Review: Persona 4 Dancing All Night (Reviewed on PS4 via the Endless Night bundle, also on PS Vita)

When Persona 4 Dancing All Night was announced back in 2015, I was so excited. That excitement led me to buy it in Japanese right when it came out because I was worried if we’d see a localisation announcement and while I couldn’t understand the story parts much as I was a total beginner at Japanese at the time, I played all of the songs and unlocked everything enough to get the Platinum trophy, despite pretty much not knowing any of its story and just enjoy its dancing fun in the Vita version.

With the recent Endless Night collection including the Persona Dance games for Persona 3, 4 and 5, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to get to know the wonderful remixes of the songs I loved from Persona 4 and the Vita version all over again while finally getting to know its story too and after spending almost 15 hours with it, I’m glad I did. The twist on Persona 4’s world and story with an Idol mystery was a great way to see the charming characters from the original paired with some new favourites, and seeing the high quality visuals on PS4 with snappy load times and sharp visuals in its rhythm game moments made the quality of this Persona Dance game feel not far behind the newer releases. If you’re looking to experience a different mystery with the Investigation Team alongside fun new characters and involved dance mechanics that feel just as good as its more recent editions, Persona 4 Dancing All Night is well worth it for fans of Persona 4 and rhythm games, and with it being such good value in the Endless Night collection on PS4, it’s an experience that Persona fans who like more story mixed in with their rhythm mechanics can enjoy experiencing in its best form yet.

Platinum Trophy Experience: Persona 4 Dancing All Night

I played the Japanese version of Persona 4 Dancing All Night a few years ago out of impatience for a localised release announcement and found myself unintentionally raking in the trophies. At the start of this year, I made it my resolution to platinum at least one JRPG and as I was checking what seemed achievable, my over 90% completion of Dancing All Night made it feel silly not to get the platinum for, even if it’s more rhythm spinoff game than JRPG. As a fan of rhythm games outside of my JRPG life, I really enjoyed aiming for high scores and dance fever combined with one of my favourite JRPG series ever. As for the platinum trophy experience, aside from a couple of minor time-consuming trophies, compared to Persona 4 Golden’s platinum trophy’s multiple playthrough extravaganza, Persona 4 Dancing All Night’s trophy is a piece of cake that a majority of people can probably get easily with a little bit of time.

Feel free to watch the video version here!

Facts

Persona 4 Dancing All Night has 40 trophies that break down into 21 Bronze, 15 Silver, 3 Gold and the Platinum. At the time of making this, no trophies on the list seem to go above a ‘rare’ in the PSN rating system and most of the trophies are based on just experiencing different aspects of Persona 4 Dancing All Night. The length of this trophy will depend on your skills and since I played it over a spread out period of time, I don’t have a solid grasp on how long it took me. However, since Dancing All Night’s story is in visual novel form and most of the trophies can be done in Free Dance, I imagine it can take much less time than the average JRPG Platinum Trophy.

Spoiler note: I have included Hidden trophies names in this post, but not descriptions to avoid spoilers as much as possible while still describing my Platinum Trophy journey. I don’t think there are any major story or event spoilers in this post, but proceed at your own risk!

The Easy

~9 Story Trophies

Time to Party Harder (Hidden)

To Greater Heights - Unlocked highest difficulty (ALL NIGHT)

