YMMV / Persona 4: Arena Ultimax

• Accidental Innuendo: When Yukari beats Ken, she'll comment on how "big" he and Koromaru grew.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Hi-no-Kagutsuchi, the true identity of the Malevolent Entity in the end of all stories is really disappointing for a boss-only character, having a really limited arsenal of moves, not having that much health, and can be easily defeated by spamming heavy attacks. In addition to that, it's rather plain looking for a final boss, especially one given the series as a whole. It's even more disappointing considering Arc System Works' attempt at a giant boss in BlazBlue: Chronophantasma and Take-Mikazuchi, which released the same year as Ultimax, was handled better.
• Anvilicious: The strength of bonds has always been a theme of the series, but here The Power of Friendship overcoming Loners Are Freaks is unsubtle as all get out, particularly with the nature of the main villain.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Ken and Koromaru being The Dividual. People would like to play as Koromaru, but hate that Ken is attached to him, while others are fine with them together. The fact that Ken could de-summon him and fight on his own further raises the question as to why they can't be separate.
    • Ken himself. While his redesign is positively received, many people still blame him for October 4th. At the same time though, being in the game gives him a chance to develop more as a character (one of the complaints about him in the original game).
    • The reveal that Marie is also going to be DLC has brought a similar reaction, as a holdover between those who dislike her and those who enjoy her inclusion into the canon story. The way she was handled too in the the storymode is split between those happy she's not a Spotlight-Stealing Squad, or those who felt she was handled poorly.
  • There is also a break in the fanbase regarding Kagutsuchi. The main source of the break is not that he is there, it's that according to many he is a complete ripoff of Nyarlathotep instead of being its own character capable of standing on its own merits. Some prefer him over Nyarlathotep though, only because it fits better for the theme of Persona 3 and 4.
• Broken Base:
  • "Do you think the P3MC and Shinjiro should be a playable characters?" — Neither character makes an appearance in the game, due to both of them being dead, which is a sticking point for those who wished for Ultimax to adhere to the game's canon or not, despite the appearance of DLC fighters like Marie and Margaret, who don't take an active role in the game's story.
  • When the game was first released on PS3 and Xbox 360, the fact that the DLC is on-disc. While some people are fine with it since they're temporarily free, the practice of on-disc DLC being present at all was found condemnable by some. This issue becomes a little less prevalent with the 2022 re-release on PS4, Switch, and PC via Steam, which comes packaged with all of the original DLC content from the PS3 and Xbox 360 releases.
  • The fact that the P4 route is the canon route instead of the P3 route has earned some ire since the P3 route is often considered the superior one.
• Character Rerailment:
  • After Yukari's actions in The Answer, she has thankfully mellowed out to being closer to her original self. Since around two years have passed since the P3 Protagonist died, so of course she has had time to recover.
  • Elizabeth has more of her normal personality back, after Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth turned her into a troll instead of being eager, yet ignorant, and causing mishaps through misunderstanding how things work. While she still has trolling as a personality trait, she also has moments where she misunderstands what things are meant to be used for, especially with Aigis' weaponry, which she suggests would be good as fireworks.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Funnily enough in Ultimax, the most popular characters in Arena are still popular. You can also expect to see a lot of Sho (both versions) and Narukami.
• Complete Monster: Shuji Ikutsuki. See that page for details.
• Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: As divisive as it is, some players, particularly those who prefer role-playing games and don't have much interest or skill in fighting games, tend to do this. It's actually a real in-game function; you can have the AI fight for you in story mode if you want to enjoy the story.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: One of the reasons why Episode P3 is generally considered superior to Episode P4 is Kikuno, a battle capable maid from the Persona 3 Drama CDs that gets an expanded role in Ultimax as she flies a helicopter and shoots down a bunch of Shadows, by herself.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Pershona for Sho when he has Tsukiyomi. Also sometimes called SHO MINAZUKI (all caps) or just Minazuki to differentiate him from the Sho without a Persona, who is referred to as just Sho.
