Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight (PS4) Review

An upbeat and cheerful adventure.

 After the surprising success of Persona 4: Dancing All Night, Persona series developer Atlus dished out two more follow-ups based on Persona 3 and 5. Today, I'll be looking at Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight, a rhythm game based on Persona 3 released for the PS Vita and PS4. Seeing that I recently beat P3, I was excited to join the cast again for another adventure. So how does this dancing spin-off fare? And is it any fun? Let's find out.

 Taking place during the events of Persona 3, the SEES members have been gathered in a blue dancing hall, hosted by Elizabeth from the main game-- who goes by her producer name "Elle-P". She tells the party that they must challenge the Persona 5 cast in the form of a dance-off, though none of them have any dancing experience. Luckily there's a catch, they're in a dream and can pull off any dance moves that come to mind, and whoever rallies the crowd the most will be regarded as winners. As for the losers, then they'll face "eternal hell and humiliation". And that's basically it, the game's light on the story seeing it's just one big break for the P3 cast to dance their worries away. That being said, it had its fun moments like references to the main game be being tossed around and having the entire team together again was a joy to see. Overall, it was pretty decent.

The team's back for another adventure, this time...

in their dreams?

 Persona 3 Dancing in Moonlight is split into two parts: Dancing and Social. The game features 25 tracks, which consist of P3 remixes and serve as the game's levels. The main goal of each stage is to hit as many oncoming musical notes in order to move on to the next stage. Your character will dance as you'll be tapping the oncoming notes on screen and as you rack up combos and notes, you'll enter Fever Mode, where another character will join the dance and earn more points. Flawlessly hitting and not missing a single note will earn you high ranks like "Brilliant" and "King Crazy" which increase your score significantly. The game is one of those "easy to grasp but hard to master" type games as while you're getting used to the standard tracks, bumping up to harder difficulties, can become a visual mess as you're blasted with notes from all over the place.

The gameplay's fast and will require precise timing.

 Thankfully, there are support modifiers to make things easer. These range from reducing note speeds to granting immunity during fever time to auto-hitting certain notes, which makes the game considerably easier for newcomers, though keep in mind this will drastically reduce your score. Those looking for a challenge will find the challenge modifiers to be great as you can mirror notes or make them invisible as well as ending the track once you break a combo, making the much more challenging. I'd say the game is accommodating for all skill sets, which is cool.

Things can get chaotic when you 

bump up the difficulty.

 The second part of P3D is the social events, which has you interacting with the cast and gather insight of the current situation as well as their opinions on dancing. You must meet certain conditions to unlock the rest of their events such as clearing a number of songs with a Brilliant rating or wearing a number of accessories. Completing them will unlock bonuses such as new costumes, modifiers, and tracks, so they're worth checking out. They were a nice break from the constant dancing and I enjoyed seeing the characters just chilling. P3D is not a long game as it took me around 12 hours to beat, that included beating the story and getting the platinum trophy. There's some replay-value to be had with higher difficulties and DLCs songs, though that's not saying much. I honestly wished that there were more tracks in the base game to extend the runtime more since the it's at the $30 mark.

The game packs a decent amount of content

to keep you engaged.

 Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight is a vibrant game that's filled with bright colors and cheery sceneries-- a stark contrast from the RPG's darker tone. It's also great seeing the cast of P3 in HD, with new models built from the ground up. The backgrounds were good with some decent looking textures. Thankfully, the voice cast of P3 reprise their roles and it was great hearing Akihiko, Yukari, and Junpei's voices once again. Being a rhythm game, the soundtrack has to be good, and it is! Featuring various remixes from the P3 OST and new original tracks for the game. I enjoyed remixes of Shoji Meguro's original work as well as the vocals from singer Yumi Kawamura and rapper Lotus Juice. Some of my faves were "Want to be Close (ATOLS Remix)", "Deep Mentality", "Brand New Days (Yuyoyuppe Remix), "Laser Beam", and "Moonlight Serendipity".

 If you're a fan of pop, rock and a little bit of rap,
then you'll enjoy the soundtrack.

 Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight was a fun game, despite me being relatively new to the whole rhythm genre. The story-- or what little there was-- was nice, the gameplay was fun, and the presentation was just eye-catching. It's not a long game but there's some replay value here, although you'd have to fork up for the extra DLC songs. P3D is accessible for all skill levels yet its appeal is limited. P3 fans will find the most enjoyment--since the game packs spoilers and fan service for said game-- and rhythm game fans who enjoy the fast-paced gameplay. For those on the fence, I'd recommend checking out the demo or wait till it's on sale.