At this price, I’ll give the Persona 5 spinoff a chance

I came to the Persona party very late, only diving into the long-running JRPG series with Persona 5. It drew me in with its achingly stylish anime aesthetic and funky soundtrack. Still, I quickly tumbled into the depths of its world and spent hours exploring the back streets of its Tokyo suburb-setting and the recesses of its villains’ mind palaces.

I don’t usually play JRPGs; I’ve bounced off the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games many times. Perhaps it was the modern-day setting of Persona and the way it weaves a fantasy adventure into the day-to-day lives of schoolchildren, making the stakes of surviving an encounter with a monster in a mental dungeon on par with the importance of passing your exams, but I fell for Persona 5 hard.

Still, as much as I’ve enjoyed Persona 5, it wasn’t enough to make me pick up Persona 5 Strikers, at least not at full price. Strikers takes Persona 5’s complex RPG systems that make it a unique sandbox – putting you in charge of managing friendships, developing your character as a student and as a fighter of mental demons – and turns it into an action game where you fight hordes of monsters.