The Persona franchise has been around for quite some time and with any super popular series, you know what follows. A boat load of spin offs. Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth was one spin off of the Persona series featuring heroes/heroines from both Persona 3 and 4 in an Etrian Odyssey style game. Despite the two rather different takes on JRPG mechanics, Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth was met with extreme praise and now we’ve come to a sequel. Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth features the Phantom Thieves from Persona 5—the latest of the series—in a new adventure with old faces returning. Is Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth worth your time? Our review below has your answer and it’s a review you do not want to miss…seeing as how this could be the final Nintendo 3DS title ever!

Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth is a fusion of two popular franchises the Etrian Odyssey titles and Persona series. Guide the Phantom Thieves from Persona 5 in a first-person dungeon romp to help them escape a rather bizarre new landscape. Along the way, you’ll need to fight against shadows and various other baddies and possibly meet some new faces who will help you escape. Craft your map as you go to help explore the labyrinths easier and choose your team wisely to beat down enemies in grand Phantom Thieves’ style!

The Phantom Thieves have finally found their full team as Goro Akechi joins them. On a trip to show Akechi the mementos and how they operate, the thieves find themselves thrown into a strange world similar to their own. Within the confines of a theater, various movies are playing that can be entered giving the team their powers but also leading them towards dangerous new foes. If they wish to escape this strange place, the Phantom Thieves will need all of their strength to close the curtains on these strange movies playing. Yet, with their powers altered and strange friends/enemies in the horizon will the Phantom Thieves prevail?

Released back in 2014, Etrian Odyssey fans as well as Persona fans got a surprise when Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth was released. Fusing the map creation/exploration of Etrian Odyssey with the combat and gameplay of Persona 3 and 4, Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth was considered a hit among fans of both franchises. That’s why it was inevitable that after the latest Persona game—Persona 5—developer Atlus would pump out a new Persona Q game. Titled Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth, this newest collaboration title of both the Persona and Etrian franchise would also possibly be the final Nintendo 3DS game to ever be released! That’s why we had to see if Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth was up to the task of not only being a strong sequel but a proper send off for easily one of the best handheld units ever designed. Let us find out together in our full review of Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth for the Nintendo 3DS!

Assuming you never played Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, we’ll quickly explain what to expect when popping in Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth. The main idea of Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth is to have players assume the role of Persona 5’s Phantom Thieves in a new adventure as they try to escape a strange world caught within a movie theater. Like Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, players will need to explore various dungeons while mapping out their journey via the 3DS’ second screen. Akin to both the Etrian and Persona series, Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth features a mixture of first person/third person turn based combat where a team of five—three in front and two in the back—fight against various threats. While the original succeeded in blending two well known JRPG genres together, Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth clearly wishes to show Atlus learned from fans and wanted to make this new outing even better.

While the core gameplay of Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth doesn’t change dramatically from the original, it does improve in several key areas. The first is easily the labyrinths themselves. The original Persona Q title had some amazing looking labyrinths but they felt copied and pasted after a while lacking creative ways to map out areas and solve puzzles. In Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth, the labyrinths are extremely detailed and now have new puzzles to overcome linked with that particular labyrinth’s design. F.O.Es make a return as well being extremely powerful field enemies that players will need to avoid in order to survive and not receive an untimely game over. You’ll find that making maps like in Etrian Odyssey also comes back in full force, but for those who like a little less micromanaging, you can always turn on auto map to fill in the maps.

Battles themselves have also been revamped while adhering to the original’s design. Players still take control of the Persona fighters but unlike the mainstays of the series, battles are more of a hybrid to Etrian Odyssey games. You have your front attackers and back defense and must rely on their skills accordingly. The front units take more damage but equally deal out more as well while the backers can be used for both support and damage to your discretion. You’ll need to really choose your teams wisely as just like Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, your main hero doesn’t have his wild card ability but an altered ability instead that is given to the entire team. Players will still be able to use other Persona but only as a secondary unit that adds various attacks and skills based on the Persona equipped to the character. Plus, you’ll need to think of your sub persona carefully as using weaker ones in comparison to your current character’s level actually acts as a hindrance. Fuse persona together and make new ones to truly keep alive in tougher labyrinths.

One of the biggest changes from the original Persona Q to this second outing is the story focus. Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth might feature the entire cast of Persona 3, 4 and 5 but the Phantom Thieves from Persona 5 take the spotlight. You won’t choose between two different stories but instead will enjoy a more linear but exciting narrative. This might seem sigh inducing, but it works to give Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth a strong narrative that we truly loved.

Visually and sound wise, Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth knocks it out of the park. As per usual, the music is on level with other Persona games mixing in great tunes that capture the style of Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth. The voice acting also follows in tune but with a lack of English dub this time around, we did feel a sting of pain. Thankfully, seeing our cast of Persona users in chibi form made up for the lack of English audio and it wasn’t a hard thing to switch our minds to hear the Persona crew speaking in their original tone. Lastly, the visuals look awesome with each of the several labyrinths having a truly wonderful design aesthetic and theme. Seeing everyone back in chibi form also made us smile from grin to grin.

If this is the final Nintendo 3DS game to truly release, then we should be glad it ended on such an incredibly high note. Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth adds upon the original while removing a lot of the lesser loved elements. We truly enjoyed the new challenges of fighting against bosses/enemies thanks to the slightly reworked battle system and equally loved the dungeon layouts in comparison to Persona Q. While the lack of an English dub hurt a bit—especially since many of us played all available dubbed Persona games with English voices on—the Japanese audio is incredible and didn’t take that long to synch our minds with the original vocal cast. Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth is the perfect send off for the 3DS and fans of the Persona/Etrian Odyssey games will love Atlus’ latest creation. Let Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth be the final game you absolutely must nab for the 3DS and do it soon!

Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth was easily one of our favorite spin-off Persona based games. Atlus clearly paid attention to fans who loved the original and made sure to implement various fixes with their latest outing. The Nintendo 3DS life might be coming to a close with the release of Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth but we can all say proudly that it ends its run with an awesome sequel. Are you playing or plan on playing Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth? Let us know via the comments below! For all your game reviews, anime articles and various other bits of news be sure to keep stuck to our hive here at Honey’s Anime!