Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Just plain fun"

While I strongly prefer Capcom to Arc when it comes to 2D fighters, I found this game to be more enjoyable than BlazBlue and some recent entries to the Guilty Gears series. The game offers little in the way revolutionary additions to the genre, but the minor tweaks to the 2D fighting formula definitely make the game interesting. While Persona attacks are essentially quarter or half circle rotations in combination with heavy punch/kick buttons, they do in practice feel different from standard attacks, and losing them when Persona cards are depleted is particularly devastating. This, along with the other subsystems at play, give the game a distinct post-play impression that sets it apart from other Arc efforts, and lends it a certain uniqueness when compared to its modern competition. The Persona 4 coat of paint is handled well, with a gorgeous art style, original voice acting (as far as I can tell), and a faithfulness to its theme down to the most minor details. The combat itself is silky smooth and, when used with a good joystick, provides for a luxurious game play experience. The art style is so good, in fact, that I would put it ahead KoF XIII, which I thought offered the best art style in a pure 2D fighting game to date (with the BlazBlue series itself not that far off).

That having been said, I had two minor gripes about the experience. First, though I fully admit that this was consciously an impulse purchase for me, I feel that this genre can not justify a $60 price tag. Fighters are simply not engrossing enough to justify the price point, considering other content currently being released. They are great pick up and play games, and I personally return to them and again and again, but compared to something like Skyrim, Mass Effect, etc., they pale in comparison.

In the case of Persona 4 Arena, you have a standard arcade mode, challenge mode, and a better-than-average tutorial. I have not tested online play at this point, and I haven't looked at the story mode, as I still have not finished the original Persona 4. Now, some may say that the inclusion of the visual novel does justify the price, and it is definitely a nice addition for series fans, but I suspect most fans of the fighting genre did not buy this title for the story mode. Another minor issue is that, with such gorgeous stage design, it is a shame that you fight in the same locales, in the same order regardless of your character. Random stage selection is more or less a staple in the genre, and its omission here nips away a tiny bit of value from the overall package. Again, the fighting is great, but I think $40 would be fair for what is on offer.

My second gripe is more speculative, but I will put it out there anyway. Considering how the faithfulness to the source material was so well executed by Arc/Atlus, one wonders why they did not expand the scope of the game to cover the entire SMT: Persona series. The RPGs were not my favorite games of all time, but they abounded in uniqueness and charm, and it would have been fun to see the great characters/monsters from these games and hear a bit of their iconic soundtracks. I suppose the developers restricted themselves to Persona 4 because it has consciously achieved a cult status in the West, and thus will sell better than a Persona fighter that casts a wider nett. Still, it would have been nice...perhaps something like this is in the works for DLC or an Extended edition.

Overall, though, this is a solid package that should appeal to Persona 4 fans and fighting fans. If you are a member of both groups, then perhaps a full price purchase is justified. If you belong only to one or the other, wait until the price drops.