History YMMV / PersonaQShadowOfTheLabyrinth

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* BaseBreakingCharacter: Certain returning characters (Namely Akihiko, Chie, Junpei, Yukari, and Teddie) are quite the topic for fans to debate over. Some fans think they are hit with horrible {{Flanderization}}, while others argue that it makes sense since all of these quirks occurred before they had their CharacterDevelopment[[note]]Though some of their personalities are completely unlike what they were back in their original game, such as Elizabeth being a troll instead of innocent[[/note]], and the game takes place before [[WhamEpisode the events that have the greatest impact on the plot, as well as on them]].

** Being [[VideoGame/Persona4Arena another crossover]] between ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'' with no sign of the casts of ''VideoGame/{{Persona 1}}'' and the ''VideoGame/{{Persona 2}}'' duology, even though they have the perfect excuse. Though, this probably did not come as a surprise to anyone aware that [[RealLifeWritesThePlot the lead writer of Persona 1 and 2 has left Atlus several years ago, meaning that there is nobody with experience in writing these games' characters on the current Persona development team.]]
** Being the first ''Persona'' game to not see a release on a UsefulNotes/PlayStation console. Branching out into a favorable new direction, or abandoning the consoles that brought them success in the first place?

** As excited as shadow fans are to see Ryoji and Teddie interact [[spoiler: Ryoji is not yet born due to the team not having defeated the arcana shadows yet.]]

** This fanfiction https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8450583/1/Curiosity manages to accurately depict what happens in the 4th dungeon of the P4 path.
** At the beginning of the P4 route, Margaret tells the group that she'll charge them to use the nurse's office, and Kanji complains that she doesn't even have "the sense of your average housewife". Kanji and Margaret's voice actors, Creator/MatthewMercer and Creator/MarishaRay, are now engaged.
** The Investigation Team all strike [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure JoJo poses]] when being introduced on the Persona 3 side. The plot of ''Persona 4'' itself has at least enough similarities to [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureDiamondIsUnbreakable Part 4]] of the series, given that it is also about a murder mystery in a small Japanese town and a lot of characters fight alongside beings that are the manifestation of psychological strength, ie like a Persona.
** On a similar note to above, the P4 protagonist doing the pose of [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventurePhantomBlood Jonathan Joestar]] is humorously prophetic after Creator/JohnnyYongBosch became the voice of Jonathan in the anime.

** Rei is considered this in-universe.
* NeverLiveItDown: The {{Flanderization}} that the characters ended up receiving can be viewed as one with there even being fans speculating about how [[VideoGame/Persona5 The Phantom Thieves of Hearts]] will be flanderized in [[VideoGame/PersonaQ2NewCinemaLabyrinth the game's sequel]]. However, after its release, it's generally agreed upon that this fortunately was not the case, as many have praised the writing for [=Q2=] as being an improvement.

** Some fans wish that Creator/MaryElizabethMcGlynn had been brought back from ''[[Anime/Persona4TheAnimation The Animation]]'' to voice Naoto Shirogane if they needed a new English VA for her going forwards, instead of Creator/ValerieArem. While Arem's take has her fans, replicating what Anna Graves sounded like in the original game, some found her initial take as Naoto in ''Q'' was seen as a bit lacking.

* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids: The game has cute and colorful art-style, but it deals with extremely mature subject matter. Like the plot centered around the death of a teenage girl and purgatory, along with the imminent erasure of all the characters you love from Persona 3 and 4 implied if you fail.

** During an event in the 4th labyrinth where the cast [[AlternateCharacterReading misread the kanji in eachother's names]], the P4 protagonist comes up with a kanji reading for Kuma, since his name is normally written in Katakana. In Japanese it's "scary demon", while the English version uses the kanji for "hand" and "dirt/filth" to get "Te-dei". "Dirty hands" arguably fits Teddie's character ''far better'' than the Japanese joke did.

** On a similar note to above, the P4 protagonist doing the pose of [[Manga/PhantomBlood Jonathan Joestar]] is humorously prophetic after Creator/JohnnyYongBosch became the voice of Jonathan in the anime.

