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saikolikes · 1 year ago

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“Si vis pacem, te ipsum vince”: the meaning behind Erina’s banner

I’m sure most people have noticed it, as it was shown firstly in the trailer and then in the opening: “Si vis pacem, te ipsum vince” seems to be the official motto of Persona 5 Tactica, and is indeed present on Erina’s banner when she uses Flag of Freedom.

The slogan is in latin, it roughly translates as “If you want peace, you must conquer yourself,” and it’s an alteration tailored to the game from the most commonly known “Si vis pacem, para bellum” (If you want peace, prepare for war).

What most don’t know (myself included before digging deeper to make this post), is that even the “original” phrase wasn’t exactly born as such and is itself an adaptation of a wider paragraph from a military treaty — Vegetius’ De Re Militari or “Epitome of military science” (the following quote comes from the beginning of Book 3):

Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum; qui uictoriam cupit, milites inbuat diligenter; qui secundos optat euentus, dimicet arte, non casu.

From what I read, the author does a sort of introduction by citing war masters from the past, including Athens and Sparta, and declares his task in compiling all their teachings in one place. Then, he concludes by saying “Therefore, the one who desires peace shall be ready for war; the one who longs for victory shall diligently instruct his soldiers; the one who’s after success shall fight following the art of war, not chance.”

The concept here is clear: you can’t search for and uphold peace without being skilled in battle and ready to fight for that peace if need be… which is a pretty interesting message in the wider scheme of Tactica.

(Warning for story spoilers from here onwards)

I didn’t reflect on it much as I was playing, especially because the game never gives you any “official” translation of what’s written on Erina’s banner. But as I went back to thinking about it, I realised just how fitting this alteration is. The whole deal with Salmael is peace should be the ultimate goal for mankind, a state of existence where no conflict is necessary—on the contrary, conflict is viewed as a bad thing, because it causes hurt and is ultimately harmful. So it makes perfect sense that “Si vis pacem, para bellum” is something that goes against Salmael’s philosophy.

What bothers me, instead, is that it perfectly fits what Erina represents, as is and without any alteration: she battles Marie like rebels do tyrants because the peace in the Kingdom has been disrupted and she wants it back. Putting metaphors aside, Toshiro is the one that realises that only by opposing his father and his fiancé he can right the wrongs that his family committed, and eventually find peace within himself. “Si vis pacem, para bellum” is actually already tailored on what the game is about, so thinking back about the alteration they made, I can’t quite explain it.

It has to be said, though, that “Si vis pacem, te ipsum vince” is also fitting. Reconciling with one’s Shadow self, tame it and embrace it is what awakening a Persona is all about and what Toshiro does later on in the story, so to have “If you want peace, you must conquer yourself” written on Erina’s banner is also a really nice touch!

I guess my main point here is that both phrases go well with the story’s themes and plot, but I do have to say, removing “para bellum” kind of ends up reinforcing Salmael’s point, which is that war (=conflict) isn’t necessary. It ultimately serves P5’s whole narrative that puts individuals at the center of societal changes without questioning too much what role society at large plays: it is acknowledged society needs reform, but reforming passes through righteous people and removing bad apples rather than dismantling and rebuilding anew a system that is designed to be exploitative. More so that “te ipsum” is a bit like saying “you yourself” so I’d argue that a really great emphasis is put on the person/individual. Also worth noting that “te ipsum” is specifically male-gendered as “ipsum” is accusative cause (direct object) for both male (“ipse) and neutral (“ipsum”) pronouns, but “te” is accusative case for the pronoun “tu” which can only be used referring to a person; this means that if the phrase was to be female-gendered it would be “te ipsam vince”. So it really seems to be tailored to Toshiro.

I think what they did with Tactica’s motto is cool (if anything because it let me put my high school diploma at use again after 7 years lol) and definitely a nice addition that shows this game was made with a decent level of care for being a spinoff… at the same time, I can’t help but find a subtle contradiction in the alteration they made.

#persona 5 #persona 5 tactica #p5t #tactica spoilers #persona 5 tactica spoilers #p5 meta #meta #p5t meta #persona 5 once again brainrottimg me to the point i go fish back for my latin

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saikolikes · 1 year ago

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I Played Persona 5 Tactica, Here Is What I Think About It

I have long awaited Tactica since the first announcement trailer (yes, the one that got "accidentally" published by Atlus). After playing through the main story + DLC I needed to sort my thoughts & have decided to subject every other person on the internet to it.

