This review contains spoilers
It's pretty common on the internet for someone to say that they don't really appreciate a genre in its entirety. It's a very total statement that doesn't allow for exceptions, and it's one I've always had disdain for because it's a very closed-minded point of view in my opinion.
However, I think after my experiences with this game, I can firmly say that there is no positive experience that I can gain from purchasing and playing through a Musou/Warriors game. This is one of the lowest quality cash-grab video games I have ever played, one which attempts to replicate the heart and soul of one of my favorite games and fails. In fact, in every moment it feels hollow.
It's moments like Sophia asking Joker about parental figures or family, and if family is important to Joker. The responses are utterly lackluster, with none of them particularly pertaining to his own family or parents. Parents, who shipped him to another city after being falsely accused for a crime and who only took him back after they found the charges dropped and fake. These moments ring completely hollow for a character that is already a nothing-burger, and yet when faced with the tiniest amount of character development they decide to skew the other way. This is also, by the way, in a video game where parental guidance is one of the major themes through Zenkichi.
Zenkichi, thank goodness, is actually one of the small positives I can give this game. His addition is a decent one, and he both is able to explore themes of grief, bad parenting, and corruption in the police force. He also had one of the better movesets in the game.
Speaking of gameplay, it is truly abysmal. Nothing makes sense and the entire game is unintuitive. In Persona 5, it was common that you might need to go back out of the palace in order to recoup health and especially SP. They replicate this through having to go back outside of the jail to recoup in strikers, although there's no actual reason to have this mechanic in this game. In 5, it was a choice because it wastes a day. In Strikers, it just wastes your time. They could have just chosen to recoup these stats at each checkpoint, but they force you to sit through two loading screens for no apparent reason.
The actual action is your standard warriors fare but somehow worse. Usually in a warriors game you're able to kinda power trip through the game, and that's the appeal. However, you're faced with enemies who don't give a singular shit about the attacks you're making, and hit you anyways. Once you enter the back half of the game, you can easily get stuck in a combo that just outright kills you because dodging becomes impossible. This is all on easy difficulty, by the way, because I had to switch from normal in order to just make the game a non-grind fest where bosses were taking 10+ minutes in the first few dungeons. Even then the game felt terrible to play. Ambushes make no sense in a warriors style game, and any fun that can be had from the typical warriors strategy of sending characters other places is not found in this game. And, the game has a steep immediate learning curve found through the fact that they give you every phantom thief at once. It's a very disorienting experience that makes no sense gameplay-wise.
The writing is truly terrible, with these characters I love reduced to caricatures of themselves. None of these characters experience any development despite flaws in their personality. Ryuji has somehow gotten stupider between games ala Joey from Friends, Makoto still wants to be a cop despite the experiences she faces in this game, and Haru refuses to grow up and realize that the people she has dealt with in the industry are terrible people without a bunch of teethpulling. Zenkichi and Akane are compelling, although it's pretty shitty that you don't even get to see Akane's reaction to Owada or whoever the fuck getting arrested at the end of the game. Despite that being her character arc. Any compelling continuation of story from the previous game is foregone for pale references to Shido when dealing with Akira, which really is a showcase of how terribly copy-pasted the villains in this game are. The post-credit scene from Royal means nothing in this game, and in-fact no one decides to mention Akechi whatsoever.
As for other critiques, Jail design is uninspired. Showtimes are uninspired. The music is decent, and yet the repeated music from 5 feels terrible and almost grating, as if the devs don't realize that most people who care about this game likely played 100 hours of 5 and 120 hours of Royal.
This game is a waste of fucking time, and it's only like 25-30 hours. There is no actual discernable reason to play this game. There is no genuine conclusion to these characters that are generally loved despite Atlus' attempts to get people to hate them. I can't believe this game exists, and in the poor quality it's in.
