History VideoGame / PersonaQShadowOfTheLabyrinth

-->'''Mitsuru:''' All right, time for your [[FateWorseThanDeath execution]]. [[SadisticChoice Now which would you rather be]]: [[BalefulPolymorph a welcome mat]] [[HarmlessFreezing or an ice sculpture?]]

* GameplayAndStorySegregation:
** Often in labyrinths, there will be "no Shadows in the area" to provide an excuse so as to why the characters are talking to each other. You can still encounter Shadows in the room, though - you might even encounter some soon after you take a step after the cutscene.
** One event is a guaranteed encounter with a Golden Hand. Although it is early in the game, you can still beat it if you have to right skills.

* GirlsAreReallyScaredOfHorrorMovies: Yukari, Chie, Rei and even Mitsuru are all terrified of the third labyrinth, and Naoto also admits to being scared despite not outwardly showing it. Subverted with Yukiko, [[NightmareFetishist who finds the whole thing fun and, in some cases, hilarious.]] Downplayed in that most of the guys are scared too. (Aigis says Shinjiro and Kanji are the only two who don't have accelerated heart rates there)

* GrimReaper: [[spoiler:Zen used to be one of the Deities of Death, Chronos, deciding to stay with Rei until she could find the meaning to her life, Chronos created the labyrinths, sealed half of his power in the clock tower, and then removed his own memories creating Zen and the Clockwork God]]
** [[spoiler:The highly powerful monster The Reaper appears again as well, as an FOE in the last dungeon.]]

* GunsAkimbo: ''AutomaticCrossbows'', actually. How does Zen reload them anyways?

* HandWave: When everyone gets their [[spoiler:upgraded Persona.]] Shinjiro and Koromoru pass up on it because they don't want to change. [[SarcasmMode Coincidentally]], they're also the only ones who [[spoiler:don't upgrade their Personas in their home game, for one reason or another- Shinjiro dies and Koromaru never experiences any personal epiphanies.]]

* InfinityMinusOneSword: Armour recipes requiring Adamas Steel are expensive and give impressive stat boosts to the wearer, but better armour can be bought in the postgame after receiving the Fearsome Shard.

** If you're diligent in filling maps 100% and getting the related completion chests, you can unlock a weapon for Zen before the Fouth Dungeon's boss, the Clock Hand [[spoiler:the description of which name drops the final boss "The Clockwork God", as well as hinting to Zen's true nature as being one half of the God Chronos]].

* IAmNotLeftHanded: Parodied in one skit. In the third stratum of ''P4'' route, ''P3'' hero remarks the dungeon is especially obstructive, he might have to use his right eye. Yosuke latches at the idea said right eye is some kind of MagicEye, only to be told that the dungeon is so dark and his PeekABangs only makes things harder.

* LethalChef: At one point in the P3 route, Yukiko and Shinjiro make cookies to cheer Rei up in the middle of the third stratum. Shinjiro's cookies are amazing, but Yukiko's cookies strike fear into everyone who looks at them. Naturally, [[ExtremeOmnivore Rei enjoys them]]. Rei gets Zen to try them too, but he takes one bite and [[spoiler:goes catatonic]]. And then soon after, [[spoiler:Rei passes out, too]]. Yosuke comments that [[ContinuityNod Mystery Food X]] is now a delayed hallucinogenic, and Mitsuru says Yukiko's cooking technique could be used for combat purposes. If you know the plot twists of ''Persona Q'', this means that [[spoiler:Yukiko's cookies knocked out ''a ghost'' and ''the avatar of a Greek deity''. If the rest of the cast ate the cookies, it's quite possible that they would have '''died'''.]]

-->'''Naoto:''' I call this, "Mystery Food X: The Final Edition"...

** The Fast Guy in the fourth dungeon, who can move multiple spaces at a time and will wipe the floor with you in most cirucmstances if he catches up.

* BigDamnHeroes: How the teams meet; and naturally, neither side can resist [[DynamicEntry putting a little flair into their entrance]]. (The Investigation team even strike poses reminiscent of ''Anime/JoJosBizarreAdventure'''s during their dramatic reveal.)

** Rei starts as a CheerfulChild with a voracious mind, from a [[spoiler:very much resentful dead IllGirl who thrashes about her event-less life]], to [[spoiler:finally accepting the fact she lived her life as she could and happily finds solace in the afterlife with Zen by her side]].

* DeadAllAlong: [[spoiler:The IllGirl Rei]] or rather [[spoiler:Niko]].

** Turned [[UpToEleven Up To Eleven]] with the Body-Soul Reverse accessory. It inverts the HP and the SP of the user, giving them ''massive'' SP pools but turning them into near [[OneHitPointWonder One-Hit Point Wonders]]. Pretty useful for characters on the back row with costly spells, like the aforementioned Naoto.

