Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth is a role-playing video game made and sold by Atlus for the Nintendo 3DS. It is part of the Persona series, which is part of the larger Megami Tensei game series. The game was released in 2014 in all regions: Japan in June, North America and Europe in November, and Australia in December. Atlus released the game in Japan and North America, while NIS America released it in PAL regions.
The story of Persona Q combines characters from Persona 3 and Persona 4. These characters are pulled from their own games by an unknown force and sent to a copy of Yasogami High School from Persona 4 in another world. There, they meet Zen and Rei, two people who have lost their memories. To recover their memories and find a way to escape, the groups must work together to explore four labyrinths in the school and find hidden treasures. The game mixes elements from the Persona series and the Etrian Odyssey series. Players move through labyrinths in first-person view and fight enemies called Shadows using the characters’ special abilities called “Persona.”
Development of the game began after Atlus’s success with Persona 4 Arena, a fighting game released in 2012. The idea came from wanting to create a game with the Etrian Odyssey team and because fans wanted a Persona game for the 3DS. The Persona Q team included members from Etrian Odyssey IV and the main Persona series. The game’s character designer, Shigenori Soejima, created new, cartoonish designs for the characters. The music was written by Atsushi Kitajoh and Toshiki Konishi, with guidance from Persona series composer Shoji Meguro. The game was first announced in 2013 with other games, including Persona 4: Dancing All Night and Persona 5. It was the first Persona game made for a Nintendo platform. The game sold well and received praise from critics for its humor, visuals, music, and mix of Persona and Etrian Odyssey gameplay. A sequel, Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth, was released for the 3DS in Japan in November 2018 and worldwide in June 2019.
Gameplay
Persona Q is a video game that combines characters from Persona 3 (P3) and Persona 4 (P4). It is similar to the Etrian Odyssey series, created by the same game company, P-Studio. Players control a group of characters as they explore mazes and fight enemies in turn-based battles. Players choose characters from both Persona 3 and Persona 4 to form their team, which influences the story and dialogue. The game has two main settings: a high school and labyrinths.
At the high school, players can heal their team, trade items for new equipment, and combine "Personas" to create stronger versions. Personas are mythical creatures used in battles.
In labyrinths, players move through large, maze-like areas in first-person view. They climb stairs to explore different floors and fight enemies while searching for treasures. The game shows the percentage of tiles the player has walked on each floor. When this reaches 100%, a treasure chest appears. Players can draw maps manually to mark walls and landmarks, or use an auto-mapping feature.
There are two types of enemies: Shadows, which appear randomly, and FOEs, which are stronger and move around as the player moves. Avoiding FOEs requires careful movement.
During battles, players use their Personas to attack enemies and heal allies. Characters can also use "sub-personas" as secondary helpers. If players use skills that enemies are weak against or land critical hits, their characters gain a "boost" status, which temporarily removes health and magic cost limits. Using "boost" with multiple characters increases the chance of powerful attacks or attacks that combine multiple characters.
Plot
The game's story is divided into two separate storylines for the Persona 3 and 4 teams, beginning partway through the events of the earlier games. Dialogue and events change based on the player's choice of main character. At Yasogami High School in Inaba, during the culture festival, a strange bell rings, trapping the main characters from Persona 4, called the Investigation Team, inside a strange alternate version of the school. At the same time, the main characters from Persona 3, known as SEES, are on a mission inside the mysterious Tartarus fortress when they are transported to the Velvet Room elevator, which suddenly arrives at the alternate Yasogami High School. When they reach the alternate dimension, the Velvet Room is changed into an unstable place with two doors that lead to different time periods. The two groups find a maze below the school, where students named Zen and Rei, who have forgotten their memories, need help remembering how they became trapped in the school. As they travel together, SEES and the Investigation Team learn that they are from different time periods.
