We live in a world where the one of the hottest fighting games of this generation…
was one of the hottest RPGs of the last generation.
Persona 4 Arena managed to turn the hardcore dungeon-crawling and girlfriend-wooing PS2
hit into a fast-paced, Guilty-Gear-esque beatdown that not only turned heads but made Ehrgeiz
- the last game to try to slam RPG characters into a fighter - go cry in a corner.
Not only did it do a remarkable job of incorporating as many elements as possible from the original
material, but it also put forth a storyline that bridged the gap between Persona 3 and
Persona 4 - two games with many stylistic similarities but very different casts and
motivations.
And now they’re going back to the well with Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, which itself bridges
the gap between the Japanese version which called the previous game P4U (AKA Persona
4 The Ultimate in Mayonaka Arena), and the Western interpretation which went with P4A.
Granted, the Japanese call this game… deep breath…
Persona 4: the Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold.
You win again, Japan.
So.
When we last left our rag-tag bunch of kids, they had just escaped their respective televisions,
wherein they were forced to beat the crap out of each other by a guy who looked like
Teddie but was in fact…
well, there’s so much plot there that I don’t want to spoil it.
Point is, everything’s fine now!
Except now the evil inside the TVs has spread outside the TVs, there’s a rash of disappearances,
and the personas that used to be limited to that realm can now be summoned anywhere on
the street.
So the entire cast gets back together again - in various configurations as per the new
storyline - to do what they do best: get confused and beat the crap out of each other, before
feeling bad about it and making up.
Isn’t that sweet?
But the Story mode is there for you to sit back and relax and watch; more a visual novel
with occasional fights than the little interstitial bits of plot that you’d find in a Guilty
Gear or a BlazBlue.
So let’s get back into the FIGHTING.
The entire cast of the previous game returns, with several new additions: a mysterious kid
named Sho, another mysterious kid named Sho, Rise, Yukari, Junpei, the double-team of Ken
and Koromaru, and some DLC characters because they’re rather obligatory, including Persona
4 Golden’s Marie and foul-tempered police dick Adachi.
What’s more, they’ve all got something to hide… we all do, really.
You’ve got a choice at the character select screen between using the standard version
of the character or the more advanced Shadow version, which decreases pure damage output
a bit in favor of more technical ability and greater health, as well as unlimited SP in
place of a burst.
Combine these with the Arc System Works trademark huge selection of colors - and the rather
fetish-tastic addition of glasses to every character as well - and you’re guaranteed
to find the right look for you.
Even if that look happens to be The Joker.
Wanna see a magic trick?
As can be expected from the firm who gave us some of the best 2D fighters of the last
couple generations, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax is a white-knuckle, fast-paced melee through
twisted realms, where your only assistance is the Persona in your own head.
(Or lots of ‘em, in the case of Elizabeth or Margaret.)
Like the last game, these personas can become unusable if they get struck too many times,
though there’s been some rebalancing of just how many times that is.
More physical fighters like Ken&Koro or Akihiko, who use their personas much less than others,
only get two hits before a Persona Break, while Margaret sets the upper bound with a
ridiculous eight.
That’s why she costs five bucks.
I was unfortunate enough to encounter her in the online mode, where the Japanese players
had access to her before the western PSN caught up, and it was laughable.
(And not just because of the lag.)
Fortunately, you can see at a glance your relative connection strength with each opponent,
and can choose your fights accordingly in the big, plush lobby that serves as a matchmaking
room.
There’s also the return of your old friend the Score Attack mode, where you play against
super-high-level computer opponents, and the new Golden Arena mode, similar to Abyss mode
in BlazBlue, where you can develop social links with your announcer - yes, really - and
level up a character through repeated combats.
So it’s a fighting game, based on an RPG, that’s already part visual novel, looping
all the way back around and being an RPG again, complete with stat allocation and sneak attacks
and debuffs and crap.
Pretty impressive, and certainly a nice way to blend the old and the new.
As is standard for the series, you’re going to be looking at big, flashy attacks put in
front of well-drawn sprites, themselves based on Shigenori Soejima’s iconic character
art.
The soundtrack blends up the same kind of weird half-intelligible Engrish lyrics with
energetic hip-hop, again with your choice of announcer voices in English or Japanese.
It is an improvement, in pretty much every regard, over what was already an awesome game…
and it leaves me awaiting both the upcoming Persona 5 AND the upcoming Guilty Gear Xrd
in equal measure.
You win this round, Arc System Works.
And Atlus.
Thanks for bringing me this game.