Persona 5 Strikers Review: An Impressive Musou Spin-Off that Pulls Off Being a Convincing Sequel
On the surface, Persona 5 Strikers is yet another crossover with a beloved IP and the gameplay style of Koei Tecmo’s Dynasty Warriors franchise. Upon playing it, though, it is immediately apparent that Strikers is one of the best Warriors/Musou crossovers to date, as Persona 5 Strikers serves to be a faithful sequel and expansion of the original. Fans of the original Persona 5 will have a lot to love with Strikers. // Image: Atlus
The 2010s brought the JRPG genre back with a vengeance. After the genre went through what’s generally considered to be a rough patch in the mid-to-late 2000s, there began to be significant innovation in the JRPG landscape, leading to many of what are considered to be some of the best JRPGs ever made. One of the most beloved JRPGs of the revitalized, modern era of JRPGs is Persona 5, originally released in the West in spring of 2017. Persona 5 set itself apart from other JRPGs and even other entries in the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series through its unique and charming style. While the game touches upon themes of rebellion, facing against corruption, and staying true to one’s ideals - all ideas that are hardly new themes explored in JRPGs -, Persona 5’s unique storytelling, bombastic presentation, lovable cast of characters, and stellar soundtrack all made for a game that captured the hearts of millions around the world. Despite being a turn-based RPG, a flavor of video game RPGs that’s not as popular as it used to be, Persona 5 still sold very well, proving that traditional turn-based RPGs still have a place in the market.
Last summer, I played through Persona 5 Royal, 2020’s updated and expanded rerelease of the original game, and was reminded of just how striking, immersive, and fun that Persona 5 still is. It stands as one of the greatest JRPGs in recent memory. With that in mind, there was another Persona 5 project being localized at the time: Persona 5 Strikers, a collaboration between Atlus and Koei Tecmo that would combine the world and characters of Persona 5 with the action-based gameplay of Dynasty Warriors titles (also referred to as Musou games). Taking the turn-based gameplay of Persona 5 and changing it to be an action RPG focused on killing hundreds of enemies was something that turned a lot of heads towards this new project. While Persona 5 Strikers released in Japan in early 2020, the title just arrived in the West earlier this year, due to Atlus’ localization efforts taking longer than normal due to the effects of COVID-19 work-from-home conditions.
Nevertheless, Persona 5 Strikers is finally out in the West. Unlike Royal, which added new content to the original Persona 5, Strikers serves as a sequel that takes place a couple months after the end of Persona 5. Not unlike the stories of the Persona 4 Arena titles, Persona 5 Strikers gives us an opportunity to see all of Persona 5’s characters interact with each other from the get go as they embark on a new journey together. With some new characters joining the fray and a new story that revisits many of the themes explored in the original game, Persona 5 Strikers is surprising in how authentic it feels as a full sequel to Persona 5, especially given that Musou crossover spin-offs are typically non-canon excuses to gather characters together.
That said, does Persona 5 Strikers justify its existence? Does it serve as a faithful continuation of Persona 5? And how does action-based combat of Musou games blend with the more methodical approach of Persona 5’s combat? Let’s take a look at Persona 5 Strikers, what I feel may be the best Musou crosover game to date.
Strikers frames its story as a road trip across Japan, leading to many new settings not featured in the original game. Moreover, this setup inherently puts the cast of Persona 5 in new scenarios, giving ample opportunities for players to become attached to these characters all over again. // Image: Game Mania
Taking place five months after the conclusion of Persona 5, the Phantom Thieves are on summer vacation as a new app transports them to a “Jail” - a distorted version of the public’s perception of certain individuals. Jails, which serve as Strikers’ dungeons and successors to Persona 5’s “Palaces”, serve as the main point of investigation throughout Strikers’ story. The Phantom Thieves embark on a new journey across Japan as they seek to learn more about the Jails and uncover who is responsible for propping these Jails across the country.
This is done with Persona 5’s cast all assembled from the very beginning of the game. One of the issues of Persona 5’s structure is that some of the playable cast did not receive as much screen time as other characters. Haru is a character that isn’t fully introduced to the player until about 60% of the way through Persona 5, and as such, she doesn’t receive nearly as much screen time or development as Ryuji or Ann, who are part of the Phantom Thieves from very early on in the game’s story. One of the advantages that Persona 5 Strikers has from being a sequel to the original game is that players are now able to see the entire Phantom Thieves cast interact with each other from the very start of the game. Instead of only having Haru in the party for the last 40% of the game and accordingly having not as many chances to interact with the rest of the party as much as other characters, Strikers lets every member of the game’s cast have multiple opportunities to bounce off of one another.
What helps this is that Strikers very much has a “road trip” vibe, with the main cast travelling across the country to uncover the mystery of the Jail phenomenon. What this ends up doing is putting characters that players have grown familiar with and put them in all sorts of interesting scenarios - some new and some reminiscent of sequences seen in the original Persona 5 - and gives players a chance to become attached to Persona 5’s stellar cast of characters all over again. As in the first game, the writing seen in dialogue and cutscenes will consistently propel the story forward, with new mysteries and plot threads being consistently introduced throughout the game’s 25-35 hour runtime.
