Way too many frustrations to be a top-tier rhythm game.

- The scoring and ranking systems are busted. In no way an accurate read on how good you are and extremely easy to game (to the point where it's encouraged with the support options)
- The support/challenge options just confuse things. Locking content behind using them is dumb. Just let me be good at the actual game
- The UI during songs is so distracting it has to be on purpose. Either it's idiotic design or a cheap way to boost difficulty
- Scratching is terrible and its visual trigger does not mesh with the rest of the notes and makes your brain wig out. The game seemingly knows this as it gives you the option to auto-scratch but then that just feels weird in complicated charts
- Charts are pretty good overall but the note speed for each song is WILDLY different and the result is having to fiddle with the (two different) speed settings EVERY song to get a consistent experience. Absolutely baffling
- The note lanes terminate too far towards the outer edge of the screen, making playing on a big TV harder than it should be. I realize this was made for Vita but they should have tweaked it
- Can't really watch the dancing on anything besides easy mode because your eyes are on the notes (I know this could be said about any rhythm game but they make the background stuff most of the draw here, so)
- Many of the remixes are really dated stylistically
- Where's the dog

All that aside, the music from PERSONA 3 is obviously really good and if you're into these characters, the fan-service and seeing them rendered in this fidelity is worthwhile. It could be worse. It looks great at least.

Fun time-waster. Song selection is rather small, but the maps are fun to play. Song remixes are pretty good for the most part. Can't comment on the social links thing because I played the Japanese version.

Why did I get the Japanese version? Aside from that being the only physical Vita version, 30 bucks on the PSN store? That's overpriced, especially when with some songs they didn't bother even making any choreography, instead playing an FMV, one of which is just straight up The Answer's credits, unaltered. That's just friggin lazy.

Overall, it's pretty fun though. The PS4 version goes on sale with the Dancing Endless Night collection a lot, and it has a standalone physical release that isn't much in the US, so if ya wanna try it, it's cheap on PS4. As for Vita though, I'd just say get the Japanese version off Amazon and look up the cutscenes online. It's like 20 bucks sealed there, instead of the borderline ripoff that is 30.

This game is a lesser game than Persona 4 Dancing, not as many extras and the "story" is just basically s-links that are annoying to unlock, they also changed the tap note color to blue but scratches are still blue so it's annoying to play. However, the track list in this one is BY FAR my favorite. I'm very biased towards Persona 3, and especially its music, but the picks here are great. The Time remix is my favorite remix from any of these games. Just wish this didn't have the same dev cycle as P5D because it sure suffered from that. Also Shinji being DLC is weird, one song for him and it's not even fitting. Kotone just isn't here, despite there being 4 songs from P3P and two remixes of Way of Life.
Worst gameplay of the three games, but best track list of them at the same time.

I'm not completely keen on how beatmaps are presented in this game. There's three inputs on each half of the screen, and it kinda makes me feel cross-eyed at points. My rhythm is already being tested enough, please don't test my perihperal vision on top of that. This is also just a personal issue, but years of playing Project Diva has conditioned me to treat the face buttons and the dpad as one and the same, which is just not how P3D operates.

It wouldn't be a modern Atlus game if it wasn't overpriced and didn't have oodles of day-one DLC. One of these paid DLCs gives you access to Shinjiro. Without spoiling a major plot point of P3 (for all of the people reading this who haven't played P3, even though I don't know why you'd play this game before P3 proper), having to pay money for Shinji is just insulting. This game is also just Persona 5 Dancing, it and P3D are one and the same. They even share DLC, which scummy in its own way. Kindly keep your acid jazz separate from my hip-hop and funk, please. It kinda feels like a P3 dancing game was made out of obligation, because it would look kinda scummy if they made one for P4 and P5, but not P3. I guess I can appreciate the sentiment, even if this game's bright neon aesthetics clash hard with the moody image of P3 I have solidified in my mind.

This game kinda lacks Persona 3's "soul". The writing is more lighthearted overall, which makes sense for the situation they're in, but it also sometimes misses the character dynamics of P3 as a result. The way my man Junpei gets treated in this game is heartbreaking. It almost reminds me of a certain someone... Regardless, it's more time spent with my favorite Persona cast, now with fancy HD character models. It's also now a bit of a last hurrah for the original English VAs. I can't be too mad about that.

I'm still not completely convinced that this game isn't just an anomaly. Atlus gave so much attention and spinoffs to Persona 4/5 over the years, it was kinda surreal seeing them finally acknowledge Persona 3 with its own standalone spinoff. It's hard to recommend this to anyone due to how it doesn't excel at anything specific. The P3 fanservice is pretty weak, and the rhythm gameplay isn't the best. It's not the most original project, but hey, maybe it greenlit P3 Reload in the long run.

Finished just in time for Zelda. Overall a fun little rhythm game. I'll be 100% all of these again if they're ported to Xbox or Steam ever.

I still miss the dancing themed narrative from 4 dancing but the social links in this helped satiate what I wanted more out of in 3 Portable. Despite the "you'll forget everything from this dream" framing there wasn't any frustrating moments that are undercut by it. Just nice chats between characters and getting more interaction with them. Also Makoto gets to regularly be an asshole which is still really funny.

I wish there were more song options, it felt even shorter than 5 dancing which is a shame because I think the song selection here fits the Dancing theme the best out of the 3 spinoffs and the actual Dancing seen in this game is better than the other games too.

Hopefully I can find some time between tears of the kingdom and street fighter 6 to get through all the story in P4AU.

Só compre isso se você REALMENTE AMA o cast e a OST de Persona 3, se não, nem gaste seu dinheiro e tempo com esse jogo, só escuta essas duas músicas aí que coloquei em baixo e seja feliz (inclusive é uma sacanagem da Atlus não ter colocado a FeMC pra dançar essas músicas).


A Way of Life - Atlus Kitajoh Remix

Time - Atlus Kitajoh Remix

I don't play many music rhythm games at all. I do enjoy my time with the various minigames in the Yakuza series though, but not really as a full game until I played P3D.

The actual rhythm gameplay is quite good. Multiple difficulty levels and they get noticeably harder as you go up. I found Normal to be a pretty decent difficulty for my abilities. I can pass Hard and to some extent the All Night Difficulty tracks if I used support modifiers. Hard and above can get pretty crazy with how fast the beats are and the different patterns. The challenge modifiers are just insane and I have to applaud those that can clear tracks using these and end on a high rating.

The songs themselves have left me with mixed feelings. Most are remixes and many of them aren't as good as the original. Some are pretty different from the original song altogether. That said, I did enjoyed some of the remixes as well and actually prefer them to the original.

I do think the song list is lacking in quantity. DLC nearly doubles the list, but that's DLC.

There isn't any other notable gameplay modes other than the dancing part. There are social cutscenes with the characters which are pretty nice. They help further develop characters and often have other people appearing with them. The actual story and premise is basic. Other than the opening scene, there isn't much story until the end. The social cutscenes pretty much fill in the gap.

The graphics look great as well as the character models. Even though I think Reload looks good overall, I think the character models in P3D is even better. There is a ton of body movement with them though during the cutscene. It's nice to see a lot of activity in one hand, but it can pretty jarring another time when they make very exaggerated movements that's not really called for.

Overall, a great game for those that want more P3 and to see more character interactions. The gameplay is good, but I don't know if non-P3 fans will enjoy it as much.