Forum - View topicGAME: Persona 4 Arena
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Twilightmaster
 Posts: 129 |
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You mean, developers can't MIX genres? What blasphemy has been created where it's both a fighting game and a visual novel!? Frankly, even though I love the source games for this (being P3 and P4) I like that they're switching things around in an in between game like this and making it so different in play mechanic. I'm tired of seeing FPS copy and paste 4 or SF Turbo HD Hyper Remix Deluxe, this kind of thing is a breath of fresh air in the gaming world. |
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mglittlerobin
 Posts: 1071 |
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I'm watching the Persona 4 anime, I'm going to get the RPG, I'm currently playing through Persona 3 and I already bought this game. I'm here for both the story and the fighting. It looks like a lot of fun, and I have never bought a fighting game. If you like fighting games, you'll enjoy this one. If you want a good story, you'll like story mode, you'll only enjoy the story more if you've played Persona 3 and 4.
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littlegreenwolf
 Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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Own the game and it is COMPLETELY a mix genre, which was the point of the title. Persona is an RPG known for their stories, and they saw the potential to work it into a fighting game setting, and as a Persona fan I found the story mode worth my price of admission.
Labrys's story was something I rather have sat out on (so freaking long) but if you're a fan of Persona 3 and 4 you want to sit through it and experience the characters again. People who play RPGs typicall get attached to the characters of the game because of the story and events you go through with those characters, where as a fighting game just gives you characters with pretty much no depth or back story, they're just avatars to kick butt with. Story mode is what sets this game apart from other fighting games (I'm more of an RPG gamer, but I do play my share of fighting games) and I cannot in all my existance as a gamer remember a storymode for a fighting game that I had so much fun with and actually made me want to go through the story mode for each and every character. And this about the review is what gets me. The repetitive story line bit. It wasn't really that repetitive unless you purposely choose to go back and try it with another character out of the suggested order. Which makes me wonder by this quote:
If the reviewer played any of the Persona 3 characters' story modes. The Persona 3 characters story modes didn't even touch up on The Case outside of knowing that a Persona event of some sort happened in the previous year. The game's design to to avoid the repetition if you follow the suggested order of characters. For example I started with Chie (P4), and then I believe it suggested I go with one of three other characters and went with Akihiko (P3) who had nothing at all to do with Chie's story line outside of his random appearances (which btw I loved that little side option of chasing him out the window for the meat bowl), then when it meets up with where Chie's (P4) story left off it was Kanji (P4), and then Labrys (P4A), and then continuing off from where Chie's (P4) story left off, and then going back to finish the story with another P3 character. There was no repetitive overlap outside of seeing everyone's reaction at first to finding themselves in the arena. Repetition came in if you went back after let's say doing Chie's story, and picked another of the original 4 of the investigation team. It's all a rather intricate chose your own adventure/visual novel plot, and the writers did a great job with it. And to people saying it's not a visual novel: It is. Go play one and then try to explain to us why it isn't. It's a fighting game with an in-game visual novel, who cares? Online mode though I found to be the best thing about the game outside of the story mode. There is barely any lag with players from Japan, and I love the little details such as their nick names being obviously literally translated, and I'm assuming(?) that Japanese players by default use the Japanese audio track and you use the English? Does anyone know if the US players appear to them with an English audio track, or is that just something that depends on each player's individual settings, or do the Japanese players only hear the Japanese audio no matter what? After playing this I've got to say my problem with the game comes down to about 4 things: 1) Xbox controller is BALLS with this game. Maybe it's just my controller is old and I need a new one, but I should not have to go back and forth between analog and directional pad in order to be able to do particularly sensitive fighting moves/combos/rushes/reversals. It got to the point I had to personalize some of the buttons with the triggers and the like. This is the first fighting game I have ever played that seriously made me consider getting a joystick. I'll have to try it out on the PS3 to see if I still have issues with the moves. 2) Music. Anyone who plays persona either loves, or hates the music. If it's the hate it grows on you to the point you love it and Shoji Meguro's stuff is pretty much a staple of the game. Really I was hoping for some new music, and maybe some remixes of the classics, but we mainly just got some background noise instrumentals and the originals in the menu area. The songs were weak. Where was the rap? The jpop? Vocals? God dammit I want my funky engrish raps. The soundtrack for the game had a measly sick tracks that just makes me want to load the Persona 3 and 4 soundtracks onto an xbox playlist instead. They all pretty much felt like rejected shadows of the Persona battle music. It didn't feel like Shoji Meguro's stuff even if his name is on it. Come on and give us some Lotus Juice at least. 3) Unlockable content. I get that it's a visual novel and all, and I'm ok with that part, but I'd like my unlockables to not be visual novel unlockables. Ok, it's nice I can have a picture gallery and sound bites, but that's it? Really? There were rumors for a while that we could maybe get the protagonist from PS3 but that doesn't look like it's happening, but either way with video games you sort of unlock something worth while, be it new costumes or characters. Persona 4 Arena had nothing, and story mode is nice and all, but it'd go through every one of the characters and the arcade a lot more often if I could get something worth while out of it, especially since there's a ton of people they could have thrown in from Persona 3 that they could have thrown in as a bonus arcade/versus mode only character. Basically though I guess you can just say I really want more characters to choose from. Just give me Junpei already. 4) Training Mode and difficulty level. It sucked. And the difficulty level felt all over the place. I understand wanting to make it easily accessible to people not used to fighting games, so making the story mode battles and arcade battles so easy to the point the player thinks they're a master of the moves by the end, but no. They're fooled, sad little creatures for thinking so because then they click on that little section called Score Attack Mode and you get your butt handed to you on a golden platter by Youske of all people, over and over and over again. So finding that you suck, you start going to the training mode and it does NOT help. Training mode just sucks. If you're trying to practice a particular move, it just throws you directly into the next move to practice before you even realize you somehow managed the move. I like being repetitive when learning a move so I can get it down and it just does not allow it. How am I supposed to memorize all these crazy combos by only doing them once? So far I find the only way to get better is to play online. It's just really sad to see how badly you may actually be since it saves on record how many times you've lost. So those being my only problems mean the game was pretty damn great. I'm looking forward to what future Persona fighting games may bring, cause this little experiment is something they can only improve on, and with the sales numbers from Japan I've been seeing it's only a matter of time before they release a new one. I'm still really confused about what the reviewer meant by the matching feeling out of control. Before each storymode match you saved your bookmark, then you fought (they were all easy level fights that you can usually beat the first go) and then you go on to the next match. Same with the aracade mode. How does a fighting game match get out of control. The concept of a match in a fighting game going out of control actually sounds rather... neat.
