Yet another Persona 5 spin off but while Phantom Thieves fatigue has been well and truly setting in, this spin off does offer a lot to love about it.
Atlus have decided to dip their toes into the tactics genre this time, blending their excellent RPG mechanics into a grid based tactics experience that is similar to Mario + Rabbids. By that, I mean that battles take place in grid based maps with a low camera angle where cover is your best friend. High cover will protect you from incoming fire from most directions while low cover will reduce the damage you take and this makes guns your main weapon of choice as you can shoot from behind cover to attack enemies at a distance. Being out in the open leaves you vulnerable to being knocked down like a critical hit would do in mainline Persona giving out the One More status to allow the enemy to move and attack again. By running up next to an enemy you can use a physical attack to push them out of cover and leave them in a vulnerable state for a teammate to knock down.
By knocking an enemy down you can activate an all out attack and do major damage by moving your characters into a triangle formation with the downed enemy in it. There's a lot of strategy to be found in trying to get as many enemies in the all out attack as possible, especially when characters that have already used their action can't move and you can't walk through any enemy or party member on the map.
Personas are your spell based attacks and these have been altered to carry an effect. Garu skills will blow an enemy away a few spaces, Zio skills inflict the shocked status, Psio skills pull an enemy towards you, etc. Basically most skills will assist in making an enemy vulnerable to being downed. Tactica also allows every character (except Erina who can't use a Persona) to have a sub Persona which grants additional skills to be used as well as providing more hp/sp or extra effects like increased melee damage. All your Persona fusion also returns with the Velvet Room and you gain new Personas just by defeating enemies and beating maps.
Maps are very well designed featuring different gimmicks throughout like opening doors or raising platforms via buttons, or being able to climb ladders to reach higher ground and being able to move all your characters as much as you want before using an action means there's a lot of puzzle like elements to maps as you try to find your way forward through them.
On top of that there's varied objectives too! Most maps are enemy rout objectives but there's also escape maps, survive maps and even an escort map and you also get bonus objectives to complete too. The bonus objectives tend to be the same 3 things every map (beat it in a certain amount of turns, don't let any party member die, and clearing the stage) and doing these increases the amount of money you earn for all your Persona summoning and weapon needs. Basically Atlus have managed to come up with an in depth and well thought out tactical game experience that compliments the traditional Persona game experience to build yet another excellent spin off in the gameplay department.
In the story department, this is yet another adventure with the Phantom Thieves taking place not long after the events of Persona 5/Royal (and if you haven't played either of those then be aware that the characters do make reference to events of those games throughout). For me personally, I was really hoping for a spin off story to dive into something like the Persona 4 Arena games did where the cast of 4 got to meet an older cast of 3 because at this point, the Phantom Thieves don't really have much to offer in terms of character growth, especially at the point of not long post their P5 adventure. And it seems like Atlus was aware of this because the story here is very much focused on new characters Toshiro and Erina with the Phantom Thieves acting more as a support role for these two newcomers. After being transported to a mysterious world that is very similar to the metaverse, the Phantom Thieves meet Erina who is trying to stage a rebellion against Marie who has made the Kingdom (basically a Palace) into a place to worship her and build her a perfect wedding venue. Erina is trying to free the citizens of this world from Marie's oppression and is overall a character who symbolises the fire of rebellion in one's heart which is very fitting for Persona 5 where the core theme of rebellion is what caused the original gang to awaken to their Personas in the first place.
Eventually the gang meet and free Toshiro from Marie's dungeon. Toshiro is a politician from the real world who had recently disappeared and went missing. He's a character who has very much lost the fire of rebellion in his heart as he's grown older, finding setback after setback that has scarred his heart and now his first instinct is to run from all conflict. Despite this, Toshiro is still great at rousing speeches and planning ahead so he ends up becoming more of a tactician for the group who tries to bring some level headedness to proceedings.
So the core of the story is basically trying to free each Kingdom from an oppressive ruler while also helping Toshiro rediscover the flame of rebellion in his heart with the Phantom Thieves being able to relate to some of the things he has experienced in life with their own situations from the original P5 game. It's a great group dynamic and Toshiro makes for an excellent character as a rare Persona experience of looking into an adult character whose life experience has caused him to lose his way. His dynamic with Erina in particular is very well done and I absolutely love where the game goes with those two. Seeing Toshiro’s growth throughout the game is very well done and it's clear to see a lot of work and care went into his character in particular.
