Persona 5 Strikers Review

 

Persona 5 was one of the best games I ever played back in 2019 and then in 2020 when Royal came out it was even better. It stayed on my mind constantly since the day I played it so when Persona 5 Strikers was announced for the West and it turned out to be more than a spinoff and actually a direct sequel I pre-ordered that shit ASAP.

Persona 5 Strikers takes the formula of Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal and condenses it down to an action RPG. The confidant and social stats are removed making the game as a result a lot shorter, but mind you this is still a long game. My recorded time at the end of Strikers was 64:49. So still longer than your average Final Fantasy, but it also feels kind of short at the same time. It might be due to the pacing or the fact that I'm used to playing its predecessor.

I had a remarkable good time with Persona 5 Strikers. Upon starting the game I was hit with a wave of nostalgia. Persona 5 Strikers keeps the stylish UI from P5 right at the beginning with the start menu and hearing the remix to "Last Surprise" was whooo! Also as a quick tidbit I have to point out how I love the new outfits for the team in Strikers. The fashion sense is still on point here. So the story of Strikers has The Phantom Thieves reuniting for their summer vacation, but their vacation doesn't go as planned when it appears that The Metaverse has returned.

It's hard for me to describe exactly how I feel about the story of Persona 5 Strikers. I don't like it nearly as much as I do Persona 5, but that doesn't mean it was terrible. It was still fun, but there were things about it that didn't capture me emotionally or weren't explained or ignored. Just a heads up, this is a spoiler review for both Persona 5 and Persona 5 Strikers. In order for me to explain the issues I had I will have to go into detail. One thing that was just weird to me was that Lavenza was still secretly talking to Joker throughout the whole of this game when at the end of 5 the entire team were introduced to her. I don't see a reason for this other than because Sophie joins the team and she doesn't know her, but she could just be introduced to her along with the rest of the crew.

 

It's not a big deal, but I was thinking about it and the game does mention the events of 5 so it's odd to omit that part of the game. The biggest factor with me in terms of story is within the cast of villains. In 5 it was evident that all of these Palace rulers needed to be stopped or helped in the case of Futaba, but I wasn't really convinced of a threat in most of these Jail Monarchs. Alice was the only one before the main threat came where I felt like we had to stop her and that she was actually doing supernatural stuff. She had men so obsessed with her that in front of their girlfriends they would just out of the blue buy up all of Alice's merchandise and confess their love for her. We also got two first hand accounts with her abuse on TV and backstage. In that encounter backstage we also heard that she has her previous manager locked up in a room. Yeah, Alice was doing some crazy shit.

With the Sendail Monarch the guy just seemed like an ass and that was it really. I mean some people were fighting over his books, but that kind of shit happens on Black Friday every year so that didn't really convince me and the same thing with the mayor too. I mean the approval rating was a thing, but  still I didn't really feel like this was some bad shit like with the Persona 5 cast so I didn't feel a sense of drive to take them down just I have to because this is a video game. I did feel that urgency for Zenkichi's daughter because she was being used by the enemy.

Kanoe himself I definitely felt for his backstory, but his motivation I didn't get all. Even from his perspective all that his monarchs were doing were just making people act crazy or obsess over someone. I don't see how he could've seen that as saving people. I'm also still not entirely sure on the creation of Jails either. The falling act reveals that Ichinose was behind everything. She created Emma, but sold it to Maddice and then Kanoe used cognitive research to create the Jails. I'm wondering how though because in 5 the only people who knew about cognitive psience were Shido and Shido's people. It was never said if Kanoe had connections to Shido or if the politician he was working with Oyada, gave him the cognitive psience research. Also the twist with Ichinose came out of nowhere, not completely but it was still like "what?" to me. I think she may have had only one scene involved in the story outside of her introduction. In her intro scene it did seem like she was a prime suspect only because I heard the word "cognitive" from her mouth, which I'm surprised wasn't a trigger word too for the characters in the game considering all what happened to them in 5. I thought it was way too obvious so she couldn't be, but she ended up being so.

I think I would've been a lot more okay with it if Ichinose had more screentime in the story. Also, I have to address a recurring issue in the game. The sound mixing is weird. There are times when you can hardly hear what the characters are saying. I did like how they tried to change things up. It wasn't just a Monarch after a Monarch. The Okinawa segment changed the pace of the story and that Jail didn't even have a Monarch and Kyoto had a non-traditional Jail and Monarch. I also love the character bonding in the game. The Phantom Thieves really do feel like a group of friends. The best moments are when the crew are just hanging around, eating, or ripping on each other. I do miss the confidant mechanic in this game and even the day system. Days still pass on the calendar, but it's only triggered through story events rather than player actions.

