Take Your Heart! Err… I mean, Stand!
After a lengthy period of relative silence and mobile game appearances, the Phantom Thieves make a glorious return to our screens! A string of popularity and success continues for Atlus’ favourite rebellious teens as they re-join our systems for a “revolutionary” new title.
I love Persona, first falling into the abyss when I was given Persona 4 Golden as a Christmas present one year, after I’d read about the style of the now famous franchise and needing a new JRPG fix. I played it to death before buying Persona 3 Portable, and buying every release since, at one point facing a particularly gnarly 37 hour session of Persona 5 when it first arrived in the UK. I even downloaded some mobile games just because they had crossovers.. You can imagine my excitement when yet another new Persona game was announced.
Persona 5 Tactica is the latest release, and genre tackled, in Atlus’ saga of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts and it landed with tremendous response. Persona 5 Tactica blends fan favourite characters with an X-COM like gameplay style that oozes fun, challenge and tactics while still dripping in Persona 5’s typical style and flair.
Taking place after the events of the main game, the big bad was defeated and the Metaverse disappeared, along with the friends’ powers. The group are talking about their plans before Joker returns to his parent’s home after the end of term, suddenly a strange event happens and the Phantom Thieves are pulled into yet another wacky adventure. Finding themselves back in The Metaverse and in a sort of French-coded town, they are encountered by a threat greater than they had to date: A groomless bride called Marie… who also… turns out to be a maniacal despot that can dominate people’s minds. She bests our heroes, brainwashing almost all of the Phantom Thieves, and hope seems lost until the mysterious Erina appears and saves “Joker” and “Mona” before recruiting them to The Rebel Corps.
Interestingly in this instalment, the P5 protagonists take more of a side role, allowing much more development to be given to the new characters: Erina – the leader of the Rebel Corps, and Toshiro – a member of the Japanese Diet (a sort of councilman). A rather daring but intelligent move, as Atlus have been able to tackle a new genre and story under the Persona 5 brand.
Erina is very just, confident, self assured but sometimes a bit reckless, consistently putting herself in harm’s way to save her comrades and not always thinking her plans through fully.
Toshiro in contrast is prone to panic, quick to flee and takes more of a backseat, initially acting as the squad’s tactician, alongside the navigator Futaba, but as the story unfolds, his confidence grows and it’s honestly really good character development. Toshiro and Erina take up most of the conversations and an early focus is placed on Erina’s weapon; The Partisan spear which doubles as a flag, and is the only thing that can stop Marie’s control over the land.
Speaking of the lands, in P5T the Metaverse is everywhere, but instead of fighting in enclosed spaces or Castles like in the original title, or Persona 5 Strikers’ Jails, P5T’s levels are called Kingdoms and each has a different visual theme and new enemies to best.
Gameplay wise, P5T takes a new approach and tackles the tactics genre, though it’s different from genre titan Fire Emblem in lieu of a sort of a more forgiving X-Com or Mario & Rabbids. Each tile map features a swathe of enemies, obstacles, hazards and, of course, our strike team. Each turn your team can move to any square in their range, and either attack via gun or melee or use skills from the Rebels’ Persona.
Similarly to the Persona Q spin offs, something strange has happened to the power of the Wild Card – The source of Joker’s power – in the kingdoms that causes our protag to be unable to change persona, and instead allows him and his compatriots to equip sub-personas to increase their stats and unlock more skills. The combat is mainly gun focused and alongside having infinite ammo now, the battle maps are dotted with various obstacles that can be used as cover to minimise or negate damage from incoming fire, and some interactable items like explosives that can forcibly move your opponents into a more exploitable position. Shooting or attacking an enemy that isn’t in cover grants that party member a coveted “Once More” allowing them to move once again in your turn.
Melee combat is risky but allows you to knock enemies out of hiding and sometimes into each other for some damage, but also grouping them up for some tasty AOE damage. Finally, Persona/Skills are your spells/ buffs or special attacks which have varying degrees of flashy imagery to accompany them. Scoring a critical hit, or knocking enemies down can also allow you to get your team into a triangle formation and opt for an All-Out Attack, dealing huge AOE damage to any unfortunate enemies that find themselves in your team’s sights.
