People might complain about the abundance of Persona 4 spin-offs and for Atlus to just get on with finishing Persona 5, but these spin-off games are great fun, and there's only really been three spin-off titles: Arena, Arena Ultimax and now, Dancing All Night. As the title suggests, Dancing All Night is a rhythm game, and the first in the Persona series. Originally co-developed with Dingo, who has experience from the Hatsune Miku series, Atlus ended up taking it all back in-house. The end result? This is still a great rhythm game that's heaps of fun to play.
The main draw of Dancing All Night is the story mode. Yes, a rhythm game with a story! It is hands down the meatiest and most complex story of a rhythm game ever, and kudos to the developers for putting in the effort to create the plot. It's still a neat story and fantastic to once again join up with the Persona 4 cast for another adventure. The plot this time around follows Yu and his friends, the original Investigation Team, as they are training to dance. They've agreed to be the backup dancers at a festival for the comeback of Rise in the showbiz.
Of course, it gets weirder as they hear a rumor where if someone checks out the festival website at midnight, an unusual video will play, showing a deceased idol performing. Those who watch this video to the very end disappears. Yu and his friends ends up trying out the rumor and gets sucked into the inside world where it is filled with Shadows. They must then save the people who's been trapped there, and in the process, try to find out the mastermind behind this created world as it is not the TV World that we are all familiar with.
It is essential you have played at least Persona 4, but it is highly recommended to have played Golden (and frankly, if you are playing this game, you already have a Vita and have no excuse to not play Golden). Otherwise, the references will get lost on you. The excuse the game has now is that Yu and his team cannot use their personas for violence to get rid of the Shadows. They must express their feelings and emotions by dancing. These beat the Shadows away and saves the people. The plot is told as a visual novel so there's a lot of reading involved. All the dialogue is voiced but the voice actor for Rise changed (due to conflicting schemes) which is a shame as it does not fit right.
During the story, there'll be occasional artworks and animation scenes. The voice acting remains top-notch and the music is good. Reading through the story to get to the point where they reveal the mastermind was interesting, and while it felt padded out in the beginning due to repeating near identical events four times to save the four people, it eventually moved at a brisk pace and had an excellent climax. The story is obviously not as deep as the original Persona 4, and it can get predictable with what is about to happen, particularly when a dance gameplay session is coming up. Depending on your reading speed, the story can be finished between 7-12 hours.
The story is more out-of-whack and cliched, constantly speaking of friendship and bonds which can feel cheesy. The ending wrapped up nicely though with a classic song that really emphasized the feeling and atmosphere during that story moment. It's best to play on Normal difficulty since it makes the rhythm sections much more fun and engaging. With the rhythm gameplay, there are the outlines of one half of a circle on the sides of the screen, with six button prompts: Up, Left, Down, Triangle, Circle and X. The prompts fly out from the center of the screen, making it hard to anticipate when you're initially starting out the game.
Not only do you have to press the buttons in time with the prompt, frequently you will be expected to hold a button for a period of time, press two buttons at the same time and flick the analogue stick. You can actually play the game using the touchscreen but it lacks the accuracy provided by the physical buttons. Getting enough points will initiated Fever, which are certain sections of the song where other characters may join you. Once you complete a song, you score points and earn Persona $ to buy items and costumes in the in-game shop.
The middle of the screen will have 3D character models dancing to the music, you can change costumes and accessories and it's actually quite entertaining to watch the dancing. Unfortunately, each song is tied to a specific character so it's not as if you can select any song and character combination. One of the downsides of the game is that the timing of the button prompts doesn't really fit into the beat and rhythm of the songs. This makes it harder to play and get into the swing of things. Most of the music in the game are remixed tracks, which is an unnecessary element when the original music was already so good.
Due to most of the songs being remixes, it is not as nostalgic for a game like this and just feels out of place. There are 27 tracks in the base game but there are two free DLC songs. If that's not enough ,there are more purchasable DLC songs. Many have commented that 29 songs is quite limited but these songs are all full length and the game does not feel like it's lacking content. There are some great music pieces in here such as Reach Out To The Truth, Time to Make History and Heartbeat, Heartbreak. The musics and graphics are slick. There's even a song or two from Persona 4 Arena and Persona Q.
There are four difficulty levels: Easy, Normal, Hard and All Night. The game is at its best on Hard difficulty, where the notes come with high enough frequency but still achievable for the average player to be intensely fun, especially to a good song. All Night difficulty is at a crazier, faster pace, with more notes per minute and throwing spanners into the works in terms of prompts such as pressing two buttons at the same time when they are diagonally opposite each other. This may not sound hard in writing but when the pacing is so quick and you're not expecting it, it'll throw you off your rhythm.
You can get a Perfect, Great, Good or Miss for each prompt. Perfect and Great are what you should aim for since Good breaks your combo of consecutive successful button presses. You can purchase items to make songs easier or harder. These effects can be things such as slow button prompts (which actually makes it harder as so many more notes appear and stay on the screen, making it difficult to determine which button prompt is up next), keeping your combos even on "Good", and a more lenient pass mark. Costumes and accessories are a huge part of the game. Purchasing everything from the in-game store will take some grinding. Each song has a Replay feature which lets you enjoy just the character's dances without stressing over the button prompts.
During the dances, characters will also make comments, which is enjoyable and adds an extra flair to the performance. Extra content includes an artwork gallery, a song player and a database which contains notes on each of the characters and other terms within the Persona 4 universe. Overall, Persona 4: Dancing All Night is a fantastic game. The story mode is solid but it is when you get to the Free Dance section of the game (i.e. free play) and able to select the rest of the songs and play on a higher difficulty do you feel the energy and fun that's radiating from this game. Dancing All Night is highly recommended and you feel a sense of sadness once you've finished all that this game has to offer.
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