@FluxWaveZ: Can't comment on this Tekken game's quality, but Persona 4 Arena got better reviews than Dead or Alive 5. I can't prove it, but I also think that Persona 4 would have a wider appeal. An RPG fan who wouldn't touch a fighting game would still consider giving P4A a shot.

@Apathylad said:

@FluxWaveZ: Can't comment on this Tekken game's quality, but Persona 4 Arena got better reviews than Dead or Alive 5. I can't prove it, but I also think that Persona 4 would have a wider appeal. An RPG fan who wouldn't touch a fighting game would still consider giving P4A a shot.

I don't think Persona 4 has a wider appeal then Tekken and DOA. At least Tekken and DOA has a legacy with their older games spanning 1 or 2 generations of consoles. Persona 4 Arena is probably the only game on the list that felt "fresh and new" while Tekken still feels like the previous game and same with DOA5.

Also if an RPG fan who wouldn't touch a fighting game buys this game, I don't think any of them would continue to play this game beyond the story mode.

@LiquidPrince said:

@Demoskinos said:

Fuck No. I'd go with Tekken Tag 2. That game was fantastic.

Ew. The only competition Persona 4 Arena had this year was from DOA5. But even then I'd say P4 was better.

Did you even play Tekken?

@Hunter5024 said:

@LiquidPrince said:

@Demoskinos said:

Fuck No. I'd go with Tekken Tag 2. That game was fantastic.

Ew. The only competition Persona 4 Arena had this year was from DOA5. But even then I'd say P4 was better.

Did you even play Tekken?

Yes, I did.

@LiquidPrince: Well okay, stupid question. But even if you didn't like it I don't see why you're acting like it wasn't even competition considering it was received very well, better than Dead or Alive, and about on par with P4A.

@Hunter5024 said:

@LiquidPrince: Well okay, stupid question. But even if you didn't like it I don't see why you're acting like it wasn't even competition considering it was received very well, better than Dead or Alive, and about on par with P4A.

I guess it stems from the fact that I just don't like Tekken all that much. I like the characters, I like the stupid ass stories, but the actual act of playing that game is boring as shit. The stupid possibility of infinite juggles. The really low default health bars. Just everything about the game is meh to me. Always has been. DOA on the other hand at least spices up the 3D fighter by employing a smart and entertaining counter system. That and jiggling boobs. I'm only semi-joking about that last part...

It deserved to win personally. Tekken Tag 2 was meh, SFxT was decent but that's about it, and I can't say too much about DoA 5 seeing that I only played like 2 hours of it.

What bothers me is Skullgirls was totally omitted from this category.

@LiquidPrince said:

@Hunter5024 said:

@LiquidPrince: Well okay, stupid question. But even if you didn't like it I don't see why you're acting like it wasn't even competition considering it was received very well, better than Dead or Alive, and about on par with P4A.

I guess it stems from the fact that I just don't like Tekken all that much. I like the characters, I like the stupid ass stories, but the actual act of playing that game is boring as shit. The stupid possibility of infinite juggles. The really low default health bars. Just everything about the game is meh to me. Always has been. DOA on the other hand at least spices up the 3D fighter by employing a smart and entertaining counter system. That and jiggling boobs. I'm only semi-joking about that last part...

Personally I like the lower health bars and high damage combos, because it gives it a nice fast pace, but those are all fair complaints. I have the same problem with first person shooters like call of duty where dying so easily just makes the game frustrating. But still.

I thought Tekken would win for sure, but still that's dope. Glad it got the recognition it deserves. Sad to see they didn't even nominate the second best fighting game of the year: Skullgirls.

i thought p4a had a chance to break into the mainstream fgc but its more or less dead as far as i know.

GG players still playing that and it sounds like BB players are gonna pick up chrono phantasma.

good game though.

@Apathylad said:

@Brodehouse said:

It was the unlikeliest candidate since the world collectively hates 'anime fighters'. Best fighting game I've ever played, the one that got me into the inner mechanics of fighting games rather than just what works. My GOTY.

I disagree. Persona has a big enough following for it not to be considered 'just another anime fighter'. It's a bigger name than something like BlazBlue or Skullgirls. Frankly, I would have been surprised if it didn't win. Street Fighter x Tekken had the DLC backlash and a buggy launch, too.

