Persona 4 Arena.

Original Release: Arcade, Playstation 3, XBox 360, 2012. Version Reviewed: XBox 360, 2012.


THE PLOT:

Two months after leaving the small town of Inaba, Yu Narukami (Persona 4's no-longer-nameless protagonist) returns for the Golden Week holiday. He is looking forward to reuniting with his friends from the Investigation Team. It's a rainy night, however, so out of habit he checks to see if the supernatural Midnight Channel is showing.

It is - and this time, what it's broadcasting is what looks like a cheesy promotional video featuring him and his friends, as if they were contestants in a fighting tournament. When he catches up with his friends, he learns that Teddie, Kanji, and Rise are missing, and that Naoto is out of town on another investigation. They decide to go into the TV World to determine just what is happening.

They are greeted by none other than Teddie himself, wearing a strange outfit and calling himself "General Teddie." This figure informs them that they must fight each other in a recreation of their high school, with Rise acting as emcee. Why are their friends behaving so oddly? And just who are the other strangers inside the TV World - an imperious woman in a fur coat, a half-naked man in a red cape, and a blonde robot girl - and what is their link to this bizarre tournament?

The only way to find out is to move forward. And since only the winner of each match may proceed, that means the friends must fight each other - and win!

Yosuke encounters a young woman
who can't remember her own name.

CHARACTERS:

For a fighting game, Persona 4 Arena offers a surprisingly exhaustive "Story Mode," as the above summary shows. The story acts as a direct sequel not only to Persona 4, but to Persona 3 as well, with prominent roles for P3's Mitsuru, Akihiko, and Aegis (along with a couple other cameos). The premise was devised by the producer and character designer of the Persona series, so it's little surprise that the characters mostly feel as complete here as in the core games.

I mentioned in my review of Persona 4 that I didn't think the characters were quite as distinct as the ones in P3, and the results here bear that out, with Mitsuru and Aegis coming across as particularly dominant figures. Of the P4 group, sidekick character Yosuke ends up with the meatiest arc, his narrative ultimately being more fully satisfying than Yu's. Each character gets at least one moment to shine, however. Even Kanji's largely comedy-relief strand sees the muscled doofus showing both strength and insight when apparently confronted by his effete Shadow.

Naoto's investigation brings her into
contact with Persona 3's Mitsuru Kirijo.

GAMEPLAY:

The game tries to cater to both fighting game fans and fans of the Persona series' storytelling by offering multiple modes.  The Story Mode is substantial. You start with four characters to choose from, and play the first roughly 2/3 of their stories, up to a cliffhanger. As you play these characters' stories, more characters unlock - until you end up with twelve total parallel narratives. Ultimately, if you play every character's version of events, you will end up with around 30 hours of content.

Content - but not gameplay.  Each of the stories is presented as a visual novel. All dialogue is voiced, but save for occasional cutscenes, the action is largely described through text against still images. Occasionally, you may get to make a choice between two courses of action (and in a few stories, the wrong choice can lead to a humorous "bad ending"), but there's not much interactivity beyond that except for the actual matches. In Story Mode, each match is only a single round, and the AI opponents are extremely easy to defeat, leaving less than ten minutes of actual gameplay for each 2 -3 hour long character tale. Fine if you just want to see what happens next to the various characters... But probably not very exciting for fighting game enthusiasts.

The other modes are gameplay-intensive. An "Arcade Mode" pits your selected character against either eight or nine opponents. While not actively difficult, the AI here is tougher than in Story Mode and will call for players to do more than simply repeatedly mash "X."  For those who want a genuine challenge, a "Score Attack Mode" is available; I dipped my toe into this a few times, and can attest to it being genuinely pretty tough, moreso than I personally was looking for. Multiplayer is technically available... Though given the game's age, I doubt there's enough of an online player base anymore to easily put together a match, even assuming the servers for it still exist.

Be prepared for reading.  A lot of reading.

