A revolutionary spin-off that merges tactics with Persona’s magic | Review - Persona 5 Tactica

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✨Overview From its indie spin-off roots to its present status that I would describe as the current flagship JRPG game series, Persona has undeniably come a long way. Now, it is venturing into even more genres with successful experiments, beginning with games like Persona 5 Strikers featuring real-time combat and, most recently, Persona 5 Tactica, adopting a Final Tactics-style grid-based combat system. 🟩Pros

+The best turn-based combat mechanics for Persona ever made +Highly strategic combat +Fast paced missions and full of action +Sleek user interface and presentation +Simple, neat, and refreshing visuals 🟥Cons

-No slice of life elements -Assumes you played Pesrona 5 and knows its characters, not standalone or newcomer friendly ⭐️Score: 8/10

📖Story and Premise

Tactica's narrative is set within the events of Persona 5 itself, placing players in the shoes of the Phantom Thieves as they embark on an unexpected journey, the story takes a detour from the main Persona 5 storyline, presenting itself as a somewhat of a big side quest before Persona 5 ends. A mysterious occurrence suddenly transports the Phantom Thieves to the Kingdoms, an unfamiliar world with a European cityscape that looks very French-Revolution-era inspired. The introduction of Legionnaires and the rebel figure "Erina" kickstarts a revolution, thrusting players into a plot that explores uncharted territory. Unfortunately, the game isn’t really standalone narrative wise and not newcomer friendly. It assumes you’ve already played the mainline game Persona 5 and know the characters, and just jumps straight right into the middle of its story. So, I wouldn’t recommend to play this if you haven’t played at least a good chunk of Persona 5. 🎨Graphics and Art Style

The graphics retain the cel-shaded anime style reminiscent of Persona 5, but there is a huge difference in the art style across the board. The characters now sport a Chibi art style, appearing more cartoonish and childish. For those familiar with the series, this art style resembles that used in the Persona Q games. The Chibi style is also reflected in character artwork during dialogues and cutscenes. For someone transitioning from the mainline Persona 5 game, familiar faces will now be seen transformed into Chibi form. Personally, I am not a fan of this change, but looking at it objectively, it offers a simple, neat, and refreshing visual approach. 🎮Gameplay

Persona 5 Tactica is a tactical role-playing game, as mentioned before — it’s much like Final Fantasy Tactica, with hints of similarities to XCOM when it comes to ranged attacks and using cover. The game presents a top-down grid layout for battles, emphasizing strategic positioning and environmental considerationsike taking cover. Still, It utilizes some familiar mechanics of the Persona series, such as Persona abilities and One Mores during downs or critical hits. This is all done without any point and click mechanics. Instead, during turns, players can freely move their units within their movement range (and switch between all three characters), and perform actions such as melee or ranged attacks. They then can finalize their turn once they’re satisfied. Up to three party members engage in combat, and this time, the protagonist is not always needed in the party. Three combatants can create a triangular area to target enemies, which is called a All-Out Attack — which is another franchise staple. This game is much more focused now on the combat and narrative side. The slice-of-life elements are gone and taking a break for now; no more attending classes, befriending people, and just messing around the city during the day. The mainline games takes care of that. This is one of my favorite aspects of the series, so its unfortunate not to have it this time, but as this is just a spin-off game, its kinda okay. ⚔️Combat

Persona 5 Tactica's combat system distinguishes itself with a blend of turn-based strategy and environmental manipulation. The grid-based layout and the incorporation of One More mechanic from Persona 5 introduce a unique and satisfying twist to battles. Displacing enemies from cover, leveraging persona abilities to inflict status effects, and orchestrating chain and triple threat attacks form the core of the combat strategy. Combat remains consistently engaging, with the introduction of new mechanics, enemy types, and powers throughout the game. It’s not always defeat all enemies to progress, sometimes you just have to survive, or escape, or perhaps complete some of the missions challenges, like complete the mission under a specific amount of turns. The continuous evolution of mission mechanics ensures that players are kept on their toes, making each encounter feel fresh. ⏫Progression

Persona 5 Tactica excels in providing a satisfying progression system, once again, The Velvet Room — another series staple — is back, offering players a robust set of customization options. Each character can equip two personas simultaneously and the familiar fusion system of personas introduces uniquely powerful firearms, expanding the arsenal of tools available for players to experiment with. Persona games are always very long games, and this isn’t an exemption. Expect around 40 hours for the main story alone. Personally, I haven’t fully completed it yet, as I do like to take my time in these kinds of game. But so far, after literally going in blind, I was pleasantly surprised with my experience. (Just to share, A friend who’s a big fan of Persona always kept sending me gameplay videos leading to the release, especially that he has played it in a booth a few weeks ago. I basically semi-ignored these footages and didn’t pay much attention to it.) 📜Is this the future of Persona?

Honestly, the gameplay here is probably my preferred option for general turn-based combat goodness, as it introduces unit positions and the environment to the equation. It’s actually already feeling close to Baldur’s Gate 3’s combat, and I feel that if both Atlus and its fans are open enough to the idea, it’s probably the next logical step in Persona’s evolution. It could really be a potential system to use for Persona 6. It’s still turn-based, but you get more layers of strategy to it without feeling being overcomplicated. 📊Technical Performance

Persona 5 Tactica performed beautifully on my Xbox Series S and PC, even supporting my 144 refresh rate. The game features a sleek user interface, beautiful cutscenes, and exceptional voice acting, all wonderfully done. The games animations are buttery smooth. And the game is overall very well polished upon release. ⚖️Conclusion

The story is not as standalone as I would like it to be, and there’s no slice-of-life elements in it. Still, with 2023 already packed as it is, Persona 5 Tactica not only holds its ground but stands out as both literally and figuratively a revolutionary spin-off that successfully merges tactical gameplay with Persona’s magic. If you still have time for another game in this jam-packed year and is already a fan of at least Persona 5 to begin with, then this is an absolute must play. You might be very well be seeing the future of Persona here.

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