It's a bigger name than BlazBlue or Skullgirls, but not a bigger name than Tekken, Street Fighter or DOA. Tekken has sold 41 million units, Street Fighter 33 million. Persona 4 sold about 850,000 copies. The difference is undeniable.

Nope. It kinda sucks to be honest. In terms of raw fighting mechanics SFxT wins hands down, with Tekken Tag 2 close behind. In terms of which game I most enjoyed, TTT2 since the SFxT dlc/online nonsense ruined the experience.

@Brodehouse said:

@Apathylad said:

@Brodehouse said:

It was the unlikeliest candidate since the world collectively hates 'anime fighters'. Best fighting game I've ever played, the one that got me into the inner mechanics of fighting games rather than just what works. My GOTY.

I disagree. Persona has a big enough following for it not to be considered 'just another anime fighter'. It's a bigger name than something like BlazBlue or Skullgirls. Frankly, I would have been surprised if it didn't win. Street Fighter x Tekken had the DLC backlash and a buggy launch, too.

It's a bigger name than BlazBlue or Skullgirls, but not a bigger name than Tekken, Street Fighter or DOA. Tekken has sold 41 million units, Street Fighter 33 million. Persona 4 sold about 850,000 copies. The difference is undeniable.

This is true for the average gamer in the west, but not for the 25 journalists who voted this award. However none of this applies to Japan, where the Persona franchise is bigger than all fighting game franchises. No fighting game (in Japan) in recent memory has come close to the sales of Persona 3 and Persona 4, P4A outsold them all too (with the exception of two Final Fantasy pseudo-fighting games).

@casper_ There was about 60 entrants each (P4A & KOF XIII) for last month's Atlus Fighting Championships, at this point P4A is 60%-80% certain to be announced for the EVO 2013 tournament season.

• AE (version. 2013?) and UMvC3 will return
• 2013 releases - Street Fighter X Tekken version. 2013 and Injustice: Gods Among Us dependant on reception by the FGC
• TTT2 is almost a certainty
• DOA5 maybe
• KOF XIII is in the air, it was the second most watched finals of all 6 (technically 7 if you include the Virtua Fighter top 3 cameo on finals day) EVO 2012 games (peaked at 95,000 viewers) but seems to be getting the short end of the stick with all these new releases.
• Mortal Kombat and Soulcalibur V will be dropped.
• Virtua Fighter, Guilty Gear, BlazBlue & Skullgirls have no chance

If P4A isn't announced for EVO 2013 you can consider it dead.

@FLStyle: I hope SFXT does not come back I know 2013 is meant to fix the issue with the current version but that game is so boring to watch and failed once already. I think another game should be given a change. A game with a smaller community such as Persona 4 or DOA5. What does you think the odds of Melee actually getting into evo are? The poll that was put out was dominated but votes for that game. Will it be at least considered?

@ImmortalSaiyan said:

@FLStyle: I hope SFXT does not come back I know 2013 is meant to fix the issue with the current version but that game is so boring to watch and failed once already. I think another game should be given a change. A game with a smaller community such as Persona 4 or DOA5. What does you think the odds of Melee actually getting into evo are? The poll that was put out was dominated but votes for that game. Will it be at least considered?

I don't want SFxT back either, but it's already set for IGN Pro League in 2013 so it's practically going to be all over the place.

The EVO founders and the Smash Community (APEX) leaders haven't cooperated with each other since EVO 2008 (the EVO founders tried to enforce random items in the Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournament, which went against the non-items rules used by the Smash community at established Smash community tournaments), which lead to both parties agreeing to go their separate ways. Maybe some bridges were rebuilt earlier this year when the EVO of Smash, APEX 2012, was used in the EVO 2012 tournament series.

Ultimately it depends on whether the APEX scene has more value to EVO than what the developers and publishers like Namco, NetherRealm, Team Ninja and Atlus can bring to the table. I don't think it does, nor do I think Nintendo would lend a hand in promoting EVO or putting up prize money for it.

@FLStyle: Never took the IPL partnership into consideration. Do you think it is that big? Because DOA5 will be with them next year too, but I don't see that helping it's popularity much. Then again it's not a Capcom game.

