We’ve all been wondering what the new Persona 5 titles would turn out to be for a long time. While Persona 5 Royal was pretty obvious, most of the hype and speculation surrounded a mysterious “Persona 5 S,” which many were hoping was a Nintendo Switch port of Atlus’ marquee RPG. Instead, the world was thrown for a bit of a loop when, during a concert performance, Atlus revealed it has been in cahoots with developer Omega Force for Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers.
Yes, the involvement of Omega Force means this is a Musou game, also known by us in North America as Warriors. Omega Force has been in the business of big crossovers for a while now, moving away from the world of anime licenses and into heavy hitters such as The Legend of Zelda and Dragon Quest. This cross section of video game genres is basically a love letter to me personally from the powers to be in all of video games. While I sometimes have mixed feelings on where Persona has gone lately, I’m still pretty excited for what looks like one of the most stylish-looking Musou games yet.
With that in mind, I’ve caught a little bit of a brain bug and am now thinking about all the other RPG properties that would make for some totally great Musou action. From the obvious to the “it sure would be nice if this series still existed,” here are five universes I’d love to smash thousands of enemy grunts in.
Dissidia Final Fantasy (or Just Regular Final Fantasy)
Final Fantasy is the most obvious IP to give the Musou treatment, to the point where I’m honestly baffled it hasn’t happened yet. For one, there’s already a well-established partnership between Square Enix and Koei Tecmo that already includes multiple titles (and should include more). A Musou would only make sense, especially since the Dissidia character designs have become a brand of their own and have begun spilling into works like World of Final Fantasy. While a Dissidia-branded Musou would make the most sense, it would also be cool to see Omega Force put its own spin on these classic characters. Either way, as the Dragon Quest Heroes series proved, the folks over at Omega Force are more than capable of making magic with Square Enix IP.
Castlevania
Look, we all know that Castlevania is in the middle of a small boom period, thanks to the Netflix show. Konami has taken to producing new classic collections featuring the legendary IP, and we all hope that there’s more to this revival than re-releases. Why not hit Koei Tecmo up and collaborate on a Castlavania Musou? The “Metroidvania” titles are well within the RPG realm, and there is also already a precedent for crossovers within the Castlevania timeline. We’ve seen as much in Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, as well as some mobile game that may or may not reach North America. There’s also that Smash Bros. game, which did some really cool stuff with the brand. So, here’s another good excuse to get all those characters together and do something interesting with them.
Suikoden
Whoops, I did a Konami again. It’s a real shame that we just haven’t heard any news about Suikoden since the original games started trickling out onto the PlayStation Store. While that was great for everyone despairing over secondhand pricing for those titles, it only made the pain of knowing the series is effectively dead more prevalent. A Suikoden Musou might backfire for similar reasons, but it’s also worth mentioning how Musou benefits from large character rosters, and a large character roster is a big part of every Suikoden entry. While I doubt a full 108 characters would be feasible in a Suikoden Musou, it would still be awesome to see the massive pool of characters across each game crossover a little bit in a new HD brawler.
Disgaea
I can feel the eyes rolling at the sight of Disgaea, but frankly, I think there’s a lot of potential for a Musou version. The series itself seems alive and well, and it is still one of NIS America’s biggest properties. A Musou would be a cool opportunity to see the NIS house style represented in 3D, which would be cool since all we’ve known is sprites of wildly varying quality for all these years. While Laharl and the first game’s crew have generally appeared across every game, it would also be a fun chance for more crossover shenanigans, since the series leans on fourth wall-smashing humor a lot anyway. Comedy hasn’t really been a thing in Omega Force’s library for the most part (shout out to Warriors All-Stars, though), and a Disgaea Musou would force a lot of that silliness out to the forefront.
Tales
Unlike Suikoden, the Tales series is going strong and has seen some pretty high class, red carpet treatment from Bandai Namco in recent years. Bandai Namco has even dipped its toe into crossover territory already with a mobile game, so it may as well jump head-first into it with a Musou. Tales is also already an action-oriented style of RPG, so there is plenty of character animation data for Omega Force to adapt into its much more over-the-top style. It’s also a series with a very colorful cast of characters, which would make for a fun and visually diverse roster, especially compared to something like Fire Emblem.
There is it; Final Fantasy, Suikoden, Disgaea, Tales Of, and Castlevania get our (my) votes for Musou spinoffs. Following Persona, these seem like the most obvious choices. (Especially since Dragon Quest has already been done.) That said, there are still plenty of other options out there, in series both dead and alive. That’s where the PlayStation Lifestyle readership comes in! Which RPG series do you all think would translate well to a Musou game? Let us know your suggestions, and maybe even toss out a character or two you’d love to run through the Musou battlefield as.
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