** Junpei calls Naoto "Nao-cakes", while Chie called Akihiko "Master".

* {{Flanderization}}: Unsurprisingly, since the game has LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters. Trying to fit in every aspect of characterization would be unwieldy, so the narrative focuses on the more colorful aspects of certain characters:

* ProlongedPrologue: You have to go through the entire first dungeon before the game even becomes a crossover. Justified since having both parties plus Zen and Rei playable from the get-go [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters would probably be pretty intimidating.]]

** Played with for Sub-Personas. All Sub-Personas have no stats of their own and only give an HP and SP boost to whoever equips them. The trade-off of Sub-Personas, though, is picking up six extra moves from them, which can also include passive abilities that block weaknesses. Later in the game, you can also extract skill cards from them and give up to four more moves to everyone's main Personas. Some Personas from prior games are genuinely nerfed, however: Kaguya, the ultimate Persona of the Aeon Arcana in ''Persona 4'', is a mid-tier Moon Arcana Persona here, and Orpheus Telos gets bumped down to mid-tier as well.

** Orpheus Telos, a DLC mid-tier Persona of the Fool Arcana. He retains an extreme amount of value for his exclusive (and incapable of being passed down via fusion) move: Healing Harp, which is a souped-up version of Fuuka's regular healing spell: it heals HP to maximum, and gets rid of all binds and status ailments for three turns. While the SP cost is immense, Boosting your character can mitigate that.

* AfterlifeAngst: Rei (aka Philei or Niko) suffers from this near the end of the story. It's not so much that she's scared of death, but she wonders what the purpose of her life was when it seemed to amount to nothing. She goes on to say that she had nothing (not her health, her hair, her friends, or her freedom), and even her mother abandoned her to die alone in the hospital. At that point, she wonders why she even existed at all. This is why she's a Big Eater, as it's a distraction from the reality that she's dead and doesn't need to eat.

* AliceAllusion: The entire first dungeon, "You in Wonderland", is this.

* AscendedExtra: From a gameplay standpoint, Shinjiro, who was only a short-term party member in his core game [[spoiler:before dying]] but is playable for the entirety of this game.
* AsYouKnow: The team whose story you aren't on need to do this a lot for the benefit of those who haven't played their home games. It's justified in that the other team obviously ''doesn't'' know about a lot of the things they experienced. [[spoiler:In particular, the P4 cast have to explain Shadow Selves to SEES before the Best Friend boss fight.]]

* BattleThemeMusic: "Light the Fire Up In The Night", which has a different instrumental part depending on whether you pick the main character from ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPHiTo5kkoI Persona 3]]'' or ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeMWjeqLm2U Persona 4]]''.
* BecauseDestinySaysSo: [[ExpositionFairy Margaret's]] answer to just about anything. The protagonists and their friends like to go with a rather liberal interpretation of the trope: [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything Destiny offers us choices]], [[DialogueTree we pick from them.]]

* BossInMooksClothing: [=FOEs=] are an enemy type that shows up on most levels. They aren't run into normally but rather a fight starts when you walk into one or vice versa on the map. Almost all of them have some kind of gimmick and while most ignore you and may not even move, some will chase you down. Two of them that are particularly notable are the Festival Dudes and the Reaper. The first has much more powerful attacks than even normal [=FOEs=] as well as the ability to fully heal itself whenever it pleases. To beat it, you basically need to come at them it with a special party you wouldn't normally think to use[[note]]The player has to make up an all-male four-man party using any of the guys barring Ken (because of his age), Koromaru, Teddie and [[spoiler:Zen]] (because they aren't human). Elizabeth hints at this when the request to beat one of them is made available.[[/note]], which it accepts as a challenge and bars it from using Crazed Slash early on or Diarahan at all. The Reaper gets special navigator dialogue urging you to run immediately and for good reason: It's at least as strong as the final boss and can wipe you out in moments if you aren't prepared or get unlucky. Much of the final level is spent fleeing from, avoiding or blocking it so you can proceed.

** The Omnipotent Orb returns as a reward for defeating The Reaper, in a quest that's only unlocked after beating the game. It makes the holder immune to everything except Almighty... of course, all the [[BonusBoss Bonus Bosses]] frequently use Almighty attacks, and equipping it during [[spoiler:the final Velvet Siblings]] fight will, like in all previous games, result in them insta-killing you. Meaning the Orb is only really useful against regular enemies, which should pose no threat at this point.
** The Reaper also drops a material that lets you craft armour that halves all stats but doubles Exp gained. Of course, by the time you're strong enough to beat The Reaper, it's unlikely you'll need to grind anymore.
** The reward for beating all three Velvet siblings at once is the Ademas Bookmark item, which has a similar name to the item that lets you build the penultimate armor. However, the moment it's handed over it's admitted that there's nothing of any real value to give you anymore and that it does nothing.

