“Uh, you need an introduction or something? My name's Sho. Sho Minazuki, and I'm behind all this. Welcome to my world, Kirijo lackeys”
Persona 4 Arena Ultimax is a spin-off Persona game and the sequel to Persona 4 Arena. Yu Narukami is the main protagonist and Sho Minazuki is the main antagonist. The fighters in the P-1 Climax are the villainous faction.
Persona 4 Arena Ultimax is a sequel to a sequel and is in turn the second spin-off to a mainline Persona game that isn't part of the mainline series itself. It is a direct sequel to Persona 4 Arena and contains the remaining characters from Persona 3 cast that were not in its predecessor.
Known as Persona 4: The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold, it was originally released on the X Box 360 and PlayStation 3 in 2013. It was released on all modern consoles, bundled with the first Arena in 2023.
A short 4 volume manga adaptation by Rokuro Saito was released in 2015. It has yet to receive an official English release.
It is preceded by Persona 4 Arena and followed by Persona 5.
Official Description[]
The Midnight Channel is back on the air and once again broadcasts a strange advertisement for another fighting tournament christened P-1 Climax, also known as Operation: World Destruction, that shows members of the Investigation Team and the Shadow Operatives in combat. Just moments after this, Inaba is subject to a power outage and is engulfed by a bizarre red fog. Furthermore, figures that look suspiciously like Mitsuru Kirijo, Aigis and Akihiko Sanada being crucified are shown on TV. While the Investigation Team attempts to figure out what's going on, Junpei Iori and Rise Kujikawa becomes trapped in the red fog, while Labrys, Ken Amada, Koromaru and Yukari Takeba ride on a helicopter to see the fog engulf Inaba.
Summary[]
The storyline is split between episodes. Episode P4 is the starting point to the plot that takes place immediately after the Arena storyline, and follows the viewpoints of Yu Narukami and his return to Inaba for the Golden Week. It also follows Naoto Shirogane in her investigations on the Kirijo Group Ergonomics Laboratory, Rise Kujikawa's visit to Inaba and her resolve to return to show business, and each of the Investigation Team's experience when the red fog settles into town. These culminate into their meeting with the Shadow Operatives and subsequent climb of the mystery tower on the site of Yasogami High School.
Episode P3 is unlocked after the player completes Episode P4 at 94% and follows Labrys and the Shadow Operatives investigation on Shadow activity in Inaba, before being ambushed and captured by the Malevolent Entity and his accomplice. It also follows the viewpoints of Yukari Takeba and her acting career, Ken Amada's attempt at normal student life with Koromaru, and Junpei Iori's coaching for a junior baseball team. These lead to the meeting with each of Inaba's Investigation Team, and the rescue of the captured Shadow Operatives members at the mystery tower.
In both of the Episodes, the player battles the fake "Shadow" versions of every cast, being released by General Teddie who used the red fog to bizarrely transform Inaba and disable all electronics and communications. They will then face Sho Minazuki, General Teddie's accomplice, who is carving Persona fragments from the fights with the fake Shadows. The Persona Fragments was to be used along with all the Shadows that exist in Inaba to summon the Entity's true form, Hi-no-Kagutsuchi.
Episode Adachi is the DLC third episode that follows Tohru Adachi's life in incarceration awaiting his trial, and Sho's recruitment for him to follow through with the plan to collect the Persona fragments. However, Sho's other personality Minazuki reveals that the real plan was to create a world where only Sho will exist in solitude, and to this they plan to summon, weaken and enslave the Entity's true form. Sho plans to have Adachi's power from the Sagiri merged with the Persona fragments, but Adachi betrays Sho in the final moments, just as Yu arrives to stop the villains.
In the end, the Entity also betrayed Sho by taking over his body as vessel for his true form. The character facing Kagutsuchi for the final battle also depends on the Episodes: Labrys in Episode P3, Yu in Episode P4 and Adachi in Episode Adachi. Kagutsuchi appears in its fiery form above Inaba and it takes several hits by the protagonists to defeat it. There are multiple endings to the story, depending on the choices made during the final chapter on Episodes P3 and P4. The normal ending follows the Investigation Team saying goodbye to the protagonist at the end of Golden Week, the Shadow Operatives decision to follow through with their own separate and normal lives and Sho Minazuki escaping with his whereabouts unknown. The true ending reveals that Sho has lost his other personality but is able to summon his own Persona, and he decides on to go on his own journey, insisting that he will kill Yu and he should be ready for him at anytime. Yu, Labrys, the Investigation Team and the Shadow Operatives will be meeting at Junes Department Store at the end of Golden Week to know more about each other and strengthen their bonds.
