Appreciate the video. Rollback on launch absolutely should be the standard. Dont get it twisted tho! We're still here playing the game. It's alive and well online and offline if you know where to look. Both CEOtaku and Frosty Faustings had 100+ man brackets, which we're slated to return to, and we host weekly lobby nights and tournaments consistently in Persona Fight Club. Each day is better than the last and I implore you to return!
When I got into Persona in 2021, I knew Persona 4 Arena existed, but seeing it get announced as being ported sent me into overdrive. I already loved fighting games, so it seemed like a match made in Heaven. After finally catching up with 4 and 3, I was able to give it a go earlier this month. Obviously I knew I was gonna be late, but I still enjoyed my time with it. Heck I’d place it over persona 3 portable in personal ranking of games. The way Yu plays in here is honestly one of my favorite playable characters in any fighting game. What really kills me though is the fact that the game probably hasn’t sold well as Atlus hoped, as the core FG crowd kind of dipped from it due to that lack of good netcode. I adore the mechanics and characters, but I hope Atlus doesn’t get the wrong message so I can get a sequel I can properly ride the hype train for someday.
You either die with poor netcode, or live long enough to see yourself get a rollback re-release. But god, dear god, retro-actively adding rollback to a game after the release window and initial wave of new players dies is just never the answer. It’s why games like BBCF, BBTAG, and soon GBVSR have fresh new audiences sure to stay. People already love the games and just want a better way to play online, but on that same note the people who desire good online are the same players who will leave the game if it isn’t there after like 30 busted online matches. You just can’t bet on them “coming back”, you’re always better just taking that delay time for a better first impression.
For what it's worth, I'd say this is a bit of a complicated example, because this game *did* have a pre-existing audience, it was just smaller and older. Strangely, I think it was the fact that the re-release wasn't old *enough* that killed it. For example, I'm fairly certain that Guilty Gear AC+R had a smaller audience than P4AU, but when that got rollback, basically out of the blue, that game exploded. It was top 3 most played fighting game for several weeks I think. I think it really is that it just felt exciting and got people talking and interested, ditto with BBTAG and especially BBCF. With this game, it was in an awkward position for it to really be *pushed* to other people as such, and it kinda just fizzled. People were so miffed in the initial period that it didn't do them any favors, and they only got one shot. Hard agree though, there really wasn't any reason to not just do it before they released. They could've asked anyone and they'd have told them exactly what would happen.
+R has had a dedicated community since the PS2 (original Accent Core)/arcade days. When they didn't have rollback, they were readily organizing offline events. They later played Xrd and/or Strive but usually didn't have to forego +R. When I went to tournaments or locals, there were always people playing +R. It's known as an "old folks" game, there's a lot of long time players but there are many new player-inclusive events now The rollback patch happened at the perfect time for them in 2020. Not only was the rollback good, it also came with amazing quality of life training mode options that outshined most games period. These changes happened singlehandedly by community members. The main problem with Persona 4 Arena is that their competitive community had very low retention. A lot of people who played Persona also played other ArcSys games. The game is famous for being Persona, but most RPG fans didn't heavily grind this game for the fighting game dynamic. Ultimax was stuck on PS3 for 8 years in an obselete patch, everyone moved on. I played Ultimax day one and there's only a handful of my peers or more senior players remaining. The current community only really got started 3 years ago with the advent of Parsec, emulation, and a dedicated Discord So when out-of-touch Atlus decided to cash grab the game again, it was no surprise people didn't show up for no rollback and poor ports. The RPG fans themselves were mad at how Atlus mishandled the entire anniversary promotions so it got hurt from both sides.
the weird thing for me with this game is tho i pre-puchased the game on steam, i didn't have any issues on the games release, but i barely found any matches
The problem is that Atlus has been having a nack for pissing off their community lately especially thanks to the 25th Anniversary which was Abysmal. Unfortunately, Ultimax was writing off thanks to Atlus not only waiting 6 to 8 months to Add rollback, but no Physical release outside of Japan. Also, I bought this again on PC bought refund because it ran like shit and has no crossplay. this is why I'm not excited for a P5 Fighting game
I'm a pc player, and I REALLY LOVE the game. Sadly yeah I can't play that much because there is nobody online, especially in EU time zone, and still when there is a room the game won't let me enter that room for god knows which reason 7/10 times. And plus that I'm a casual player so half of the games I get in are vs better players. I can only really play with my friend or solo modes which luckily this has in a descent amont. Ah and also my main is Marie. I just love her so much.
I really is a shame what happened to this game, what makes it even worse is that this remaster is the Japanese arcade only update of the game where I'm guessing more balancing was done but what I know of it is that they made the shadow versions of characters have unique mechanics instead of just being slightly different from the regular versions. (I know that because a guy called DaikenFGC made a video about the shadow characters)
I bought this game for me and a friend because I really wanted to play it, but the PC port doesn't work well on my laptop, which is pretty disappointing because this game just runs on the BlazBlue engine, and I can play BlazBlue Central fiction online quite comfortably at 60 FPS. I'll play it when I get a better setup/laptop, I suppose...
Is this game worth to get in 2023 on ps? I actually plan on getting it as it looks so damn fun, the characters, the music, the overall gameplay actually looks amazing, however I wont get it if the game is really dead. Its actually kinda sad that such a good game with a lot of heart put into it got screwed over by its lack of rollback and severe connection issues on release.
ehhhh... on PS4 lobbies can be kind of barren. most I've seen recently are like 10-12 but other days I've seen 2-4. It has a good single player if you're interested in that, but if you want to play online I'd wait for a sale.
“Le rollback ” buzzword users get on my nerves. You know your ass wouldn’t be playing it regardless. The game has had rollback longer than it hasn’t and this negative bullshit just drives people away from an amazing game.
![What no Rollback Does to a Game [Persona 4 Arena Ultimax]](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