That runtime may seem short when compared to Persona 5 Royal’s 120+ hour adventure, however Strikers’ more concise runtime is more thanks to this game focusing primarily on its main story and combat encounters. Much of Persona 5’s runtime was in thanks to that game’s social simulation elements - managing the main character’s time, hanging out with friends to increase Confidant ranks, and doing other activities around Tokyo to increase one’s social stats is a considerably large bulk of Persona 5’s content. Stripping that away inherently makes the game shorter. Strikers also has smaller dungeons compared to the original game. Though, this shorter length prevents the game’s greater focus on only delivering its main narrative from overstaying its welcome. Strikers very much feels like just the right length that it needs to be, so don’t let the comparatively short runtime dissuade you from wanting to return to the world of Persona 5.
That said, the dungeons in this game - the Jails - are noticeably weaker than the Palaces seen in Persona 5 and Royal. While Palaces contained various puzzles, visual motifs, and even structures, the Jails in Strikers are smaller, less varied, and more repetitive. Most Jails are split into finding three artifacts before being able to proceed to the area’s boss. Without spoiling anything, prepare to walk up spiral staircases pretty regularly in most of these dungeons. That said, the dungeons, while lacking in variety, do manage to cater to the game’s greatest strength: the combat that combines the use of Personas and skills from Persona and Shin Megami Tensei games with the fast-paced action of Musou games.
While Persona 5 Strikers allows the player to perform combos on enemies in the traditional Musou style, Strikers’ unique mechanic is that it allows the player to pause the action at anytime to perform skills from their Persona to exploit enemy weaknesses to trigger All-Out Attacks faster. This makes for a flow to the game’s combat that prevents Strikers from feeling like just another Musou crossover. Instead, Persona 5 Strikers feels like an Action RPG adaptation of a turn-based combat system - one that’s executed quite well, at that. // Image: RPG Fan
This marriage of gameplay systems is one that surprisingly works out tremendously well. Less than an hour into the game, the player will have access to nearly the entire playable cast of characters, all of which play differently from each other. More crucially, every party member has different elements and skills. Ryuji can use Electric attacks, Ann can use Fire attacks, Makoto can use Nuke attacks, and so on. These different types of attacks matter in relation to the various enemies and demons that the player will fight throughout the game. Just like any Persona and Shin Megami Tensei game, almost all enemies will have a weakness of some kind that can be exploited. Accompanying each enemy is a Resistance meter that’s illustrated by shields that crack when exploiting the enemy’s weaknesses. Using the different types of attacks can be done by performing basic combo finishers - something that’s traditional in Musou titles. However, players are also able to stop the action at anytime at the press of a button to access their character’s Persona’s skills.
So if the player is fighting against an enemy that’s weak against Electric attacks, Ryuji can either bring down their resistance by performing a basic combo that has an Electric attack as its finisher, or he can summon his Persona and use an Electric spell that does more damage at the cost of SP, a finite resource that can only be replenished via healing items or leaving a dungeon. Once this is done enough times, the enemy’s Resistance will dissipate, illustrated by its shields shattering, making the enemy vulnerable to an All-Out Attack. Just like in the main Persona series, All-Out Attacks inflict massive damage to an enemy, but the way they’ve been adapted in Strikers goes an appreciated step further. Not only do All-Out Attacks inflict heavy damage on basic enemies and bosses alike, but they also perform area-of-effect damage that sucks in nearby enemies, meaning that All-Out Attacks can often kill an entire group of enemies in one fell swoop, despite the player only attempting to exploit the weaknesses of a single enemy.
Different areas within different dungeons will feature different enemies that all have different weaknesses, which encourages the player to mix up their party compositions to be able to cover enemies’ weaknesses at any given time. Thankfully, every character is truly fun to play as, and exploiting enemy weaknesses to inflict All-Out Attacks is just as satisfying and addicting here as it is in mainline Persona titles. While the game may have more action-focused combat, the overall flow of combat and strategies that the player needs to use are very much in the same vein of the original Persona 5. Because of that, Persona 5 Strikers doesn’t feel like just another Musou crossover. Instead, it feels like an adaptation of a turn-based combat system put into an action-focused combat system, while retaining the source material’s spirit, strategy, and style of its combat.
Joker, the protagonist of Persona 5, returns as the “Wild Card” character - someone that can switch Personas on the fly, meaning that Joker has access to various kinds of spells that his other party members may not have. Just as in mainline Persona titles, the main character can be used in combat to cover for what the rest of the party can’t cover. For example, if the player is fighting against an enemy weak to Ice, but the player does not have Yusuke in their party, Joker can still be relied upon to exploit the enemy’s weakness, depending if Joker has a Persona with the appropriate skill, of course.
