Now being a gamer and an animé fan you'd have thought I'd have played a Persona title before, but this is not the case and when I first loaded up Persona 4: Dancing All Night I literally had no idea what to expect.
From the get-go this title is visually awesome, a mix of great animé visuals and effects with a funky theme tune, the opening sequence sets the tone and highlights each of the characters all getting their groove on in their own unique way, with the title screen being easily navigated or simply left to play whilst you get hypnotised by the on-screen silhouette gyrating in time with the music.
Supposedly the story mode takes place after the events of Persona 4 Golden, with rumours spreading across the city of a mysterious website where a video appears at midnight which if watched transports the viewer to the 'other side' where they will never wake up again,with the disappearance of a J-Pop idol group, the investigation team "The Seekers of Truth" proceed to dive into the mysterious world of the "Midnight Stage" where they are forced to dance for their lives against the bizarre creatures known as "Shadows".
This plot may sound like just a standard day for Persona veterans but for those who are new to the series or unfamiliar with the visual novel concept it may be a little inaccessible, the title does do a good job of introducing the characters and giving some idea about their personalities and traits but the storyline is pretty out-there and likely only to appeal to Persona fans or otaku.
The main bulk of the story is played out as a visual novel with the characters and scenes being really nicely animated and all voiced by both the Japanese or American voice artists depending on your personal preference, occasionally you'll be asked a question by a character and you'll be presented with a choice of answers to choose from leading the conversation off in a different path meaning that alternative playthroughs don't have to be the same every time.
The real action begins when your team is whisked off to the "Midnight Stage" where in order to survive and rescue their friends they must face a dance battle against the Shadows, each of these battles is played out as a rythym game, match your button presses with the beat in order to build up your combo and unleash your team's fever to win, the rythym mechanic works very well either using the buttons or the touch screen but the background visuals can be a little distracting when everything really gets going.
Each character gets their time to shine and as you progress you'll unlock more songs to play in "Free Dance" mode as well as building up reward currency to buy multiple costumes and accessories for everyone, harder difficulty settings will test your mettle but without a deeper scoring system replay value is fairly minimal except to earn enough to unlock everyone's outfits and items.
The story mode lasts for well over 12 hours and the game features 30+ songs including new tracks and remixes of tunes from previous Persona titles, as well as a whole host of DLC including an extra 10 tracks, 16 costume sets, 4 accessory sets, and 14 music videos.
Overall Persona 4: Dancing All Night is graphically lovely, the animé characters and backgrounds work really well during the story segments and blend nicely when the game switches to the dance battles.The music and sounds are very catchy though may not be to everyone's tastes, and the sound effects when you press the corresponding actions during the dance battles can be off-putting but easily switched off in the games options.
The storyline whilst entertaining is a little crazy and may not make a lot of sense to newcomers of the series but don't let that put you off, as a visual novel the game is solid, telling a tale of mystery, friendship, and other-worldy evil.The dance battles play well and as a rhythm game P4D ticks all the boxes but lacks a more in-depth scoring system or any kind of online ranking.
With Persona 5's release delayed this is an excellent stopgap and even if you're not into rhythm titles, the visual novel element should be more than enough to keep you entertained and up to date with the adventures of The Seekers of Truth in the meantime.
Persona 4: Dancing All Night is out now for Playstation Vita in Japan and North America, European release is November 6th 2015