Let’s Talk About Persona 4 Arena’s Ending

Man, that part when… wait a second… did you finish Persona 4 Arena’s story mode?

(Insert dialogue box for Yu Narukami.)

-> Yeah, and I thought there would be more bear puns.

-> No, I guess I’ll go play it this weekend.

… you see Labrys’ storyline. Can’t shadow fighting androids get a break? Alright, we get it, Labrys has feelings and she wants to live life as a human girl, which was influenced by the memory implant from a young girl in a hospital. The characters from Persona 3 and Persona 4 are buddies now, but Persona 4 Arena’s story mode raised a bunch of new questions.

There’s a new case for the Investigation Team and Mitsuru’s group to solve – who is the Malevolent Entity? Whoever it is they managed to control Labrys from the outside, knew about the TV world, and enough about the Persona 4 characters to capture Rise. The Malevolent Entity is aware of shadows and the natures of personas too. My guess (and I’m probably totally wrong!) is Atlus is teasing the return of Persona series villain Nyarlathotep, but we’ll have to wait for the next game to find out.

That might be Persona 5 or another spin-off title with a canon storyline like Persona 4 Arena. It looks like Atlus could even make separate games with the Persona 3 and Persona 4 characters going on their own investigations.

I think the most interesting development is in Elizabeth’s storyline. She’s been wandering through people’s hearts and bringing Erebus, humanity’s cumulative negative energy, to the moon for a yearly beatdown. That was a nice bit of fan-service. At the end of her arc in Persona 4 Arena, Elizabeth gains the wild card potentially making her a new Persona protagonist. Her goal is pretty clear too, she wants to find a way to free the protagonist from Persona 3. I wonder if Atlus will actually pick up from Elizabeth’s scenario…

With teases of Persona 5 for like two years now, what do you think Atlus will do next with the cliffhangers from Persona 4 Arena? Who do you think the Malevolent Entity is? Would you buy a game with Elizabeth as the main character? What if it was a hanafuda game with tarot cards? Let’s discuss!