I'm getting better at not buying more games than I can consume in a year, but I still play the occasional free-to-play indie title and wind up with a number of commercial games through promotional giveaways. The result is that I rarely play any game in its year of release unless it's a part of a favorite series, and even then, depending on how busy I am, a much anticipated game might get postponed.
These are the 12 games I liked enough to finish for the first time in 2019, in the order I played them. If the game is available on multiple platforms, the one I played on is listed first. My top three picks of the year are marked with an asterisk (*).
Doki Doki Literature Club (Windows, Mac, Linux)
This is an excellent pay-what-you-want indie title that has been sitting in my backlog for a while. It was really popular in 2017, but never got close to the top of my list due to the fact I play a lot of visual novels and visually DDLC fell out of my usual genre preferences, even though I knew there was a twist. Despite its cheerful appearance, there's a not suitable for children or those easily disturbed warning for a reason (specifically those suffering from anxiety and depression). The less you know the better it's supposed to be, but if you want to be spoiled there's also my VN Talk write-up for the game.
Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard (DS, remade as Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight on 3DS)
The Etrian Odyssey series is made for people have a fondness for old school dungeon mapping; the kind you do on paper. This is a game out of the unfinished backlog where I started it years ago and abandoned it. As dungeon crawlers go though, I like the EO series for providing us with lush, natural looking dungeons; non-traditional monsters; and an interesting variety of classes to build a party out of. EOII introduces an additional healing class which is nice, and expands a bit on the late game twist from the first EO, but otherwise doesn't have much in the way of twists itself. Overall I think I like the first game better, but the second isn't bad.
Code:Realize ~Wintertide Miracles~ (PS Vita, PS4) *
This is the second fandisc in the Code:Realize otome series. Though it came out on Valentine's Day in the US, it's actually Christmas themed. Most of its content is alternate universe material based off of the Finis route in ~Future Blessings~ and will expect you to have played the previous games, but that said it's an excellent send-off to your favorite characters and well worth it if you enjoy the franchise. Those love interests who didn't already have weddings in their original timelines, finally have them here as bonus epilogues.
The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince (PS4, Switch) *
Liar Princess plays like an indie puzzle platformer, though it comes from a more established Japanese publisher. A wolf accidentally blinds a prince who was trying to catch a glimpse of her while she was singing, and to make up for her mistake, the wolf gives up her voice to take on a human shape. She pretends to be a princess from a neighboring kingdom so she can guide the prince to a witch who can restore his sight, but along the way she has to take pains to hide who she truly is out of fear the prince would call her a monster. The story is very sweet and a little sad, and the art design is fantastic.
We Were Here (Windows, Mac, Linux)
A friend and I played this on a whim since it's a two player co-op puzzle-solving game along the lines of real world escape rooms, and it's free to play. Both players are separated and have to work together to solve clues that will enable them to be reunited. There are no jump scares, but the atmosphere is definitely on the side of creepy. It's possible to get game overs in a few places if you take too long, but the game has several checkpoints so you'll never be more than a quick puzzle away from where you failed. We Were Here took my friend and I about two and a half hours to get through and it was a fun way to spend an evening, especially if you like puzzles and escape rooms. You do need voice communication though, so if you're not playing in the same room you'll need a mic and the game comes with voice chat capabilities.
Divinity: Original Sin (PC, PS4, XB1)
I'd been hankering for a good party-based western RPG in the void of waiting for another Dragon Age, and though the worldbuilding took me a little time to get into, the game itself is pretty fun, though a bit merciless. It's turn-based, which is an oddity in this day and age. Each move takes a certain number of action points and each character gets a certain amount a round. Feels very table-top. The story is serviceable, but hampered by pacing issues. The dual protagonists are what the player makes of them, and I'd advise having some personality conflicts between them to bring out the more engaging banter. I played the Enhanced Edition which added additional quests and reworked some of the story (including the ending).
Persona 3 Portable (PSP, versions without female protagonist also on PS2)
Persona 3 Portable is the only version of Persona 3 to have a female protagonist option, and game is substantially different for it. All the Social Links have been redone, so even though the dungeon delving and overall plot is much the same as the original male playthrough, there's a lot of new secondary content and tons of VO has been rerecorded to change pronouns to match to the protagonist's gender on the female route. I can't imagine how much work that was, since English is so heavily pronoun dependant, but Atlus really went the extra mile, and I'm grateful. I actually had this game sitting partially completed for years, but just went back to it so I could finish before I played Persona Q2, which features the return of the female protagonist.
