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Persona 4 Arena

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I have been playing this a ton over the last couple days and feel very strongly that it is a thing worth endorsing.

For what it's worth, the game's title is a complete lie and It actually has characters from both Persona 3 and Persona 4. (Which means not a lot to me, because i didn't play either of those games. I watched the... Giant Bomb Persona 4 Endurance Run, that's my experience with Persona.)

P4A though, four button game. Two buttons are weak and strong attacks for your character, two buttons are commands for your persona. Hitting the persona buttons brings your persona out on screen like an assist, and it has its own health bar and can take damage. In some cases, it can linger on screen and receive follow-up commands, allowing for some really crazy combat dynamics. It can get pretty wild, issuing commands to two seperate onscreen characters.

It's an ArcSys game, so big combos, air dashes everywhere, flashy visuals, and just tons and tons of character specific game systems. The thing is, here they've made a lot of concessions to try and make it more accessible. All the specials are quarter circles, there's a lot of shared universal moves, there's even an infuriating-in-concept button-masher combo built into every character. Yet, somehow, none of it seems to break the game, it seems to completely hold up at the high end. You take all the pieces they've given you, start putting them together, and it feels like an absolutely legit fighting game, like nothing was sacrificed. It seems like it might actually be a game that can successfully cater to all skill levels.

The 360 version launched with some pretty busted netcode, but it was patched early this morning and now it's perfect. ArcSys has arguably the best fighting game netcode in the industry. I have been having so much fun online with friends.

The story mode is kind of the expected ArcSys approach, an extremely lengthy visual novel thing, but here actually written by Atlus' own writers, and apparently regarded as Persona canon. Compared to what you would normally expect from a fighting game, it seems pretty well written and fairly charming, just be ready to do so much reading.

I'm bummed to see that the tutorial isn't made to be as extensive and newbie-friendly as what ArcSys had prepared for BlazBlue: Continuum Shift. This tutorial still introduces all of the game systems and pretty well gets you going, but it stops short of high level concepts and any bnb combos to have you safely on your way. Still, even at just that, it's a vastly better tutorial than you'll find in most other fighters. (There are also already loads of character guides online, the fgc seems to have really latched onto this game.)

I like this game a ton, i am pretty excited by the potential here, and i am looking forward to digging deeper into it.

I'm also kind of pumped about ArcSys announcing Chrono Phantasma alongside P4A's release, BlazBlue is definitely my favorite fighter.

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Absolutely no interest at all from you guys, hey?

That's a shame, it's a really great game.

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I don't know, are there a lot of fighting game fans on the forum? I myself have zero interest in them, but enjoy watching skilled players beat each other up. As a genre, the lack of any proper narrative (the recent cool Mortal Kombat reboot notwithstanding) and absence of exploration means I'm not very interested in them. I always kind of enjoy ruminating on the idea of becoming really good with one character and the fulfilment that would bring, but then my hands already start aching at all the fast combo's required.

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I don't know, are there a lot of fighting game fans on the forum?

I don't know if there's a lot, but I've definitely had long conversations about fighting games on this forum, previously.

I always kind of enjoy ruminating on the idea of becoming really good with one character and the fulfilment that would bring, but then my hands already start aching at all the fast combo's required.

You definitely don't need to go that far for such a game to be rewarding, just understand the mechanics and find people around your skill level. The interesting dynamics offered by a good fighting game extend well beyond simply throwing out a complicated combo. Don't even look at the execution side of things, learn the systems and the strategies, technical execution comes later. The fun is when you understand your options and the associated risks, trying to discern the best way to respond to your opponent's actions while putting yourself in the right situation to execute on your own tactics.

I mean, and that's all just theory. It can be a little arcane, but it's not something you need to spend a hundred hours practicing.

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I somewhat like the look of the game because I'm a big Guilty Gear fan, so anything Arc puts out immediately catches my eye. That said there are issues with the European launch, as usual with Atlus, so I don't know when I'll actually be able to play it. Also I don't really get a lot of value out of buying fighting games because I don't have many friends who play them regularly, so I tend to just rent them to screw around on my own for a bit.

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I will play this eventually. I am kind of a fighting game nut (I'm terrible at them, but I love them anyway, and have a pretty huge collection).

I'm also currently playing Persona 3 Portable, and loving the hell out of it. It's the first JRPG that I've been sucked into. I plan on continuing on with Persona 4 Golden, which I will follow with P4A.

I liked Guilty Gear X; it was crazy fun. The first time I saw it was at Chinatown Fair in NYC, and it made a strong impression.

I'm glad to hear this is good, because I was probably going to play it even if it sucked!

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(I'm terrible at them, but I love them anyway, and have a pretty huge collection).

This is kind of where i am with fighting games, i love figuring them out and playing them them with some similarly-skilled buddies, but i never stick with any one game long enough to be anything less than terrible. (I'm ok with Soul Calibur.)

I don't even have a stick, i really need a stick.

Anyways, i'm just going to leave this here incase anybody's interested: Four hours of systems and characters analysis for P4A.

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The interesting dynamics offered by a good fighting game extend well beyond simply throwing out a complicated combo. Don't even look at the execution side of things, learn the systems and the strategies, technical execution comes later. The fun is when you understand your options and the associated risks, trying to discern the best way to respond to your opponent's actions while putting yourself in the right situation to execute on your own tactics.

Right, I agree with this. The strategic aspect is definitely the thing I love most about fighting games. And, perhaps, this is the reason I like the Street Fighter IV series more than other recent fighting games. It's slow enough that I feel like I can get a more solid grasp on the actual strategy involved. I like GG, Blazblue, and Marvel, but, to me, these games feel like they're hiding their strategic depth behind a wall of execution that's difficult to break through.

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I actually struggle with even the most basic execution in SF4, i find the precision it demands to be really difficult to grapple with. I've always found that the ArcSys games come to me more naturally, a lot of subtle differences in the control and the style of game. Different things click for different people. (Really, they're dramatically different styles of games. SF4 strongly favors footsies and careful defense, while ArcSys games generally favor rushdown tactics.)

Marvel too, i'd argue MvC requires yet another totally different approach. That game is much more about strategies, as opposed to tactics. It's about the plan you have before you even begin the fight. The team you take into a match, the assists you've chosen, the character you have on point, and how you intend to use all of that.

I'm kind of terrible at MvC3.

While i'm outing myself, let me say that I was also phenomenally terrible at MK9.

I'm bad at games.

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You are absolutely right. I'm a pretty defensive player, so I'm sure that has a lot to do with preferring the game that requires footsies and careful defense.

And I often confuse tactic and strategy, because I am a fool.

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