Persona 5 Tactica

Persona 5 Tactica is a standalone turn-based tactical RPG from ATLUS. Well-known Phantom Thieves from Persona 5 fight alongside the rebel Erina in an unfamiliar world. The focus is on a three-person team, cover, tactical positions and coordinated attacks with weapons and Persona powers. Unlike Persona 5 Royal, the game is not about school life and social relationships but about strategic battles.

ATLUS and SEGA officially released Persona 5 Tactica on Nov 17, 2023 for consoles and PC. The international Steam listing dates the PC version to Nov 16. This differing store date is documented separately. The Repaint Your Heart expansion was also available at launch.

Persona 5 Tactica has been released for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S. Nintendo, PlayStation and Xbox list these versions in their stores. A separate native Switch 2 release is not confirmed there. Possible backward compatibility is not a separate platform release.

In turn-based battles, you move a three-person team across combat arenas and combine firearms, melee attacks and Persona powers. Unlike in a classic RPG, cover and the relative positions of the three characters are a key part of turn planning. Enemies must be lured or pushed out of safe positions to create attack opportunities.

Repaint Your Heart adds a new episode and changed combat rules to the main game. ATLUS confirmed Goro Akechi and Kasumi Yoshizawa as characters in this side story. There is also the Weapon Pack with weapon designs, and the Picaro Summoning Pack & Raoul with more Persona content. The All In One DLC Pack bundles all three add-ons. The DLCs require the base game.

Steam lists at least Windows 10 (64-bit), Intel Core i3-2100 or AMD Phenom II X4 965, 6 GB RAM, DirectX 11 and 20 GB free storage. Graphics options include GeForce GT 730 and Radeon HD 7570, among others. For 1080p at 60 frames per second, the store recommends, for example, Core i5-2400 or FX-8350, 8 GB RAM and a GeForce GTX 650 or comparable graphics hardware.

After an unexplained change at Café LeBlanc, Joker, Morgana and the Phantom Thieves arrive in a strange world. There, the Legionnaires control public life. The rebel Erina rescues the group and asks them to support the resistance. The story revolves around whom the group can trust in this environment and what lies behind Erina's offer. Her background is not revealed in advance.

For a battle, you put together three active characters. This gives team abilities a special role: who can pull an enemy out of cover, who reaches a clear line of fire, and who is well placed for the next shared attack? The Phantom Thieves and Erina are not only linked by story but form a tactical unit on the battlefield.

Walls and obstacles affect whether characters stand safely and which attacks they can reach. An enemy behind cover cannot be treated like a free-standing target. Melee attacks can open new lines of fire and thus set up follow-up actions. Cover is therefore a lasting core element of the tactics system, not just a visual feature of the battle maps.

The shared area attack is called TRIBANGLE. If an enemy is down and surrounded by the positions of the three allies, the team attack can be triggered. The area it covers depends on where the characters stand. That's why it is often useful to occupy different sides of an arena before knocking an enemy down, rather than keeping all characters together.

Joker and the other characters use their Persona powers alongside their weapons. Using them is built into the spatial tactics system: one character's attack can set up another, rather than just dealing damage on its own. At the same time, firearms and short melee attacks remain important, for example to break open a protected enemy position and enable a follow-up action.

The Standard edition includes the main game. The Digital Deluxe Edition combines this with Repaint Your Heart, the Weapon Pack and Picaro Summoning Pack & Raoul. The separately sold All In One DLC Pack contains the three add-ons, but not the main game. To know what an offer covers, it is therefore crucial whether a base game, an edition or only an add-on pack is meant.

On PC and PlayStation, German on-screen text is listed. The stores list English and Japanese as full voice acting, not German. Anyone who wants to play the story with the original Japanese voices can use German subtitles for that. The language lists clearly distinguish between interface, subtitles and voiced dialogue.

The PlayStation versions support, among other things, adjustable volumes, subtitles, changes to controller mapping and stick sensitivity. Difficulty can be adjusted via a preset option. In addition, game guides can be viewed again. Several controls can be used without time-critical button inputs or holding a button permanently. This information comes from the PS4/PS5 feature list.

Persona 5 Tactica is designed as a single-player campaign. Team battles mean one person controls three characters, not that three people play online together. Steam lists single-player mode, while PlayStation lists one player and offline play. Any cross-platform features shown in the Xbox Store are no proof of a standalone co-op mode.

The additional episode Repaint Your Heart is more than a costume pack. The DLC combines new story sections with battle situations in which different rules and dynamic arenas come into play. Goro Akechi and Kasumi Yoshizawa appear as additional characters. The extras include separate challenges with their own conditions. The release is part of the original 2023 DLC offer.

An enemy can be knocked down in battle. Under the right conditions, this triggers 1MORE and grants an extra action. The well-known Persona principle thus becomes part of turn planning: whoever first breaks a cover and then knocks down an enemy can set up further attacks.