Persona 4 Arena Ultimax is the sequel to the 2012 fighting game, naturally based on Persona 4. This time around, there are more playable characters from both the cast of Persona 3 and Persona 4, including Yukari, Rise, Junpei and Ken. Unfortunately, Margaret, Marie and Adachi are only playable via DLC purchases. Still, Ultimax boasts 19 "normal" playable characters and is enough to provide a decent variety. As an added bonus, there are "Shadow" versions of nearly all the characters, these Shadow versions have unique abilities which makes up for their lack of Persona moves. The story is a direct continuation from Arena, taking place literally the next day. You can immediately tell that Ultimax has much better storytelling than the first. It now presents the story in sequence, without the annoying cliffhangers that plagued the original. Even though Ultimax swaps perspectives from time to time, there is no more repetition and multiple retelling of the same story with slight alterations. The story is engaging from the beginning, with a good twist in terms of the events that lead up to the characters fighting, and how this all connects to the Midnight Channel. The plot takes place between two perspectives with slightly alternate events, just like the original Persona 4 Arena.
The day after the original P-1 Grand Prix, the Midnight Channel strikes again and now a red fog has arrived to engulf Inaba. The protagonists must save their friends, and an ominous yet familiar tower looms over the town. We finally get to find out who the true culprit was after Arena so disappointingly left unanswered. Ultimax presents the story through two "episodes". In the Episode P4 side of things, we follow the Persona 4 cast, as Yu and his team find out what's wrong with Inaba, as well as finding and defeating the culprit. Meeting up with everyone else, including the new Persona 3 characters, there was a surprise inclusion of Adachi. In the story, the cast fights Shadows who have taken on the guise of other characters, thus presenting the excuse required for characters to fight each other. The ending was interesting and had a cool final boss battle, although in the end, the story mode is a bit on the easier side. The identity of the true culprit was also slightly disapopinting as it is a new character.
The Episode P3 side follows the Persona 3 cast, led by Labrys. The overall arc of the story remains the same but now it is the Persona 3 characters fully exploring and fighting the Shadows, defeating the culprit and regulating the Persona 4 characters into the sidelines. It's a way to effectively double the length of the story and it provides different enough spin on the events for it to feel worthwhile. The story is told in a visual novel style, with pretty 2D backgrounds and a lot of text. There are 2D animation cutscenes from time to time but the majority is comprised of character portraits (the only animation being the mouths moving while speaking), all dialogue is voiced. Just like the first game, the music and animation are fantastic. There are amazing 2D graphics, with great fighting special effects, all of which are pretty and flashy. The music reuses some of Arena's tracks as well as remixing a few new ones. The fighting mechanics remain largely similar with attacks mapped to four buttons: weak, strong, weak persona and strong persona. There are button combinations for special attacks, special moves, grabs, throws, jumps, blocks, bursts (i.e. get-out-of-a-sticky-situation move) and dashes. It is your typical fighting game moves, and you can map some common moves into the shoulder buttons of the controller to make it easier as it can get awkward trying to input the correct combinations in the rush of battle.
There are minor tweaks to the game mechanics such as holding down the weak move button to execute special moves. For most people who have played Arena, they will get right into the rhythm of things. After you finish the 10 hour story, there are a bunch of modes for you to enjoy: Theater Mode, Training Mode, Network Mode, Arcade Mode, Versus Mode, Lesson Mode, Golden Arena Mode, Score Attack Mode and Challenge Mode. The Theater Mode allows you to download online matches of other players, or your own, to watch. The Training Mode puts you in a battle to try out and practice any moves with a particular character. The Network Mode is the online component of the game, you can fight against your friends or other players. You're able to use in-game currency to purchase avatars and other cosmetics. The Arcade Mode recreates the Arcade version of the game, pitting you against eight CPU characters. There are some dialogue in between the rounds which correlates with the full Story Mode. The Versus Mode allows you to select a particular character to fight again, as well as local co-op. The Lesson Mode teaches you the basics of the game, as well as introducing the new abilities.
The Golden Arena Mode is an interesting inclusion and a lot of fun. Depending on the difficulty selected, you will fight against 50, 100, 200 or infinite rounds against other CPU characters, denoted as "floors" of a dungeon. It has RPG elements such as passive skills that help you in battle (HP recovering, auto-poisoning the opponent etc) and experience system. You level up your chosen character and are able to distribute the stats however way you want. There's even a social link system with other characters providing more passive boosts. Your HP carries over each round, so if you barely just managed to defeat the previous opponent, you'll start off the next round with that limited amount of HP. It provides a good challenge even on the lower difficulty, but it is satisfying. The Score Attack Mode is against 10 CPU characters and you aim to get the highest scores from finishing a round with higher health, faster time and other factors. Finally, there is Challenge Mode, where you're tasked with performing specific button combinations with each character who ends up being very difficult. There are over 300 challenges to complete! Overall, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax presents great value for money with a lot of content, although it does basically all boil down to fighting your opponent again and again. Nevertheless, the story mode is decent, the fighting mechanics are great and there's even a neat RPG-like mode, Ultimax is well worth your time and money.
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