Persona 5 Tactica Switch review

If I had my way I’d be able to play every single video game that comes my way portably. Technical limitations mean this isn’t always possible though, and there are plenty of examples of Switch games out there that prove that point rather soundly. A tactics game like Persona 5 Tactica is the perfect handheld title for playing on the go, but can the Nintendo Switch handle it?

For more information about Persona 5 Tactica as a whole I’d recommend reading my full review, but for those in a hurry – “Persona 5 Tactica is unlike any other tactics game I’ve ever played, and is constantly throwing new things at you from start to finish. It has all the charm and style of a mainline Persona game, while providing a different kind of gameplay that I just couldn’t get enough of. There are few casts of characters that I’d be happy to spend as much time with as I have Joker and the gang, and I wouldn’t change a minute of it.”

Now the good news is that Persona 5 Tactica runs incredibly (and somewhat surprisingly) well on the Nintendo Switch. The visuals still look vibrant and the menus still look stylish, and even more importantly I didn’t have any issues with the framerate at all. The game runs at a steady framerate from start to finish, and doesn’t have to compromise on fidelity to do so.

There is one noticeable difference though when playing Persona 5 Tactica on the Switch compared to on a home console or PC, and that’s the load times. There are fairly significant load times between scenes, when traveling to different stores, or even when backing out of certain menus. Honestly it’s not as bad as it sounds though, and unless you’d played the game on console as well (like I had) you likely wouldn’t even notice.

Although everyone will have different opinions on if longer load times are an issue worth putting up with to play portably, I cannot stress enough how perfect Persona 5 Tactica is for the Switch. The mission length is ideal for a cheeky fifteen minute session between less fun parts of the day, and the more thoughtful pace means that playing it with distractions in the background is unlikely to cause much of an issue.

It’s worth mentioning that Persona 5 Tactica doesn’t have touch support, which you might think would be a handy addition for a tactics game. That’s not really the case with Tactica though, thankfully, which features a lot of free movement around the battlefield that is much better suited to a nice pair of Joy-Cons (or your own equivalent) regardless.

It’s fantastic to see Persona games releasing on Switch at the same time as other consoles (first with Persona 5 Strikers and now Tactica) especially now that Persona 5 is more than playable on Nintendo’s lovely handheld alongside it. I’d absolutely recommend playing Tactica on the Switch if you’re able to, because now I’ve gone portable with this sensational tactics game I just can’t imagine playing it elsewhere regardless of load times.