Persona 4 Arena

The Short

Pros
- Excellently crafted fighting game from the creators of Guilty Gear and Blazblue
- Accessible combos and moves make this Arc System's most "noob friendly" game yet
- Game is gorgeous and follows a similar art/aesthetic style to Persona 3 and 4
- Story mode does a decent job connecting the characters from Persona 3 and 4 while adding some entertaining foils
- Voice acting is spot on, as it usually is with these games, and the localization team still rocks
- Music is excellent, featuring a mix of P3 and P4 tracks that have been remixed, as well as some original songs
- Works surprisingly well in the Persona universe, despite my immense doubts as to how it would fit
- We finally figure out what the heck Elizabeth has been doing since the end of P3 in greater detail. Which is awesome.

Cons
- Limited roster of characters, and most are from P4 (13, with two being new)
- The presentation of the visual-novel style story mode is completely at odds with the dialogue-based character development presented in the series Persona games
- The protagonist from P4 has both a voice, name, and inner monologue. I don't think I like it.
- They changed Chie's voice actor so she doesn't sound like a 30-year-old women. Yes, this is a con.
- I still hate how homophobic Atlas is when it comes to everything involving Kanji. Seriously...it isn't funny.

Welcome to the Velvet Room.

The Long

My eyebrows nearly hit the ceiling in raised...ness when Atlas and Arc Systems announced Persona 4 Arena. I mean...did anybody's not? Taking one of the most popular (and possibly best) JRPGs crafted in recent memory and turning into a fighting game...well...that didn't make a lot of sense. Especially considering the main focus of the games was heavy on story, dialogue, and character interaction, there really isn't much for that in a fighting game (the only "character interaction" is them beating the crap out of each other). 

However, as the development cycle went on (and I got fully exposed to the rest of Arc Systems games, and they are arguably my favorite fighting game company to date) I began to have hope that this game would work out. Especially after Atlas pointed out that 1. This game is canon (?!) 2. It would have Persona 3 characters and 3. It would have a heavy emphasis on a story that fused (hur hur, Persona puns) together; I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and allow Persona 4 Arena a shot at life.

So, as a hardcore Persona fan, Arc Systems fan, and writer, what is my opinion of Persona 4 Arena? Well, it has a whole lot of good, and a decent amount of mediocre. Read on and I'll explain.

If you like text, this game has got you covered. 

Let's go over what I'll probably talk the most about: Persona 4 Arena's absolutely colossal story mode. Considering this was what most fans considered the most sacrilegious part of the game (and the one with the biggest chance to screw everything up), I figured it deserves more than a brief mention.

The game allows you to play as every single character through the story mode, starting with the "core" Persona 4 characters (Yosuke, Yu [Aka the Protag], Chie, and Yukiko. After beating one of theirs you unlock Teddie and Kanji (who had a different path), and then the Persona 3 characters Mitsuru, Akihiko, and Aigis, as well as the last P4 straggler, Naoto. There's one final new character who you play last (Labrys), and after beating her mission you can replay all other stories from the "cliffhanger" ending to see the different ways the story plays out with your chosen character as the center of attention. Finally, after getting the "true" endings from the P4 and then P3 cast, you unlock Elizabeth's story, which is arguably the biggest fan-servicy one of them all as it seems to mostly focus more on resolving parts of Persona 3's story rather than Persona 4's. 

Point being: there's a butt-load of story here, and you are going to be spending tons of hours burning through it all if you are a Persona fan (I did). So since I spent all this time beating every character to 100% and seeing every ending, that means I loved the story mode right? Right?

Um...ok, let's talk about that.

Teddy is still a lovable idiot, and his story is one of the best (if only because of his moronic monologue)

So I'll get this out of the way first: I don't really dig the "visual novel" style of some Japanese games. Don't get me wrong, it can work (Phoenix Wright is a sterling example of this) but in most cases they become exposition heavy, monologue riddled messes that spend far too much time "thinking" rather than actually moving the plot forward. They're designed to bare everything through pages and pages of text, which can be good for some people, but for me I prefer a level of subtlety in writing. On the "show, don't tell" spectrum, they tend to be heavily lodged in the "tell" section, and it irks me.

Persona 4 Arena's story mode is super exposition heavy, and nearly drowns in its monologues. I kid you not when I say there's probably 7-8 paragraphs of monologue for every spoken line in this game, and that might actually be a low estimate. As you'd expect, you spend more time in character's heads than they do actually participating in the tournament, and that makes the story's pace drag to an un-bear-able crawl (see that pun? Teddy would be proud).

