Persona 4 Revival has been billed as a largely faithful remake of the classic paranatural game, but the developers at Atlus are making some large changes. Most recently, the studio announced it’s retroactively adding a fan-favorite character from 2011’s Persona 4: The Animation into the main game’s cannon.
And that fan-favorite character is Aika Nakamura, one of the player character’s classmates and the daughter of the Aiya restaurant’s owners – the one with Mighty Beef bowls that almost make you and your friends pass out from meat sweats. She’s mentioned in passing in Persona 4 Golden if you take on the restaurant’s challenge enough times, but Aika herself is conveniently always on delivery runs while you’re eating.
Atlus announced her inclusion in Persona 4 Revival in its second promotional broadcast, introducing her as “laid back by nature.” She’s still a school goer, still a delivery girl, and still the daughter of Aiya’s owners – but there’s one key difference here: She’s also a social link.
That means you can choose to spend time with her out of class and level up your joint relationship, though a brand-new social link brings up other questions. If Revival has a new social link, does that mean Aika is attached to a new arcana card? And if so, wouldn’t that indicate we’re getting new Personas to collect who are related to said arcana? Atlus didn’t say much about Aika’s social link storyline, but we should find out more before the game’s launch next February.
Persona 4 Revival’s aiming to make a ton more little changes to the game. For starters, the devs want to integrate Marie into the story more naturally this time around and there’s also been a few tweaks to some controversial Yosuke scenes. In news that’s proved divisive for fans, Atlus also replaced the entire English voice cast of Persona 4 Golden.