Bad Apple Wars (PS Vita)
If you like otome and have a Vita, this is a solid afterlife romance with no locked characters and is completely yandere free. (Which I consider a plus.) The art might not be as pretty as some, and there are a couple questions the game never answers, but I like the way it chooses to integrate romance-specific scenes into the common storyline so it feels natural rather than having the player bumble around trying to score points with a particular bachelor. In most cases, you have to work to get a bad ending. Showing up at all of a love interest's color coded scenes and not hurting him during late game Soul Touches is pretty much all you need to do to get the best endings, and the in-game flowchart makes it incredibly easy to revisit old scenes.
Final Fantasy XV (PS4, XB1, Windows) *
I went into this game with fairly low expectations, having bought it due to all the memes and a really good Christmas sale. Mark me surprised. This ended up being my second favorite Final Fantasy of the four I've played. It's not a perfect game, not by a long shot, but what it does well, it does really well, which is specifically the friendship between Noctis and his companions. The first half of the game is ridiculously open world just as the second is ridiculously linear, but oddly enough, the second half wouldn't work as well if all the free time in the first half didn't exist. It's a difficult issue to resolve from a gameplay standpoint, but I respect the gamble taken.
Death Road to Canada (Switch, PS4, XB1, Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android)
This game boils down to being a more actiony, violent version of Oregon Trail. Instead of heading for Oregon, you and your buddy (or buddies since up to four people can play) are stuck in a zombie-filled America and you have to ration your supplies and scavenge for more as you head for the only safe country left; Canada. Like Oregon Trail, gameplay is a mix of random events, choices you have to make, and careful management of your resources. Something is going to go wrong along the way, and sometimes you'll die, but playthroughs are short enough that it's easy to just try again.
Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth (3DS)
This is one of those games that's not going to make sense to anyone unless they've played at the bare minimum Persona 5, but really, you'll get the most joy out of it if you've played Persona 3 and 4 as well. For people who've missed the female protagonist from Persona 3 Portable she's back and gets a ton of face time. It's a little bizarre thinking of a cast of 28 characters rolling through a dungeon all at the same time, but everyone gets to weigh in on everything even if they're not currently in the active party. It might not be realistic, but this game primarily exists as fanservice, so some break in reality is acceptable and even welcome.
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments (Windows, PS3, PS4, X360, XB1)
I'm not a diehard Holmes fan, but I do love myself a good detective game. Controls are a bit wonky for someone unused to FPS games, but the mystery-solving is good and I like that the game lets you make the jump from evidence to answers without necessarily confirming whether you are right. The possibility of getting it wrong and allowing the game to continue after you do, adds a little edge that other mystery games lack. It won't affect later cases, but it's nice not being forced to replay segments in the game until you follow the logic a developer had in mind. I would have liked this one more if two of the casess weren't hard to solve due to dubious logic or misleading dialogue from Holmes himself.
Showing posts with label persona 3. Show all posts
Showing posts with label persona 3. Show all posts
Monday, February 3, 2020
Monday, January 21, 2019
My Favorite Games of 2018
My gaming backlog is something impressive, as I typically buy a few more than I can play in any given year, and then those extras build up. The result is that I rarely play any game in its year of release unless it's a part of a favorite series, and even then, depending on how busy I am, a much anticipated game might get postponed.
But I'm not adverse to playing older games. As long as the gameplay is still there I generally don't care.
These are the 9 games I liked enough to finish for the first time in 2018, in the order I played them. If the game is available on multiple platforms, the one I played on is listed first. My top three picks of the year are marked with an asterisk (*).
Valentines Otome (PC)
This is a cute indie project primarily done by two people, and it shows. But even though it's a bit rough around the edges it has a lot of heart and is definitely worth checking out. Rough edges aside, it's better than some professional stuff I've played. Valentines Otome is pay what you want, and the developer is adamant that it's fine if you just download for free, but any funds paid will go towards the development of future projects. So if you like their work, please throw them a few bucks to help them on their way.