This is especially noticeable (in a bad way) for the main character, Yu's, story arch. In the games he was a silent protagonist, allowing the player to project themselves onto him. Since they couldn't do that in this game he has both a voice and pages of internal dialogue with himself, most of which is boring and generic. Not to be "that guy," but my Bob (which is what I named him in P4) wouldn't be nearly as big a toolbox as Yu is in this game. Not to mention that, since he didn't really have a personality  they can only draw on things P4 forced on his character, like his relation to Nanako. This makes him seem a hollow shell of the deep character I developed (in my own head, admittedly) during Persona 4, and makes his entire scenario really awkward to experience.

Elizabeth is on the moon. Don't ask why. 

This sense of awkwardness carried over to nearly all the Persona 4 characters I played, especially considering Yosuke, Chie, and Yukiko have literally the exact same character arc for their stories. And that arc is identical to their Shadow trial in Persona 4, which makes it seem double lazy. I understand playing it safe, but come on! Not to mention their internal monologues, which I'm certain were meant to make the characters more three-dimensional, actually focuses more on their two-dimensional character attributes, making them flatter than 2D Teddy. The Persona games always conveyed incredible character depth through dialogue only, since the only thoughts you could perceive were the protagonist's (and you usually directed them). It made you feel like you really knew these people without getting into their heads, and as such make the relationships feel more...real. I mean, you don't know the exact thoughts of your best friends, right? Unless you are some sort of freaky mind reader. 

Persona 4 Arena botches this when it comes to its storytelling. By going the "easy" way out and making it a visual novel method of storytelling, it loses the depth and personality found in the Persona games and just makes it a long, droning look inside the heads of people I really didn't want to see the thoughts of. I knew them well enough before, thanks.

If I'm sounding a bit too hard on the story, that might actually be the case, because despite my complaints I really enjoyed the plot at hand. Whenever dialogue did emerge it was usually excellent, and there was some fantastic character banter (again, why I play these games) in each story (except Yu's. His was dull). And the "get inside their heads" actually worked very well for Kanji, Teddie, Aigis, Elizabeth, and Labrys' story arcs (mostly because all save the latter were quite funny). The story itself is also fairly decent, and seeing it unfold from different views (as the angle gets wider and wider as you back into Persona 3 character territory and finally see what's actually going on with Labrys' story) is genuinely clever. It's just too bad you have to sift through tons of useless fluff in order to actually get to the good stuff. 

General Teddie knows how to dress. 

At the risk of running long in the tooth here, let me end this briefly: Persona 4 Arena's story does an adequate job connecting the worlds of P3 and P4, is chock full of some fantastic fan-service, has a decent plot (once you actually get to it), the voice acting is excellent, and it made me genuinely excited to see where this series will go in Persona 5. It also works the whole "fighting game" mechanics into the world in a way that is surprisingly not lame, so the idea of these characters fighting each other actually makes sense, so that's a credit. While the method of administering the story was arguably the worst way they could have chosen, it's still worth looking into if you are a P3 or P4 fan.

Oh, last thing: you'll have to have played both Persona 3 and 4 to really understand and get the story here, and you'll even have to have beaten the optional velvet room bosses from both games to really get the story here (or Elizabeth's, at least). I'm serious, both games. While it does a decent job expositioning the crap out of you in case you missed one of the two games, it isn't sufficient enough if you are going in completely dry. So play the story after beating both games, alright? There, I'm done.

On to what really matters. 

Ok, so story beats out of the way (and see how I avoided spoilers? You'll thank me later), let's talk about what actually matters in terms of gameplay: the fighting itself. For those who have played previous Arc Systems games, you'll know they're big on lots of half rolls and multiple button mashes and loads of counters and crazy combos. And, for those who like their other games like BlazBlue or Guilty Gear, you'll be pleased to know Persona 4 Arena is absolutely an Arc Systems game. In fact, it might be their best one in terms of control.

