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Posted March 6, 2012 by Derek Vicente in Gaming
 
 

A Closer Look At Persona 4: Arena

Persona-4-Arena

Persona 4: Arena is the latest entry to the beloved Persona franchise. Both Persona 3 and 4 gave PlayStation 2 users a unique role-playing experience where dungeon-crawling and dating simulation co-exists into one content-filled video game. Both games particularly stood out in the Summoning department – there’s a lot of psychological and mythological references in Persona, giving players the ability to understand cognitive stress and psyche development through Arcana fusions and Social Links obtained from making lots of friends. Persona 4: Arena is perhaps the curveball pitch of the franchise.

By this time, players won’t explore a Tartarus-like maze crawling with Shadows that feed on mental instability. Persona 4: Arena is a fighting game that borrows the gameplay physics of Guilty Gear and BlazBlue. The main storyline forces Yu Narukami, the protagonist and occasional playboy of Persona 4, to enter the twisted dimensions of the TV world and fight against his friends whom he fought with together in ridding Inaba of that mysterious fog. The conflict between Yu and his friends sounds like a self-hosted tournament orchestrated by a puppeteer but earlier in the game, it looks like Teddy is the the one stirring the ladle. I hate spoilers as much as you do, so enough with that already.

Here’s what you need to know about Persona 4: Arena, which by the ways is already available in Japan via the arcade:

1. Basic fighting moves consist of light and heavy attacks – In most fighting games, players can wisely choose between light and heavy attacks that can open up spaces between their opponent. Physical damage in fighting games are a player’s offensive bread-and-butter, which leads us to…

2. Summoning Personas – Summoning Personas is your ticket in leveling the playing field against physical powerhouses like Kanji Tatsumi and Chie Satonaka. Take advantage of a Persona’s abilities and give your opponents a much deserved thrashing. You cannot, however, summon and spam your Persona’s skills in every occasion since they can be knocked out of the fray after being hit by the opposition. Personas that have been mauled four times during the course of the game will be forced to take a breather.

3. Unleashing Burst moves – Initiating a Burst in Persona 4: Arena leaves the player unscathed from any damage. Burst can be particularly useful during situations when a character is near-death. Bursts are kind of associated with Personas and it become unusable if a Persona has been knocked away in battle.

Finally, Persona 4: Arena welcomes Persona 3 and 4’s memorable roster of high-school Shadow busters in a struggle to find out who is behind the P-1 Grand Prix. Check out all the latest gameplay videos of the game for a more detailed picture of what to expect in this refreshing entry to the Persona franchise.


Derek Vicente

 
Derek has been with Flipgeeks for almost three years. His first video game was Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Saturn and after blowing their television set after playing too much Rambo, he has set on a journey to play some of the best (and worst) role-playing games ever spawned. He recently completed Wild Arms 2 without any cheat codes.