Persona 4 Arena

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Persona 4 Arena
Developer(s)	Arc System Works
Publisher(s)	Atlus
Genre	Fighting game
Platform(s)	Arcade PlayStation 3 Xbox 360
Release	Arcade Japan March 1, 2012 PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Japan July 26, 2012 United States of America August 7, 2012 Europe May 10, 2013

Persona 4 Arena is a 2012 fighting game, and a spin-off of Persona 4 from the Persona series. It was developed by Arc System Works, published by Atlus, and released as an arcade game on March 1, 2012 in Japan. The game was later ported to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, releasing on July 26, 2012 in Japan, August 7, 2012 in North America, and on May 10, 2013 in Europe.

Blurb

Japanese

大人気RPG「ペルソナ4」のエンディングから2カ月後一。再び事件が巻き起こった稲羽市を舞台に、キャラクターたちの「その後の話」を楽しめる「ペルソナ4」の正統続編登場!

Dainiki RPG "Perusona 4" no endingu kara nikagetsu-go ichi. Futatabi jiken ga maki okotta ine uichi o butai ni, kyarakutā-tachi no "sono go no hanashi" o tanoshimeru "Perusona 4" no seitō zokuhen tōjō!

English

The dream team of ATLUS and Arc System Works writes the next chapter of the Persona 4 saga! Two months after the close of the Inaba murder mystery, the Midnight Channel is back on air, broadcasting a new show: the P-1 Grand Prix. Tune in to watch high school friends battling it out ...all the way to the bitter end!

THE ALL-ACTION SEQUEL TO THE MOST STYLISH RPG EVER! Discover what happens to your favorite Persona characters! Massive Story Mode introduces a brand new adventure to the world of Persona 4! Beautiful animation, lightning-fast battles, and a soundtrack to die for! THE MIDNIGHT CHANNEL IS BACK ON AIR!

Synopsis

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Persona 4 Arena takes place two months after the ending of Persona 4, but before the epilogue of Persona 4 Golden, during Golden Week 2012. It follows the protagonist, Yu Narukami, returning to Inaba to regroup with Dojima, Nanako, and his friends for the holidays, only to discover that the Midnight Channel has returned and is promoting a fighting tournament between Yu and his friends! This prompts the reformation of the Investigation Team who jump into the TV World to find out what answers lie inside. There, they meet a mysterious girl and an older group of Persona users and are forced to enter the same tournament that was advertised on the Midnight Channel with Teddie and Rise as hosts...

Persona 4 Arena's story mode starts with the player being able to select Yu, Yosuke, Chie, or Yukiko. After progressing through, the player can also unlock Mitsuru, Aigis, Akihiko, Kanji, Teddie, and Naoto. Each character's story mode tells the series of events from their perspective, with some events changing between each path. Currently, the story mode of Arena is included with the remastered version of Persona 4 Arena Ultimax.

Gameplay

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Basic Attacks

Persona 4 Arena is a 4-button fighting game that runs at 60 Frames Per Second. The buttons are labeled A for weak/light attack, B for strong attack, C for Persona attack, and D for Persona Rush. A round lasts until a character's HP drops to 0 or time runs out, and whoever wins two rounds first wins the match. A combination of two or more of the attack buttons can result in additional actions, such as a grab (CD), a dodge (AC), an All-Out-Attack (AB), or a Furious Action (BD). Pressing Light Attack (A) multiple times in a row activates a P-Combo, an automatic combo ending with a powerful special or super move. However, they can be interrupted at any time by either not pressing A or inputting a different move.

Grabs are unblockable but can be teched if the opponent also inputs a grab while a (!) appears above the character's sprite. Dodges and intangibles to attacks but can be grabbed. Furious Attacks are powerful moves that consume 5% HP in the form of Blue Health that regenerates over time unless the character is hit. In this case, Blue Health adds to the damage taken. All-Out-Attacks are slow, powerful moves with super armor, meaning they go through normal and special attacks but not grabs or supers. Pressing A or B rapidly can hit up to 15 times, and at any point the character can press C to launch the enemy airborne, leaving them open for an air combo, and pressing D will launch the oppenent far away and can wallbounce in the corner if all 15 hits land. If the 15 hits connect, then the opponent enters a fatal counter state, where they suffer more hitstun, allowing for easier combos.

