Persona 5 Strikers may serve as something of a sequel to Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal, but it has plenty of differences. The most obvious is combat, which imitates the hack-and-slash style of Dynasty Warriors, pitting the Phantom Thieves against huge swaths of enemies at once in real-time action. Persona 5 Strikers flourishes in this niche, finding creative new uses for the Phantom Thieves' Personas and signature weapons. Of course, it's not the only difference between Strikers and its predecessors; rather than reusing the Confidant system, Persona 5 Strikers manifests social sim elements through the Bond system.
Both Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal are longer games than Persona 5 Strikers, partially thanks to the Confidant system in which players build relationships with supporting characters over long periods of time. Persona 5 Strikers, by contrast, takes place over a single month, which means it doesn't have room for a full-scale Confidant system. Instead, P-Studio and Omega Force crafted the Bond system, in which players earn points for spending time with the Phantom Thieves. The two systems have a lot of key differences, but the skeleton of the Confidant system still shines through in Persona 5 Strikers' Bond system.
An Overview of Persona 5 Confidants
In Persona 5, Confidants are one of the most important ways that players are meant to spend their time. Scattered throughout Tokyo are several NPCs players can meet and build relationships with. The principle behind the Confidant mechanic is simple: if Joker hangs out with Persona 5 characters during his free afternoons and evenings, he'll get to know them better and gain strength. Persona 5 players will rank up Confidants faster by saying the right thing in conversation, giving gifts to Confidants, and so on.
As players rank up each Confidant, they'll earn a number of abilities. Each member of the Phantom Thieves is available as a Confidant, and many of them get abilities that make them more useful in combat. Other Confidants, like the rogue doctor Tae Takemi and the ex-yakuza weapons dealer Munehisa Iwai, offer players a variety of other bonuses from discounts on items to bonus loot in combat. Not every Persona 5 Confidant is equally potent, but they all have unique niches that make them distinct.
The Confidant system is crucial to Persona 5's storytelling, as these social outcasts remind players what the Phantom Thieves are fighting for. It's not entirely new, since it's an evolution of simpler Social Links from Persona 3 and Persona 4, but it's an invaluable way of making players care about the world they're in. Implementing Confidants into Persona 5 Strikers wasn't pracical, since the game's plot focused very closely on the Phantom Thieves and there wasn't room in the setting or timeframe for Confidants. The Bond system is therefore more simple than Confidants, but it's still a good representation on Persona's themes.
Persona 5 Strikers' Bond Points and Bond Skills
In Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal, players earn points toward an individual Confidant's next rank, but in Persona 5 Strikers, quality time with friends instead generates a resource called Bond Points. These points represent the overall strength of Joker's relationships with his friends, rather than any one relationship in particular. Players earn Bond Points by reaching certain story beats, defeating their enemies in battle, socializing with Joker's friends, or by completing certain side quests.
Players can then spend Bond Points on Bond Skills, a list of 30 unlockable abilities that take the place of perks provided by Confidants. Bond Skills are just as diverse as Confidant perks, offering everything from raw stat bonuses to increased healing from items, or even earning Bond Points more quickly. Not every Bond Skill can be unlocked at the start of the game; instead, several skills are locked until players reach certain parts of Persona 5 Strikers' story, like when players defeat the Monarch of a Jail. Thanks to the relationship between Bond Points and Bond Skills, players are technically almost always working on a Confidant.
The Bond system certainly isn't the same as a Confidant. Each Confidant in Persona 5 has a unique story to tell as Joker gets to know them better, but there's no inherent narrative attached to Bond Points. The skills and points themselves do a good job of making the mechanical side of Confidants work in Persona 5 Strikers, though. If Joker doesn't have a large group of friends to draw strength from because he's on a road trip, it makes sense to focus on building bonds with the Phantom Thieves that he's traveling with.
Persona's Many Takes on Friendship
While Bonds served Persona 5 Strikers well, it doesn't seem likely that this version of Persona's social sim elements will return anytime soon. It was specially adapted to the limitations of Persona 5 Strikers' design and story, meaning it may not be as elegant if applied to another Persona spin-off. After all, if there was a practical way to have miniature Confidants in Strikers, the developers probably would've opted for that instead. Bond Skills were an innovation that sprung out of Persona 5 Strikers' limitations, and while its customization-friendly take on social sim powers could inspire future mechanics, the Bond system probably won't be at the heart of Persona 6.
Confidants, however, will almost certainly go far. Social Links served the previous Persona games well, but the Confidant system has earned praise for making each of the protagonist's potential friends more mechanically significant and distinct. Persona 6 will almost certainly have its own take on Confidants, mixing up the kind of abilities that they offer and possibly even how players go about befriending them. The Bond system will remain a hallmark of Persona 5 Strikers, but that means it'll always be one more thing that makes Strikers unique.
Persona 5 Strikers is available now for PC, PS4, and Switch.