Persona 4 Arena

The game is very complex yet so accessible. It's hard to explain without going into a two hour detail of it, but I can see how fans of both Persona and fighting games can pick this game up, learn at their own pace, and still have a blast with it in the end.

Persona 4: Arena is one of the best fighting games in this generation. Great, original and depth combat mechanics, good offline modes and solid netcode for another hit by Atlus and Arc System Works. And gorgeous visuals.

In fighting game terms, I'd have to describe it as the midnight carnival meets the midnight channel for some midnight bliss. It's also proof that sometimes, just sometimes, good things come to those who...

It really sneaks up on you and delivers an ultimate fighting experience, and not from the usual source that you'd expect. Everything clicks to some degree, and the number of modes, along with online functionality, will really teach you a thing or two about fighting games.

And that's the real hook, the strange alchemy that transforms a deep, rewarding RPG into an equally deep and rewarding fighting game.

The younger brother of Persona 4 is fast and furious when it needs to be, but understands to calm down in order to tell a story. And the story itself is surprisingly good. [Aug 2013]

Persona 4: Arena is the result of an especially improbable, but successful marriage. Developer Arc Systems bring us one of the deepest and at the same time most accessible 2D-figheter ever. Atlus on the other hand, worked on the presentation with enough love and care to give Persona 4 a worthy successor. Do know that you're getting into though. Whoever wants to play a fighting game a few hours a week, will merely crush the tip of the iceberg.

Even if you don't care about the Persona mythos, there's a very solid competitive fighter here. Both local and online multiplayer are incredibly solid (the latter thanks to an update released two days after the game), with only the minor annoyance of no quick-rematch option. As it stands, anyone seeking a fresh, stylish take on traditional 2D fighting should enter this Arena.

This game hits a lot of the notes that catch the attention of casual and hardcore fighting game fans, even if it won't necessarily bring them together.

The fighting mechanics work well, collision detection is right on the money, online duels are as accurate as offline battles. The narrative though suffers from incoherent styles and a tendency to be drawn out.

Vibrant and vivacious violence. [June 2013, p.91]

Although P4 Arena's target audience are fans of the Shin Megami Tensei Persona franchise, Arc Systems Works did a great job that is capable of attracting new people.

If you're any good at all at fighters, give it a go. [Issue#98, p.78]

It’s all well-presented, looks nice and most importantly, is a lot of fun to play. It’s a proficient interpretation of Persona’s world with Arc System’s beat em up smarts.

A very well executed translation of the Persona world in the versus fighting genre. Arc System Works delivers a rich and beautiful game, all the while staying as true as possible to Atlus' franchise.

With such stark differences between RPGs and fighting games, the marriage of the two genres in Persona 4 Arena shouldn't work as comfortably as it does.

I am in love with this engine, true, and I probably spent as much time finding combos in Training Mode as I did finishing Story Mode, but it was Story Mode that got me honestly choked up.

If you honestly care about the universe and its characters, you'll probably take what you can get in whatever format you can get your hands on, but at times this story feels like it'd be better suited for a short manga series than a video game.

Enthusiastic beat-'em-up good for newbs, but with confused design principles. [June 2013, p.73]