Movement

Movement is controlled with a joystick or a D-pad, uses 8 directions, and is relative to the direction the character is facing. Blocking is performed by holding backwards while an opponent is attacking. Crouching is done by holding down, and it is possible to block while crouching by holding down and backwards. Characters jump by pressing up, up-backwards, or up-forwards and can double jump. Blocking will still inflict a very small amount of chip damage. Pressing backwards within 8 frames of an attack connecting will perform an Instant Block, removing 2 frames of hitstun. Characters can tech after being hit, when tapping a button right as the character lands; this will cause them to perform an 33 frames long invincible recovery animation. Additionally, they can delay the recovery after touching the ground, though they must wait 30 frames. If the character does not recover, after a short time they will stand up on their own, though they are vulnerable during that time. Moreover, characters can recover in the air after the blue bar under the combo counter empties by holding down a button. The air recovery lasts 15 frame during which they are invincible, and they can hold a direction to recover backwards or forwards.

It is also possible to run forward or backstep by pressing either forward or backwards twice rapidly, as well as air-dash forward or backwards. Characters can only air-dash once and cannot double jump and air-dash in one jump; they must choose one air movement option. It is also possible to block attacks and grab while in the air, as well as turn around by pressing AC while in mid-air. Pressing AC while crouching makes the character do a short hop. Pressing down quickly before pressing up performs a super jump—a higher than a normal jump—and it is possible to air dash, though double jumps are unavailable. If a character keeps backstepping or walking backwards, then they will be afflicted with a negative penalty and take 50% more damage until they perform multiple offensive actions such as running forward or hitting the opponent.

SP Gauge

Special and super moves can be performed by doing motion inputs, though Persona 4 Arena only uses quarter-circles and charge inputs. Supers are performed by doing two quarter-circles either forward or backwards, and use 50 SP. The SP Gauge starts at 0 and goes up to 100, and it is filled by being hit or damaging opponents. Remaining SP does not carry over to the next round. P-Combos grant 13 additional SP when the last hit before a super connects. Certain specials and supers can be enhanced through a Skill Boost which is triggered by pressing two attack buttons at the same time (AB or CD). For an additional 25 SP, Skill Boosts grant special properties like more damage, more range, or making the move come out faster.

Persona Gauge

Below a character's HP is the Persona Gauge, represented by several tarot cards. Hitting a character's Persona while it is active will decrease the gauge by one. If the gauge is empty, a Persona Break occurs, preventing the character in Persona Break from using any attack that involved their Persona, including certain specials and supers. The Persona Gauge will then refill over a short period, and when it is full, the Persona is once again available. The Persona gauge resets to full at the beginning of every round. The length of the gauge is character dependent, but they all take the same time to recharge.

Awakening

If a character's HP goes under 35% and they are in a neutral state (i.e. not being hit or doing a move), then they enter an Awakening state, giving them several passive buffs:

• Damage reduction of 62.5%. If an attack did 1000 damage before, now it will only do 625 damage.
• Max SP Gauge increases from 100 to 150.
• Free 50 SP added to the gauge
• New supers can be performed

Awakening ends when the round ends and does not carry over to the next round. However, if a character heals after being Awakened, the buffs will still persist.

Burst

Burst are a type of invincible attack activated by pressing ACD, and requires a full Burst Gauge, symbolized by a big "BURST" underneath a character's HP bar. Once used, the Burst bar will take 90 seconds to recharge, though hitting opponents with an auto-combo and taking damage refills the gauge slightly. When the gauge is recharging, it is represented by a capital "B" slowly filling.

When a Burst is used in a neutral state and damages the opponent, it will activate a Max Burst, filling the character's SP Gauge to the max, knocking down the opponent and the Burst gauge now starts refilling at 25%. Max Burst cannot hit opponents in hitstun, and opponents damaged by it are fully invincible to all attacks until the opponent recovers.

