I will admit, when Persona 5 Strikers was announced I initially did not pay it much thought at all. Thanks to the famous Mario spin-off Super Mario Strikers for some reason I just assumed it was a funny soccer game that involved the characters of Persona 5 but was otherwise not relevant to its world/universe. Color me surprised when I tried it for the first time on a friend’s PS5 account (it was available as one of the free monthly games for any PS Plus subscribers) and found out it was not a soccer game at all, and in fact was so fun that I decided to get the game myself on Steam so I can finish it on my own time.
If it’s not a spin-off soccer game, what is Persona 5 Strikers? Persona 5 Strikers (will refer to it as just Strikers from now on) is basically a direct sequel to the original Persona 5, and I am talking about the base game, not Persona 5 Royal which is more or less the accepted canon. That means characters unique to Persona 5 Royal (like Councilor Maruki and Kasumi) are not present/mentioned at all. Taking place roughly a year or so after the events of the base game, the Phantom Thieves reunite for summer break, only to find out there are mysterious “changes of hearts” happening to people all over Japan that are not unlike the deeds they have performed in the past, albeit these changes of hearts seem to be far more nefarious compared to the Phantom Thieves modus operandi of getting shitty individuals to repent for their crimes. Since the Phantom Thieves already have an established reputation, now instead of enjoying summer break, they have to get to the bottom of the mess to find the true culprit and clear their names. Given its nature as a sequel, Strikers also assumes that you have played Persona 5 and does not attempt to catch you up if you have not, so if you did not play the original game (whether it be the base or the Royal version), do not play this game until you have (see my review on the Royal version)!
Gameplay:
The closest comparison I can compare Persona 5 Strikers gameplay to would probably be Final Fantasy 7 Remake. The combat is real-time, but you can pause it any time you want to either use an item or perform a Persona ability. This is a major change from the traditional turn-based formula, although it still shares a lot of what’s considered traditional to the main series games. The Velvet Room still exists for Persona fusions. Weaknesses and resistances are still a factor, so using the right abilities on different enemies is still important. Knockdowns still trigger All-Out-Attacks, but tougher enemies have a few shields to break before they get knocked down. The Showtime mechanic from Persona 5 Royal makes a return, though it works a bit differently as it is per character rather than a pair. Now, each party member has a Showtime gauge that fills up over the course of battle by performing combos, and once that gauge is filled up then a Showtime attack can be performed by a simple button input.
Regarding the actual real-time combat itself, I think it’s fantastic, to the point I lowkey wish future Persona games take inspiration from Strikers. The movement is slick and each party member you play as has different combos and moves, and enemies themselves also have basic move-sets outside of their normal abilities. There was clearly a lot of effort put into making each Phantom Thief feel unique to play as, and each character’s move-set is reminiscent of what they use in the Metaverse (the name of the realm the combat takes place in). For example, Ryuji’s trademark weapon is a club, and his moves feel brutish and powerful, and one of his more powerful combos is literally a baseball swing to send enemies flying. In contrast, Yusuke fights more like a swordsman considering his main weapon is a katana, and his move-set is centered around multi-hit combos and counters. The game also provides incentives to play as each character through the mechanic of Master Arts, which upgrade a character’s move-set and can only be unlocked by actually controlling that character in combat.
The combat more or less consists of the main gameplay loop of Strikers; outside of the combat the story progresses a lot faster than in the original Persona 5 as it only takes place over the course of roughly a month as opposed to a whole year (or an additional half for Persona 5 Royal). As a result, there is no Social Link/Confidant system, spending time to build up relationships and individual stat points; most of the time spent outside of the Metaverse is mainly moving from destination to destination and setting up the actual Metaverse encounters. As a result the game feels a lot more streamlined and the pacing is arguably a lot better, but obviously that comes without the more complex character developments that come with the Confidant system.
Overall, I love Strikers’ gameplay. The combat is great, and it would be dope if the next main-series title takes some inspiration from it.
Writing:
For a spin-off sequel, Strikers’ writing is fairly competent. As I mentioned earlier in the gameplay section, because there is no Confidant system in the game, the story is a lot more surface-level and the cast is a lot smaller, focusing mostly on the Phantom Thieves. Given the gameplay limitations and the smaller scope of the game, it is obviously not going to be as in-depth or complex as the main series game, but with those in mind, I think Strikers does pretty well. Strikers introduces two new major players in the story that were not a part of the original game (nor were they in Royal) in Sophia and Zenkichi. Sophia is an AI who is unsure of her origins, and appears as a teenage girl in the Metaverse and resides in the protagonist’s smart-phone in the real world. On the other hand, Zenkichi is a cop, collaborating with the Phantom Thieves to try and find the true culprits behind the various changes of heart happening across Japan. I am personally rather indifferent to Sophia, but I think Zenkichi is definitely the highlight of the story, and probably my personal favorite cast member. He is initially cast as a shady fellow with possible ulterior motives, which is fairly unsurprising given how the original Persona 5 depicted the police in a rather unfavorable light, but he has a lot of chemistry with the group, and his character undergoes significant development over the course of the narrative.
Another particularly interesting point about Strikers’ story is their choice of antagonists in comparison with the main-series title. A lot of the villains in Persona 5 were outright scumbags, using their positions of power to make people miserable, and often delighted in doing so. In contrast, without getting too much into spoilers, the various antagonists in Strikers are obviously doing bad things, but they are not outright villains like in the main game. Instead, a lot of them were perhaps once good people, but were wronged by the world, and thus used their Metaverse powers to get back at society. That being said, I don’t think neither Strikers nor the original game have particularly compelling villains, as they are usually not given a lot of focus so there is not a lot of reason to get invested in any of them.
Overall, the writing was fine and I enjoyed it for what it is, given the smaller scale of the game and the lack of a Confidant system. Zenkichi definitely should have been in the main game though.
Misc/Ending Thoughts:
Like the previous Persona games I have played, Persona 5 Strikers is no slouch with its soundtrack. It uses a lot of the main themes from the base game, but with a few new added tracks and remixes of existing songs, and they all sound great. “Daredevil” goes especially hard.
Overall, I would highly recommend Strikers to anyone who enjoyed Persona 5/Persona 5 Royal. For anyone that has not played those games, play Royal first, then play Strikers.
Rating: Great game with decent play-time value but not nearly as big a time commitment as the main-series game. It’s been out for a couple years already so I would try to look for a sale first instead of just buying it retail but I do think it’s worthy of a $60 price tag.
