168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Persona 5 is a strange game. It's practically a series unto itself - a series within the Persona series, like a play within a play, with endless games expanding on, following on from, riffing on, and developing Persona 5 as a mythos. I've written before about how much I love the reverence with which Atlus treats Persona 5, revisiting it in ways that expand on the experience rather than just cashing in, and while I felt the time was right to move onto Persona 6 already, the fact we're getting 1♍68澳洲幸运5开奖网:yet another Persona 5 game later this year alongside 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:🤪another Atl𓄧us game, Metaphor: ReFantazio, next year makes it all okay. Howev🀅er, I just have one question - where the hell is Kasumi?
Persona 5's life cycle started off fairly straight-forward. First it was released in Japan, then a few months later came to the West. It's probably the last Persona game that will have a staggered launch following its success, but it was a fairly regular occurrence at the time. After this came Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, a rhythm game where you could make all of the Phantom Thieves dance to jazzy tunes. We're starting to get a little stranger now, but Persona 4 already had a game like this, and a version for Persona 3 (Dancing in Moonlight) launched alongside it, so we're still in normal territory here.
Then you have Persona 5 Royal. This was a remastered version of Persona 5, coming just three years after the base game. However, rather than how we typically think of remasters as updating older games visually and mechanically for modern audiences, Royal styled itself as a definitive edition of the game. The story was tweaked with more depth and stronger iterations of many characters, the world was more established with more room to roam, and certain foibles like Morgana telling you to go to sleep all of the time were ironed out. Crucially, this game also added Kasumi to the Phantom Thieves, as well as changing Akechi's storyline.
I won't spoil Kasumi's story if you haven't played Royal, but she has a transformative impact on the narrative. She has one of the best written character arcs in the game, and after you've played Royal, the Phantom Thieves just don't feel complete without her as a member. So if the rhythm spin off and remaster three years after the original weren't enough, here's where the weirdness kicks in - after Royal came Strikers, a musou action game that acts as a direct sequel, taking place after the canon Persona 5 ending and seeing the Phantom Thieves in the summer after school has ended. Neither Kasumi nor Akechi are in the game.
Despite Royal being the 'true' version of events in Persona 5, it's the base game that Strikers builds on. This is not just a silly romp as Dancing in Starlight is, either. Strikers is, narratively, a sequel. It's a must play for any fan. It's the next book in the series. It’s Persona 5 2. Royal is not Persona 5 2, it's meant to replace Persona 5. Yet the sequel continues on from the vanilla version, which is tough to wrap your head around logically, and means we get nothing more on Kasumi.
Persona 5 still is not done, and so along comes Persona 5 Tactica. Again, we have no Kasumi. It's difficult to tell if this game is 'canon', whatever that means for something like Persona 5, and if Strikers features in its timeline. It might be in between Persona 5 and Strikers, or after Strikers, or ignore Strikers completely and take place at roughly the same time as it. We meet a new, as yet unnamed, character in the trailer, who works for the Rebel Core, but even as we see shots of the whole team together, Kasumi is notably absent - as is Akechi, which seems to confirm this is a follow-up to the base Persona 5 version. Seeing as Strikers is also attached to this version, it still leaves that timeline question unanswered and leaves me with the same question I asked at the start - where the hell is Kasumi?
While Strikers would have been in development alongside Royal, meaning the teams might not have been able to plan for one to be a sequel of the other, Tactica will not have had that issue. It has been four years since Royal and it is universally known as the version to play, whether you're a fan looking to dive in or want to experience the world for the first time. Persona 5 Royal is Persona 5. Persona 5 is just Persona 5 Lite. But Tactica doesn't understand that. I'm looking forward to one last dance with the Phantom Thieves, but Kasumi should be on the floor with us.