Persona 5 Tactica preview: A game we all saw coming

It’s Persona but not as we know it

I consider myself a classic Persona fan. I’ve played Shin Megami Tensei: Persona, Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, Persona 3 Portable, Persona 3 FES, Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 5. In total, I have spent over 400 hours in Persona’s various settings, and yet I’ve never been attracted to Persona’s many side games. This is because what I love about Persona is the strategy during battles, the story, and the relationships between the characters. The exception for me are the Dancing games, because Persona’s music is incredible, and they have amazing rhythm gameplay too.

My issue with the side games is that they often don’t have the heart or the gameplay that make the mainline games so great. However, the Persona Q series is still some of people’s favorite spin-offs, and Persona 5 Tactica is essentially a successor to this series. We had the opportunity to play 30 minutes of Persona 5 Tactica at Gamescom 2023, including the first 15 minutes, and a section from the mid-game. While it’s not enough to get a full scope of what the game has to offer, we got some good insight into what’s in store.

Atlus

It is certainly not a strong opening for a Persona game. It starts with a 2D cutscene where it is explained that Café LeBlanc now features a door into the Metaverse. I say explains but that’s a pretty loose description, it’s more that the team just happens to see it’s there. The next few fights are 100% scripted to tutorialize you through the different playstyle. If you don’t follow Morgana’s precise instructions, you can’t move forward, so overall it’s not a great hook.

Mission 6 was more promising, and we were introduced to a new character Erina. She’s not a Persona user, but she still has magical powers of some sort. Honestly, the Personas feel secondary here. The easiest way through a battle is by shooting opponents, and the Persona cutscene can be quite drawn out in a game that is so slow-paced already. We’re not sure how far into the game Mission 6 is, but Morgana was still throwing out tutorials. We were taught how to surround an enemy for an all-out attack, and how waiting can raise your stats.

Atlus

Even at this later stage, it felt as if the strategy gameplay was not really deep enough for fans of the genre, while the interactions between characters and story were not strong enough for Persona fans. However, it is a Persona game, and the strength of the fanbase will still likely lead to good sales. Banking on the strength of Persona 5 is never a bad move, and I think there are enough hardcore fans who will get something from seeing more interactions with characters they love.

Overall, this is not the side game that will convince me to dive into Persona spin-offs, but it likely will find its audience. It could be that the strategy for the gameplay is far deeper than we saw, especially as the game hadn’t finished tutorializing by the end of our session. However, if you’re excited about Persona 5 Tactica, you might want to temper your expectations somewhat. It is unlikely to provide anything more than exactly what you’re expecting.