Last week, we finally got confirmation Persona 5 Strikers would be getting a western release on 23rd February 2021.
If you were hoping to try out this game before you commit to purchasing it, well... you might just have to settle with the Japanese demo instead. RPG Site staff member Cullen Black reached out to Ari Advincula - Sega's communication manager for Atlus West - and was told there were no plans to localise the demo right now.
"When asked if there were plans to bring the demo that was seen in Japan for both PS4 and Switch, I was told that unfortunately there were none. I hope this changes as we get closer to launch, but thankfully there isn’t that much time until we’ll all be able to get our hands on the game."
One other interesting bit of information is to do with the English voice acting. Due to the pandemic, all of this was recorded remotely to keep staff and actors as safe as possible. Thankfully, this hasn't reduced the quality - with RPG Site stating how it's on par with the English dubs in Persona 5.
Will you be adding this upcoming release to your Switch collection? Tell us down below.
[source rpgsite.net]
Comments 40
That's ok I want Persona 5 Royal instead anyway.
@CurryPowderKeg79 Ditto.
Played one Musou, played them all.
@CurryPowderKeg79 Good luck. Also... this is coming to Switch regardless so the chances of getting Royal ‘instead’ are exactly 0%.
meh not surprising. Anyways who needs to play a Dynasty persona Warriors game anyways. Spinoff is what l should say. People would mostly rent a game before buying it for themselves. Better way imo actually.
Played the Japanese demo and I think it look runs and looks better than Age of Calamity.
It's like any other good Switch port - it's not the sharpest image but it looks and runs better than expected...plus portability.
@CurryPowderKeg79 Might want to buy a PS4/5 then, it's more likely to come to PC and those chances aren't very high either.
I'm a bit disappointed we didn't get a physical special edition here in the west (yeah, there's the digital deluxe edition on steam but nothing physical). A steelbook and a pin is kinda lame. I get why we probably didn't get a special edition and it's not a huge deal but ah well.
@CurryPowderKeg79
@MysteryCupofJoe
Agree!
@Kimyonaakuma The load times on the switch version could be better but hey, at least we got something P5 related on switch.
I feel like they are sending this out to die.
Hyrule Warriors Definitive Edition is probably the closest we'll get to a demo for this game.
@Kirbo100 true, the loading times seem to be longer than the PS4 version. The music and transitions make it more interesting though - watching a comparison is a little different.
I'm happy as long as we Atlus on Switch, they had so many 3DS games so I'm hoping they catch up in 2021. 3 games next year is good even if it isn't Persona 5/R
@Kimyonaakuma And that's before Atlus announces what they're going to do for Persona's 25th anniversary next year.
Blech. I can't stand the fact that they're promoting Persona 5 all over the Switch without giving it the base game. A Switch owner will have no context to the relationship of the characters within Strikers since it's a full sequel. This is exactly what happened with P4 Arena when it came to Xbox 360.
But I know they won't put P5 on Switch because Shin Megami Tensei V is coming to Switch exclusively next year. It's the newest and first HD entry in the SMT series (not counting Persona or TMS#FE) and it needs as much attention as it can get in order to sell well otherwise SMT will no longer be seen as profitable and Atlus will drop it for good. Putting base P5 on Switch will damage any relevance that SMT 5 could potentially get and effectively cause what I just described--poor SMT sales which will lead to the series being dropped.
Which brings me right back around to my original question: Why are they even bothering to promote this game on Nintendo platforms and not let Nintendo platform owners play it? They should be promoting SMT 5 instead--you know--the newest game in the SMT series? The game that Switch owners are actually getting?
God Atlus is so confusing... 🤷
And besides, I just got Fire Emblem Warriors so I wouldn't even really want this.
@JR150 If you want to get technical, Nocturne HD is the first HD SMT game as it already released in Japan, but SMT V is the first brand new HD SMT game. IMO, Atlus should just make both Persona and SMT multi-platform. That way, more people can be introduced to both series instead of having constant wars over exclusives and who deserves to play what. They seem to be heading in that direction with P5S coming to Steam as well (and apparently Nocturne might be coming to Steam as well according to rumors.)
