Persona 4 Arena Ultimax is the sequel to the fighting game spin-off of the Persona franchise, Persona 4 Arena, but it’s so, so much more than just an update. Characters from both Persona 3 and Persona 4 are thrust into a fighting tournament, which continues the story after the conclusion of the RPG Persona 4. This story is canon for the Persona franchise, and takes place almost immediately after the conclusion of P4A, which itself is just a few weeks after the end of Persona 4.
P4AU picks up where the original Arena game left off, with six new players joining the P-1 Climax tournament. The new characters include Persona 3 and 4 favorites Junpei, Rise, Yukari, and Ken & Koromaru, along with series newcomers Sho Minazuki and Sho Minazuki. (it’s confusing, I know. But the story explains it.) There are also three DLC characters: Adachi, Marie, and Margaret — Adachi even has his own story! Story mode is also retooled to be more streamlined for the two major arcs (P3 and P4 story). Plus, in addition to the Adachi story DLC, we’re offering the original story as DLC too.
But P4AU doesn’t just end at Story Mode. There’s also an Arcade mode, Score Attack mode, online and local Versus mode, and Golden Arena mode, which blends RPG elements into the fighter, where you can pick your own skills to augment your fighting style! The Score Attack mode has been completely reworked with five difficulty modes for a variety of challenges at any skill level. We also added a quick match restart option, something a lot of players have been clamoring for since the first P4A! Oh, and the PlayStation version has an exclusive online lobby system, where players can pick an avatar and hang out in a virtual arcade to set up matches.
As for the game itself, P4AU is a combo-heavy, anime-style fighter from Arc System Works and ATLUS. If you’re completely new to Persona fighting games, or it’s been a while since you played P4A, there’s an in-depth tutorial in the game, which we highly, highly recommend. Mastering the skills in the tutorial is the basis for really excelling in online versus matches. Training mode is essential too — not only finding a main character and learning all their moves, but getting used to Ultimax’s situational difficulties and how each character can respond to them is key to really improving your gameplay in P4AU. Plus, if you’re lost, check out any of the P4AU vids on Twitch or YouTube!
There are a lot of new elements in P4A Ultimax. First, with all returning characters getting their auto-combos reworked and the brand new characters to learn, there’s a lot more room for discovering and creating combos in P4AU at all levels of play. The overall change in P4AU versus P4A was to give P4AU a much higher degree of risk vs. reward gameplay. Joining the skill-boosted moves from the original P4A are skill-boosted supers – super moves that use additional meter to deal extra damage. A properly timed SB super could be the difference between winning a match and leaving an opening for your opponent’s comeback.
The biggest additions in P4AU are the playable shadow versions of most of the characters. Shadow versions typically do well in the hands of more advanced players or P4A veterans, since they trade a lot of their survivability (the Burst skill) for the new Shadow Burst – a mode that slowly depletes the SP meter, but lets them chain together supers that aren’t chainable with normal characters. This also means newer players should be very mindful of shadow characters, since one Shadow Burst can easily turn the tide of battle. Heed my words: fear Shadow Chie’s God Hand combos. You’ll find out why soon enough…
Awwwwwww halp me Atlus, I wanna play
[Crying Intensifies]
@PrinceofXIII
???
What are you talking about? P4AU DOES have dual audio. I can confirm this because I have the game.
@BlaqMaguq24
No, it’s only for battle voices. The cutscenes are still in English Dub.
This is the same half ass they tried to pull with Dragon’s Crown so called “Dual Audio”
Here’s the menu options
http://i.imgur.com/Kfa1fT9.jpg
I am quite disappointed in how Atlus USA didn’t include a dual audio option but only a battle voice option for Japanese audio. Why is it out when the first Arena game included it? Like how people who bought the first game, I assumed that the game would have dual audio at the very least but not the dual text option. Why aren’t we allowed to have the option in whether we want to listen to the original voice acting or the dub. Is it because of licencing? I’ve also read online that the Japanese release has dual audio for both the story and battle. So why is it not the same for the NA release? If I’m wrong about that then just what’s the reason why you can’t include the Japanese audio for story mode?
@PrinceofXIII
Oh wow I had no idea it was like that. In that case I apologize. Personally I prefer dub that is kinda half-assing it. It should’ve been all or nothing.
