Persona 5 Strikers Review (PS4/Switch/Steam):
At this point the Persona series is definitely no stranger to spinoff titles, and in all honesty it’s a series that is deserving of all the popularity and games that it receives. Each mainline title impacted the lives of many that play them, and the quality of these games are consistent throughout the genres it dabbles in, whether it be the turn-based RPGs of the mainline games, the competitive fighting games from Arc System Works or even the rhythm games (yes, you heard me right, there are rhythm games and they are amazing). Persona 5 Strikers is no exception to this, being a crossover of sorts with the Persona story and the gameplay of the Dynasty Warriors games, bringing them together in a way that fits like a glove for the former series.
The story itself, despite being a spinoff, is canonical to the main games, taking place a few months after the events of the original Persona 5 wrapped up. Once again you play as Joker, coming back to Tokyo during summer vacation to spend time with the main supporting cast of the main game — the remainder of the Phantom Thieves. However, this simple vacation takes a turn for the worse when they discover that the metaverse has returned in the form of Jails, which are similar to Palaces from the previous game, with the smartphone app now as EMMA in the centre of all these strange occurrences. These Jails allow certain individuals to become monarchs, who abuse its power to take the desires of innocents and warp them to cater to their own wishes. With the inclusion of the member of Public Security, Zenkichi, and the mysterious AI entity known as Sophia, the Phantom Thieves take a road trip throughout the entirety of Japan to solve this case and bring everyone affected back to their senses by doing what they do best taking back the desires that were stolen.
Plotwise, the story is very similar to the original, taking down monarchs whom act very similarly to the palace rulers from the original title. However, there are key differences in backstory and themes that help these characters stand out as their own and, in a lot of ways, are more sympathetic, addressing some pretty serious and uncomfortable real-life issues. Of course, I won’t mention them in case of spoilers so don’t you worry about that. The pacing this time feels more abridged in specific parts of the story, introducing a new area as well as its respecting monarch, looking for info, going through the dungeon, learning the backstory of said monarch, beating the boss and learning more about the overarching story. By time we get to the middle of the story, things go into high gear and start to get truly interesting with the main narrative but even then, that doesn’t mean the story before wasn’t important or filler, in fact the game does a pretty good job at making everything connected even if it may not seem that way at first.
Quite possibly the biggest strength of the game’s story is the interactions with the main cast. Keep in mind these characters are in the middle of summer vacation and the game has many moments where they take a step back and have fun in the locales they visit. In my opinion, this is something that the Phantom Thieves were sort of missing in the main game, being the high school students that they are with bonding through living their lives and having fun. In some cases, this story even gives more development to them, giving specific characters more screen time dedicated to them that the main game did not give them a lot of time for (looking at you Haru!).
As mentioned before, the gameplay is heavily based on what you would see from the Dynasty Warriors franchise, mowing down hundreds if not thousands of enemies in one sitting through vast environments to cater to the tons of enemies on screen. However, in Strikers there has been enough changes to help make it more streamlined for fans of the main Persona games, whilst also being a more streamlined entry point into Dynasty Warriors for those that are yet jump in and try one.
As expecting from a Persona game, there is the inclusion of personas, entities that can be summoned by the user to attack using different elemental skills, stat-raising abilities, and healing moves. The inclusions of these personas and different elements actually make the game more strategic in how you face enemies as you more or less need to take advantage of their weaknesses if you want to take them down, rather than just spamming buttons and hoping for the best. On top of this, Joker can actually wield more than one persona thanks to obtaining more through battles or by persona fusion, which makes a comeback. Even then, it is so satisfying and addicting to work with the combos you learn for each character, with some even having different elemental attacks implemented into them, and levelling up your characters up at a much faster pace is nothing short of satisfying to me.
Persona fusions themselves are done in the Velvet Room, where quite a few options are given to you in order to fuse personas and make them stronger, with more options added as you progress through the main game. In fact, I would say they made this feature of the game much more convenient in some cases. For one, you don’t need to have all required personas on you in order to fuse, as long as they a registered in your compendium, you should be fine…as long as the base persona is at the right level for you to fuse. Basically, in order to fuse personas in this game, the base persona has to be at the same level as the persona you want to make with it, and depending on the level of that specific persona you might have to grind and level up the base persona, which might take a while. Thankfully you can use PP (Persona Points) in this game, which is obtained from removing personas already in your arsenal, to level up your personas automatically and by quite a few levels depending on how much PP you have at that time. PP can also be used to increase specific stats later on in the game.
