This game was going to happen eventually, though to be fair, I wound up playing it on a different machine then I expected to. When it was announced, I knew it wasn't a traditional RPG, but it wasn't a dancing sim (like the Persona 4 offered as spinoffs to it's portable playing fans there for a while) and I honestly have had almost nothing but great experiences with the entire franchise. However, since the PC version would not have a physical copy to go with the rest of my collection, I figured I was going to wind up getting it on Switch. Then Steam came along and did what it does best... sales. So I picked it up and in time, began to play.
It was definitely worth my time, despite showing me why the game series it's play belongs to will never be for me. Step inside.
Story: It's been several months since the events of Persona 5 (and I am not going to explain them to you since you really should play it for yourself) and since you had moved back home. During that time, you have gone back to your regular school and had a regular life for the most part. And while you may be done with the madness you found here last time, you have never been so eager to get back to Tokyo. For it is now summer vacation and you intend to spend it with your friends and former conspirators: the Phantom Thieves!
And what a welcome home! You are greeted with a surprise party announcing your return and immediately the eager gang begin planning on how to ensure even easier contact when you all eventually have to part again for school as well as figuring out just what your first full day of vacation will entail. The first problem is easily solved by introducing you to EMMA, the hot new social media AI available for cellphones and it doesn't take long to figure out the second. Everyone quickly reaches the conclusion that there is no better way to start than with a barbeque, so that is your next job: In the morning you and Ryuji will go to Shibuya and buy the groceries to throw a proper feast in honor of all that is to come.
But this is also when things start to go wrong. While there, a crowd gathers around a new fashion store due to the owner is there in person to celebrate it's grand opening. She is a famous clothing designer named Alice, known for cute looks and running with her name as the theme of her work. As such, Ryuji insists on going to have a look, but it is you that catches the celebrity's eye. As part of her publicity stunt, she's giving everyone cards, inviting her fans to join her on EMMA for additional benefits, handing you the card personally. And the starstruck Ryuji decided to add her then and there, causing the phone to do something that should have been impossible since it should have been gone after your last adventure: send the two of you to the Metaverse where a new ruler resides, and she is interested in why unlike everyone else pulled in, she can't take your desires to add to her trove.
Further complicating issues for you is also a renewed interest from the police. Lately a whole wave of "strange and complete personality changing" behavior has been happening across Japan, looking strongly like when you changed the hearts of so many vile human beings during that last adventure, so you can guess who suspect number 1 is.
This murky start will send the Phantom Thieves on a road-trip across Japan in a quest to find out what is going on, how they can help put an end to it, and in the process clear their name before the cops encircle the team and bring you in particular back to jail. This truly will be an interesting and busy school vacation.
If you are getting Final Fantasy 15 vibes in this setup, I do not blame you. This description certainly warrants comparisons, and this from someone who hasn't played the SquareEnix game. But the road-trip vehicle fits the plot of the game very well, as each location not only includes new challenges to face, but new clues to figure out the big picture as the game leaks the details to you along side your character and his friends. It's a well written story, if a bit formulaic, carrying itself on the moment-to-moment very well between obvious story beats. If anything this one might also be a bit more straight-forward then the last game as any side-stories that came with any side-missions then are gone here.... but we will get into that later. Suffice it to say the story is really good in it's own right, even if it misses those side-tones the previous game let you sink into to your heart's content.
8/10
Graphics: If you played Persona 5 before playing this (and as I keep saying, you absolutely should), you already have a VERY good idea of just how this game is going to look. In fact it is possible to argue where possible, this game used as much of it's previous title's assets as it could making the two games look strikingly similar. But if you haven't played it (seriously, why are you still here? Go play that then come back!), you will wander various locations from a third person perspective with the camera zeroed in on you. These locations will vary as you travel through slices of several cities in Japan, and while I can not speak for anything about authenticity, it feels right for the world, and looks great doing so.
Sadly the people here do not fair so well. There are usually lots of them wandering the world with you, which is a welcome addition since these are generally supposed to be, well... cities. But they are generally background in the most literal sense... basically just enough detail let them be part of the scene, and little more then that. On the one hand, it lets you focus on the characters that matter (usually you and the other Phantom Theives), but on the other if you let yourself pay any attention to them, it will break the illusion as they are clearly not so much population, but scenery. They even fade out when they get close to you.
But all those downsides disappear when you switch to the metaverse. Things really open up with a parallel version of the city you are in, warped by the ruler (this time called a Monarch) of the area and populated by the enemies of the franchise: shadows.
These take many forms throughout the game, wandering the world as dark formed security gaurds and drones before becoming other more deformed creatures. They are ambiguous, everywhere, and fit right into the altered versions of the cities they reside in. And then you get into combat.
