Atlus and Koei Tecmo held on November 4 the first stream for Persona 5 Scramble The Phantom Strikers, revealings tons of new details. We mot notably saw live gameplay, which we'll detail in this article. Another article with the new story and character details will be coming shortly.

The stream featured Persona 5 Scramble Director Kumabe from Koei Tecmo and Producer Kaneda from Atlus, who shared many comments we summarized as well. Persona 5 Scramble will launch on PS4 and Switch, but all the gameplay shown was running on a PS4. Here's the first live gameplay sequence:

This is Joker fighting in Shibuya Scramble. You can do normal attacks with your short-range weapon, and you can also use guns. When using persona skills, time freezes, and the skill's AOE is displayed. Time is stopped when using guns as well, and you can charge your shot. You can also use persona skills while in mid-air.

Producer Kaneda explained how overall, the key is to keep attacking and moving, to avoid getting surrounded. Playable characters can teleport around at certain points using "Phantom Move". Managing your SP and exploiting weaknesses are the keys to victory, just like other Persona games. As such, there are various ways to attack to avoid spending up all your SP, like using the streetlights you reached with Phantom Move to enact a spinning attack.

Status effect skills like Dormina are also in, as well as Technical damage, and it works the same as in Persona 5. The Phantom Thieves can get affected by status effects as well.

During the gameplay sequences, story cutscenes were skipped to avoid revealing certain details. However, we did get an introduction of the new playable character appearing in Persona 5 Scramble. She's called Sophia, and her Phantom Thief self is codenamed Sophie. We'll have more on her in the follow-up article focusing on story elements.

We also saw how you can blow up certain objects like police cars. Explosions also have the fire attribute, so you can use them to down enemies weak to fire and trigger All-Out Attacks.

At the end of the first gameplay sequence, linked at the time stamp below, we also got to see Joker use a Show Time attack:

Director Kumabe explained Show Time attacks hit all enemies. Each persona Joker can use has a different Show Time attack. Joker can also recruit new persona after defeating them, and persona fusion are also in.

We also learned that Persona 5 Scramble's development in 90% complete. Atlus and Koei Tecmo are entering the final phase of development, with the most important adjustments being made. It was also revealed that they reused certain 3d models from Persona 5 (Royal), but that there are new models as well.

Later on, we got to see another gameplay sequence, this time showing a team with Joker, Sophie, Panther, and Skull:

In Persona 5 Scramble, each character has a different playstyle. For example, Sophie is a character that's easy to play as and suited for beginners, with a lot of long-ranged attacks with her yo-yos. This gameplay sequence most notably shows how you can do "Chance" encounters by attacking Shadows from behind, unmasking them, just like in the original Persona 5. This makes all your attacks critical for a short while, meaning you get to Down enemies faster.

During battles, a party member can ask you if they can use a skill or not, and you can trigger it with the right arrow button.

Certain characters like Ryuji/Skull can also charge up their skills to power them up. Ryuji can, for example, charge his Zio skill to use Mazio instead. He can also activate super armor, so he doesn't flinch when attacked by enemies.

Meanwhile, Ann/Panther uses her whip but is a character focusing on skills and magic attacks. She can use fire attribute attacks with Carmen without using SP, and by pressing Triangle, you can enchant her whip with fire magic. Panther can also debuff enemies' attack power just like in the original.

The gameplay sequence also shows a battle against a mid-boss.

Lastly, we also learned Persona 5 Scramble has different difficulty levels, with an easy mode for those who want to enjoy the story without having a hard time with the battles.

Atlus shared a short video recapping the biggest points about the battle systems:

Another article with the story and character details, most notably who the hell is Sophie, will be coming soon so stay tuned. Update: You can read the story and character details here.

Persona 5 Scramble launches on PS4 and Switch in Japan on February 20. Persona 5 Scramble wasn't announced in the west yet. However, it'll definitely come over. You can check the various commercials for the game and the first trailer here.