Persona 5 Tactica review – Famous Five-style Jungian urban warfare anyone?

Atlus, P Studio; Sega; PlayStation 4/5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch
This stylish if undemanding instalment has some nice touches, but its saccharine dialogue will appeal to only the most committed Persona fans

The long-running Persona series marries Famous Five-style adventuring with Jungian psychology. Typically, a group of students band together to solve the adult-confounding problems of their town, battling with the manifestations of its residents' various emotional hang-ups. This spin-off shifts away from adolescent psychoanalysis into a more conventional game of chess-like skirmishes. The teenagers must overthrow a tyrannical monarch by allying with local resistance fighters in the fantastical kingdom to which they've been spirited away.

This kind of tactical war game has its roots in 19th-century Kriegsspiel, where Prussian officers would play out military scenarios on boards, nudging tokens to represent their units. Here, battles are played out in a more localised context: town centres and underground warrens through which you manoeuvre your chosen trio, knocking opponents out from behind cover using a combination of melee, projectile and magical attacks.