The students work together to escape, fighting "shadows" along the way, and eventually explore all four mazes, unlocking the doors in the Velvet Room and restoring Zen's memories. Zen reveals that he is the human form of Chronos, a being that represents death, and Rei is a girl named Niko who died from illness twelve years ago. Chronos was fascinated by Niko's feelings of despair and meaninglessness in life. To make her happy, Chronos created the alternate Yasogami High School, splitting himself into Zen and a powerful being called the Clockwork God, and sealed their memories. The Clockwork God is responsible for trapping SEES and the Investigation Team in the alternate Yasogami High School, hoping they would travel through the mazes and recover Zen's memories so that Zen and the Clockwork God could merge to become Chronos again. This would erase SEES and the Investigation Team from the time when their tasks were completed. The Clockwork God takes Rei and moves her to the top of a clock tower outside the school. SEES and the Investigation Team decide to help Zen rescue Rei, climb the tower, and defeat the Clockwork God. After spending time together before the alternate world collapses, Zen and Rei leave for the afterlife, while SEES and the Investigation Team promise to meet again someday and return home, though they forget everything that happened.
Development
Persona Q was created in 2012 after the release of Persona 4 Arena, a fighting game made together by Atlus and Arc System Works. After this game's success, the series producer, Katsura Hashino, wanted to make more collaborations. Hashino came up with a new game idea based on fans' requests for a Persona game on the Nintendo 3DS. The development team included the main Persona team and the Etrian Odyssey team, which had made many Atlus games for the 3DS. The Etrian Odyssey team was led by Daisuke Kaneda, a former member of the Persona team who had just finished making Etrian Odyssey IV for the 3DS. Hashino wanted to continue making unique games in the series and to create Persona Q as a special collaboration between the two teams to celebrate the series' 25th anniversary. The name "Q" was chosen to show the developers' goal of creating something new. The main goal of the game was to make something for fans of the Persona series, which led to including characters from two of the series' games.
The opening animation was directed by Tomohisa Taguchi, who also directed Persona 4: The Golden Animation. The story was written by Azusa Kido, who had worked on the Persona series since Persona 3. Kido faced the challenge of writing a story that combined characters from both games and met fans' expectations. She made sure no character was left out of scenes, even those who usually spoke little. In earlier games, the main characters of Persona 3 (called "Protagonist") and Persona 4 (called Yu Narukami in later games) were blank slates for players, but later games gave them set personalities that were used in Persona Q. Even though it was a crossover of the two games' characters, the story of Persona Q is considered part of the official Persona timeline by the developers.
Kaneda said the teams had trouble combining Persona's combat style with Etrian Odyssey's first-person exploration and dungeon mapping. Both teams wanted to keep their own styles without making compromises. At first, the game used Persona's 3D dungeon design and battle system, but as development continued, the game shifted to use Etrian Odyssey's viewpoint and battle system. A feature from Etrian Odyssey, called FOEs, was included. These enemies had unique behaviors based on the layout of each dungeon. Elements from Persona, like weaknesses and group attacks, were also added. A "Sub-Persona" system, where characters could use a second Persona, was based on Etrian Odyssey's subclass system. Some spells combined ideas from both series, and a new feature called "Boost" was added by the staff. Persona Q was the first Persona game on a Nintendo platform, which created challenges for both teams. The gameplay was designed so fans of both series could enjoy it, and tutorials were added to help players learn the new features.
Character designs were done by Shigenori Soejima, who has worked on the Persona series since its start and was in charge of designs since Persona 3. Soejima worried that fans had high expectations for how characters would look, but the usual designs might not fit with Etrian Odyssey's art style or the 3DS's screen size. To solve this, the characters were redesigned in a more cartoonish "chibi" style. Soejima focused on each character's most noticeable traits to create new designs. The team studied what fans thought made each character unique and made changes based on their feedback.
In addition to enemies from the Persona series, new enemies were created by Shin Nagasawa, an artist from Etrian Odyssey. Zeus, a character from Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City, appeared as an optional boss and Persona. Zeus's Persona design was done by Yuji Himukai, a character designer from Etrian Odyssey.
The music for Persona Q was composed by Atsushi Kitajoh, who worked on the Trauma Center series, and Toshiki Konishi, who worked on remakes of Persona 2: Innocent Sin and its sequel. Their work was supervised by Shoji Meguro, the main composer for the Persona series. Meguro also wrote the opening theme, "Maze of Life." While the gameplay and visuals combined elements from both Persona and Etrian Odyssey, the music stayed true to the Persona series' style but had unique parts. For example, Meguro wrote a track that sounded like it came from the occult.
