the P3 people are is not required.
At first, it was what I expected from the game... Chie talked about how much she likes meat, Yukiko did her stupid laugh, Kanji talked about manliness and all that stuff. But as things progressed, I was surprised to see that the game actually meant to set out to explore the personalities and relationships of each of the characters. I got to flirt with my long standing girlfriend Rise and even have a funny/surprisingly heart-jolting fantasy wedding with her.
But the primary beneficiary of this is none other than...
Naoto joined late in P4 and thus didn't get to shine as much as everyone else as a consequence. I was thus really happy to see that she's basically your chief adviser here. Throughout the game, her insecurities about her gender identity are discussed and why it is she felt the need to pose as a man. The character of Naoto is often criticized by the SJW games media for not rejecting gender reassignment therapy and even would go on dates with men. People that make that criticism fail to realize that the reason she was putting on that act at all wasn't because of discomfort with her physical body, but rather a feeling that she couldn't do what she wanted to do as a woman. That her gender handicapped her ability to pursue her dreams.
Anyhow, in PQ we start to see her come to terms with that and she starts to decide that maybe she can be who she wants to be in spite of her gender. Those scenes were great to read and really enhanced this most unique character.
The game also ships Naoto and Kanji as a couple really bloody hard. I thought it would be more neutral, but for a fair chunk of the story they seemed like two steps from just running into an empty classroom and having their ways with one another. Though I won't complain, I've always really liked that couple.
I especially liked their battle quotes to each other. "Kanji-kun! Are you alright?" "Yeah... why? Worried?"
2) Gameplay.
This game is sort of insane in that you have 19 playable characters (10 from Persona 3, 8 from Persona 4 and 1 new guy), all with unique equipment load outs and skills that you can customize with Sub Personas that give health and SP bonuses. They've also made it so certain characters are ranged while others are melee, just to make things more complicated. While you can only have five people in your party at once, the game encourages you to swap between them by making healing cost an arm and a leg (at least for the first few dungeons) and having certain subquests require the presence of specific characters.
This thus ain't no casual affair. The dungeons are as brutal as they always are and having a well balanced team is key to success. And you know what? I like that. Hook me in with great characters and then challenge me with brutal fights. More games need to give the player more credit where credit is due.
Word to the wise though...
Naoto is pretty overpowered. Give her a Sub Persona that gives her a big mana boost and start every fight with those Light/Dark insta-kill AoE spells (Mahamoan and Mamudoon I think they're called). For a large number of random encounters, Naoto can pretty much kill everyone by herself in one spell.
I think one of the devs really likes Naoto.
3) Puzzles.
The weakest element of the game is probably in its puzzles. They aren't overwhelming most of the time, but they are really complicated. If you're like me and usually only use your 3DS when you're in the bus or suffering from insomnia, then you're going to find that remembering what the puzzle you were doing after taking a break for a day or so is pretty disorienting. This is only made worse by the fact that you can still be slammed with random encounters while trying to figure something out.
To make matters worse, most of the puzzles in the game involve super monsters called 'FOEs'. These are generally boss monsters that are easily strong enough to wipe your party out if you don't run away. Generally speaking, you're supposed to just avoid walking into one and you're fine, but unfortunately the puzzles are all of the 'do this wrong and you an FOE will take you anally' variety.
That said, if an area really gives you trouble you can man up and jump the FOE intentionally to try to kill it and simplify matters. But given that they are incredibly powerful, this will only get you so far.
On one hand, I again appreciate that the game respects me enough to make things this hard, but I'd be lying if I said that some of the puzzles didn't get on my nerves after a while.
There was one interesting occasion where I was presented with a puzzle so obscure and so complicated that I had absolutely no idea how to go about solving it when, much to my surprise, Naoto figured it out and told me exactly what to do, step-by-step
I've gotta wonder... did it happen that way because the devs looked at the puzzle afterwards and realized that no one could ever solve it or did they design it that way to just show us once again how much they love Naoto?
Either option is possible!
All in all: If you're like me and are probably going to get a PS4 when Persona 5 comes out (please give us a sub option, Atlus ;_;) then this is a game you may enjoy. Go get it.
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