YMMV / Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight

• Awesome Moments:
  • Sho will draw his swords on whoever his Fever Time partner is. Knowing him, he's genuinely trying to cut them, which the cast's frantic reactions to this confirms. While most just dodge and runoff, Makoto remains nonchalant throughout, and refuses to let Sho intimidate him. By the end, Makoto walks off casually and leaves Sho to stew in frustration.
  • Many fans were surprised to see Junpei be such a great dancer, along with having two great remixes for his dances. This video made by a professional dancer even states that he is among the best dancers of all the Persona characters due to his fast moves and the amount of control he has over them. For comparison the only other dancers with an equal amount of skill are Mitsuru, Haru, and Labrys with the former two confirming they had dance lessons in their youth.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Having a dance at the location where a major character dies? Awkward. Having the character who dies be the lead in those dances? Hilarious.
• Fandom Rivalry: A small one between fans of this work and fans of Persona 5 and its version. As both works were developed at the same time, a Vocal Minority accuses the other of sapping resources away from their preferred game. For example, fans of Dancing in Moonlight point out the repetitive stages of their own game, and fans of Dancing in Starlight point out their own game's lackluster remixes. Many fans, however, enjoy both.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The lyrics to "Moonlight Serendipity" - which feature the promise of everyone meeting again - hit a little harder knowing that this would be the final time that the original English language cast from Persona 3 would voice the characters as Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth wasn’t dubbed and Persona 3 Reload replaced the entire cast.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight:
  • The opening song "Our Moment" is about friends reuniting after a long time separated, which heavily foreshadows that Elizabeth will eventually succeed in freeing Makoto from his fate of being the Great Seal, something she's been tirelessly working on since the events of P3 according to Persona 4: Arena. Plus, its references to "Mass Destruction" and "Burn My Dread" will make anyone who has fond memories of the original game smile.
    Makoto: Everyone, I'm back.
  • Brand New Days can be interpreted as Makoto spending his final moments with his best friend or having one last dance with three of his possible love interests before his death, with Aigis especially since she was the one that accompanied him in the end so, this could be their final dance together before he passed.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • When Persona 3 FES was released, it was noted that the new version of "Mass Destruction" that plays during "The Answer" felt like the second half of the original; they are, in fact, combined into a single song here.
  • A stroll in Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth has Junpei wanting to participate in a crossdressing pageant after finding out from the one that was held at Yasogami High from Yosuke and Kanji. The boys are able to dress in drag in this game.
  • For people who noticed that how similar Yuzu Tanikawa and the main protagonist character of Devil Survivor look to Yukari and P3's main hero may get a laugh out of the fact that the two have costumes based on the aforementioned duo.
• It's Easy, So It Sucks!: Fans who played the demo songs were Tainted by the Preview and claimed that they were too easy on the highest difficulty, and without a Story Mode, the game wasn't worth playing.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Or a memetic resurgence in the case of Akihiko's "I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS!" from P3, a not uncommon response to either of the two trailers for Dancing in Moonlight.
  • The initial absence of Shinjiro, as well as the lack of Koromaru and several others among the game's lineup of playable characters led to many impassioned questions and battle cries from the fanbase, including "WHERE (THE FUCK) IS X?", "SHINJI OR WE RIOT!", and, in an extreme case of Black Comedy based on a pre-existing meme, "DID YOU SEE THAT SHINJI?!" This was lessened when Shinjiro was announced for DLC in the third Persona Series livestream about it and P5D, but still surprisingly prevalent for other characters.
  • "Yukari lost her voice!" - When Atlus first tweeted out the English character trailer, the video was missing Yukari's lines. Fans quickly jumped on this despite a corrected video being tweeted out shortly thereafter.
• Most Wonderful Sound: "KING CRAZY!" after completing a song near-flawlessly.
• Narm Charm: The boys' group dance is delightfully narmy due to the boy band dance being hilariously out of character for most of the boys. Combined with dance fighting and Visual Effects of Awesome, and it becomes one of the most memorable songs in the game.
• Nightmare Fuel: "Burn My Dread -Last Battle-" is this, being a psychedelic music video featuring clips from the opening and most disturbing cutscenes in the original game, particularly Ikutsuki attempting to sacrifice SEES to Nyx, and the final battle cutscenes against Nyx. Compared to the other games' more lighthearted cutscene-based music videos, it's a stark contrast, but fitting, considering the spinoff's home game.