* WTHCastingAgency:
** In this game, Theodore gets Other Darrin'd. In ''Persona 3 Portable,'' he was voiced by Creator/TravisWillingham, who is known for his BaritoneOfStrength voice. Here, he's voiced by Creator/BrycePapenbrook, who is so soft-spoken by comparison, many of the characters he voiced were subjected to CrossDressingVoices in other dubs.
** Some fans wish that Creator/MaryElizabethMcGlynn had been brought back from ''[[Anime/Persona4TheAnimation The Animation]]'' to voice Naoto Shirogane if they needed a new English VA for her going forwards, instead of Creator/ValerieArem who's Naoto is generally just seen as passable at best.

* ItsTheSameNowItSucks: The story is often lambasted because it at times seems like a retelling of ''Persona 4 Arena'': The casts of ''Persona 3'' and ''Persona 4'' explore a nightmarish version of Yasogami High, which turns out to [[spoiler: be accidentally caused by the girl in a Yasogami High uniform who joined the party and, wanting to be normal, forgets her past. Her Shadow is the DiscOneFinalBoss before the true culprit is revealed]].

** The later floors of the dungeons also have large shadows that, while faced alone, are tough and can act twice a turn. These shadows can also appear as P-Spot ambushes in the lowest floors of the dungeons. [[PaletteSwap Golden versions]] of these act as the {{Bonus Boss}}es of their respective dungeons.

* WTHCastingAgency: In this game, Theodore gets Other Darrin'd. In ''Persona 3 Portable,'' he was voiced by Creator/TravisWillingham, who is known for his BadassBaritone voice. Here, he's voiced by Creator/BrycePapenbrook, who is so soft-spoken by comparison, many of the characters he voiced were subjected to CrossDressingVoices in other dubs.

** Ken and Naoto. In their original games, both had OneHitKO skills as specialties, while their other aspects lagged behind, making them their respective game's TierInducedScrappy. However, because Hama and Mudo hit rates have been increased to GameBreaker status, they become MUCH more useful. Naoto is elevated to GameBreaker status with this and her other aspects (see above) and Ken is now a FragileSpeedster rather than a MasterOfNone, who also makes as a decent support character with his luck; from a character standpoint, the latter has good interactions with other characters (mainly Kanji, a major EnsembleDarkhorse), and unlike the original game, he shows that he is willing to reconsider revenge.

* TheScrappy: Teddie has been less liked in this game, mainly due to him acting even more full of himself and desperate for female attention than in other recent portrayals and being a TierInducedScrappy. The former may have to do with this game being set Mid-October for the Persona 4 gang, which was when Teddie was at his peak of being drunk on the material pleasures of the human world, just before his inevitable [[HeroicBSOD mental breakdown]] upon witnessing [[spoiler: Nanako's apparent death,]] but that doesn't help newcomers to the character or those who had tried to eliminate Teddie's most bratty phase from their memories in first place. And while he's also a LethalJokeCharacter with the strategy stated on the main page, a somewhat comparable result can be reached with a well-leveled Ken, who also comes with a better speed stat.

* TierInducedScrappy:
** Due to SP being difficult to heal, magic-heavy Persona users will be mostly phased out in favor of physical specialists further into the game. The only magic that remains practicality are the instant-kill Dark and Light spells and status effects. As both are affected by Luck, magic-heavy Persona users with a high Luck score, like Ken, Naoto, and P3 MC, can retain their usability with a Sub-Persona that can cast either Light or Dark Magic or status effects. Although Yukari has multiple healing skills, her low Agility makes her a poor healer. Her Luck is also among the lowest in the party, which makes it difficult to salvage her other stats; Mitsuru is affected similarly, though despite having good Luck and a phenomenal skill in Tentarafoo, she has the misfortune of being somewhat slow, and having a borderline-useless unique move (Punishment, which relies on her low physical power, and requires binds that the move ''removes.'').
** Due to movesets now largely being based on Sub-Personas, Teddie was stripped of the majority of his healing spells and all his buffs, which leaves him with ''horrible'' Defense and Speed and seemingly nothing to make up for it, causing a lot of players to ignore him when putting together their party. Some players, however, realize that the fact that his low Speed and high luck can exploit the Sleep Status effect. He will almost always move last, which will mean that enemies will almost always be asleep by the start of the next turn (due to his high luck). This will give teammates the opportunity to set up devastating strategies.
** Unlike the party's other {{Fragile Speedster}}s, Yosuke doesn't have much going for him aside from speed. He lacks Ken and Koromaru's OneHitKill specialty, his Magic is decent but not the best, and his strength is somewhat low. Like Teddie, he's lost his more varied skills from his home game, including his healing and buffs, and only gained Wind-element physical attacks, which he isn't great with due to his mediocre Strength. The worst part is his extremely low Luck, which seriously hampers his ability to act as fast status or Hama/Mudo support with Sub-Personas. That said, he can be salvaged with the stat swap accessory. By swapping his dismal Luck with Magic (a stat he doesn't need to use) Yosuke turns into one of the most devastating Status Effect users in the game. He even naturally learns Tentarafoo, a very strong skill that is made all the more potent with the skill swap accessory. It's also worth noting that his Speed makes him one of the best Teardrop users in the game.
** The P3 Hero is this compared to the P4 Hero, since Orpheus is weak against Electricity and Dark skills, and has no resistances to compensate for that. Even Messiah, despite being immune to Light and resisting all other elements, retains this weakness. Having a greater chance of being hit by one of the two OneHitKill elements makes the P3 Hero a liability on [[HarderThanHard Risky]], [[WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou since his death will result in a Game Over]].

