Persona has seen its fair share of spinoffs over the years, but most have filled the role of side stories. Persona 5 Strikers is a different beast entirely, feeling more like a mainline Persona game than a simple spinoff. Strikers is the latest "Warriors" adaption by Koei Tecmo, blending the gameplay of both Persona and the massive battle hack-and-slash of Dynasty Warriors. What's surprising, however, is that Persona 5 Strikers feels drastically different from any Warriors game before, and it has much more of the Persona experience distilled into it.

Persona 5 Strikers picks up roughly four months after the end of the original game, with Joker and Morgana traveling back to Tokyo for Summer break. As the Phantom Thieves are preparing for a camping trip, the group is inexplicably pulled into the Metaverse again, this time discovering a "Jail." These Jails are the dungeons of Strikers, and each one is ruled by a monarch who steals people's desires. Before long the thieves find themselves on a road trip across Japan, working with a police officer named Zenkichi Hasegawa and a mysterious AI named Sophia.

Related: Persona 5 Strikers Characters' Abilities Shown In Phantom Thieves Trailer

Strikers is structured just like Persona 5, and it's a surprisingly story-focused game. One of the biggest appeals of Strikers is seeing the Phantom Thieves reunite, and there are plenty of heartwarming character moments spread throughout the plot. The city exploration sections don't consist of much, with Joker able to wander around and talk to the other party members, as well as buy different items and recipes from shops that allow Joker to cook when back at base. However, it is fascinating to see other cities like Sapporo and Okinawa done in the Persona art style, and each one oozes its own personality, heightened by unique musical themes for every city. The meat of Persona 5 Strikers is in the Jails which, like Palaces in the original, each sport an incredibly unique aesthetic.

Persona 5 Strikers Alicia

Instead of the massive battlefields of Dynasty Warriors, Jails feel more like proper JRPG dungeons, filled with different areas, puzzles, environmental weapons, and more. On the surface, battles use the same system as Warriors games, combining light and heavy attacks into strings of combos. Strikers adds a wrinkle in with the actual Persona, letting players hold R1 to bring time to halt and select Persona skills to use. Each Persona attack has an area-of-effect, and players need to focus on exploiting enemy's weaknesses to break them, just like in the main games.

Exploiting a weakness will allow the controlled character to execute a "One More" attack with a button press, and a totally broken enemy is opened up to the infamous "All-Out Attack" that hits a wide area. Every member of the Phantom Thieves, outside of Futaba, can be controlled directly, and non-controlled characters will often suggest a move, allowing for a boosted Baton Pass when switching to them. Battles are made even more dynamic with environmental objects scattered throughout Jails that can be interacted with for a "Phantom Dash" attack. These can range from dropping a giant lantern on enemies for a fire attack, or jumping into a shopping cart and rolling over enemies.

What all this leads to is a combat system that feels drastically different from Dynasty Warriors. The closest comparison is a souped-up version of Dragon Quest Heroes, but everything about Strikers' combat flows together well. Every so often the camera has trouble keeping up with everything happening on-screen, but it's generally not a problem. Each of the Phantom Thieves feels unique to play, and they all fill a different role outside of their magic specializations, like Skull being good at tanking and causing big physical damage while Panther is better at crowd control. Persona 5 Strikers can be surprisingly difficult as well, even on the normal difficulty. Boss battles really shine by being bombastic encounters with multiple phases that really challenge player's skills.

Persona 5 Strikers Okinawa

The story suffers from some slow pacing early on, but once things really get going the narrative doesn't let go. A particular highlight of Persona 5 Strikers are the two new party members, Sophie and Zenkichi. The crux of the story revolves around these two characters, and each brings a unique dynamic to the group. Zenkichi in particular is an exceptionally well-written character, and even though Strikers is largely a linear experience, there is some side content in the form of requests that helps flesh out both story and gameplay.

Persona 5 Strikers requests are mostly optional side missions that require things like beating specific enemies by exploiting their weaknesses or collecting a Forgotten Desire hidden somewhere in a Jail. These requests also take the form of extra-strong enemies and boss rematches, which in the post-game will unlock the final extra boss, The Reaper. Requests are pretty basic overall, but they add some nice rewards and extra challenges as players are going through the story.

Related: Persona 5 Strikers Has a Charming Yakuza Reference

Along with everything else, Strikers is just as visually striking as the original Persona 5. Attack effects and spells create a veritable kaleidoscope of color during battles, and the game's menus sport a stylish design that sees Joker interacting with a particular Phantom Thief for each option. Strikers doesn't look quite as visually impressive as Persona 5 Royal, but the vibrant aesthetic still works wonders, which is further complemented by the inclusion of quite a few tracks from the original alongside a few excellent new ones - a new boss theme called "Counter-Strike" might just be the best piece of Persona music ever created.

Persona 5 Strikers Combat

Persona 5 Strikers does an impeccable job of adapting Persona's elements into a frenetic Dynasty Warriors action experience. Persona's more freeform exploration elements don't make the transition, but Persona 5 Strikers doesn't suffer from it. It's a fantastic reunion for the Phantom Thieves and a spinoff that feels more like a full-blown new entry than anything else.

Next: Persona 25th Anniversary Project In the Works At Developer Atlus

Persona 5 Strikers releases on February 23 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC. A PS4 code was provided to Screen Rant for the purposes of this review.