A Defensive Burst can be used when being hit in a combo, interrupting the opponent and pushing them far away, though they don't take damage. Using a Defensing Burst completely empties out the Burst gauge. There are certain situations where a Defensive Burst can't be used despite a full gauge, such as being thrown, when a character's Persona is disabled due to Persona Break or Mute, or when being hit by certain attacks like supers and instant kills. In these moments, the Burst gauge will be crossed out.

Version Differences

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Development

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In a 2012 interview with 4gamer, Kazuhisa Wada spoke about the development of Arena ahead of the arcade release of the game. The idea to create Persona games outside of the usual role-playing game genre came from Wada wanting to expand Persona to bring in new fans. He, Hashino, and Soejima are all fighting game fans who would often play matches during lunch break at the Atlus office. But as fans and consumers, no one at Atlus had expertise in creating a fighting game. Atlus felt the BlazBlue team at Arc System Works (Arcsys), headed by Toshimichi Mori, was best suited to bring the concept of a Persona fighting game to life as BlazBlue had been well-received by more than just fighting game players. The idea of a Persona fighting game by Arcsys came directly from Hashino, as he felt the team "love 2D fighting games, and have a lot of fun making them". Persona 4 Arena was directed by BlazBlue's lead programmer, Takumi Iguchiya.

Atlus contacted Arcsys first about making a Persona fighting game, a move which greatly surprised them. Additionally, multiple developers at the company were fans of the series, so their motivation for the project was "very high". Atlus didn't want Arcsys to do all the work and insisted on making the game a collaborative effort. While Arcsys handled the fighting game elements, Atlus took care of the other tasks like sound, setting details, character designs, and story. The game was designed from the start as a sequel to Persona 4.

For the playable characters, the developers wanted to implement characters that fans wanted to see, especially regarding the Persona 3 cast, as Arena did not feature all of S.E.E.S. though it did have the full Investigation Team. Fans requested more characters such as the rest of the primary Persona 3 characters (especially Shinjiro Aragaki), Tohru Adachi, Margaret, and Elizabeth. When they held on-site play tests, women, as well as people who did not usually play fighting games, showed up to try out the game. Some of them were so inexperienced they thought the "insert coin" screen footage was them playing. In trying to appeal to both fighting game fans and role-playing game fans, the Arena team created a tutorial for the arcade version and encouraged arcades to have single machines for new players to practice on before competing with others.

Reception

Critical Reception

Persona 4 Arena boasts an 86 out of 100 on review aggregator site Metacritic based on 47 reviews, indicating a "generally favorable" opinon. Japanese magazine Famitsu scored the game 36/40. Vince Ingenito for IGN gave the game a 9 out of 10, praising the visuals and soundtrack, saying "Every screen serves up a feast of audio/visual tastiness that gets stuck to the roof of your mouth". He also complimented the writing of the story mode as well as the gameplay, stating that it's perfect for both newcomers and hardcore fighting game players.

Persona 4 Arena won "Best Fighting Game" at the 2012 Spike TV Video Game Awards, beating out Dead or Alive 5, Street Fighter x Tekken and Tekken Tag Tournament 2.

Sales

The game sold 128,485 copies on PS3 and 9,801 copies on Xbox 360 within the first week of its Japanese release, outselling first weeks of other popular fighting games of the time like BlazBlue, Tekken 6 or Street Fighter 4 and placing it at second place of Japanese sales charts behind New Super Mario Bros 2. The game has sold 220,000 copies in Japan by October 2012, and by the end of 2013, Persona 4 Arena had sold 204,617 physical copies.

Trivia

• Persona 4 Arena is the first Persona game to be released for the Xbox 360, the first for an Xbox console, and the second Megami Tensei game overall to be released on a Microsoft platform after Shin Megami Tensei: Nine in 2002.

Nomenclature

Names in Other Languages

Language	Name	Meaning
Japanese	ペルソナ4 ジ・アルティメット イン マヨナカアリーナ	Persona 4 The Ultimate in Midnight Arena

Gallery

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  Labrys

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  Yu Narukami

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  Yosuke Hanamura

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  Chie Satonaka

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  Yukiko Amagi

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  Kanji Tatsumi

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  Rise Kujikawa

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  Teddie

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  Yosuke Hanamura

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  Mitsuru Kirijo

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  Aigis

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  Akihiko Sanada

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  Elizabeth