THOUGHTS:

Persona 4 Arena was the series' first major spinoff, made as the series was becoming more of a genuine mainstream success. I'll admit, I expected a quick cash grab and nothing more, and was genuinely surprised by the detailed narrative. The story is genuinely intriguing - and, once the backstory becomes available to play around the midpoint, quite emotionally effective as well.

The single biggest problem with the Story Mode is that it's intriguing once. Well, actually three times - once from the viewpoint of the Investigation Team; once from the Persona 3 cast's viewpoint; and once from Naoto's, which straddles the two strands. Had the alternating viewpoints been restricted to simply one strand for each unique POV (plus the backstory and a nifty surprise side-story that opens up at the very end), then it would have worked just about perfectly. But if you want to see all the story material, then you will be completing this narrative with each of the characters. Since the story itself remains largely the same, that means a lot of repetition. I rarely hit the "SKIP" button in video game cutscenes. By the time I finished the final strand, I was skipping regularly.

Another issue is the lack of interactivity in the Story Mode. I suspect this title was given a limited schedule and budget, certainly compared to the mainline games. There are several parts of each story that would have made for strong gaming moments. Aegis deals with a hostage situation. Naoto must race through an airport to fling a tracer onto a departing vehicle. All the characters have to navigate a high school turned into a labyrinth by invisible walls. Each of these bits (and more) would have been great to play. Instead, they are described by text over still images, making them considerably less exciting.

A final issue, one that strongly points to a rushed schedule, is the text itself... which is positively riddled with typos and grammatical errors. I don't tend to harp on the occasional misspelling in game text. Persona 4 Arena, however, has a jaw-dropping number of these. Misspellings abound, as do sentences with missing words or phrases. At one point, during a conversation between Aegis and Chie, a line being spoken by Chie is attributed to Aegis. Even a cursory proofreading would have fixed many of these, making it incredible that they remain in a professional, licensed product.

Lest I come across too harshly, it should be said that the actual gameplay, particularly in Arcade and Score Modes, offers a lot of depth and detail. The characters aren't just skins on a basic fight template; each character has a unique fight style, with some being most effective at close range and some most effective as distance fighters. The sheer number of combos available will test the memory of ardent fighting game enthusiasts, and multiple options to block and evade attacks are available.

The story itself is a worthy one, and it is enjoyable to see the casts of the two games brought together in this way. I suspect with a bit more time and money, this could have been something truly special; even with all the issues, it's well worth a rental or a cheap purchase. At the same time, I hope that some of the issues that keep Persona 4 Arena from being all it could have been were resolved for the sequel.


Overall Rating: 5/10.

Previous Game: Persona 4
Next Game: Persona 4 - Arena Ultimax

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Persona 3: The Answer.

Original Release: Playstation 2, 2007. Version Reviewed: FES Version, Playstation 2, 2008.


THE PLOT:

It is March 31, not quite a month after the SEES team suffered a devastating loss. The once close-knit group is slowly breaking apart. Yukari is obsessed with moving forward with her life, barely even feigning interest in the activities of the group. Meanwhile, Aegis has deliberately regressed to being "just a machine," even requesting to be transferred back to the Kirijo lab rather than continuing with school.

At midnight, however, time loops back on itself. They are unable to leave the dorm, and all calendars and broadcasts indicate that they are repeating March 31 over and over.

That's when a new arrival appears: Metis, an anti-Shadow weapon similar to Aegis, who refers to Aegis as her "sister." Metis reveals that The Abyss of Time has appeared in the basement of their dorm - a series of doors leading into a labyrinthine dungeon. When they make their way to the bottom of each of these structures, they get another glimpse of the past - and as they progress, they find themselves chasing a shadowy figure. A figure who looks strikingly familiar...


CHARACTERS:

The characterizations are The Answer's greatest asset. We see the characters from the main game struggling to deal with grief, loss, and even depression, which manifests differently for each of them. Yukari tries to shut the others away form her life. Aegis attempts to withdraw completely. Perpetual screwup Junpei ends up seeming the most emotionally healthy of the lot - which makes sense, given that he had to deal with a loss of his own during the main game. Meanwhile, glimpses of the past show how each of the characters awakened to their Persona abilities, in scenes that range from genuinely interesting to throwaway fan service.

