Persona 5 Strikers did it conscientiously – it’s just not clear for whom.
Similar in spirit
Never saw it coming
At the end of the school year, the Joker decides to descend upon his friends in Tokyo in order to have a good rest with the whole company during the summer holidays, but soon after the gala party it turns out that this time it is not destiny for them to enjoy the life of ordinary teenagers. As soon as the team reunited, the police again gathered to sew on other people’s crimes. They say that in recent months there have been too many incidents suspiciously similar to theft of hearts – and the theft is massive, and not only in Tokyo. Someone is again exploiting the Metavers to their advantage, and the Phantom Thieves need to find out who exactly if they don’t want to be arrested as the prime suspects. And for this you have to go around almost almost all of Japan, and even on your own – in a van that Sojiro borrowed from a friend. Well, along the way, if it works out, it would be nice to combine the useful with the pleasant and still have a little fun: who knows when the guys will have such a chance.
Strikers has surprisingly many animations from Production I.G. – much more than in the original. Small thing, but nice
Unlike most projects of a similar kind, Persona 5 Strikers takes on a task that third-party developers (albeit with the feasible help of the original authors) undertake extremely rarely: it tries to be a “full” continuation of the original game. Not just a spin-off or a game based on the motives, but a sequel, where there is everything (or almost everything) that Persona 5 is so fond of. Catchy visual design, many elements of which are taken directly from the original. A magnificent soundtrack by the series’ permanent composer, Meguro Shoji. The actors who played the characters in the English localization have returned to their roles and sound like family. In the end, the structure of the “two-layer” gameplay has remained approximately the same: in the real world you communicate with friends and prepare for sorties, while in the cognitive world you fight Shadows and steal the hearts of villains.
This attention to detail is a bit shocking at first. As a rule, Koei Tecmo borrows ideas from the original source rather superficially in its spin-offs, but this time it was treated with surprising care. Persona 5 Strikers never looks like a craft, where familiar characters were forcibly shoved in order to sell an insolent fan service. Naturally, it was not without fan service at all, but in this case it is more of a compliment: in the best moments the game feels like one big “beach episode” or an extended epilogue to Persona 5. The universal threat has passed, the heroes have resolved their internal conflicts, neatly hung on the walls of Chekhov the guns had already fired several times. The stakes and the tension are not so high, but it doesn’t make it more boring: after everything they’ve been through, Phantom Thieves deserve a change of scenery like no one else. Not long ago, they duped the Illuminati and defeated the chthonic deity, and now they are excitedly discussing what local delicacies should be tried in the next town.
Soujiro’s van serves as a mobile headquarters and the main place to discuss further actions. Plus, you can cook food there: the Joker menu will contain not only curries and coffee, but also recipes found along the way
The only problem is that apart from these points, Persona 5 Strikers has absolutely nothing to offer in terms of storytelling. Maybe she was aiming for a sequel, but in terms of content, alas, it turned out to be a maximum of fanfic – secondary, predictable and full of strange retcons. The developers decided not to bother and almost literally, right down to the main antagonist and his motivation, repeated the plot of Persona 5, changing a couple of terms in places: now we have not “palaces”, but “prisons”, and the thieves are not stealing “treasures”, but “desires “. The villains and locations are different, but the amount has not changed from the rearrangement of the terms. The result is a story that can hardly be called independent, because people who are not familiar with the series do not really explain anything here, and they have no connection with the characters. And to fans, on the contrary, the plot will probably seem too faded: there is no intrigue, no revelations, no disclosure of characters from a new angle.
Even the heroes themselves understand how the current troubles of the Phantom Thieves are similar to the epic with the Sido conspiracy, but it is impossible to turn self-repetition into a meta-joke.
The lack of fresh ideas is also striking because the authors follow the Persona 5 formula too zealously – even where it is clearly not worth it. It seems to be commendable, but it is precisely because of this that Strikers begs for obviously losing comparisons with the original: the mechanics that worked well there, in the new format, look either heavily cut off or completely unnecessary. Everything that is connected with the “peaceful” life of the Joker and the company is implemented extremely poorly. If earlier in the real world the player had a million ways to usefully spend his free time, now outside of the Metavers it is impossible to even communicate with anyone. Naturally, there is no development of social branches either. And there is really nothing to explore: every city on the path of the Phantom Thieves is represented by only a couple of locations with shops, where you will regularly replenish the supply of healers. The passage of time is still tracked according to the calendar, but why is it needed when there is no hard deadline hanging over the heroes and there is no threat of “not being in time” is a mystery.
