What's the worst final boss you've ever played? Whether it be shitty mechanics, time-wasting bullshit, unfair attack patterns, a brutal uptick in difficulty till that point, etc. The one that comes to me is a PS2 game I played recently for the first time: Altered Beast
Altered Beast on PS2 is probably the closest thing we'll get to an Animorphs game and is chalk full of interesting ideas and ambitious attempts at adapting unique monsters (with various powers) into gameplay, but for as much cool stuff present, it equally has some things in it that made me want to rage quit and throw my controller against the wall. The final boss is a six-phase gauntlet of misery that has too much HP, too much invincibility frames, outputs way too much damage, and to top it off has very unfair and hard to gauge hit-boxes. If you fail at any of these phases it kicks you back to the save station outside the boss room which you have to wait for the special move meter of your animal form to fill up so you can blast the force field protecting the boss room just to fight the damn boss. Needless to say it gets really old doing this again and again, especially since the boss is no pushover and if you don't know what you're doing, it's likely you'll have to do this multiple times. One problem with the different phases of the boss is that each form it takes is meant to be fought by a specific animal form you've obtained (you basically do minuscule damage if you fight him in the wrong form). The phases of the boss fought on the ground aren't too bad, it's just final flying phase that made me want to pull my hair out. Reason being, this game has some of the worst flying controls i've played in a videogame. To make matters worse are at the mercy of the auto-aim, hoping your attacks actually land since there is no lock-on feature. The the boss also has some of the most BS AoE attacks in the game, and since there are no evasive maneuvers available to you and your flying form moves slow as molasses, you are basically at the mercy of this boss unless you abuse the i-frames on your own special attacks. This boss was such a brutal roadblock and steep difficulty curve that it probably took me longer to get through this boss than play through the rest of this short game. The PS2 era of action games had some shitty bosses, but I think the final boss of Altered Beast takes the cake.
First of all, yes - the title is misleading - this game is practically a bona fide sequel to the original Persona 5 (and with a bit of loose canon wrangling, Persona 5 Royal...maybe). It takes place a few months after Persona 5, and all the phantom thieves return for a new story.
So - the story. Is it a loose rethread/retool of Persona 5? Yes. Do they reference that fact many times? Absolutely, yes. So, at least for me, it gets at least a little bit of a pass. But the sincerity, overall quality, and plain fun (and not too long [!]) nature of it makes it fairly engaging, and the whole road trip, and exploring new locations is really fun compared to the same persona 5 map that you're used too. Although, these locations are quite limited in things and activities to do. Towards the end game, we get some surprisingly emotional moments, and earlier too - the Kyoto jail, and Wolf's story in particular was fantastic, and quite emotional. And that brings me to...
The two new playable characters in this game - Wolf and Sophie, are utterly amazing, dare I say better than even 80% of the original persona 5 cast. Both have excellent development, emotional and very fulfilling arcs, and some great themes and tragedies at play. The interpersonal dynamics are written surprisingly well here too, and, in many cases - gasp - better than Royal! Ryuji's not constantly shat on the whole game, and gets some nice moments here and there. The jokes were much funnier in this (Zenkichi absolutely having a mental breakdown for one) - and overall everything feels much smoother and 'normal' if I can use that. Certain characters form 'connections' with some of the Monarchs over certain themes, and get more development than they did in the original game - THANK GOD for Haru's arc, which I felt was the best of the three explored there. The Monarchs are fine villains, different enough from Palace Rulers and featuring some great tragedies and motivations of their own - especially one Akira Konoe- I MEAN TONY STARK. The voice acting, ESPECIALLY for Wolf, is really great too, although due to being recorded over lockdown, some voices are quite different in volume, especially Fox's, which is barely a whisper.
The gameplay is also really fun. Far from the grindy mess that the dynasty warriors games are (although obviously there is SOME grind, duh) - the gameplay is a sleek and stylish mix of musou and traditional p5 gameplay. A majority of the p5 staples are here - items, SP , Persona management, Velvet Rooms, the works - with almost all nicely altered to fit the action oriented style of the game. The only gripe I had overall was with the kind-of janky lock-on system, and worse fusion compared to even base persona 5 - with base personas needing to be at a SPECIFIC level to fuse them into a new one, which can get REALLY annoying. The bosses are fun and challenging with their unique mechanics, and each character has a pretty diverse and fun play style - joker with his guns, Skull's charge attacks, Sophie's perfect catches, and Wolf's (absolutely broken) Fury mechanic. There are unlockable master arts that add new combos and really make each character fun to play. Sometimes it does feel a bit easy, due to the amount of meals you can cook and with how potent their restorative effects are, but some optional bosses and requests are ridiculously hard - even more so than the final boss, which is quite fun with an amazing design, even though it's an obvious retread. The economy here is much tighter, but you can redo certain requests for cash, which easily allows you put Tony Stark's empire to shame.
The presentation is great. The same flashy style and outrageous lettering from p5 is fully ready and present in this game, with even more flair thanks to fun and character-based showtime attacks, and some really slick combos. But, I would be an idiot if I didn't mention the one way this game absolutely destroys base persona 5 (it's on the same level as royal - damn third semester) - THE MUSIC. heavy metal sounds and guitars GALORE, with Lyn absolutely destroying it on the vocals and songs - everything feels really nice and energetic compared to the often laid-back nature of p5 sometimes. The new songs are stunning (Counter Strike, You are Stronger, Counterfeit Phantom) - and the remixes from P5 are so good that I kinda prefer them sometimes lol (Keeper of Lust, Last Surprise, Rivers in the Desert). The overworld area themes, the jail themes, everything is amazing. The Jails have great theming, though again, I wish there was more to do, both inside and out in the real world. Aside from fighting and some request, there aren't that many side activities - some mini games and hangouts would have gone a long way, especially since there are no social links or stats - a mixed bag of a decision, because the new BOND system gives you great advantages in combat, but doesn't do much else, although it's damn satisfying to see that meter go up after a major story event. Instead, each character gets a special themed request in each area, which are...uh...not good. The Social aspect of this game is honestly the only place where it suffers compared to the original persona 5 , but I get it. You're already fast friends with all these characters, so there's not much to do. But maybe they could have done something.
Overall, Persona 5 Strikers REALLY surprised me. It's shorter than expected, and has a few flaws inherent to the change in genre and retread of the story, but the superb character writing, amazingly fun gameplay, and absolutely BITCHIN' soundtrack make this game how good it is. It's way too good to be obligatory 'Musou spin-off' that every franchise (well, mostly Nintendo) seems to be getting nowadays and is pretty much just a Persona 5 sequel with more action-based (and dare I say sometimes BETTER) gameplay. It's very much worth a shot, and a damn, damn fine game.
Till We Meet Again , Phantom Thieves!