The game still has bonds as a game mechanic, but it acts more like a skill tree. You build up a meter by either fighting, fulfilling quests, or advancing the story and it grants points when filled and those points you spend on bonds which grant passive abilities or stat boosts. I mean I guess it's fine as a mechanic. I just miss the confidant system. I do like most of the abilities granted from it. With the action combat of Strikers things like stat boosts and healing item effectiveness would be useful although since the action pauses when you use items and you can almost infinitely stock up on them since leaving Jails doesn't make time pass healing should never be a problem if you don't want it to be.

This is my first experience with a mosou game and I quite love it. I came in with no expectations so I was able to sink in the combat system without any comparisons. Strikers does throw a lot of the game's tutorials on to you right at the beginning of the game which is annoying as hell, especially since a lot of these mechanics it's trying to teach you carries over from Persona 5 and since this is a direct sequel most of the people playing this I already know about these mechanics. We really only needed ones for the actual new mechanics and even then I would say all of those aren't even necessary. If you experiment for a bit you will eventually pick up that you can deal more damage with Haru's moves by holding down Triangle or when all of an enemy's shield's are broken you can deal an all-out attack. I can't remember if the game has an option to turn tutorials off, but I will definitely be turning them off on future playthroughs.

It took me a little while to get used to the battle system, especially because we had access to the full roster right from jump, but by the time I got to the second palace I got most of it. So the developers did a good job of making each character feel unique. Out of the roster I know it sounds boring, but Joker is my favorite to use. I love the swag in his moves, how versatile and op he can be too. Aside from Joker Ryuji, Ann, and Haru were my favorites. I thought Ryuji and Haru sucked when I first used them. I generally think that about slower characters in games, but once I learned to use them I found out that they are among the strongest in the game. Ryuji can charge his attacks for extra damage and when they're fully charged they do massive damage. His charged attacks can also break shields from bosses which usually only break by spamming the enemies weakness. Ryuji can charge his Zio too, but his physical charges are the most powerful due to Ryuji's high STR stat. Since he can also give himself super armor you don't have to worry about most attacks interrupting your charges.

Haru's a heavy hitter too, but in a different way. When you hold down the triangle button during her combos she performs multiple hits. I think her most powerful combination is when she summons a psychic tornado. This attack is steerable and if an enemy is weak to psychic attacks it can do a massive amount of damage to them. It didn't help me much against the snow Monarch, but in other cases the shit was tearing it up. Haru's gun attacks are also really good especially when you get access to use unlimited ammo for her base Triangle attack. it does considerable damage for a free move. Now Ann isn't as powerful as the other two, but I like her because of her animations. When she's on an interactable environment object she's poised like Catwoman and I love the flame effects on her attacks. She's also one of the few characters that has a free Persona support ability in her combos. For Ann she can cast Tarunda or Maturnda once you get it for free. She was important in keeping me alive in boss fights by lowering the boss's attack. I think Persona 5 Strikers is different from 5, but it seems like you can't decrease an enemy's stat buff by casting a debuff, you have to negate with Dekaja or an item that casts Dekaja, but Ann can learn Dekaja so if you have her in your party it shouldn't be a problem. I also like Ann's gun the most. It just feels good shooting it.

I do find all of the Phantom Thieves fun to use though, but I think I would say that I don't think I ever really found out the true potential of Sophie. I know I can hold down the ends of her combos so they can last indefinitely, but I'm not sure if this is the unique trait of hers because it's not really useful. She can cast Rakunda for free and is tied with Morgana for best healing so she's still useful for me. Oh, and since this is a spoiler review I just have to mention how op Zenkichi is. He plays like a faster version of Ryuji and can deal possibly a ton more damage than him because of his fury mode. He also gets some crazy support moves like Heat Riser. As much as I enjoyed the battle system, by the end of the game it all started to get too easy to me and I desired a bit more death. I know it's not Bayonetta, but I kind of wanted it to be by the end since I was wrecking things by the end and just using the same combos and techniques by then.

Another critique I have is with the game's level design. Strikers has some bland level design compared to 5. I like how story-wise the Jails are different from Palaces, but on a gameplay and aesthetic level they leave me wanting more. Strikers has nice themes for the Jails, but they just look generic. The first one you get is with Alice and her theme is Alice in Wonderland, but all you really see are some presents, pink neon, and some carnival decorations. There are no cognitive beings to interact with. It doesn't make you feel like you're in Wonderland at all. I basically feel the same for the rest of the Jails except for the final one. Also they don't change up the formula enough within the levels. They do introduce a new level concept in each one, but too many things repeat. Each Jail doesn't need a Futaba hacking battle, or a 2D segment, and all of the Prison Keeps look the same. They're all on some tall tower you have to climb and you have a boss battle as soon as you enter the room. There was one Jail that had you fight after you grabbed the core, but still it was basically the same. Like, at least make the Prison Keeps look different in each Jail. In Sendai they could've been underground dungeons or torture chambers, In Sapporo they could've been ice sculptures.

