Persona 5 Strikers: A Pleasant (Last) Surprise

I've been gaming for a long time and have probably touched every genre gaming has had to offer. From shooters to indies to weird puzzle games, I feel like I've tried a lot. 

One genre I had fancy for in my youth was "musou"-styled video games. The literal translation doesn't mean much ("unrivaled") but the style is born from a series called Dynasty Warriors. The games revolved around playing various characters from different Chinese dynasties and ruling houses clashing for the control for power. Gameplay boils down to running around an open field and slashing through hundreds and hundreds of enemies. The story progresses through completing mission objectives on the field and defeating bosses. After building a special meter, characters can go into an enhanced power state called "musou mode." And that's about it.

This genre enveloped almost two years of my life. I eventually played three to four games in the series before I realized how the series used the same repetitive formula and rarely brought anything new to the formula. While it was popular at the time, the games started to get stale.

Eventually Koei Tecmo (the publisher of the series) started to figure out how to branch out of the series by applying their Musou formula to well known Japanese franchises (e.g. Mobile Suit Gundam, One Piece). This helped KT with the niche fanbases but it didn't really gather steam mostly because they didn't change much else in terms of gameplay 

Then Hyrule Warriors came out and things changed. Adding the polish and charm of Nintendo characters seemed to have done the trick. The Musou genre got brought out to the mainstream. And while Hyrule Warriors didn't really change much up in gameplay, it did bring in a ton of revenue. Most people bought it more on the notion of a Legend of Zelda spin-off rather than another Dynasty Warriors clone.

With that momentum, we've come Persona 5: Strikers. A cross of this genre with one of the best jRPGs of the past decade? I was incredulous. I had written off the genre and didn't think it would hold up with the lack of innovation in the genre. But after the trailers and the fact that the story of Persona 5: Strikers is a canonical sequel to Persona 5, I decided to give it a shot. At the very least, I would still be able to spend time with some fun characters. So let's get into the review!

What I Liked:

All the Persona Mechanics:

I half expected that the game would be mostly Musou mechanics while overlooking a lot of what made its JRPG cousins such a treat to play. But boy, was I wrong. The game has pretty much all the gameplay mechanics from the mainline series. Leveling up and skill unlocks are here, the persona fusion system is back in all its glory, the weakness ("one more") system is also present, and the party baton pass feature is here as well. 

It felt good going into the fusion system and pretending to be in a lab trying to find an ultimate persona that could pinpoint enemy weaknesses. While the persona fusion requirements were sometimes difficult to obtain (mainly due to having to level up your current personas), it felt rewarding finally unlocking them and testing them out. Hitting an enemy weakness also feels as satisfying as ever with the inclusion of follow-up attacks from party members that are as stylish as they are damaging. The baton pass (character switching) is also just a lot of fun to do even if you don't need to switch characters. Having the party members give each other a high five is just so fun to watch.

Gameplay:

It took a while to get used to all the noise and flashiness of the combat system. Not mention the amount of enemies on screen made it very difficult to figure out and anticipate enemy moves. But once you figure out the enemy types of each dungeon and fuse personas based off of their weaknesses, the gameplay starts to come together pretty well.

Each character has their own persona with their own set of skills and game allows you to swap out characters from your party at every checkpoint. Thankfully the leveling system gives exp to party members not in battle, so there's not a huge need to put in members who won't be as effective.

Road Trip:

The game starts off in Tokyo, but we quickly find out that the events of the earlier game are happening all over again, except things are slightly different. Instead of palaces, we have jails. But the purpose of each dungeon is very familiar to what we've seen before: find a person who is causing trouble, enter their world, find their trauma, and free their heart. Instead of only going around Tokyo and doing this, the team finds out there are a bunch popping up all over the country. 

  

I definitely appreciated that the entire games plot revolved around a road trip through Japan. I don't normally see many RPGs that goes route. In fact, I don't think I remember a game where it was set on a summer road trip before. 