* BuffySpeak: In her Group Date Café scenes, when Chie realises the photo's probably manipulated she asks if it's "that photo changer... thingy".

* CartographySidequest: Each floor save for the last one of each labyrinth has a chest that opens only when you cover every tile on that floor. You must actually ''step on'' every tile - just drawing it on the map doesn't count. Even if those floors are damage-tiles and ordinarily would be avoided at all costs.

* ChekhovsBoomerang: Remember the watering can you found in the first labyrinth for watering a flower? Well, during the happi sidequest in the ''fourth'' Labyrinth, it comes up again as something to wash off the happi with.

* CreepyDoll: The doll F.O.E.s in the Evil Spirit Club. One in particular (known as the Old Doll, the one mentioned above in CampingACrapper) [[ThatOneBoss is a pain to take down]] , in addition to being genuinely scary and appearing in a full-dialogue cutscene.
* CrossOver: The full casts of ''Persona 3'' and ''Persona 4'' end up becoming involved in the mystery of the Labyrinth. (Excepting the Female Protagonist of ''Persona 3 Portable'', as the SharedUniverse established by Videogame/Persona4Arena canonizes the ''P3'' hero as male.)

** Kanji again, after Teddie drinks the "Drink Me" Shrinking Potion in ''You in Wonderland''.

* DemonicPossession: [[spoiler:During the last Elizabeth battle, she ends up getting possessed by Zeus.]]

* DoNotSpoilThisEnding: Atlus has asked it's players not to upload gameplay footage online, and ''especially'' nothing from the Fourth Stratum onward (likely to involve a WhamEpisode; see FourIsDeath).
* DreamTeam: You can make a team of five composed of playable characters from both ''P3'' and ''P4''. 'Nuff said.
* EldritchLocation: The Labyrinth of the Tower is a location outside reality where past and future can meet, filled with manifestations of the collective unconscious.

** The protagonist you didn't pick to play as will go by Vice Leader in battle.

* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Nobody actually seems to ''like'' Elizabeth apart from Margaret and maybe the protagonist. As a result they seem to do their best to avoid her. Teddie is also constantly shut down or insulted throughout the game, though given that he's at the most annoying part of his entire character arc it does make sense.

* GameplayAndStorySegregation: Often in labyrinths, there will be "no Shadows in the area" to provide an excuse so as to why the characters are talking to each other. You can still encounter Shadows in the room, though - you might even encounter some soon after you take a step after the cutscene.

* RecycledInSpace: Main gameplay is practically ''Etrian Odyssey'' [[AC:in a Persona flavor]].

* AllYourPowersCombined: Mystery Food X: The Final Edition is a horrific mashup (literally) of Yukiko, Chie, Rise and Fuuka's respective [[LethalChef horrible cooked food offerings]]. Not only does it generate a horrible stench and aura that makes Rei's eyes burn, but also can be used as a chemical weapon capable of [[OneHitKill killing an FOE in one hit]].
* AscendedExtra: From a gameplay standpoint, Shinjiro, who was only a short-term party member in his core game [[spoiler:before dying]] but is playable for the entirety of this game.

* ATasteOfTheirOwnMedicine: Mitsuru gets how it feels to be on the receiving end of a cold shoulder for the first time when Fuuka, Rise, Yukiko, and Chie coldly ignore her when she asked them about using their cooking in fighting Shadows.

* SuddenlyVoiced: The ''Persona 3'' protagonist, who had no real spoken lines in his game, and didn't make any voiced appearances in any spin-off games either. His only other full speaking role would not come until ''Q2'', and given that ''Q2'' does not have a dub, this game is also his only fully voiced appearance in English.

-->'''P4 Hero''': I got careless.
-->'''P3 Hero''': Sorry.
-->'''Yukari''': Your leader is a lot like ours.
-->'''Chie''': Yeah, I guess so.

* LethalChef: At one point in the P3 route, Yukiko and Shinjiro make cookies to cheer Rei up in the middle of the third stratum. Shinjiro's cookies are amazing, but Yukiko's cookies strike fear into everyone who looks at them. Naturally, [[ExtremeOmnivore Rei enjoys them]]. Rei gets Zen to try them too, but he takes one bite and [[spoiler:goes catatonic]]. [[RealityEnsues And then soon after]], [[spoiler:Rei passes out, too]]. Yosuke comments that [[ContinuityNod Mystery Food X]] is now a delayed hallucinogenic, and Mitsuru says Yukiko's cooking technique could be used for combat purposes. If you know the plot twists of ''Persona Q'', this means that [[spoiler:Yukiko's cookies knocked out ''a ghost'' and ''the avatar of a Greek deity''. If the rest of the cast ate the cookies, it's quite possible that they would have '''died'''.]]