Some of these creatures will remain exactly as they were, while others will immediately morph into deamonic forms. Well, in other games of the SMT franchise, they would be called deamons, but in either case, the cast of enemies vary to massive amounts, from the lowliest deformed slime to the adorable snowman who mascots for Atlus, to massive gods and deamons of various mythlogies. There is no shortage of variety in what you will find to do battle with, all modeled very well.
Still I also have to point out another detail that I had issues with. I am not sure if it was because of the settings I was using (in order to run it on my media center which has no GPU card at all, I turned the settings down the lowest), but often when in cutscenes with a still background instead of a camera to move around, that painted background was very low resolution. The effect was like when you use an emulator to upscale a PlayStation game that uses 3D models and a painted background: all the characters and items are rendered as you would expect, but anything that is just painted holds the old resolution with some effect blurring the pixels and making those models look out of place. It's not bad enough to take you out of the game, but it does feel off in the same way.
7/10
Sound: The story of the audio in this game is much like the visuals. To keep the feel as close to the first game's as possible, they clearly lifted as much as they could from it here. This would be an obvious move to do with sound effects since these cover the normal steps, thwaps, clangs, or any other sound needed to tell the story in cutscenes or battle or anything else. And these fit the roll as well as one can expect.
More outstanding is the music, which was basically also lifted from the previous title. You can expect to hear a lot of the same jazzy tones for more mellow moments offered before and they sound just as good as they ever did. Likewise when things get mysterious or intense, the same ramping up as well. It wears it's connections so much on it's sleeve I basically could let that review do all the talking.
Even the voices that are here all seem to be the original cast (at least the best I can tell). Everyone once again brought their A game and you will be right at home with The Phantom Thieves for this second outing. If anything, I would argue some of the old cast got even better... for example I don't think Haru's matter-of-factness was half as well used in the original title as it is here and many of her lines had me grinning from ear to ear. GREAT showing!
But this time, everyone is kinda outshined by the newest members of the cast: Sophia and Zenkichi. Sophia is an AI with no memories to call her own but one single desire: to become the companion to humanity. She has no idea what this even means or how to do it or any idea about how people work, and this is what makes her so fascinating. I have always loved characters who go on this journey the voice actress behind her pinned it perfectly. Watching Sophia grow is simply amazing.
But the real absolute joy to behold Zenkichi. He's a detective working the cases and effectively the boss the Phantom Thieves are forced to follow the orders of in this journey. He is that perfect combination of in control and over the top... so long as he is holding the cards. Haru in particular seems to have a way of disarming him (much to my delight) but watching his antics is DEFINATELY one of the highlights of this game for me. His voice actor should take a bow in particular.
8/10
Gameplay: And this is where Strikers differentiates itself heavily from the previous title. For the most part, this game is divided into locations more then days. Yes, you are on a calendar again, but unlike the last game, it really doesn't matter since time no longer passes with your actions so much as with goals met in game: be it a boss beaten or collecting clues or even just a downtime day for the crew. While it was really hard to run out of time in Persona 5, it is literally impossible this time.
What you will be doing at each location is also fairly formulaic: most of the time you will find out about a Jail (the dungeons of this game), do an investigation to see who likely runs it (as they make themselves obvious quite quickly... as in within minutes of arriving most of the time) and the keyword to go inside. This usually boils down to running around one or two small maps and look for three to four clues before it's finished. And then it's time to enter the Metaverse and this is when become entirely different from before.
Gone are the turn based battles since this time, the game was made working with KoeiTecmo, taking in their expertise to make combat play like their Dynasty Warriors series. You will get into the thick of it with up to three other party members in an active battle against literal hoards of shadows you will mow down without mercy, bouncing on the fly between who you are controlling (via this game's version of baton passes, or activating extra advantages by this act) and really only pausing the game when you decide to use a persona's techniques to choose which moves you want from a menu. And these moves, while the same ones you used before, have been adapted for an actual arena via defining an area you will hit with them (or targets specific as works for the technique).
And of course since you no longer have negotiations of any sort, the personas you use to do this have to be collected a different way... a much more direct way. This time around, any time you kill one of the mythological creatures, there is a chance it will drop a mask. Collecting it mid-fight will mean you get that persona on the spot if you haven't already collected it. If you have, then it will be converted to points you can use to strengthen your roster when you visit the Velvet room, but more on that later. If you don't have it, but don't have an empty slot for it to be available, the persona is still yours, but it will now wait in the registry for you to claim when you gain a space for it on one of those velvet room visits as well.
