Persona 4 Arena

 

Persona 4 Arena
Developer(s)	Arc System Works
Director(s)	Kazuhisa Wada
Composer(s)	Shoji Meguro
Platform(s)	PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Release date(s)	PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 JP July 26, 2012 NA August 7, 2012 EU September 7, 2012
Genre(s)	Fighting
Rating(s)	9.0

Persona 4 Arena, known as Persona 4: The Ultimate in Mayonaka Arena (ペルソナ4 ジ・アルティメット イン マヨナカアリーナ Perusona Fō Ji Arutimetto In Mayonaka Arīna) in Japan, is a 2012 fighting video game, developed by Arc System Works based on the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series owned by Atlus. It was released in Japan in March 2012 for arcades, and on July 26, 2012 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles. It is the first region-locked game on PlayStation 3. It has been released in North America on August 7, 2012, and will be released in Europe on September 7, 2012.
The game takes place two months after the events of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 and features characters from both that game and Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3. The plot focuses on a fighting tournament starting in the TV World where people fight using their alteregos known as Personas. The console versions added a story mode that follows each character's participation in the tournament.
Yosuke Hanamura attacks Yu Narukami using a Persona Attack. The bars in the bottom indicate the amount of remaining energy they currently possess, which is needed to perform special attacks.

As a fighting game, the controllers' buttons have their own respective actions. While characters are able to perform combat on their own, they are also able to call their Personas to assist them during battles. Through button combinations, characters are able to perform a series of special attacks as well as defend themselves for a prolonged time. However, these types of techniques are limited as a result of using the "Burst Gauge" which is separated in multiple blue bars. Should the Persona be attacked but the opponent, the player will lose a blue card situated below the health bar. Following four attacks, the player will be unable to use Persona for a short time. The console versions also features a story mode and an online mode, with the former giving multiple campaigns that focus on a single character.

Plot

Characters

 

The arcade game features characters from both Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 and its predecessor Persona 3. From Persona 4 comes its protagonist Yu Narukami, and his companions Yosuke Hanamura, Chie Satonaka, Yukiko Amagi, Kanji Tatsumi, Naoto Shirogane, and Teddie, who served as playable characters in the original games and take part in the competition. Rise Kujikawa, who served as combat support in Persona 4, serves as an MC in P4 Arena and appears in the tutorial mode. Other Persona 4 charactersn appearing in the game (as non-combatants) include Ryotaro Dojima, Nanako Dojima, and Margaret.

The characters from Persona 3 include: Aigis, Mitsuru Kirijo and Akihiko Sanada, who have aged in accordance with their appearances in Persona 3 and P3 FES, set two years before Persona 4 Arena.In addition, they utilize the final forms of their Personas in battle (Aigis uses utilizes Athena, instead of Palladion and Orpheus), while the Persona 4 characters use the initial Personas from their game (Yosuke uses Jiraiya). Other characters from Persona 3 appearing in the game (as non-combatants) include Fuuka Yamagishi and Officer Kurosawa (who has been promoted to Detective in the interim two years).
The arcade edition's boss is a new character named Labrys, a robotic girl with similarities to Aigis.She was initially stated to be a playable character only in the console versions of the games, but she was added to the arcade editions on March 22, 2012, with the brand new Persona Ariadne. She was joined by P3's Elizabeth who is partnered with Thanatos as her Persona on April 5, 2012. Shadow Labrys also appeared in the arcade version on April 19, 2012, accompanied by the Shadow Asterios.

Story

 

The first four story modes involve Yu Narukami, Chie Satonaka, Yosuke Hanamura and Yukiko Amagi watching the an advertisement of a fighting tournament involving them alongside Kanji Tatsumi and Naoto Shirogane in the Midnight Channel, a television channel that shows part of the TV World. With their friends Rise Kujikawa, Kanji and Teddie missing, while Naoto is busy, the following day Yu, Yosuke, Chie and Yukiko head into the TV world and find themselves stuck in the tournament. During the tournament, the group is forced to fight each other as they see illusions of their friends acting aggressive, while impersonators Teddie and Rise are revealed as the tournaments' hosts. They also meet Labrys, a girl without a Persona who entered the TV World without a Persona and suspect her Shadow may be responsible for this tournament. Other connected storylines involve Yu's friends who are met in the tournament. The real Teddie finds himself trapped in the TV World before Yu and the others learn of the competition and finds he has been impersonated by the host; Kanji appears in the TV World but confused regarding if he is having a dream; Naoto is hired by public safety to spy on the Kirijo group and the secret spec ops Shadow Worker.
The Shadow Worker's group is explored in Mitsuru, Akihiko and Aigis story modes. Mitsuru is the leader of Shadow Worker that fights Shadows but a weapon from them, Labrys, disappears when Mitsuru's plane is hijacked. Mitsuru and Aigis track her down to Yasoinaba and enter the TV world, joined by Akihiko. As a result they become involved in the Persona tournament. Before encountering Labrys' Shadow, Yu and Aigis also encounter a woman named Elizabeth who is on a journey and wishes to test their skills with the Wild Card.
Labrys was created in 1999 at the Kirijo Ergonomics lab and most of her development was done through forcing her to fight other models of her series. She grew close to one of her sisters, #024, but was forced to destroy her too. She eventually escaped the lab, dealing a lot of damage to it in the process, and was recaptured and sealed away. After vanishing from Mitsuru's plane she was tossed into the TV world and her Shadow created the tournament to let other people feel what she felt.
The Persona characters defeat Shadow Labrys and Labrys accepts her and turns her into the Persona Ariadne. As they prepare to leave though the true mastermind behind everything takes control of her and makes her attack everyone, but Fuuka manages to reach Yasoinaba in time and cut off his connection (he escapes). The mastermind is a human with no Persona who cannot enter the TV world, but is partnered with something not human that can shapeshift and pretends to be various characters' Shadows; Their objective is to weaken the Persona users mentally so that their Personas will revert to shadows- They need to gather strong shadows for their "project" and reverting the persona users' strong Personas would make exceptionally strong shadows. Anyway both of them escape and Mitsuru tells the Persona 4 group to forget about everything, and leaves with Labrys. Elizabeth gains insight on the nature of the Wild Card from Yu and Aigis, and she gains her own Fool arcana, signifying the start of a journey. Yu decides that everyone should head to Port Island next, and the game's story ends on this cliffhanger.


Gameplay 

Development

The game was first announced during August 2011 in the Japanese journal Famitsu. Persona 4 Director Katsura Hashino thought about making Persona 4 Arena due to his wish of creating a 2D fighting game based on the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series. The staff also wanted gamers to play other types of games based on the series besides role-playing games with some of them being fans of fighting games. Hashino approached Arc System Works, inspired by their work in the BlazBlue fighting game series. Atlus first came into contact with Arc in August 2008 in hopes that they accepted their request to help them produce such a game As a result, the game is a joint project between the Atlus and the Arc System Works staff. As of March 2012, director of the Atlus/Index side of the game's development Kazuhisa Wada gave praise to the way Arc designed the game, commenting on the 2D visuals employed by the company. Rather than a spin-off of Persona 4, Hashino refers to the fighting game as a canonical sequel based on the direction from the plot such as the growth of the Persona 3 characters. The choice from the Persona 3 characters have been surprising for the developers themselves, and they have also hinted the addition of original ones.While the plot and the script were handled by the original Persona 4 staff, Arc System Works was in charge of the gameplay.
Wada stated that the console versions would have noticeably new content, hinting modes that are not common in fighting games. The Xbox 360 suffered lagging issues. Shortly after the game's release in August 2012, Atlus released a patch to fix the port's issues.

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