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony (PS Vita, PS4, PC) *
Though the pacing is a bit off in this latest Danganronpa entry, it's a solid member of the series. It's difficult to talk about without giving away spoilers, so all I'll say is that if you liked the previous games, seriously, go play this one. While you supposedly can go in as a series newbie, the final twist at the end will have so much more impact for the series veteran. Definitely the most meta commentary of all the games thus far. It's probably my second favorite in the series, after the original.
PRICE (PC)
PRICE is a free to play gothic point and click mystery that will probably take one or two hours to finish depending on the player's speed at finding all the clues and putting them together. There isn't much to it beyond its moody atmosphere where the player is trying to get out of a locked room, but the mystery elements are quite good. While it's creepy, it is not outright scary (and I'm saying this as a person who hates jump scares).
Root Double: Before Crime * After Days (PC, PS Vita)
This was a cult hit in Japan, but barely made a splash stateside. It was particularly pitched to fans of the Zero Escape series, but only in the sense of its convoluted story. There aren't any puzzles to be found in this one, unless you're talking about figuring out the Sympathy Sensory System. (For your own sanity, use a spoiler free walkthrough.) There are definitely problems with this near future science fiction story, not the least of which is its patronizing view of women, but if you can get past that and the fact the narrative loves to remind you of previous events (before you have a chance to forget them), there's a surprisingly engaging story. Overall I liked it, but not without heavy caveats.
Code:Realize ~Future Blessings~ (PS Vita, also on PS4 as part of Bouquet of Rainbows compilation) *
This is a sequel/interquel to Code:Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~, which is my all time favorite otome game. If you liked the first game, chances are you'll like ~Future Blessings~ as well. However, I should note that despite the wedding themed opening movie, only one of the guys gets a wedding route in the sequel portion of the game. Sholmès gets his own romance route, running parallel to the original game and Finis gets a similar brother route, which clears up several unanswered questions from the first game. ~Future Blessings~ is rounded out by a Lupin's Gang side story (a missing chapter as it were) that takes place during the common route of the original game.
Lost Dimension (PS Vita, PS3, PC)
Though not promoted as such, given the difference in genres, Lost Dimension has a premise aimed at fans of series like Zero Escape or Danganronpa where you can expect to get stabbed in the back, and unless you erase the traitors first, they will betray you. There's a lot to like here with how the protagonist uses his precognition abilities to manipulate results and discover the traitors hiding within their the ranks. The mechanics of the strategy/combat segments are solid, but the story really falls on its face and is hampered by the fact it requires a minimum of two playthroughs to get to an underwhelming true ending. It's not a bad game, but it could have been great if more thought had been put into the plot.
7'scarlet (PS Vita, coming to Steam in the future) *
It's otome, but don't let that fool you. Unraveling the secrets of the rural town of Okunezato is every bit as much or more compelling than the romance aspects of the game. The romance options are also fairly linear since the game locks them roughly in order of who knows the most about what's really going on, which works for the mystery angle, but could be frustrating for those more interested in the dating aspect. The game gets a little spooky at times, and does a great job with tension (particularly on Sosuke's route). If it had just hammered out a few plot issues it probably would have become one of my all time favorite games of any genre, but it's still solid as is.
Disgaea: Hour of Darkness (PS2, DS, PSP, PC, PS4, Switch)
This is an old one from my backlog that was mostly finished, but has been lingering for years. When Disgaea 1 Complete was released as the new definitive edition towards the end of 2018, my friend got it and that motivated me to dust off the PS2 and finish the original. The gameplay is a pretty hardcore tactical RPG and some level of grinding is necessarily to finish off the game, but it was still a fun ride in the end. The characters are endearing with their warped perspective of what it means to be a demon in a light-hearted version of the underworld. They also parody a lot of anime/tokusatsu tropes, so this works better if you have some grounding in Japanese pop culture.
Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight (PS4, PS Vita)
This was a total nostalgia trip, but I'm glad Atlus decided to take it. Persona 3 is still my favorite of the modern style of Persona games and was made before Persona 4 turned the series into the multi-genre franchise it is now. Because of that, any previous P3 spin-off material was done as a crossover with P4 (since they take place a few years apart in the same universe). Dancing in Moonlight is the first spin-off that is well and truly focused on the P3 cast. I'm not a great judge of rhythm games, but the gameplay is entertaining enough for a casual player and the nostalgia hits hard. My main complaint is that unlocking some of the social links is a little tedious.
But I'm not adverse to playing older games. As long as the gameplay is still there I generally don't care.
These are the 9 games I liked enough to finish for the first time in 2018, in the order I played them. If the game is available on multiple platforms, the one I played on is listed first. My top three picks of the year are marked with an asterisk (*).
Valentines Otome (PC)
This is a cute indie project primarily done by two people, and it shows. But even though it's a bit rough around the edges it has a lot of heart and is definitely worth checking out. Rough edges aside, it's better than some professional stuff I've played. Valentines Otome is pay what you want, and the developer is adamant that it's fine if you just download for free, but any funds paid will go towards the development of future projects. So if you like their work, please throw them a few bucks to help them on their way.
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony (PS Vita, PS4, PC) *
Though the pacing is a bit off in this latest Danganronpa entry, it's a solid member of the series. It's difficult to talk about without giving away spoilers, so all I'll say is that if you liked the previous games, seriously, go play this one. While you supposedly can go in as a series newbie, the final twist at the end will have so much more impact for the series veteran. Definitely the most meta commentary of all the games thus far. It's probably my second favorite in the series, after the original.
PRICE (PC)
PRICE is a free to play gothic point and click mystery that will probably take one or two hours to finish depending on the player's speed at finding all the clues and putting them together. There isn't much to it beyond its moody atmosphere where the player is trying to get out of a locked room, but the mystery elements are quite good. While it's creepy, it is not outright scary (and I'm saying this as a person who hates jump scares).
Root Double: Before Crime * After Days (PC, PS Vita)
This was a cult hit in Japan, but barely made a splash stateside. It was particularly pitched to fans of the Zero Escape series, but only in the sense of its convoluted story. There aren't any puzzles to be found in this one, unless you're talking about figuring out the Sympathy Sensory System. (For your own sanity, use a spoiler free walkthrough.) There are definitely problems with this near future science fiction story, not the least of which is its patronizing view of women, but if you can get past that and the fact the narrative loves to remind you of previous events (before you have a chance to forget them), there's a surprisingly engaging story. Overall I liked it, but not without heavy caveats.
Code:Realize ~Future Blessings~ (PS Vita, also on PS4 as part of Bouquet of Rainbows compilation) *
This is a sequel/interquel to Code:Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~, which is my all time favorite otome game. If you liked the first game, chances are you'll like ~Future Blessings~ as well. However, I should note that despite the wedding themed opening movie, only one of the guys gets a wedding route in the sequel portion of the game. Sholmès gets his own romance route, running parallel to the original game and Finis gets a similar brother route, which clears up several unanswered questions from the first game. ~Future Blessings~ is rounded out by a Lupin's Gang side story (a missing chapter as it were) that takes place during the common route of the original game.
Lost Dimension (PS Vita, PS3, PC)
Though not promoted as such, given the difference in genres, Lost Dimension has a premise aimed at fans of series like Zero Escape or Danganronpa where you can expect to get stabbed in the back, and unless you erase the traitors first, they will betray you. There's a lot to like here with how the protagonist uses his precognition abilities to manipulate results and discover the traitors hiding within their the ranks. The mechanics of the strategy/combat segments are solid, but the story really falls on its face and is hampered by the fact it requires a minimum of two playthroughs to get to an underwhelming true ending. It's not a bad game, but it could have been great if more thought had been put into the plot.
7'scarlet (PS Vita, coming to Steam in the future) *
It's otome, but don't let that fool you. Unraveling the secrets of the rural town of Okunezato is every bit as much or more compelling than the romance aspects of the game. The romance options are also fairly linear since the game locks them roughly in order of who knows the most about what's really going on, which works for the mystery angle, but could be frustrating for those more interested in the dating aspect. The game gets a little spooky at times, and does a great job with tension (particularly on Sosuke's route). If it had just hammered out a few plot issues it probably would have become one of my all time favorite games of any genre, but it's still solid as is.
