Persona 5 Tactica, the TRPG spin-off of the Persona 5 series coming to consoles and PC released a plethora of new information regarding the game’s gameplay elements from its combat, to progression, and conversations!
What follows will be a short dive into how the game adapts its mechanism from the original Persona 5 game to this tactical setting including taking cover One More, combo setups, shooting, persona skills, and unique skills. Even though the game won’t feature social links, there are plenty of ways to get stronger by talking to your allies and unlocking tons of fun sequences, by earning things like GP which can be used to dump into skill trees!
Persona 5 Tactica launches for the Xbox Game Pass, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Microsoft Windows and Steam on November 17.
▍Persona 5 Tactica Combat Systems
■ For Any Good Thief, Taking Cover is Key!
Even without the benefit of dungeon exploration like in Persona 5, Persona 5 Tactica still manages to bring some key parts of its predecessor’s mechanics to the game, one of which being Cover.
You can position your characters behind walls or other objects in the environment to have them take cover, reducing, or sometimes outright blocking all the damage entirely.
Take care to use cover as often as you can, because if you get spotted and attacked while out in the open the enemy can attack you once again, so try to always stay behind something!
■ Attack Enemies in Hiding! Coordinate with your Team to Combo One More!
With a new perspective comes new ways to lay down the pain. While the terrain can also prevent you from dealing with bonus attacks on an enemy, certain characters and abilities can strike an enemy out of cover and into view of an ally, letting them perform a One More attack to follow up and quickly dispatch your foes before you take any damage.
■ Use Persona Skills to Inflict Ailments!
Elemental skills of course make a return, with abilities like Zio causing shock, and Agi causing burn, and much more. These status effects like the game they originate from will stun the enemy, or cause them to take damage over time!
Certain skills will also reach over cover and can even break cover, giving you a free opportunity to trigger a One More attack.
■ Turn the Tides of Battle with Unique Skills!
Certain characters can also bust out some unique skills during combat to completely turn a battle from a dire situation to a straight victory. During combat, a star-shaped Voltage gauge will fill up on the bottom-right of the screen, and when it is full you can use unique skills from a character, each causing a variety of different effects.
Erina’s, for instance, will cause all cover enemies are using in an area to be destroyed, completely opening them up for attacks and exposing them for One More activations, while also healing allies for three turns.
Ryuji on the other hand opts to finish the fight by himself, letting him deal medium damage to all enemies in a line while inflicting shock, giving you and your team ample time to lay down the pain!
▍Persona 5 Tactica Progression
■ Freely Upgrade your Teammates through skill trees
Each character also has a variety of skills and effects you can add to them by giving them GP. Each tree has certain useful effects like increasing stats, dealing more damage with certain elemental skills, or auxiliary effects for other combat maneuvers. Skill trees can be reset at any time so you can feel free to customize your characters and experiment.
You can GP by talking to your allies at the hideout, giving you more ways to earn this precious resource and trigger some fun conversations with friends, from talks about the mission, to… Joker’s ideal wedding?!
▍Persona 5 Tactica Pre-Order Bonus
Persona 5 Tactica is currently available now for pre-order on its platforms, and players who purchase the game early or pre-order can pick up Orpheus Picaro, and Izanagi Picaro Personas as a limited bonus.
