“Persona 5 Tactica” is a tactical role-playing game where the player will take on the role of the protagonist, a Japanese high-school student, and his friends known as the Phantom Thieves. Following the disappearance of a politician named Toshiro Kasukabe, the group is transported into a fantasy realm where they must confront a military group, the Legionnaires, resolve Toshiro’s struggles and find their way back home.
The game is rated Advisory 16 (Suitable for 16 & Above).
Played from a third-person perspective, the player will lead a team of heroes to fulfil a series of objectives. Melee and ranged weapons such as swords, slingshots and guns can be used to fight various humanoid enemies and mythical beings. Creatures called Personas can be summoned to wield elemental moves such as fire, ice and lighting attacks. To progress in the game, the player’s team must complete battles to gain money, experience and Personas, while upgrading character traits, learning new abilities and engaging in dialogue choices.
Combat is turn-based where the player will choose from a list of actions for each member in the team, and the battle will typically end when all combatants from one side are defeated. When characters are struck, the amount of damage is shown. Upon defeat, they collapse before disappearing in puffs of smoke, with animated cutscenes of moves shown on occasion. There are some depictions of moderate violence such as characters getting shot by guns and magical beams. Other scenes include a character ripping a mask off his face which causes him to bleed, a humanoid character seen with a bloodied eye socket, and some characters dressed in mouse costumes getting shot, causing them to inflate and explode as paint splatters. These are mitigated by the game’s cartoonish graphics without realistic details seen. Such portrayals of violence are appropriate under the ADV16 Classification Guidelines which permit “realistic but not excessively graphic violence with depiction of blood”.
Some suggestive scenes can be encountered during gameplay. These include still images of female characters who are seen in cleavage-revealing outfits or in the nude with their hair or clothes covering vital areas such as their chests, as well as a demon with a phallus-like protrusion. Some dialogue lines and in-game texts also contain sexual references, including mentions of an adult magazine and innuendo of a same-sex relationship, without any visual depictions of intimacy or nudity. Under the ADV16 rating, depictions of “nudity without details” and “still or moving images which may be mildly suggestive e.g. scantily-clad women in bikinis or lingerie” are permitted.
There is some use of crude language such as “bitch”, “hell”, “damn” and “shit”, which are uttered by characters and seen in the English subtitles.