@Kirbo100
True but that's a port lol. But you said that.
And yeah. They need to just put everything on everything. Both SMT and Persona are still very niche compared to franchises like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Monster Hunter, Tales Of, and even Fire Emblem. If they made the entire series multiplat more people would experience and appreciate both instead of having this divide between hardcore SMT and diehard Persona fans.
Not everyone has enough money to buy multiple consoles...
This game honestly feels like it's just on Switch to justify Joker in Smash Bros. It's probably not like that but it sure feels that way when there's no proper P5 on the system.
If they do put P5/P5R on Switch, SMT V should be ported to PS4 as well. That way, if it gets overshadowed by P5 on Switch, it'll have the PS4 owners who played P5 and want something similar to fall back on.
@Yosher
It's especially darning when you consider that this is a canon sequel to P5 which isn't even on Switch. People like me who only have a Switch won't understand the relationships and story beats that the characters share. The Persona director stated that all you need to do is watch the anime or read the manga to get the story. Except there are two problems.
1. The anime skips over a lot of the base game from what I've heard.
2. The manga is also incomplete.
If I have to seek outside sources just to understand the story, then the story is already fundamentally flawed from the get-go.
@JR150 There's also the infamous let's play route if people want to catch up on the events of the base game (insert "lol P5 fans haven't played the game" jokes here). But yeah, if you have to go to external sources just to get caught up with the story then maybe you messed up somewhere. P5 should've been ported to Switch back in 2019 when P5 was in the spotlight after Joker's Smash debut and then released P5S. I'm sure part of the reason P5S didn't do as well on PS4 in Japan (besides the fact that the Switch version doesn't run/look as good as on PS4) is because the original wasn't on Switch so the only market that it appealed to on Switch was the people who played it on PS4 and bought the Switch version for portability.
@Kirbo100
Honestly this could've all been avoided if they either made all the Megami Tensei franchise games available on all platforms.
Or, and more simply:
Just make P5S a non-canon "what-if" scenario like Persona Q/Q2 was. That way, people without a PS4 can experience a fresh take on the characters without prior context being a mandate. But no, gotta make it a direct sequel for that money...
@JR150 The anime is legitimately bad. Comparing it to an 80 hour game is obviously unfair but it doesn’t even stand on its own two feet as a good anime. I think we might perhaps see a PC port of Royal at least but I dunno why it’s not on Switch. At the same time, if Persona 5 goes on Switch then it’s a bit unfair for SMT V to be an exclusive. I dunno, as a long-term MegaTen fan in general, the hype around Persona 5 is somewhat grating, especially seeing people describe themselves as ‘Persona fans’ despite only having watched a playthrough of Persona 5 on YouTube and played as Joker in Smash. As much as it would be good for Persona 5 to come to Switch, I kinda hope they put 3 and 4 on there first in order to encourage more people to play the earlier games in the series as they stack up really quite favourably against 5.
Just like puyo puyo tetris itsa JP only demo Sucks.
@nessisonett
My only experience with Atlus so far has been Tokyo Mirage Sessions. I loved that game, and it has me interested in playing the other games. But the way they treat this exclusivity thing is annoying. If everyone on all platforms could play these games, MegaTen would be three times as popular as it currently is.
(TMS is a bit different since it contains Fire Emblem which is a Nintendo IP but still.)
I just want to play their games without having to buy a new console. It's ridiculous.
@JR150 I just want some of Atlus' other series to get some new games. Trauma Center hasn't gotten a new game in a decade. Etrian Odyssey won't get any more games (well that one makes sense as it's gameplay centered around the DS). It kinda sucks that Atlus games that aren't connected to SMT/Persona don't get as much attention or marketing (I mean the games they make themselves and not with other companies like Vanillaware)
@Kirbo100
Trauma would be perfect on Switch given the touchscreen. Etrian Odyssey is also dead. Power Instinct was a really neat fighting game with the final boss actually being a devil summoner. And Growlanser...is nonexistent.
