Persona Q Shadow of the Labyrinth Review  

In the simpilest of definitions Persona Q  is a crossbreed between Persona 3 and 4 with Etrian Odyssey with a lot of fan service thrown into the mix. The gameplay works just like in EO but with a few twist to give it more of a Persona feel. Your task is to traverse through complex labyrinths fighting monsters called shadows in a turnbased system until you reach the end of the maze to fight a boss. The touch screen on the 3DS is what you use to draw your map and you get to see the beautiful designs of the labyrinth itself. When in battle you can use skills that will cost you a certain amount of hit points or spell points. If your hit points reach zero you die. Enemies have certain strengths and weaknesses like you do and when you hit an enemy with an attack it is weak to you will obtain a boost. When a party member is boosted he/she can use any of their skills for free as well as allowing them to act first that turn. You gain access to your skills by using your personas. If you don't know what a persona is think of it like a pokemon. It has its own unique skills, strenghts, and weaknesses you can call on in battle. If you have played a persona game before you should know personas work differently now. Now everyone can equip two personas, a main persona and a sub persona. You cannot change your main persona but you can change your sub persona. You keep the stats and elemental affinities of your main persona as well as its skills and your sub persona increases your HP and SP as well as providing its own skills. You can get new personas from defeating enemies.

 

 I've talked a lot about some of the core gameplay mechanics I like but I think I should mention a few of the drawbacks. Most of the characters act like exaggerated caricatures of their past selves making some characters like Akihiko, Teddie, Chie, and Yukiko really annoying. Thankfully the two new characters Zen and Rei aren't to annoying at any point in the story. Despite how the characters were written it was still a joy to see the Persona 3 and 4 characters interact with eachother in such a way and overall the game remains really solid. The battles are challenging but fun, the labyrinths were fun to explore, and it was charming seeing my favorite characters from my favorite games meet for the first time. I will give PQSOTL a 8/10 it is a must own for any Persona or Etrian Odyssey fan. Review Written by MokouWist