I might have only 18 hrs of playtime until now but as someone who has spend multiple hundreds of hours into the original base game of Persona 5, I can say for certain that this is a love letter to everyone who has played the base Persona 5 or Persona 5 Royal.


After the events of the main game, the protagonist returns to Tokyo for a visit after he was away for half a year. He and the rest of his Friends decided to go camping after they've got reunited.
While they were gathering equipment for that camping trip, they stumbled across the metaverse yet again but this time, it's used to steal the desires from innocent people to affect them in the real world.
The Phantom Thieves of hearts are back from their hiatus and ready to get those stolen desires back!


Unlike the other persona spin-offs that were either turn based (like the main games) or 2d fighting games, this one is actually a hack and slay with persona traits in it like:
weakness and resist, all out attacks, 1 more, debuffs and buffs, baton pass, the third eye, ambush and of course the ability to switch personas via wildcard (which is Joker).
But they also added many new things that are quite interesting like:
bonds, master arts, showtimes, gaining personas by random drops, being able to use surroundings as an advantage and so on.
The dungeon crawling is also a big part of this game, so be prepared to slice through countless enemies while exploring the cognitive world!


What is there more to say? If you have played the main game, then you know every single persona Ost is a bop and this time it's no exception.

Yearning to hear some good old Persona classics come back, like "rivers in the desert" ? Fear not, this game won't let you down.
You want "last surprise" but more funky? Here you go buddy!
You want new Osts that slap ass? Well with axe to grind and daredevil, there's nothing you can do wrong.
Through the Legacy BGM Dlc which is available through the deluxe edition, it is also possible to change the Battle theme to another one of the previous games.



Even though I haven't played that much hack and slay in general, I still enjoyed this kind of experience.
I think this game is a great addition to the persona franchise and a fresh take on the hack and slay genre.
The only thing I can recommend in addition is playing the main game before touching this game, to improve your understanding of the following story as well some parts of the gameplay.