It was not a Boston accent, it was a NYC/Brooklyn sort of thing. If you want to know what a Boston accent sounds like listen to some JFK sound clips... or something. Sometimes I'm surprised when people can't tell the difference between our country's accents, but then again we're a big country. |
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RyanSaotome
 Posts: 4210 Location: Towson, Maryland |
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It depends on what the person you're playing has their language settings on. If they've got Japanese voices, their characters will speak in Japanese in online matches. |
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DJcream
 Posts: 60 Location: NorCal |
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First of all, what credible source indicates that there are only 10 gamers in the United States that enjoy Visual Novel style games? I've already met this many people at my local Jr. college that likes those kind of games and have one has been talking to me singing high praise how the story mode's real pay off is with the final route featuring Labyrs. I've played a number of VNs (not a lot) but one of my favorites of the bunch is Ever 17 and after nearly 20 hours of playing through the first four routes, the final "true" route was mindblowning and brilliantly brings all of the previous routes to a satisfying conclusion. When my friend alluded the story's progression like Ever 17, I'm hooked to playing through it.
Holy crap, all together that's 50 percent of gamers in America! Why not pander to both these kind of gamers? From a business standpoint, the brand of Persona alone is fine enough to sell thousands.
Finally, I want to question where you're getting information on the competitive scene surrounding P4A. Two weekends ago, Philadelphia held a season major fighting game tournament called Summer Jam. Over 120 people entered Persona 4, which is more people who entered Blazblue and Guilty Gear combined. Momentum for this game in the FGC tournament circuit is amazing. It's growing faster than any previous "anime" fighter before it, with many strong players from the mainstream SF4 and UMvC3 scene trying to make their mark in this new game. This kind of support is incredibly positive for the scene, especially a month into it's lifespan. Suicide? Probably when the game came out. But its recent success makes it far from a dead scene on the national level, unlike half the games featured on this year's EVO lineup. My final word on the game is that I'm impressed how solid this game is for both the competitive fighting game crowd and how accessible it is for the casual RPG crowd coming in. It appeals to both sides well. My only concern is how will Atlus promote this game further in terms of keeping this game relevant for lets say a year from now when hype for Evolution 2013 comes around. |
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sainta
 Posts: 989 |
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The alternate endings for Chie, Yukiko and Kanji were pretty good. Also, is it true there is an exclusive epilogue for Yu Narukami if the player always chooses the first option in the answers? They say the epilogue is a discussion with Margaret foreshadowing the future of the series.
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Satiety
 Posts: 36 Location: Canada |
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Yeah, that's true. I was literally re-doing all options and found out I got a different epilogue with Yu at some point. Not sure if it's doing all first options but she does mention other things. |
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Salf1
Posts: 2 |
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Thanks for the well done review.
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Running Wild
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Because the people buying it for story are gonna "complete" the game, and never look back, and ignore a solid fighting game instead of supporting it and help it's community grow. Reach out to your local fighting scene and get involved! Show people how awesome this game is, and get them into it! Show support for this game, or else it'll just die a pathetic death like BlazBlue did in the fighting scene, which remains of just online warriors, until the next installment arrives. Anyways, this review was terrible, you can tell the reviewer knows very little about fighting games and fails to indulge at all about the gameplay, which should be the main selling point of ANY video game. |
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RyanSaotome
Posts: 4210 Location: Towson, Maryland |
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MY backlog is huge. I have at least 20 games unplayed... I don't WANT to play the same game for a long time. The story mode was very fun for me and thats all I really wanted out of it, so I just moved onto the next game after that. I have no interest in the fighting scene or anything. |
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toddc
 Posts: 164 |
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Whenever people say things like this, I suspect that they'd rather read a strategy guide or FAQ instead of an actual review. |
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littlegreenwolf
Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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Eh, I don't dedicate my life to fighting games. If you want to live in fighting game culture that's your business, but that doesn't make a fighting game a success or a fail because a niche group of gamers who start little communities play it. I beat Persona4Arena weeks ago, and went through all the story modes. Like I do with all my fighting games though, I play online every now and then. I don't give a damn about local fighting game communities because really, what's to attract me? I think the fact I forked out over 60 bucks for this game, and am getting my friends to play it is supporting it enough, and I would have done this with or without a story mode, so I basically think your excuse for saying story mode ruins the game is the most BS complaint I've ever heard about a game and is downright elitist. Japan has declared Persona4 Arena a success, that's good enough for me since that pretty close to guarantees they're continue on with the series in the future. |
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Chagen46
 Posts: 4377 |
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As fun to read as the story mode is, the real meat of the game is this.
The fighting in this game is so good it's almost criminal to ignore it. |
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