We’re less than three months away from the release of Persona 5 Tactica, the most successful next installment in Atlus’ Persona JRPG series to date. This title is a far cry from other Persona 5 spinoffs like Persona 5 Strikers or Persona 5: Dancing Star Night, because while both games maintain a similar visual style to the original title, Tactica opts for a more “chibi” Character design, big eyes and big head, but with a lot of charm. It’s also a new genre that expands the series, which is why it’s one of the must-see spots in our Gamescom 2023 coverage.
As the name suggests, the P5T is atacticsStrategy game, we had a chance to try out a few levels in this story that takes place after the events of Persona 5 Royal. In the first scene, we see the Phantom Thieves as a group of friends who have to deal with difficult times of separation when each of them plans to go to different colleges or jobs. That’s when the Metaverse came into its own again and transported the team to a new location where they found themselves separated. At this point Joker, Skull, and Morgana walk us through the combat tutorial, showing us the basics of combat.
At this point in the short demo I had access to, I figured I’d find an experience similar to the Fire Emblem series (at least in the basics), but the truth is, for the first few seconds, everything is very similar to XCOM The game is much more similar, most importantly, to Mario + Rabbids. Our character has several stages of his turn, in which we first have to move around the stage to find a cover position to protect us from enemy projectiles damage while allowing us to make ranged or melee attacks. The former are usually the easiest to execute since, depending on the range of the weapon, you can execute them from cover without putting your character in danger. The melee attacks are more powerful, but logically they force you to throw yourself at the enemy, leaving you unprotected.
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Then there are the special abilities, characters from each character. We can attack, heal allies, and imbue props. Our characters and enemies also had resistances and weaknesses to elemental damage, just like in the role-playing aspect of the game, so you don’t have to keep too many aces around if the fight gets tough. Triggering a weak point effect or a critical strike will allow you to perform additional actions, so it’s best to experiment with different actions and effects for each enemy.
Additionally, each mission has optional side objectives that invite a second playthrough if you complete them (such as completing a level below a certain number of turns), though for us, time is tight and we 20 minute slot, so I headed to the second part of the demo where I was able to try some advanced strategies.
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The second part takes us to a more advanced part of the game, as here Skull disappears and is replaced by Erina, the new protagonist of Persona 5 Tactica. It was on her that we experimented with “triple threading,” an attack in which we could deal devastating damage to groups of enemies if they were within the triangle formed between the strategic positions of our three active characters. This “Ultimate Attack” can greatly shorten combat times, but sometimes requires putting party members in a more vulnerable position.
Getting used to these turning and movement patterns becomes intuitive in the first few minutes of gameplay, and Persona 5 Tactica is closer to the Mario and Rabbids series than XCOM, making Phantom very accessible to the general public who may not be familiar with the genre and want to continue their adventures Thieves. As for the Persona 5 Tactica story, we haven’t seen anything else yet, but the enemies and stage design I’ve seen, combined with the anticipation already inseparable from the Persona 5 name, make it the best I’ve seen in Cologne. One of the good demos, I can’t wait for November 17th to come so I can dive straight into it.
