The Longest Grind 01 - Persona 4 Arena

Short introductory post on what my personal blog series is about.

More Than Just “Hit and Don’t Get Hit”

The biggest epiphany that I had during my time on Persona 4 Arena is that it was much more than just hit the other opponent and not get hit by the opponent to win in a fighting game. Oh no. There was more that Persona 4 Arena, as well as most other fighting games, than meets the eye. I was playing this game from an old-school perspective the first two or so months I had the game, which was the turtle style. I tended to play defense a lot until I found an opening to strike. However, I was playing a turtling style with a rushdown character. I wasn’t as concerned about improvement as long as I had fun, which I was for the most part.

It wasn’t until I got caught up with a tight-knit community where I accumulated a ton of knowledge that I never knew before, not only in Persona 4 Arena, but knowledge that applies to the fighting game genre at large. I believe it was after a team tournament where I paired up with FluxWaveZ that after our defeat, told me a ton of things to help me up my game in P4A as well as some general fighting game knowledge. The jargon, the different playstyles, what the character’s strengths and weaknesses are, set-ups, what to do in certain in-match situations, etc.

Since then, I’ve been able to sort-of follow what’s going on in high-level fighting game matches while watching a fighting game tournament over a stream while gaining a fresh new perspective and a load of appreciation of the genre. All thanks to the great Giant Bomb P4A community and Persona 4 Arena.

He Is, She Is, They Are

One of the biggest items that I learned in P4A in conjunction with the GB community was that each character had a unique playstyle attached to them. You have characters that “rushdown” an opponent by getting up-close and personal to them and having them crack under heavy attacking pressure. Other characters are characterized as “zoners”, throwing an array of attacks from a distance to inflict damage and keep their opponent away. Kanji is the “grappler”, a term given to characters who have a special move throw (command throw) that inflicts major damage and knockdown. Naoto is a “trap” character, where she places traps on stage that can serve both offensive and defensive tactics. Even though all the characters fall into a certain archetype, that only accounts half of the battle.

The other half? That’s how the opponent plays their character. Just because a character is pegged as being one of the described archetypes, doesn’t mean the player has to play them that way, though it’ll serve the player well to know what the character can do to suit how they wish to play. TheFakePsychic is pretty comfortable playing defense, mostly in tune of throwing traps early and often to frustrate his opponent’s advances. Gravitypenguin plays an aggressive Yukiko that tends to match the rushdown archetype than the zoner. It’s fun to observe and personally fight against hundreds of opponents and how the play.

Speaking in Tongues

5A, 2B, j.C, oki, cross-up, overhead, DP, OMC, OMB, SP, CH, FC, cancel, block-string, block-stun, command throw, unblockable

Before Persona 4 Arena, all of the terminology I posted above would look like some random garbage language that a crazy person would throw out. After going through the Giant Bomb Persona 4 Arena School of Hard Knocks, that unintelligible terminology is now instantly understandable and integrated to my brain. It’s fun taking some of my time away from mind-draining work to learn what those terms meant and to communicate that language with fellow Giant Bombers. One of the things I miss from school is the activity of learning itself. Ever since I locked up a full-time position with my employer, it was frustrating to feel my brain activity be less active. A lot of my time and energy has focused on getting production down to a science, and to produce frequently at a high-level. I yearned for any opportunity for anything to give my brain a jolt, and learning some of the fighting game terminology provided that bit of jolt that I desperately needed when work was really starting to make my brain go to mush.