However, I think after my experiences with this game, I can firmly say that there is no positive experience that I can gain from purchasing and playing through a Musou/Warriors game. This is one of the lowest quality cash-grab video games I have ever played, one which attempts to replicate the heart and soul of one of my favorite games and fails. In fact, in every moment it feels hollow.
It's moments like Sophia asking Joker about parental figures or family, and if family is important to Joker. The responses are utterly lackluster, with none of them particularly pertaining to his own family or parents. Parents, who shipped him to another city after being falsely accused for a crime and who only took him back after they found the charges dropped and fake. These moments ring completely hollow for a character that is already a nothing-burger, and yet when faced with the tiniest amount of character development they decide to skew the other way. This is also, by the way, in a video game where parental guidance is one of the major themes through Zenkichi.
Zenkichi, thank goodness, is actually one of the small positives I can give this game. His addition is a decent one, and he both is able to explore themes of grief, bad parenting, and corruption in the police force. He also had one of the better movesets in the game.
Speaking of gameplay, it is truly abysmal. Nothing makes sense and the entire game is unintuitive. In Persona 5, it was common that you might need to go back out of the palace in order to recoup health and especially SP. They replicate this through having to go back outside of the jail to recoup in strikers, although there's no actual reason to have this mechanic in this game. In 5, it was a choice because it wastes a day. In Strikers, it just wastes your time. They could have just chosen to recoup these stats at each checkpoint, but they force you to sit through two loading screens for no apparent reason.
The actual action is your standard warriors fare but somehow worse. Usually in a warriors game you're able to kinda power trip through the game, and that's the appeal. However, you're faced with enemies who don't give a singular shit about the attacks you're making, and hit you anyways. Once you enter the back half of the game, you can easily get stuck in a combo that just outright kills you because dodging becomes impossible. This is all on easy difficulty, by the way, because I had to switch from normal in order to just make the game a non-grind fest where bosses were taking 10+ minutes in the first few dungeons. Even then the game felt terrible to play. Ambushes make no sense in a warriors style game, and any fun that can be had from the typical warriors strategy of sending characters other places is not found in this game. And, the game has a steep immediate learning curve found through the fact that they give you every phantom thief at once. It's a very disorienting experience that makes no sense gameplay-wise.
The writing is truly terrible, with these characters I love reduced to caricatures of themselves. None of these characters experience any development despite flaws in their personality. Ryuji has somehow gotten stupider between games ala Joey from Friends, Makoto still wants to be a cop despite the experiences she faces in this game, and Haru refuses to grow up and realize that the people she has dealt with in the industry are terrible people without a bunch of teethpulling. Zenkichi and Akane are compelling, although it's pretty shitty that you don't even get to see Akane's reaction to Owada or whoever the fuck getting arrested at the end of the game. Despite that being her character arc. Any compelling continuation of story from the previous game is foregone for pale references to Shido when dealing with Akira, which really is a showcase of how terribly copy-pasted the villains in this game are. The post-credit scene from Royal means nothing in this game, and in-fact no one decides to mention Akechi whatsoever.
As for other critiques, Jail design is uninspired. Showtimes are uninspired. The music is decent, and yet the repeated music from 5 feels terrible and almost grating, as if the devs don't realize that most people who care about this game likely played 100 hours of 5 and 120 hours of Royal.
This game is a waste of fucking time, and it's only like 25-30 hours. There is no actual discernable reason to play this game. There is no genuine conclusion to these characters that are generally loved despite Atlus' attempts to get people to hate them. I can't believe this game exists, and in the poor quality it's in.
2 Comments
i'm cool with it being a skill issue, it doesn't mean i enjoyed it more though
ThePetree
9 months ago
The writing in this game is good and isnt supposed to stand out in the first place, the combat is great and well designed so idk what youre talking abt, the whole point of royals ending is that it can work with stikers cus everything goes back to normal, the game is over 25 hours and it took me at least 45 to beat, the Jails are awesome, and also, the difficulty curve was fine for me so ima chalk it up to a skill issue.