If you loved the confidant/social link system from the mainline games then you’ll probably be disappointed to know it is not in this game. Instead, the system is replaced with the BOND system, which in some ways is a more liberating systems in terms of what you get out of it and helps fit with the new gameplay style. As you go through the game fighting, levelling up and watching specific events in the game, you will earn EXP to level up your BOND level. Depending on how many points you earn through each level up, you can redeem them for different benefits that can help you in battle, such as increasing your HP and SP or having sales on items in the in-game shop from time to time, with new options unlocked for you as you progress through the game. This actually gives you a lot more options to go for what benefits you on your adventure, as the confidant system originally had you going through different characters and working quite a bit of time to get the benefit you may have wanted. Here, if there’s something you want, then save up those BOND points and get it with no limitations and no hassle.
To help cater to the bigger number of enemies you will encounter throughout the game, the dungeons, AKA the Jails, are bigger in scale to help compensate for that. In fact, there are quite a few environmental factors and objects you can interact with to help you in your battles, such as a lamppost to spin around and even snowboards you can use to go down mountains and running over enemies in the process (is it bad I find that soooo satisfying to do?). Saying that, there are some smaller hallways in the game which can affect the camera sometimes, but nothing that is too annoying.
Speaking of environments, the real-world counterparts to the different locales you visit throughout the game’s interpretation of Japan is wonderfully accurate. Cities such as Shibuya have many famous landmarks, such as the Shibuya Crossing, and even more smaller areas such as Ramen Alley in Sapporo, Hokkaido. I totally don’t know places like that because I’m that much of a weeb, I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Graphically this game is very faithful to the mainline title, even recreating the stylish UI that the original Persona 5 is famous for quite well. Not only that but like a lot of modern games, there is an option to either have the game prioritise frame rate or graphics, with Frame Rate mode running at a solid 60FPS for the entire game. Unfortunately, you cannot switch between both modes freely with an already existing save file as you need to start a new game to have one of them take effect. It should also be pointed out that this is not an available option on the PS4 sadly.
The music in this game, as you would expect from the Persona games, is fantastic, with Atsushi Kitajoh, Gota Masuoka and Masayoshi Sasaki acting as the main composers for the games OST. Like the mainline game, there is a mix of urban and jazz within areas that reside in reality, with some tracks making a comeback, and some of the returning battle themes are even remixed to fit with the fast-paced action of the Dynasty Warriors style gameplay. Not only that, but there is now a much bigger variety in genres that help fit the themes for each dungeon you tackle, such as regal, haunting and techno, although when you go into battle these tracks come to a sudden halt but I don’t think that’s inherently a bad thing. In my opinion it can act as a reflection of the Phantom Thieves sudden invasion of the Monarchs self-inflicted delusion, emphasising the theme of rebellion against the Monarchs’ corruptive actions, and new battle tracks such as Axe to Grind and Counter Strike are honestly so energetic and catchy that I just can’t resist tapping my feet to them or getting pumped for the fights ahead.
The sound mixing for the game is sadly (no pun intended) mixed. In normal cutscenes the OST works well with the voice audio in a way that it’s still easy to hear but doesn’t drown out the voices of the characters, while in battle, it can sometimes be the exact opposite. Whilst I love the soundtrack, it does drown out the voice in battle so it would be nice if was revised and perhaps fixed in later updates. It’s honestly a shame to say this because I can honestly say the voice acting in this game is great!
The main voice cast return to reprise their original roles, including Xander Mobus as Joker, Max Mittelman as Ryuji and so on and so forth, and it truly feels like they have improved from their original performances. It’s honestly a lot of fun to hear them have a lot of fun with their roles and bring these characters to life even further then they already have, however, Tom Taylorson as Zenkichi, and especially Megan Harvey as Sophia, steal the show with how they approached their characters. In Megan Harvey’s case she clearly shows a development in Sophia’s voice, gradually going from innocent and slightly robotic to expressing human-like emotions in her voice, fitting for an AI character like Sophia and her development throughout the adventure.
As you probably noticed from the amount of times I compared this game with Dynasty Warriors, Persona 5 Strikers has a lot of similarities in the mechanics it presents to the player as well as the story in terms of how it unfolds. However, it also took the gameplay of Dynasty Warriors and adapted it in a way that it became an action RPG that truly feels like its own. It’s honestly fun to plough through enemies and see your team grow, as this gameplay fits the series like a glove. The story also made me fall in love with these characters all over again and I honestly felt like a proud father seeing these characters express everything they learned and developed from the previous title, and showing how much they’ve grown. This game is definitely one you should check out if you loved the original P5 and you just want to see more from your favourite Phantom Thieves and, whilst there are spoilers for the original game, I can also recommend this to those that may want to get into the Dynasty Warriors games but got turned off by the thousands of enemies and want a bit more challenge in how you approach fights.
Now gimmie a Persona 5 Arena Atlus, you know people are drooling for that to be a reality!
Did you play Persona 5 Strikers? What did you think about it? Please let me know.