• Padding:
  • Several songs on the base game’s track list aren’t given choreographed dance routines, but instead repurpose other assets - "Burn My Dread -Last Battle-" reuses cutscenes from the original Persona 3, "Laser Beam" uses concert footage, "Brand New Days" uses the end credits to The Answer, whilst "Our Moment" and "Moonlight Serendipity" are just the opening movie and closing credits to this game. Comparatively, the track list in the previous rhythm game limited this practice to Downloadable Content and a single song in the base game.
  • Half of the list of songs available as Downloadable Content is made up of songs relating to the other entries in the franchise.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • The costumes that drastically alter the shape of the characters, such as Junpei’s Snowman costume, will frequently be subject to clipping as the dances weren’t choreographed with those costumes in mind.
  • Mitsuru’s knee length skirt and Elizabeth's dress don’t flow like fabric should, but instead react as if the character model is fighting to maintain it’s shape whilst the physics engine is trying to make the dress react accordingly to the choreography.
  • Whilst wearing costumes where she isn’t disguised as human, Aigis will occasionally appear as if she’s floating above the floor as she dances.
  • The opening version of "Our Moment" and "Laser Beam" feature high-quality cinematics that severely lag the game and thus make the notes harder to hit.
• Tainted by the Preview:
  • Downplayed slightly regarding the playable cast. While there was much furor from the fanbase over the lack of the likes of Shinjiro, Koromaru, and the female protagonist from Portable when the full cast was revealed, many fans were also holding out hope that these characters and a few others (such as Elizabeth, Theo, and Ryoji) would be added in eventually, either late in development or as DLC. Elizabeth would be the final character included in the base game, whilst Shinjiro and Theodore would be included as DLC.
  • Dancing in Moonlight seemingly canonizing Makoto Yuki as the P3 Hero's name instead of Minato Arisato from the P3 manga appears to have merely reignited an age-old debate (though a segment of the fanbase assumed in advance that they'd use the movie name for consistency's sake considering Yu Narukami originated from Persona 4's anime adaptation and became the Canon Name over Souji Seta; and the same happening with Persona 5 's Ren Amamiya, who had been named Akira Kurusu in the manga). However, some of the debate instead seems focused on the lack of One-Steve Limit in regards to Makoto Niijima more than anything else, downplaying this slightly.
  • The fact that despite having comparatively less content (eg. the lack of story mode) than its predecessor, Dancing in Moonlight and Dancing in Starlight were sold separately as full-priced games. The fact that fan favorites such as Shinjiro, and additional content such as new costumes and songs would be sold as paid DLC did not sit well with fans.
• That One Level: While the songs are fairly easy for the most part, you'll never hear anyone say they love playing any of the ending themes for the original games (Brand New Days, and Downloadable Content songs Memories of You and Changing Me) due to their sheer length, (5:54, 6:09, and 6:01 respectively) and lack of interesting visuals, turning trying to get a King Crazy on any of them into hours of frustration.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Quite a few fans of the original JRPG were and still continue to be really irked that the Female Protagonist from Portable wasn't added as a dancer despite the game using a lot of the songs that are available on her route only.
• Unexpected Character: No-one expected that Joker, Makoto Niijima, Futaba Sakura, Goro Akechi, Lavenza, Caroline and Justine would appear in this game; Caroline and Justine are partners for Theodore, whilst Akechi and Lavenza are technically available as Downloadable Content as all of the DLC for this game and Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight was cross-compatible with both releases; Joker, Makoto and Futaba's appearances come as partners for Akechi.
• Unpopular Popular Character: Junpei's dancing is subject to ridicule by the rest of SEES in his Social events, with the best compliment anyone gives his dancing being "Well, at least he's enthusiastic" and generally dismissing his actual ability. However, this video made by a professional dancer states that he is among the best dancers of all the Persona characters due to his fast moves and the amount of control he has over them. For comparison the only other dancers with an equal amount of skill are Mitsuru, Haru, and Labrys with the former two confirming they had dance lessons in their youth.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: While the original Persona 3 looked good, Dancing in Moonlight shows just how amazing the characters could look if the tech on the PS4 was available for its development.
• Woolseyism: The title being changed from Dancing Moon Night to Dancing in Moonlight outside of Japan. Though the exact naming structure of its predecessor is lost, the general spirit is not. Additionally, Dancing in Moonlight retains the Theme Naming present with its Persona 5 counterpart while sounding more natural to an English speaker.