Characters[]
Main[]
Supporting[]
Bosses[]
Title Screens[]
| Persona 4 Arena Ultimax |
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Music[]
OST[]
Original Songs[]
Media[]
International Media[]
Spin-Offs[]
| Persona 4: The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold Stageplay (2016) | |
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| The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold Stageplay is directed by Shutaro Oku, who worked on Persona 4 Visualive, Persona 4 Visualive the Evolution, and Persona 3: the Weird Masquerade -Ao no Kakusei-. The script is provided by Mio Inoue, who worked as a scenario writer for the Persona 4 Golden animaton. Mitsuaki Madono, the voice actor for Tohru Adachi, reprises his role for the play as well. Most of the cast members from the Persona 4 Arena stageplay returned for the new stageplay. The stageplay was shown at Theater G-Rosso in Tokyo, Japan from July 6th to July 10th, 2016. |  |
Creation and Development[]
Persona 4 Arena Ultimax was co-developed by Persona series creator Atlus, and fighting game developer Arc System Works, featuring several returning staff. These included Persona series producer Katsura Hashino and director Kazuhisa Wada from Atlus; and producers Takumi Iguchiya and Toshimichi Mori, and director Seiji Fukumoto from the BlazBlue production unit. The new character designs were designed by Persona series artist Shigenori Soejima. The anime cutscenes were created by Capsule, a company previously known for their CGI support work on series including Space Dandy. While the original Arena was always planned as a standalone work, Wada wanted to leave the narrative open to a sequel that could both expand the narrative and improve on its gameplay mechanics. The success of Arena prompted a sequel to begin production.
Arena Ultimax was designed to neatly conclude the narrative of Arena. Based on feedback, the storyline was trimmed down to flow better, allowing for a higher narrative volume while communicating more story overall. Similar to earlier Persona 3 cast inclusions, the new Persona 3 characters were given redesigns reflecting their personal evolution leading up to the events of Arena Ultimax. For Yukari's outfit, Soejima drew from the costume designs of Phoenix Sentai Featherman, a fictional tokusatsu show that had a long history within the series. Junpei's baseball attire was one of many suggested concepts for his character, ranging from a guitarist to a formal suit related to his Shadow Operatives work. Ken's appearance as a high schooler was simple design, while his fighting style balanced with Koromaru was hard to finalize. The online lobby avatars used the chibi-style character models from Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, which was then in production at Atlus.
Iconography[]
Persona 4 Arena Ultimax's main color is blue, shown from a large LCD screen and a glow affect on the logo. The in-game UI uses both yellow and blue colors due to the connections of Persona 3 and Persona 4.
Logos[]
| Persona 4 Arena Ultimax logos | |
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 Persona 4 the Ultimate Ultra Suplex Hold logo  Persona 4 Arena Ultimax logo |
Trivia[]
- Like its predecessor, the game's official Japanese website once again featured Aigis and Yu Narukami fighting in a duel. However, Aigis is seen defeating Yu with a massive suplex, which befits the Japanese title of the game.
- If you compare the normal box art and the shadow box-art, Adachi's facial expression changes from smiling (standard) to worried (shadow).
- Persona 4 Arena Ultimax is the last game to feature Laura Bailey voiced as Rise due the her busy schedule during development of Persona 4: Dancing All Night.
- Kanji is now Voiced by Matthew Mercer (from the second half of the anime) but reuse Troy Baker's battle quotes from Arena.
- Naoto is now Voiced by Valerie Arem (from the Persona 4 Golden) but reuse Anna Graves's battle quotes from Arena.
- Adachi uses his raspier voice from the anime due to him and Yu Narukami sharing Johnny Yong Bosch as their English voice actor.
- Datamining has found multiple unused audio files that allude to the following:
- An early version of Persona 5's protagonist was scrapped, with a round call mentioning "P5 Hero," and "Mephistopholes," who was planned to be his Persona in early development of Persona 5.
- Marie's aliases also can be heard, perhaps to be used after her Instant Kill.
- In the second episode of the 2017 anime series Gamers!, the characters Keita Amano and Tasuku Uehara play the arcade version of Ultimax. Tasuku's Teddie defeats Keita's Yu, without losing any HP. Two other characters are shown in a fight between Chie and Akihiko.
- The PS4, Switch and PC versions added French, German, Italian, Spanish, Korean, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese text languages as well as the ability to switch between the English and Japanese voices, like in the Western version of Persona 4 Arena.
- In the original Western version, you can't change the voices and text language between English and Japanese in-game, as the Japanese text and voices isn't available in that version, but other players can be able to hear the other voice language, regardless of version, just like the Blazblue series, except for Blazblue: Central Fiction, which only uses the Japanese voices, as well as Persona 4 Arena.