* FunnyAneurysmMoment: After you learn the truth behind it, it's ''very'' hard to find Rei's eating habits funny on a subsequent playthrough.

* HarsherInHindsight: On account of this game's events being DoomedByCanon, given that its events are never referenced in either game, this leads to a lot of moments that are not too easy to take in, most particularly from the Persona 3 side.

* SignatureScene:
** The Queen of Hearts boss fight, during which the [[spoiler:P3 and P4 cast meet for the first time]].
** Ken and Yosuke's interaction during the Group Date Cafe labyrinth, as it is [[spoiler: one of the few instances where a P3 and P4 character bond over the hardships they both faced (in this case, the loss of a loved one)]].
** The wedding scene at the end of the second labyrinth.
** [[spoiler:The P3 and P4 cast realizing they are from different timelines]].
** [[spoiler:Rei's past told by Zen]], shown after the fourth labyrinth is completed and [[spoiler:Rei is kidnapped by the Shadows]]; the scene itself is emotionally intense, thanks in part to the amazing voice-acting and the heartbreaking context behind it all.

* GameBreaker: It is very easy to break the game through various means.
** The Boost system. If a character hits a Crit or a weakness, the next turn, their skills have no HP or SP cost, just as long as they avoid getting hit. If a character has a good critical hit rate and/or an attack that can take advantage of an enemy's weakness, as well as enough evasion or player luck to keep the boost, it's possible to keep using powerful and expensive moves round after round. This, in addition to MagicIsRareHealthIsCheap, is the reason why physical attackers end up being more useful than mages.
** [[OneHitKill Hama and Mudo]] skills are very effective in this game, and as such, Ken, Koromaru, and Naoto are at least a little bit more useful than they were in their actual games. Many enemies are weak to at least one of the two, meaning a higher hit rate and activating Boost, freeing you of any HP or SP cost the next turn. Naoto in particular is especially great with this with her high speed, decent attack power, having both Hama and Mudo while not being weak to either one like the other two. And with the Boost system, she can also cast her powerful Almighty skills without much worry.
** Status effects and Binds are the best ways of debilitating enemies, especially given that a lot of if not every boss is actually susceptible to them. Poison's damage over time can be very powerful. Panic renders an enemy unable to use skills or evade, allowing multi-hit attacks (that normally just have a low accuracy drawback) to completely demolish them when combined with the right buffs. Strength Bind cripples physical attacks, Magic Bind prevents spells, and Agility Bind cuts the enemy's speed and evasion down. Impure Reach and Binding Hands further increase the chance of inflicting status or Binds, and the skill Stagnant Air increases the amount of turns that an enemy is affected by status or Binds. Bossing just comes down to whatever status or Bind you can inflict on them first before buffing up and going to town on them.
** Healing Harp, the exclusive skill to Orpheus Telos. While [[BribingYourWayToVictory Orpheus Telos is a DLC Persona]], that skill alone is worth using at any point in the game. It fully heals the party and removes all status effects and binds at the end of each turn for three turns. You cast it once and forget about it, and then your team will always be in great spirits at the end of each turn.
** The Sub-Persona system. The protagonists are not the only ones who can have multiple Personas now, as anyone can equip a sub-Persona to give them extra skills to use, to augment their HP and SP, and can be tooled to play to the character's strengths. Combine that with the Skill Card system, which allows a player to get almost every skill as a Skill Card and teach it to the characters' main Personas, and the player can have a pretty versatile cast of characters to use.
*** Of the Sub-Personas, Yoshitsune appears in this game and is incredibly strong. The only attack skill he learns is the 8-hit Hassou Tobi, and every other skill he picks up is a passive to make it even stronger. Since nothing in the game has immunity to damaging elements, a physically-oriented party member (like Aigis, who can buff it even further as detailed below) armed with Yoshitsune can tear through enemies on his own. And because Hassou Tobi delivers so many hits, this increases the odds of at least one of them being a critical hit, triggering the Boost status.
** Aigis's Orgia Mode. It is a temporary power boost, but Aigis goes into a cooldown period after a while. Combine that with Shura Tensei, which is an even further power boost (but at the cost of HP each turn), Healing Harp (offsetting the HP cost), and any other buff, and the player has an unstoppable boss killer.
** Link skills. Combine Golden Link, Infinite Link, use a Link that hits the enemy's weakness, and have two other characters in the row activate Death Chaser and watch the sparks fly. Your linking character will hit the enemy with a Link, and thanks to Death Chaser, another character will follow up with an attack, which will lead to your linking character hitting the enemy with a Link again at heightened damage, and it just continues from there. Dragon Cry also works well with this, ensuring that the user goes first and also gets a great attack boost. Junpei can put this combination to great effect thanks to his Golden Gemini skill, plus the Heroic Gemini skill, which has a chance of attacks working twice. Meaning if a boss wasn't already dead from the first Linking process, then it starts up again.

