Persona Dancing: Endless Night Collection Dances onto PS4 Dec 4, 2018

By: GeekyGamerGirl87

I will be completely honest, I have never played a Persona Game. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to play them I just think for me, it wasn’t a game that at the time caught my attention. However, I will say that I do love rhythm games and after playing the Persona Endless Night Collection, I now regret that I never played the series because the music for the series alone is great. For me, because I am a huge music buff and I do love rhythm games this was a game that was right up my alley. Therefore, I would like to take the time to give a huge thank you to Atlus for providing thedailygamepad.com with a free copy of The Persona Dancing: Endless Night Collection for review. It is because of there generosity that I was able to discover this wonderful music and a new series of games I need to play.

There are three games in this collection. They are Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight, Persona 4: Dancing All Night, and Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight. Persona 3: DIM and Persona 5: DIS start off in Club Velvet a place that is between dreams and reality. In Persona 4: Dancing All Night you will start off in the Velvet Room also a place between dreams and reality.

In Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight you have been summoned by Elizabeth to Club Velvet to help settle a score with her younger sister. To settle this score, you and your friends will be doing a dance competition so to speak. Elizabeth has come up with this idea as her other sister use this same tactic to settle a score. The catch with being summoned here is that this is a dream and like in dreams you can do as you please. The only downfall of this dream is that when you wake up you won’t have any memory of what happened in Club Velvet. Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight  features all the gang from Persona 3 as dancers. So, you get to dance with The Protagonist,  Yukari Takeba, Junperi Iori, Akihiko Sanada, Mitsuru Kirijo, Fuuka Yamagishi, Aigis, and Ken Amada.

The game uses both the controller and VR Controllers. As I do not own a VR unit for PS4 I was only able to play with the controller. It takes a little getting used to but after a few times, I was able to play it. Call me old fashion but I kept saying how cool it would be to play this game with a dance pad. I enjoyed the music in the game as well, although a lot of the music does become a little redundant. I will say that a lot of the music tends to be remixes of some of the songs, but even in the remixed forms they’re not bad remixes.

In the actual gameplay mode, you will follow the icons on the screen like any other rhythm game. The game offers three different modes. An easy, normal, and hard mode. What makes the modes interesting is the harder your difficulty; the better the games follow the music. However, playing on hard you must be able to hit all those notes and that includes scratches. The characters do talk during the performances, but you can toggle this option on or off if you want to focus better or just listen to the soundtrack as you are playing the game. There is a meter that builds called the Fever Meter. If you hit enough fevers, you will trigger a dance partner to come out and join you. You also have the option of toggling on and off the dance partner as well but can only do this before you start the dance. Again, this all depends on how you as a gamer can focus when it comes to rhythm games. The game also offers a Social mode in which you get to interact with the characters one on one. Doing this gives you more of a connection to the characters. Also doing this opens other costumes as well as accessories that can be added to the dancers.

In Persona 4: Dancing All Night you are somehow taken to the Velvet Room (trying to keep the story vague as not to ruin it) in which you are greeted by Margaret, the hostess of the Velvet Room. She tells you that you are not supposed to be here unless you have a contract but takes the time to tell you an interesting story about Yu, someone whom she once hosted in the Velvet Room, and his friends. There are a few huge differences in this version of the game. Unlike Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight and Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, in Persona 4: Dancing All Night Yu and the gang are backup dancers who will be dancing as back up at the Love Meets Bonds Festival (LMB Festival for short) as Rise makes her comeback to the idol world.

You will get to dance as Yu Narukami, Yosuke Hanamura, Chie Satonaka, Yukiko Amagi, Rise Kujikawa, Kanji Tatsumi, Naoto Shirogane, Teddie, and two other characters who are unlockable through the story mode.  The gameplay is like Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight with being able to toggle on and off the dancer voices and dance partners.

Some of the key differences in Persona 4: Dancing All Night is unlike Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight and Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight you can only use the controller for this game. There is no VR mode for this game, which is sort of a letdown. For me, I really enjoyed this game the most out of the other games in the collection because I loved the music and it had an actual story that was like that of a visual novel, plus it had animated shorts in the game and I absolutely loved that. There was a lot of work that went into this game and I really appreciate it. I loved all the songs that were included in the game as well.

I also liked how this one chooses to do a “Story Mode” and not the “Social Mode” which again gave the game a little more depth and made me really interested in the game. In fact, the story in this game has made me want to now go back and play Persona 4 just so I can know what else happened with the characters in the game.  Also, as the game has no “Social Mode”, the game opted into a shopping mode in which you can purchase items, costumes, and accessories to add to your dancers.

Another thing that made me sad was the only way to get Persona 4: Dancing All Night on the PlayStation 4 is to purchase it through the Persona Dancing: Endless Night Collection. I would have also liked to see it be sold separately like the other two for PS4. The only way to get this one solo is to purchase it on PS Vita.
In Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight you are summoned by the twins Justine and Caroline, who has summoned you to Club Velvet in which you are going to again be in a dance competition. Just like in Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight you can dance however you want because this is a dream and again, you will not remember anything that has happened in the dream when you wake up.  The dancers of the game include Joker, Ryuji Sakamoto, Morgana, Ann Takamaki, Yusuke Kitagawa, Makoto Niijima, Haru Okumura, and Futaba Sakura.

For me Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight was my least favorite of the games. One of the biggest upsets for me was it was essentially a copy of Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight. It went back to the Social Mode and I just wasn’t a big fan of the music for this game. Although some of the remixes were by artists I do know. I just kept getting the feel of Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight and overall it felt like it was just copying its predecessor.

The gameplay is like Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight and Persona 4: Dancing All Night. Like Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight you can use the controller and VR controls for this game as well. The Social Mode also does what it did in Persona 3 with opening costumes and accessories for the characters. One difference from Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight that Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight has is that in order to open social events you have to complete certain tasks to open the event.

I would have loved if Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight could have combined both elements from Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight and Persona 4: Dancing All Night. I would have loved the Social Mode, so you still get the one on one with the characters and get to know them more but would have also liked a more in-depth story mode as well. Not just “we’re bringing you here to do a dance competition.” so to speak. There were a few good songs in the game but again not really a lot of great ones.

Overall, I do still recommend Persona Dancing: Endless Night Collection as I did have a lot of fun with it. I found myself playing the game for hours. Even though I felt Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight could have been a little bit better, and Persona 4: Dancing All Night should have included a VR mode as well. I would love to get my hands on a VR set just to see how it changes my gameplay experiences for Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight  and Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight. If you would like to purchase the Persona Dancing: Endless Night Collection you can pre-order the bundle on PlayStation Store for $99.99 USD and the game is due to be released on December 4, 2018, for North America and Europe.