    • Persona-less Sho is also occasionally referred to as Sholo.
  • Kagemura for Shadow Yosuke.
  • Kenomaru for Ken and Koromaru.
  • DanceDanceRevolution for Rise's rhythm game super.
• Fanon Discontinuity: As far as some fans go, this game never happened; at the very least, the P4 route doesn't exist.
• High-Tier Scrappy: Sho with his Persona has a lot of hate directed towards him due to how frustrating his moveset is to deal with. While Narukami and Yosuke are above him in tiering, Sho has teleports that are practically instant and can cross up the opponent, making blocking them essentially a guessing game, a command grab that steals health, and while not as easy to pick up and use as Narukami, is still fairly easy to learn. It doesn't help that his damage is pretty good as well.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The first line of the chorus to "Time To Make History" (the advantage theme from Persona 4 Golden) being the Baseball terminology "Step on up to the plate" became this when Junpei was unveiled, dressed in a baseball uniform & wielding a baseball bat as his weapon of choice. This was ramped up when "Time To Make History" replaced "Fog" as the Instant-Kill theme.
  • Kagutsuchi's boss appearance — considering that BlazBlue (released around the same time as Ultimax) had a similar boss with Take-Mikazuchi, one of the gods born out of Kagutsuchi's blood.
  • The Big Bad made those evil versions of the characters who will mess with them For the Evulz. Sounds familiar?
  • Kanji hating Ken in the P4 route is this when he ends up becoming a Big Brother Mentor to him in Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth and has a close relationship with each other.
  • Ken wanting to grow taller from drinking milk in Persona 3 becomes way funnier now that he really did grow!
  • Marie's "TV world glasses" is an eye patch on her left eye. Justine and Caroline, the new Velvet Room attendants in Persona 5, would wear eyepatches.
• Ho Yay: Minazuki and Sho. The two are very dependent on one another, Minazuki is very protective of Sho, and ends up sacrificing himself to save Sho. Seeing as how Minazuki is the only person Sho's ever had care about him since childhood and vice versa, this is unsurprising.
• Les Yay:
  • As it was in Persona 3 and almost anything following, Mitsuru still seems to have something for Yukari. Near the end of the P4 story when Rise gets everyone connected with each other as they wander the fog covered Inaba, Mitsuru seems the most elated/relieved about Yukari's safety than anyone else's.
  • Kikuno is really loyal to Mitsuru. And she was the one who bought Mitsuru her huge fur coat.
  • Yukari's reaction upon realizing that Rise is both a Persona user and the Idol Singer Risette is to immediately gush over how pretty Rise is.
• Low-Tier Letdown:
  • Prior to version 2.0, most Shadow characters weren't used very much competitively. This was mostly due to their gimmick, Shadow Frenzy. At 100 SP, a shadow character could activate a Super Mode where they could jump-cancel any normal, chain any SP move into any other SP move once (including Supers), and use any number of SP moves, at the cost of all these reducing the timer. In theory, this gives every Shadow character a potential Touch of Death combo. Unfortunately, this came at a cost; No Burst. The loss of your universal “get off me” button in exchange for a difficult to execute, time limited Touch of Death, only accessible at max meter (retaining meter across rounds helps, but still) was too great for some, turning them into Glass Cannons who were Awesome, but Impractical. In addition to that, they use the Persona 4: Arena auto-combos as opposed to the new ones, so their comboing is not as good in some cases as the updated characters. Shadow Chie, Mitsuru and Naoto are exempt from this, due to having a pseudo touch of death for the first two and the Fate counter for an alternate win condition for Shadow Naoto. The 2.0 update, however, flipped this around, giving Shadow characters a Burst they could use, which, as a Necessary Drawback, locks them out of Shadow Frenzy, while activating Shadow Frenzy empties out the Burst Gauge, still making them Glass Cannons, but removing the Impractical. This was such a successful buff that some high-tier players now almost exclusively use Shadow characters.
