3/5 ★ – RawMetal's review of Persona 4 Arena Ultimax.

System: PlayStation 3 Started: January 1, 2025 Ended: August 17, 2025 Persona 4 Arena Ultimax was the main reason why I want to get into the Persona games. Now during my high school years, I knew two friends who were avid Persona fans. They would often talk about Persona 3 and 4. Eventually I managed to have a group fighting game session with friends playing Ultimax. Fast forward to 2014, when a friend of mine had Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, and I had to learn who the characters were to avoid thinking of this game as an average weeb fighter. My friends tried their best not to spoil the story and the character, especially knowing what happened to the Persona 3 protagonist and Tohru Adachi. Now, at the start of 2025, I decided to dust off my joystick controller, play Persona 4 Arena Ultimax for PlayStation 3 that I got from GameStop, and go through all the modes. I never thought it would take me half a year to complete everything in this game. Finally, I finished, and I think it’s an okay fighting game. I know many people love this game and have given it high praise, but I find myself unable to rate it as highly as them. In my previous Persona reviews, I mentioned that I am not a fan of visual novels. The actual Persona games do shift between visual novel gameplay and JRPG. However, Persona 4 Arena’s Story Mode is about 95% visual novel and only 5% gameplay. I had to sit through the Arena story, then the main story for both P3 and P4 characters, the Adachi story, and finally, the true ending. I spent about 10 hours forcing myself to watch it all for the story and characters. This entire story could have been condensed into an anime movie, similar to what they did with Street Fighter IV: Ties That Bind. I was supposed to play its predecessor, Persona 4 Arena, but luckily, Ultimax includes the Arena story as DLC (and it’s free), so I didn’t have to play it. Still, this makes the story mode playthrough twice as long. The story is ok, though. It’s fun to see the Persona 3 characters three years after the events of the game. Mitsuru, Fuuka, and Aigis start a new Shadow Hunting Operation, Akihiko becomes a Street Fighter, Yukari turns into a Power Ranger, Ken became a heartthrob, middle school student and Junpei is a minor league baseball coach. You can also play as their Shadow counterparts, which allows them to perform super moves in their awakened state and use them infinitely until the SP meter drops to zero. The gameplay in Ultimax is straightforward. Each character from Persona 3 and 4 has different stats and abilities. For example, Naoto Shirogane can use her six-shooter, and Akihiko can use his fists but relies less on his Persona. My main issue with the gameplay is the “One Button to rule them all.” You can keep mashing the basic punch button, and you can even perform super moves by pressing it repeatedly. This offers no real challenge and is clearly a button-masher’s paradise. Also, when a player's health is nearly depleted, they enter an “Awakened” state that boosts their SP meter, allowing for special moves that can literally turn the tide of battle. This gives casual players a good chance to win against veterans. Basically catering more for casual players rather than the experienced players. You can bust your ass playing well at this game, but some scrub can literally turn the tide of battle, and they can mash that square button as much as they can. This game features many single-player modes outside of Story Mode. Arcade Mode plays just like other fighting games: Fight through seven fighters and face the boss at the eighth level, which is mostly Sho Minazaki, a new character that feels somewhat forced into the Persona franchise. He’s basically Persona’s version of Shadow the Hedgehog, mostly the edgy personality, but he’s alright. The Arcade Mode ends on a cliffhanger, so you have to watch Story Mode to continue the story. Lesson Mode is tutorials. Challenge Mode is present if you want to learn the combo moves of your chosen character. Unfortunately, I couldn’t try online mode since there were no players actively playing it. However, if you have a PC or modern consoles, there will likely be players available. Golden Arena Mode is a very interesting mode, and I consider it the core of the single-player experience in Persona 4 Arena Ultimax. It’s essentially an RPG-style fighter where you progress through floors, fighting computer opponents. You can level up and earn special moves, similar to the Persona games, but adapted for fighting game mechanics such as increasing defense, boosting SP moves, and nullifying conditions like Poison, Rage, and Fear. The higher the floors you ascend, the more challenging it becomes. Sometimes, it gets quite ridiculous, especially since most CPU fighters have overpowered moves. When you lose, you’re sent back five floors below and must start over at a checkpoint, although you do level up. Still, it can take a long time to finally beat the fifth fighter. The game has a large roster of characters, and the character sprite animations look great. It offers many modes, which can keep players busy for a long time, especially completionists, but it can also feel like a chore to get through everything. The game is designed for casual players new to fighting games, as it is very much a button-mashing experience. This makes it perfect for Persona fans who have only played the JRPGs and have never tried a fighting game before. Playing with friends is fun, though I personally prefer other fighting games at the moment. It's a solid fighting game, and Arc System Works is catering to the casual fanbase who never played fighting games but played the hell out of JRPGs. And this game was released months before Guilty Gear Xrd made the scene. If you’re a die-hard fan of the popular JRPGs Persona 3 and 4, you’ll probably love this game. In fact, it’s best to finish those two games first before jumping into this, as the story of Ultimax is set after the events from both games. It can be confusing unless you just want to see your favorite Persona characters fighting. If Arc System Works and P-Studio made another Persona Arena game, I would love for them to include not only the Persona 5 characters but also all characters from Persona 1 and 2 as playable fighters. I’m just tired of Atlus pretending that Personas 1 and 2 don’t exist.