Since the BlazBlue (BB) scene has been relatively dead as of late (if not deceased completely until the new iteration comes out), my roommate Tyler and I have decided to make Persona 4 Arena (P4A) the current focus of our fighting game community (FGC) presences. Both he and I are huge Shin Megami Tensei (SMT) and Persona fans, and we both have been meaning to get more in to the FGC. He’s new to the FGC but has played several fighting games in the past, and I’ve entered a couple BB tournaments, attended several local tournaments and ranbats, casually played fighting games other than BB, as well as attended EVO this year. Tyler and I both made it a goal to take P4A seriously, so that we can feel pretty good about entering in larger tournaments such as EVO in the future. I think, since we have a really good setup at home for getting practice in, that we do have a chance at getting pretty good at the game if we put some serious effort in to it.
Since Tyler has a Japanese PS3, he imported P4A in hopes that we could get a head start in getting some practice in. Unfortunately, due to some seller mishaps, he didn’t get his copy until a day after the US release. Regardless, since P4A is region-locked, he will at least have a copy of the game he can practice on his PS3. I preordered my 360 copy from Amazon, and I plan on getting a PS3 copy of the game when I get paid this weekend. I received my copy Tuesday evening. He and I have had a little time to get some play time in since then. Work seems to throw a wrench in to getting some serious play time in.
When I first started P4A, the first thing I ended up doing was going through the Tutorial. As with BlazBlue, I like knowing the basic mechanics of the game before jumping straight in to things. I was happy to see that a lot of the basic mechanics were a lot like BB. Air dashes, instant blocking, aerial combos, fatal counters, rapid cancels (called One More Time in P4A)… I felt like this would be a relatively smooth transition.
All I have to say is that my BB muscle memory can go die in a fire.
In BB, the top three buttons from left to right are A (Light), B (Medium), C (Heavy), with the bottom button being D (Drive). This setup is ingrained in my muscle memory. In P4A, the two left buttons from top to bottom are A (Character Light) and B (Character Heavy) and the two right buttons from top to bottom are C (Persona Light) and D (Persona Heavy). At first, I tried to change my controls to the BB setup, but that ended up being illogical and just confusing for me. So, I sucked it up and set my control scheme up in the default position. Let me tell you, old habits are hard to break. Since I’m playing on an arcade stick, I still find myself hitting BB C when I’m trying to hit the P4A C. And then sometimes I’ll get it right, and then the muscle memory kicks in and I mess up again. This will definitely take some adjusting to, but it’s my own mental block before anything else.
In games like BB and P4A, I am a sucker for combos. Even though I may not be the best fighting game player by any means, I absolutely love learning combos. After going through the tutorial and getting overwhelmed by all the new possibilities for moves and setups, I went straight for Challenge mode. I wanted to get a feel for each of the characters and see who felt the most natural with their move sets and play style. I also wanted to see how I’d do in general, especially since Challenge mode in BB was one of the fastest ways for me to learn moves and basic setups.
When characters were first being announced, I was wanting to play as Akihiko. Akihiko was one of my favorite characters in Persona 3, not to mention he seems to have a rushdown style that I tend to favor when I play fighting games (even though I play as Nu/Lambda in BB… but I can’t even begin to say how many people were confused by my reckless rushdown Lambda). After going through a bunch of challenges with Akihiko, I could say that I enjoyed all the options he has as well as his rushdown style… I thought I found my main.
I couldn’t be more wrong. Well, at least for right now.
Taking Akihiko in to some versus matches with some friends, I can’t begin to say how badly I kept getting beat up. Sure, it’s first day and blah blah blah… but it was a bit discouraging. I got down a couple things here or there, but I just wasn’t feeling it. The rudimentary grasp I had on the game was apparent, and everything I did was just so predictable. I know I need time to grasp the character that I’m playing as, and I need to learn more about the game… but it was still hard just not understanding and feeling like I was just doing two or three of the same things the whole match.
The next day, I delved further into Challenges, wanting to see if there was a character that felt at least somewhat more natural to me. I was having a bit of fun with Elizabeth and Yukiko, but I was shocked to see that the character that currently seemed the most natural to me was, of all characters, Teddie. At first I was joking with my friends that Teddie would end up being my main, but right now it isn’t looking so funny. Most of his challenges made sense to me, and I was finding different ways of building combos from the rudimentary lessons I was learning. I was starting to get the hang of his aerial combos, and I was finding creative ways into canceling into his supers. And I was actually having fun playing as him.
This is not what I planned. This is FAR from what I planned.
…oh well.
I do have to keep in mind that all the impressions I’ve made of the characters so far are based off of a handful of versus matches, one Arcade mode playthrough, and quick runthroughs of Challenge mode… not to mention I have only been playing the game for two days. When I first started BlazBlue, I started with Arakune, moved on to Ragna, then eventually settled on Nu/Lambda. And I was playing as both Nu/Lambda and Ragna until CS, where I finally put all my energy into learning Lambda as much as I could instead of multitasking with two characters at the same time. Teddie is who I feel comfortable with for right now, but as I begin to understand the mechanics of the game more, I may end up with another main entirely.
Initial impressions of the characters from my limited knowledge base and my lack of reading about the game beforehand/watching gameplay footage? Sure, why the hell not.
Labrys: She’s a bit slower than I like my characters to be, but her hits pack one hell of a punch. Day 2 Versus, Tyler was able to combo into one of her supers, and the damage that it did made me cringe. She’s not Tager slow, either, which is kinda scary.
Aigis: I think her long-range attacks could keep things interesting, but I don’t see myself playing as her since she has two different modes (normal and Orgia mode). I already have a hard enough time to keep track of one character and all his/her options as it is.