First of all a few disclaimers: Did someone ask me to write this? No Do I care? No Do I need to sort out my thoughts out loud? Yes :D There will be spoilers for the entire game + DLC so read this post knowing that! Lastly, this post is highly critical but it comes from a place of enjoyment of the game and love for the series. If that hadn't been the case, I would've never spent literal days collecting all these words in one place.

So.

Let's start by: have I enjoyed my experience? Yes, most of the time. Would I recommend the game to someone else? Now that is a good question. Let's start from the theory.

What does Tactica want to achieve?

According to this interview by Business Producer Nomura, Director Maeda, and Composer Konishi, P5T had -- extremely summarized -- three main goals:

Maintaining the Persona 5 allure and imagery despite having a different gameplay and visual style

Making a strategy rpg accessible even to non-fans of the genre and non-navigated trpg players

Capturing "the straightforward and highly passionate feelings of the high school students, along with a slightly precarious, fleeting danger inherent in their straightforwardness" (Maeda, quoting from the Persona Central article previously cited)

If we hold what it said into this interview as our sole criteria for judging the game, Persona 5 Tactica aces most of it. I will go into each section deeper as this post goes on, but this game was clearly made with passion by people who have very clear in their minds what Persona 5 means, sounds, and feels like.

There is only one problem: it's not as clear who this game was made for.

Who's Tactica targeted at?

At its core, despite being a game that most likely only the more passionate P5 fans will buy, especially so far from P5's original release and so close to both P3:RE and the (plausible?) announcement of P6, Tactica's main story is so clearly made with the intent of being enjoyed by every possible P5 fan that the hardcore fanbase would probably be the last segment of players I would suggest that should play this game. Right from the start, it supplies you with practical notes about who is who, what key places you need to know, and other recap information from the previous game -- a nice feature, and very helpful... but clearly targeted at people who haven't touched P5 since 2017, or at least haven't been participating in some form of fandom in the past 6 years.

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing bad with wanting to appeal to every possible player -- Strikers, too, was purposefully designed to be enjoyed no matter your starting point for the series, the game, the anime, or the manga (or none of these things, actually). I find some form of contradiction, however, in the fact that not only the DLC, which acts as a prequel to Tactica's main story, technically has light spoilers for Royal, but also... of all the people I know -- irl, on the internet, among gaming creators -- who played P5 the majority of them still has only played P5. They haven't been interested in the slightest in all these spinoffs that have come out in the meantime, not even in Royal. (more about this on Reddit)

My point is: at this point in time, with the infamous cow-milking reputation Atlus has especially regarding P5, the people who have bought and are going to buy the spinoffs no matter what are the hardcore fans. But this game isn't made for them for the most part -- and that is something that can sour the whole experience.

I won't get into the debate about the canonicity of the P5 timeline, but Tactica seems to have a few ideas and well-confused about the whole thing. Because the DLC is Royal compliant, even touches upon "Kasumi"'s bond with her sister, and is technically set parallel to Sae's Palace. Which sort of makes sense since Royal and Tactica share their producer (Wada). But then there is no mention of Royal canon whatsoever in the main story (01.29.24 EDIT: I stand slightly corrected, as Maruki does get hinted at... but I also stand by the fact he's not mentioned in a way that truly matters, and my point about the Third Kingdom I talk about later on is still valid). Sure, much like Strikers, Tactica does not contradict Royal. But between not contradicting and actively enforcing there is a world of difference.

During the game, specific events of P5 are referenced, much more heavily than what happens in Strikers, with Shido and the political scandal being addressed more than once -- to the point where the December calling card is what prompted Toshiro out of his subservient attitude towards his father. Even Yaldabaoth is mentioned and compared to Salmael, the Big Baddie of Tactica, something that in Strikers was left much vaguer ("it's been x months since we fought a god"). And this does not happen for any of the Royal content. Despite the DLC, the Royal-compliant DLC, very clearly linking its story with the main one. Even more, the Third Kingdom and Salmael have an unmissable resemblance with the themes of the Third Semester and what Maruki was planning, parallels so apparent that you would expect someone to at least hint at what happened between January and February at some point.

