Bring on the Ring – Persona 4 Arena Ultimax Review

Back in 2012 we gave Persona 4 Arena a solid 8 out of 10, citing it’s unique Human/Persona combat which allowed the game to blend the elements we’ve come to expect from the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series (from Persona 3 upwards anyways.) The game even went as far as winning our Fighting game of the year, beating out heavy contenders like DOA 5 and Street Fighter X Tekken.

It’s been two years and a sequel has been released as Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, while many fighting game fans may be weary of a new title on old game, expecting a situation similar to Capcom’s frequent fighting game releases, I can put your mind at ease and say Persona 4 Arena Ultimax is legitimately a full-fledged sequel with enough changes to be worth the title.

Taking place a day after the events of Persona 4 Arena, Ultimax sees the return of the P-1 Grand Prix, originally caused by Labrys’ Shadow forcing Persona users to fight each other in an attempt to make their Personas revert back to Shadows. The new Tournament is dubbed the P-1 Grand Prix Climax, and merges two elements from Persona 3 and Persona 4 together, the Dark Hour and the TV world. The fighters which include all the previous fighters of the first game as well as some new faces from Persona 3, must fight their Shadow versions of their friends to the Death before the Dark Hour is up or else the world will end.

The story mode is separated by two stories, The Persona 4 Investigation team and the Persona 3 Shadow Operatives.  Each story is branches out throughout the Dark Hour’s time, showing the events of each character, which leads to some nice twists and turns as the characters reveal the enemies true motives for the P-1 Grand Prix. Story content is seperated by fights and animated cut scenes, quickly overshadowing the story mode of the first game with a much better lay-out, better pacing and better overall story.

There are several new changes to the gameplay this time around, with new moves introduced for returning characters, new additions to the auto-combo system, and a new hold special which allows players to hold a button down to charge an attack. The big changes are the addition of the Persona 3 favourites, Junpei Iori, Yukari Takeba, Ken Amada and Koromaru, as well as Persona 4’s Rise Kujikawa who took a back seat in the original as a hostage/announcer, and a new character Sho Minazuki.

On top of the new characters and their unique play styles, most of the characters also feature Shadow versions of themselves. While Shadow versions of the fighters feel more like an aesthetic change, Shadow fighters cannot use the Instant Kill moves that are usable by the normal fighters, instead they offer a “Shadow Rampage” mode that can be activated after reaching 100 SP, which then allows them to link unlimited Skill attacks for a short amount of time making them a high-risk high-reward characters that can easily turn the tides of battle.

The game controls very similar to the original, with two buttons being your character strikes and two buttons for your Persona attacks, with special moves and combos being done based on joystick movement and button presses. Some minor problems I had with the controls are based on the special moves which do not feel as responsive as those from fighters like Street Fighter or even Persona 4 Arena. If you’re more used to playing BlazBlue, you may find the controls will work more in your favour since the game uses the same engine.

Like Persona 4 Arena, the graphics and audio are done extremely well, fans of the series will catch on to the different variation of classic Persona 3 and 4 music, while the Dark Hour twist to Inaba will prove to be a nice touch to the background enviroment. Voice acting is spot on, while character models and animation are well drawn and fluid.

Ultimax is proof that Arc System Works can teach an old dog new tricks and is a great continuation of the first. Due to the story being closely linked to the original, I’d recommend the game to fans of Persona, or even those who had fun with P4A for it’s story alone, While Fighting game fans will definitely find something unique in the title that may keep them playing competitively in the game’s online mode for some time.