You guys, the struggle really is real. My 3DS was sitting there begging me to finish mapping out this dungeon (Persona Q), but instead I spent an hour playing with kinetic sand with my daughter. It was time well spent.

For starters I am playing Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth for the Nintendo 3DS. I just want to stress something before I get into talking about this game. As a parent, handhelds are a Godsend. My PS4 is basically a very expensive Roku box spouting a never-ending stream of Team Umizoomi and My Little Pony among other things. So having something I can just turn on and play for a few minutes, right where I left off, is maybe the greatest gift ever given to a parent gamer. SO please support the 3DS and the Vita, so they continue to make handhelds.

Anyways.. Persona Q.

I am a big Atlus fan and 2 of my favorite franchises are the Persona and Etrian Odyssey series. Persona Q is a mash-up of the two games. It’s basically Etrian Odyssey with the Characters from Persona 3 and 4. Persona Q is a first person dungeon crawler, and like the Etrian Odyssey games, you actually have to draw out the map on the lower screen as you progress. It’s very important to make sure you are accurately marking out paths, doors and secret passageways, because if you don’t, it could make that dungeon, or in this case, labyrinth very difficult to complete.

“That sounds like total garbage!” you might be saying. “Why in the hell would I want to stop what I’m doing every few seconds and draw maps?? I have no interest in cartography!”.

Maybe you’re right. Why the hell would you want to draw maps when you could be shooting guys in the face? Well, because it’s a lot more fun than it sounds. Drawing out that map happens to be very satisfying. It lends the game a true feeling of exploration and progress that you just don’t get from other games. It’s a difficult game as well, so progress is made in small amounts. This is especially true in the beginning as your party can be wiped out pretty easily. Being able to see that progress and be so intimately involved in the visual aspect of it, just gives it that much more weight. It really scratches an itch for the completionist types. Not only that, but there are rewards for exploring every  inch of each floor of the labyrinth. Once a floor has been completed, there is a treasure box that contains an item that can help you on your journey.

Battles are played out in a traditional jrpg turn based style. Like the Persona series, the enemies have weaknesses you must figure out and exploit. Unlike those games, hitting an enemy’s weakness doesn’t provide the character with another turn, but gives the character a “boost”, where on the next turn, that characters action wont use any sp (magic/skill points) or hp (hit points). This lends a bit of strategy to the combat. Enemy encounters are semi-random. There’s a gauge that changes color as you move through the labyrinth. Once it turns red an encounter is imminent. There are also visible enemies called FOEs.  These enemies are usually too strong for the player to face in their current labyrinth. FOEs provide a puzzle element to exploration as players will usually have to figure out a way to get around them.

Character skill progression is handled through buying or finding armor and weapons as well as,  stat upgrades via leveling. From there, typical to the Persona series, characters can bring “Personas” into battles with them. Personas are demons that are controlled by each character in battle and have their own stats and leveling mechanics. These are the devices through which each character can use magic and other physical attacks. Each character has a main persona as well as an equipable “sub” persona. These sub personas can be changed out for new personas as well as “fused” with others to create even more powerful and customizable personas.

The cast of playable characters is large. Like I said before, it’s the cast of both Persona 3 and 4. While this is pretty great, it causes me some issues. If I had all the time in the world (I don’t), I would be swapping out characters left and right and building them all up to lean, mean fighting machines. I really do love most of the characters from each series and there really isn’t a wrong way to set up a party. This is because the sub personas can provide any member of your team the necessary skills to succeed. That being said, to use all the characters would take an immense amount of time. I haven’t had to do any unnecessary grinding yet, but I only barely beat the first boss. I was victorious by throwing all I had left at her in a last-ditch effort. If she had one more turn, she would have wiped me out.  So I have to choose 5 characters and stick with them. Actually 4, because in the beginning you choose to play as either games main protagonist and they cannot be removed from the party. If I would have tried using all the characters, I wouldn’t have had anyone that was strong enough to win that fight. So far I chose to play as Persona 3’s protagonist and thus, in the first labyrinth have only had the characters from 3 available. I have been using Akihiko, Mitsuru, Aigis, and the new character that shows up in the beginning of this game. However now it seems I will have access to all of Persona 4’s characters as well. It’s a bit much. One good thing: no matter who you use in your party, the other characters show up in vignettes and cut scenes as though they are exploring with you. It might even show them walking through a door you just opened, spouting a line of dialog.

I have only put 10 hours into it so far. I just completed the first labyrinth and there are supposedly 3 more to go. I have never finished an Etrian Odyssey game, not for lack of quality, but because they are immense. I easily have over 100 hours into Etrian Odyssey 3, and at least 50 into 4. I got my fill of those games. I’m 10 hours into Persona Q and haven’t felt the urge to slow down, so who knows, if it’s a 40 hour game, I would gladly see it through. That’s glowing praise from this time strapped gaming dad.

As a side note, I also wanted to talk about Zelda, a Link Between Worlds, but I have gotten a little long-winded. Another time, another post.