Despite being a steadfast Persona fan (I have a tattoo of the Phantom Thieves logo!), I initially wasn’t too excited about . My only real exposure to TRPG games was Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, which is a more ba�⛎�sic version of the genre and wasn’t my favorite anyway.
But I love Persona 5’s expressive cast – maybe best of all the rag-tag groups of teens I’ve dungeon-crawled with – I love cute Chibi art, and I love a chance to get to play with the Phantom Thieves once again. As such, I rounded up some excitement within myself as I sat down for the demo of Persona 5 Tactica at Sega&rs🐼quo;s Summer Showcase last month, and I fell in love all over again.
As soon as I launched the Persona 5 Tactica demo, the stylized menu with adorable renditions of my favorite anime teens welcomed me in with a strange blend of newness and nostalgia. The game began with Joker and his gaggle of goofy friends milling about at the tables of a cartoony rendition of LeBlanc, and the ambiꦫance is warm from the first faithfully-groovy note from the background music.
We discussed curry, plans, and everyone’s favorite coffee dad Sojiro, until the world around▨🌸 us distorted, raucous noise filling the unassuming café. Soon after, we stepped into a whimsical world of color, cartoon, and cutthroat enemies rapidly closing in on our position.
Back in our Phantom Thieves gear for the first time since saving the world, we agreed to divide and conquer. My Joker landed alongside Ryuji and Morgana for our very firstꦿ attempt at taking out the adorably odd Shadows coming our way.
Persona 5 Tactica divides you into teams of three instead of four, meaning you’ll need to be more selective with your teammates. I can’t wait to play around with different combinations of teammates to see what I can really do.
A careful combination of physical attack, stealth, planning, and Persona prowess will carry you through the introduc꧑tion, re𒀰warding your effort at the end with a meeting with the game’s new big bad: Lady Marie.
A fuchsia bride whose followers sing her praises wherever they go, Lady Marie arrives afte🧜r your battle and almost immediately begins turning the Phantom Thieves against themselves.
This was our introduction to battle goals, benchmarks that offer additional points at the end of a level for hitting the mark. These will 🔯change from battle to battle, and cover things like defeating every enemy in a set number of turns, using a specific kind of damage, avoiding damage yourself, and more. You’re free to experiment with your playstyle, but the game is also happy to give you some pointers on how to fight most effectively.
After the battle, the demo segued into a later portion of the game to showcase another new addition: Erina, a new Phantom Thief. I didn’t get to see how we met her, but she﷽ was at my side with Morgana as we warped to a later level to work together on an ev⛎en tougher fight.
Erina introduces the concept of using Focus on your turn instead of attacking outright. Each of the Phantom Thieves will have their own ability on their next turn after Focusing, and Erina’s meant she could fire her impressive rifle through cover to hit even the best-disguised Shadows. If you’re co൩mfortable waiting a turn, you can inflict a hell of a lot of extra damage on the next.
With more enemies in this new area than there had been before, it was also our chance to give a Triple Threat Attack a shot. To perform one, you’ll need to sneak your Phantom Thieves carefully around the board to form a triangle, and once🍨 you’ve got the angles just right, the three of you can unleash a hellfire that decimates all Shadows on the inside of said triangle. You can’t use one of these attacks if one of your teammates is stricken with an ailment, but when you’re able to pull them off, the damage they deal is colossal.
Just as I’d gotten into the groove of commanding my party, using Erina’s cool new moves, and formulating battle strategies to hit my goals, the demo was over. As a☂pprehensive as I’d been to give the game a shot, I found myself a little sad when my time was up.
Now that I’ve tried the game and had some time to think on it, I wonder if my initial hesitation was at least partly rooted in the feeling that we really ought to be moving on with the series by now. I’m happy the world recognized Persona 5 as the juggernaut JRPG it became, and I’m really eager to see how the series grows and evolves from here - it just needs to grow outwards, ꦰnot inꦉ circles around P5.
The point of Pesona 5 was solving their problems, then we did it all over again in Persona 5 Royal. We watched the faithful anime adaptation of the game, we celebrated the Thieve's return in Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth, we dove into dungeons for real-time action in Persona 5 Strikers. Hell, we even danced with them! So what else really is there for the Phantom Thieves to do now?
Sure, the opportunity to slow down and take an extra few m✅inutes with my favorite band of misfits is appreciated in some way, but it feels like the entire Persona s🥀eries has had its foot on the gas for the last few years. Another dive back into the old familiar intrigued on the surface, but for as much as I’ll always love the Phantom Thieves, I’m ready for a new gaggle of teens with struggles and goals of their own.
Besides, I a🤡lways fiꦿnd spin-offs to be kind of tricky anyway because to often they can feel like cash grabs – a game needs to have enough of the original flavor to delight returning fans, with enough newness and change to stand on its own when it calls back to an IP as beloved as Persona has become.
And witho𝄹ut question, Persona 5 Tactica delivers in spade🐽s. It has enough of the jazzy Persona 5 flavor we all know and love, with enough difference in its play and art styles to stand firmly on its own. I’d entered the Showcase bogged down by doubts about the game, but I left that afternoon a believer.