YMMV / Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight

• Awesome Moments:
  • "Life Will Change" is accompanied by a kickass music video featuring Joker on guitar and vocals, Fox on bass, Skull on drums, and Mona on keyboard, juxtaposed with a scene of the four making a daring getaway after a lucrative heist.
  • Joker gets two during the intro movie: First saving Morgana from an oncoming train followed by dancing in the middle of traffic and deftly weaving between everything.
• Awesome Music: Despite the game's poor sales and divisive position among fans, no one's denying the opening theme "GROOVY" is an infectiously good time of a song.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The shot in the intro where Ren dances between oncoming trains and traffic is very similar to a shot in the intro of Persona 5 Royal, where it serves as an allusion to Kasumi's death after pushing Sumire out of the way of oncoming traffic.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • This video was made two and a half months before Dancing Star Night was announced. Guess who else got a dancing spinoff announced at the same time? Guess he saw it coming!
  • A common comparison and joke by fans is with how Ren looks a lot like a certain glasses-wearing wizard. Ren's Halloween costume in this game is a wizard's outfit, complete with red accents.
  • This Jim Carrey imitation video was published and has nothing to do with this game. Atlus then proceeded to make this cinematic accompany the song in the game. Assuming they based it off the original video, this doubles as an Ascended Meme.
  • Futaba's Les Yay moments when partnered with another female become this when her voice actress, Erica Lindbeck, came out as bisexual.
  • Haru's costume where she dresses as Haruka Sawamura aged incredibly well after her English VA Xanthe Huynh was cast as the voice of Haruka in the English dub of Like A Dragon Gaiden.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: One criticism directed towards this game is that most of the game's music is simply remixes of the Persona 5's soundtrack. Unlike Dancing All Night and Dancing in Moonlight, there had not been any other spin-off material for Persona 5 with new soundtracks, which gave the game limited soundtracks to choose from. With the later releases of Royal, Strikers and Tactica, it sticks out even more in hindsight.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Ren Mamma Mia!^Explanation The game gives Joker the Canon Name of Ren Amamiya. Most fans used his manga name (Akira Kurusu) and were all thrown off by the change. For some reason, many reactors noted that Amamiya reminded them of the phrase "mama mia!"
  • #letgorodance ^Explanation Goro Akechi was not shown in any trailers, despite being a party member, causing his fans to revolt. Fortunately for them, he was later announced as DLC and got his own trailer, with the Americas having him as a free pre-order bonus.
  • Futaba's Flat "What" expression during social events.
• Most Wonderful Sound: "KING CRAZY!" after completing a song near-flawlessly.
• Narm: If Ren, Makoto, or Futaba are paired up with Akechi, he will try to attack them during his Sanity Slippage. But if Caroline and Justine are his partners, their dance interactions show him getting "beaten up." Even though this canonically would make sense considering Caroline and Justine's status, the idea of Akechi managing to chase away people around his age, but getting beat up by two people who look like children comes off as hilarious.
• Padding: The list of songs available as Downloadable Content is largely made up of songs relating to the other entries in the franchise, with a total of 8 songs coming from media associated with Persona 5 and accounting for less than a quarter of the songs available.
• Squick: Some fans consider the music video of "Last Surprise" to be this, due to its sexualization of the girls. The most prominent one is Futaba, due to her being the youngest of the girls.
• Tainted by the Preview: A critical factor behind the game's mediocre sales was that it as well as Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight were sold separately as full-priced games, not to mention the DLC that had to be bought separately. The lack of content including a story mode cause many to feel that neither game was worth the price.
• Tear Jerker: Goro Akechi's one and only song recreates his battle with the Phantoms in the engine room (in the original version of Persona 5, that this game is based on), to one reminder: No one can save him. With him scared of Caroline and Justine, it shows that he is alone in this world and any kinds of help and pity, he lashes out and pushes away.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: As with the cases of Makoto Yuki and Yu Narukami before him, many fans are not pleased with Joker's Canon Name, Ren Amamiya, instead preferring Akira Kurusu, the name used in the manga adaptation.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Whilst Persona 4 had previously received Dancing All Night and Persona 3 received Dancing In Moonlight alongside this game, they pointedly came after years of updated rereleases and spin-offs that provided a variety of songs to choose from; Dancing In Starlight is pointedly the first such release for Persona 5. Subsequently, the library of songs feels particularly barren in comparison, and the lack of material to draw from can be attributed as being the Downloadable Content would be cross-compatible between this game and Dancing In Moonlight in order to give the impression of a deeper library of content - tellingly, Persona 3 related media accounts for roughly half of the DLC songs available, whilst Persona 5 related media accounts for less than a quarter.
• Values Dissonance: To a part of the Western fanbase, seeing the female characters sexualized comes off as Squicky, as it drastically contradicts the purpose of Kamoshida's Palace and because Futaba is 15 (16 at the end of Persona 5). However, to the Japanese fanbase, this isn't a big deal. Fanservice featuring underaged characters is very common in Japanese media marketed towards teens and older.^note Not only that, but even real-life Idol Singers usually put out at least one swimsuit photobook before they turn 18 and there is rarely any controversy over it. With that said, Japan has started to crack down on material of that nature for female celebrities 15 years old and under beginning in 2007. This topic has raised some serious hackles among the fanbase as a whole.
• Woolseyism: The title being changed from Dancing Star Night to Dancing in Starlight outside of Japan. Though the exact naming structure of its predecessor is lost, the general spirit is not. Additionally, Dancing in Starlight retains the Theme Naming present with its Persona 3 counterpart while sounding more natural to an English speaker.
• WTH, Costuming Department?:
  • Futaba's costume has been criticized for just swapping her jacket and singlet for ones that look only slightly different.
  • Haru's design is largely inoffensive, but her shoes, a pair of high heels, have been criticized for being extremely ill-fitting for her style of dancing (namely ballet).
  • The High Cut Armor costumes have been frequently criticized for looking poorly designed, generic and/or lazy.

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