Sorry if this has been asked, but like many others I'm sure, I got super into Persona thanks to Giant Bomb. I'm average at best at fighters, and really, really loved Mortal Kombat. I even got kind of okay at it, and I think the story mode did a great job of familiarizing you with characters and systems.

At the same time, though, I have friends who are very much into MvC3. I know it's not like this game or BlazBlue, but I tried playing that and I was just fucking lost. I had NO CLUE what was going on. More importantly, I had no clue how or why things were happening--thus I couldn't get good at the game at all.

I know obviously that the game isn't out yet, but now with a Quick Look EX and the fighting game community getting a good idea of what this game is about, I figured I'd ask.

I'm fucking terrible when it comes to any kind of terminology, and such. And though I didn't pick up Skullgirls, I think it did some good things with tutorials and explaining terminology and what have you.

I'm never going to be a tournament-level player. I highly doubt I'll even be that great online. But I'd like to be competent, and hope that I could get some enjoyment out of the game after the story mode's done. I also have no intention of getting a fighting stick, 'cause that's a fucking huge investment when I'll likely be passable at best no matter how amazing the tutorials are. I'm quite aware that the Arc approach to fighting games is different than more mainstream fighters, too.

I'm just curious, though, if this might be worth checking out for someone who really likes Persona, has had an interest in BlazBlue and would be up for learning some terminology if the tutorials are good in the game.

Any ideas on how in-depth the tutorials go/how approachable the game is? I remember from the Quick Look the guys were saying it's the most approachable Arc-produced game yet.

They've actively designed the game for people who are coming into this game as Persona/RPG fans who are not familiar with fighting games (from interviews). They probably showed this in the QLEX, but there's a mode called "Lesson Mode" that's at the very top of the game's menu which teaches players all of the game's mechanics. I've not seen much of it, but if it's like the BlazBlue's tutorial mode, then it'll teach you everything you need to know about the fundamentals of P4A. If you want to go more in-depth into a single character, then "Challenge Mode" does a good job of teaching all of a character's skills and abilities as well as long combos that will give you a feel for the character as well.

There's also the game's "auto-combo" system which, despite being weaker than manual combos, is a nice way to get used to a character that you're not familiar with. The game also doesn't have complex motions like those present in Capcom fighting games and everything is a quarter circle motion, so whiffing skills becomes less of an issue for newcomers.

Cool beans. I think I'm sold, then.

Thank you, good sir. :)