Persona 5 Strikers

If you loved the Phantom Thieves so much you just need another adventure with them, Strikers will do the job just fine. it's a sequel story with hack&slash gameplay that manages to translate some of the mechanics of the original P5 to action combat in a fun way. However, there are plenty of problems with this title and it really feels like a lower production qualiity product. Which it is, which is fine for a (sequel) spin-off, but it does get in the way of fun sometimes.

First off, there is no time management aspect at all. You're on a set schedule and there is no way to run out of time. If you're facing any difficulty during the game, you can always get back to the car, heal up and get back into the action. If you were looking for the time-limited life-sim gameplay of Persona games, you can turn back now. There are no Social Links, let alone any dating elements. You can do optional Bond scenes which are a far cry from the Confidants.

The introduction to the combat can be overwhelming. The game constantly throws new info at you and gives you almost all the playable characters very early on. I recommend taking a time for yourself to play around with available Phantom Thieves, pick your favorites and learn to use them before rushing into the story. However, once you figure out the basics, the game actually does a decent job of incorporating Persona mechanics. You can chill on the Easy difficulty if you just care about the story or beat the game on Hard and then move onto Merciless if you want to test yourself.

Strikers messes up Persona fusion pretty badly though. The cast of demons is limited, which is understandable, but the actual act of fusing up new demons feels very restricting. Eventually you're going to need to grind up levels of old demons if you want to unlock a new Persona to use. This made engaging with the mechanic a chore, completely unlike the addicting nature of sitting in the Velvet Room and fusing stuff in the original P5.

The story feels like a rehash of most of the story beats of Persona 5. While sometimes Strikers uses this as an opportunity to show how the Thieves have matured, a lot of the time the story will just feel like the same thing all over again. Most of the old characters have their moments, especially Haru, who was poorly treated in the original. The new additions to the cast are surprisingly good and feel right at home with the OGs.

The game was developed by another studio and used a different engine, which worked well for the action gameplay, but exploration in city areas was sometimes very clunky. Joker could not sprint and navigating familiar areas like Leblanc felt like a cheaper experience. The UI, while definitely stylish, did not feel as smooth to click through. You often had to wait for the animations to play out before being able to move to another window, meanwhile in the original game, you could move through the menus pretty quickly if you remembered your way around the UI.

Lastly, grinding the Bond level is a giant chore. You can either farm the same thing on Merciless, replay the story or use repeatable spots which give small Bond boosts. All of which will bore you eventually. It's decent for mindless playing while listening to a podcast or whatever else you prefer.

in summary, if you want more Phantom Thieves, get the game on a discount and just beat the story.

This game is currently in the Humble Choice for October 2024, and this is part of my coverage of the bundle. If you are interested in the game and it's before November 5th, 2024, consider picking up the game as part of the current monthly bundle.
It’s Persona Warriors.
This game was made by the Persona team, as well as Omega Force, which is better known as Koei Tecmo’s team that does the Dynasty Warriors titles and pretty much all the Musou games, so what is this one? Well, it’s either a Persona game that has combat very similar to Musou titles with large battlefields and tons of enemies, or a Musou game with a lot of RPG elements and non Musou gameplay.
Truthfully, I think the former is correct. This is a Persona game telling more Persona tier stories. You don’t choose a level, instead there’s an obscenely long opening, like every Persona game, and there’s a lot of time spent outside the dungeon. The dating system isn’t here, but this title is still heavily based on Persona 5.
Which is also potentially a downside. You totally can start here if you want to skip the first game, but there’s a hundred hour game that comes before this that’s a typical JRPG. If you’ve played that and want to see more of those characters, then this exists. But there are, of course, spoilers, even just who is in the cast is likely a spoiler for Persona 5.
Pick this up if you want another Persona 5 story, or you just want every Warrior game. I like Persona, but I have this because it’s Omega Force, and I’m very happy with that. It’s not a Dynasty Warriors game, in the same way Hyrule Warriors wasn’t a Dynasty Warriors game, it’s a merging of the two franchises, and that makes it something unique.
Also, this is like a 40 hour title, so be prepared. This will take a long time, especially if you go through all the dialogue.
If you enjoyed this review or want to know what I think of other games in the bundle, check out the full review on or subscribe to my Youtube channel:

It's like Persona 5 with the vim taken out. It's a fun time, make no mistake. But man, this game just made me realize how much social links carried P5. Taking all those character interactions out of the mix and not really replacing them with anything makes for a game that's pretty cute for 10 hours but starts to get a bit old after that. If you liked Persona 5, you'll probably like this too - The combat is plenty fun and the story isn't awful by any means. Just be prepared for when things slow down in the middle.

I doubt anyone who finish this game would regret it, more than just afterstory of p5, but more like p5 part 2, the story is on the same awesome level, just take some time to get used to the gameplay, it's super fun.

works fine on steam deck using ge proton 8-21.
i enjoyed it overall, with some caveats. the story is very similar thematically to p5, but with limited character arcs as only the new characters change. gameplay is serviceable but not like persona and not like warriors / musou either. the music is excellent and the road trip is a great framing device to be a tourist in japan. i would recommend japanese voices.
also, i encountered several minute long freezes at random points and instability + crashes during jail 4, 5, and 6. save often!

Worth it when on Sale. Hard to recommend when full price, but if you just finished Persona 5 and loved the characters and story, this game is a must have.

The Game is a 8.5/10 in my opinion.
The story doesn't beat the P5 or P5R stories, neither the character development of returning characters (they were already developed in the previous games), but still the story is pretty good and well the returning characters are developed a bit more, they concentrated on the new characters stories (especially the cop) and it is a great follow up to the P5 story, for me the story is a 7/10.
While the story is not better than the previous games it compensated with a great and smooth gameplay, combining the turn base style of the first game with a hack n slash gameplay perfectly, it feels good, fun and rewarding for hitting combos and the persona fighting system is just perfect (ik that this is a controversial opinion bc people did not like the change of gamplay but for me is great, I hate turn base games, the only one I liked was the P5 bc is different from the others and actually fun for being turn base) and the fact that you can switch characters an have a totally different fighting style is great as well, for me the gameplay is a 10/10 they could not have made it better (I played on controller).
Now the music department I don't need to explain 10/10 as always
Art design, personality and charisma is the same 10/10
For me the only thing lacking in the game is the overall story, I mean is great but is not up to the first game, but gameplay, music, character development, art style and personality it is all there (also something i wish it was different is merciless mode, it starts REALLY hard but as you progress it isn't challenging anymore)
I absolutely recommend this game to anyone who loves persona or that loves hack n slash games bc it is really fun to play and in the end that's what you want in a game.
(This has nothing to do with the review but I hope some day someone makes a JOJOs BA game with the gameplay of this game, I mean Personas are just like a stand and the game is heavily inspired by JOJOs)