Persona 5 Strikers Review
“The Musou that finally stole our heart.” Written by: Hunter (ReaperHunter23)
Back in April of 2019 Persona fans were treated to a teaser of Persona 5: Scramble The Phantom Strikers. The trailer showed Joker taking on a massive horde of enemies in spectacular fashion. That’s right Persona 5 was going to receive the Hyrule Warriors treatment. It was released in Japan in February 2020 as Persona 5: Strikers, a good call on shortening the name. And then a year later in February 2021 it was released in the west. Persona 5 Strikers does a wonderful job at marrying the style that Persona 5 oozes with the wacky action presented by the musuo type of gameplay as well as maintaining the writing, characters, and atmosphere that makes the world of Persona 5 so enjoyable in the first place.
Image Credit: Atlus
Persona Strikers feels much more like an action RPG than it does a full on Musuo game. The majority of combat encounters are smaller and more contained to a handful of enemies rather than hundreds of them in an open field. That’s not to say that the encounters where the player lays waste to scores of enemies are totally gone, they are just saved for special occasions. This shift helps the game not only be a better fit for the world of Persona but feel like it is a bit more than a Persona Reskin of a dynasty warriors game.
Many features from the combat of Persona 5 such as baton passing, elemental weakness, and all out attacks are present in this game. Elemental attacks can be done either by casting spell from the R1 menu, or certain spells will act as the end to a combo. Characters like Ann and Makoto can also add an elemental affinity to their attacks. Hitting a critical will open up the opportunity for a follow up attack or baton pass. Baton passing switches control to another party member and increases the speed that the showtime meter will fill up. The showtime attacks act as the screen nuke special moves. All out attacks are available to hit once the guard of a larger enemy is broken, or sometimes after a few attacks if you are fighting something of a lower level than you. The way the mechanics synergize do a great job at making it feel like you’re in control of a hypercompetent team rather than a one man army.
The characters all have fighting styles suited to them as well. Joker is an agile all arounder, Ryuji’s special move lets him resist being staggered so he can charge up his hard hitting swings. Ann’s whip has great reach and is good for crowd control. Yusuke has a lot of visually satisfying combos and a cool counter move. Joker, Yusuke, Ann and Makoto ended up being my go to party for most of the game.
One thing I was pleasantly surprised by was the movement outside of combat. In other warriors games once you ran out of enemies to fight, you’d pretty much just have to sprint for two minutes until you found another pack of enemies to fight. In Persona Strikers, all of the hiding spots and bits of interactable environments, and even weaker enemy encounters can be zipped to in an instant. It makes getting from one end of the map to another a quick and entertaining affair.
The one aspect I feel they could have done a bit better is dungeon pacing. The dungeons are all set up close to how you would expect. The party needs to go from point A to point B but C, D and E all get in the way. The problem I have is that the diversions seemed to have too many diversions of their own. So one major obstacle would have three or four sub obstacles to go with it and it all adds up in a way that feels like it slows down the proceedings. Sometimes after clearly one of the major hurdles it ended up feeling like I accomplished a lot more than I really did. Thankfully, this complaint is mostly only applicable to the first part of the game, later dungeons seemed to trim the fat so to speak.
Image Credit: Atlus
The best way I can think to describe the story of Strikers is to say that it is the anime movie to the TV series of Persona 5. It is not necessarily essential to the experience, but it is a well done and worthy way to spend more time with the incredible cast of characters.
The story takes place around a year after the events of Persona 5. The general setup is that Joker and the rest of the crew are linking up to spend their summer vacation together. Unfortunately for our merry band of thieves there’s this pesky change of heart epidemic going on, one thing leads to another and the group finds themselves back in the metaverse stopping distortions and travelling across the country to fix the mass changes of heart in the way that only they can. One thing I enjoy about this setup is that they don’t settle on a simple retread of palaces. While the jails as they are called are functionally similar in some regards they have enough tweaks to make it feel like a new and interesting way to implement the metaverse into the story.
The cast is as great as ever in this game. Seeing Joker reunite with his friends and have things pick up like he was never gone was great to see. Everyone acts how you would expect them to and it's because of that familiarity with how the characters would act that leads to arguably some of their best moments. The party being assembled from the beginning of the game also means that the focus can be shifted from character to character in a manner that is more natural than “Oh hey, you are the new party member now its your time to shine”
Haru in particular benefits from the way that the focus is shared in this game. In Persona 5 Haru was shafted as far as how her introduction to the party was handled. Her confidant starting so late and being stat gated compounded with that to make her feel like an afterthought. I always wanted to like her more than I did but the game never wanted to give me a reason to. In this game she gets a proper bit of focus and some of her lines and gags are genuinely some of the most amusing beats in the game.
Strikers also boasts new characters. The dungeon bosses are decent enough at filling their role but the two stand out characters are Sophia and Zenkechi. Sophia is an AI that the group finds in the Metaverse and she ends up following them around in an effort to understand the human heart. She’s an endearing robot character and I’m a sucker for those. As for Zenkechi, he’s a public security officer investigating the Change of Heart Epidemic. He ends up striking a deal with the Phantom Thieves in order to catch the true culprit. The upfront nature of how this partnership comes off feels like a refreshing inversion of the mistrusting dynamic with Akechi in the previous game. It is also just nice to have another adult around that doesn’t suck.
Image Credit: Atlus
Perhaps one of the most important aspects to making a game attached to Persona 5 is nailing the style and vibe. Strikers does a pretty stellar job at that for the most part. Hearing Beneath the mask start up when Joker goes back to Yongen Jaya put a smile on my face within the first five minutes of starting the game.
Menus aren’t usually something I would take the time to talk about but I figured the amount of effort that went into each of the pause menu screens is worth mentioning. Each selection you make shows Joker doing something with one of the teammates, selecting equipment for example has him slink behind cover with Ryuji, or selecting bond has him look over a plan of some sort with Makoto. There’s one for each of them and it just goes to show how committed to the P5 style Strikers is.
The music in the game is as stellar as one would expect, whether a wholly original song such as Daredevil or The AI and The Heart, or new arrangements of old favorites like Last Surprise and Blooming Villain. The visuals in the game look great. Each of the boss characters look notably strange and tailored to the theme of their dungeon. I think the first boss design is probably the one that’s sticking with me the most after finishing the game. As for the main party, while everyone’s Phantom Thief attire is the same, they all got new regular walking around clothes. This is probably my favorite look for a majority of them with my favorite outfit being a toss up between Futaba’s or Makoto’s.
There is one bit of critique I can offer. The game uses the P5 soundtrack to great effect a majority of the time. However, there’s a few instances where that usage is questionable. A couple of notable instances include playing Sunset Bridge upon the first time Joker exits the dungeon. It was a bizarre bit of disconnect considering how it was used in Persona 5. Another instance that was eyebrow raising was the usage of “Swear To My Bones” when The Phantom Thieves are explaining to Sophia who they are and what they do. Don’t misunderstand me, both songs are excellent, but both come off as a bit dramatic for the scenes they play in.
Image Credit: Atlus
Summary
Persona 5 Strikers gets an easy recommendation. It is a spin off that captures the style and feeling of Persona 5 to near perfection. If you enjoyed Persona 5 to any above average extent I’d say this is a game you’d actively want to seek out. Even if you don’t particularly care for the musou formula I’d say this game feels different enough from the other musou games I’m familiar with to be worth giving a shot. On top of that it delivers an entertaining story that gives me a reason to spend more time with a group of characters that I find incredibly endearing in a world that I can’t get enough of.