Doors to the past open up beneath the SEES dormitory.

GAMEPLAY:

The Answer was a new campaign included in the 2008 FES re-release of Persona 3. It is effectively a value-added DLC campaign... albeit one that ends up being large enough to legitimately review as a game unto itself. As such, it's no surprise that it is a heavily stripped-down affair. Gone are the Social Links.  Story and characterization is advanced through scenes that come after you complete each dungeon. In between story scenes, you pick your party and venture into Tartar... ah, The Abyss of Time, which consists of mini-dungeons located behind doors that in absolutely no way resemble the levels of the main game's tower.

The dungeon crawling is all but identical to that of the main game. The Answer does place a save point immediately before each boss, allowing players to test whether they are able to defeat the next boss without having to risk losing an hour of more of progress. If you throw your characters at the boss a few times and can't beat it, then it's a simple matter to exit, restock on supplies, then grind a few levels while working your way back down to that point. The dungeons are also smaller than the various sections of Tartarus were, and you are actually rewarded with story progress when you complete one - though that equates roughly to ten minutes (or less) of story material for every 2 - 3 hours of dungeon crawling.

An early Boss Battle.  There are a lot of these...

THOUGHTS:

The Answer proved controversial among fans of Persona 3. On the one hand, it's clearly a significant expansion, essentially being a game in its own right. It explains several aspects of the main game, offers an ambitious story in its own right, and follows up on the surviving characters. However, there is a sense that it overexplains things that were best left ambiguous - and that it strips down the Persona 3 experience to its least enjoyable elements.

The dungeon crawling was by far my least favorite part of the main game... and roughly 80% of The Answer is pure dungeon crawling. After a genuinely intriguing opening, it quickly becomes apparent that there isn't enough story here to support 30+ hours of gameplay. The narrative more or less stops for the bulk of the game, with only very small slices of character backstory rewarding players for persevering through each dungeon. Essentially, for every 3 hours of grinding, you get maybe 5 - 10 minutes of story material - not a good balance.

The actual plot is interesting, when it finally kicks back into gear. That doesn't really happen until you finish exploring The Abyss of Time. Once it does, however, the fracturing of the SEES team is paid off with a fairly vicious argument among the group. The portion of the story that puts the main characters in conflict with each other works well, and is a point that should have been reached sooner and developed further.

The resolution of that conflict is also where the game's story should have ended, however, because the actual endgame is not very good. From a gameplay perspective, I found the final boss ridiculously easy to beat (do as much damage as possible when he powers up his big attack; heal and pick away at him at all other times). Worse than the weak final boss is the storytelling for the endgame. The final scenes overexplain developments that were more effective when left ambiguous, and some of the dialogue surrounding this revelation becomes almost comically heavy-handed. At the end of Persona 3, I felt the strong emotion that the game wanted from me. At the end of The Answer, I was mainly just laughing at the unsubtle moralistic messaging.

In the end, I can't really recommend The Answer. It's a good three times longer than the story will support, it's composed almost entirely of grinding, and an initially intriguing narrative crumbles during a heavy-handed finale.

It's a pity, because I believe there was potential in this story for something truly special.  As it stands, however, it's often tedious and ultimately unsatisfying.  As of this writing, The Answer easily ranks as by far my least favorite Persona title.


Overall Rating: 3/10.

Previous Game: Persona 3
Next Game: Persona 4

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Persona 3.

Original Release: Playstation 2, 2006. Versions Reviewed: FES Version, Playstation 2, 2008; P3P Version, PSP, 2010.


THE PLOT:

A high school student, orphaned ten years ago by mysterious circumstances, transfers to Gekkoukan High School. He comes late to his new dorm, arriving during a hidden time period known as "The Dark Hour." During this time, most people are transformed, and the high school itself changes into an ominous tower known as Tartarus. The people who don't change fall into two categories: prey for demonic beings called Shadows, and those with the power to summon Personas to fight the Shadows.