That's funny howi P4A won, considering it's not even out on europe yet and is still TBA and it's region locked.

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 should have wion. I really started hating on Tekken 6 after some time but TTT2 did everything right and redeemed the franchise.

But I'm not a sour fanboy but these reasons;

-TBA in europe

-Not even appearing in evo 2012/13

-Online is dead

I guess P4A is a good fighter...but really, nobody even heard of it, let alone be it an accesible fighter.

@TrafalgarLaw: again, as I said, this was a US award awarded by US publications; it being out in Europe or not doesn't really bear discussion.

@ImmortalSaiyan: IPL, unlike MLG, has Capcom's full support and the top players who want to make a living from fighting games are all for it, expect Infiltration and the Japanese players to make the trip over for their events. EVO has always said it picks games solely on its performance in the tournament scene and if IPL fighting games streams gets close to EVO stream numbers and SFXT 2013 somehow gets as hype as AE and UMvC3 with all the changes and improvements, it's guaranteed a future at EVO. The DOA scene will just be happy that they get to ride on Capcom's coattails and not be stuck in the middle of nowhere with NetherRealm and Namco on barely 1000 viewers for each MLG event.

It'll take 6 months for this to happen though as IPL has already promised the FGC that they won't run AE or SFXT tournaments at IPL6 because it falls on the same weekend as the 16th Final Round event. So SFXT for now is relying on the existing FGC events to be a proving ground for version 2013 and hoping that IPL7, if ran in June, doesn't clash with CEO 2012.

This presents a challenge for EVO, do they announce SFXT 2013 for EVO 2013 before it's proven like they did with Vanilla SFXT, knowing how that turned out?

Lets hope it wins game of the year 2013 in Europe too...

I seen at lot of comments saying that cause its persona fans that it helped the game win,but if that's true then wouldn't DOA or street fighter or tekken fans help get their series to the top?

Also even though it's got the number 4 in the title, this was a pretty original fighting game. Thats got to be weird for people that don't know about Persona, might think it's the 4th entry in this fighting game franchise.

Your'e telling me the best game in the category won, instead of the game that sold the most units?

I thought these things were supposed to be rigged.

Persona 4 Arena is Destructoid's best fighting game of 2012.

Fighter of the Year 2012 by

Gameradar

Destructoid

FG of the year awards from journalists are always weird, because almost no reviewers ever really scratch the surface behind the real depth of a given fighting engine. Because of the way in which they're made to play these over a week/end and then review them, I'm not surprised the game with the most single-player content always wins these.

EDIT: to clarify, before someone takes my post the wrong way, I understand why they review fighting games the way they do and I don't have a problem with it because 99% of people playing FG's are going to clear arcade mode and play a couple times online and trade it in. I just think it's odd that they're in a position to judge "BEST FG OF THE YEAR!"

@Itwastuesday: Persona 4 Arena has more single player content than Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and Dead or Alive 5?

@FluxWaveZ: There's a whole fucking visual novel in that game! Dude, Yeah!

@Itwastuesday said:

@FluxWaveZ: There's a whole fucking visual novel in that game! Dude, Yeah!

I'm not familiar with how lengthy those other story modes are, but if you put it that way, sure! I'm just not sure P4A offers a more varied selection of single player modes than P4A, which actually doesn't have much, in my opinion.

@FluxWaveZ: TTT2 has the clear Arcade Mode; get endings sort of story mode that's standard fare for Tekken, and they didn't bother with a dumb beat-em-up extra mode this time. DOA5 has that story mode with full cutscenes which is apparently so insane that it's kind of amusing. I wouldn't be surprised if the next game behind P4A in the actual voting of the award was DOA5, but then that's just me pointlessly speculating about numbers I'll never know!

It's also Game Trailers' fighting game of the year.

Don't forget IGN's Best Overall Fighting Game.

I can easily see why the game won so many awards. The design of this game is well-thought-out. By keeping the ability inputs simple, the memorization aspect becomes so much simpler. The challenge shifts away from "remembering how to use a move" to "figuring out which move is the best for a given situation."

I enjoy the plot as well. It actually puts a lot of effort into making the fighting game premise make sense in-universe. It could have been a little less visual novel a little more game in story mode, but the story engrossed me enough that I didn't care.