Hey, everyone! Aesop again and today, I'd like to talk to you about a game (shocking, I know). It's a game after my own heart and one of the funnest I've played. Today, I'll be reviewing Persona 4 Arena.
Now, if you haven't played the original Persona 4, WHY?! What excuse do you have for not playing one of the best JRPG's (Final Fantasy 7 eat your heart out) to date?! I seriously recommend it and you can expect a review on here soon, that's a promise. Okay, now that that's out of the way, onto the game.
From the very beginning, this game is STYLISH! How stylish you ask? As stylish as Robert Downey Junior at any given moment! From the main menu to the BEAUTIFULLY hand drawn sprites, ( MY EYES! THEY BLEED!) everything just looks so good! The only way they could possibly make it look any better would be to include a Gucci belt with each copy of the game. It's really as close as you can get to PLAYING an anime (well, there IS Naruto, but that's a different review).
But as many games in the past have shown, graphics aren't nearly everything, so let's take a look at the modes one by one. First is the story mode. If you've looked at any other reviews on this game you'll notice one word is synonymous with the story mode: long. And they'd be right, but I'm really surprised as to how many of them seem to forget another word that should be synonymous with it: repetitive.
Let me explain: You go through the story mode as one of the 12 characters (there being 13 in the entire roster), do a certain amount of the story, then they cut you off with that good old "To be continued..." So now, you've done the story with the one character you're interested in doing it with and it won't let you finish it unless you do it with EVERYONE ELSE. Keep in mind that even just the first parts are long (especially for a fighter)! Often being just shy of two hours, and there's a lot of text and little voice acting. Plus, after a while you start to realize ITS THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER WITH DIFFERENT CHARACTERS! The writers do the best they can to try to make every characters story feel different (and they do a damn good job), but it gets really old, really fast. And to make matters worse, the actual fights in story mode are one round long, meaning the time you're actually PLAYING the game is drastically cut. It can be said that, like the auto combo (that I'll get into), it was made to appease people who came for the story, but that doesn't exactly cut it for me. Though the story is pretty good, many of people wont have the patience to find out, and I can't blame them.
Then there's arcade mode. Arcade mode does a better job of balancing the story with the fighting. Its back to best 2 out of 3 and all of it is voice acted (can you tell I got tired of reading yet?). But you miss out on the depth and the second half of the plot (I CAN'T WIN!). This is pretty much the mode people end up going for and it's the one I'd recommend when you actually want to play the game.
"Alright, what's next?" I ask my beautiful and scantily clothed female assistant. "Score Attack Mode," she says while coming over to hand me my review writing pipe. "What's that? COUGH COUGH," I ask while taking my first and last puff, suddenly remembering I don't smoke. "Screw Yosuke mode, dear," she says, taking a seat next to me. "Ah, isn't that the mode that raises the difficulty of the opponents higher than their normal limits AND gives them a cheap gimmick?" I ask, quite sure of myself. "Yes, dear," she says, as to indulge me." And why do we call it Screw Yosuke Mode again?" I ask. "Because Yosuke's the first opponent, and no one makes it past Yosuke," she says sternly. "Hmm, I see, but there's one thing I'm still confused about... Who ARE you?" As soon as the words left my lips, she leaped clean out of the window, transformed into a cat and disappeared into the woods... I had a little trouble closing this paragraph; work with me here.
Okay, so next is... what? Training Mode? And I missed one? Lesson Mode? Ugh. Let me get this all out of the way now. Lesson mode, you learn how to play the game. Training mode, you train. Versus mode, you verse. Options, you, well, option. Might as well mention auto-combo while I'm at it. Seems like a game breaker right? It's not that bad. If you press square (or A) 5 times, you do an auto combo that, if done along with the appropriate amount of meter, ends in a super. Doing this takes health away from the user and the damage you receive (because you're a classy bunch who would never auto combo) has Super Street Fighter IV tier scaling. So yeah, not that bad. It was made, again, so people who have no interest in fighters but love them some Persona can make it through the game. All these modes work and do what they're supposed to. One cool thing I can say for training mode is you can access it while waiting for an online match, so that's pretty cool.
Back to the meat and potatoes, we have Challenge Mode. Here's a little back story on me, I used to love Street Fighter, specifically Super Street Fighter IV (Along with Arcade Edition and ver. 2012). My friends and I would have tournaments, I'd watch all the streams (Shout out to Spooky #WhensMarvel?), it was practically my life!
Those of you who've played it know it had a challenge mode as well, as with most fighters. The problem I had with SSFIV's challenge mode was that, at least for me, the combos weren't practical. I never did them in battle. It's not that they were hard, but there was never really a point to it (mostly because of scaling). P4A's is TOTALLY opposite; challenge mode is pretty much an advanced lesson mode. Not only do I take these combos into battle, I'm able to build upon them and add my own little variations, which is a big part of the fighting game experience. So hats off to challenge mode for being useful. But, though I sing it's praises on high, this is NOT my favorite mode in the game.
My above all FAVORITE mode in this game is the online. Permit me an example. This is me in Street Fighter's online mode.
This is me in Persona 4 Arena's online community.
See the difference? One's a community. I play this game on the PS3, so I can't vouch for Xbox, but I feel like I know pretty much everyone that shows up regularly. And if I don't know them, I know someone who knows them. Don't believe me? Get the game, put on your mic, and prepare to be sucked in by some of the coolest and friendliest gamers you've ever met. To all my hardcore fighting game fans out there, let me put it to you like this: THERE IS VIRTUALLY NO SALT ON P4A's online. Seriously. It's a little creepy, but a lot awesome. And with that, we can move onto my final thoughts.
We get lead on a lot by fighting games as of late, and it's not often we get something so compelling and innovative. From the visuals (and audio) to the gameplay, this game gets so much right that it's hard to fault it. I feel the story mode could've been executed better, but the story itself isn't bad. I personally think this is really one of the best fighters out there and truly a game that should not be missed.
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