Excellent sequel that brings new things compared to the Arena sequels of 3 and 4. It gives much more depth to the characters and their bond, making you feel like you're back with a good group of friends that you missed. The story is very good, with nice villains. The final boss as an idea was great, but in execution, personally, it didn't impress me. The Palaces, called Jails here, although they are in the style of warriors, each have their own character and the bosses are beautifully designed, just like in the previous two games. The OST of the Jails is not at the level of P5/Royal, but it is still very good.

The gameplay for a warriors title is incredibly good and fast-paced. Each character has their own style and it's a delight to play with the one that suits you. The velvet room has made a return, where you can do the classic fusion and Persona upgrades, and there is a new Confidant-like system called Bond. This system gives you stat upgrades, extra phantom skills, and QoL upgrades, which are very useful, and you can unlock some additional ones by completing side quests that the team asks you to do. Of course, at this point, it also involves all the farming in the game, especially if you're going for platinum.

Personally, I played 95% of the title on easy because Warriors games tire me out. Strikers, in the 60 hours that I've been playing, hasn't done that or maybe it's not to a great extent due to the gameplay and attention they put into it.

An excellent title if you're a Musou fan or a Persona fan.

Hello everyone, I would like to share my opinion about the game as I just finished it after a few days of playing. Without going into too much detail, I personally consider the game a 7-7.5/10 in some aspects, but an 8/10 in others. I won't mention any spoilers in my review, so feel free to read on. Firstly, I must mention that I have only played Persona 5, Persona 5 Royal, Persona 4 Golden, and most recently Persona 5 Scramble, or as it's called in the West, "Strikers". Before discussing each aspect of the game separately, I want to clarify that as a whole, the game serves as a nice continuation of the original Persona 5, but not of Royal. Those who have only played Royal may be surprised that it is not mentioned in Strikers. By not mentioned, I mean that Persona 5 Strikers is essentially the continuation of the story from the first Persona 5. So whatever happened in that game, many times the characters in Strikers reminisce and discuss various things. Now that I've made that clear, I need to mention the second important thing, which is that this game (personally, of course) is not a pure Persona game, despite having the Persona title. They have removed the battle system from the first game, as well as the ability to go on dates with characters. Forget about the ability to travel to various places for dates in Tokyo like in the first game. Now you will travel for other "reasons". Be careful before buying it because many people were disappointed with the new battle system, which is essentially like Dynasty Warriors, where you fight enemies with your character. And not like the first game, which was turn-based. So three basic things have been removed from the first game. You should know that the game is about one-third the size of the original, meaning it will take you about 45 hours or maybe 60, depending on how you play. Soon, I will mention for those wondering that the plot (without spoilers) is similar in concept to the first game, but now the "villains" are less "devilish" compared to the original Persona 5. Personally, I saw them as pitiful. Those who play will understand. They don't exude the same evilness that the villains in the original Persona 5 had, and their goals don't even resemble each other. That's all I will say to avoid spoilers. Now I would like to talk about the graphics and sound. The graphics are like Persona 5, but I have to say that the sound becomes very boring very quickly. In the base version of the game, there is only one song playing in each "palace" and it only changes when you fight the boss at the end of the palace. You can't imagine how quickly I got tired of it. Unfortunately, the game is quite grindy, meaning you have to fight almost every enemy you encounter in order to keep up with your character's level, so if you have the same music playing, it becomes tiresome. That's why I would recommend buying the deluxe edition when the price drops, as it allows you to add songs from previous Persona games and makes the whole game more bearable. I didn't know this, so in some cases, I played music from my computer next to me just to get through it. Honestly, within the first 5 hours, the music was already repetitive. It only changes for the final boss of the palace. As for the story, it didn't captivate me as much as Persona 5. Yes, it is decent and serves as a good "addiction" for us fans of the series who desperately wanted some kind of continuation in the story, but unfortunately, it doesn't reach the levels of Persona 5. At the end of the game, it leaves you with a nice sense of completion, but it didn't have the gut punches that Persona 5 had. I compare it to Persona 5 because I believe that as a continuation, it is the best criterion for comparison, and since Strikers only references 5 and not Royal. As you play, the characters make references to events that happened in 5, but not in detail, and unfortunately, many NPCs that you talked to in 5 are not in Strikers. I won't go into details again to avoid spoilers. So basically, I felt a slight disappointment from Strikers in terms of the story of 5. For example, the characters talk in a style of "remember this?" and the other responds "yes, it was difficult," and that's it. They don't even say five more things or anything. So if you want to fully understand what's going on, I recommend playing Persona 5 at least before this game. Otherwise, it will seem alien to you. In Strikers, the new characters introduced didn't captivate me much. Yes, they were a pleasant addition, but they didn't give me the same connection that the characters in Persona 5 did. I didn't feel like their friend. I can't explain it well in words, but essentially, the characters in the story of Strikers, apart from the main ones who were also in Persona 5, were mediocre to me as a player, they just existed. The story itself, while it goes well and builds up strongly at certain points, takes some "detours" that only waste time for the player, and I didn't find them essential as if they were just there to fill the hours. I didn't see this in Persona 5, everything tied together and resulted in something in the end. Here in Strikers, it tries to do that, but in some points, it gets lost because "oh, we found something bad here, let's check it out"... and the main story takes a while to move forward.
Finally, I would like to say that the whole story ends somewhat abruptly for the protagonist, as if he is being thrown away. I don't want to say more. However, I didn't really like the ending.

After mentioning the negatives, let me talk about the positives. Even though I didn't experience any glitches or bugs in my console with version 1.00. The story, as a continuation, ties together until a certain point and I really liked how it unfolds (mainly in the beginning until about halfway through). I liked that almost all the main characters were together on stage and spoke with their own voices, as it made me feel like a part of their group. The story, although mediocre to good, conveys some good underlying messages, especially for new players, regarding technology and our dependence on it. It's a sequel that many players wanted and finally got to see how the Joker's group evolved. It shows us what has become of the Phantom Thieves after 1 year from the first game, which I liked. The introduction of gameplay elements such as throwing objects at enemies and skateboarding was something I really enjoyed and I wish Persona 5 had it too.

Conclusion: Based on everything I mentioned, this game is a 7-8/10 in my eyes. It doesn't remind me of Persona, but rather a continuation of the story of Persona 5, which was a bit abrupt in its development. I recommend it to everyone, but wait for the price to drop a bit because you might be slightly disappointed.

That's it, guys. If I see anything in the future, I will come back to add or correct things. Take care and I hope I helped. Personally, it took me 50 hours to finish, but I listened to all the dialogues (always in Japanese), so maybe that took a bit more time. Thank you to anyone who took the time to read this. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask in the Skroutz discussion and I will respond to whatever I see.