You've more than likely played and completed either P5 or P5: Royal, and since Strikers isn't available to us (yet... fingers crossed) you may be yearning for one more jaunt with the gang. Tactica offers just that but as the name may clue you in, the gameplay has been changed from the, running around town making bonds and turn-based battles to, menu navigation and tactical battles in small arenas with set rules. How about we go ahead and jump in and see if this tale of the thieves is a worthwhile chapter, or if it would have been better left in someones cognition.
We find the gang hanging out in Cafe Leblanc, enjoying some time together before Joker has to go back home. Things get weird pretty quickly and the door in and out of Leblanc has changed and upon stepping through, the group find themselves in a whole new world known as, the Kingdom. Very quickly we're introduced to the reigning threat, the tyrant bride queen, Marie. The thieves are dismantled very quickly as despite having their persona powers, they realize they work differently here and that they've been diminished back to just when their powers awakened. It's only due to the save from Erina, a rebel fighting against Marie, that Joker and Mona are able to get away so that they can regroup and come up with a counter attack.
Erina herself is unique in that she is one of the only human-like people we actually encounter besides those in our group. She doesn't have the ability to summon a persona, but Erina can still cast her own spells and can attack and shoot normally so no big deal. There are townspeople, rebels, and enemies of course but all of these are interactions are unimportant and feel like a waste of dialogue. Tactica does try to make you care about them some, but just like some instances in P5/Royal, you'll find yourself asking the game, "Why should I care about this? These people are literally imaginary beings."
This thankfully shifts just as it's getting to be an annoying plot point as we reach the halfway point of the game, or the 3rd Kingdom. Overall, the general plot and story elements get better here as more reveals happen, the big bad guy finally shows themselves, and it really scratches that cool moment itch you want to see when you play a Persona game but it actually does that a couple times!
Now let's talk about that tactical gameplay some as well as some of the additional features found in this game. As you can imagine, the core Phantom Thief group is available to play with and as, but the biggest downside is we can only play with 3 party members per mission, but that's remedied with the amount of missions and the fact we can replay them too. Each mission also has a set of additional tasks to complete but unfortunately the vast majority are; no one dies, finish within X turns, defeat all enemies. It just feels like they really dropped the ball here, especially when Tactica has plenty of other goals it could have had us try for like; chain together Once More 3 times in one turn, melee an enemy into another twice, inflict w/e status ailments 3 times.
Each thief has their unique persona with their own set of spells they can use, Ryuji has the lighting, Ann throws out the fire, I'm sure you know the rest. Joker however isn't quite so unique this time as everyone (except Erina) can equip a sub-persona. It's almost as if Joker's power has been loaned out to the others as they can all have an additional persona that can provide it's own direct spells and/or passives. This helps to keep things fresh as you can change out the team's skills and abilities pretty frequently and it never feels like anyone gets left behind unintentionally as all the characters level up at the same time. To help even more, all characters can get new firearms that improve steadily through the shop, but the guns that are made through the Velvet Room are significantly more powerful as they come with unique modifiers like the chance to shock or pull enemies closer. Sadly, the melee weapons can't be upgraded at all which is just a bit disappointing as it will make you lean away from their use as everything else at your use is growing in power.
All characters also have their own skill tree where we can power up their skills, add more abilities and passives, and also improve their general defenses or give them more movement or range. These skills are pretty similar across the board for the group but these upgrades are felt as you really start to tear through the enemy forces. Besides just leveling up through missions to fill out these skill trees, there are quests and talks you can engage in to offer more skill points or even unique persona fusions. The quests are a fun little side mission with lite puzzle elements, although only a couple may throw you off for a little while. Conversations are just that, they offer a little more character and world-building and are usually comedic too.
But what about those achievements? This list is pretty easy to drill through and you can get 38/39 of the achievements in one playthrough with minimal difficulty. The only one that's a bit annoying is for the compendium completion as you can only get 94% of it completed through the first run. The remaining 6% will have to be picked up through new game +, but sadly player level doesn't carry over and the highest level required to get them all needs you to get to level 91. I highly recommend you get the best weapons for all characters, reach 94% compendium completion, and have some lower leveled personas with the passive for bonus experience to save you some time when going for the missing percentage.
Persona 5: Tactica serves as a nice little side story in the tale of the Phanton Thieves but after it's done you'll likely only remember the cool moments once you've finished it. Perhaps the worst thing it does is not going far enough into the tactical gameplay element, while I wasn't expecting an X-COM level of layers to this game, it does feel pretty bare with what we have available. While Tactica won't be stealing anyone's heart once it's all said and done, it can be a nice final spin-off game for the thieves as they lay their masks to rest.
3.0