Persona 5 Tactica review: Smouldering revolution

Persona 5 Tactica might share a genre with SMT Devil Survivor, Atlus’ other tactics spinoff, but its soul shares more in common with Persona Q, the Etrian Odyssey-inspired dungeon crawler series. It even borrows some of Persona Q's narrative structure and character development, but the battles are closer to what you'd find in Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, rather than a more traditional tactics game like Fire Emblem. That's not a bad thing. Tactica's best moments draw on Persona Q's unorthodox storytelling and character moments. However, it also means Tactica never quite reaches its full potential on or off the battlefield.

Familiar faces

Tactica starts a few weeks before Shujin’s third year students graduate. Yes, we've already seen a graduation story, but Atlus took a leaf out of Nintendo's book of Zelda timelines and decided it never happened. Joker and the Phantom Thieves find themselves hurled into the Metaverse, or something like it, once again as another political conspiracy takes root in Tokyo, and things quickly take a turn for the worse. 

Without going into too many details, Tactica tries picking up Persona 5’s narrative threads about making a better society, and the focus this time is on standing up to injustice, instead of running away and pretending it doesn't exist. In the real world, a shadowy group in Tokyo’s highest political circles wants to sabotage Toshiro Kasukabe, an up-and-coming Diet member who has extensive public support, while tyrants in the Metaverse try extending their authoritarian rule over the shadows and humans who live in its four kingdoms.

Running in place

Tactica’s problem is that it’s less capable of handling those themes than Persona 5 was of handling ideas of justice and rebellion. No one experiences the hardship of standing up to injustice. The idea ends up becoming a slogan instead of a meaningful foundation for a thoughtful story.The existing narrative is just there to push you into more battles.

Like the Persona Q games, Tactica is less about the main Persona cast than it is the newcomers. The Phantom Thieves play an important role in this new Metaverse, but they don’t really grow, learn, or change from it. They automatically know how to help Erina, the Metaverse's brave revolutionary, and have the skills to pull off every strategy, which makes them feel like convenient plot devices and mascots rather than interesting characters. 

Sure, Tactica has hangouts and other bonding moments with party members, but Erina and, to a lesser extent, the politician Toshiro Kasukabe are the main focus. Their stories never reach the same emotional heights as Hikari’s in Persona Q2 or Rei and Zen’s in Shadow of the Labyrinth, though they do complement Tactica’s tale of resisting injustice. 

I get that people are more likely to play a game with characters they recognize, though I can’t help wishing that if Atlus is finished with familiar characters, they should just move on and let someone else take the stage. Tactica’s story could be much stronger if Erina and Toshiro were the two leads learning Tactica’s lessons the hard way.

That probably sounds worse than it really is. Persona 5 Tactica’s story isn’t terrible, even if it does let itself and its characters down. Once I realized the tone Atlus was aiming for early in the first chapter and stopped waiting for any significant character moments, it was easier to just enjoy the game for what it is: an unnecessary, but fluffy, lighthearted, and smartly designed side adventure. 

The Metaverse loosely mirrors some of Tactica's real-world circumstances, but with a generous streak of over-the-top flourishes. The first kingdom, for example, draws on the French Revolution for loose inspiration, with Legionnaire enemies and a cruel tyrant named Marie – that’s Ma-ree-ae, with a third syllable – intent on making everyone her adoring mind servants as she prepares for her perfect wedding in her perfect bridal military lingerie.

Tactica is weird in the same vein as Persona Q, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Characters and big plot moments skew toward the ridiculous and leave the psychoanalysis behind, but like Persona Q, Tactica embraces the silliness and runs with it.  Fun little character interactions are common, like Lavenza pressuring Morgana to say whether her furnace suit is cute or Erina trying to summon her Persona by screaming and attracting nearby guards, and while the character hangouts lack the depth of mainline Persona, I enjoyed them all anyway.

Keep it moving

I also enjoyed Tactica’s turn-based tactics combat, even though it’s almost too simple at times – when it’s not complicating matters with vague tutorials. Tactica gives you a lot of tools to play with from the start, and it doesn’t always explain them or their effects very well. Persona skills all come with an extra status effect. Joker’s Eiha causes despair, while Morgana’s Garu blows enemies onto a different tile, and Erina – Persona-less when you start – has an ability that makes foes forget to act. Figuring out these afflictions’ practical effects happens through practice, as Tactica doesn’t burden itself with explanations. I had no idea what made the Despair effect different from Forgetting for most of the first kingdom or why we needed two powers with different names that essentially did the same thing, incapacitate enemies. But it worked, so I ran with it.

You eventually unlock new powers through Persona fusion, as usual, and while Tactica gets very close to overpowering every character with Persona skills, their high point costs and smart enemy placement mean you (usually) can’t rely on special attacks alone. Normal weapon attacks push enemies back and occasionally knock them down, while you take the space they first occupied. Guns – an afterthought in Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal – have no ammo limitations and let you soften enemies before you get close enough for other attacks, assuming they aren’t behind full or half cover.

Positioning is the most important part of any strategy and elevates Tactica’s rather simple stages by making you think carefully about every move. Stages do gradually become a bit more complex as the game progresses, and grouping enemies or shoving them off high ledges is vital for clearing a level with a good score. 

Like Kingdom Battle, Persona 5 Tactica rewards you with extra experience for finishing in a set number of turns or without taking damage. Atlus designed Tactica as an entrypoint to tactics games. It’s not a difficult experience for those familiar with the genre, but you can give yourself a welcome extra bit of challenge by turning the difficulty up and trying to clear every extra goal.

Just when Tactica’s combat feels like it steps into its own, the game ends. Atlus definitely played it safe by easing players into the basics and gradually giving them more freedom to use all of Tactica’s tools, but the moment where everything clicks and all the systems work together happens a little too late. There's a lot of potential here, though, and I hope this isn't the last time Atlus brings tactics to the shadow world.

This review is based on an Xbox copy of Persona 5 Tactica provided by the publisher. Persona 5 Tactica launches on PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and PC via Windows and Steam on November 16, 2023.

Josh Broadwell

Contributing Editor

Josh is a freelance writer and reporter who specializes in guides, reviews, and whatever else he can convince someone to commission. You may have seen him on NPR, IGN, Polygon, or VG 24/7 or on Twitter, shouting about Trails. When he isn’t working, you’ll likely find him outside with his Belgian Malinois and Australian Shepherd or curled up with an RPG of some description.