* BaseBreakingCharacter:
** Certain returning characters (Namely Akihiko, Chie, Junpei, Yukari, and Teddie) are quite the topic for fans to debate over. Some fans think they are hit with horrible {{Flanderization}}, while others argue that it makes sense since all of these quirks occurred before they had their CharacterDevelopment[[note]]Though some of their personalities are completely unlike what they were back in their original game, such as Elizabeth being a troll instead of innocent[[/note]], and the game takes place before [[WhamEpisode the events that have the greatest impact on the plot, as well as on them]].
** Rei. While she is praised for her story, her constantly rambling about food gets gratingly annoying for many players. [[spoiler: That is, until they learn the reason behind why she eats so much.]]

* TheWoobie: Rei. [[spoiler: She was a sickly child when she was alive. As a result, she was almost always bedridden with constant treatments and never got to enjoy such things like going to school or even the outdoors. To twist the knife even further, he mother pretty much disowned her when Rei got sick, and while in the hospital, Rei made friends with another patient, who got to leave and enjoy her life, making Rei even more envious of that which she couldn't have. Even after her death, she can't catch a break, as she becomes a plaything for some extradimensional entities and isn't able to pass on for at least a decade.]]

** The boss of the third Labyrinth, Kind Doctor, has some powerful spread attacks and two nurses, who constantly heal him and give him stat boosts. But they're also weak to [[StandardStatusEffects status effects]] such as paralysis and sleep, making it possible to finish the fight without ever being attacked. The nurses don't even have that much HP, and if you defeat them the main boss has no gimmicks to make the fight more interesting, other than just attacking till you win.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic:
** The title theme, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsZD5CC8wn4 "Maze of Life"]].
** The game's rockin' battle theme, "Light The Fire Up In The Night". Has both [[https://youtu.be/zcR9bXY3s8Q P3]] and [[https://youtu.be/jGGLsdSW9JI P4]] variants, so take your pick.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1wxayUearY The Inaba Pride Exibit]] has a pretty awesome theme.
** [[https://youtu.be/Ybtl7Ik5CBk "Laser Beam"]] the boss battle theme, is a fast-paced, intense piece that will get you pumped to face off against the labyrinth guardians.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk2c5IrHRxI The F.O.E Battle Theme]] gets you pumped up whether you're actually fighting them or just running the hell away. It's also used for Elizabeth's BonusBoss battles.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGQrZy6lgEM "The Person Is Then Called Away From War"]] is used for the final bonus battle against [[spoiler: Zeus!]]Elizabeth, which is only available by completing all of the extra requests on a New Game Plus. It has a very Etrian Odyssey feel, which is helped by the fact that the very composer of said game created this piece.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PrsRmoqg9s "Friends"]]. It fits quite well with its accompanying boss. Don't let the title fool you, it's hard rock that [[PlayerPunch punches you right in the heart]].
** And for the grand finale, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Crh5toMP_dY The Infinite]] is best fitting for the FinalBoss. That guitar and piano, man...
** Don't forget [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geyT30wHHno "Changing Me"]], the ending theme for the game.

