

The characters are all sharp and entertaining on their own here – including a couple of excellent new additions to the cast, who even managed to handily outshine Royal’s new characters by the end – but their backstories and the events they went through in the original game are referenced far more often than they are explained. That said, no matter how much developer Atlus tries to frame Strikers as an accessible game for newcomers to the series, I really can’t imagine playing it without having beaten (or at least having played a significant amount) of Persona 5 beforehand. It was easy to forget I wasn’t just playing more Persona 5 when I wasn’t in real-time combat.
#PERSONA 5 STRIKERS PLAYABLE CHARACTERS FULL#
It was a thrill to slip so seamlessly back into this world, and Strikers maintains everything from Persona 5’s wild, stylistic flair through all its menus and UI to the almost visual novel presentation of its dialogue (with the same excellent English voice cast returning) to the downright incredible soundtrack, this time full of excellent high energy remixes alongside entirely new tracks. It retreads some of the same ground as the first game in a way that generally feels cleverly referential rather than derivative, justifying itself as a different adventure while tying into the previous one (and even pushing back on some of its assumptions) enough to feel like a proper sequel – at least story-wise.Ĭonsidering all that’s different, it’s truly remarkable how much Strikers still feels like Persona 5, and rejoining the Phantom Thieves as someone who has beaten the original and earned the platinum PlayStation trophy for its expanded Royal edition genuinely felt like coming home. It’s a fun twist on the previous structure, and the overarching story is a genuinely great one.

It feels familiar in that you still call on personas to cast spells, exploit the elemental weaknesses of your enemies, and explore elaborate, otherworldly dungeons, but the JRPG fundamentals of the original have been replaced, and many of the elaborate systems around it – like Persona’s iconic calendar system – are slimmed down significantly.Īnother shift is the time scale: instead of going day-by-day over the course of a year, Strikers is condensed into a single summer vacation road trip that takes the Phantom Thieves all across Japan. Divine Grace increases the effects of healing magic by 50%.Persona 5 Strikers rejoins the lovable gang of misfits that make up the Phantom Thieves just a few months after the end of Persona 5 (awkwardly pretending Royal never happened), swapping its signature turn-based combat for combo-driven hacking and slashing.Light Boost references Bless Boost, which increases the power of bless attacks by 25%.Media restores the party's HP by a small amount.Kouha deals light bless damage to one foe.Drive Spinner is one of Sophia's Master Arts in Persona 5 Strikers.Some of Sophie's skill and ability names reference skills in the Persona series:.
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As such, she also cannot use the Weapon Skin feature - her yo-yos will overwrite it.

Regardless of which Axe she has equipped, Sophie's 3D model will always appear to hold her yo-yos.She shares this trait with the other Persona 5 Strikers collab characters: Joker, Mona, and Panther, as well as the Fire Emblem Heroes collab characters. When Pithos is active, she will say "Summon!" when using Kouha? and "I will assist!" when using Media?. Instead, she says "This might hurt a little!" when using Drive Spinner and "Power charge!" when using Upgrade. Unlike most Adventurers, Sophie does not say the names of her skills when she uses them.

This matches the original game, where summoning a Persona will cause the user's mask to disappear.