Instead, there is silence. The themes are loudly there (and I don't know if it's just me, but the Hideout -VT- ost has interesting similarities to Ideal and the Real - End Version -) yet not once, not in the slightest does Maruki ever get mentioned or referenced or hinted at. (01.29.24 EDIT: as I added before, Maruki does get hinted during a conversation that takes place in the Thrid Kingdom... but it's no where near how deeply interwowen Tactica's story is with the ending of vanilla P5. This is what I meant in the following sentence where I say there is a disparity of treatment because there absolutely is.) It's clear to me, given the disparity of treatment, that Tactica's main story doesn't want to contradict Royal in the same way that Strikers didn't, but Persona 5 vanilla is clearly the game you're supposed to have played before starting this one. Which, of course, is also reinforced by Akechi and "Kasumi" being locked behind the DLC. And I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that, if you're a hardcore fan (= most likely to buy Tactica), this probably isn't what you would have wanted from this game.

What Tactica does best

Tactica is a good game for the most part. As I was saying in my introduction, 2 out of the 3 main goals for this game have been not only achieved but aced.

Gameplay-wise, the loop can become quite addicting, especially between the last portion of the First Kingdom and the first half of the Second Kingdom, where imho the story peaks. The development team has done a damn well good job in reducing the structure of a trpg to its core and mixing it with what makes Persona 5... Persona 5. Much like the base game, for example, getting the upper hand through chains of One Mores and All-Out Attacks is basically how you progress through maps. Each Thief has his own Persona + 1 equippable sub-Persona -- even Joker can only use Arsène -- but they made sure to translate each different element into a different mechanic. I adored that, exactly like it happens in the first game, despite the combat being turn-based the characters seem to dance on the battlefield, with each action flowing into the next one as the hype builds up and either Lyn's voice or catchy drums accompany you turn after turn. Don't expect something too complex, as the game is designed to be accessible even to non-strategy players -- and surely I was disappointed by having to play with only 3 characters at a time -- but the fun is there, and to an extent, you can build each character how you most like them through a minimal but very efficient skill tree.

The music is another thing Tactica does very well. By now (Strikers, Royal, and Tactica) it's clear that Konishi favors aggressive guitars over groovy basslines and I didn't mind it one bit, as this became kind of his personal signature. The first portion of the game especially is full of banger hits that get later reprised and remixed as you progress through the Kingdoms. Some of my favorites:

Maxim, like many tracks, has an excellent use of percussions that resemble war drums

Tension, with clear Life Will Change influences

Infiltrate, back at it with the Life Will Change vibes and an exceptional use of strings that resemble horse hooves running on the cobblestones of a medieval city

Master of the Castle, which plays during the Marie bossfight, is an excellent mixture of the Tension theme with the addition of a more aggressive guitar and... bells! Because she's about to get married!

Amusement Park of Trauma, a strong detachment from the general mood of the Second Kingdom that perfectly serves its purpose

Recollection, a melancholic theme that through its notes perfectly sets the mood for what the player is about to go through as soon as they set foot in the Third Kingdom, much like Gentle Madman before it

01.29.24 EDIT: as the beta version of Last Surprise was discovered, I was able to catch a bunch of notes between 0.18 and 0.30 that I am fairly sure are present, rearranged/with guitars only, inside one of Tactica's OSTs too. I just can't seem to find it so I will add the specific one as soon as I spot it lol

Along the new tracks, some very neat rearrangements like Beneath the Mask (which somehow they managed to make it sound even more lo-fi than it already was) and Disquiet make their apperance, as well as a version of Prison Labor.

Also, contrary to what happens in the hellscape of info dumping that is the first hours of Strikers, tutorials are actually paced wonderfully here, and you get to be introduced to each bit of gameplay with little steps, and nothing gets shoved down your throat leaving you with so many information you actually have no idea how to play.

