Although Persona 5 Strikers had been available on PC for a long time, because just minutes inside this title would be enough to spoil most of Persona 5, I saved it until after I could experience Royal.

Credit is due to the developers for their ability to recreate Persona 5 in a different engine and genre. If I didn't know otherwise, I would have assumed it was the original team behind this spin-off. Every step of the way I could feel the love put into this game. Starting from the story to gameplay and the new music tracks which will enter my playlists!

The story of Strikers is a lot simpler and, while captivating, whereas in the original you obtain new companions and help them through their hardships, this is a bit less connected to the main characters of the game. Compared to the original very black-and-white story with clear villains and heroes, Strikers is a morally greyer story with a unique outlook on its villains.
It's worth noting that although Strikers is technically a sequel to Persona 5, the events of Royal are never mentioned, but they are not incompatible on a story level.
Although justified, sadly the player doesn't get to keep the powers from the original title.

Gone is the turn-based combat, replaced with a new action-based combat system, and, while it's wildly different genres, the combat feels very familiar.
The game is a musou, which literally translates to "unmatched" and the main focus of this genre is cutting through hundreds of enemies that are nowhere near your level. Because of my interest in the characters I went into it knowing it was not necessarily my cup of tea. Regardless, I can see it's one of the best musous out there, with all the faults that might come with the genre.
This makes fighting fun, but repetitive, especially with smaller enemies. Because this game is still a Persona, in-between fights there's a lot of story dialogue demanding your attention after waves and waves of enemies that don't. This is followed by the very peculiar choice of having the first 3 dungeons of the game be almost copy pasted, only to add some variety towards the end of the game.

When it comes to exploration, compared to the other Personas, this is an extremely linear title that leaves little to no freedom to the player. The gameplay loop consists of going through cutscenes or braindedly cutting through waves of enemies when exploring a dungeon that often follows a very specific progression pattern. Rarely it's possible to explore the city and move freely, which is really just a jog around stores to see if something interesting is for sale.
While the game is more linear, one very positive note compared to the original is that almost all dialogues are dubbed. Because there were physically fewer dialogues, more could be voice-acted.

The title suffers a bit from all this repetition in my opinion, but it definitely ramped up in the second half keeping me hooked!

Just like in the original, Requests are back, but because of the absence of Mementos, it's only fetch quests that instead of adding to the experience, gatekeep abilities and what-not behind their completion.

The difficulty was also a weak point for me, because as it often happens in these titles, it's just numbers, making the fights longer instead of more challenging.

To me, Strikers was like when your favorite anime releases a filler movie that doesn't really add anything, but it's still more of the thing you like. It's a delightful, post-main story of the original, adventure with all the characters I grew to love.
After reading all this, if you're still convinced in getting it, go ahead. The small repetition in gameplay won't wipe out the charm and a story worth the Persona name!

6.5/10