And as always, that velvet room plays a strong part in the namesake of the game. You can enter if from any checkpoint in a dungeon or via etherial jailcell doors you will find in any city you visit to do a handful of essential actions. The most obvious of this is to fuse personas together to get something more powerful, and this I found a lesser experience if I am completely honest. The previous game allowed you to choose how you would do this, be it starting with looking over what you can get and what you will have to trade to do it or starting by deciding which personas you are willing to sacrifice. Being a fan of using this to cycle out my weaker personas, I was disappointed to find it was no longer an option. Rather now you can only select what you want and decide if it's worth it.
In addition, you can also strengthen personas you already have. In persona 5 you could do this as well, but you had to sacrifice a persona to give it's strengths to another one. This time, you will gain points to do this by collecting personas in battle that you already have, converting them automatically for this, spending those points to level them automatically and later on, to boost specific stats of the persona.
And finally you have the register where everyone you've caught is listed with a price tag. If you ever want to get another copy of a persona you once had, pay the cash and you can have them back. However these by default are just as you collected them (or created them with fusion). If you want to keep a more current version on the list, you can always reregister them. And in addition, this is where any persona you collect that is new to you but you didn't have space for them goes... just with a big old price of 0 to take. It's a nice way to make sure your roster doesn't prevent you from collecting one you like (or need if you are looking to do a specific fusion that needs it).
However no modern Persona game is complete without using some kind of social representation to build up your abilities in the field. But this one really offers no real side stories to work with and no social links. Without any them this time around, the game had to find a new way to let you upgrade the general mechanics of battle that you could in the previous title and they chose instead to do this via a Bonds system. As you play, you will gain Bond levels, each of which will give you a set of points for you to spend on upgrades such as extra health/spell power and boosted stats of every sort. It will be up to you to pick which ones you want since the game will likely never give you enough power to max them out. Not that it's stingy with them. You will find these points given out like candy between battles in the metaverse, story-points you will have to see (cause there is nothing you can miss this time around) or even occasional small activities on the way.
But while the game does offer a little extra material, it's nothing that adds to the story. You will receive these "requests" at specific story-points in the game and it's up to you if you want to spend the time to complete them, but rather then have to find someone who needs their heart changed like the last game, this time they are basic things like "go kill X monsters" or "go find this desire left behind in the Jail you finished." Each will tell you what you get for completing it, but outside of these rewards and (most of the time) a reason to go back to old dungeons for a little extra level/bond grinding on the way, there is really little on offer here.
7/10
Bugs: While I would not call this a flawless game, I can say this is mechanically true as the game ran perfectly from start to finish.
Digital Rights Management: Unfortunately, this game is not DRM free. Sega LOVES using Denuvo and this game has it. It is also worth noting you DO NOT want the deluxe edition of this game unless the upgrade is a STEEP price discount since the only ingame item worth anything offered by Sega is the extra combat music from previous Persona titles. You might expect the soundtrack to be a great thing to have too... but Atlus decided to make it an EXE rather then let you have the MP3s for your own library. That's right, even the Soundtrack has been DRMed.
Overall: I could never tell you this game was bad by any means. In fact I enjoyed most of my time with it, but it also feels kinda out of place in an RPG series. It's blatantly a Dynasty Warriors clone that takes place in the Persona universe with RPG elements shoved in to make it feel more at home. As such, fans of that series are going to love this, I'll wager. I'm not one of them, and if anything my holdups felt like reasons I wouldn't enjoy that series.
But that said it is a very focused experience which (again, unlike most RPGs) will not give you any chance to explore much outside the path the story gives you (which as I think about it is quite ironic considering the themes of the series and this game in it in particular), so if you are the kind of player who gets lost in side stories and never actually finishes the game despite wanting to see it through, this is probably for you. In addition, this game is about as true to the Persona 5 experience without remaining the same game as is possible due to it's presentation, so fans who wanted to visit Joker and his friends again will also get exactly what they wanted out of it.
If there is anyone who should avoid this game, it's ironically the people who came here wanting an actual RPG experience. That is not what this is despite the series, and furnishings of it included. So if that's what you want, you will likely find what you are looking for starkly missing.
Score:
System Requirements:
- Intel Core i5-2300/AMD FX-6350
- 6 GB RAM
- NVIDIA Geforce GTX 660 (2GB)/AMD Radeon HD 7870 (2GB)
- Windows 8.1 or later
- 25 GB hard drive space
System Specs:
- Ryzen 5 5600G running at 3.9 Ghz
- 16 GB RAM
- Windows 11
- PDP DX Wired Controller (Crimson)
Source: Steam
No comments:
Post a Comment