Persona 5 Tactica: Review – Where Style Meets Strategy… and Sometimes Misses the Mark

Reviewed On: PS5
Also Available On: Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series, Xbox One, PS4, and PC
Price: $59.99 USD
Developer: P-Studio
Publisher: Atlus
Release Date: November 17, 2023

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Atlus has made a franchise that has touched many JRPG lists of favorite games of all time. Persona 5 Royal is one of my favorite titles I have ever played because of how every piece in the adventure connects. For context with my experience with the Persona 5 universe, I have played and got the platinum trophy on Persona 5 (henceforth shortened to P5), P5 Royal, P5 Strikers, P5 Dancing, and now the newest addition, Persona 5 Tactica (henceforth shortened to P5T). Honestly, P5T is a good tactics game, but in terms of the kind of vibes the Phantom Thieves normally portrays, is at times a bit lackluster; and that is very unfortunate.

The Phantom Thieves are transported into the first kingdom (Marie’s) after a quick scene in Leblanc plays out. Marie takes control of Skull and the rest of the Phantom Thieves, excluding Joker and Mona. They get into a tough spot and a new character named Erina eventually comes out to help. She has been fighting back against Marie for a while with the Rebel Corp and recruits Joker to put an end to Marie’s rule and save the rest of the Phantom Thieves. After taking down Marie and figuring out connections to Toshiro, another new character, they get teleported to another world and must do the same thing in that world; stop the ruler, find connections, and then move to the next. After the third one, the true boss of the game comes out and many truths come to light.

The story of P5T is one that revolves around new characters Erina and Toshiro. Toshiro is from the real world where Joker and the rest of the main crew come from; while Erina is not. Where these kingdoms come from is explained at the beginning of the fourth area, but it wasn’t that surprising when putting pieces together of what you learn throughout the adventure. Each kingdom has a ruler that is connected to Toshiro that must be stopped. Also, Erina’s identity was a bit more of a mystery and I was happy with that part of the story. The story was honestly a bit weaker than I thought it should’ve been even with the new characters, and the plot points are somewhat predictable.

In terms of building a game, the story is only one of the many aspects of having a terrific experience. Another massive aspect is the actual gameplay and intricacies throughout your adventure. Many aspects of the gameplay will progress as you finish the kingdoms leading up to the final area. First off, before getting to battles and quests, let us explore the Velvet Room with Lavenza. To obtain new personas in this game, you get them as rewards for completing main missions and side missions. Using these personas, you can fuse and unlock newer and more powerful ones as long as your level is high enough. You can also use them in fusions to obtain more powerful weapons. You can also purchase personas you already have unlocked in the compendium if you need them again. Replaying missions will also reward you with personas as well. Grinding for these wasn’t ever a problem for me, but some of the fusions are tricker and you might need a guide to get to 100%.

Before we get to the battles, let’s talk about some of the intricacies of the menus and options in the game. One of these is the ability to check your party, skills, and equip personas and weapons. Pretty standard stuff here so I won’t dive too into that. Another thing is each of the main cast can put one sub-persona that allows you to get either passive skills or active skills. That unfortunately includes Joker and he is only able to hold one additional persona on his character on top of Arsene, but you can hold up to 25 personas in your stock once you get far enough. Now, if you play correctly and fuse the right personas with the right skills, there is no massive issue. So it is a trade-off, but since you only get three people in each battle you only get up to three extra personas at once.

The skill tree, which is critical for winning the game, is another part that needs attention. To get points for the skill trees, you need to complete the “Talk” section in the safe area. Most of these are not voiced and just have speech-bubbled texts that go through a certain conversation or topic that will vary between different areas and parts of the main game. My big problem with these is that they don’t have the same fun feel of the one-on-one confidant communications in the main game. There were some great moments that I thoroughly enjoyed and saw the true group dynamics displayed. However, most of them were just there for getting GP for the skill tree, in my opinion, and weren’t really that good. Some of the imagery of the thieves’ facial expressions had more feeling than the words rushing on the screen without voice acting, which says a lot about the value put into these moments.

The other way to get the points needed is to complete the quests which many are a lot trickier than the main game battles. This includes defeating enemies in one turn, moving items to a goal section, and other trickier situations than main awards in the 51 battles throughout the adventure. Completing these also rewards you with other things like unlocking exclusive persona fusions, including the best persona of the game; Satanael. This makes them something you definitely should not be skipping over whatsoever.

In terms of the actual battles, it is fairly simplistic to understand based on the two battles that I have captured which are shown below. Basically, you start a battle and have to defeat a group, or multiple groups of enemies to win, or survive for enough rounds. None of them have a time limit, but there are turn limits that you have to meet to either win the battle or get all of the awards for the battle. If you ever miss an award, you can replay any level except for the bosses (these don’t have awards to worry about thankfully). Getting all the awards was never a challenge but they reward you with extra experience or money so it is important to try. In combat, you have a physical attack, a ranged attack, a persona attack with different types based on the thief you chose, and an all-out attack. One more! attacks, covering behind objects, movement range, and more are also key in battles. None of the battles on Normal, or even Hard, honestly ever challenged me for the main story, which was a disappointment.

The art in the game is mostly great with only a few gripes in all honesty. The colors pop well with the characters all shining; especially since they were turned to the “Chibi” based look in this adventure. I think it was a good idea for them not to just copy the look that was already in P5 or P5R, or even the looks of P5S or P5D, and try a whole new style. I respect when they aren’t just sticking to the look that worked because they can. They nailed the art of the different areas and maps as well with each having at least a tiny bit of a different feel, even if the worlds or levels felt or looked a tad repetitive sometimes. Maybe reducing how many levels were in the first and second worlds and adding another kingdom with an entirely different look would have helped in the game for more variety. I get what the story was about but there was a possibility to play on another person that you met in the game. The cutscenes were terrific throughout, but the environments were a mixed bag with how few there were for variety, especially in Kingdoms Three and Four. Overall the art was good, but definitely not as great as I hoped.

The music of P5 and P5R are absolutely terrific. Strikers is also great. The dancing game is not good, and this one falls in the middle of them all. There are some nice parts to the soundtrack, but honestly, I was listening to the main P5R tracks since the score got old replaying the levels for grinding certain things. The boss music was good, but not like P5R levels of greatness. The score in this game was unfortunately a bit worse than I was hoping after the great introduction song, which I really liked. The sound design and voice acting, on the other hand, are both absolutely well-crafted and I have no complaints with them. The returning cast plays their roles terrifically even in the basic bubble still scenes which comprises a lot of the story. The new voice actors for the characters of Marie, Erina, Toshiro, and all the others are also superb as well.

The story of Toshiro might be a very interesting concept and one that showcases his issues that lead up to a very similar situation with everyone else in The Phantom Thieves. However, it is a bit predictable for some of the plot points that come up, but thankfully there are some surprises sprinkled throughout. If I am being truly honest, these three kingdoms, and the final area, are a bit drawn out. The gameplay from the velvet room and tactics battles are fun, but the feeling that I loved meeting one-on-one with each of the characters and having conversations is lacking here and it hit a sour spot for me. The music isn’t as good as the main game, but still definitely better than P5D. The voice acting and performance on PS5 are terrific with the art being great, minus the lackluster variety of area designs. I enjoyed my time with Tactica, but I am not sure it was enough for me to fork over $20 more to purchase the day-one DLC to see Kasumi and Akechi.

Review Score: 7.5/10