The transfer student's new dorm is actually home to the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad (SEES), a group of high school age Persona users trying to explore Tartarus, to learn its secrets and stop the Dark Hour. Mitsuru Kirijo, the heir to the powerful Kirijo Group, recognizes the newcomer's unusual abilities, and appoints him leader. The recovery of a taped message from ten years earlier points to a chance to stop the Shadows permanently. But they will soon find that not all Persona users are allies - and even some allies ultimately can't be trusted!


CHARACTERS:

Characterization continues to be a strength for the series. The protagonist is largely a blank slate - Your dialogue choices can make him compassionate or callous, committed or unconcerned. The remaining personalities, however, are very well-defined. Mitsuru is a born leader, but as the story unfolds we see that she is driven by a sense of guilt. Dorm-mates Yukari and Junpei feud in a way that recalls Innocent Sin's Eikichi and Lisa... But Yukari's jibes often come across as unintentionally hurtful, particularly when Junpei reacts to her bad nickname for him ("Stu-pei").

I'll admit I had little patience for Ken, a plucky 10-year-old who is made part of the group about halfway through. To be fair to the writers, he is given a decent backstory. I just couldn't quite overcome my disbelief that the members of the group would be on board with allowing someone that young to risk his life. Somehow, his presence on the team ended up feeling more ridiculous than Anime Robot Aegis (who, incredibly, ends up becoming possibly the game's best character) and Koramaru, the Persona-using dog. Still, for the most part the main cast are engaging and reasonably likable, and I grew strongly attached to the group long before the game was over.

The party begins its exploration of Tartarus.
All 264 floors of it.

GAMEPLAY:

Persona 3 is a world away from its PS1 predecessors, both in terms of graphics and gameplay. Settings are more detailed, combat animations are more visually interesting, the soundtrack is more varied, and there is a substantial amount of voice acting.  This doesn't make it better than its predecessors (I rate Eternal Punishment considerably higher overall) - But this feels like a modern game in a way the PS1 titles didn't.

The game sets the template for those to follow, splitting itself basically into two parts. During the day, you explore the city, increasing stats such as Academics and Courage and befriending various characters, maxing out "Social Links." Each Social Link effectively acts as a little slice-of-life subplot. Some of these are genuinely involving, such as a member of a sports team who is jeopardizing his health by ignoring a knee injury, or a dying young man who is trying to write a fable before he passes. Some are humorous - I loved the conversations with Tanaka, a corrupt business magnate who has become rich by fleecing the public. Others tend toward the dull (foreign exchange student Bebe can go take a very long hike back to his home country, thanks), or even downright creepy (classmate Kenji and his stalker-like crush on a teacher). Overall, though, I thoroughly enjoyed this addition, and regretted having to make choices as to which links to advance and which to ignore as the game went on.

The other half of the game involves dungeon crawling and combat as you ascend Tartarus. In most respects, I found Tartarus much less enjoyable than the dungeons of the PS1 Persona games. First, it's very long, spanning well over 200 floors. It's visually uninteresting. The walls change color every time you get to a new "block" (about every 30 - 40 floors). Other than that, there's not much to catch the eye. Oh, and you can only save at the entrance. There are two-way teleports every dozen floors or so, just in front of a mini-boss... But if you leave at any point before you reach those teleports, you have to start your ascent from the last such checkpoint. This gradually turns the climb into a joyless slog.

I will say that the combat is pretty good. As in previous games, each enemy has weaknesses. Use the correct attack, and the enemy will collapse.  In this game, the collapse will trigger an "all-out attack" - basically, a pile on from all the members of your party that, in most cases, will result in an insta-kill. Gone are the myriad menus of previous games. Now, you have a streamlined wheel from which you can select your attacks, use items, or issue commands to your teammates. 