Appearance Matters - Bought a costume for the first time

Best Dressed - Bought half of the costumes

Closet Full of Dreams - Bought all costumes

Lapidary - Obtained all accessories

Hooked on Shopping - Bought all items in Shopping

Regular Customer - Used a total of P$500,000 in Shopping

That Familiar Rush - Watched replay data from Score

I Am Thou, Thou Art I - Completed the Database

Empty Seats - A performance ended prematurely

Hit the Dance Floor - Clear 1 in Free Dance

The Party Never Ends - Cleared all tracks in Free Dance

What’s a “Miss”? - Cleared a track with no MISSes

New Personal Best - Beat your own high score

Fashion Police - Changed costume and began dancing

The Final Touch - Equipped accessory and began dancing

Costume Coordinator - Cleared a track with each character in changed costumes

Dream Team - Paired Rise and Kanami in Free Dance

= 28 trophies

In my opinion, a vast majority of Persona 4 Dancing All Night’s trophies can be classified as easy, as most of them can be done just by completing a basic task. There are trophies for trying on a costume for the first time or for pairing certain characters together, which can be done really quickly just by changing settings before you enter a Free Dance song. Even the story trophies are very easy, as the visual novel format allows you to skip through the story while still getting all of the trophies, which is what I did with the Japanese version. What makes these trophies and Persona 4 Dancing All Night’s platinum trophy so easy is that a good majority of them aren't based on skill, you just need to play a little bit to amass money, use items to boost your rewards and you're pretty set. If you're looking for a quick way to boost your trophy total, these ones will get you up 30 in no time.

The Challenging

Born Entertainer - Obtained top rank (King Crazy) on a track

Star Dancer - Danced using 2 or more items to raise difficulty

= 2 trophies

I put these trophies in the Challenging section of this post, but in reality you can just play Easy Mode and get these trophies very easily, which is what I did to be honest. I got the Born Entertainer trophy unintentionally while challenging myself for fun to try and get a perfect score in one of Persona 4 Dance’s songs and I don’t remember it taking very long at all. Star Dancer also wasn't that difficult to get after I chose the right song. This is because there's a secret to conquering most of Persona 4 Dance’s skill-based challenges and that’s using the super easy tutorial song ‘Specialist’ on easy when in doubt. This song is not difficult on most difficulty modes, so it made raising the difficulty of a that song feel only slightly harder and I was able to get it after only a few tries if that.

Everything Else

Love Connections - Performed a full combo on a track

Perfectionist - 50%+ Perfect clear on HARD track or higher

Working Together - Triggered a Bond Fever at least once

Inseparable - Triggered 30 types of Bond Fevers

Nanako Forever! - Triggered all dances/Bond Fevers with Nanako

Senpai, You're So Cool! - Seen all Bond Fevers between Yu and Rise

Red and Green - Seen all Bond Fevers between Yukiko and Chie

The Junes Special - Seen all Bond Fevers between Yosuke and Teddie

Beauty and the Beast - Seen all Bond Fevers between Naoto and Kanji

= 9 Trophies

I put these trophies here because they require a small amount of skill, but almost all can be done using the easiest song and/or difficulty to win. The only thing with these trophies is that they may take a little bit of time and playing, but if you enjoy rhythm games and the Persona 4 soundtrack as much as I do, this probably won’t be much of a problem.

The Persona 4 Dancing All Night Platinum trophy is definitely the easiest one I’ve gotten, especially once I realised most of the trophies could be done on easy mode. In saying that, it did take a little bit of time and since I was playing in Japanese I had to Google some stuff so I could understand the trophy requirements. Because of that, I still feel like I went to a small amount of effort to get this trophy, so my Platinum achievement was a small triumph to me, but a triumph nonetheless. Now that I have the Japanese platinum trophy, I’m going to look into getting Persona 4 Dancing All Night in English so I can understand the story and maybe if I have time, I might double platinum it for fun. And I say all this with the hope that Atlus will give us a Persona 5 Dancing All Night that I’ll be able to look forward to platinuming too because this Platinum reminded me just how fun a rhythm game with Persona and its great music can be.

You can pick up Persona 4 Dancing All Night at Play-Asia.com!

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Have you platinumed a JRPG recently? What's your favourite JRPG spinoff game?

Leave a comment below, send me a tweet at @JRPGJungle, hit me up on Facebook, Youtube or Instagram and let's talk!

