Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth First Impressions

PLEASE NOTE: I have only played this game for two hours and with the Persona 3 team, so keep that in mind.

Well, getting this game was a fun-filled ride of garbage. I originally pre-ordered the premium editon at Gamestop, despite me really not liking to use them if at all possible.  A few days later, I saw it was available at Best Buy, so I canceled my original pre-order then pre-ordered it at Best Buy. Then a week later, I got a call from the gaming supervisor at Best Buy saying that the pre-order changed from the premium edition to the regular edition and he was not sure if they will be getting the premium edition in. So, I canceled my pre-order at Best Buy and pre-ordered it at Gamestop again. A few days after that, I got a call from the gaming supervisor at Best Buy saying that the pre-order for the premium edition is up so I canceled the pe-order at Gamestop and pre-ordered it again at Best Buy. Needless to say, the only person that I have ever seen working in that Gamestop probably thinks that I'm out of my mind, but Gamer's Club Unlocked giving me 20% off of new games and then getting Reward Zone points on my purchases on top of that makes it to be worth the hassle.

Was the game itself worth the actual hassle? Well, yes. While I am a huge fan of the MegaTen series, I am not the biggest fan of the Persona sub-series. It's just such a huge departure from the mood of the original series that it just doesn't feel like a Shin Megami Tensei game at all. They're too light-hearted for my taste for being a part of the massive MegaTen series, but that doesnt stop me from liking the games. This one is certainly no different. I purposely didn't watch or read juch of anything about the game after its initial announcement since I really wanted to be surprised. It was nice that they let you pick which game's team you would like to start out playing with, but I really hope that you get to use both teams in your party eventually.

The music? Standard Persona music, so basically it's pretty good mix of Jpop with rap and fits the game incredibly well. I just wouldn't listen to it outside of the game ever. Now one thing that I've always loved about the MegaTen series is the first-person dungeon crawling gameplay and this game brings it back to the Persona series, which I absolutely love. It really helps the feel of the game and feeling constantly lost, which I always loved about the first-person MegaTen games. My only major complaint; why do I have to draw my own map? It's absolutely pointless. It just slows down the exploration for me. I'n constantly stopping and drawing walls and putting down icons for certain things, then drawing more walls, all while looking at my side-menu to see how close I am to being attacked. It's just too much and I honestly don't see the point of it. Maybe there is a point and because I purposely didn't read or watch anything about the game, I'm missing something here, but whatever. I still find it annoying. Overall though, I'm having a lot of fun and I'm really glad to see yet another MegaTen game on the 3DS. It's such a great platform for these types of games, and I hoestly hope to see more soon.