The Phantom Thieves Have a New Target! (Persona 5 Strikers)

     If you know me, or if you've read my blog before, you probably know that I'm not a big fan of Role Playing Games (RPGs) as a whole. I like some concepts, and a lot of the storylines, but most turn-based RPGs like Final Fantasy or the like are just a bit too much for me, though I will happily watch someone else play them if I enjoy the story enough. This was the situation for me with Persona 5. I started the game a long time ago without really knowing what to expect other than just knowing that Joker, the protagonist of the game, was going to be in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and he looked like a cool character. After putting a few hours into the actual game that he came from, however, I felt like it wasn't really for me, and filed it away for another time. That time happened to be this past winter break when my brother came home and started flying through it (as he enjoys that type of thing more than I do). I got really interested in the characters and the storyline as a whole, though I really wished that the game could have played differently and that I could have gotten into it more myself. Thankfully around the time that my brother was playing Persona 5, it was announced that Persona 5 Strikers was coming to North America after being released in Japan last year as Persona 5 Scramble. I heard some reviews of the Japanese release and saw a few videos of gameplay footage and immediately decided that this was a game much more up my alley. After playing Hyrule Warriors back on the Wii U and the sequel, Age of Calamity from last year, I decided that the action of "Warriors" games are more my speed. Yes, they are repetitive at points, and yes, many times they do equate to pressing random button combinations and hoping something good will happen, but especially when it's tied to a franchise that I care about like Zelda or Persona 5, it just works. I'd like to speak on the behalf of the Phantom Thieves today when I say that this game is going to "take your heart!"

An RPG that Takes Heart!

    I suppose I should begin this by talking about the background and tone of the original Persona 5, instead of just diving into the sequel. You play as a Japanese high school student who is sent to another school in another area of Japan because he got in trouble for trying to stop a drunk man who was assaulting a woman. Turned out that man had a lot of political power and influence, which is why he wasn't punished for this situation (Get ready for a lot of this kind of stuff in this game). In this new school, your character is originally looked at as a troublemaker, clearly the word got around fast, and you try to make a good first impression on your classmates. This school drama quickly takes a weird left turn when a running coach who considers himself to be a king changes the high school into a palace of his ambitions. Once in the palace, your character realizes that he has a mysterious power and "another self" inside of him, that allows him to take charge of his fate, kind of like an alter ego. It's a weird concept, but long story short, soon you find lots of other friends who also awaken these sorts of powers and "Personas". Together you form the Phantom Thieves, a group of people who change hearts (literally) of bad people and get them to confess their crimes through supernatural means. Joker (your character's codename) is a really interesting protagonist and you're genuinely invested in his relationships and well being throughout the game, and in addition to just being great storylines, the relationships will help you more and more as the game progresses. Over the course of this experience, you learn to deal with real life issues as well as the sci-fi-esque worlds within the cognition of these wicked people with warped minds and hearts. This game is a story of learning how the world works, while also finding ways of dealing with issues and making friends along the way. There are some disturbing scenes in this game, as it goes into all kinds of different trauma which these villains perpetrate, well earning the "M" rating that it has, but all of the personality and great characters that the game has, and ends up being a very charming game in spite of it. This is just a very cursory look over the original Persona 5 game, so I can get more into something that I know a lot more about, the sequel, Persona 5 Strikers.

    Strikers takes place a few months after the events of the original game, and as I don't want to spoil too much about the original or this newer one, I'll just say a few vague things here. The Phantom Thieves are pushed back into the thick of the cognitive world as new villains emerge and begin doing wicked things with people all across Japan, and they have to take a road trip to deal with all the new threats. The gang's all here as they try to make the best of their situation and almost treat it like a vacation as they try to get to the bottom of these weird occurrences. In this game we get some much needed exposition on some of the characters from the original game who didn't have much development, and we also get a few completely new characters, which are all pretty interesting as we dive a bit deeper into the history of each of them. The story here is really nice and genuinely heartwarming in parts, and heartbreaking in others. Like the first game, this one definitely earns the "M" rating as it again deals with lots of emotional trauma through disturbing scenes. In this game, however, the thieves are really trying to make the people better than they were acting, and in a few cases, even seeing the error of their ways and getting them to completely turn themselves around. There are a lot of heartfelt scenes and dialogue here, and you can tell that the original team was involved a lot in this. The most interesting thing about this game is that, even though the combat uses the "Warriors" style, it still feels like Persona 5 in terms of movement outside of combat.