** It also takes maybe a bit too much from [[VideoGame/{{Persona}} Persona 1]] in regards to [[spoiler:Rei. To the point that she almost comes off as a carbon-copy of Maki]].

** Being [[VideoGame/Persona4Arena another crossover]] between ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'' with no sign of the casts of ''VideoGame/{{Persona}} 1'' and the ''VideoGame/{{Persona 2}}'' duology, even though they have the perfect excuse. Though, this probably did not come as a surprise to anyone aware that [[RealLifeWritesThePlot the lead writer of Persona 1 and 2 has left Atlus several years ago, meaning that there is nobody with experience in writing these games' characters on the current Persona development team.]]

* TierInducedScrappy: Due to SP being difficult to heal, magic-heavy Persona users will be mostly phased out in favor of physical specialists further into the game. The only magic that remains practicality are the instant-kill Dark and Light spells and status effects. As both are affected by Luck, magic-heavy Persona users with a high Luck score, like Ken, Naoto, and P3 MC, can retain their usability with a Sub-Persona that can cast either Light or Dark Magic or status effects. Although Yukari has multiple healing skills, her low Agility makes her a poor healer. Her Luck is also among the lowest in the party, which makes it difficult to salvage her other stats; Mitsuru is affected similarly, though despite having good Luck and a phenomenal skill in Tentarafoo, she has the misfortune of being somewhat slow, and having a borderline-useless unique move (Punishment, which relies on her low physical power, and requires binds that the move ''removes.'').

* EarWorm: The battle music "Light up the Fire in the Night", both the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJM_DPqV50c Persona 3 version]] and the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKgyGADjqDc Persona 4 version]].

** On a similar note to above, the P4 protagonist doing the pose of [[Manga/PhantomBlood Jonathon Joestar]] is humorously prophetic after Creator/JohnnyYongBosch became the voice of Jonathon in the anime.

** On a similar note to above, the P4 protagonist doing the pose of [[Manga/PhantomBlood Jonathon Joestar]] is humorously prophetic after Creator/JohnnyYongBosch became his voice actor in the anime.

* HilariousInHindsight: [=Strain42=], the author of ''Webcomic/Persona3FTW'' and ''Webcomic/{{Persona 4TW}}'', stated in the description of [[http://theduckwebcomics.com/Persona_4TW/5432033/ this comic]] that it'd be the closest we get to the protagonists of ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'' speaking with each other. This comic was, of course, before this game was announced.

** The Investigation Team all strike [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure JoJo poses]] when being introduced on the Persona 3 side. The plot of Persona 4 itself has at least enough similarities to [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureDiamondIsUnbreakable Part 4]] of the series, given that it is also about a murder mystery in a small Japanese town and a lot of characters fight alongside beings that are the manifestation of psychological strength, ie like a Persona.

** The ''Persona 3'' cast not having the option of the Female Protagonist from ''Persona 3 Portable''. She's managed to become as popular as the male protagonist, and having a female Leader would have been a nice contrast to the ''Persona 4'' hero. On the other hand, some fans don't mind as she's confirmed to not be canon.

* EnjoyTheStorySkipTheGame: While the story was highly praised, the gameplay was less so, from the way the battle system was set up to the single step, tile-based movement in the labyrinths (which inevitably turns it into a boring slog).

* NeverLiveItDown: The {{Flanderization}} that the characters ended up receiving can be viewed as one with there even being fans speculating about how [[VideoGame/Persona5 The Phantom Thieves of Hearts]] will be flanderized in [[VideoGame/PersonaQ2NewCinemaLabyrinth the game's sequel]].

* OneSceneWonder: The Merciful Clergyman only appears in one scene in the entire game, but during that one scene, he managed to become an EnsembleDarkhorse. Many fans hope that he along with his wedding gimmick makes a return to ''VideoGame/PersonaQ2NewCinemaLabyrinth''.

* InternetBackdraft: Personas being DLC, but ''especially'' Thanatos, who is P3 MC's signature Persona outside of Orpheus.