I didn't have as many hopes for this game initially other than just a fun romp with characters I know and love, but it truly did surprise me. Its a fun road trip game that gives a lot more time with one of my favorite ensemble groups in games, allowing you to see more of what they're like and how they've gone along ever since the events of Persona 5 have ended. Although the end of the game veers far too familiarly into Persona 5 territory than I would've liked, but its still fun with some pretty good highs.
The music is great, with fun, catchy, hype new vocal themes and pretty good remixes of existing themes from Persona 5. Daredevil and the shop theme were some of my favorites, and though it comes in late, Counterstrike is a great song, too.
The gameplay, which I also wasn't too convinced of and had trouble grappling with early on, was probably the big surprise of this game for me in the best way, really encapsulating a lot of sneaking around a city and fighting hordes of guards, as well as boss battles that were pretty good. It took me a long time to get used to the systems on normal, and that may be because I sped through tutorial text, but the early game did have a bit of a rough curve at first due to low SP, but definitely improved later on.
A small gripe, but I feel the shopping aspects were a bit rough, too, but the lack of SP recovery items was very rough for me, and ultimately one of the biggest downsides was how far and few between they could be, as well as how limited it all was at times. Money is very rarely an object in this game, and the fact that you're limited to buying only a few items at a time feels unnecessary and makes it unenjoyable.
On the flipside (though still partially in relation to the forced scarcity in procuring items), the cooking is neat! Going from city to city to be able to make all of this different Japanese cuisine is a fun touch to the game, and really does help ground it in traveling across the country with friends.
I also will say that I enjoyed a lot of the new characters added, from the antagonists to characters like Sophia and Zenkichi (even if he is a cop), who in my opinion, because of their integration from the start, work far better than, for example, a character like Marie from Persona 4 Golden or Kasumi from Persona 5 Royal did, but of course, that's different circumstances. I truly did enjoy both of their character arcs a lot, and if we ever see something else Persona 5 focused, I hope they're included!
But of course, the big negative comes from Atlus finding a way to once again punch down on people in cruel, horrible ways. The treatment of a character like Mariko Hyodo at the climax of her arc and time in the story is wholly unnecessary and cruel, using it for shock value and to say "look how gross and disgusting this is!" when the directions they were going with the character was far better than any of this. It sucks because it dragged down an entire section of the game for no reason other than Atlus just being Atlus once again. Its one of the main reasons why I have to rate this game much lower than I would like to, because it was so unneeded and would've been better off without it-- much like when those scenarios happened in Persona 3, Persona 4, and Persona 5.
Persona 5 Strikers is a game I really like, but is brought down by a number of decisions, both story and otherwise, to keep it from truly being a game I love.
The music is great, with fun, catchy, hype new vocal themes and pretty good remixes of existing themes from Persona 5. Daredevil and the shop theme were some of my favorites, and though it comes in late, Counterstrike is a great song, too.
The gameplay, which I also wasn't too convinced of and had trouble grappling with early on, was probably the big surprise of this game for me in the best way, really encapsulating a lot of sneaking around a city and fighting hordes of guards, as well as boss battles that were pretty good. It took me a long time to get used to the systems on normal, and that may be because I sped through tutorial text, but the early game did have a bit of a rough curve at first due to low SP, but definitely improved later on.
A small gripe, but I feel the shopping aspects were a bit rough, too, but the lack of SP recovery items was very rough for me, and ultimately one of the biggest downsides was how far and few between they could be, as well as how limited it all was at times. Money is very rarely an object in this game, and the fact that you're limited to buying only a few items at a time feels unnecessary and makes it unenjoyable.
On the flipside (though still partially in relation to the forced scarcity in procuring items), the cooking is neat! Going from city to city to be able to make all of this different Japanese cuisine is a fun touch to the game, and really does help ground it in traveling across the country with friends.
I also will say that I enjoyed a lot of the new characters added, from the antagonists to characters like Sophia and Zenkichi (even if he is a cop), who in my opinion, because of their integration from the start, work far better than, for example, a character like Marie from Persona 4 Golden or Kasumi from Persona 5 Royal did, but of course, that's different circumstances. I truly did enjoy both of their character arcs a lot, and if we ever see something else Persona 5 focused, I hope they're included!
But of course, the big negative comes from Atlus finding a way to once again punch down on people in cruel, horrible ways. The treatment of a character like Mariko Hyodo at the climax of her arc and time in the story is wholly unnecessary and cruel, using it for shock value and to say "look how gross and disgusting this is!" when the directions they were going with the character was far better than any of this. It sucks because it dragged down an entire section of the game for no reason other than Atlus just being Atlus once again. Its one of the main reasons why I have to rate this game much lower than I would like to, because it was so unneeded and would've been better off without it-- much like when those scenarios happened in Persona 3, Persona 4, and Persona 5.
Persona 5 Strikers is a game I really like, but is brought down by a number of decisions, both story and otherwise, to keep it from truly being a game I love.