![]() Playing through each character’s story is a very long process, with each chapter clocking in at nearly three hours (if you stop to read all the dialog, anyway). ![]() This is a super-reductive explanation, but it’s enough to set the tone.Īrena definitely tries to explain these events to players unfamiliar with Persona 4, but it is sometimes a little heavy-handed with its exposition. If a person denies that the shadow isn’t really their true self, they’ll die once the human world gets foggy. Persona 4 laid the groundwork for the mysterious TV world where demonic shadows emerged from people unlucky enough to get stuck inside. But if you never played Persona 4, you probably won’t get much out of it. Seriously, just watch this video and you’ll see what I mean.Īrena’s plot isn’t horrible, and it is certainly the most interactive fighting game narrative I’ve ever experienced. In this world of three-dimensional fighting games, sprites still have a place, and Arena shows that a little extra animation work goes a long way. Every action is so seamless that you almost don’t care that you’re losing if it means you can watch a beautiful instant-kill animation play out.Īrena wouldn’t look nearly as amazing if its visuals weren’t sprite-based. A simple match erupts into a symphonic display full of explosive magic and dazzling evasions at the touch of a button. If you wanted more franchise-inclusive fan service, Arena definitely delivers.Ĭharacters in Arena use their personas, or Pokémon-like inner demons, to fight. They aren’t the only characters from Persona 3 returning, however. No matter the explanation, it’s great to see these two again, even if Mitsuru looks like a sword-wielding Emma Peel. The Kirijo Group caused a paranormal disturbance similar to the Midnight Channel back in Persona 3, you see, which is why Mitsuru and Akihiko are so prepared to duke it out for a fictional representation of the Japanese wrestling promotion Hustle. Mitsuru and Akihiko were the senior members of the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad (what a name for a school club) and now track down wayward shadow-related technology. Without getting into too many spoilers, the icy-yet-brilliant Mitsuru Kirijo and fight-prone Akihiko Sanada return to investigate a missing precious Kirijo Group technology and end up in the TV along with the investigation team. Persona 4 Arena is a clever continuation of the events of the first game, but it also brings back a few memorable faces from Persona 3. Rather than fighting with basic controls, players must learn how to overcome their character’s movement in relation to their opponent. Some use ranged combat while others are slow and hard-hitting at close range. Every character comes with a different movement rate and attack style. The difference depends on how deft your thumbs are and when you unleash devastating moves.īut the complexity doesn’t end here. Unlike Street Fighter, every character has the same kind of attack, counter, block, and special move inputs. Somehow, the company that brought us the completely nonsensical BlazBlue managed to not only streamline its complicated control schemes but also maintain a level of complexity that has already delighted many players in the fighting-game community.Īrc Systems Works achieved this by building on a very basic set of controls. When I first picked up Arena, I worried that the complexity would completely alienate RPG fans, or worse, that the mechanics would be so stripped down that the fighting community would absolutely hate it. Sure, these games are exceptionally beautiful, but they are rarely accessible to average players. The company specializes in intricate fighting styles, a trend that started with Guilty Gear on the original PlayStation. Squaresoft’s Ehrgeiz for the PlayStation briefly flirted with this concept, but beyond adding a few Final Fantasy favorites, it couldn’t pull off such a unified story.Īrc System Works (the developer that designed Persona 4 Arena’s combat) has a bad habit of making brutally difficult games. Persona 4 isn’t the first RPG to lend its characters to a fighting game, but it is the first to do so in a fully realized and canonical world. We’ve seen the Yasogami High School investigation team explore the TV world (called the Midnight Channel) and come out victorious, but what if that demonic dimension started turning them against each other? ![]() Persona 4 has all of these things and an existing narrative just waiting for a new adventure. ![]() This transition might seem strange at first, but think of the things that make fighting games so memorable: challenging mechanics, iconic characters, and dynamite soundtracks. ![]()
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