  • Elizabeth is an interesting example. While she's loathed by people with a lower skill level due to her zoning moveset and above average amount of Persona cards, she's considered a complete joke in anything higher due to her very poor defensive options, low health, middling damage, and how completely useless she is without Thanatos. She's considered a free win and being just shy of the worst character in the game, which belongs to the very momentum-based Labrys.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Anything to do with Ken. People acting astonished that him drinking milk to get tall actually did something.
  • Adachi didn't do anything wrong this time.
  • Koromaru's beta design with cannons mounted on him.
  • Sho calling Labrys and Aigis "toasters," really stuck in the fandom. It's taken off in general, with any robot being called a toaster, regardless of where it's from.
• Narm:
  • While the power of bonds has always been important to the series, it can get downright silly in this game.
  • The main antagonist, Kagutsuchi, get's pretty hard to take seriously when he is revealed to simply be a manifestation of those who want to be alone and simply wants to destroy the world.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • The real Shadow Labrys shows up for one scene and totally upstages Sho in the maniacal trash-talking department.
  • Adachi in the Persona 3 storyline, who only makes one significant appearance, but that appearance is single-handedly saving Mitsuru, Akihiko, Aigis and Teddie from a horde of Shadows.
• Polished Port: Rollback netcode was introduced to the PS4 and Steam ports, alleviating issues with the original netcode the game had 10 years prior.
• Replacement Scrappy: The Big Bad Hi-no-Kagutsuchi is considered by long-time fans to be an inferior replacement for Nyarlathotep, due to him having the same modus operandi as Nyarly.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Ken's new design has been well received from some, though he's more or a Base-Breaking Character than fully rescued. Other people like his Character Development over the course of the story, particularly those who complained that he went Out of Focus after October 4 passed.
  • Adachi has been seen as this by people who didn't like him before, thanks to Episode Adachi highlighting his Character Development from Card-Carrying Villain to Anti-Hero.
• The Scrappy: Sho Minazuki is widely disliked for encapsulating everything that can go wrong with an "edgy" character, with many feeling that his Ax-Crazy "edgelord" personality feels too shallow and out of place in Persona, not helped by Todd Haberkorn's voice acting making him sound gratingly obnoxious. His motivation which is to destroy the world simply because of his crappy upbringing feel extremely Wangsty, which compounded by how he constantly acts like a complete Jerkass to everyone around him, makes him Unintentionally Unsympathetic.
• Squick: One of Ken's beta designs has S&M undertones, which becomes this when you remember that he's 13.
• Take That, Scrappy!:
  • The P4 side takes shots at Ken's attitude. Kanji complains that the fake Ken is a brat who's overplaying his status as a kid, and when the real one shows up to chide the heroes for falling for the fake Ken's Wounded Gazelle Gambit act, Kanji notes that the real Ken is more of a brat.
  • Above all, Adachi's "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Sho which sums up everything fans disliked about him.
• Tear Jerker: Labrys's epilogue in Episode P3 is a positive one, especially with Memories of the City being used as the BGM for that segment.
• That One Level: The last five fights of the Golden Mode, no matter what difficulty, will be this. Not only will the enemy be either your level or higher, but they'll also have some really strong skills and will take forever to kill. If you end up with Minazuki as a final boss, you better be ready to have to go through it again, as his Awakened Special is virtually a One-Hit KO due to his ridiculously strong it is, and how it's very hard to see coming.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: At one point, many of the original game's fans were interested in the re-release due to it finally adapting the long-requested 2.0 changes from the Japan-exclusive arcade release into a proper console release, since the original version never got those changes. When they finally got to play with said changes, however, a surprising amount of them did a complete 180, citing the balance changes as the major reason why they now disliked the game. The primary complaints are, but not limited to: Shadow characters being immensely buffed to the point of overshadowing their regular counterparts (especially Shadow Mitsuru and Shadow Naoto), the reworking and outright removal of important character-specific tech like Yosuke's gliding glitch, and unnecessary buffs and nerfs to several characters, such as Adachi, MINAZUKI (Sho with Persona), and especially Margaret being buffed even further when they were already good while fan-favorites like Akihiko ended up getting nerfed into being nearly unplayable.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Some people feel this way, from the Persona 2 references that didn't lead up to Nyarlathotep as many expected, to the Shadow Operatives mainly being secret. Retroactively, the concept of the Shadow Operatives, a group dealing with supernatural incidents and shadow activity, was considered to be a wasted concept come Persona 5. There has been no known justification to why they didn't get involved in the game's events despite the obvious indication of shadow activity.^note Considering almost everyone in Japan at least heard of the Phantom Thieves, one wonders why they wouldn't check it out, especially after Medjed. Many felt like the Shadow Operatives being formed in the Arena duology was simply an Excuse Plot so that the P3 and P4 cast could meet each other.
