48 Hours with Persona 4: Arena

48 Hours with Persona 4: Arena

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Earlier this week I picked up a copy of Persona 4: Arena (P4A), which is considered an “Anime” fighting game to the FGC. It is in the same category as BlazBlue and a personal favorite Guilty Gear. I’ve been watching online videos of the folks in Japan playing prior to release here in America and I really didn’t have a desire to play. I’ve since played the game for roughly 2 days and I’m still not convinced to a worthy comparison.

First is character selection. I tend to be drawn to characters that have stances but don’t depend on a meter to be there. In Guilty Gear I used Zappa, in Virtua Fighter I used Shun Di, in Soul Calibur series I used Voldo (although I understand the recent versions include many characters with stances, originally Voldo was the one with the most unique). In BlazBlue I used Litchi, but recent versions have since nerfed her ease of application for different stances (specifically the Ikki Tsūkan stance) and I’ve since stopped playing. In P4A there are no characters that use this sort of play style. The closest character is Aigis but uses a meter to change, which is similar to A.B.A. in Guilty Gear who is at a disadvantage for parts of the match. The rest of the cast is unappealing to me but I’ve since settled with Yukiko.

I went through the tutorial mode and was shocked to find out that not only do you need to hit something on the controller to turn around in the air, but you need to hit the buttons together. Guilty Gear Isuka used a turn button because you fought 3 other characters on the screen and needed to direct the attack in one direction or another but here you fight one opponent, you should only need to face one way. There’s only one application that I’ve since found for this and it’s for air dashing. The forward air dash is straight and moves far while the backward air dash is more like a backward hop in the air. Players have learned to jump, hit the turn button combination forward dash (which is now away from the opponent) and then hit the turn button combination again before landing. In other games with air dashes, the forward and backward air dashes are the same, no complex maneuvers required.

Next I went into the challenge mode, which teaches a few moves and combos specific to a character. I’ve watched them all completed in videos online, so I was prepared for how they were performed. The character I’ve selected uses a technique commonly called “negative edge”. This is when you perform the move on the controller but hold the attack button down. When you release the attack button you get another move. This isn’t much of a problem using a joystick, where one finger can hold a button while other fingers activate other moves. Using a controller like I do only allows the right thumb to hit the buttons. Also, assigning one of the attack buttons to a trigger would alleviate the problem if combinations of buttons weren’t used for different attacks. The act of hitting a button with your thumb on the controller while also using your right finger to hit a trigger is cumbersome just to sweep your opponent. Both of this character’s projectiles can use this and using “negative edge” is expected for high level play. Before I get the response “just use a joystick”, I find them unresponsive to my commands. Attempting a dragon punch motion using a joystick often releases a super jump in many other games for me. I find the controller is more precise.

Then I tried my hand at the arcade mode, just to get a feel for what the other characters could do. I went through a game worth of the normal setting, and I think I remember losing once somewhere toward the end. Not much to report here.

Then I tried to fight other people online. This was a big mistake at the time. I read later that the netcode for the Xbox360 was faulty but I found this out the hard way. Even selecting “fast connections only” in my region, all 5 games I played were very laggy. It was noticeable right from when the announcer stated the round number. Later that night, I got the opportunity to play a few people at a location in Long Island. First I played against Labrys, who has some insane air priority. Not only could I not counterattack, I couldn’t even get away from it. I think I only won one of the two dozen matches we played. During this time, I also realized there is no “rematch” option at the end of the match and instead sends you through a series of loading screens. This is an absolute necessary fix for competitive play. Next I fought a Chie player, and I was doing much better this time around. Chie is a character that has some problems getting in and I was able to use tons of projectiles to my advantage. However, when Chie was in, she would constantly do a bicycle kick and finish with a hard-to-blockable. Apparently the ending for the move must be blocked high for the next to last hit, and low for the last hit. Though if I block both, Chie has some recovery where I can counterattack, and her persona can follow-up and stuff that counter. I won about half of these matches. The last character I played was Naoto, who uses tons of projectiles and traps. The opponent left me lots of openings for me to convert into damage here, and I won most of these matches.

The next day of play I went online after the netcode was fixed. Play was still a bit laggy, but nothing in comparison to what I experienced a few days before. I was able to get to a C rank and receive the “black belt” achievement but not without some questionable moments. Many of my matches allowed me to get my opponent to below 20 percent health within the first half of the match but then things would take a turn out of my favor. For one character in particular (Kanji) he is given access to another super move once driven down low on health which removes about half of my health. It seems to be a command grab and most matches he seems to simply wait for me to damage him enough to let him use it. Yosuke is another character that I haven’t won against. He seems to fly around the screen, attacking sometimes from behind and even disappearing and reappearing with an attack. I still have no idea what is going on when against that character. I seem to do a good job against Akihiko, Yu, Chie, Teddy and mirror matches but terrible against Naoto, Mitsuru, Yosuke, Kanji, both Labrys and Elizabeth. I have yet to fight a Aigis player yet.

In conclusion the game is very pretty and looks simple only having four buttons but seems to be complicated for the sake of being complicated. I feel character development was a bit lacking considering how creative characters in other games are. I’ll continue to play until the new version of Guilty Gear is released later this year but in the meantime I won’t be taking it seriously.