"Lookin' Cool, Joker!"

    Persona 5 Scramble has the same artistic flair as its predecessor, with the same type of flashy art and anime inspired themes, just with faster paced combat which really lends itself well to the aesthetic. Considering the Phantom Thieves are essentially like superheroes, it's really interesting to see them in this sort of style, and the over the top moves of Warriors games aren't quite as out of place as they are in others, such as Hyrule Warriors. You still have to rely on stealth and picking your battles in this game as opposed to other Warriors games where you're an entire army going against another army on a giant battlefield. Here, the enemies are much more spread out and you fight them in one battle at a time. You'd never have boss fights like these in another Warriors game, or at least not in the ones that I've played. The Persona system works really well, also. This was the part that I was most concerned about since it played into the turn based system really well, but in this game, when a persona is summoned, the action freezes and allows you to take your time to choose your spell or power. It works really well, and a similar effect happens when you fire guns, though in that case, enemies don't stop completely, they just move in slow motion. All of the weaknesses and strengths in regards to different types of Persona work very similarly to how they did in the first game, and it makes for a very fun and enjoyable time all around. Each of the Phantom Thieves and two new characters are fully playable in a much more individual way than in Persona 5. In that game, you played as all of them as a party without really getting a feel for how they would individually act in certain situations. That whole idea makes it a lot easier to understand how all of them operate in terms of movement and combat abilities, and it allowed me to feel that much closer to the characters overall.

You'll never see it coming!

    The music of this game is also fantastic, and actually one of the main things that drew me to check out Persona as a series. Most RPG games have a tendency to use whimsical fantasy tracks, like something out of a movie, whereas the Persona games definitely have  a creative and fresh take on the soundtrack idea by using different genres of music. Every Persona game has slightly different music behind it, one of them has rap I know, but Persona 5 takes cues from the R&B era, with all of the jazzy cues that come with it. Persona 5 Strikers takes a lot of the same inspiration, but adds a more "Rock and Roll" flair to a lot of the tracks that fit the faster pace of this new chapter in the lives of the Phantom thieves. I can guarantee that if you look up, "Last Surprise," "Rivers in the Desert," or the new theme song from this game, "You are Stronger," you'll be tempted to dance along or at least have it in your head for the rest of the day, as all of these tracks are extremely catchy. It makes all of the battles that you have in these games way more enjoyable than they could be otherwise. I know every time that my brother ran into a battle in Persona 5, or even just walked around the world, I would find myself bobbing my head along with whatever track was playing, even if I wasn't really paying close attention to what was happening. The songs are definitely amazing and set an unusual pace for an unusual RPG, so it's definitely with purpose.

    Persona 5 Strikers is a very fun game, and one that I loved throughout all of the challenges and interpersonal connections that the Phantom Thieves create and face together in this game. This game truly feels like a nice epilogue to the original Persona 5 and does a good job of making the gamer invested in following the Phantom Thieves even past a point where there is an imminent threat. I would love to see these characters just living normal life and reconnecting every now and then when they don't have to face life or death situations. Even if they only show up more as cameos in other games in the future, I would just love to see what happens to all of them. I would definitely recommend this game to anyone who loved Persona 5, as well as anyone who wants to play a fun action RPG in the style of the Warriors games. I will say, if you're interested in Persona 5, you should play the original first, as this one is a sequel and it spoils some things from that original game. I hope something from what I've said has conveyed how much fun this game is, as well as how much I love these characters. The Phantom Thieves have really helped me in this past year, and I feel like the games do a great job of showing how amazing friends can make you stronger, and to help you realize that, like the theme song says, "You are stronger than the things that make you weak."

    Thanks so much for reading this post, friends. I really appreciate your support and I hope that you're having a good week. I understand that this post may be even more confusing than most, but that's because this game is weirder and harder to describe than most. I hope you'll all remember that even though times are hard right now, I'm here for you, and I hope that something that I've written during this period of time has brought you some small measure of happiness or enjoyment. Thanks so much for reading and supporting my pursuits, and I'll talk to you all next Friday.