  • Did you maybe think that Yu's Shadow or reasonable facsimile would have interesting things to say to him? Well, too bad, cause Yosuke is gonna kill him early in the game and never shall the two meet! In fact, the Shadow's themselves count, as they are simply there to give fights in the story mode that wouldn't involve Fighting Your Friends and have little role in the actual plot.
  • While Adachi's role in the plot and expanded characterization have been well-received by fans, many were disappointed that he wasn't more involved in the fighting itself, particularly that he didn't have a rematch with Narukami. Notably, the only fights in his storyline are against the two Shos, and Hi-no-Kagutsuchi.
  • The fact that Kagutsuchi originally wanted to use Teddie as the base of his vessel, which explains his determination to keep Teddie incapacitated and locked out of the events of Persona 4: Arena much better than that game did. Here, it's only treated as a side-note that is mentioned in passing and then quickly dismissed, when it could have made for an incredibly compelling subplot all on its own.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Considering she served as Mission Control in the last game and Persona 4, no-one expected Rise to be upgraded to a playable character in Ultimax.
  • While people were expecting Ken due to a leak (which had confirmed Rise), nobody expected him to be The Dividual with Koromaru.
  • Not many expected Adachi to become a DLC playable character after he was discovered to be an NPC in Yukari and Yu's Ultimax arcade modes.
  • Nobody expected Marie to become a DLC playable character, either, wielding the power of Kaguya as her own Persona to boot.
  • Finally, Margaret was the last person fans expected to become a playable character, where she also came packing with four different Personas that form the basis of her moveset.
• Unfortunate Character Design: Shadow Yosuke's character selection portrait looks like he's constipated.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Sho Minazuki has a tragic backstory where he was raised by Ikutsuki and can only connect with people by fighting them. But he is such a nonstop asshole to everyone, even after his plan is thwarted and everyone forgives him and he realizes he had a friend all along. And he enjoys petty acts of cruelty so much, like taking control of Labrys with her remote control, making her attack her friends, and laughing about it. Which would all be fine, if the main characters did not constantly forgive him, never try to hold him accountable for his actions, and insist that all he really wants is to connect with people, which excuses his behavior. He's also notably less sympathetic in the True Ending than he is in the ending of the Persona 3 storyline. The game does acknowledge that he isn't fully reformed yet, and sets it up as a Sequel Hook, but that hook never gets a proper follow-up, even in future Persona games or spin-offs. The only appearances that Sho had made post-Ultimax was as a DLC character for both Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight and Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, but he is still the same abrasive brat from his introduction.
• Woolseyism:
  • In Japan, the two Shos are separated by naming the one without a Persona in kanji, and the one with a Persona in katakana. This obviously doesn't work in English, so Atlus instead opted to separate the two by having one operate on a First-Name Basis (without Persona) and the other on a Last-Name Basis (with Persona). Oddly enough, though, Mitsuru calls the Persona-less Sho "Minazuki."
  • Adachi's localized title as well — going from "Detective Cabbage, Private Egotist" to "The Egocentric Police Dick," especially if one doesn't care for the cabbage bit.
  • Part of Shadow Labrys's story mode dialogue is telling Sho to kiss her skinny, metal ass.

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