I liked this so much because it felt like a natural thing a group of good friends would do on a summer break. We spent an entire school year with the cast of Persona 5 already, so there's no need to establish relationships. The banter between characters was almost comforting, like the gap between my playthrough of Persona 5 and this game wasn't as long as it really was. 

What I Didn't Like:

Can't Go Back To Pas Towns:

While the road trip is fun, it comes with the cost of exploration. The game is quite linear and while you can go back to jails (dungeons), you can't go back to towns. So if there are certain side quests that involve an item or food that is only located in a certain town, you have to make sure to complete it before you hit the "go to next town" button. It makes most side quests almost mandatory to do before progressing the story. Thankfully the amount of those side quests are small.

The fact that towns are only explored once makes them sort of small. Once you do and see everything in a town, there is no reason to be there anymore. There are also no overarching sidequests from characters and makes things less epic compared to its jRPG counterpart. The towns themselves also don't have much of anything in them, mainly just shops and a couple areas of interest. 

Dungeons:

Sadly, the dungeons are just too simple. Besides the different themes, most of them are just corridors that exist for the sole purpose of fighting. While some dungeons have puzzles, they never get more complicated than pressing a couple of buttons to unlock a new part of the map. 

The dungeons also have a lot of inconsistency in length. Some dungeons are fairly short but some are INSANELY long. Thankfully there is no loss of time when travelling in and out of dungeons, but somehow they still become a chore to get through them. It's sad that the only exploration we get is through a series of connecting rooms and not much else. If the story and the characters weren't so well written, I would have probably put this game down. 

Also, it's a bit difficult at times to determine what are the best set of characters to go through in each dungeon. You'd think that a snow level would require a character who specializes in fire, but that only works for half of the level. Some times having only one character with a weakness (plus Joker, who can have up to ten persona at any given time) isn't enough. And it gets frustrating in later levels to have to use trial and error to find the perfect party. 

Lack of a Supporting Cast: 

The biggest disappointment for me in this game was the lack of original's side characters. With the removal of the confidant system (something I wished made a return), Persona 5: Strikers decided to all remove all the characters that were apart of that system. Some of them were such great characters and I was hoping to see how they would have been implemented here. I miss leveling up Takemi to get more healing items or helping that journalist report on the Phantom Thieves. Those side stories were very satisfying and really gave Persona 5 an edge on other RPGs. 

I would have still loved the confidant system inclusion, even if it was truncated. It would have been cool. But I guess since school is out for summer, everyone is on vacation? 

Conclusion:

In summary, I really liked Persona 5: Strikers. It has a lot of short comings and compromises to make it an engaging action RPG. But I did appreciate the persona style and mechanics that the game did include. A lot of that style and the return of old character is what is driving my review. Persona 5: Strikers is a well made, polished and competent action RPG that I think many should play. But sadly, it probably requires knowledge of the first entry and it also may be a bit too repetitive for some. The lack of supporting cast and the lack of exploration puts a damper on the game as a whole. 

One final thought about the games overarching message. The main plot point of the game is that there is an all-competent app called EMMA that is essentially an Alexa/Siri on steroids. It's a social media app, a yelp app, and a GPS all-in-one tool. And the main message is that these apps we use on our phones are preventing us from really wanting to think and make decisions. So the main premise is, "would you rather trade your freedom of choice for someone to make all the right decisions for you?" 

It's pretty interesting how Atlus is using the Persona franchise to touch on the growing technological trends in real life. Persona 4 had the main premise being a TV show that showed people's deepest desires. In Persona 5, it was your phone that guided you to dungeons created by people's darkest desires/secrets. In this game, an app is the main focal point. It really shows up dependent the public is on using apps to make decisions. I know that for me, I cannot make a purchase without doing my research and use apps that review products. I appreciated the use of modern ideas in RPGs (rather than the normal fantasy or science fiction kind). 

If I were to rate it, I'd consider it a 7.5 (or 8) out of 10.