Summary
Persona 5 Royalfeels like the culmination of many of the series' best ideas from past games along with some fresh new ideas that make the title feel like nothing else. A game like that can feel intimidating to follow up, but analyzing it reveals certain patterns that Atlus can utilize within itsin-progress follow-upPersona 6.
Getting the story ofPersona 6right will be essential to ensuring it properly follows up the hit game that came before it.Persona 5 Royalhas its story criticisms, most notably with the controversial nature of certain confidants like Kawakami or Takemi, but the way the game approaches its storytelling overall is some of the best ever seen in an Atlus title. On top of that, it cements a pattern that began withPersona 3andPersona 4, one that the sixth entry in the main series can push to a new level if Atlus approaches it correctly.
RELATED:Persona 3 Reload Needs To Learn From Persona 5 Royal’s Haru
Building The Persona Team
It’s clear thatPersona 6has a unique opportunityto delve even deeper into its characters' personal struggles and create an opening act that grabs players' attention right from the start. The franchise has always been strong in this, and the introductory acts have only grown longer and more complex throughout the years, withPersona 5’s opening act wrapping up right around the time a lot of games would already be winding down. The evolution of these intros as they’ve grown more complex shows the desire of Atlus to really establish each of these characters and their motivations for the player, ensuring a more immersive experience.
Each of thePersonagamesfrom3through5took steps towards crafting more personal narratives for their starting teams. InPersona 3, the protagonists' motivations evolve gradually, with their journey initially driven by a sense of duty rather than deeply personal reasons.Persona 4raises the stakes by dropping the characters and their newfound abilities into a strange murder mystery.Persona 5 Royalis where this emotional investment reaches a new level that makes the success of the title undeniable, as the characters, and by extension, the players, encounter the abusive circumstances surrounding tragically too many in their local community. This makes the story of each character relatable for many, which only heightens an already powerful narrative experience.
Where Persona 6 Can Take The Series' Narrative
It’s understandable that Atlus would want topushPersona 6even further, or at a very minimum, meet the character expectations set by the pattern of past entries. The opening act of the upcoming game will likely focus on something that forces the characters to confront inner struggles or difficult outward circumstances, which will bond them together and motivate their journey early on. What sets the stakes apart for aPersonatitle versus many other JRPGs is that these circumstances often feel incredibly intimate.
These aren’t brave adventurers on a journey to save a pretty young monarch, or secret agents recruited to stop a world-ending extinction event. They’re high school students dealing with class schedules, school bullies, manipulative teachers, and so many other things that can be more directly connected to the lives and experiences of those playing these games.
Obviously, there are many otheringredientsPersona 6will needto make it a worthy successor toPersona 5 Royal, a pressure that Atlus likely feels from the outside. However, the setting of aPersonastory is arguably what most strongly identifies it as a game within this acclaimed franchise, even separating it from its sibling franchiseShin Megami Tensei.
