Synopsis

Setting and characters

Plot

Due to learning about how Margaret's guest, Yu Narukami, defeated Mikuratana-no-Kami in Dancing All Night by dancing, Elizabeth becomes jealous, as do Caroline and Justine in Dancing in Starlight. Due to this, the sisters challenge each other to a dance off, to prove who has the better guest. The losers would be "sent to hell". Similar to Shadow of the Labyrinth, upon completion of the event, everyone's memories of the event will be erased. Summoning the Phantom Thieves of Hearts and the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad to dance, they are challenged to hype the crowd up as much as possible, the crowd being the Sea of Souls. Due to the Velvet Room being between space and time, and the group being summoned in their dreams, they are able to visualise any dance they want, and their bodies perform the actions. In addition, Elizabeth uses this to be able to return to 2009, whilst Makoto Yuki is still alive, though still after the death of Shinjiro Aragaki. After completion of the ball, Elizabeth - due to the shame of how competitive she got - but also due to everyone having fun, decides it no longer mattered which team won. SEES's reward for taking part in the event was seeing Elizabeth herself dance as well.

Development and release

Following the positive response to Dancing All Night following its 2015 release, P-Studio—an Atlus department responsible for managing the Persona series—were encouraged to make a rhythm game based on the setting and characters of Persona 3. Dancing in Moonlight was developed simultaneously with Dancing in Starlight due to Persona 5 being in development at the time. Using their experience from developing Dancing All Night, the team focused on improving the experience for their new projects.^[5] The development proved challenging as the team were creating two game's worth of content at the same time. Kazuhisa Wada, who produced and directed Dancing All Night, returned as producer. Originally intending to produce and direct again, the game was instead directed by Nobuyoshi Miwa.^[7] Shigenori Soejima returned as character designer.^[8] The game was developed for both PlayStation 4 (PS4) and PlayStation Vita, with the main difference being that the PS4 version ran at a higher frame rate.^[7] The team initially intended to have both Dancing titles as a single game, but decided against this due to the two projects' strong and contrasting identities.^[10]

While the characters remained faithful to their designs, they were given highly acrobatic dance movements.^[5] To increase the variety of dance moves between characters, each character had a specific dancer and unique choreography. In Dancing All Night each character was assigned a dance genre and given limited moves due to their lack of experience in the game's story, but Dancing in Moonlight allowed for customised choreography based on character personalities.^[10] Compared to Dancing All Night, the visual quality of character models was raised.^[14] They also moved more smoothly due to a large number of "double joint" parts in the internal skeleton not present in the models for Dancing All Night.^[10] Dancing in Moonlight was the first time the cast of Persona 3 had been rendered with realistic proportions.^[14] It was also the first time the models accurately copied Soejima's artwork.^[5] Creating the models for Persona 3 cast members was a challenge due to the variety of ways they had been portrayed in anime and manga since the original game's release. Aigis, who required robotic movements without sacrificing flexibility or fluidity, was the most difficult character model to create.^[10] The movement of clothing—which was based solely on physics calculations in Dancing All Night—used a combination of physics and clothing material combined with character choreography.^[19]

While a story mode and new location were used in Dancing All Night, the team decided to replace it with a system based on character interactions within the original settings and scenario,^[5][19] though a minor story mode was included anyway. This decision was made following talks between Wada and Miwa. Creating the dormitory setting for Dancing in Moonlight was easy due to its simplistic design.^[10] Due to the game's tone compared to the main Persona series, the team felt had greater freedom to put lighter and colorful elements into Dancing in Moonlight.^[14]

The game was first announced in August 2017 alongside Dancing Star Night and the spin-off title Persona Q2.^[8] The team plans to release downloadable content for the game.^[19] The game was released in Japan on May 24, 2018. Two special editions were created for PS4 and Vita. The PS4 version came with physical copies of Dancing Moon Night and Dancing Star Night, a download code for the digital-exclusive PS4 port of Dancing All Night, and a full soundtrack. The Vita version included Dancing Moon Night and Dancing Star Night, the full soundtrack, and costume DLC based on protagonists from the wider Megami Tensei series.^[35] The game also supports PlayStation VR.^[36]

Notes

References