Disgaea: Hour of Darkness (PS2, DS, PSP, PC, PS4, Switch)
This is an old one from my backlog that was mostly finished, but has been lingering for years. When Disgaea 1 Complete was released as the new definitive edition towards the end of 2018, my friend got it and that motivated me to dust off the PS2 and finish the original. The gameplay is a pretty hardcore tactical RPG and some level of grinding is necessarily to finish off the game, but it was still a fun ride in the end. The characters are endearing with their warped perspective of what it means to be a demon in a light-hearted version of the underworld. They also parody a lot of anime/tokusatsu tropes, so this works better if you have some grounding in Japanese pop culture.
Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight (PS4, PS Vita)
This was a total nostalgia trip, but I'm glad Atlus decided to take it. Persona 3 is still my favorite of the modern style of Persona games and was made before Persona 4 turned the series into the multi-genre franchise it is now. Because of that, any previous P3 spin-off material was done as a crossover with P4 (since they take place a few years apart in the same universe). Dancing in Moonlight is the first spin-off that is well and truly focused on the P3 cast. I'm not a great judge of rhythm games, but the gameplay is entertaining enough for a casual player and the nostalgia hits hard. My main complaint is that unlocking some of the social links is a little tedious.
Monday, December 31, 2018
Persona 3 and Its Spin-Offs
I've been playing Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight and it's been giving me thoughts about how Persona 3 fits among the rest of the Persona games and why it didn't get the same kinds of spin-offs that its successors did.
Persona 3 was the first of the modern Persona games, popularizing the high school sim/RPG hybrid model the games have been using ever since. It's also the most daring of them, as I think Atlus felt free to make it different both from its predecessors and its successors. Once they realized they were on to something, and they ended up playing things safer with later installments.
Being in the middle of the current five game series, Persona 3 has the darkness of the previous games, but laid the groundwork for the more optimistic games to follow. Though 3, 4, and 5 are often grouped together as the modern Persona games due to featuring the same game design, thematically Persona 3 doesn't fit. For one thing it had the gall to kill off its protagonist, and there is a playable pseudo-sequel called "The Answer" in Persona 3 FES that is largely about the rest of the cast coming to terms with grief over his loss. That's heavy stuff for a JRPG.
It didn't limit the death tally to the protagonist either, also killing off another party member, Shinjiro, not by any supernatural enemies, but simply other humans.
One of the taglines of the game is "Memento mori" (Remember you will die). Characters summon their personas by pointing evokers designed to look like guns at their heads and pulling the trigger. The trauma of performing the mock suicide is what makes the evoker work.
And it's not just that Persona 3 is darker than its successors. It also felt free to be strange. The modern Persona games tend to have at least one non-human party member, but Persona 3 had two, and neither of them were a sort of shadow creature. Instead we have an android designed to fight Shadows, and a dog. Not a special talking dog, but just a regular shiba inu in every way other than the fact it can summon its own persona.
Since Persona 3 was an overhaul of the series from the previous installments, it didn't have much to lose. It could afford to be edgy and weird, both in regards to what previous Persona games were like (the high school sim element proved to be a big hit) and what future games became (it retained a lot of darkness the parent Shin Megami Tensei series is known for).
But being unique also made the game unwieldy when it comes to spin-offs. It has the largest playable cast of the modern Persona games (though it's less noticeable because of Shinjiro's death two-thirds of the way through and the fact Koromaru is a dog) and because they killed the protagonist, this meant he was unable to return for spin-offs in the same way that the P4 protagonist could return again and again with the canonized name of Yu Narukami.
Persona 4 Arena was pretty neat in that it added older versions of Persona 3's Akihiko, Mitsuru, and Aigis as playable characters. Persona 4 Arena Ultimax took it a step forward and added Junpei, Yukari, and Ken to the roster, making all of the Persona 3 cast playable except for the dog, the dead people, and Fuuka (who has had a non-combat role). I remember when they did this, I wondered if someone at Atlus was kicking themselves (or someone else) for having the P3 protagonist sacrifice himself, ending his marketability. A grudge match, or even a dream match, between Persona protagonists would have been fun.
