Persona 5 Tactica

I'm a huge fan of Tactics RPG and also of Persona 5, this was guaranteed to be an amazing game for me and I was instantly excited as soon as it was announced. Unfortunately the game does not deliver and is completely mediocre in all ways.

The game is really coasting off the Persona 5 characters and hopes to be the selling point, cause otherwise it's so undercooked. Yes the whole gang is back and you'll get to spend some time with them again (most players will have completed Persona 5 already, and that's about a 100 hour journey so there is some emotional connection to this bunch), but the story here is really not of the same quality. It's pretty apparent quickly that the whole thing lacks the personality, it's like all of them lost their appeal of what made them unique and special. So the story is about a politician (Toshiro) and you are stuck in another metaverse with him and trying to save as he remembers his past. It's really not a good story with way too much un-important dialogue that it really becomes a chore to follow it all. You are given optional choices of dialogue, but whatever you answer is irrelevant and the story always continues in the same direction... kinda pointless to have put them there, maybe it's to help you not fall asleep.

The game can still be saved with some amazing tactical gameplay right? Well it could have, but it's really underbaked in that aspect. While you have 8 characters in the Phantom Thieves, you can only bring 3 to battle which I find a little low for a game like this. If one dies you can "baton pass" to another, but you'll end up not using most of them. The main strategy here is to hit small enemies that are not in cover, which triggers the "one more" and allowing you to chain multiple attacks. Sort of playing like a puzzle game at times. There is nothing more to it than that to the battles, every hero hits the same way, they have persona skills but none of the enemies have any strengths or weaknesses so it doesn't matter which magic you are using it essentially all does the same thing. After a few battles it gets pretty redundant, and when you reach the other kingdoms, all the enemies are just reskins of the previous ones with the same exact approach and abilities but higher stats. Occasionally a new one is introduced, but the content is extremely repetitive in that aspect... even the 4th kingdom is you re-fighting the bosses from the 3 previous kingdoms.

Outside of the battles there's no exploration or anything of the sort. You have your hideout where you can engage in the next mission, and some basic stuff like buying better gear (only 1 slot in the game, the weapon) and equipping different personas. The persona aspect is really irrelevant as it doesn't matter which one is equip, at best you gain one more ability that it probably not going to be used anyway... they do give minor stats boost but all of them have nearly identical stats so it really doesn't matter which you pick. Each character has a skill tree that is like 90% identical, and again it doesn't seem to matter in which path you build them as they have very little impact on the actual battles as you just need to hit and chain uncovered enemies. The XP is shared between all members, so everyone gains levels and becomes stronger together, which again kinda makes all characters uniform and mostly with the same purpose outside of the few of them that have a healing talent. For a strategy RPG it completely lacks strategy and very few of your decisions matter.

I have not gotten that deep into the Atlus catalog but they have released quite a few of my favorite JRPGs, but this is really the worst game I've played from them. Not only that, it's also the worst Tactical RPG I've played, a genre that I really love. Thankfully for me it was on gamepass, but I definitely feel bad for the fans that are spending 80$ on this when it's such a mid title that lacks imagination. So much repetitive content, bad/boring dialogue and story which almost taints the legacy of Persona 5. Don't think this is acceptable and given how some games are getting crucified this year, I'm surprised this one was spared as it's clearly of the weaker ones from a big developer. I can give lower scores to games that aren't really for me, but this one is absolutely one of my core favorite genres, which makes this game a complete total disappointment.