Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight Review (PS4)

Let's cut straight to the point: playing Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight has made us desperate for some kind of enhanced re-release of Persona 3 on PlayStation 4. The game's moody tone is brilliantly recreated in this dance-'em-up spin-off, and we'd absolutely love to revisit its blue-hued world in glorious high definition. Please don't make us beg, Atlus.

But enough of that, we're here to talk about Dancing in Moonlight. This is a rhythm title that takes the characters and music of Persona 3, resulting in an unsurprisingly stylish and effortlessly cool experience. With just six face buttons to press or hold, wrapping your head around the Persona Dancing basics is easy enough, but pump the difficulty up and things get very hard very quickly.

The game's steep difficulty curve forces you to practice, to the point where clearing stages on harder settings requires as much pure muscle memory as it does timing. Dancing in Moonlight can be brutal, but the 'easy' difficulty option makes for the perfect place to start, and you can stick to it for as long as you like.

As was the case with Persona 4: Dancing All Night, it kind of feels like the title's missing a difficulty setting between easy and normal -- the jump in difficulty between the two can be jarring if you're new to the series. It's our only real criticism of the Persona Dancing games, although you can tip the balance by applying both support and challenge modifiers to tweak the experience to your liking.

In order to unlock these modifiers, you need to spend some time with your party members. You see, instead of having a full-on story mode, Dancing in Moonlight opts for fully voiced social events (in both English and Japanese) that you gradually unlock as you play, and you can view them at any time. These bite-size scenarios fit the structure of the game a lot better than a long-winded story mode, allowing you to take a break from boogieing to check in on your buddies.

The events even give further insight into each character's personality, which is a nice touch. You can learn a little more about Mitsuru's day-to-day life, or Akihiko's hobbies. None of it is vital information, but it all neatly ties into Persona 3.

Chin-wagging with your mates also nets you a whole load of customisation items, which you can equip in between songs. Fans will no doubt appreciate many of the nods towards Persona titles both new and old, and there's undeniable fun to be had in dressing up your favourite characters in ridiculous costumes.

The real star of the show, however, is the soundtrack. As you'd expect, the overall music quality is superb, and there's a great range of tunes to play through. It's fantastic hearing some of Persona 3's best tracks remixed, and indeed, remastered, and the game ends up being a powerful reminder of how incredible Persona 3's music was all the way back in 2006. It's impressive to think that Atlus has now been pushing killer beats for over a decade.

And it's the brilliance of these tracks that keep you coming back. Dancing in Moonlight is horribly addictive -- especially when you're chasing a specific high score -- and finally nailing every note in a song is unbelievably rewarding. The mixture of relief and satisfaction that washes over you when a track has been perfected is almost unparalleled on PS4.