@Arrowpants
Lol i do agree, kinda ironic Japan version has BOTH English and Japanese voices. So their so called license issue is nothing more than BS making excuses as usual.
Their always like this since the PS2 days. Always making BS even though you have lesser companies like NIS America and Xseed always trying to include the JPN audio as much as they can.
Even Square Enix has been doing good nowadays(Lightning Returns, Drakengard 3; still no DLC scenario JPN Voice, Final Fantasy Type-0 etc) Namco is doing it with Tales series, heck Konami even offers English Language text for Metal Gear Solid V in all versions.
So i don’t buy their crappy excuses. Just take a look around, their the only ones left that are still being stubborn as hell.
So sad that Atlus doesn’t let anyone know before the games comes out about what audio or text their games will have. This is a loss sale from me Atlus. People have been requesting Dual Audio and you keep saying it is expensive licensing the issue yet still wanting $60 for reused assets. Hell Even other squeal fighter games end up cheaper from their first $60 debut. The next time you want to talk about your game you should address what audio your games will have. If you have no plans for the Japanese Audio then announce it after hinting the teaser or the release date. I had to cancel my pre-order when I found out about this. No cheap balloon or cards will win me over.
I’m sooo glad they fixed the story mode from the last one. Having to go through each characters path just to watch the same scenes over and over was a real pain. You still gotta do the different characters, but at least they made it BEAR-able by giving them unique scenes this time. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist :P)
Pre-ordered the game, but every time i download it i get the error and corrupted files :(. Trying for the third time now…
I was going to get this game, I got hype for Adachi but after I seen them DLC’s, no thanks. A 60 dollar game with day one DLC’s is ignorant. Locking content under a pay wall is a real slap in the face to fan’s. No matter if it’s optional to buy them or not. I’ll wait for it to be worth 10 dollars on eBay. While I play Skull Girls and Tekken at lease I don’t have to pay for disc lock content.
@60 You do realize that Adachi and Marie are free for the first week right? The rest is just optional cosmetic stuff and the story mode from the original game. The only character you have to pay for is Margaret, and I don’t think $5 is too much to ask.
Man you lot really have some problems if you really really need JP audio to be satisfied. The dang game is great and the changes to the characters are awesome. Also the DLC should be mainly already covered if you bought the older games DLC. Marie and Adachi are free on the first week and margaret is only $5 this is probably one of the best fighters made by Arc system Works in the past few years that isn’t nickel and dimeing you.
@61 If a game comes out for 60 dollars it should be a full game on a disc. Having things lock under a pay wall just a lazy way to make more money. I understand most people don’t care about announcer voices, colors, glasses, or Margaret. But, if it’s 60 dollars it should all be there. I didn’t even know Margaret was in the game she my favorite character in persona right before Adachi.
Just wanted to provide an update on the file corruption issue. Went ahead and checked for updates on my PS3, it appears there was an update that Automatic Updates did not install for whatever reason. Installed the update, restarted the PS3. Deleted the copy of the game downloaded again (5th time!). Got the exact same result, error 80029564 during install, about 13% of the way through.
If Atlus is still reading this, is there any update on this issue?
@63 In most cases I would agree with you, but It’s really not that big a deal here. At least they didn’t pull a Capcom and take out half the roster.
Oh, I forgot to mention that if it bothers you that much you could always wait for the inevitable ultimate edition. The first game got one, so I don’t see why this one wouldn’t.
Hey @John Hardin my system and PSN store are both up to date. I’ve tried 14 times now to install your game yet still it gets to 11% and stops giving me an error screen I’ve tried ever thing I could find online to help with this yet nothing worked. The update you were talking about must be for those how can install the game yet i can’t . This is very up setting how it is being handle with no progress whatsoever. I guess I will sit up looking at my tv at midnight and hope the game will get a DOWNLOAD UPGRADE. I preorded the game off the psn and can download and install it’s dlc but not the game itself. ……….. What is this world coming to maybe SHO is trolling me.
@66 Yeah, I’ll wait for that ultimate edition just disappointed seriously wanted to play Margaret and Adachi. I’ll never buy a Capcom game an tell a year passes or it on sale, lol.