Eventually the two of them to meet through Persona Q, an Etrian Odyssey style cross-over that brought them both to a sort of pocket dimension that was not tied to a particular time and place, so we got to pull both teams from the middle of their story. It was fun and rather goofy seeing the characters interact with each other, and the game permitted the player to choose which team to play as, allowing those who wanted to play as the P3 cast to remain with them the entire way through.
And then the Persona 4 life cycle ended. Anticipation moved on to Persona 5, which had a longer development cycle than I suspect Atlus would have liked. P3 and P4 both managed to release ahead of their in-game calendars, even in the US with translation delays, but Persona 5 came out in 2017 in Japan and 2018 in the US. From the in-game calendar and references to the P4 cast, P5 clearly takes place in 2016. If Atlus had kept to the ahead-of-the-game-calendar release they were probably originally shooting for a 2015 release.
After Persona 5's release, people suspected the spin-offs would continue as a way to fill the void between new Persona games, and they did, starting with a dancing game to follow up after Persona 4: Dancing All Night. But what I didn't expect, was that it would be partnered with a new Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight.
I'm pretty sure Persona 3 would not be getting a spin-off title now if not for Persona 5, but I'll take it. I suspect since Atlus was already working on Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, most of the groundwork needed for Dancing in Moonlight was already done. They would still need to change the music tracks, create the character models, and write/record a new script, but the game engine was already there and it probably wasn't terribly difficult to retain the key staff for both games.
The result is beautiful.
We've never had high res models of the Persona 3 cast and they're fantastically realized. Most of the US voice cast returns (Fuuka and Ken use their Persona 4 Arena VAs rather than the original cast).
The story, such as there is, is pure fluff. Everyone is in a dream state pulled from some point in time prior to the final battle, except for Elizabeth, who is clearly existing in a future after Persona 5 since she is aware of both the P3 protagonist's fate and that her younger sister has a guest of her own.
This adds an element of tragedy to an otherwise happy game about cutting loose in a dream to relieve stress (and if you remember the later parts of Persona 3 it gets really dismal for everyone). The characters frequently talk about what they're going to do in better times, once it's all over, including how they want the protagonist to continue to be involved in their lives, which we know isn't going to happen.
Everyone feels uncharacteristically crazy about dancing, but aside from that, they're much the old friends I first met years ago. The lyrics to the opening song (which appear to be written by an American employee at Atlus, since her name appears elsewhere in the credits in another position) bank heavily on the nostalgia and what it was like for the P3 protagonist and the player to leave their friends behind and then join them again for a night of dancing.
There's still Persona Q2 on the horizon for cross-over material, and realistically that's probably all we're going to get of the P3 cast unless there is a P5 fighting game that's willing to age them even further. (I'm a little doubtful about that, but would still be okay with it.)
But I suspect that will be it for Persona 3 spin-off material, which is too bad. It paved the way forward, but for whatever reason it didn't catch on quite as much as its successors.
Persona 3 was the first of the modern Persona games, popularizing the high school sim/RPG hybrid model the games have been using ever since. It's also the most daring of them, as I think Atlus felt free to make it different both from its predecessors and its successors. Once they realized they were on to something, and they ended up playing things safer with later installments.
Being in the middle of the current five game series, Persona 3 has the darkness of the previous games, but laid the groundwork for the more optimistic games to follow. Though 3, 4, and 5 are often grouped together as the modern Persona games due to featuring the same game design, thematically Persona 3 doesn't fit. For one thing it had the gall to kill off its protagonist, and there is a playable pseudo-sequel called "The Answer" in Persona 3 FES that is largely about the rest of the cast coming to terms with grief over his loss. That's heavy stuff for a JRPG.
It didn't limit the death tally to the protagonist either, also killing off another party member, Shinjiro, not by any supernatural enemies, but simply other humans.
One of the taglines of the game is "Memento mori" (Remember you will die). Characters summon their personas by pointing evokers designed to look like guns at their heads and pulling the trigger. The trauma of performing the mock suicide is what makes the evoker work.
And it's not just that Persona 3 is darker than its successors. It also felt free to be strange. The modern Persona games tend to have at least one non-human party member, but Persona 3 had two, and neither of them were a sort of shadow creature. Instead we have an android designed to fight Shadows, and a dog. Not a special talking dog, but just a regular shiba inu in every way other than the fact it can summon its own persona.
