Persona 4 Arena Review

The plot of Persona 4 Arena is centered around a group of high school students. After seeing a strange late-night broadcast, they travel to a fantastical world hidden within a television set where they experience hallucinations and are tricked into fighting each other for the amusement of a cartoon bear wearing a cape. Think this sounds bizarre? You're not alone. Thankfully, for those unfamiliar with the preexisting Persona lore, this game's narrative modes takes great pains to bring you up to speed.

Each member of the 13-character roster has his or her own story to tell, and they have a lot to say. The overarching tale is the mystery of the P-1 Grand Prix: a fighting tournament taking place within the television world. For those who really want to sink their teeth into this, there are branching story paths within certain characters' storylines. These paths can offer additional insight or lead to some strange alternate endings--which adds some extra replayability. Sadly, the presentation of this mode is not as interesting. It's mostly two character portraits talking back and forth in 15- to 20-minute text-filled blocks--a static (if not efficient) form that will quickly bore all but the most enthusiastic.

If you're looking for a slimmer single-player experience, Persona 4 Arena's Arcade mode is for you. This mode condenses each character's storyline into a few brief snippets before and after each fight, as well as a short ending. Playing through it reveals a few of the story mode's key plot points, but you can finish it in under an hour.

If you find yourself stuck in a fight, you can turn to the game's educational modes. The first, Lesson mode, introduces the fundamentals. This series of trials covers everything from movement to move canceling--albeit in a very basic way. These single-completion lessons do not match the quality of education offered by Skullgirls and only scratch the surface of fighting game theory.

The character challenges include demonstrations to help with timing.

The game's Challenge mode is more helpful once you reach the intermediate stage. This mode introduces the basic moves for the entire cast, as well as a long list of simple, and advanced, combos. It does a good job of providing some shorter, practical combos up front that help you understand how a certain fighter should be played. Once you feel comfortable, there are plenty of more advanced combos to learn, including a special expert challenge at the end--such as "Inflict more than 9000 damage at once!"--for you to puzzle out.

Online, Persona 4 Arena offers most of the amenities fighting fans have come to expect. The basics of player and ranked matches are in place, with all the standard ranking and filtering options. Player match options let you decide how players are rotated out (winner out, loser out) and how many matches a player can play in a row--that way one person can't dominate the entire session, if you so choose. Unfortunately, at the time of review we were unable to download replays from the dedicated replay leaderboard--unlike in the PS3 version where the replay leaderboard is functional. However, we could still download replays from other leaderboards provided the listing included the green camera icon. This is a severe handicap for replay functionally.

Online performance was inconsistent. Matches against opponents within the same region suffered frequent spikes in lag, while matches against overseas opponents stuttered to an almost unplayable crawl.

Roughly half the dialog in the narrative modes is fully voiced.

Persona 4 Arena is a fast-paced fighter that can be easily enjoyed even if you're not a Persona fan. With the auto-combo system, combat is initially accessible, but it quickly reveals its complexity as you explore the intricacies of each character's persona and individual traits. For those who are Persona fans first, and fighters second, the game's lengthy story mode will keep you intrigued, so long as you don't mind its dry presentation. It's an elegant game and a great entry point into the catalog of Arc System Works' fighters.