The SALT is Real

Another surprising learning experience and a by-product of playing a competitive game is the emotional toll it can produce. On some nights, even if I’m getting my ass kicked thoroughly, it provided the much-needed relief from the stress that life constantly delivers. Other nights, it just compounds the stress. I was disgusted at myself over numerous occasions over my constant poor performance over sessions and at tournaments. I’m quick to admit that at stretches of time, I do not have a good handle of my emotions, anger or depression. As I got my bouts under my belt and started to evolve and slightly improve, the constant pressure of playing up to a higher lever always bothered me. I wanted to improve not only for myself, but to also provide enough of a challenge to make the matches more high-spirited. It got pretty bad when I was nominated by FluxWaveZ to represent Giant Bomb in the Giant Bomb vs. GameFAQs Persona 4 Arena team tournament. I personally would shout expletives and purposely make myself feel bad. I didn’t have a great showing in the team tournament itself. Even though I haven’t been entrenched myself in crazy-long frequent sessions like the Giant Bomb community had, I still fall under the same spell in getting easily frustrated and removing whatever positive energy I had for the day.

In short, I still can get pretty salty. I should know better, but it’s hard.

Flip of a Switch

As I stated earlier, I wasn’t playing Persona 4 Arena properly at the start. I quickly picked Chie as she felt the most comfortable to play from a quick training session of checking out all characters. But yeah, I was playing Chie like a defensive Street Fighter mindset. Block whatever gets thrown my way and attack once an opening appears. It’s amazing to reminisce how I managed to play the way I currently play compared to how I played back then.

It wasn’t until FluxWaveZ two months in where he told me to go offensive. I made the transition and was getting more successful, but I think I was going all out with reckless abandon. I was going in hard, but I did so without being patient and almost ignoring to play any sort of defense. Sometimes I kicked ass, other times I got my ass whooped. It wasn’t until probably after the month-long ranbat where I found some sort of balance of still being aggressive when possible, but gathering the patience to defend and still wait for the opportune time to strike. I’ve settled into this pattern since then and feel pretty comfortable about it, though I’m still not that great in the game even after accumulating over 3,500 matches.

Maybe if the majority of the community still stuck around had continued to have the drive to constantly train in P4A after the ranbat, I could see myself push to play even better than before. But I got the feeling a lot of the folks were starting to lose the enthusiasm of playing so much P4A and were ready to move on to do something else. There are some things that I’d like to train and add into my arsenal that could possibly push myself to play at a higher level: continue to improve and successfully executing Chie’s oki, to constantly execute Chie’s BnB corner combo, to properly execute the j8D air combo into oki or combo extension, and to properly execute Chie’s corner AoA follow-up combo. I can if I did, and it’s never too late to learn new tricks, but I’ll be honest, it may be hard for me to get to it for a myriad of reasons. I may resume getting back into the thick of things in P4A once the sequel’s release looms close in North America.

Can’t Stick the Landing

Last year, my brother surprised me on my birthday by getting me a MadKatz fight stick as a gift. I primarily use the fight stick as my preferred controller of choice in most fighting games. I’ve been able to use the fight stick decently in Arc System Work’s other fighters (Guilty Gear and BlazBlue), but it still gives me a lot of trouble in Persona 4 Arena. I have trouble doing the simple string/oki set-up of Chie’s 5AA > 5B > 2B > 2AB > 5DD or 236C. Many times I’ll register the commands on the stick and it won’t connect the string. I also have trouble throwing out the 5DD after the sweep knockdown. I especially have trouble executing the 236C after the sweep. I even have problems executing the super commands (236236C/D, 214214C/D). Though P4A’s netcode is decent, it’s not perfect and maybe there’s the hint of input lag that’s making it not read all of the inputs. I’ll still keep at it playing P4A on the fight stick to see if I can get better at it. If I still struggle with it on P4AU, I may go back to strictly playing pad for P4A in general.

Appreciation of High-Level Play

I’m always envious of watching high-level fighting game play and Persona 4 Arena is no exception. As a Chie player, I’m always in awe of watching a top Chie player overwhelm their opponents with their rushdown. There was a Chie Japanese player who dominated the NEC 2012 tournament and Colpevole’s always places pretty high at the tournaments he enters. I envy those competitors who put in the time to fully learn the ins and outs of the games and execute their gameplan in any situation of the match.

Just look at this insane counter-hit combo Grover pulls on Colpevole in ECT last year. Holy crap!

