#p5t endgame spoilers

[definedvines]

pegoryu game

[stealthnoodle]

There's some excellent pieces of concept art you get to unlock in Tactica. A few faves:

You can also unlock this HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION:

[houndfaker]

if you don’t draw eri natsuhara with her crutch i WILL find you

[frauleinandry]

okay, so this is my promised extremely spoilery tactica review, where I'm going to focus more on the story/characters as opposed to pure gameplay! check my review tag for the spoiler-free gameplay post, and don't click on the read more if you don't want endgame spoilers.

in terms of story, i'd generally urge persona 5 fans who like tactics games to check it out, as it doesn't fall into a lot of the pitfalls people expected it to. maybe wait for a sale though, since uh... i have no idea what atlus was thinking slapping a pricetag like that on it.

as much as i love the artstyle and how much personality it portrays, visually basing tactica's visuals on the Q games meant people went into it with very certain expectations (or didn't go into it at all), which I think really, really hurt the overall reception of the game. it's a pity, since a) the art is fun, and b) like I said in my prior post, tactica is really, really fun, and pretty well written to boot. unfortunately, people assumed by default that p5t would have a cop-out ending where everything was forgotten, the phantom thieves would be reduced to caricatures of themselves, and there'd be no references to canon because atlus is allergic to spoilers in sequel games.

absolutely none of those things are true, however - in fact, unlike the Q games, tactica wouldn't have felt jarring if it used canon-typical visuals. while the Q games go to some dark places, on the whole, they're comedic in tone, while tactica is fairly sombre throughout, with most of the hijinks saved for the optional 'talk' segments.

there were also a lot of people who weren't interested in touching tactica since it wasn't a crossover, and let's be real - if it wasn't for that, the Q games... aren't super appealing. upon playing it, however, it's clear the gameplay wouldn't have worked if it was a 3/4/5 crossover - it's very heavily based on persona 5 exclusive elements such as stealth, cover, and guns.

moving away from the sad but necessary this-isn't-persona-Q-three-and-that's-a-good-thing discussion, and onto tactica itself, I was pleasantly surprised with how the P5 cast and canon in general was treated!

the vibes at the start of the game are surprisingly bleak - everyone's upset that joker is leaving soon, the pts are still shaking off maruki's reality, and the whole reason p5t happens is explicitly due to the fallout caused by shido's confession!! admittedly, i do think there should have been a few more main-game plot points specifically referenced as opposed to just alluded to, such as wakaba's death and haru's situation with sugimura, but on the whole, p5t fits into the general persona 5 narrative.

in terms of the thieves, while I'm a bit sad (if unsurprised) none of them get any real character development, I'm happy with how they were implemented. ryuji isn't reduced solely to being the butt of the joke - in fact, he's instrumental in turning toshiro's mindset around. futaba and morgana get some great moments too - like, morgana compliments ryuji during his stint as the navigator, something I wished happened in the main game!

while I do think ryuji, morgana, and futaba shine the most, haru and yusuke also have some great moments. ironically, this is the only p5 game where makoto is kinda sidelined, but given how much focus she gets in p5/strikers, i'm not too upset by that. i am a bit more upset by the fact that ann's pretty much a non-entity though.

in terms of tactica's specific story and not persona 5 stuff in general, it's good!! admittedly, most of the twists were fairly predictable, but the game is pretty frank from the get-go that the thieves are stuck in toshiro's cognitive world, which is a blessed relief. toshiro in general is just a fantastic character - his character development was so good, and as much as I love zenkichi, toshiro does the whole sad-pathetic-man to genuine-hero thing even better.

the kingdoms are an excellent dive into our favourite politician's psyche, and their use of metaphors to depict his life/relationships/trauma is really well done. i saw someone say p5t is an excellent persona 4 game, and they're right. i thought yoshiki and the second kingdom in particular were handled well - i think most people have unfortunately encountered parents/people like that.

I also think it's super fascinating how the game delves into the theme of how sentient cognitions are/can be. when I was thinking about what else atlus could do with persona 4/5 styled psyche worlds a while back, that was one of the ideas I conjured, and I'm glad to see that angle explored. like... erina doesn't feel like a fully fleshed-out human being ala toshiro, which is very fitting given she's essentially his persona, but her emotions are still treated as full and valid.

in terms of themes, I also like how tactica pretty bluntly states that standing up for the right thing can just absolutely screw you over and achieve nothing in general, but it's still worth doing regardless. it's a particularly resonant point to make given how the world has been over the last few years.

now, while this has primarily been a positive review, I do think tactica's story has some faults. the big thing is the pacing - while the first two kingdoms feel like they're roughly the right length, the third one feels pretty underdeveloped in general. like... the actual kingdom itself has no/little substance and is solely focused on toshiro flashbacks. i think it really could have been split into two kingdoms - one which was a tyrannical school led by nakabachi, and another which combines the station/hell aspects ruled by shadow toshiro.

i know some people have issues with the existence of salmael, but honestly, there needed to be some supernatural element to explain why the heck everyone ended up in toshiro's cognition. compared to some of the gods in the persona franchise, he's not the worst by a longshot.

anyway, i think that's all i've got to say right now - i'll post another one of these once i'm finished with the DLC!