Lil' Guardsman is a fun puzzle/adventure game that has wonderful and whimsical artwork which does a grand job at hiding the game's serious nature that it has sometimes!

Your guard shifts let you interact with a variety of characters who present different challenges with the tools given to you as a Guardsman. You can give them truth spray to get informed of their true intentions, a x-ray machine or metal detector to see if they have anything suspicious on them, or you can also use a whip if you'd like! Because why not! These all present different options of ways to achieve a 3 or 4-star rating for that specific guest, which is fun. Sometimes, the way you achieve those 3 or 4 stars is a bit confusing though.

Your character, Lil, is a 12-year old who does have some tough things going on, and some of that stuff gets discovered more as you go through the game which I am glad we got that type of character development as the game progressed.

Overall, Lil Guardsman is a jolly time and not too long! Not perfect in some ways, but still a fun time!

Played on Playstation 5
Final Save Time: 61 hours (did do a journal while playing so that didn't help my save time)

First and foremost, this is an 8.5.

With out of the way, Persona 5 Strikers is a great Musou game that blends its IP very well into the style of fighting found in these games. You use Personas to attack various Shadows around the areas you traverse through targeting them with their elemental weaknesses. So you do need to plan out your strategy of attack in that way. You can brute force your way to defeating these enemies, but you would be much better off with getting their health down by each of the weaknesses that they have.

Your Phantom Thief party helps facilitate this as well with each specializing in a specific element to attack. Even the new characters have specialties to help out as well in various situations to fill in the gaps that were left from the base Persona 5 game. Overall, the combat is interesting and blends into the Persona 5 inspirations well! Just nothing too crazy amazing. Usual musou style gameplay with added Persona flair.

The story is a grand time with the gang traveling around Japan. You get to learn about the areas you travel to, while trying to figure out the mystery of where a party member comes from, what does Artificial Intelligence have in play, and the enemies you meet and how they fit into things. It has some emotional rollercoaster moments, while still going through some of the same beats as Persona 5 did towards the end. Being back with the Phantom Thieves though overall is fantastic.

The new characters are grand and I love each of them very much. They go through some interesting personal questions to fight through within themselves in searches of who they are and what they do in the faces of varying difficulties.

The new dungeons, Jails, are some fun times and have great themed variety in scenery through the Monarch's vision of what a Jail would be for them! Now, Monarchs are just the game's version of what a Palace Ruler is from last game! The story beats do a good job to be emotional invested into the Monarchs in ways too, or the opposite as well even.

If you haven't played Persona 5 before this, you can enjoy the game, but you can feel lost in some conversations; missing some of that extra context that helps make some of these moments so impactful, or just so jolly even.

Overall, Persona 5 Strikers was a grand time and incorporates its battle system quite well into the Persona fighting system. The characters are a grand time of course, even the new characters too! THE MUSIC IS A TEN. Forgot to mention that! Just the main qualm can be the story and the combat not being too my thing besides the Persona intricancies.