Additionally, the story is quite captivating, especially if you pay attention to what can seem to be minor details. Right from the start, the sheer need to understand what the hell is going on is what drives you forward, and by the end of the First Kingdom and Marie's reveal as Toshiro's fiance, you start to understand that the scope of the entire thing is much more limited and personal -- which is something I appreciated a lot. Toshiro is a good character, his cowardice at the start isn't just a funny trait for the laugh, but a flaw that is deeply connected with his personal history and, much like with Zenkichi and Sophia, the team did a good job in tracing parallels with the other Phantom Thieves in order to quickly build empathy towards him -- with Haru and Futaba being the absolute best matches. The same thing happens with Erina, who shares the rebellious fire of the Phantom Thieves and leads the rebellion against Marie. What I loved about her is her goofiness, I was afraid she would be the nth Strong Female Character -- seeing as Kasumi was very much your Manic Pixie Dream Girl -- instead I found a lady with a sharp tongue and a strong heart, who's deeply loyal but doesn't hesitate to fool around. She's really valid, I admit I wouldn't have bet on her character to be like this but I'm happy they took this direction with her.

So... all is good, right? Why do I say that the game "is good... for the most part"?

Tactica's recycling problem

Fundamentally, and believe me it pains me very much to say this... Tactica doesn't have a lot to say, despite what its developers declared.

The game's themes, characters, morals, and climax are all heavily derivative of themes, characters, morals, and climaxes that have already been more than explored within the various iterations of P5. Past the final portion of the Third Kingdom, the repetitiveness of it all became seriously unbearable. No thing, big or small, gets spared: this is how you find yourself with Toshiro mathematically relating to all the Phantom Thieves, even when it feels forced; how you have the battle against Shadow Toshiro and then Eri that is 1:1 what we saw in Futaba's Palace with the fight against Wakaba; how you have the nth Deity Wished By Mankind that wants to rule over Free Will; how the "Fourth" Kingdom is nothing more than a recycling, reskinning, recoloring of what you already played through the previous Kingdoms -- mobs and bossfights included.

It really does a disservice to the game, the fact that so many of its final portions are stretched out to the point of exhaustion, I imagine only for the sake of justifying the cost of the game with more playtime, something that is deeply wrong, especially if we take into consideration that the game is actually sold at (less) than the current average market price (60€/$, compared to PS4/Switch games being 60-70 and next-gen games being 70-80). It kills the climax that Tactica so painfully had built up to that point, and it made me feel like completing the story was more of a chore I had to do in order to get to the final cutscene (which... is fine, I guess) than something I did with heartfelt conviction.

Moreover, the deeply derivative nature of this game causes more than some issues, character-wise. Because this is a game with the Phantom Thieves... but narratively speaking, they aren't the protagonists: Toshiro and Erina are. This leads to a weird situation where the group, who has by now 2 god killings under their belt, remains stagnant throughout the whole game, as they have nothing to learn or improve about them, and too often they become nothing more than the mask (ah-ah) of themselves, with characters acting just like their archetype -- Yusuke, the starving artist; Morgana, who gets angry when he's called a cat; Ryuji, the dumb guy who's the butt of the joke. Incredibly speaking, the one who feels less like herself is Makoto: in P5 she can be tough and confrontational, sure, but you have to provoke her, first -- she's usually kind and collected, with a sort of mom-friend attitude. Strikers played a bit more into her punk side, and Royal gave us her wonderful Showtimes with Haru and Ryuji... but in Tactica, she's straight-up aggressive and quick to violence, often excessively, often for no reason. I have no idea what happened with her honestly, the day of the wedding in the imaginary vignette she even accuses you, unprompted, of cheating on her. Are the writers Makoto haters?

Anyway. My point is, as much as Toshiro and Erina hit home and do their job as characters, and as much as it's heartwarming to have the whole gang together again... sometimes, especially near the end, it sure feels like everything is just an excuse to have more Phantom Thieves content. Which would not be bad! But it is the moment Royal gets ignored and all the progress and maturity they gained is erased.

Overall, I think Tactica has a great cast and great premises, but the final portion of the story has really been dragged for too long, and the amount of recycling between ideas, assets, plot points, and maps is... not great.

Tactica's mysterious mysteries

There is a whole lot that is never given clarification in this game, and well beyond the realm of plausible fan speculations.

So many things went unexplained or even unaddressed. The Metaverse should by all means be gone at this point -- yet it's still working, and the only comment you get on the matter is "I guess it can't be erased completely" which is fine seeing how it's so tied to the human subconscious but an element so important to the worldbuilding really is treated like Just A Thing That Is Said and never given more consideration. Additionally, it is said that Kingdoms aren't Palaces... but functionally speaking, we explore Toshiro's Palace. There are cognitive versions of his family and acquaintances, there are memories locked inside the maps, there is his Shadow... there is no formal reason for it not to be Toshiro's Palace! Except that they needed to market it like an Entirely Different Thing somehow! On this front, Strikers did a really better job in connecting to the canon worldbuilding of P5.

