Persona: Endless Night Collection is a tremendous value at just under $100, consisting of three quality rhythm games, the new Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight and Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight plus the aforementioned Persona 4: Dancing All Night(remastered and released for the first time on PS4). If you’re a fan of the Persona series, you can continue your adventures with all your virtual friends. Anyone who has experienced any of the various Persona spin-offs, from the Arc System Works-developed fighting game Persona 4 Arena to the Etrian Odyssey-inspired Persona Q games, knows how much care Atlus puts into these games. The Persona series has a rabid fanbase and the development team at P-Studio seems to take an extraordinary effort to provide as much fan service as can be enjoyed.
If you played the prior entry in this spin-off series, 2015’s aforementioned P4: DAN, then you’re familiar with the gameplay. Symbols start from the center of the screen and spread outward, requiring the subsequent press of one of six corresponding buttons (Up, Down, Left, Triangle, Circle, Cross). The more accurately you time the button press, the better the score. Miss too many attempts and the song fails. It’s Guitar Hero or DDR inside of a Japanese visual novel based on a turn-based JRPG series.
Personally, I’m not the greatest rhythm gamer, so it is inevitable that I will crash head-first into a progress wall. In Guitar Hero, I could never surpass the Hard difficulty and, even then, I would be stuck on only the earliest songs in the library. These games, fortunately, are welcome to players of all skill levels. In addition to multiple difficulties, there are numerous modifications you can unlock as you play that will allow you to increase or reduce difficulty while also altering your score modifiers. Thanks to the variety of options, I was able to find a build that would allow me to progress through the song catalog on the higher difficulties. Which is important as successful performances help unlock Social moments for the various party members, revisiting and expanding upon the character relationships established in the main games.
The Social moments are where these games shine. One of the best things about the franchise, in general, is building up the character relationships and watching them interact, so any new opportunity to play in that world is something that absolutely speaks to me. This game is fairly packed with new scenes with my favorite friends hanging out and continuing the world-building from the RPGs. Five social scenes can be unlocked for each of the characters by completing a variety of tasks within the Dancing games. While I would’ve loved to see longer, more fully realized stories play out here, these games are built for fun, superfluous good times, so one must accept the breezy, brief encounters we share with the characters.
Graphically, this game is absolutely gorgeous. Beautiful character models and vibrant, stunning colors abound. So, naturally, when this game was first announced, I was most excited for the inclusion of a PSVR mode. I was an early adopter of the hardware and jump at any opportunity to break out the headset and immerse myself in a fully realized 3D world. Unfortunately, most games that aren’t specifically developed for the PSVR seem to only include a tacked-on, mostly pointless VR mode. Persona: Endless Night is no exception. The VR mode only allows you to examine the character models in their various unlockable costumes pieces and watch them pose and dance, never allowing you to play through the dancing itself. You can also explore the characters’ dorm rooms and interact with objects there, but it’s not enough to counter the disappointment of not being able to play the dancing mode in full VR glory.
If you love Persona, definitely check out this collection. There’s a lot of fan service here, specifically made for you. P-Studio has truly put an effort to provide something wonderful for those of us that just want to spend more time with these kids. If you’re a rhythm game fan, there’s a quality, challenging experience here for you. These games are fast-paced, difficult and insanely fun to play. If you’re somehow a JRPG fan who has yet to experience Persona, I implore you to delve into this franchise. Go fall in love with all these wonderful characters, then pick up the spin-off and dance the night away with them!
