Just like the RPG, I sneak up on enemies and initiate combat with stealth attacks. This may be a Musou game, but we’re still Phantom Thieves. When we all dive into a new Jail - themed after a draconian castle, a carnival, and more - we still move through the shadows. Strikers feels like a true Persona game while belonging to a different genre altogether. Persona 5 Strikers isn’t a turn-based RPG, but its action combat is a good facsimileĮach character has unique abilities, like how Morgana can turn into a bus Image: Omega Force and P-Studio/Atlus In each of these locales, we eventually come across a Jail - a slightly altered version of the Metaverse “Palaces” from Persona 5 - and the Phantom Thieves dive into what really makes Strikers unique. Sometimes they give me items or a new recipe to cook in our RV. But I also get to interact with the game’s version of Japan by walking Joker around town, visiting some shops, or chatting with my friends standing on the street. Like Persona 5, a good chunk of these interactions are in-engine cutscenes with pals, with the occasional interjection of a dialogue choice. But not before we all grab some dinner together and goof off at a local landmark. When I land in a new town, I’ll get an objective to investigate a metaphysical anomaly. But it’s also a chance for me, the player, to hang out with my virtual friends once again - characters that I love dearly, who I thought I saw the last of in Persona 5 Royal. We’re all traveling around the country to change more hearts - the Phantom Thieves’ unique way of making wrongdoers confess their crimes - over the summer, assisted by a new AI friend named Sophia, and Zenkichi, a 40-year-old public security investigator. Most of my time in Persona 5 Strikers consists of walking around a new town as Joker, the nameless protagonist and leader of the Phantom Thieves. But the combat is only a part of what makes Strikers fun.īetween combat missions, I could swear I was playing Persona 5 Image: Omega Force and P-Studio/Atlus It looks and sounds just like Persona 5, but instead of the turn-based JRPG combat of its source material, Strikers offers a Musou style of combat - combo-based action combat against an army of enemies, like the Dynasty Warriors series or Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. Persona 5 Strikers is a direct follow up to Persona 5 - Persona 5 Royal seems to take place in another dimension, so no Kasumi here - set six months after the Phantom Thieves’ final heist. But aside from a trip to the beach here or a hunt for ramen there, the Phantom Thieves are on a new mission. To them, we’re high school and college students making our way across the country for a summer road trip. Īs we’re rolling down the highways of Japan - in our beat-up, borrowed RV/headquarters - the drivers to the left and the right don’t know we’re the famed Phantom Thieves. If you want curated lists of our favorite media, check out What to Play and What to Watch. When we award the Polygon Recommends badge, it’s because we believe the recipient is uniquely thought-provoking, entertaining, inventive, or fun - and worth fitting into your schedule. Only the lack of overview in combat in rare cases and the lack of socializing as well as the development of personal relationships among the characters ensure that Persona 5 Strikers unfortunately "only" makes it to a very good game and not a "Game of the Year" contender like Persona 5 (Royal) did with ease.Polygon Recommends is our way of endorsing our favorite games, movies, TV shows, comics, tabletop books, and entertainment experiences. The story is excitingly told, the fights are challenging, varied and enhanced by important features of the Persona franchise, the graphic style is unique and the soundtrack burns itself into the brain. Because Persona 5 Strikers convinces almost all along the line. Can an action game match the quality of the role-playing game? Will it do justice to the characters? Will the story take too much of a back seat? What about the battle system? And what part do the different personas play? When I first saw the pictures of Persona 5 Strikers almost 2 years ago, at that time still under the name Persona 5 Scramble, I was quite skeptical at first.
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