With this being a Persona spin off, it does also have its more eye roll worthy moments of writing too. The game very much makes sure to hit you over the head with its theme of rebellion, losing a lot of nuance with it and we also have some character tropes exaggerated and repeated throughout the adventure. Yes, I get Morgana is NOT a cat, yes I get Yusuke is a starving artist, I don't need reminding of that multiple times throughout the story and with Makoto, I have no idea where her sudden “quick to violence” trope has come from because her whole awakening scene in Persona 5 is her literally bottling up all of her anger at being used and following the rules too strictly to the point she has her outburst that causes her awakening. Outside of that she's still very much a calm, collected, and reserved person so seeing her portrayal in this spin off at times was very much uh… what are they doing to my favourite character kind of thing.
But yeah, outside of those instances, P5T does manage to provide a thrilling and engaging tale of an adult trying to rediscover the fire in his heart and it's one I very much appreciate.
The game peaks at the third Kingdom before the final kingdom drags things down a little bit by reusing map gimmicks and boss fights from the initial three Kingdoms and the story runs out of steam a bit. It kinda feels like they just threw in some Persona tropes for the sake of it instead of wrapping the game up at an ideal point. We do get a fantastic ending however, that manages to hit some very strong emotional beats and I think it's the first time a Persona spin off has managed to make me cry so full props to that.
On the soundtrack front, Lyn once again knocks it out of the park with her vocal songs, from the powerful opening song, Revolution in Your Heart, to the very beautiful ending song, To My Dear, So Far Away. She provides some fantastic battle themes too while the non vocal themes lean more on the guitar front that provides some great riffs though can feel like they play in a more generic loop compared to most Persona soundtracks. Overall it's another fantastic soundtrack from the Atlus sound team.
On the performance front I played the Nintendo Switch version and it definitely feels like the game was built around that platform first, with its chibi Persona Q esque artstyle and boxy map design very much complimenting the weaker hardware. The game runs at a solid 30fps and looks great for a Switch title which is all you need really. Glancing at the other platforms it seems you get 60fps and a higher resolution instead so platform choice basically comes down to where you would prefer playing it.
So despite going into this one pretty tepidly and feeling burnt out on the Phantom Thieves and the whole Persona 5 aesthetic, I managed to come out of it thoroughly enjoying myself and falling in love with the new characters. The few setbacks the game has doesn't detract that overall this is a great tactics game with an engaging story to tell and one that explores a few unique things compared to most Persona titles.
Atlus have decided to dip their toes into the tactics genre this time, blending their excellent RPG mechanics into a grid based tactics experience that is similar to Mario + Rabbids. By that, I mean that battles take place in grid based maps with a low camera angle where cover is your best friend. High cover will protect you from incoming fire from most directions while low cover will reduce the damage you take and this makes guns your main weapon of choice as you can shoot from behind cover to attack enemies at a distance. Being out in the open leaves you vulnerable to being knocked down like a critical hit would do in mainline Persona giving out the One More status to allow the enemy to move and attack again. By running up next to an enemy you can use a physical attack to push them out of cover and leave them in a vulnerable state for a teammate to knock down.
By knocking an enemy down you can activate an all out attack and do major damage by moving your characters into a triangle formation with the downed enemy in it. There's a lot of strategy to be found in trying to get as many enemies in the all out attack as possible, especially when characters that have already used their action can't move and you can't walk through any enemy or party member on the map.
Personas are your spell based attacks and these have been altered to carry an effect. Garu skills will blow an enemy away a few spaces, Zio skills inflict the shocked status, Psio skills pull an enemy towards you, etc. Basically most skills will assist in making an enemy vulnerable to being downed. Tactica also allows every character (except Erina who can't use a Persona) to have a sub Persona which grants additional skills to be used as well as providing more hp/sp or extra effects like increased melee damage. All your Persona fusion also returns with the Velvet Room and you gain new Personas just by defeating enemies and beating maps.
Maps are very well designed featuring different gimmicks throughout like opening doors or raising platforms via buttons, or being able to climb ladders to reach higher ground and being able to move all your characters as much as you want before using an action means there's a lot of puzzle like elements to maps as you try to find your way forward through them.
On top of that there's varied objectives too! Most maps are enemy rout objectives but there's also escape maps, survive maps and even an escort map and you also get bonus objectives to complete too. The bonus objectives tend to be the same 3 things every map (beat it in a certain amount of turns, don't let any party member die, and clearing the stage) and doing these increases the amount of money you earn for all your Persona summoning and weapon needs. Basically Atlus have managed to come up with an in depth and well thought out tactical game experience that compliments the traditional Persona game experience to build yet another excellent spin off in the gameplay department.