Since Persona 3 was an overhaul of the series from the previous installments, it didn't have much to lose. It could afford to be edgy and weird, both in regards to what previous Persona games were like (the high school sim element proved to be a big hit) and what future games became (it retained a lot of darkness the parent Shin Megami Tensei series is known for).
But being unique also made the game unwieldy when it comes to spin-offs. It has the largest playable cast of the modern Persona games (though it's less noticeable because of Shinjiro's death two-thirds of the way through and the fact Koromaru is a dog) and because they killed the protagonist, this meant he was unable to return for spin-offs in the same way that the P4 protagonist could return again and again with the canonized name of Yu Narukami.
Persona 4 Arena was pretty neat in that it added older versions of Persona 3's Akihiko, Mitsuru, and Aigis as playable characters. Persona 4 Arena Ultimax took it a step forward and added Junpei, Yukari, and Ken to the roster, making all of the Persona 3 cast playable except for the dog, the dead people, and Fuuka (who has had a non-combat role). I remember when they did this, I wondered if someone at Atlus was kicking themselves (or someone else) for having the P3 protagonist sacrifice himself, ending his marketability. A grudge match, or even a dream match, between Persona protagonists would have been fun.
Eventually the two of them to meet through Persona Q, an Etrian Odyssey style cross-over that brought them both to a sort of pocket dimension that was not tied to a particular time and place, so we got to pull both teams from the middle of their story. It was fun and rather goofy seeing the characters interact with each other, and the game permitted the player to choose which team to play as, allowing those who wanted to play as the P3 cast to remain with them the entire way through.
And then the Persona 4 life cycle ended. Anticipation moved on to Persona 5, which had a longer development cycle than I suspect Atlus would have liked. P3 and P4 both managed to release ahead of their in-game calendars, even in the US with translation delays, but Persona 5 came out in 2017 in Japan and 2018 in the US. From the in-game calendar and references to the P4 cast, P5 clearly takes place in 2016. If Atlus had kept to the ahead-of-the-game-calendar release they were probably originally shooting for a 2015 release.
After Persona 5's release, people suspected the spin-offs would continue as a way to fill the void between new Persona games, and they did, starting with a dancing game to follow up after Persona 4: Dancing All Night. But what I didn't expect, was that it would be partnered with a new Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight.
I'm pretty sure Persona 3 would not be getting a spin-off title now if not for Persona 5, but I'll take it. I suspect since Atlus was already working on Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, most of the groundwork needed for Dancing in Moonlight was already done. They would still need to change the music tracks, create the character models, and write/record a new script, but the game engine was already there and it probably wasn't terribly difficult to retain the key staff for both games.
The result is beautiful.
We've never had high res models of the Persona 3 cast and they're fantastically realized. Most of the US voice cast returns (Fuuka and Ken use their Persona 4 Arena VAs rather than the original cast).
The story, such as there is, is pure fluff. Everyone is in a dream state pulled from some point in time prior to the final battle, except for Elizabeth, who is clearly existing in a future after Persona 5 since she is aware of both the P3 protagonist's fate and that her younger sister has a guest of her own.
This adds an element of tragedy to an otherwise happy game about cutting loose in a dream to relieve stress (and if you remember the later parts of Persona 3 it gets really dismal for everyone). The characters frequently talk about what they're going to do in better times, once it's all over, including how they want the protagonist to continue to be involved in their lives, which we know isn't going to happen.
Everyone feels uncharacteristically crazy about dancing, but aside from that, they're much the old friends I first met years ago. The lyrics to the opening song (which appear to be written by an American employee at Atlus, since her name appears elsewhere in the credits in another position) bank heavily on the nostalgia and what it was like for the P3 protagonist and the player to leave their friends behind and then join them again for a night of dancing.
There's still Persona Q2 on the horizon for cross-over material, and realistically that's probably all we're going to get of the P3 cast unless there is a P5 fighting game that's willing to age them even further. (I'm a little doubtful about that, but would still be okay with it.)
But I suspect that will be it for Persona 3 spin-off material, which is too bad. It paved the way forward, but for whatever reason it didn't catch on quite as much as its successors.
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