The Evolution of Persona 6: Breaking Tradition with the Protagonist's Starting Persona
Persona 6's protagonist needs a starting Persona that breaks tradition in a crucial way, enhancing its long-term viability Let's explore how the iconic starting Personas of the previous games can be improved upon for a fresh and exciting experience
Article Key Points
The starting Personas in the Persona series quickly become outclassed by other options, leading players to fuse them into stronger Personas.
The initial skill set of the starting Personas in the game is likely designed to familiarize players with its mechanics, but as players advance, they become less effective. In order to enhance gameplay, Persona 6 should enhance the usefulness of the protagonist's starting Persona, enabling players to retain it on their team for an extended period and granting it access to a wider range of skills.
The Persona series has its own established traditions that players have come to expect in each installment. These include the ability to recruit and fuse Personas to create new ones. While Persona 3 Reload aims to modernize the classic title with elements from Persona 5 Royal, it remains uncertain how Persona 6 will enhance the series' staple mechanics. However, one area that Persona 6 has the potential to improve upon is the usefulness of the protagonist's starting Persona, allowing it to remain relevant beyond the initial stages of the game.
A defining moment in every mainline Persona game is when the protagonist first awakens to their power as a Persona user and summons their starting Persona. Despite the significance that these Personas hold for series fans, they unfortunately see limited usage as the game progresses, quickly being overshadowed by other more powerful Personas that players encounter. This design choice likely encourages players to fuse their starting Persona and familiarize themselves with one of the core mechanics of the series. Nevertheless, in Persona 6, it would be beneficial for the starting Persona to be more viable, allowing players the option to keep it on their team if they so desire.
Persona 6 Should Make its Protagonist's Starting Persona Viable in the Long Term
The Personas in the latest games are highly connected to their main protagonists, but they tend to spend minimal time in the player's lineup before being combined into more advanced forms. While these Personas do possess certain elemental abilities at the beginning, their learning curve for new skills plateaus around level 6 or 7, leading players to likely replace them shortly after completing the initial dungeon of the game.
Persona 3 – Orpheus
Skill | Cost | Effect | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
Bash | 7% HP | Light Strike Damage to one foe | Innate |
Agi | 3 SP | Light Fire Damage to one foe | 2 |
Tarunda | 6 SP | Decreases one foe's Attack | 6 |
Persona 4 – Izanagi
Unfortunately, Orpheus is not a viable option for Persona 3's protagonist. Despite being the starting Persona, it lacks strength and becomes weak as players progress to level 6. The skills it acquires are extremely limited and only give a glimpse of the main move types in the game: Physical, Elemental, and Support. However, once players reach level 14 and are able to fuse a Persona such as Pyro Jack, Orpheus quickly becomes overshadowed and obsolete.
Skill | Cost | Effect | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
Zio | 4 SP | Light Elec Damage to one foe | Innate |
Cleave | 5% HP | Light Phys Damage to one foe | Innate |
Rakukaja | 12 SP | Increase one ally's Defense for 3 turns | Innate |
Rakunda | 12 SP | Decrease one foe's Defense for 3 turns | 3 |
Tarukaja | 12 SP | Increase one ally's Attack for 3 turns | 5 |
While Persona 4's protagonist's starting Persona, Izanagi, offers a wider range of skills compared to Persona 3's Orpheus, its usefulness diminishes early on, at level 5. Izanagi begins with Physical, Support, and Elemental skills readily available, but only acquires two additional support skills through leveling up. Therefore, players may find it more advantageous to fuse Oberon as a replacement once they reach level 12.
Persona 5 – Arsene
Skill | Cost | Effect | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
Eiha | 4 SP | Light Curse Damage to one foe | Innate |
Cleave | 6% HP | Light Phys Damage to one foe | 2 |
Sukunda | 8 SP | Decrease one foe's Agility for 3 turns | 4 |
Dream Needle | 8% HP | Light Phys Damage to one foe. Medium chance of Sleep | 5 |
Adverse Resolve | Auto | Increase critical rate when being ambushed | 7 |
Arsene, the initial Persona for Joker in Persona 5, possesses an advantageous skill set compared to the rest of the group. It offers a wide range of Elemental, Physical, Support, and Passive skills. However, it begins to lose its edge after reaching level 7, as it no longer learns new abilities. It is advisable for players to fuse Arsene into Agathion during Persona 5's fusion tutorial. To address this pattern, Persona 6 could enhance the starting Persona of its protagonist by granting them access to a greater variety of skills, even if they are acquired less frequently after a certain level.
Persona 6
Franchise PersonaDeveloper(s) AtlusGenre(s) JRPG
Editor's P/S
Persona 6 has the opportunity to enhance the usefulness of the protagonist's starting Persona, allowing players to retain it on their team for an extended period and granting it access to a wider range of skills. This would break with the tradition of the starting Personas becoming quickly outclassed, and it would give players more options in terms of team composition.
Additionally, Persona 6 could make the starting Persona more viable by giving it a unique ability or skill that sets it apart from other Personas. This would make it more difficult for players to simply fuse it away and would encourage them to keep it on their team. Overall, there are a number of ways that Persona 6 could improve upon the starting Persona, and it would be great to see the developers take advantage of this opportunity.
