A Review/Personal Examination Of Persona 5 Strikers

Upon learning that Persona 5, not only my second favorite game of all time (behind only Twilight Princess), but the work almost solely responsible for helping me get through one of the darkest periods of my life in 2019, was to receive a sequel in the form of a hack and slash musou, a mixture of apprehension and excitement washed over me. Not only did I believe narratively Persona 5 hit all of the beats as it needed to, I was uncertain of how the Persona formula would translate to a more action focused game stripped of all the life simulation elements that elevated Persona 5 beyond the JRPGs it has risen above. On the other hand, being able to spend intimate time with the immaculately written characters, who in essence became akin to friends in my time of isolation and despair, teasing me with what kind of life I wanted to be apart of again, was one of the biggest driving forces behind that excitement.

Persona 5 Strikers not only justifies its existence as a sequel to one of the best games of the previous generation. Reinforcing it’s themes of generational divides between Japanese youth and that of the adult population that far outnumbers them, the increasing value of profit over humanity, and the benefits and detriments of social change it manages to forge it’s own identity through smart character realization and snappy battle system all wrapped up in a neat bow of summer road trips and valuable visual novel-esque moments. While it’s shortcomings ultimately keep it away from standing alongside it’s original work, it is a companion piece that is well worth the time for veterans of the previous game. In fact so much so that I can’t imagine playing it by itself without the context and emotional weight of its predecessor.

The story picks up after the end of the original (not Royal). As summer vacation is approaching, Joker heads back to Tokyo to reunite with The Phantom Thieves, the group of friends he made during the original game, whom he dove into the metaphysical universe known as the metaverse (no not THAT one), to “change the hearts” of “palace rulers.” Individuals with a warped sense self and of justification. As they find themselves shopping for a camping trip, they are unceremoniously dragged back into the altered world. Abound with more corrupted individuals in positions of power. Along the way they meet a confused AI, Sophia who introduces herself as “humanity’s companion” and afterwards contacted by a police officer, Zenkichi, aware of their secret identities. The thieves set off for a country-wide adventure of good food and their special brand of justice. Up against a strange new social media company “Madicce” and their new learning AI “EMMA.”

Handled more elegantly than a traditional musou game, P5S feels more like a middle ground between an action-RPG and the life sim elements of the original P5. And while neither is as well realized, the combination of the two are still able to give it that quintessential feel albeit with less meat on its bones.

For starters the element of time that demanded wise choices and balancing during its daily minutia is gone in favor of a more flexible system, allowing you to only jump forward when you want to. Exploration and dungeon, or in this case “jail” diving allows you to seamlessly jump from one aspect to the other. Not only is this understandable due to budgetary reasons, I also found myself being okay with it due to the fact that it’s hard to sell the idea of a “summer road trip vacation” if certain gameplay aspects demand time management, contradicting the spirit of the narrative. That being said there aren’t any choices to be seen with how you approach a given day. If you wanted you could feasibly do every side activity with other Phantom Thieves at will due to the looser leash the game puts upon you. As opposed to individual confidant ranks, there is a collective “bond” skill level, allowing you to allocate points into a myriad of upgrades and level boosts that directly impact your abilities on the battlefield. Barring your ability to choose your own flavor of responses in dialogue, there isn’t much weight to much of the decisions that you do make, but as a teenager during summer vacation, doesn’t that make sense within the context of story?

Delving into the metaverse, movement has a distinctly lighter feel, not just in conjunction with tone but in the weight of the characters. Single button presses can see you leap onto cars and signposts, hiding away from the sight lines of the enemies making the subpar stealth system of Persona 5 feel slightly less unwieldy, albeit still one of the weak points of both games.

When battles are triggered, this is where Persona 5’s gameplay shines brightest, that lightness in movement extends to the battlefield. Rather than matchup against shadows in the single digits, you will find upwards of dozens of enemies to dispatch in familiar musou hack and slash style, but with some added twists and depth. Each character is not only fully controllable in combat, but has their own physical, ranged, persona, and special moves. The ability to stun enemies after inflicting weaknesses on them allows you to trigger the “all out” mechanic of the original game, clearing certain areas of the battlefield with enemies on it. This all goes along with the new showtime meter. A screen clearing special move that can be raised the more to seamlessly baton pass to, just like P5.