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Persona 4 Dancing All Night (JP) - An Extended First Impression

When Persona 4 Dancing All Night was first announced with a slew of Persona games such as Persona 5, Persona Q and Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, you could be forgiven for thinking that Persona 4 Dancing All Night was the most bizarre edition to the series of the bunch. But as Persona 4 Arena has proven, the Persona 4 series can do anything, even when venturing out of it's usual JRPG territory. Persona 4 Dancing All Night is a legitimate rhythm game, with some seriously good rhythm game mechanics, a killer soundtrack and meaty story that the Persona series is known and admired for. Even for those who have never ventured into the rhythm game genre, the exciting story and the quality of gameplay that the series is known for all contribute towards a fun, new experience for the Persona 4 franchise.

Persona 4 Dancing All Night is predominately a rhythm game, with most of the game's features (other than story mode) being related to the rhythm game portion of the experience. The rhythm game incorporates three buttons from the D-Pad and three of the shape buttons to hit the notes and you can use the joysticks to get bonus points for swiping when rings get larger on the screen, unless of course you opt to use the touch screen instead. The touch screen can feel extremely satisfying and kind of like dancing with fingers, but in the end the D-Pad seemed to be better at providing the precision needed to clear some of the harder difficulties. What I loved about each of the songs was how well the gameplay used the screen - there's always a button of the other side (both top or bottom) of the screen and there's always a scratch to hit between beats, no matter what difficulty. I found myself constantly preparing for the next note, which kept me on my toes and completely immersed in each song.

There are four difficulties in Persona 4 Dancing All Night, ranging from the 'my first dance game' Easy mode to the unlockable, highly involved All Night mode for up for a serious challenge. While most rhythm games score a song as cleared or unclear based on the overall score, Persona 4 Dancing All Night scores on consistency instead. This means you can get a perfect score throughout the whole song, but if you lose your rhythm during just one section of the song, you can still lose. On top of this harsher grading system, you can only clear a song by being in the two highest health statuses (green or rainbow), with three other health statuses meaning you don't clear the song (white, yellow and red), meaning there is technically more of a chance of losing each song than winning. This might sound like a really harsh grading system, but it reminded me of arcade rhythm games with the way it encouraged me to want to master each song instead of just clearing it. Clearing a song unlocks more songs the first time playing through, plus gives you in-game money to spend on the cool and hilarious costume and accessories options, along with items to make songs easier or even harder if you want even more of a challenge, offering many insane and diverse ways to play. Thanks to all of the different modes, DLC (which I couldn't try on the Australian PSN store unfortunately) and trying to win with different debuff items, there's always a new challenge waiting around the corner.

Apart from the great gameplay, there are many small reasons to love the dance portion of Persona 4 Dancing All Night. If you've played Persona 4 Golden, along with recognising the tracks from the game, you'll notice how the Persona character's songs and the way they dance relate closely to their personalities. For example, Yukiko dances with grace and to songs such as the one that played during winter in Persona 4, which matches her graceful but sometimes cold demeanour. In contrast, Chie's dances incorporate all those kung-fu moves she loves to practice on top of appropriately high energy music. This kind of attention to detail is what the Persona series is known for and as a fan, I really appreciated that even in a rhythm-focused game, the characters were the still same one's I'd fallen in love with in Persona 4 Golden.

And of course, the killer soundtrack from all of the Persona 4 games (including Persona 4, Arena and Persona Q) shines with during the rhythm game, coupled with cool new takes on the familiar music in the form of remixes that often completely change the feel of each song, but in the best way. Rock, Jazz, Pop and Dance music are the main genres featured in the game, so there's something for almost everyone to enjoy. Each song is fun and catchy and has given me plenty of reason to regret not buying the soundtrack edition of the game (previews of a few of the songs are now available to listen to on AtlusUSA's Youtube channel and I highly recommend doing so if you're trying to decide between the standard or soundtrack edition of the game).

