[h1] An Okay Sequel With Great Romanticization of a Friendship [/h1]
I won't deny myself that Persona 5 Royal is the best first impression Persona game for new audience. The game offers well-rounded gameplay with good combat, fun exploration, puzzles, great stories, great writings, great plot-twist, many emotional moments, and the most important one, the best friendship. When I say best friendship, unlike the other Persona games I played, there aren't any perverted out-of-character gigs they pulled out in the game just for the sake of fanservice. Granted, we can see they're starting to abandon the idea after Ryuji keep asking which Phantom Thieves member our Protagonist liked the most and they keep focusing on making a supportive-healthy peer group instead. The climax of the friendship ended on the epilogue of the game where, it really is hard to say goodbye to them. The satisfaction of Persona 5 Royal create my curiosity to venture more of a Persona 5 series which, wow, I didn't know theres a sequel. Persona 5 Strikers is a sequel that tells Phantom Thieves are back in action with refreshing genre.
One of the best moment of Persona 5 Strikers is actually at the beginning where the game teases you with Persona 5 Royal nostalgia where you get to visit many familiar places like Takemi's or Iwai's and Morgana give you a homage like, "Did you remember we did this?", and it creates some sort of accomplishment of what happened a year ago. Slowly but surely the game pulls you away from the Persona 5 Royal familiarity and it tells you that, "This is Persona 5 Strikers now, we offer new things". From new shops, new city, new gameplay, new adventure, and new things altogether. This different genre correlate with "new" things that are introduced but still keeping the identity of Persona 5 game. You know what, the gameplay is awesome.
Doing awesome combo with Persona of you choice, baton passing to Phantom Thieves member, and doing all-out attack are really fun and you remembered that you're not in turn-based game anymore. The game offers many cool moveset for each Thief's member that remain with their identity from previous game. Heavy hitters like Ryuji, Haru, and Yusuke are my favorite characters to use meanwhile Makoto and Morgana are more like hybrid-support where their combo are not meant to deal a lot of damage. For me, the combat is quiet hard because if you're not careful, you can get one-shotted, but the pacing of the game is really fast that despite I did a couple attempts, it doesn't take too much time.
The combat was like the hidden gem that I found. I didn't expect it to be fun, because what I'm looking forward is the slice-of-life hangouts with the Phantom Thief's member, and they're also really fun. Unlike P5R where the teammates are waiting on the exact spot, on different city, they're doing their own hangouts and we can talk to them. They don't just hangout themselves, but sometime Futaba hangout with Yusuke or Ann with Ryuji, or on different city, Futaba hangouts with Makoto instead. These lively dialogue are really immersive and fun. You may ask, "is there a confidant hangouts?", well, it doesn't make sense since in P5R, our Ren Amamiya maxxed all of his confidant with everyone, so what you get is normal hangouts that increase BOND. I don't want to sugarcoat it, it is Confidants with extra steps, because we have to unlock new perks for integrated gameplay.
The slice-of-life friendship satisfy my needs with how wholesome and fun they are. We get to the beach, we eat together, we can get to the ferris wheel, and sightseeing on Tokyo tower. This does make things complicated because the game is challenged to do more especially when their friendship is already bonded. That's why there's this gig where they accidentally met during bath section just like Persona 3 and Persona 4 did that just doesn't work. It's out-of-character, it doesn't make sense, and worst-scenario, it's not funny. It may be hilarious if Marie Maziodyne'd the whole male teammates for peeping because their friendship just started, but we're talking about Persona 5 Strikers right now, a sequel where they're bestfriend to the fullest. This struggles into many aspect of the game because then again, the Phantom Thieves are already expert at everything. Nerfing them albeit their knowledge and combat experience may result in bad writing and that's what happened with the writing.
The story is okay at best. They're playing really safe with the writing. The repetitiveness in conclusion on each villain, recipe to make every Phantom Thieves member have their own glorious moment, lesson learnt speech, and everything you can think of in Persona 5 Royal, happened in this game again, but weaker. I blame it on the settings. There's just not amount of urgency of why the heroines should care about the conflict. Since the timeline of the game is really quick, there's not amount of pressure and good buildup to solve the conflict. Although the new characters and their story are really good. I think Sophie and Gramps are a great addition to the drama. The worst part of it all is that, there are no significant changes that happened to the team. They don't become more wiser, they don't become smarter, they don't become better, they don't become closer, they actually not learn anything new from the whole Jail, AI, and seizing desire. One thing I do know is that they're having fun on a semester break where Ryuji, Yusuke, and Ann are on 3rd high with Makoto and Haru on their 1st semester of college. Outside of it, this sequel is pretty pointless...
Persona 5 Strikers is a fun addition to the Phantom Thieves wholesome friendship. We get to see the team in action again during vacation. It's like a reward for accomplishing a good ending on Persona 5 Royal. This does create a emotional attachment where your action in the game really matters in Persona 5 Royal. Seeing your friends are having fun with Protagonist later on does create a heartwarming feeling. Sadly, the Persona 5 Strikers struggles to create something urgent or new to develop their friendship more. In the end, the Phantom Thieves have already reached their Maximum Bond in the previous game. Persona 5 Strikers forgot, that they can't become closer to someone when their Confidant Level is already at maximum. I give Persona 5 Strikers 7,25/10.
