Persona 4 Arena is the 2D fighting game, which developed by Arc System Works and published by Altus (for America and Japan release), including Zen United (for European release) for PS3 and X360. It is the spin off game of original RPG game Persona 4. As you may now the Persona series is the part of Altus RPG franchises called Shin Megami Tensei which originally made in 1992, before they made Persona series in 1996 which had receives positive overall and become best series on the Shin Megami Tensei franchises. Anyway lets do the review right now, shall we.
This game features arcade mode, story mode, score attack mode, versus mode, lesson mode, challenge mode and network mode to select with. You have the choice of selecting characters, such as Yu, Yosuke, Chie, Mitsuru, Kanji, Labrys and other playable characters to play as in the game. In story mode, your mission is to rescue your friends to stop the Grand Prix Tournament which is hosting by General Teddie, who are forcing them to fight each other. I say the story is well written with great storyplot, excellent visual slideshows and of course the characters are quite decent as well, except Teddie has really annoying personality, but still an awesome fighter too. The gameplay is quite very precise with superb controls. The combo moves is very accurate by using auto combo system, which is very easy and simple to make more amounts of combo hits and you can also perform finishing moves in final round of the match, which showing the characters performing their final special moves to finish the opponent off. You can use persona, as the assist characters, to attack the opponments as well, but to stop the persona attack by hitting you, you can also attack their assist characters to break personas by using your heavy attacks. You can use burst attack to refill your special meter, when the opponent health bar is reaches low, but when the character's health bar is critically low, your special meter is started to increase high, which is helping your character's abillites.
I say the gameplay is well played with fast pacing controls, unique combo system and character's assistant moves, which makes the game plays incredibly fun and enjoyment.
The graphics is look outstanding with very stylish looking anime, excellent character's design, nice visual effects, and well detailed backgrounds and textures which makes the game look far more outstanding.
The music and sound has decent music, great sound effects and superb voice cast for characters which did a great job on this game.
The special features has unlockable stories in the story mode. The gallery mode has pictures, music and sound test to unlock. It has downloadable content, which can be found on online store. The good thing about the game, the regular edition brought us the CD version of original arranged soundtrack, while they offer us a free vinyl records as well, if you already have pre ordered the game. The limited editon has exclusive artwork, keyring, badge and jigsaw, which is kinda cool that Altus or Zen United have offered us a awesome features.
Advantages
Excellent gameplay.
Outstanding graphics.
Great music and sound.
Well written storyplot.
Great characters.
Awesome special features.
Disadvantages
Story slideshow is quite too long.
P4A is the first PS3 game features region lock system.
Score attack mode is hard as hell.
Final Verdict
Here is my final decision.
Gameplay 9.2/10 - Superb controls with intense combo system and unique special moves.
Graphics 9.1/10 - Very stylish looking anime, excellent character's design, nice visual effects, and well detailed backgrounds and textures
Music and sounds 8.6/10 - Decent music, great sound effects and superb voice cast.
Special features 9.1/10 - Unlockable stuff, downloadable content and exclusive edition.
Overall 9.4/10 - P4A is the remarkable and most intense fighting game you ever seen. Atlus made a great spin off to original Persona 4, which makes the game so incredibly fun. Arc System Works is a badass game developers who made really good fighting game series, like Gulity Gear and Blazblue. This is the game I've been waiting for since last year that it never came out in europe, due to delaying the release in UK, and till this game finally came out this year. Thank god it's finally here in UK, thanks Zen United.
This is the reason I hate to say about the Atlus is where they put region lock for PS3 version on purpose, which is going to pissed off european gamers badly who wanted to play this awesome game, but I'm glad I've got this kick ass game.
This is definitely must buy game for all fighting games fans, including Persona fans to enjoy the spin off game.
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