* RealityEnsues: As much as a [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots human Aigis can be]], she is still made of several tonnes of metal, meaning there is no way either protagonists are capable of lifting her bridal style like the other girls in the Group Date Cafe. Instead she is the one who carries them.

* AllYourPowersCombined: Mystery Food X: The Final Edition is a horrific mashup (literally) of Yukiko, Chie, Rise and Fuuka's respective [[LethalChef horrible cooked food offerings]]. Not only does it generate a horrible stench and aura that makes [[BigEater Rei's]] eyes burn, but also can be used as a chemical weapon capable of [[OneHitKill killing an FOE in one hit]].

* FeminineWomenCanCook: Generally averted. Four of the girls are terrible cooks that produce only poison while only Yukari has even basic cooking skills. Naoto, the apparently least feminine of all the girls, has been shown to do better than that, though, but only because she follows directions competently rather than having any experience in cooking. Overall, the male party members like Shinjiro, the P4 protagonist and possibly Kanji seem to be the only ones who actually know how to cook decently already.

** InUniverse, Margaret, being from the time of P4, is well aware of how P3 ends.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The opening song "Maze of Life" hints at [[spoiler:the labyrinths being a metaphor for Rei's life and death]].

* FourIsDeath: Four dungeons are foreshadowed in the opening sequence, and there are four locks on a pair of mysterious doors which appeared in the Velvet Room. [[spoiler:The fourth dungeon reveals that a certain somebody is dead]].
** On a more minor note, the Evil Spirit Club is an exhibit made by 2nd Year class 4... despite there only being 3 2nd year classes at Yasogami High.

** There's exactly one part of the Group Date Café where it's possible to be trapped against a dead end by an F.O.E with no way out other than fighting it or using a [[EscapeRope Goho-M.]] If you don't have one of those on you when you're first exploring that dungeon, you'll probably have to reload a save. Then again, the game ''very clearly warns you'' if you try to enter a labyrinth without any Goho-M in your inventory, [[UnwinnableByInsanity so it's probably your fault if this ends up happening.]]

** There's also the Evil Spirit Club and the second fight against Elizabeth. An F.O.E. blocks the door you came into, so if you don't have a Goho-M, you'll have to chance it against the F.O.E. and/or restart and fight Elizabeth ''again''. [[spoiler:Or so the devs ''want'' you to think.]]

* JumpScare: The [=FOEs=] in the Evil Spirit Club do this, not appearing until you get very close to them or cross over a certain point. The first time this happens, you get a skit in which some of your party members freak out over the [=FOEs=]' sudden appearance.

** Let's just say [[TheDreaded Mitsuru]] doesn't take kindly to [[LoveableSexManiac Teddie]] hitting on her...

* BridalCarry: The faked portrait at the end depicts the Protagonist and their destined partner as this. You can also pull this on most of the girls but most of them will be very embarrassed at this.
** As for Aigis, since she doubts you can support her weight, ''she'' carries ''you.''

** Like in ''VideoGame/{{Persona}} 1'' and the ''VideoGame/{{Persona 2}}'' duology, ''everyone'' on the coalition can enter the Velvet Room and, save for [[TheDividual Zen and Rei]], carry multiple Personas, not just the protagonists. [[SupportPartyMember Fuuka and Rise]] can also carry sub-Personas, which will still gain experience.

** Margaret, a bearer of the [[TarotMotifs Empress Arcana]], being scary when pissed off? [[VideoGame/{{Persona}} Been]] [[VideoGame/{{Persona 3}} there]].

''Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth'' is a UsefulNotes/Nintendo3DS SpinOff of, interestingly, two franchises: Creator/{{Atlus}}' ''[[Franchise/ShinMegamiTenseiPersona Persona]]'' and ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'' games. The story is written by members of the ''Team Persona'' development group, and features a CrossOver between the casts of ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}''. But other aspects, such as gameplay and visual design, are taken [[DolledUpInstallment directly from]] ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey''. In fact, most of the production staff is from the ''Etrian Odyssey'' team, including character artist Yuji Himukai.

** When Rise introduces herself in the P3 route, Junpei notes that the name sounds familiar (Rise's Idol career was just starting to take off during the events of Persona 3)

** The question sections of the second dungeon, as well as the announcer referring to you as "stray lambs" or "stray sheep" and giving you morality/relationship-centered questions just screams VideoGame/{{Catherine}}.

* TheNicknamer: Teddie, as usual. Here, he calls the ''P3'' protagonist "Hancho" and [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Shinjiro]] "Gakky." He also calls Mitsuru "Mit-chan", Fuuka "Fuu-chan", Yukari "Yuka-chan", and Akihiko "Akky".