Persona 5 Tactica: Can’t Enter Character Name On Handheld Fix

Persona 5 Tactica stays true to tradition by allowing us to enter the name of the protagonist character, Joker. However, users on handheld PCs might be unable to do so without a fix!

For some strange reason, the game seems to just completely ignore virtual keyboard inputs for some users. This means you can’t enter your character’s name, preventing you from even starting the story!

In this article, we’ll go over a few potential fixes and workarounds for this annoying bug.

How to The Enter Character Name Bug on Handheld PCs

It seems that the character name input bug in Persona 5 Tactica is caused by the game sporadically being unable to recognize digital keyboard inputs when playing on handheld PCs.

As such, the first potential fix is to plug in a USB keyboard to your handheld PC. Ideally, try restarting the game and your handheld PC as well before trying to enter the character name, too!

This should allow you to use your USB keyboard to input the character name, bypassing the digital keyboard entirely. As such, this should work with any handheld PC such as Steam Deck or ASUS ROG Ally.

If you already had a USB keyboard plugged in and it didn’t work either, try unplugging it and restarting your PC. Then launch Persona 5 Tactica again and try to input the character name!

Sometimes this allows for the game to recognize gamepad inputs, as well as allow you to use the digital keyboard to input Joker’s name.

If neither of those basic tricks worked, don’t fret! There are still a couple more potential fixes.

Use Steam Cloud Saves

This workaround only works if you own the game on Steam, as the Microsoft Store version doesn’t support Cloud Saves.

You’ll also need access to a standard PC and to make sure that you have Cloud Saves turned on! They’re on by default, but you enable them by right-clicking on a game and opening its Properties.

In this example, you can see that we have Steam Cloud saves enabled for Persona 4 Arena Ultimax.

Anyway, the fix is pretty simple. Launch Persona 5 Tactica on your standard PC and start a new game to input Joker’s names.

Once you’ve done that, keep playing until the game allows you to save, then exit the game completely. Steam should upload your save to the cloud now.

Now, pick up your handheld PC and launch Persona 5 Tactica while ensuring that Steam Cloud is on for the game.

This will make Steam load up the save you made on your standard PC, skipping the character-naming part of the game!

ASUS ROG Ally: Change Keyboard to Traditional

A potential fix that is exclusive to the ASUS ROG Ally is to simply change your keyboard’s layout to Traditional.

It’s set to a smaller and simplified layout by default, which can cause input issues in some games, just like you’re experiencing with Persona 5 Tactica right now.

To do this, just try to input the name to bring up the virtual keyboard. Press on the gear icon on the top left and then select “Traditional” from the “Keyboard Layout” tab.

Try to enter Joker’s name again and it should hopefully work!

What To Do If Nothing Worked

If none of these fixes worked for you, you might sadly need to wait for Atlus and Sega to release an official patch for Persona 5 Tactica.

They seem to have their ear to the ground when it comes to bug reports, as they have a stickied topic in the Steam forums asking for feedback.

Since this issue seems to be common amongst handheld PC players, they no doubt are aware of it! Let’s just hope they fix it promptly, so you get to dive into this new Persona 5 spin-off.

ALSO READ: Persona 5 Tactica: All Mission Awards List & Grand Thievery Achievement Guide