Understandably so, the narrative treads on similar beats of Persona 5. And while narrative scenarios have the expected rhythm and flow, it is the angle through which the story is fed and the new characters that it smartly decides to focus on, rather than give the characters we already know all new arcs. Which isn’t to say those characters aren’t well realized and feel believably similar to where we left them off in the previous game.

Sophia is a denizen of the metaverse, wholly unaware of her past beyond knowing it is her duty to become “humanity’s companion.” And it is through her interaction with the thieves in and out of dungeon sections (she communicates with them through smartphones) that she is able to learn more about herself, and by extension the humans around her and why they interact the way they do. This exploration allows for some unique questions to be raised as to the nature of Sophia’s very existence. If she is an AI with a modicum of sentience, does that make her bad at what she was designed for? Is it possible for an AI to be a companion of humanity if it is able to gain autonomy and even override its creators demands? 

Zenkichi Hasegawa, the police officer who initially joins The Phantom Thieves on their journey at the behest of his higher-ups to spy on them, is the bridge between the thieves and adult world that they look down upon with such scorn. In fact it is The Phantom Thieves that tell Zenkichi right off the bad that “they don’t trust cops” and why would they after last year?  Trying to reconcile with himself after his inability to catch his wife’s killer, a manslaughter incident, and his daughter Akane who does not want a relationship with him. It is through him allowing the thieves to see more of his life, in small pieces at a time that they begin to sympathize with him and see him less of an annoying obstacle and more of a struggling human beating back against an unfair world, just like they were and in many ways, still are. And it is after he is able to see what they represent and that his own problems with police life are not so different, begins to align with their goals, ultimately working with them and even becoming a Phantom Thief in the process after his own department turns against him. Maybe those who fight justice on their own time, and those who fight justice as a career have a little more in common than at first glance. And that to me is the collective arc of The Phantom Thieves. That even if they can’t change the minds of a whole community with their methods, one forward thinker is all they need to begin the process from micro to macro.

And it is in its final hours that the largest messages of Persona 5 Strikers become fully realized. The environment of social media is slowly encroaching upon our real lives, becoming indistinguishable from another. For many it has eliminated the need for critical thought. Why would I need to think about something on my own when the service just tells me how I should think and feel? And in that way we feed into its god complex. Only growing bigger with every AI service, every new business venture. And if we treat something as if it were a god, wouldn’t it ultimately believe itself to be one eventually? Every day life and what we see on our services are not a one to one translation, there is an amount of adaptability at play coming from numerous factors in and out of our control.

The miserable miasma of mental health molasses of 2019 was such that I needed something, anything to distract me from the suffering of my daily life at that point. The brain fog was such that simple sentences were nearly impossible to express, dissociative states made me feel like there we a thick pane of glass between myself and the world around me. I had recently purchased a Playstation 4 on a Black Friday deal that had been helping me alleviate the dark times with art and escapism from a long-form storytelling medium. And seeing Persona 5 for 20 USD at GameStop, I figured why not, since I’d heard nothing but good things about it since it was released.

The timing of which I began each respective Persona 5 entry feels oddly serendipitous. P5 in 2019 was an exercise in reminding me of what I wanted from life, what it could be if I survived long enough. P5S in 2022 has been a cathartic exercise of translating all of my own personal faults into gains with my recovery. The dissociation isn’t as oppressively suffocating as often it was, I’ve been able to spend invaluable time with cherished friends, at the lake, on the road. The brain fog is albeit still here, but lighter, easier to think through, and I’ve been in the most fulfilling romantic relationship of my life so far. And the one constant from low to high has been The Phantom Thieves. They helped save me at my absolute worst to remind me that better days were possible. Life will change. 

When I was greeted by The Phantom Thieves upon booting up Strikers for the first time I was greeted with an almost “it’s been a while, how’ve you been?” I felt almost, prideful, that these “people” who had seen me rely on them up close and personal, time and time again fighting back the tears of pain and stagnation, finally got to see me hopeful for my own personal future. And it was in the full circle that I found myself playing “their” game again. This time for a much different reason, with a much different outlook.

A massive thank you to Atlus, P-Studio, Omega Force, and everyone involved in bringing these works of art to life.

Thank you to The Phantom Thieves for changing my heart and saving my life.