Even the SMT-adjacent franchises like Devil Survivor, Devil Summoner, Strange Journey, and Raidou Kuzunoha haven't been pushed very well. TMS#FE is a victim of pure circumstance and bad marketing and the Wii U.
But hey! It doesn't matter because they can just slap Joker and Morgana onto anything and call it a day, right?
Being a fan of this company can't be fun...
@JR150 NGL, I really just want them to move on from P5 already. It was a solid game and all, but just move on, Atlus. Make P6. You already milked P5 as hard as P4 in half the amount of years it took you to milk P4. Hopefully after they finish SMT V, they start making P6 and more SMT games, but knowing Atlus, P6 won't come 'till like 2026 and SMT even longer.
They should also try to work on releasing their games worldwide at the same time instead of making western fans wait 6 months to a year for a localisation.
@Kirbo100
It's funny you bring that up because SMT V is going to be the first Atlus game in their history to release worldwide on the same day.
Gee, I wonder why...
@JR150 Hopefully it's a sign that they're done with the obsolete business model of non-worldwide releases. I don't get why they haven't been doing that since they were bought by Sega a while back. We'll have to see if they apply this to future games or if it's just a one time thing for SMT V. Hopefully it's not just a one-time thing.
@Kirbo100
Part of me also thinks Nintendo has something to do with it. Seeing as this was one of the games that they announced at the Switch presentation back in 2017. In fact, it's the only game from that presentation that hasn't released on Switch yet. So Nintendo probably wants that parity. FE Three Houses (the first FE game to release worldwide on the same day) is the best selling entry in the series for a reason.
@JR150 Ngl, they should've waited a little bit to announce SMT V. They announced it, then proceeded to not say anything about it for 3 years. At the very least give us more teasers to keep the hype up instead of just telling us "Yeah, its still in development. Don't worry." every time people asked.
"Hey, Atlus, I'm a Nintendo fan and I want you to put Persona 5 on the Switch. In order to convince you to do this, I'm going to refuse to buy other Persona 5-branded games you release on the console. Once you see flabby sales numbers for this version of Persona 5 Strikers, you'll realize the Switch is a great platform for Persona games in general. Right?
"...right?"
@Ralizah I'm going to assume you're tired of people asking for P5 on Switch (which is fair, not gonna argue with you there). If they want to test the waters for Persona on Switch, they should do it with a mainline game instead of a sequel to a game that isn't on the platform. I already played the game but I hope it comes to Switch so more people can experience it.
@Kirbo100 Not really. Just pointing out the obvious: boycotting Persona 5 Strikers on Switch is only going to make it a lot less likely that Atlus ports Persona 5 to Switch.
Interestingly, the news that the game is going to Steam was received much more warmly by the PC gaming community. They seem eager to support the release.
Oh wow! People whine over the fact P5 isn’t on the switch. What a shock.
Guys, if you insist that you need to play Persona 5 first and somehow haven't already: You can buy a good condition PS3 and a copy of Persona 5 for around $70. That isn't much more expensive than P5S is gunna be new. Your complaints are exactly the same as if any sequel to a franchise is on a different console (Like RE4 being on PS2 but RE5 being on PS3) if ya wanna play the prequel THAT bad just buy the console it's on. Not every sequel is gunna be on the prequels console. No-one's complaining that Age of Calamity isn't on Wii U. Same thing.
@Aya-chan No offence but those aren't great examples. RE4 gets ported to other consoles all the time (including PS3) and while the Wii U doesn't have Age of Calamity, they don't need it to understand BOTW as it isn't a heavily story driven game unlike P5.
Played the Japanese demo and I'll probably just buy this game. It's fun and seems very deep.
Tap here to load 40 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...