Persona 5 Scramble Japanese Demo Impressions

A demo for Persona 5 Scramble was released on the Nintendo Switch Japanese eshop today! I downloaded the demo and my impressions of it are below.

Recently, I got to play a little of Persona 5 on the PS4. I actually liked it more than I thought I would. I’m still not sure if its a game I want to go out and buy (I played it on PSNow), but I’m glad I got to check it out.

So when a demo for Persona 5 Scramble came onto to the Japanese Switch eshop today, I knew I’d download it. Thank goodness that the Switch is region free and I have a Japanese Nintendo account! Whew.

Well, after playing the demo and finishing it, I have some thoughts on Persona 5 Scramble.

I had heard that this game was supposed to be more like Fire Emblem/Hyrule Warriors and less like a regular Persona game. Thats not the impression I got from the demo at all.

Yes, there are crowds of enemies that you fight like a Warriors game, however Persona 5 Scramble still has a lot of story and some exploration too! The game feels more like Persona 5 meets Astral Chain.

What do I mean by that?

The Persona 5 Scramble demo has animated cutscenes and in-game cutscense much like Persona 5. It also has exploration thats pretty similar to the original  game. It differs though when you get to the combat. The turn-based battle system is gone and replaced by something that feels more like Astral Chain: very fast and action packed.

Although, it does have a menu you can pull up for special moves that reminds me of the original Persona. And also, like mentioned before, the bunch of enemies appearing is like a Warriors game.

Persona 5 Scramble is an interesting fusion of rpg and action. It feels like Persona 5 but with a dash of Astral Chain and the Warriors series.

As for the story, it appears to be a sequel to Persona 5, but I’m not sure. Why am I not sure? Well, I don’t read Japanese. Most of this demo is in Japanese, with only a little bit of English appearing in the menus and one big bit of English in a cutscene. I wish I knew what this game’s story was…

Still, the Persona 5 Scramble demo was neat. I liked the exploration and the combat. I disliked scanning through in-game cutscenes but they were pretty boring since I didn’t know what was happening. Unfortunately, the animated cutscenes could not be skipped. They were very nice looking though.

That brings to the game’s graphics: Persona 5 Scramble’s animated scenes look as good as the PS4s in my opinion. Its in-game graphics though? I don’t think they were as good as the original game’s graphics. Still, Scramble is not a bad looking game.

And finally, the length of the demo isn’t super short but its not that long either. I think it took me about an hour to finish the demo. I have a good feel for what the game is though. I think Persona 5 fans are going to like this one a lot.

Persona 5 Scramble has not been announced for the West yet. I think it will appear over here though since Joker is in Smash! Hopefully this same demo will appear on the US eshop in English.

What do you think of Persona 5 Scramble? Are you looking forward to it?