Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight

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Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight is a rhythm game developed and published by Atlus for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita. Forming part of the Persona series--itself part of the larger Megami Tensei franchise--the game features the central cast of the 2016 role-playing video game Persona 5. Gameplay focuses on characters from Persona 5 taking part in rhythm-based gameplay set to original and remixed music from Persona 5. It released in Japan in May 2018, and will be released worldwide in early 2019.

Development began in 2015 following the release and positive reception of Persona 4: Dancing All Night. Multiple staff returned from Dancing All Night, including character designer Shigenori Soejima and lead composer Ryota Kozuka. Dancing Star Night was the second of two rhythm games planned as follow-ups to Dancing All Night, the other being the simultaneously-developed Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight. Both games lack the story mode included with Dancing All Night, with Dancing in Starlight using realistic dance routines.

Video Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight

Premise and gameplay

Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight is a rhythm game based on the role-playing video game Persona 5. Featuring the central cast of Persona 5, gameplay follows a similar pattern to Persona 4: Dancing All Night; a chosen character performs a song in a story location from Persona 5, with the player using a six-button system to hit notes in time to the present musical track. During a section of the song dubbed "Fever", a chosen partner joins in for the routine, with unique choreography for each partner reflecting the characters' relationship within Persona 5. Interactions between characters between songs take place in the Velvet Room, a recurring location in the Persona series.

Maps Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight

Development and release

Development of Dancing in Starlight began in 2015 following the positive feedback from Dancing All Night; it was created by P-Studio, an internal Atlus department responsible for managing the Persona series. While the team were initially encouraged to develop Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight as a standalone title, the fact that Persona 5 was also in development prompted them to create a rhythm game based upon it. Development of the two games ran concurrently, with the team using their experience from Dancing All Night to improve the experience for their new projects. 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. Shigenori Soejima returned as character designer. 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. 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.

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 Starlight allowed for customised choreography based on character personalities. To increase the variety of dance moves between characters, each character had a specific dancer and unique choreography. In contrast to the acrobatic choreography of Dancing in Moonlight, the team worked with the dancers to give the cast of Dancing in Starlight realistic dance routines. The visual quality of character models was raised from that present in Dancing All Night. 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. 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.

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. This decision was made following talks between Wada and Miwa. Compared to the simplistic setting design of Dancing in Moonlight, the team needed to work much harder creating the varied and complex backgrounds for Dancing in Starlight. 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 Starlight.

Dancing in Starlight features 26 songs from Persona 5. Original music was composed by Ryota Kozuka, who had previously worked on Dancing All Night; one of his compositions was the opening move theme "Groovy". Remixes of tracks from Persona 5 were supervised by Kozuka, and original composers Shoji Meguro, Atsushi Kitajoh, and Toshiki Konishi. Additional remixes were handled by Jazztronik, tofubeats, KAIEN and Taku Takahashi. The list of tracks that would be included was modified throughout the development process. When creating the original theme song, the team had greater freedom due to the musical style of Persona 5 being the most recent release.

The game was first announced in August 2017 alongside Dancing Moon Night and the spin-off title Persona Q2. The team plans to release downloadable content for the game. 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 Star Night and Dancing Moon Night, a download code for the digital-exclusive PS4 port of Dancing All Night, and a full soundtrack. The Vita version included Dancing Star Night and Dancing Moon Night, the full soundtrack, and costume DLC based on protagonists from the wider Megami Tensei series. The game also supports PlayStation VR.

Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight was chosen as the title for the game's NA and EU release. The game is to be released with a full English dub, dual audio options and subtitles in English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish.