Review: Persona 4 Arena

This past week saw the release of one of the strangest mashups of game genres that I’ve ever come across: a role-playing game transformed into a fighting game. The game is called Persona 4 Arena which is available on the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360.

I’m just a casual fan of fighting games; I don’t spend hours upon hours practicing to spend even more time in the online modes. Growing up, I was a fan of Street Fighter, Tekken & Soul Edge/Soul Caliber. Later on, I got into Guilty Gear and a little bit of BlazBlue. If you’re a fan of those last two games, you’ll be interested to know that Arc System Works the developer behind them also developed Persona 4 Arena. I love the Persona franchise (as well as the other games in the Shin Megami Tensei series); it was one of the first games to really make me fall in love with role playing games on the Playstation at the time (with the help of Wild Arms and Final Fantasy VII later that year). I was a little skeptical when I read about the game and thought they were just trying to milk the franchise for all it’s worth, but after spending some time with the game I’ve come away quite impressed.

Persona 4 Arena does a great job of introducing the game to beginners with a Lesson Mode that teaches you the basics of the game and hints at the depth of the game’s fighting system. You choose a character (mostly characters from Persona 4, but you’ll find cameos of characters from Persona 3) and you’ll fight using that character with their Persona. Personas in the game deal lots of damage with special moves and the trick is to combine these special attacks with your regular ones to pull off some devastating combos. The game takes place two months after the events of Persona 4. While I’ve yet to play Persona 4, I was concerned that I wouldn’t get the story but my concerns were laid to rest as soon as I started Story Mode. Story mode in Persona 4 Arena is a lot different than story modes in other fighting games because you actually start caring about the characters. Then again, my biggest issue with the story mode here is that it relies heavily on text and not cut scenes, so it’s more like a visual novel. This is something I’ve personally grown accustomed to by playing similar story-based games on the Nintendo DS like Phoenix Wright or 999 so I didn’t have any issues with it, others will. An interesting aspect of story mode is that the game won’t reveal everything about the story if you just play through with one character. You have to beat story mode with various characters to progress through the narrative, which isn’t really as boring and repetitive as it sounds since the story in the game is interesting enough and every character has a unique point of view. If you decide that story mode isn’t for you and you’d rather not read through a ton of text, then you can play the arcade mode, which is basically a very condensed version of the story mode. Be warned though: if you choose to play arcade mode it will spoil the twists and surprises of the main story mode.

Another enjoyable mode in the game is the challenge mode, which is basically a much more difficult and enjoyable version of the lesson mode. Challenge mode introduces you to the intricate combos and moves you can pull off by combining two or more moves together. Each character has about 30 challenges and they get pretty frustrating near the end, but you’ll keep coming back to try and complete it as you get better in the game. Other modes include a score attack, a training and versus. There is also an online mode that I had issues with when I first got the game but a patch was released a few days later and it fixed the problems. This issue only affected Xbox 360 owners but once I was able to connect, it was really enjoyable and a great way to get an adrenaline rush. The fights are quick, intense and a lot of fun. The game also does a good job of matching you up against similarly ranked fighters and besides the story mode, this will keep you coming back to the game to rank up and move up the leaderboards.

Visually, the game has a great sense of style. The 2D sprites are detailed and the animations are really smooth. I personally love 2D art and this game does a great job of visually representing the world of Persona. Surprisingly, the music, audio and voice-overs in the game are not cheesy as you would expect from a Japanese fighting game and you might even find yourself bobbing your head to the music as you beat your opponent down. You can also unlock additional art and cinematics by playing the Story Mode and view them later in the Gallery Mode. You can also save replays of your epic battles to watch later in Theater Mode. There are items available in the Xbox Live Marketplace to buy for the game but they were mostly superficial items like more character colors and glasses for your characters to wear but I thought these items were overpriced (160 XBL points). You can also buy additional menu navigation voices (for 240 XBL points), which I found weird because these can be unlocked just by playing the game. I guess some players would rather buy them though, why else would the developers include it in the marketplace?

All in all, I feel that this game has something for everyone. If you’re a fan of Persona or just a fan of fighting games in general, you will most likely enjoy Persona 4 Arena. Arc System Works have a reputation for warding off beginners and casual fighting fans by developing fast-paced fighting games like Guilty Gear or BlazBlue – games that are really difficult to master. Persona 4 Arena is unique because it does a good job of easing beginners and casual gamers into it, while gamers who are already good at fighting games can jump right in, grasp the mechanics easier and still enjoy the different modes the game has to offer. If you’re into fighting games or feel like you’d enjoy playing a fighter, I would definitely recommend this game, you won’t regret it.

Persona 4 Arena was provided by Digumz

Posted by Patrick