Persona 5 Tactica Review

thesixthaxis.com:

Atlas is no stranger to spin-offs and Persona 5 Tactica, the fifth Persona 5 game, proves that point admirably. But when you’re onto a good thing, what is a spin-off (or four) among friends?

Persona 5 Tactica completely reimagines the Phantom Thieves and their abilities. Where P5 Strikers asked ‘What if this was a Musuo game?’, P5 Tactica asks ‘What if we did XCOM better than XCOM?’.

Set after the final battle with the god Yaldabaoth in the original game, and the dissolution of Mementos as a result, Joker and his gang of rebels find themselves inexplicably thrown back into the Metaverse. However, things are somewhat different — and it’s not just the cutesy chibi art style, though that does serve as a great visual metaphor.

Not only has combat turned tactical, with party members moving in grid form, using area of effect attacks and range-based strategy that couldn’t exist in the main games, but Joker has been stripped of his Wildcard ability to wear whichever Persona he damn well chooses. Losing the one power that makes your character truly unique is a bit of a shock at first, but such a huge departure from the norm shows just how weird things have become.

The Thieves have found themselves in a Kingdom — an entirely separate ‘pocket metaverse’ that is distinct (and distant) from the collective subconscious we’re used to roaming. How and why you’ve found yourself here, and how the two new characters Erina and Toshiro fit into this chaos, are all part of an interesting new narrative that you’ll have to play to discover.

And play it you should, because this is an excellent game, though this is clearly a mini-sequel to Persona 5 and you should absolutely play Persona 5 first. But while the original game (and the ultimate version,