Persona 5 Tactica is a new spin-off that offers a completely different experience (and look) from the main game.
If you’re getting Persona Q vibes from the art style, you’re not alone. IN recent issue of Famitsu Weekly, P Studio’s lead producer Kazuhisa Wada revealed that during the testing phase of the new turn-based strategy game, the team actually applied “character designs straight from the Persona Q series.” In the end, the team decided to redraw everything (via Persona Central).
“We decided that adjusting the proportions of the characters specifically for this game would make a significant difference, so as you can see, we completely redrew everything.”
Tactica’s art director Hanako Oribe actually touched on this in the latest issue of Famitsu Weeklyreiterating that the new game is not a sequel to Persona Q or anything like that just because of the art style.
“This is not a sequel within Person Q series, and the genre of the game is also different, so we aimed for illustrations that would best suit this game.”
Although Persona 5 Tactica may appear to have a “chibi style” similar to Persona Q, according to Oribe, the proportions in Tactica were increased to emphasize the “size of the hands and feet”, resulting in a larger “comic book”-like appearance. The reason for this idea is to help characters stand out more in combat.
“If battles are viewed from an overhead perspective, characters with the usual tall proportions will appear thin and stick-like. Additionally, it is challenging to render dynamic gestures and movements with proportions from Person Q.”
So there you have it – even though the two games look the same, Persona 5 Tactica does its own thing and even uses its own unique art style. It will be released later this year for the Nintendo Switch on November 17, 2023.