Persona 4: Dancing All Night

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Atlus has taken the cast of Persona 4, put them into a dancing game, and has managed to create a fun and enjoyable title in Persona 4: Dancing All Night.

Atlus doesn’t throw around the prestigious Persona brand lightly, and takes care of its characters in this visual novel/rhythm game mashup. The lengthy story mode fumbles with its first act, but picks up and develops into the kind of great Persona mystery that we’ve come to expect. The story is meaningful, the characters are full of personality, and the music is fantastic. The rhythm portion is a little too kid-gloves with its scoring, to the point where it might even hold you back in learning the rhythms, but the fun patterns and interesting items keep me coming back to my favorite songs.

Persona 4: Dancing All Night maintains the high pedigree the Persona series is known for while still being its own thing. Fans of both rhythm games and all things Persona will find a lot to love here - and who knows, maybe you'll learn a move or two too.

It’s hard to find anything to dislike about Persona 4: Dancing All Night. Its captivating storyline will likely have you hooked, and the unique gameplay makes it stand out from the crowd. If you’re a fan of the Persona series, it’s a no brainer that you need this in your collection. If you’ve never played a Persona game before but fancy a game with excellent graphics, great story and downright fun gameplay, then this is a great introduction to the franchise that is sure to equally intrigue and entertain.

Dancing All Night is a joy to play and a powerful nostalgia trip for Persona 4 fans, but it’s slim on content in a way that could limit universal appeal.

What a versatile bunch the Persona 4 gang are! Having already appeared in an RPG, a dungeon crawler, and a couple of fighting games, it's clear that they're willing to give anything a go. In their latest outing – Persona 4 Dancing All Night – they're probably furthest from their shadow bashing wheelhouse, but as luck would have it, busting a groove in this PlayStation Vita rhythm game is just as deadly to shadows as being smacked with a sword.

This fusion of visual novel of rhythm game isn’t exactly perfect, but speaking as someone who loves Persona (and Shoji Meguro’s work in particular), I really enjoyed my time with this one. It might be pure fan service, but sometimes maybe that’s enough.

What we have here is a game that gets its mechanics wonderfully right, but almost everything else around it wrong.

Electric Boondoggle

A mediocre rhythm action game that is not made any better by tacking on a silly and insubstantial Persona story mode.

There are touches of flawed execution in Persona 4: Dancing All Night, but they do little to upset what is otherwise a spectacular rhythm game. Genuine strokes of genius can be found in its modifiable gameplay and superb soundtrack, and they're compelling enough to keep the game from solely relying on its buckets of patented Persona charm.