By The “Persona 5” universe is incredibly popular among fans of Japanese role-playing games. Can Persona 5 Strikers keep up and convince despite critically eyed Musou content? We followed the thieves on their adventures again.
What is Persona 5 Strikers?
After the JRPG Persona 5 caused a lot of joy in the hearts of Persona and RPG fans in this country, the phantom thieves are finally back with Persona 5 Strikers! When the action-adventure was announced, many players took their breath away at first: A Musou-style persona game ?! For Strikers, Atlus teamed up with the developers of Omega Force to create a hybrid of popular “Persona 5” elements and action-heavy real – time combat in the finest Musou style . At first it sounds like it doesn’t go together at all, but it works great! The merging of the game genres creates a faster “Persona 5” experience, which turns the sometimes lengthy gameplay from the template into an exciting ride.
Whether you are “Persona 5” veterans or want to join the Japanese cult franchise from scratch: Persona 5 Strikers will surprise you. The phantom thieves of the heart who fought evil in Persona 5 in Tokyo are now traveling across Japan! A good six months after the events of the RPG, the friends actually only wanted to meet for a trip during the summer vacation and relax together. You can probably imagine that nothing will come of this: a wave of corruption that is sweeping across Japan from Tokyo must be stopped. And who would be better suited for this than the phantom thieves of the heart who now take care of the desires of the people?
Test conclusion with strengths and weaknesses
Can Musou Slaughter fit in with a story-heavy, in-depth JRPG with character development? Surprisingly yes! In connection with the personas and their specific skills, the “Hack’n Slay” battles are fast, full of explosions and a real challenge. It’s a shame that due to the lack of clarity, you can sometimes only see little of it.
Strengths of Persona 5 Strikers
- German subtitles
- Story & gameplay much more linear than Persona 5
- Musou style battles with strategic elements and action
- Velvet Room & Persona Execution available again
- All phantom thieves can be played directly in the Metaverse
- Typically stylish “Persona 5” look
- Two new phantom thieves bring variety to the cast
Weaknesses of Persona 5 Strikers
- Fight confusing and with sometimes strongly fluctuating level of difficulty
- In places unusable camera settings
- Little personal social interactions possible
- Answers do not affect the course of the story
The musou genre can be so cool!
Normally, the story is not necessarily the strongest element in Musou games and is a minor matter next to the beating against AI hordes. The developers of Persona 5 Strikers break with this prejudice completely and simply add the fast and action-packed gameplay to their tried and tested RPG formula one. The result is an action adventure that turns ” Hack’n’Slay” battles with personas into a strategic challenge. Smaller mobs can be dealt with in seconds if you sneaked up on them and attacked them beforehand.
It looks completely different with larger opponents who can only smile tiredly at your button mashing. Especially for these challenging enemies you have to strain your head a little and work with the elemental weaknesses of the opponents. As usual, the phantom thieves have a persona up their sleeves who has mastered numerous skills. In keeping with his name, protagonist Joker has an ace up his sleeve: He can command more than one persona and thus react optimally to most situations and opponents. As in Persona 5, you can expect stylish special attacks in Strikers, which I wouldn’t want to miss in a game of the genre. Sometimes you don’t know exactly what just happened, but the main thing is the all-out attackknocked out the enemies, right? In the hectic pace of the battle, you will hardly have the opportunity to observe your opponents closely, but you can move on to the next enemy.
A journey that is fun, a journey that is beautiful!
Since corruption is not only spreading in Tokyo, but apparently has to be stopped throughout Japan, the phantom thieves are also spreading to other cities in the country. While you spend a lot of time in Shinjuku at the beginning, which was almost completely copied from Persona 5, you later end up in other, beautiful places, such as Okinawa. I wanted to take screenshots almost permanently so that I could use them as my desktop background later. It feels a bit like a tour of Japan , jumping back and forth between battling shadows and extensive shopping trips.
If you are not in the Meta Universe and use your strongest skills, you will spend a lot of time traveling with the phantom thieves. Numerous, incredibly long dialogues, which were much more extensive in Persona 5, pull you deep into the story. This may be a bit boring for one or the other, but it helps to really understand the characters and events. Whether you like the sometimes clichéd characters or not: They all constantly add their mustard and have an opinion on just about everything.
The two new characters are a welcome change. While you meet Sofia, an AI phantom thief who is only active on Joker’s smartphone outside of the meta universe, very early on in the game, the second newcomer won’t join until later. Both characters, like the original phantom thieves, can be played when exploring the dungeons (which are called prisons here) and directly in the battles. So if you’ve always wanted to really hit Ryuji or swing Ann’s whip, Persona 5 Strikers is your chance !
It burns in your head!
If you have played Persona 5, you will quickly feel at home: Talk to passers-by, go shopping and quickly discuss the plan in your hiding place before the shadows in the Metauniverse are turned into pulp. The fact that you can use your personas, the robbery techniques and the typical group attacks is very helpful. Somehow, as a persona player, you know exactly what to do. Only the fast battles are completely unfamiliar at first and quickly lead to a knockout if you don’t use the dodge button.
Hopefully when you infiltrate the prisons (not like me) you will be completely distracted by the usual gaudy look. There is another object that shines and shines around every corner that you want to take a closer look at. Then there is the music, which is probably not to everyone’s taste, but which burns itself into the brain. The composers in Persona 5 were already able to do this wonderfully and are now skillfully continuing this positive catchy tune .
While you can freely use the camera in many areas, some jump passages with a fixed camera are always centered on your figure, so that you have little opportunity to see what awaits you next. This is not only incredibly exhausting, it forces you to constantly rethink and run blindly into the next corner. But hey, at least you always have one thing with you: The catchy soundtrack from the first dungeon, deep in your head. And i love it.
The action adventure Persona 5 Strikers will be released on February 23, 2021 for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and Steam.
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