For those importing the game and with a low or no level Japanese ability, the story naturally will be the hardest thing to digest as it is in visual novel form, meaning the game relies on text and only a few key cutscenes and photos to tell it's story. Like the Persona 4 Arena games, the story is divided into chapters and incorporates the Dance gameplay at random intervals where shadows appear in the story. Admittedly, the Japanese was a little too difficult for me to fully capture the intricacies of the story that Persona is known for, but I can say that even skipping through the story, I was able to grasp that the game subject matter features the journey towards accepting one's true self (a Persona series staple) and all characters, new and old, that appear in the game will play an active role in solving the mystery at hand.

If you can't wait for the rhythm game part of the game, Persona 4 Dancing All Night is worth importing. The menus are easy enough to navigate as they are mostly in English and I managed to skip through the story to unlock the extra rhythm game features without many hurdles. If you're importing Persona 4 Dancing All Night for the story only because you can't wait any longer for the September 29th release date (or later in some regions), unless you have some serious Japanese chops, I would recommend waiting for the translated version because of how lengthy the story is and Atlus' tendency to give a detailed story. I'm the kind of person who wouldn't want to miss a single detail of the story so if you're the same, waiting one month of the game will probably be worth it to enjoy the game to it's highest potential.

For fans of rhythm games and the Persona series, Persona 4 Dancing All Night is an absolute treat. The characters are portrayed well with the lovable personalities that Persona fans have come to love, both on and off the dance floor. The rhythm game portion sets a new high standard for rhythm games and I love the unique scoring system that gave a more involved gameplay experience that kept me on my toes (and thumbs) for over 30 hours and I never got bored of both the remixed and familiar versions of the Persona 4 series' soundtrack. In imported form, fans can experience the gameplay early but if you're in it just for the story, you may as well wait until the end of September. Whether you buy it now or not, Persona 4 Dancing All Night isn't just a rhythm game - it's earned it's right of passage as a legitimate addition to the Persona 4 series and a serious addition to the rhythm game genre.

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Whether you can wait for the end of September or not, you can buy the Japanese edition or pre-order the US edition (in English of course) at Play-Asia.

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Will you import or wait for Persona 4 Dancing All Night? What's you opinion on dancing bear suits?
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Persona 4 Dancing All Night Changes Up It's Development Team + New Trailer

Following the Tokyo Game Show release of Persona 4: Dancing All Night's new trailer (featured below), it came to the attention of fans that the upcoming PS Vita game seemed to be delayed until 2015. The game's director and producer Kazuhida Wada has now addressed the game's current state on the Persona blog, revealing that Persona 4: Dancing All Night is now being primarily developed by Atlus' Persona team. Original developers Dingo who have worked on the Hatsune Miku rhythm games are still involved in the project, providing assistance as needed.

The reason for this change wasn't revealed by Kazuhida, although he did state that with this "All hands on deck" approach, they are aiming for an early 2015 release. The statement from the Persona blog was translated on Gemastu's website and can be read below:

To everyone looking forward to Persona 4: Dancing All Night, we’re very sorry to have kept you waiting! 

Moving forward, Persona Team will be taking primary responsibility for the development of this game while still receiving assistance from Dingo, with all hands on deck working as hard as they can to finally bring this game to you.We’re working as best as we can with the aim of launching as early as possible next year, so please be excited.For this trailer, we shared a new arrangement and characters, but next time we plan to deliver more in-depth content. Thank you very much for your patience

Persona 4: Dancing All Night 

Producer & Director 

Kazuhisa Wada

While we wait, the new trailer for Persona 4: Dancing All Night features a first look at new Persona 4 characters added to the game, complete with dance moves that fit their personalities (Chie's Kung Fu dance moves are a highlight!). For excited fans, the game is available for pre-order on Play-Asia.

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Are you looking forward to Persona 4: Dancing All Night?

We'd love to hear your thoughts, so comment below or send a tweet to @JRPGJungle. Thanks for reading!