Persona 4 Arena Ultimax is a sequel to the previous fighter, Persona 4 Arena. If you think that’s a silly name for a sequel, just be glad we didn’t get the title that Japan released the game with: "Persona 4: The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold." Yeah, try asking your parents for that for your birthday. This game boasts 8 new characters in comparison to its predecessor, as well as more balance between the fighters. And, of course, this is a continuation of the story from the last Arena game.

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax is a great looking throwback to the hand-drawn fighting game prime. In the graphics department, I’m pretty happy with this game. Gorgeous, screen-filling sprites are well animated and detailed. The Story Mode is nice as well, with plenty of different emotive portraits for different characters, and different backgrounds. It’s not animated, but there’s enough variety to make it interesting to watch while you read. And if you just want to listen, you can also hide the text windows to get a better view of the characters.

The voice acting is pretty decent, though a lot of characters seem to get off to slow starts. Sometimes they sound like they’re reading a script, but more often they do sound like they’re really getting into the acting. Where it really counts is during the fighting, so I’m happy to tell you that the voice work here is emotional and on target.

Like previous Persona games, the soundtrack runs the gamut from J-rock to hip hop to jazz. Overall, it’s a good soundtrack. I don’t know that any of it is memorable enough to warrant buying a soundtrack, but much of it is catchy. You can at least expect the variety to keep you engaged.

As was the case with the last game, in Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, the mysterious Midnight Channel has started advertising a fighting tournament. The main group is sucked into the tournament again, bringing their Personas along for the fight. I’m only moderately familiar with the Persona world and storyline, but there’s plenty of backstory and explanation to get you caught up in the story in this game.

The story picks up where the last game left off. The mysterious Midnight Channel has started up again, and an ominous red fog is consuming the town of Inaba. The main group of characters including Yu, Yosuke, Chie, Yukiko, and Kanji begin to investigate. To compound the problems, Shadows of the main characters show up and plague them. The group fights to find the source and uncover the meaning of all the chaotic events that begin to happen.

I feel like if I ever complained about text walls in any other game, I want to apologize. I don’t feel like it’s an exaggeration to say that you have to read (or listen to) nearly half an hour of dialogue before you get to any sort of gameplay or interaction. The story is told, but at a very slow rate, and it always feels like you’re missing something important while little details are given an inordinate amount of attention. It’s like listening to a group of people talk about something they’re really passionate about: they very often leave out the important details that the group collectively knows, so a bystander will be lost if they attempt to listen in.

If you can get used to the pacing, the Story Mode has several branches that you’ll explore. It’s one of those games where you’ll gradually explore what is happening to different characters during the same periods of time. You’ll shift from one character to another and get to experience and flesh out the story from their points of view.

In the actual fighting portion of the game, there’s a lot to learn. Fighting with your Persona, for example, can be a risky proposition. While your Persona is out, it risks taking damage and reducing your Persona gauge. Likewise, you can take risks and do things like an Instant Block to build your SP bar and reduce your block stun. An Instant Block is a block performed at the last moment before an attack is about to hit you, so it’s something in which you’ll have to build some skill in order to utilize. Several status ailments also add variety to the gameplay. When afflicted with an electric status, for example, your character can only move by performing special moves. There are even instant-kill moves that are risky, but of course the payoff is obvious. This isn’t a full description of the fighting system by far, but suffice to say you’ll have plenty to learn if you want to master it.

Several modes of play ensure that this isn’t just a fighting game with an extended story. You’ve got a traditional Arcade Mode, which also has a limited story. You'll battle until you reach the boss, with some variations on the story, depending who you play as. Score Attack Mode allows you to compete on leaderboards for a high score. Versus Mode is just what it sounds like, and allows you to fight players online or in person. Golden Arena Mode is more of a very light RPG mode that allows you to level up a character and fight through a series of "floors." Ranked Match allows you to fight ranked opponents online. You can also Enlist, which allows you to wait for an online match while you play other offline modes of the game. The Lobby is probably one of the most adorable lobby systems I’ve seen in a fighting game. It looks like a large arcade where you can walk a chibi version of yourself around. You’ll see people sitting at arcade machines, and you’ll join them by sitting down next to them if you’d like to start a match. Story Mode is the previously mentioned, mostly text (and voice) based Story Mode with very brief dashes of the fighting game thrown in.

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax has several features that allow less skilled players to jump in and enjoy the game. There is a one-button combo system, as well as a one button "hold" skill system. If you are not great at fighters, you can still enjoy playing this game.

There are several levels of difficulty as well. Lower levels of difficulty are great for a fighter based on an RPG; You’re trying to keep an audience that doesn’t typically play fighters, so why not have an option that allows them to enjoy the story without having to learn the fighting system? On the Safety difficulty, let’s just say you can button mash to your heart’s content. Anything higher than Normal requires you to actually wake up and pay attention.

A good Tutorial Mode puts you right where you need to be to get started with Persona 4 Arena Ultimax. I’m impressed at any fighter that takes the time to tell you things like "Input speed isn’t important here, focus on being precise." It’s that kind of attention to detail that shows that some effort was put into polishing the tutorial for newcomers. And what is a tutorial for, but for newcomers? It’s just that most fighters seem to forget that some people are entirely new to fighting games.

Some of the mechanics seem a little foreign to me, but that’s probably because I’m more accustomed to fighters like Street Fighter. There’s quite a bit of two and even three button combinations to perform various moves, so it takes some getting used to if you haven’t been in that mode for a while. Now I know there are people who play fighters with their right hand sitting on top of the controller, but I’m not one of those people. An arcade stick would make many of these button combinations much easier.

Suffice to say, it builds a lot of complexity on a simple two (well, sometimes three) button system. You’ve got your Persona attacks on two buttons, and your normal attacks on the other two. The system is pretty intuitive, but can become very complex at high levels.

Overall, if you’re a fan of fighters like Blaz Blue and Guilty Gear (Arc System Works other claims to fame), you’ll find something familiar here in Persona 4 Arena Ultimax. There are hints of RPG elements here and there, but this is primarily a fighter. So if you enjoyed the last Persona Arena, then the enhancements in this sequel should make things worth your while.