I’m glad P4A had a strong showing in EVO 2013. I didn’t catch any of the pool play, but I enjoyed watching P4A’s Top 8 matches. No one was able to stop Yume’s Aigis that day. It’s still being run in most higher profile fighting game tournaments, so there’s still folks carrying the P4A torch even though most anime folks are probably putting their focus on BBCP, which was selected as one of the seven featured games in EVO this year. I hope P4AU will have strong support and representation in tournaments once it’s released.

Struggling to Feel the Ultimax

I was a bit caught by surprise when a sequel for Persona 4 Arena was announced. At first, I was REALLY looking forward to play the sequel when some fine folks at Dustloop was able to gather and translate information about the game through the location tests, official Japanese arcade release, and post-release patches. The folks in the P4A IRC chat room were pretty excited to decipher the information to see if the new gameplay elements and changes to their favorite characters were in their favor. I like the addition of the shadow characters that can use unlimited SP moves for a certain amount of time as well as SP supers with their unique attributes. Reading all of the notes of changes was exciting for a time.

I’m mostly happy with Chie’s additions and changes that she got in P4AU. The big negative is that Chie’s oki has been removed, but that doesn’t bother me as much since I had trouble executing her oki in P4A in the first place. Her new lunge punch seems cool and opens up more combo routes, 2B forces blocked opponents to stand is nice and opens up a mix-up opportunity, 2C causing freeze sounds awesome, SP God Hand with two hits and potential OMC options, and SP Agneyastra throwing comets behind the opponent to bring him/her closer to Chie is definitely a super I’ll abuse.

Lately, after all the excitement of the announcement and reading notes for P4AU subsided, and being wow-ed on how Guilty Gear Xrd looks, BlazBlue Chrono Phantasma just being released in North America, and Ultra Street Fighter 4 coming in months time, my excitement for Ultimax has subsided a bit. It’s still going to be a week-of purchase for me (and if there’s an LE for it, I’ll definitely go after that), and I hope the final product retains the excitement that I had with P4A. I haven’t heard a ton of news for P4AU recently and not sure if I heard anything if Sho is a strong addition to the cast, if the shadow characters are viable against their normal counterparts, and how it’s being received by the Japanese gamers.

Still Playing?

Not as often as I once was, but I am still playing Persona 4 Arena a bit. If anyone outside from the folks I already know wants to mash, feel free to send me a message. My PSN is RuriKidA. My winning percentage is a paltry 37 percent, so you already have a 6.5-3.5 matchup advantage against me off the bat!

The Camaraderie, The Smiles, The Joy

The biggest, upmost important message that I have to remember is that playing any game is supposed to be fun. Persona 4 Arena impacted me not because it’s a well-designed and produced video game, it also introduced me to a bunch of fellow people that I still hang out with who shared the same camaraderie in P4A. The Flux curated P4A tournaments were fun to participate with the climax being the Giant Bomb vs. GameFAQs team tournament. Some nights I’m not on my best behavior, but others it has provided a temporary relief that I desperately needed as life started to clamp its rugged teeth on me. I always lose sight that I’m supposed to enjoy my time with gaming lately, so writing this blog on Persona 4 Arena to remind myself that I had a ton of fun playing this game.

Shout-Outs!

Giving a shout-out to some of the folks that I’ve versed against when Persona 4 Arena was kicking.

Yu

• IrrelevantJohn
• Bloo561
• Soki
• MDYu

Yosuke

• Yi-Orange

Chie

• Servantey

Yukiko

• Gravitypenguin
• WiimoteChance
• TheOtherBelmont

Kanji

• MakeMeMad
• KeystoneYinzer

Naoto

• TheFakePsychic
• MikeFightNight
• Mace

Teddie

• Brodehouse
• Phatmac
• DiscoViking

Mitsuru

• Commisar123

Aigis

• ?

Akihiko

• LiquidRob
• Vashyron

Elizabeth

• Kuutochi

Labrys

• Aznjon

Shadow Labrys

• FluxWaveZ
• Xomero

---Thanks for reading!--