When comparing Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth vs Overcooked 2, the Slant community recommends Overcooked 2 for most people. In the question“What are the best games for the Nintendo Switch?” Overcooked 2 is ranked 36th while Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth is ranked 105th. The most important reason people chose Overcooked 2 is:
Whether you played the first Overcooked or not, Overcooked 2 is easy to figure out right from the get-go. The recipes for each dish are familiar even if you're not much of a chef, so you can remember which raw ingredients you need as you make your way around the kitchen and work with your co-op partner(s). Once you play a few rounds, you should have a good handle on things, helping you focus on getting everything done as quickly as possible from there on out.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Tons of story fanservice for Persona 3 and Persona 4 players
If you love Persona 3 and Persona 4, then this is probably the game for you. Persona Q combines all of the main cast members from both games together in one universe. The story involves all of the characters teaming up together to face a new outbreak of Shadows within a mysterious labyrinth that appears in the Persona 4 high school. With everyone together in one place, that means getting to see them interact together in cute and hilarious ways that Persona 3 and 4 fans can appreciate. Even though the story relies heavily on players having prior knowledge of both casts, new players should still be able to enjoy the game as they get to know everyone through their many interactions together.
Pro Combines strategic role-playing battles and dungeon crawling gamplay together
The gameplay is unique in the ways it merges traditional turn-based combat with dungeon crawling. You have a party of five members from either Persona 3 or Persona 4, each of whom you can freely customize with certain skills through their supernatural Persona beings. You can bring along anyone you want instead of only picking whoever has the most relevant skills for any given fight. Exploration is in first person, where you trek through the layers of the dungeons in order to find treasure, progress the story, and fight boss battles at the end. The dungeon crawling may be outside of some Persona fans' comfort zones, but the battles and story might be familiar enough for you to give the new gameplay a shot.
Pro Great music
Persona Q has an incredibly catchy soundtrack. It has many songs from Persona 3 and Persona 4, along with some new, yet familiar tracks. The trip-hop/hip-hop soundtrack blends classical, rock, pop, and synthwave sounds together in such a unique way that no other game really comes close to. New and old songs alike have a distinct rhythm and the cool, modern sense of style that fits perfectly in the Persona universe. Despite all the different ideas, it all comes together as a cool and cohesive sound.
Pro Simple to pick up and learn
Whether you played the first Overcooked or not, Overcooked 2 is easy to figure out right from the get-go. The recipes for each dish are familiar even if you're not much of a chef, so you can remember which raw ingredients you need as you make your way around the kitchen and work with your co-op partner(s). Once you play a few rounds, you should have a good handle on things, helping you focus on getting everything done as quickly as possible from there on out.
Pro Hilariously fun couch and online co-op for up to four players
Playing Overcooked 2 with friends is the best. There's so much going on at once in the kitchen, with barriers moving in your way, hazards popping up like cars in the middle of the road separating the two halves of your area, and ingredients, dishes, and half-prepared dishes to move from one place to another. Working together and communicating with your friends through couch co-op or online play is a constant stream of laughter and excited shouting as you mess up, learn, and hopefully get things done. If you don't have anyone to play with, then you can hop online for matchmaking instead.
Pro Fast and frantic cooking action
Overcooked 2 is really fast-paced and keeps you on your toes. You play as a chef in a crazy kitchen with a ton of things going on all at once, with you mixing, preparing, and cooking in between the chaos of moving platforms and environmental obstacles. There's a time limit constantly ticking down at the bottom of the screen; finishing your tasks on time or ahead of schedule earns you a better score in the end. Tossing ingredients to your teammates across the kitchen, or across the moving platforms or obstacles like bodies of water, is a fresh new addition in this game that wasn't in the first Overcooked, making things even faster this time around. It's such a manic yet well-done mix of many different genres and ideas that all come together in the best ways.
Cons
Con Too many characters are badly written in order to be "funny"
The downside of all the fanservice is that not all of it is meaningful or well-done. Most of comes down to characters exaggerating a single, shallow trait without any growth whatsoever. One of the worst offenders is Chie from Persona 4, who, in her original game, is a bit of a tomboy and a loudmouth who loves meat, but she genuinely cares about her friends and wants to protect them. Here in Persona Q, her main character trait is that she loves meat and yells about this at every opportunity. Akihiko from Persona 3 suffers this as well, dumbed down from his calm and collected athletic self to an annoying guy obsessed with protein. It's so bad that this can be a major turn-off for some fans, so beware.
Con Some of the dungeons are too difficult and frustrating
The first and final dungeons are way too hard. It's bad with the first dungeon, since that's when you're learning the game and getting used to things. The difficulty gets better and more manageable after that, though you may lose interest before reaching this point. And then the challenge gets tuned up way too high again during the last dungeon, which might discourage some players from even finishing the game at all.
Con Certain characters are unbalanced
You can absolutely break many battles just by bringing in overpowered characters. In particular, Naoto from Persona 4 is ridiculous with her abilities to instantly kill enemies with light and dark skills. She can help a lot with the more challenging dungeons, but she's too strong compared to other characters who end up as dead weight in comparison. Using these broken characters can feel cheap.
Con May be too niche for some Persona fans
While the blend of role-playing and dungeon crawling sounds interesting, this may be a hard sell for Persona fans who just want to play this game for the characters. There's no getting around the gameplay, especially considering the game itself is easily over 60 hours long. The dungeon crawling isn't that good, either, compared to other games of the same genre, making this an even less appealing option for fans. Even though the writers consider this game canon, you're still better off skipping over Persona Q if you don't think the gameplay will be up your alley.
Con Can be incredibly frustrating
Trying to work at such a fast pace with so many obstacles and general mayhem going on at once can wear on you after a while. There's a lot to keep track of at once, and it's easy for things to spiral out of control as your mistakes pile up. If your group isn't doing well and you're running out of time, you might find yourself losing your patience with your team and yelling at them. This might not be the game for you if you don't have a team that's willing to be patient and cooperative with each other, even when you're not doing so well during a particular round.
Con Single-player isn't as fun as co-op
If you only want to play alone, then Overcooked 2 might not be the best game to pick. All the fast-paced fun from co-op mostly comes from communicating with your team and trying to pull off your task together before the time runs out. You control two characters at once while playing alone, but this still lacks the team-based chaos that makes the game so addicting. You could instead go online for matchmaking, though you might get paired with people who don't want to talk or work as an actual team.
Con The controls are a bit sluggish
There's something about the controls that feels heavy and deliberate, and not necessarily in a good way. The feeling goes against the fast-paced nature of the gameplay that demands you in one place and then the next. If you played the first Overcooked, you may notice the difference right away. This change shouldn't be too much of a hassle, though it's still noticeable.