Persona 4 Arena Ultimax deserved better. Looking at it today, it feels like a late classic of the seventh-gen fighter library, at a time before we were blown away by newer Arc System Works titles such as Dragonball FighterZ. Gamers in Europe didn’t get to see Persona 4 Arena Ultimax reach their Xbox 360s and PS3s until November 2014 – about a year after the Xbox One and PS4 had launched. Those who left it behind missed out: Ultimax followed up the original Persona 4 Arena in style, offering several new characters, “shadow” alternates of most characters that have tweaked movesets, another generous Story mode, the excellent Golden Arena mode, and a few other adjustments and balances across the game to make the experience balanced and satisfying.
The generosity of Persona 4 Arena Ultimax
Even as someone who wasn’t playing competitively online as much as I used to, I still had a lot of fun with Ultimax – the Golden Arena alone devoured many spare evenings, as I’d fight through a gauntlet of matches and “level up” my chosen character so that they would stand a better chance against stronger foes later on. (In fact, my Xbox Live subscription lapsed and I still found enjoyment in Golden Arena, so the game definitely holds value for solo fighters as well as multiplayer fans.) It was one of the most generous fighting game upgrades seen during the seventh generation, released at a time when people were moving on from that generation. However, it seems that it may be getting a second chance.
A surprise announcement
During The Game Awards, Geoff Keighley’s round up of announcements, recognitions, and – let’s be honest – thinly-veiled advertisements, it was announced that Persona 4 Arena Ultimax would be released for PC, PS4 and Nintendo Switch on March 17th of next year. The announcement came from an animated Teddie (a key character in the Persona 4 games) and was accompanied with short snippets of gameplay footage and music from the game. However, this seems like nothing more than a confirmation at the moment – the announcement was around a minute long, and so there were no details of any additional features, netcode improvements, or anything aside from the intended platforms and the release date. I imagine that fans might look at the Steam release of Persona 4 Golden to get an idea of how the new release of Ultimax might be handled, but a fighting game brings added complexities surrounding netcode and matchmaking, so it will be interesting to see if the treatment of online play is done with the care and attention needed for a modern fighting game release.
Persona 4 Arena Ultimax – a second chance
Personally, I don’t play fighting games online as much as I used to – it’s hard to keep up with the discoveries of new tech, my internet connection isn’t the best for fighters, and I have a bunch of other games vying for my attention. However, I can certainly see myself picking up Persona 4 Arena Ultimax for a second time, if only to lose myself in the single-player content that’s on offer. At the moment the media shelves chez qazimod hold a mixture of games across multiple consoles and generations, but Persona 4 Arena and its sequel Ultimax are some of the only Xbox 360 games I’ve bothered to keep, because until this announcement the only way someone could play Ultimax was if they still had a 360 or PS3 and a copy of the game. More old games coming to PC can only be a good thing (although I’ll take re-releases for newer consoles as well), and hopefully the game will receive new fans once it re-emerges next year.
Persona 4 Arena Ultimax releases on PC, PS4 and Nintendo Switch on March 17th 2022.