The normal battle theme from Persona 3, "Light the Fire Up in the Night," was one of the first songs completed and helped shape the soundtrack's direction. After the style was decided, other tracks were made smoothly. Unlike the main Persona games, which had fast-paced music, Persona Q used gentler tunes for dungeon exploration because of the slower pace. A lot of effort was put into the ending theme, "Changing Me," whose lyrics were written by Kido based on the game's story. Meguro worked with Lotus Juice, a longtime collaborator, to create lyrics and vocals for several tracks, including the main boss battle theme. Some songs from Persona 3 and Persona 4 were remixed for use in Persona Q. Yuzo Koshiro, the composer of the Etrian Odyssey series, wrote "Disturbances – The One Called from Beyond."
Release
In 2013, Persona Q was announced along with other Persona games, including the main game Persona 5, a different version called Persona 4: Dancing All Night, and a version of Persona 4 Arena Ultimax for the PlayStation 3. The game was released in Japan on June 5, 2014. People who bought the game before its release received a special CD with music from the game. This CD includes some original songs and special versions of the music created by the Atlus sound team, which are only available on the CD. The full soundtrack was released on July 16. A manga version of the game, drawn by Akaume, was published in the Dengeki Maoh magazine in 2014. In 2015, two manga versions were released: one titled Persona 4 manga Side: P4, written by Mizunomoto, and another titled Persona 3 manga Side: P3, written by Sō Tobita. The first manga was published in Kodansha’s Monthly Shōnen Sirius magazine in January, and the second was published in Kodansha’s Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine in February. Atlus asked players to avoid sharing details about the game Catherine, and they did the same for Persona Q.
In February 2014, Atlus announced that the game would be released in English during the second half of 2014. Atlus handled the translation of the game internally, following their usual approach for Persona games: keeping the text very similar to the Japanese version, except when certain parts, like jokes, might be hard for Western players to understand. They also avoided changes that might make the text seem unrelated to the game’s visuals, such as the changes made to the setting in the Ace Attorney games. In Europe, the game was published by NIS America.
Reception
Persona Q received mostly positive reviews from critics. A website called Metacritic collected 56 reviews and said the game had "generally favorable reviews." Many critics appreciated how the game combined gameplay styles from Persona and Etrian Odyssey. Meghan Sullivan from IGN praised the battle system, noting the strategy involved in arranging the party, using characters' extra Personas, and using leader skills. Megan Farokhmanesh from Polygon liked the map drawing system, calling it "fun, personal, and rewarding." Kyle MacGregor from Destructoid enjoyed drawing maps and taking notes but criticized the labyrinths for requiring too much time when returning to previous areas. Sullivan also found backtracking tedious at times but still enjoyed the exploration and puzzles. Kimberly Wallace from Game Informer said some players might find map drawing time-consuming but still liked solving the labyrinths' paths.
MacGregor praised the game's writing as more playful than earlier Persona games. Wallace, Farokhmanesh, and Sullivan also liked the interactions between characters. However, Sullivan criticized the focus on new characters Rei and Zen, as their roles took too long to explain. Farokhmanesh said the characters were not as strong as those in earlier Persona games but still enjoyed them.
Critics praised the game's presentation. Famitsu liked the visuals and sound. MacGregor called the music "stellar" and said some new tracks were his favorites in the series. Sullivan was impressed with the mix of old and new songs, calling it "fantastic." Wallace enjoyed the sound and thought the updated character designs helped the game stand out. She also liked how the labyrinths had unique themes, which she said improved on Etrian Odyssey.
The game won Slant Magazine's Game of the Year award. Samantha Nelson from The A.V. Club listed it as one of her favorite games of 2014. Before its Japanese release, Atlus warned that stores might have shortages. The game topped Japanese game charts after its release, selling 186,856 units. By August 2014, it had sold 255,597 units, making it the 40th best-selling game that year. In North America, it sold 40,000 units, a high number for that month. A sequel, Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth, which added characters from Persona 5, was released for the 3DS in Japan in November 2018 and worldwide in June 2019.