I and a lot of people are having problems instaling the game, the file downloads fine and my internet did never go out while in that process but when i try to install it says at 14% that the data es corrupt and “Error 80029564”. I have already reset my router 5 times and download again P4AU 3 times and with my internet conection it takes around 14 hours to download the 12GB.
I have already the latest update in PStore and my PS3, so that isnt the problem
Persona is life, Persona is love.
Picked it up as soon as the store opened yesterday, I haven’t had much time with it yet but it already has me grinning like an idiot. Loving it!
Thank you for not region locking it too. My ps3 is an import so I’m very happy about that.
To chime in on the dub conversation, I honestly prefer the dub in both Persona, (different company but also in Danganronpa) Frankly I feel you’re missing out if you’re someone who usually stays away from dubs and doesn’t give them a chance in these games. The dubs are awesome.
So this isn’t a “complete” edition?…I thought it was…well good to know,I’ll be getting it later down the road.
the install error is to strong, i know alot of people having it, if your getting it go physical, i’m so close to demanding, calling over and over till i get a refund. i’ve downloaded atleast 10 times now, using like 6 different methods, and nothing. the game just won’t install no matter what.
I called support, they said do a factory reset. i talked about it to my fried, WHY would they suggest that? its insane, i’d lose 300GB of games and save data, but my PS+ friend went ahead, losing all his settings images themes, ect. and guess what.
IT DOESN’T SOLVE ANYTHING, IT’S STILL BROKEN, BECAUSE ITS NOT OUR FAULT, ARRRRRG.
Persona 4 Arena Ultimax install errors are plaguing me and many other gamers that have bought your game off the psn store. I’ve installed it numerous times only to get corrupt data and this is getting ridiculous. This issue is common and is either part of your code or something on sony’s end. Your company’s response is completely lackluster and there are several fans let down by slow response. I implore whomever reads this to make sure this issue gets fixed.
@PrinceofXIII – I feel the same as you regarding the dual audio option. The Japanese version of this game has dual audio (for story mode, the character select screen, and in battle; this will also change the game title screen); only the text is in Japanese. Expecting the NA version of this game to have the same features, only with English text shouldn’t be too tall an order, will it? This is standard operating procedure with most disc-based fighting games of Japanese origin. Maybe Atlus will restore this option in a patch, if we make enough noise? I’d really like to log a formal complaint, LOL. You only play story mode once for the most part. I would have considered waiting to purchase the game if I had known this upfront.
Hi again @John Hardin I just wanted to let you know that alot of player are posting on the https://www.facebook.com/AtlusUSA under Posts To Page looking for answers to a re-release or a psn update for the downloadable version of this game. Not a game update that will only work for after someone played it but for the games PSN Store downloadable version that will not go pass 14% after we waited 4 hours downloading. Plz any update will be fine to know that you guys are trying to fix this.
Ps some players are also reporting that they want a patch for button inputs, for some reason 236236 and 214214 inputs won’t work. The analog playstyle works but the d-pad doesn’t.
Hey everyone, just wanted to give you an update. I was finally able to resolve the 80029564 file corruption error!! Yayyy!!!
My method is posted on the official PS forums here: http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-3-Support/Error-80029564-when-installing-Persona-4-Ultimax/td-p/44568288/page/31
Hope this helps some of you out! :-D
Hay Atlus what’s up with the one coming soon character slot on your P4AU website. Is this a DLC character you guys never announced.
Erm, does anyone else have a problem with
1 When I go to the playstation store the Dlc are not there
and 2 After I’ve got the game on my ps3 and when i go to the play station store it acts like I dont haveit
why cant they make these games for the Vita
I thought the game would have a full dual voice option, and now I hear it’s only the battle voices ? Are you serious Atlus USA ? A full dual voice is nowadays standart!
TecmoKoei, Nintendo, BandaiNamco, Marvelous, Idea Factory, Xseed, Aksys Games, NISA, SEGA, SquareEnix all this companys give the fans what they want, besides ATLUS USA, its always the same with these guys. I wish NISA or someone else would publish publish Alus games in the west. I will definatly boycott all ATLUS USA games, its really a shame how you treat your customers!!!
I just canceled order, because of not having language option, totally not buying it, I guess I will import Japanese version.