When you got to Okinawa it was actually refreshing because there were no cores to collect or Prison Warden to fight. It felt unique compared to the others and I think the Jail theme was done better than the others. It did feel like you were murking around in secret laboratory and the hacking battles made sense here. The Kyoto Jail was the shortest, but it still went under the whatever territory for me because still aesthetically it looked bland. It being a portal maze was cool and all, but the scenery was just bland.

The Osaka one was a mix of them all, but it too suffered from a bland atmosphere. A futuristic utopia should look much cooler than that. I'll also give the hacking battles credit for fitting thematically here too. The boss battle in this palace was a spectacle. I was just disappointed that it was so easy even on the Hard difficulty. I purposely died on Normal so I could switch to Hard, but I barely saw a difference.

I know I've been talking a lot of negative here, but there's another thing I really want to talk about and that's with the Persona compendium. In Persona 5 to fuse Personas all you need are two or more specific Personas as material. In Strikers however in addition to having the fusion material the Personas needed have to be a certain level in order to fuse them for the Persona you want. This isn't a problem in the beginning of the game because the personas needed are usually at the level you have them. I didn't even realize there were level requirements until partway through the game, but having level requirements on the personas for fusion is just a terrible idea.

Personas gain experience from battles like in 5, but it's very slow leveling them up this way. The game has a new mechanic where you can spend PP to level up Personas. That's find if the points were easy to get and not a tedious task. You get PP by deleting Personas, from performing fusions, or by gaining Personas in battle, but the amount of points you get looks a lot, but it isn't since the points you need to level up a Persona are high. Either the amount you gain need to be significantly decreased or the cost for leveling up should be significantly decreased. Right, now you have to grind by doing the above repeatedly. the fastest method would be performing fusions and deleting and resummoning Personas, but that costs a shit ton of money so would have to leave go farm for some money and repeat. It's tedious and nobody ain't got time for that bullshit.

Later on in the game you'll also be able to spend PP on increasing Persona's stats individually which is cool, but it still suffers from the same problem and you feel like you want to do both of these so you'll have strong Personas. I ended up giving up on trying to collect all the Personas I want.

 

The side quests in this game are pretty whack, I'm not going to lie. I see what other people complain about in WRPGs. The side quests here embody just pointless grinding or fetch quests and none of it deals with the story. It's kind of odd with the return of The Phantom Thieves that Mishima isn't present. He could give you requests from people whose desires have been stolen and then you go to find it in the Jails. The way the game has it now it has no connection to the world or story unlike in Persona 5 where it felt like a natural part of the game's world. The parts where you fulfill requests for your friends is a little better, but even some of those have you grinding for items or killing hordes of enemies.

It's also weird that we don't get a cutscene with it, but just a dialogue box when we open request app on the phone. Speaking of stuff like that it's really weird how many black out scenes we get in the middle of the story. Like I want to see it. Also, what was with them not showing Sae when she came to get Zenkichi? It was in first-person; like why?

Back to things that I like. In Strikers there are new items that can increase your Personas stats and they just don't work on Joker's Personas, but on the whole team's. It's actually kind of a waste to give one to Joker since he can increase his Persona's stats with PP. This would've been nice to have in Persona 5 Royal as the Jazz Club isn't enough to increase a party member's stats, especially if you want them to be as OP as Joker. 

The music in this game is also bomb. They brought back tracks from Persona 5, the remixed tracks from there and we get a slew of new vocal tracks too. The Jail themes were kind of bland compare to 5's and I don't even like of 5's Palace themes, but the ones in Strikers are overall worse. They play into the generic aesthetic of the Jails, but I would say I kind of like the Shibuya Jail theme, but only when I listened to it outside of the game. The rest of the tracks go hard. Man do I love how they made "Last Surprise" into a boss theme in this one. I want a "Take Over" remix in this style.

Also, it's disappointing that they didn't have any alternate costumes for this game. They would've made some coin off of them. I really wanted fight in their casual outfits. I hope down the line they'll add costume DLC for this game, but I have a feeling that they won't. They should though.

Despite a lot of the complaints I definitely enjoyed my time with this game. It's not a 10/10 for me like with Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal, but it's still a game I will definitely do repeat playthroughs for. I just love this cast of characters so much and the combat is fun. This is an 8.5/10 for me.