While the Phantom Thieves of Hearts from Persona 5 are traveling to Mementos in the Morgana Bus, the Morgana Bus suddenly loses control and is pulled through a strange portal into an unfamiliar area and are soon surrounded by new enemies. Once the Thieves successfully escape from them, they find themselves in a movie theater where they are approached by a woman dressed in white and a young girl dressed in black. And so, the story to free themselves from the movie theater by playing through various movie-related zones unfurls. As they progress through the labyrinth of movies, they encounter other Persona-users, including the casts of Persona 3 & 4, as well as some new characters and antagonists.
Gameplay
Persona Q2 seems to play out as a linear story-line, interspersed with monster and boss battles. From the above gameplay sample, gameplay seems to be turn-based, with players being able to toggles between characters and abilities in order to implement combination attacks to specific parts of the antagonist’s body. Once the characters have launched an attack, the antagonist will then attack the protagonists, and so it will continue until there is a victor. Some character abilities boost or heal other characters, while other abilities inflict damage on the opponent.
Additionally, there are five difficulty levels, namely, Safety, Easy, Normal, Hard and Risky. As with the other Persona titles, the main protagonist remains silent and provides the player with a few responses to choose from at times, in order to imprint the player’s own personality onto the character.
Characters
Each character can transform into one or two different Personas, which are projections of aspects of themselves. These personas each come with their own unique, upgradable abilities. These abilities tend to be element based. However, each of these abilities also have varying weaknesses and resistances to other elemental powers. For instance, Ann’s ‘Carmen’ Persona is fire-based with a weakness to ice-based attacks, and a resistance to fire-based attacks, while Ryuji’s ‘Seiten Taisei’ Persona is electricity-based, with a weakness to wind-based attacks and a resistance to fire-based attacks.
Based on the artwork and trailers, the main playable characters mainly seem to feature the Persona 5 cast:
- The Persona 5 Protagonist – The leader of the Phantom Thieves.
- Yu Narukami – Generally patient and considerate towards others.
- The Persona 3 Protagonist – He tends to be calm, silent and introverted and only speaks in response to someone else.
- The Persona 3 Portable Female Protagonist – cheerful, friendly and dependable.
- Morgana – a talking cat that is second-in-command in the Phantom Thieves.
- Yusuke Kitagawa – He is a strong-willed, passionate, artist and art enthusiast, and skilled swordsman.
- Ryuji Sakamoto – A short-tempered, empathetic and idealistic delinquent.
- Ann Takamaki – a kind, gentle person who is a good judge of character.
- Haru Okumura – She is the reserved, refined daughter of a affluent CEO, who has a strong desire for independence.
- Futaba Sakura – foster-daughter of Sojiro Sakura and acts as a hacker for the Phantom Thieves.
- Makoto Niijima – She is the student council president and an accomplished marital artist.
- Goro Akechi – nicknamed the ‘Next Detective Prince’ due to his deduction skills.
A full character trailer is available here.
Editions
- Regular – The game and four Persona Q2 buttons.
- Showtime Premium Edition – the game with an outer box cover, four buttons, a set of Persona Q2-themes playing cards, a 5” Kotomaru plush toy and a Q2 art book.