- The copyright "©ATLUS. All rights reserved. Published by Atlus U.S.A., Inc. Persona is a registered trademark of Atlus U.S.A., Inc." is changed to the copyright, "©ATLUS. ©SEGA.", in the PS4, Switch and PC versions of the western release to further reflect on ATLUS' parent company, SEGA.
Continuity[]
- The game picks up 1 day after the events of Arena. Since the last game, the group meets up at Junes as the Investigation Team is reinstated, however Naoto and Rise are off on their own. They recap the events of the previous game.
- Since the last game, the TV World still isn’t back to normal, and Teddie senses some strange presences.
- Teddie used his human form for the first time since Persona 4, as it wasn’t used in the previous game.
- Marie returns in this game, being absent in Arena, due to the fact that Golden hadn’t released when Arena first came out.
- In the day following the last game, the previous SEES members who appeared were kidnapped by Sho and hung up in crucifixes, prompting the rest to return. The remaining members of the Persona 3 cast, who were missing in Arena, return in this game. These members of the cast are part of the Auxillery Group of the Shadow Operatives.
- Junpei is first shown when the Dark Hour first occurs, since P3, has become a ball player, and in his dream devotes his ball to Chidori.
- Yukari is also first shown when the Dark Hour first occurs, and since P3, she has become a model and through it became the new Pink Feather in "Feathermen Ranger R".
- Ken Amada & Koromaru return, and since then, Ken has become a student at Gekkoukan High School.
- The Dark Hour makes its official return in this game, after supposedly being eradicated by the defeat of Nyx in Persona 3.
- Mitsuru, Aigis, Akihiko, and Fuuka are shown tied up on crucifixes, the same way that they once were by Ikutsuki during P3.
- A new version of Tartarus appears in Inaba, this time taking the place of Yasogami High, the way the previous tower did Gekkoukan High.
- It is unknown so far why it takes the place of Yasogami High, as the whole reason it was formed from Gekkoukan was because that was the site where the Kirijo Group experimented on Shadows in the first place.
- This marks the third iteration of Tartarus, the first appearing in Megami Ibunroku Persona during the Snow Queen Quest.
- Through Naoto’s research she gains an insight into the events of Persona 3, recalling the things revealed last game, as well as research into Strega.
- She mentions Ikutsuki and his death and how suspicious it might be from an outsider.
- Rise likens the Dark Hour to feeling like the Inside of the TV. While these two things are technically two different phenomena, the fact that personas can only be used here means they are likely connected. The Dark Hour may have been the Metaverse spilling into the real world, and TV World is the same but accessed through the TV. While the connection isn't deliberately established, it can be assumed that the Dark Hour was the connection made to the Metaverse created by the Kirjio Group's meddling, making it an extension of what the TV World is a part of as well.
- It's worth noting that Teddie says that the Dark Hour "smells the same" as the TV World as well.
- Akihiko warns Kanji and the others that Mitsuru could "execute them" referencing when she said she would do that during Persona 3's bathhouse scene.
- The Moonlight Bridge makes an appearance in this game inside Inaba's Tartarus, however it is unknown if this was a portal to Tatsumi Port Island or just a vision of it created in the warped world of Inaba's Dark Hour.
- It is revealed that Sho Minazuki was a test subject of Shuji Ikutsuki, and technically the fourth survivor of the artificial Persona experiments that created Strega. He was tested on in isolation which is why Takaya Sakaki and Strega did not know about him, but in his solitude, developed a Shadow known as "Minazuki" who wanted to grant his wish of ending his suffering by destroying humanity. He went about it in the same way as his "father" Ikutsuki, by tying his enemies up at the top of Tartarus, in order to avenge his "father's" death.
- Sho was in the hospital after the explosion in the Kirijo Group lab, where he remained for years in a coma. When he awoke, Ikutsuki had been killed, but he left him a lot of money. Sho left the hospital to Inaba, where he found himself quite bored, not before the murder case at the beginning of Persona 4 started, and he quietly observed all of it, which is how he became aquainted with the Investigation Team.
- Sho has a tendency to use puns in his speech, something he inherited from Ikutsuki.
- The true main antagonist of this game is revealed to be Hi-no-Kagutsuchi, Izanami's son and a being from the Collective Unconsciousness created by the will of humans who wish to be in solitude. He is a being made from the wills of humans, similar to his mother, Nyarlathotep, Erebus, and Yaldabaoth.
- Margaret says her goodbye to Elizabeth who is on her Fool's Journey now, and mentions Theodore, their brother, and the exclusive character introduced in Persona 3 Portable.
- Theodore does appear in the epilogue and interacts with Margaret. This marks his only appearance outside of Persona 3 Portable.
Gallery[]