The gamepad is very simply laid out. You have two buttons that are your character's physical attacks (light and heavy) and two that are their Persona attacks (also light and heavy). Most major specials require use of Personas, which can be banished if the Personas themselves are hit four times during a match (they'll return after a brief recharge). Across the board, most characters have all the exact same sets of moves (forward half-roll + physical attack, forward half roll + Persona attack, two forward half rolls + persona for an SP special) which means you can easily pick up any character and start figuring out how they work without worry about what unique controls you have to manuiver. There are, of course, a few exceptions to this (Aigis' different modes, and Elizabeth's absolutely insane self-damaging/self-healing sets of abilities), but as a whole this is the most accessible fighting game I've probably ever played. It's very easy to pick up and do moves, though figuring out how to best use each character's unique arsenal is the "hard to master" part of this discussion.

Robot battles.

There's also a lot of Persona-themed flavor to be had here, too. Moves are named after spells, so if you know your "Zio" from your "Bufu," you're in for a treat. You gain "SP" at the bottom which is used for the more powerful specials (which are all magic taken from the series), and there are even status ailments that you can inflict on your enemies to mess 'em up (as well as All Out Attacks, though those aren't particularly useful). Characters execute their own personal signature moves from their respective games, including their common phrases used in battle. While it certainly looks and feels like an Arc Systems fighting game, the Persona flavor is still very much there, and as such adds a sense of weird style that isn't found in many other fighting games. It's a weird mix, to be sure, but I was greatly surprised at how seamlessly it blended.

It's worth pointing out, however, that if you plan on playing this online, the Xbox 360 online community seems to be pretty much dead. The netcode wasn't that great on that system to begin with, so I suppose it was inevitable (plus 360 owners tend to play more first person shooters than super Japanese fighting games based on super Japanese RPGs about monster collecting and dating...), but I've heard the PS3 version still has a decent community. There's plenty of options for couch combat if that's your thing (that's how we usually play), and as stated the story and arcade modes are pretty robust, but if online's your thing...note it.

If there's anything I can agree with, it's Chie beating up Naoto.

Here's a question: what happens when you fuse the uber-detailed, HD animated sprites from BlazeBlue with the super stylish, super flashy design of Persona 4? If you answered "something awesome," you'd be totally right. 

Persona 4 Arena looks downright incredible. From the awesome yellow theme in the menues (mixed a bit with the heavy "blue" theme from Persona 3) to the gorgeous characters and their respective Personas, Persona 4 Arena is glorious on an HD TV. Characters look very accurate to their Persona 4 counterparts, though I did notice they tended to lean a bit towards the "Arc Systems" style of art rather than their Atlas inspirations, but not enough that it bothered me. As stated previously, the effects are super flashy and look fantastic, while the menues are stylized and striking. It's a great looking game that is loyal to its source material.

Same goes for the voice acting. All the voice actors are pulled over from the original games, except Chie and Teddie. And here's where I'll make a special note. I don't mind Teddie's new voice actor (I honestly can't really tell the difference) but new Chie really irks me. A friend of mine pointed out she sounds like a 30-year-old woman in the PS2 Persona 4, but there was something about her voice that grew on you in that game. Plus, she was my favorite character in P4, so having a completely different voice was really jarring. Not enough to piss me off or anything, just...weird. I hear it's the same VA that's in P4Golden on the Vita, so there's consistency there, but it still is weird. 

Music is, as expected, fantastic, featuring killer remixes (and originals) of songs from both Persona 3 and 4. That stupid battle song from P4 is still the catchiest thing ever, and you'll probably be humming most of the tunes long after the game is turned off.

Plus, the used the final boss song from P3 for Elizabeth, which is the dopest song in the game. So there's that. 

A year later, and Kanji still is a big chicken.

I will say I was very surprised by Persona 4 Arena, in both a good and a bad way. Good because they were very loyal to the source games, the fighting is fantastic, and I love the connection between P3 and P4. Bad because the story presentation is absolutely unfitting to the series it's presenting, it has some horrible pacing, and Chie's voice actor is different. Yes, I'm still harping on that.

All that aside, however, I have to commend Atlas for this. They made a game that crossed two genres that most people don't play both of (lengthy JRPGs fused with fighting games) and managed to create a game that would appeal to both. By having it be both accessible yet competent, and paired with the charming and memorable characters from both games, Persona 4 Arena is an anomaly of gaming that shouldn't work but somehow totally does. If you enjoy either Arc Systems fighting games or the Persona series, you should check it out. Plus, it's like $20, and if you plan on playing Persona 5 I'm pretty sure some stuff in this game will be referenced. It is canon, you know.

If they'd just presented the story better, this would probably earn a perfect score. But for now, it still gets a glowing four out of five stars.

And remember: every day's great at your Junes