Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth

Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth is a role-playing video game developed by Atlus for the Nintendo 3DS. It is part of the Persona series, itself part of the larger Megami Tensei franchise. It was published across all territories in 2014: released in June in Japan, November in North America and Europe, and December in Australia. Atlus published the game in Japan and North America, while NIS America published it in the PAL region.

The story of Persona Q is a crossover between Persona 3 and Persona 4, whose characters are drawn from their respective periods by an unknown force and sent into a replica of Persona 4's Yasogami High School in another world. Meeting with Zen and Rei, two people whose memories were taken, the groups must unite and explore four labyrinths in the school to recover treasures hidden within. These treasures can restore Zen and Rei's memories which might help them find a way to escape. The gameplay fuses elements of the Persona and Etrian Odyssey series, and focuses on first-person dungeon crawling through labyrinths and combat using the characters' "Persona" abilities against hostiles known as Shadows.

Development on the game began after Atlus's success with collaborating with an external developer on the 2012 fighting game Persona 4 Arena. It was based on the wish to create a collaborative spin-off with the Etrian Odyssey development team and fan demands for a Persona game on the 3DS. The Persona Q development team was made up of staff from both Etrian Odyssey IV and the main Persona series. Series character designer Shigenori Soejima created the cast's new deformed "chibi" appearances, while the music was composed by Atsushi Kitajoh and Toshiki Konishi with supervision by series composer Shoji Meguro. First announced in 2013 alongside the console port of Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, Persona 4: Dancing All Night and Persona 5, it was the first Persona game to be developed for a Nintendo platform. It released to strong sales and positive reviews from critics, praising the game's comedic writing, presentation, music, and blend between Persona and Etrian Odyssey's gameplay styles. A sequel, Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth, was released for the 3DS in Japan in November 2018 and worldwide in June 2019.

Persona Q is a crossover video game, containing characters from Persona 3 (P3) and Persona 4 (P4). It focuses on dungeon crawling in a style similar to the Etrian Odyssey series, also created by developer P-Studio. Gameplay follows a group of characters as they navigate mazes, with turn-based battles forming on certain areas. The player picks characters from both Persona 3 and Persona 4 to include in their parties, which affects some dialogue and story events. The game comprises two main areas; a high school and labyrinths. At the high school, the player can heal their party, sell materials dropped by enemies in exchange for new equipment, and fuse "Personas" together. Personas are mythical beasts used for battling, and fusing turns them into more powerful versions.

In labyrinths, the player's party explores in first person through large, maze-like areas with flights of stairs connecting them, while fighting enemies and finding treasures. As the player moves within the labyrinths, the game displays the percentage of tiles the player has stepped on. Once this reaches 100 percent, a treasure chest appears on that floor. The player also creates the in-game map manually, drawing in the location of walls and adding icons representing landmarks, to make return trips easier. If a player does not want to map out the dungeons themselves, they can switch to an auto-mapping mode. The game features two types of enemies: Shadows, which appear randomly, and FOEs, more challenging enemies that move about on the field as the player moves. FOEs require the player to move in specific ways in order to avoid, as they are often much stronger than the player's party.

When an enemy is encountered, the player battles against them using their Personas, which can attack enemies and heal allies. In addition to their main Personas, characters can also be equipped with sub-personas. By using skills that the enemies are weak against or scoring a critical hit, the characters enter a status known as "boost", which eliminates health and magic costs temporarily. Boosting multiple characters increases the likelihood of performing more powerful attacks, or attacks combining multiple characters.

The game's story is split into two separate campaigns for each of the Persona 3 and 4 teams, starting partway through the events of the previous games. Dialogue and events vary depending on the player's choice of protagonist. At Yasogami High School in Inaba, during the culture festival, a strange bell rings, trapping the main characters from Persona 4, known as the investigation team, inside a bizarre alternate version of the school. Meanwhile, the members of the main characters from Persona 3, known as SEES, are on a mission into the mysterious Tartarus fortress when they are transported to the Velvet Room elevator, which suddenly winds up at the alternate Yasogami as well. Upon arrival in the alternate dimension, the Velvet Room is warped into a strange and unstable configuration, with two doors that lead to different periods. The two groups discover a labyrinth below the school, where amnesiac students Zen and Rei need help restoring their memories of how they became trapped in the school. Along the way, SEES and the Investigation Team realize that they come from two different periods.

The students team up to find a way to escape, fighting "shadows" along the way, and eventually explore all four labyrinths, successfully unlocking the doors in the Velvet Room and restoring Zen's memories. He reveals that his true identity is the human avatar of Chronos, a manifestation of death, and Rei is a girl named Niko who died of illness twelve years prior. When Chronos came to escort her to the afterlife, he was intrigued by her descent into despair and nihilism as a result of having lived a meaningless life. Chronos created the alternate Yasogami High, split himself into Zen and a powerful being known as the Clockwork God, and sealed both of their memories in an attempt to bring Rei happiness. The Clockwork God is the one responsible for trapping SEES and the Investigation Team in the alternate Yasogami, hoping for them to traverse the labyrinths and recover Zen's memories so they can merge and become Chronos once again: this would result in the teams being erased from the time when their tasks were completed. The Clockwork God abducts Rei and transports her to the top of a clock tower outside the school. SEES and the Investigation Team decide to help Zen rescue Rei, and they ascend the tower and defeat the Clockwork God. After spending some carefree time together before the pocket dimension collapses, Zen and Rei vanish into the afterlife, while SEES and the Investigation Team promise to meet again someday and return home, although their memories of the incident are erased.