Review: Persona 4 Arena Ultimax

What I find funny about the Persona series is that it seems to be a title of great love in 4chan, yet it holds nearly all the tenements that what I’ll charmingly re-label ‘gaming progressives’ want to see in a game. Mechanics actively revolve around understanding others, themes on sexuality and trans are explored, and as big, red, fat pulsating cherry on the cake of towering misogyny, there’s a deluded gamer in Persona 4 whose evil incarnation is an overgrown baby.

Irony is delicious.

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax is a weird fighting game. I reviewed Arena when it came out, and while I really liked the game, my understanding of the genre has gotten a lot better since then, so I’ll take the chance with Ultimax to reset or further my thoughts on the title.

While the game shares some of the characteristics of its cousins (Guilty Gear, BlazBlue), as a fighting game, it lacks their depth. The controls, for starters, are far more limited, with a light attack, a stronger version of that light attack, and a persona attack, and a slightly different version of that same persona attack. I’ve seen it argued on threads at the bottom of the swelling internet that it’s basically the ‘light/medium/heavy/special’ split reinterpreted, but I’d have to disagree – moving from any other fighting game to Persona makes me feel like I’m missing half a moveset.

On top of this, characters don’t feel entirely too different from one another, and I’d argue that their main distinctions revolve around whether or not they’re designed to zone out opponents. Fighters movement speeds seem ubiquitous across the board, and attack speeds seem to follow suit. Further, because the game seems to love nothing more than massive, flashy combos, every match seems to feel roughly the same – someone hits someone else forever, and everything is big and beautiful and exciting, and then the other person does it – rinse and repeat.

It’s weird to read other reviews of Ultimax and see some say that it’s great for newcomers and that it will be intimidating for others. Personally, I think both statements are roughly true. On one hand,  you have elements like the ‘one button mash combo’, but then you also have Bursts and Persona Breaks and That One Awesome Finishing Move You Can Do When All The Requirements Are Met. So it is pretty perfect for someone who just wants to jump in and mash buttons, and also really good for someone who only knows how to mash buttons to learn to mash other buttons in an order that achieves results -– but I just don’t think it has what it takes to make someone whose counting frames in Street Fighter to sit up and take notice.

However, it’s almost unfair to look at Ultimax as just a fighting game – it really is an extension of the Persona universe and feels very much like it should or could be genre-shifting DLC for Persona 4. The dialogue is still excellent, the storyline is absurd and heart-warming, the characterizations are brilliant. I’d be hard-pressed to think of any fighting game that had a better plot, or to think of a similarly clever-written game mixing in so well with what should be a genre allergic to such an addition.

If you liked Arena, or have a soft spot in your heart for the Persona series, Ultimax is definitely worth the purchase, and if you’re looking for something to tide you over until Guilty Gear Xrd is released (if it ever makes it to ‘Strayan shores), then it’s going to do a pretty good job filling that vacant hole in your life.

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax was reviewed using a promotional copy of the game on PS3, as provided by the distributor.