Done with the first two cities. Thoughts:
- Seeing the phantom thieves back together alone is worth the price of admission.
- Atlus has fully embraced the Scooby Doo influence and turned Strikers into a road trip, which is cool, since the game doesn't just take place in a single city.
- At the same time, I'm not a fan of not being able to revisit cities you've already been to. Kind of makes sense, since it's a road trip, but eh.
- Dungeons (so far at least) aren't close to being as complex as the ones from P5, but they succeed in giving the same vibe. The side-scrolling sections are a welcome addition.
- Despite being based on the Musou formula, the combat can be a lot of fun. It's flavored with enough mechanics from P5 that it doesn't seem out of place. May not be a popular opinion, but I hope Atlus builds on this for the next Persona game and doesn't go back to turn-based battles.
- The amount of context-sensitive actions during combat are a little excessive sometimes, getting in the way of performing regular actions mapped to the same button, such as all-out attacks. It looks cool and all, but things get more chaotic as a result.
- The lack of Kasumi is disappointing; would've been nice to see her make a cameo appearance
- Sophie's a nice addition to the cast of main characters. She fits right in with the rest.
- Since this isn't a full blown Persona game, it lacks stuff like the individual one-to-one interactions with other main characters and their side stories.
- The whole student life simulator aspect is also missing, and there are fewer side activities overall. Requests are still there, but none of the ones I've done so far have stood out as interesting.
Overall, it's an 8.0-8.5 / 10 so far.