Mitsuru: I can’t play charge characters to save my life. I can pull off charge moves on their own, but in the middle of a combo? Nope, not happening. Mitsuru reminds me a lot of Jin from BB with her ice moves and the rapier. She has a lot of interesting options, but I don’t think she’s the character for me.
Naoto: I haven’t even really bothered with her past a handful of the challenges. All her gun stuff could possibly be interesting, but I couldn’t find myself even wanting to try and learn how to play as her. I haven’t heard a lot about her from anyone, though. I don’t think anyone has chosen her in any of the versus games I played with my friends, either.
Yukiko: Yukiko is definitely one of the characters that I’m still considering playing as my main or as a sub. Her 5C > 2C is very reminiscent of Lambda, which just makes me giddy. She has a lot of options with her various Agi attacks and her fans. She’s good at keeping the opponent away while being able to punish when she hits. I’m looking forward to exploring her options more.
Yu: I haven’t really played much as him, but from watching replay videos from the leaderboards, he seems to have lots of options to work with. He’s fast and flexible. I also think the “Yu/You” connotation is really cute, too (since, in the Persona games, the main protagonist is a character you get to name).
Elizabeth: Elizabeth is lots of fun. Lots of zoning options, lots of close range defense options… I could see myself using her as a main or as a sub. I still don’t understand a lot of her supers’ abilities to the full extent, but like Teddie, she has a lot she can work with.
Yosuke: Super fast, lots of aerial flexibility. I can see him giving me a headache in matches in the future with how fast he is. I generally like fast characters, but I think he might be too fast for me.
Chie: She’s also super fast, and she has a lot going for her when it comes to rushing down the opponent. She seems like a character you can pick up quick but may take some time to truly master.
Kanji: He scares me with all of his options for following up attacks. AND THAT CHAIR, GOOD GRIEF. I don’t have a lot of experience with him, but I can see that I’d be a little scared of him if I was playing against him.
Teddie: Teddie reminds me a lot of Platinum the Trinity from BB with all the random items that end up popping out from his D attack. He has a nice variety of attacks, and his crazy supers are getting me excited to find ways to hit confirm into them. Zoning with Teddie should be interesting, as well as finding ways to use all the random attacks and items to my advantage. While I can’t say he’s definitely going to be my main, he does feel the most comfortable to me so far after two days of casual playing.
Akihiko: Anyone who has played me in BB knows I love being on the rushdown offensive. Akihiko is perfect for that. I just can’t seem to get in the right rhythm with him, though. He has a lot of interesting boxing options with his character such as dodges and weaves, but I don’t think I’ve had enough time to absorb it all. He’s still in my list, though.
Shadow Labrys: Like regular Labrys, but with a huge, crazy, heavy damage-dealing Persona. I get beat the hell up when I play as her, and people beat me the hell up when they play as her. Sigh. I’m not a fan.
…that was probably a pretty awful review of the characters, but I can’t say I’m familiar enough with them to give them an accurate enough review. I’m sure I can come back to this post when I am more familiar with the game and laugh about how inaccurate the information I provided above ends up being.
Let’s see… other impressions…
I guess most of my impressions will be in comparison to BB, since that is my main game, not to mention the mechanics are relatively similar to one another. I like that instead of guard primers, you have the ability to break your opponent’s Persona temporarily. When you hit your opponent’s Persona (or vice versa), you lose one of your Persona’s cards. If all of your cards are depleted, you are temporarily unable to use your Persona until the gauge recharges. I think this concept forces you to think about the attacks you make just a little bit more, which is an interesting aspect.
One More Time attacks are like rapid cancels, so that you can string together combos or attacks that may not otherwise string together. Like rapid cancels, this consumes meter, which also forces you to think before you use it. I like rapid cancel combos, and I think they definitely put more pressure at the end of rounds if players know how to utilize them.
The instant kills with characters are also fascinating. When I first heard about them, I was worried that this would break the game. They remind me a lot more of Astral Finishes in BB, where they require a bit of setup, luck, and last round of a match to pull off. From what I’ve seen, most of them have a slow startup time that make them less likely to be overly abused. I’ll have to see how my opinion changes when I play more matches.
Some characters have the ability to use certain moves that can kill an opponent. I noticed that these also take a bit of skill in making sure they happen, so I can’t say for sure how this will go. More matches, more info, and then I’ll see how they play out.
I’m a fan of the status effects in the game, too. From sapping the opponent’s health to reversing directional inputs to preventing characters from moving, the status effects give the player something else to think about/utilize. I haven’t seen them happen too often in my matches, but it’ll be fun to make use of them when I understand what moves cause them.
It might just be me, but pulling off aerial combos seem easier in this game than in BB. It probably is just me. I could only reliably pull off Lambda’s aerial combos in BB. I can kinda juggle my opponent with aerial combos with more than one character if I get it going.
I also noticed that I have to be meticulous with my inputs. I can’t tell if I was just sloppy with BB, but I’ve really, really had to be careful with how I time my combos in P4A. It’s probably because I’m a sloppy BB player, truthfully.
I do like that save for charge moves, special moves primarily rely on quarter circles, whether they be single or double. And I also like that you can use an EX version of some moves by pressing A+B or C+D.
The All-Out Attack is a great way to set up aerial combos and learn the mechanics of them. I’m not too much a fan of the “Beginner Combos” that you can execute by mashing A–then again, learning every character’s combo strings for blocking purposes could really save you a lot of time with really scrubby players.
P4A has enough BB mechanics for me to feel at home in the game while having a lot of other things to work with that will force me to hone my skills more. A lot of hype has been generated about the game, too, so I’m hoping to see it get bigger as time goes on.
I hope that I can get tournament worthy in this game, but only time, practice, and hard work will make that happen. I think I’m going to try and document my progress with the game in this blog. I’m curious to see how I evolve as a fighting game enthusiast while playing this game.