You seem to like Arena. I'm wondering why that is? I just want a different perspective.
Hello anon! this answer has a few parts…
I always come at games by putting gameplay first, story second. If I can’t enjoy playing it than I won’t enjoy the game enough to pursue the story. It’s the same reason I can’t get into Persona 3 the way I did Persona 4 and 5, the gameplay just isn’t very fun and the strategy isn’t as strong because it’s all randomized.
So from that perspective the Arena games are very fun fighting games. I like the Ults, I like the combos, I like how each character manages to be distinctive while still retaining that character’s personality. Yu and Yosuke are both beasts on the field but they’re still wildly different from each other and that’s a difficult thing for a game dev to keep track of. So the Arena games, just really really fun to play. I wouldn’t mind picking it up at a con and competing against other players, that’s how much I enjoy it.
I also think the story is actually pretty well written for a fucking fighting game. The thing you have to remember is that fighting games are pulpy nonsense. This shows up in other franchises like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. The continuities are always a mess, people backstab each other, it’s all trivial excuses for the characters to fight each other. So when I started getting into the meat of the Arena games I was really surprised that the storyline stayed consistent: who are Labrys and Sho? What are they doing in Inaba?
I also liked the emotional core of these stories and how they reflect Persona 4′s overarching theme which is that bonds are the true power between people. Labrys only gains sentience and a persona because she made a friend; the IT saved her because their bonds reminded them of how awful it is to be abandoned. The whole thing is summarized when Mitsuru fights Yu in P4A: “What were you planning to do when you found her?” “Nothing in particular, I guess. I just wanted to be at her side.”
Or something like that. That line really struck me because of what it actually means; Yu doesn’t have a plan. He’s not really doing a rescue because he isn’t even certain that Labrys has anything to be rescued from. He’s just worried about her and he doesn’t want her to be alone, because he knows that no one can succeed if they have to confront themselves alone.
You see the same thing play out with Sho’s storyline; Yu doesn’t have a strict plan, he’s just going in to talk Sho out of his stupid plan and argue him into submission. He’s ready to defend himself and his friends but otherwise he wants to resolve things and that’s all.
I like that kind of story. I was really surprised to see it in the Arena games since most fighting games don’t get stories with that kind of quality. And I was also surprised to see that the protagonists were mostly in character. I know a lot of fans like to bitch about how the IT and SEES were “flattened” but to be honest I think those complains are really overblown. The Arena games run mostly on humor and silliness so I think it’s nitpicky to complain about the characters reacting humorously as opposed with ultraseriousness like they did in base Persona 4.
I also liked how the Persona 3 and 4 cast interacted with each other, mostly because you can really see the holes in SEES as they’re still trying to cope with the loss of the MC in Persona 3. Mitsuru is trying her best but she just isn’t very good at it, and I see that more as a symptom of her remaining grief rather than a reflection of her actual competence. I also like how it means the two teams are now aware of each other and have to take each other’s movements into account when they get into trouble. It’s just nice stuff to see your favorite characters being discussed in-universe.
And lastly I was really shocked and gratified to see the military industrial complex being taken on in Labrys’s story. It was totally out of left field, and they did a good really job with it.
So mostly I just really enjoy the fighting and the story, and I think they did a good job with the characters.
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