A disgustingly fun continuation of Persona 5 that completely ignores everything Royal introduced. Which thank fuck, haven't played that. P5 was a game that consumed my life for the better part of a month about two years ago, and this game consumed my life for about 4 days. I totally nolifed this bitch and while I'm not proud, I had a lot of fun. The lovely scooby gang of idiots that is the Phantom Thieves is back, though all of their character development already happened in Persona 5, so all of the development is left for the two new characters, Sophia and Zenkichi. They are great additions to the gang, with special mention to Zenkichi. The English dub of P5 was excellent, and this game continues that. Zenkichi's voice actor gives him so much personality it is unreal. The story did feel a bit formulaic and it maybe repeats too many of the beats from P5, but it has a slightly more nuanced approach to the villains and it made the whole "are we truly the good guys" thing the Phantom Thieves like to go on about a bit more interesting. The game happens during the summer and it is a country wide road trip, so there is a lot of variety on locations and a lot of light hearted moments with the protagonists having fun that I honestly really enjoyed. As for the gameplay, the only other Dynasty Warriors-esque game I'd played was Hyrule Warriors, and while I thought that was fun enough, it went on for way too goddamn long and I just kinda dropped it out of sheer boredom. Thankfully, Strikers does not last for several eternities, if anything I was sad it's not as long as Persona 5. The elements of Persona like the weaknesses and the titular personas are very well implemented, it adds a very needed complexity to a kind of game that is usually played with your brain turned off, and it kept me engaged most of the time. Biggest issue is that even in normal difficulty it is very easy to lose health and die, which fair enough, but going to the item menu and finding something to heal, revive, or cure status effects takes way too long and it is kind of a pace killer because its just a big ass list of all the food and shit you have with no rhyme or reason to the order, I would've liked more filters or sections, to make finding what you want take a bit less time, or that your allies were capable of taking an item and healing themselves. They do use healing spells if they have them at least. Music, as is tradition by this point on the Persona series, it is absolutely brilliant, memorable, and just plain catchy. God bless Lyn and her engrish, it gives P5 a very unique identity. The menu is also very fun to just look at, it is packed with style. This game believes it's cool so fucking hard it kinda ends up actually being cool, and I love it. Overall, had a great time spending 4 days only eating, pissing, shitting and playing Persona all day, wouldn't recommend doing that, but would totally recommend this game if you've played Persona 5, it is a lovely continuation and I am sad it is over.