HOWEVER... In the PS2 version, you can only issue general commands. You have no direct control over teammates, which means that every so often, they will do something extremely counter-productive. Most of the time, this is a minor irritation - But in tough combats, your companions' insistence on, say, spamming low-hit charm skill "Marin Karin" instead of actually doing something useful can get you killed and cost you 30 - 40 minutes of progress.

I also think the game has streamlined the demon encounters a little too much. Gone are the demon negotiations that were often so much fun in the PS1 games. Instead, you gain Personas and other power-ups through a tedious and frustrating shell game. I cannot overstate how much I don't find this to be an improvement.

Your first Persona: Orpheus, Master of Strings.

THE MANY FACES OF PERSONA 3

When Sony released the PSP handheld system, Persona 3 was reissued for it as P3P: Persona 3 Portable. Many improvements were made for the handheld. You can set the combat to input direct commands, allowing you control over your teammates' attacks. This makes the battles less frustrating, though sometimes at the cost of making them too easy - Though it's a simple matter to change it back if you prefer.

The most significant new feature is the existence of an optional female protagonist. The main storyline is the same regardless of the route chosen, but many of the Social Links are different - including links with the male members of SEES, further developing their characters. In many cases, the writing for these interactions is noticeably better than the writing for the male protagonist, particularly as the Female route allows most of these relationships to be non-romantic (whereas one could be forgiven for thinking that the male protagonist plans to defeat the Final Boss by unleashing as many STDs as possible).

Unfortunately, because of the limits of the PSP system, other parts of the game were compromised. Gone are the fully-animated cutscenes of the PS2 version. The eerie opening sequence is much less effective when transformed into a series of still frames. The emotional ending still hits... but some of the impact is blunted. Other moments, such as the humorous "dates"with Velvet Room attendant Elizabeth, just aren't as funny without the visual element.

In addition, town exploration is rendered into clicking a cursor on characters and objects, rather than the full exploration of the PS2 game. This point-and-click presentation is initially off-putting, though I will say that I adjusted to it completely after the first few hours, as I got sucked into the story all over again.

Oh, and though I'll be splitting it off into its own review, it should be noted that The Answer, a sequel campaign created for FES, is not available on Portable. I'll admit to not being The Answer's biggest fan, but its absence on the PSP version is worth mentioning.

All of which leaves FES as the overall better version. Still, if you have the ability to play both, I would recommend it, as each route offers strong moments not available in the other. Maybe, in this age of endless remasters and re-releases, Atlus will release a definitive version that includes all the features at some point.

Takaya, the leader of Strega,
tries to stop you from ending The Dark Hour.

THOUGHTS:

Persona 3 is a very good game, but for me it falls just short of being a great one. The reason for that can be summed up in a single word: Tartarus.

I did not enjoy Tartarus. The tower is boring. The actual combat is fun, but I'm not a fan of the way it is initiated. Shadows crawl around on the floor, and you run up and hit the Shadow with your weapon of choice. But if you don't hit fast enough (or if you miss, which is annoyingly easy given the imprecision of the PS2 input), then the enemy goes first. Some of the combat is annoyingly luck based... and since, practically speaking, you have to ascend around 12 floors before saving if you want to make any actual progress and even one bit of bad luck can wipe that all out in a heartbeat, this combines to create a high level of frustration.

Long before the end, I realized that I was playing for the story, the characters, and the Social Links, and was merely tolerating Tartarus. Which is fair enough, as I'm sure many players found the social life material dull and skipped through it as quickly as they could to get back to the combat. Still, I'm not sure that it's entirely a good thing that my least favorite part of the game was... Well, the game-like part of it. Junpei, Akihiko, and your character wandering around a beach, failing miserably in attempts to pick up women? Amusing and, for the most part, realistically awkward. Battling your 20th Shadow in a row on your way from Floor 109 to the visually-identical Floor 110? Largely tiresome.

Still, I won't deny that the game held me in its grip for almost 200 hours of combined playtime (between the two versions). Nor will I deny the emotional impact of the game's final stretch. As I said: Taken as a whole, this game is good. What I like about Persona 3, I love. But there's too much that I don't like for me to rate this as highly as I might like to.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

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