The only reminder of the confidential system is the BOND mechanics. During battles and scripted scenes, you get points that can be spent on useful perks. Already at least something
The game also has abnormal anti-aliasing problems: I could not get rid of the “ladders” even through the Nvidia system settings. Gradually you get used to them, but they hurt your eyes badly
Gentlemen of failure
Ambushing the Shadows is much safer than directly attacking. True, most often the game does not give a choice and simply materializes another pack of enemies in the cutscene
The key difference between Persona 5 Strikers and the original is the combat system. Unhurried turn-based tactics have given way to a dynamic slasher, where the party fights dozens or even hundreds of opponents at once – and they do not wait for their turn to attack. Moreover, a sharp change in genre is taken absolutely calmly: Phantom thieves seem to have always been created for action games, and the unique features of each of them fit well into the gameplay. The Joker still owns an arsenal of people, but he is even better at handling pistols – after each shot he can dash towards the enemy and carry out a combo in the air. Yusuke wields a katana just like Virgil in Devil may cry and catches monsters on counterattacks, while Ryuuji rushes forward and crushes with brute force, and Makoto cuts across the battlefield on his motorcycle persona. I also never liked Haru (sue me), but in Strikers she did not leave my party until the very end, because it is priceless to smash the hordes of Shadows with bursts of grenade launcher.
At the same time, tactics from the battles did not disappear. If, even for a moment, to gape and give the Shadows a break, they will immediately take advantage of this – fights, even on “normal” difficulty, are often tense. All attacks hit the area, so there is no time to stand still: you need to think while running. How to dodge, where to move, in order to catch more enemies with one blow, who need to be removed first. Every now and then you have to switch between characters in order to take care of opponents with different vulnerabilities, and shoot down flying monsters with aimed shots. In battles with mini-bosses, the pace accelerates wildly: they attack from all sides, hit painfully, call for help. It’s good that you don’t have to cram key combinations for a long time – they are the same for all characters, so as not to be distracted once again.
The game compassionately freezes time as you target the ability. Otherwise, you can’t understand the chaos of special effects, your head is spinning
In everything that concerns the battles, the game designers coped with their task: it is played exactly as you expect from an action based on Persona 5. Simple, without much enthusiasm, but with taste – again, attention to detail is immediately noticeable. You can only find fault with trifles. For example, the selection of persons for the Joker now plays a lesser role: there is no need to cover up your weak points if you can dodge most of the attacks in time. Painstaking resource management has also lost its meaning, because at any moment you can return to reality and get medical treatment: now there is nowhere to rush, deadlines are not running out. It’s also a little annoying that the developers took away (or I didn’t find it) the ability to change the party lineup during the battle – in Persona 5 it was a perk of one of the confidential, and here it would come in very handy. You feel stupid when only after the start of the battle with the boss you realize that you didn’t take a character capable of hitting his vulnerabilities – who knew. And the roster of playable characters itself, due to the connection to the plot, turned out to be quite modest, although, say, the twins-jailers (or the same Goro Aketi) would fit perfectly into it.
Battles have only one serious problem, and it, unfortunately, has plagued the franchise since the days of the third number part – monotony. In Strikers, all attacks to the Metaverse follow exactly the same scenario, the Shadows have the same appearance everywhere, and even the mini-bosses that always block the path to the final battle, in fact, do not change. Persona 5 diversified at least the scenery: phantom thieves broke into bank defenses, robbed an art gallery, unraveled the secrets of an ancient Egyptian tomb … But Strikers doesn’t even have this luxury, and those rare surprises that she still throws hardly make you change your approach to tactics. Still, mass carnages are inconvenient to arrange in tight spaces, so two-thirds of the battles take place on empty city streets, tinted in some threatening gradient with a simple color filter. And although the design of the bosses (both visual and gameplay) is, as always, not bad, for some reason their dwellings are similar to each other like two peas. They saw one thing – it means they saw everything.
I don’t know who I can sincerely recommend Persona 5 Strikers to. Not because it is bad or not worth its money: even though the game has enough flaws, Koei Tecmo’s efforts are visible to the naked eye. The question is for whom exactly the developer was trying so hard. It is easier for fans of the franchise to replay the original for the tenth time, and for those interested in newcomers to fork out for the port Persona 4 Golden, which better captures the essence of the series.
It is a pity, of course, that a full-fledged continuation did not work out, but at least there was no dancing. And thanks for that.
Pleased
- competent transfer of Persona combat mechanics to the action genre;
- respect for the original source;
- dynamics between old and new characters;
- summer vacation atmosphere.
Upset
- inept transfer of Persona’s social mechanics to the action genre;
- the most banal plot;
- cheap visual design;
- monotonous battles;
- few playable characters.
How we played
In what: the key is provided by the publisher.
On what: PC.
How many: 40 hours.
Editorial achievement
“Here we go again”
Launch Persona 5 Royal for comparison and disappear again for a hundred hours.
About localization
There is no Russian translation, but if your level of English was enough for Persona 5, then there should be no difficulties here either.
Verdict
Persona 5 Strikers does not make you regret the time spent on it, but it is difficult to recommend it to anyone other than the most dedicated Persona fans. And even those may remain disappointed: there is no good plot to be found here, and not everyone will like the new combat system. Not a bad spin-off by the standards of the spin-off series, but it won’t replace a full-fledged game.