Another thing that goes entirely unaddressed is how exactly the Phantom Thieves have been summoned inside Toshiro's cognition. The game explains that Shido's calling card was what roused Toshiro from his complacency, and what generated Erina as the spark of his rebellion... but it's never explained how the Thieves got in, especially given that it's explicitly stated that they entered in a different manner than Toshiro, who was kidnapped by Salmael, Persona 4 style. All the weirdness of this new world, Personas not working as usual, the Velvet Room changing form... everything is addressed merely in passing, diverted back to Salmael's doing, or even straight up commented by Lavenza with "I have no explanations for this behavior."

Again, lastly, some things are brought up and never addressed again, like the fact Erina can plant the Flag of Freedom but the Flag itself, as a mechanic, only has relevance in the First Kingdom; or the fact that doors with a projectile on it are used to traverse Kingdoms and are what evoked the Phantom Thieves, but no one will ever explain to you what those are or why the Phantom Thieves don't traverse one back to return to the real world, instead they simply... *fades to white*

But what about the DLC?

The DLC is enjoyable but has, on a smaller scale, the exact same problems the rest of the game has.

Some bits of dialogue and character interactions sent me flying, like the way Joker can tease Akechi in a way he doesn't do with any other character or the fact that whether or not Akechi is a Phantom Thief is treated as a complicated matter, and you can trigger some interesting remarks about the whole situation going on outside of Tactica.

Aside from this, the DLC most than anything else suffers from being set in a pocket of time that needs to be wiped from memory, firstly because these three characters aren't exactly a trio yet and only had one interaction together before this moment yet they act like they're closer than that... and secondly because the whole Guernica situation is a parallel to Kasumi and Sumire's story. So it really hits the wrong way, and it even verges on horror if you have the hindsight, that Akechi, Joker and Violet have to save a girl that lost her sister and is being brainwashed to forget her... while Sumire is still "Kasumi."

I liked the setting and I liked the paint mechanic and I liked how frankly brutal and visceral some scenes are. That is exactly my jam! But I couldn't enjoy them to the fullest because I knew they would have amounted to nothing in the grand scheme of things. The memory wipe solution was in store, of course, I saw that coming, nonetheless I found it deeply unelegant, seeing as they didn't even try to offer an explanation as to why or how the trio had their memory erased.

Also, it makes no sense for Guernica to be active in the real world at that scale if only because there would be no reason for her to never be mentioned anywhere after, and I quote, "pulling a stunt like the ones from the Phantom Thieves."

On a final note, since I mentioned the base game's price... contrary to that, Tactica's DLC isn't worth the 20€/$ you pay it. Not only because it's very short (4-5 hours if you rush, 6-8 if you take some more time to maybe restart some maps or replay some dialogues and gush like I did) but because the experience is overall nothing memorable, and the additional maps aren't enough to cover that. I stand by the fact you shouldn't judge a game's price by its length, but length isn't Repaint Your Heart's sole problem, sadly.

My final thoughts

Overall, I enjoyed playing Tactica (save for the final part) and it gave me some really stellar content, like the fake wedding scenes, Ann's best characterization across the entire series, Erina as a character, and overall a new occasion to spend time with my favorite band of outlaws teens.

I'm glad I had more P5 content... but I still feel I could've gone by with no problems without Tactica. Which is a sad thing to say, but it's true. Because I loved Strikers and I would never want to live without having played that game. Tactica, well... despite me being hyped for it a ton, it made me come to the conclusion that I am done with P5 content, especially if it has to be like this. If I feel nostalgic, I'll just boot my PS5 and replay Royal for the second time. And for everything else, there is fandom.

Thank you for reading this far if you have. You can find me on Twitter, Ao3 and BlueSky!

#persona 5 #persona 5 royal #persona 5 tactica #p5 #p5r #p5t #spoilers #p5t spoilers #p5r spoilers #tactica spoilers #p5 meta #meta-ish at least?#not a review #not fully meta #but a secret third thing #aka my honest thoughts

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