Like in the base game, Joker will be able to collect masks to acquire new Personas, which can then be used to fuse different Personas together to make new, stronger Personas with skills that can be carried over from the Personas used in the fusion. It’s a staple of all Shin Megami Tensei titles, and it still works here, though there’s a considerable downgrade in the quantity of Personas available for Fusion. In fact, there may less Personas to acquire in this game than there were acquirable demons in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, a title from 2003. Clearly, offering a wide variety of different Personas for Joker wasn’t as much of a focus in this title as it would be for most other mainline Persona and Shin Megami Tensei titles. That said, the downgrade is very much noticeable to a series veteran.
Persona 5 Strikers offers plenty of new environments to explore, giving this game a unique identity in comparison to the original Persona 5. Unfortunately, there’s little to do in these new environments beyond talking to NPCs and very simple side quests to engage with. // Image: IGN
Overall, Strikers’ combat is incredibly satisfying and feels like it accurately captures the spirit of the original game’s combat. In fact, that statement can be applied to the entirety of Strikers - it’s a game that convincingly captures the spirit of Persona 5 while offering a new scenario for the Phantom Thieves to go through. It can admittedly be argued that Strikers is what could be considered a “filler sequel” - that is, a sequel that doesn’t develop the main characters beyond where they were at the end of the original Persona 5 - and to an extent, this is true. All of the Phantom Thieves that make up the main cast of the first game won’t see any additional significant character development that they saw in the original Persona 5. Rather, the focus of this game’s narrative is twofold: to introduce and develop new characters Sophia and Zenkichi, and to provide a new scenario where players can simply see the main cast of characters interact with each other from start to finish.
To this end, I feel that the main plot of Persona 5 Strikers is one that’s solid. It doesn’t cover very much new ground for Persona 5 or the Persona series in general, and new characters Sophia and Zenkichi go through character arcs that are similar to other arcs that Atlus has already implemented in other games, but what’s here is serviceable.
While the story is solid if not as impactful as the original game and the combat is as rewarding and satisfying as the source material, how does the rest of the game fare? Unfortunately, most other systems offered in Strikers are mediocre. Namely, the game’s side content is one of the greatest downgrades in Strikers. Due to Strikers’ story structure, there’s no time management to be found here. While there are new environments to explore, there’s unfortunately not too much to do in them outside of talking to a few NPCs and having a few side quests that can only be completed in certain areas.
Side quests feel particularly weak, as they feel like a desperate attempt to pad out the game’s runtime. While I’m mostly lenient on side content not being as engaging as the main quest, Strikers’ side quests are fairly bare bones, with the worst offenders being side quests asking players to refight bosses with no new added mechanics or challenges. The player just…has to fight boss enemies again, with the exact same strategies being just as viable as they were in the original fight. Side content simply feels underwhelming, especially when side content was such a strong suit of Persona 5.
Additionally, Strikers can feel a bit clunky at times, particularly with how the game handles healing. As stated before, one of the ways that the player can replenish SP is to leave the dungeon, which can be done at the dungeon’s entrance or at designated checkpoints sprinkled throughout each dungeon. What’s baffling is that there’s no downside to leaving a dungeon while exploring. Leaving a dungeon essentially acts as a free heal with the only real drawback being that the player has to sit through a loading screen. If this is the case, it’s confusing as to why the checkpoints can’t simply heal the player instead of arbitrarily requiring the player to leave and reenter the dungeon. There were admittedly very many instances where I needed to heal and had to sit through two loading screens to leave the dungeon then return to where I was before leaving. It’s an unnecessary step that adds an inconvenience for the player. The checkpoints should have either healed the player, or there should have been some kind of consequence for leaving dungeons while exploring them.
Overall, Persona 5 Strikers is an impressive Musou spin-off that successfully captures the essence and spirit of Persona 5 and adapts it into an Action RPG. Indeed, Strikers doesn’t really even feel like a Musou spin-off - it just feels like an Action RPG spin on Persona’s turn-based combat. For the most part, it works quite well. The story itself is a bit safe, but is nevertheless entertaining and intriguing throughout its runtime. Moreover, the characters here are as strong as they were in Persona 5, with new characters adding even more flavor to the game’s many cutscenes and dialogue exchanges.
That said, it’s difficult to recommend Strikers to non-fans of Persona 5. In fact, I would argue that playing Persona 5 or Royal is essential before playing through Strikers, as some context and exposition are only briefly glossed over in Strikers, which will doubtlessly leave newcomers feeling lost. In a sense, it’s best to think of Strikers as an epilogue and expansion to the story of Persona 5 that serves to show how far each character in the Phantom Thieves has grown and developed from when they were first introduced while also providing a new, smaller story that gives players an excuse to go through a few more dungeons with these characters.
If you've never played Persona 5 or Royal, or simply didn’t enjoy playing through it, Strikers isn’t worth your time. If you have played through the original game, you’ll likely appreciate and highly enjoy Strikers. Just be aware that its smaller scale and noticeable downgrades and slight frustrations make it a title that are not as impressive as the JRPG masterpiece that precedes it.
Final Grade: B
Thank you very much for reading! What do you think of Persona 5 Strikers? How do you think it compares to Persona 5/Royal? As always, feel free to join the conversation and let me know what you think in the comments or on Twitter @DerekExMachina.
