Persona 5 Tactica Review – IGN

Rather than specific enemies having strengths and weaknesses to certain elements, every attack type in Tactica inflicts a status effect that usually has to do with movement. Wind spells push the target a long distance away from the caster. Psy abilities lure the enemy toward you. Gravity can pull a group of enemies toward a specific point. I found lots of interesting ways to use these in combination to set up big combos, since Tactica’s version of an all-out attack requires you to basically draw a triangle around multiple enemies with your three party members. But the downside of this approach is that some elements are simply better than others. Fire feels very underpowered, for instance, since it doesn’t have a movement effect and you’ll never run into an enemy that’s weak to it. Sorry, Ann, you’re on the bench for this one. I also wish there were more finishers available.

Party customization is definitely much simpler than a mainline Persona game, but it’s still fairly extensive. The only equipment you can upgrade are guns, with melee damage increasing automatically as your party levels up. But there are well over 100 fusible Personas to unlock and, for the first time, anyone can equip them as a “sub-Persona,” not just Joker. So if you want to give Panther a gravity spell… looks like you’re back on the varsity squad! Everyone will still be best at a certain thing, though, since they can only upgrade their main element through personalized skill trees.

Joining the familiar cast of Phantom Thieves is Erina, a fiery freedom fighter from this new corner of the Metaverse. The writing for some of the other characters feels a bit stiff, and without social links to give me mechanical rewards for dialogue choices, I really felt how long I spent in overly-wordy conversation scenes. It’s way more chatter than would have been needed to tell this story effectively, and a lot of it comes off as meaningless filler. But Erina is a high point, with newcomer Leeanna Albanese bringing depth and determination to the revolutionary leader.

The story takes a while to get going, but it eventually builds up to some interesting philosophical questions as it explores a different kind of cognitive world over the course of about 40 hours. If you’re familiar with the basics of the Persona series, I don’t think it will take you too long to figure out roughly what’s going on. But the journey is still worth it, with each of the kingdoms you’ll conquer offering a memorably malevolent ruler, a distinct visual style, and varied tactical encounters. I especially liked some of the Fire Emblem-style side quests, which feature one or two characters and must be completed with a set of unique restrictions, like getting across a large map while only taking damage twice.

The boss fights, on the other hand, I found a bit disappointing. While they’re normally a highlight of Persona games, putting your skills to the ultimate test in unique ways, the ones in Tactica didn’t really make me sweat. It’s usually pretty obvious what you need to do to win. Sometimes you’re even told the solution outright. And rarely did I feel like I had to put my squad in serious danger to execute that dance. The Shin Megami Tensei franchise is known for its difficulty – that’s part of what I like so much about it. But Tactica just isn’t on that same level, even if you’re going for all of the optional bonus objectives on every map. It’s also missing a meaningful resource management angle, since there’s no ticking clock on the campaign, you have fewer tough choices about what to do with your hard-earned cash, and you get back all of your SP after each battle.