Using all the tools at your disposal it’s easy to claim victory and secure the Rebel Corps goal of freedom. The game can also be challenging; I played on Hard mode, meaning I dealt less damage, took more and had less Baton Passes – P5T’s extra life mechanic. We can only use 3 teammates per map, and if one is defeated, you can Baton Pass in a new unit from your roster, keeping your options open in dire straits.
Outside the fantastic combat, we have The Hideout which strangely resembles Café LeBlanc wherein all our team’s prep takes place. Here we can buy new guns, enter the Velvet Room to summon and fuse new personas, spend skill points to make our squad more formidable by upping their stats and skills, and chat with our squad mates in supplementary chats I assume took the place of the social link moments and mechanics from, the original game. We also have “Quests” challenge maps to help you master the game’s mechanics and hone your tactical mind and the option to replay beaten levels to complete the sub-missions or farm certain Personas.
The visuals of Persona 5 Tactica manage to keep its sleek flair and iconic style even with the new designs. They do resemble their Persona Q counterparts somewhat though in many cases the 2D portraits seem more animated. The animated cutscenes are fantastic and even the in-game cutscenes run smoothly to the point where I ploughed through the game eager to see the next one. The fun new appearance of the thieves, unique enemies and even the redesign of the Velvet Room really make it stand out, even by Persona standards. The painted interior of LeBlanc is gorgeous and perfectly captures the iconic location whilst not damaging the immersion of the cartoon portrait filled conversations. The levels are perfectly serviceable, nothing being too overwhelming or distracting during gunfights and escape runs, and the Persona designs are still just as cool as ever.
For fans of Persona’s musical stylings, you will be pleased to know that Persona 5 Tactica has once again brought fire from the recording booth. Our fearless heroes once again lovably voiced by the original cast, and joined by the brilliant Leeanna Albanese (Erina) and MacLeod Andrews (Toshiro) the Phantom Thieves keep their stalwart friendship and mannerisms even in these dire circumstances. A large section of the dialogue is fully voiced and everyone here gives a really good performance. The OST is once again full of bangers with Lyn returning with several amazing songs to bless us upon loading the game and during some very hype moments. The Atlus sound team have crushed it once again, and they have solidified themselves a spot on my morning commute playlist with their new works.
In its pre-patched state, the game performs extremely well with no crashes or noticeable frame drops. I enjoyed the game in both portable and handheld modes. I will say the game does take more than a few seconds to load in the transitions between battles and dialogue, but it’s not too much of a bother really, unless you’re stuck retrying some of the more clinical quests, like the trial to have Erina escape in only 1 turn. It does eat through battery somewhat, getting around 5-6 hours of gameplay from a fully charged Nintendo Switch™. It’s not a huge game for the amount of content you get either, with a storyline easily around 40 hours long for about 7.1GB it won’t make a huge dent in your storage either.
Verdict
Persona 5 Tactica is a solid entry to both the Persona 5 mythos and the Tactical RPG genre in general, welcoming both new players and old fans. Though playing the original game is probably a good recommendation before diving into this title, P5T does a good enough job at welcoming you into the story without relying too heavily on the franchise it stemmed from. Shifting the narrative’s focus onto Erina and Toshiro was a daring, yet successful gambit and the Phantom Thieves feel at home just as they have in all their previous ventures. I’ve really enjoyed my revolution and I hope you do too if you decide to pick it up.
Si vis pacem te ipsum vince.
Where to Buy
- Currys
- Price: £19.99
- Link: https://tidd.ly/4bTMYwr
- Hit.com
- Price: £22.85
- Link: https://tidd.ly/3VglWtF
- Amazon UK
- Price: £26.69
- Link: https://amzn.to/4bQSZK4
#AffiliateLinks – Prices correct at time of publishing.
Credits
Written by Luke Young
Edited by Mark McAllister and Jen Griffiths
Graphic Template by Paul L. Russell
A copy of this game was provided by the publisher for this review.