In the story department, this is yet another adventure with the Phantom Thieves taking place not long after the events of Persona 5/Royal (and if you haven't played either of those then be aware that the characters do make reference to events of those games throughout). For me personally, I was really hoping for a spin off story to dive into something like the Persona 4 Arena games did where the cast of 4 got to meet an older cast of 3 because at this point, the Phantom Thieves don't really have much to offer in terms of character growth, especially at the point of not long post their P5 adventure. And it seems like Atlus was aware of this because the story here is very much focused on new characters Toshiro and Erina with the Phantom Thieves acting more as a support role for these two newcomers. After being transported to a mysterious world that is very similar to the metaverse, the Phantom Thieves meet Erina who is trying to stage a rebellion against Marie who has made the Kingdom (basically a Palace) into a place to worship her and build her a perfect wedding venue. Erina is trying to free the citizens of this world from Marie's oppression and is overall a character who symbolises the fire of rebellion in one's heart which is very fitting for Persona 5 where the core theme of rebellion is what caused the original gang to awaken to their Personas in the first place.
Eventually the gang meet and free Toshiro from Marie's dungeon. Toshiro is a politician from the real world who had recently disappeared and went missing. He's a character who has very much lost the fire of rebellion in his heart as he's grown older, finding setback after setback that has scarred his heart and now his first instinct is to run from all conflict. Despite this, Toshiro is still great at rousing speeches and planning ahead so he ends up becoming more of a tactician for the group who tries to bring some level headedness to proceedings.
So the core of the story is basically trying to free each Kingdom from an oppressive ruler while also helping Toshiro rediscover the flame of rebellion in his heart with the Phantom Thieves being able to relate to some of the things he has experienced in life with their own situations from the original P5 game. It's a great group dynamic and Toshiro makes for an excellent character as a rare Persona experience of looking into an adult character whose life experience has caused him to lose his way. His dynamic with Erina in particular is very well done and I absolutely love where the game goes with those two. Seeing Toshiro’s growth throughout the game is very well done and it's clear to see a lot of work and care went into his character in particular.
With this being a Persona spin off, it does also have its more eye roll worthy moments of writing too. The game very much makes sure to hit you over the head with its theme of rebellion, losing a lot of nuance with it and we also have some character tropes exaggerated and repeated throughout the adventure. Yes, I get Morgana is NOT a cat, yes I get Yusuke is a starving artist, I don't need reminding of that multiple times throughout the story and with Makoto, I have no idea where her sudden “quick to violence” trope has come from because her whole awakening scene in Persona 5 is her literally bottling up all of her anger at being used and following the rules too strictly to the point she has her outburst that causes her awakening. Outside of that she's still very much a calm, collected, and reserved person so seeing her portrayal in this spin off at times was very much uh… what are they doing to my favourite character kind of thing.
But yeah, outside of those instances, P5T does manage to provide a thrilling and engaging tale of an adult trying to rediscover the fire in his heart and it's one I very much appreciate.
The game peaks at the third Kingdom before the final kingdom drags things down a little bit by reusing map gimmicks and boss fights from the initial three Kingdoms and the story runs out of steam a bit. It kinda feels like they just threw in some Persona tropes for the sake of it instead of wrapping the game up at an ideal point. We do get a fantastic ending however, that manages to hit some very strong emotional beats and I think it's the first time a Persona spin off has managed to make me cry so full props to that.
On the soundtrack front, Lyn once again knocks it out of the park with her vocal songs, from the powerful opening song, Revolution in Your Heart, to the very beautiful ending song, To My Dear, So Far Away. She provides some fantastic battle themes too while the non vocal themes lean more on the guitar front that provides some great riffs though can feel like they play in a more generic loop compared to most Persona soundtracks. Overall it's another fantastic soundtrack from the Atlus sound team.
On the performance front I played the Nintendo Switch version and it definitely feels like the game was built around that platform first, with its chibi Persona Q esque artstyle and boxy map design very much complimenting the weaker hardware. The game runs at a solid 30fps and looks great for a Switch title which is all you need really. Glancing at the other platforms it seems you get 60fps and a higher resolution instead so platform choice basically comes down to where you would prefer playing it.
So despite going into this one pretty tepidly and feeling burnt out on the Phantom Thieves and the whole Persona 5 aesthetic, I managed to come out of it thoroughly enjoying myself and falling in love with the new characters. The few setbacks the game has doesn't detract that overall this is a great tactics game with an engaging story to tell and one that explores a few unique things compared to most Persona titles.