Three new 'Persona' spin-offs are coming, including 'Q2'

Atlus has just announced a trio of new Persona spin-offs. Following on from the 2015 PS Vita rhythm game Persona 4: Dancing All Night are a pair of new Dancing titles based on Persona 3 and Persona 5. A pair of trailers show Aigis and co. bopping to the Persona 3 soundtrack in Dancing Moon Night, while the Persona 5 team shows of its moves in Dancing Star Night. Both games will come to the PlayStation 4 as well as Vita.

From the brief excerpts on show, it appears developer P Studio is taking a similar approach musically as it did for the first Dancing game -- expect to hear all of your favorite tracks from the games' soundtracks remixed and arranged with big bands, swing beats and EDM in mind.

As a nice touch, both 3 and 5's visual styles are mirrored in the presentation of their respective Dancing games, with Moon Night lit up in bright pastels and Star Night opting for moodier tones. There's no word on what the games' storylines might cover, or if they're linked. (Although a rhythm game at its core, the original Dancing game had a decent, 10-hour campaign with old and new characters integrated.)

While Dancing All Night was received fairly well by fans, the third new spin-off is likely to get people a little more excited: Persona Q2 for the 3DS. The original Persona Q came out on Nintendo's handheld in 2014 as a mashup of Persona and publisher Atlus' Etrian Odyssey series, with the majority of its gameplay coming from the latter.

What pleased fans the most was the storyline, which, aside from being full of fan service, pulled in chibi-fied characters from Persona 3 and 4 and had them interacting in the same world. There is very little detail on the game, but from the teaser image it seems it will at least feature characters from Persona 5.

Persona 3: Dancing Moon Night and Persona 5: Dancing Star Night are both due for release in Japan next spring. There's no word on an international release, but hopefully the wait won't be too long -- Dancing All Night took just three months to be localized. As for Persona Q2, your guess is as good as ours. The original game sold well in the west, so it's likely it will arrive at some point. Now, if we could just get a Switch port of Tokyo Mirage Sessions...