WhilePersona 6shouldn’t imitatePersona 5wholesale, there are a lot of great lessons that the next bigPersonagame can take from its predecessor. For instance,Persona 5found a lot of untapped potential in the Social Links explored inPersona 3and4.Upgrading Social Links into Confidantsthat all offered unique perks was a great idea, and hopefully Atlus' next game explores the Confidant space in more detail, creating even bolder perks that the newPersonaprotagonist can earn by making friends. The principles ofPersona 5’s dungeon design also deserve to be passed on into the next game.
ThePersonaseries has always offered players dungeons to crawl through, butPersona 5did so in style. Palaces revolutionized thePersonadungeon blueprint by implementing lots of clear structure while adding vastly more personality to the dungeons. The result is thatPersona 5’s Palaces are all extremely memorable, even if not every Palace is equally beloved.Persona 6has the chance to perfect the Palace structure by coming up with similarly creative dungeons that make the most out ofPersona’s overarching narrative. to be as popular asPersona 5,Persona 6has to learn from the success story of Palaces.
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Why Persona 5’s Palaces are Great
BeforePersona 5came around,Personadungeons were pretty simple. Players spent a lot ofPersona 3and4running through hallways and battling Shadows, and while sometimes players had a puzzle to solve, the vast majority of the dungeon experience added up to surviving the onslaught of semi-random encounters. While this made the likes ofPersona 4a great RPG for grinding, it also made these dungeons awfully repetitive.Persona 4may have offered players some unique dungeon themes, like a sauna or an underground laboratory, the dungeon’s aesthetic usually had little to do with the combat or puzzles, meaning it was ultimately just set dressing.
Persona 5’s approach to dungeon design couldn’t be further than that. Each dungeon had a ton of extraordinarily detailed personality. Not only did each Palace have a very specific theme, but they were actually shaped after that theme. Rather than just running down hallways with laboratory decor,Persona 5players found themselves walking around the catacombs of a pyramid, the game rooms in a casino, and much more. Between the broad range of themes, highly distinct floor plans, andthe colorful Palace Rulersbehind each dungeon, Palaces all have a ton of personality and charisma.
The mechanics ofPersona 5’s Palaces benefitted from these unique structures as well. Each Palace had significantly more puzzles than previous dungeons, and they all intricately wove in the Palace’s theme. Players got to travel through paintings in Madarame’s Palace, navigate deadly conveyer belts in Okumura’s Palace, and so on. Each Palace also had a unique roster of enemies, rather than constantly reusing enemy appearances and mechanicslikePersona 4did. Between these mechanical upgrades and the dazzling personalities of each Palace, the dungeons ofPersona 5were absolutely one of the game’s strongest features.
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How Persona 6 Can Imitate Palaces
UnlessPersona 6turns out to bea directPersona 5sequelafter all, it probably won’t feature Palaces again. However, Atlus can easily conjure up highly similar dungeons that fit the game’s theme. No matter who its protagonists are,Persona 6will almost certainly still be about teenagers investigating worlds created by the human mind, so they’ll still end up in dungeons formed by the fears, fantasies, and repressed truths of people they know. In other words,Persona 6has all the narrative justification that it needs to make highly Palace-like dungeons.
In terms of storytelling,Persona 6’s dungeons need to be highly specific to the character that inspires the dungeon, and the themes need to matter. A dungeon’s theme can’t just result in decorations like inPersona 4; the dungeon’s layout, decorations, obstacles, and amenities all need to take inspiration from the dungeon’s core concept. Whatever type of location Atlus converts into a dungeon, the location’s unique qualities need to inspire character interactions that break down the dungeon denizen’s thoughts in great detail.Persona 5’s Palaceshad all kinds of unique locations and encounters that shed light on the Palace rulers, andPersona 6’s dungeons need to explore characters and deliver themes as painstakingly to be memorable.
Dungeon mechanics need to imitatePersona 5’s concept too.All ofPersona 6’s enemiesneed to be recognizable cultural figures with unique abilities that ideally reflect the dungeon’s themes, meaning no two dungeons have the same combat experience. Similarly,Persona 6’s dungeon puzzles should draw as much inspiration from the theme as possible. Thematically appropriate puzzles like the murals in Futaba’s Palace helpedPersona 5players understand the Palace rulers better, and soPersona 6should use puzzles to characterize friends and enemies alike in the same way.
The Evolution of Persona Dungeons
There are certainly a few downsides toPersona 5’s approach to dungeons. Palaces are arguably less replayable thanks to their heavy narrative focus and detailed puzzles, and the narrative elements might make Palaces feel a little slow to play through for some fans. Ultimately, though, these are fairly small downsides. The benefits of Palaces' lovingly crafted themes and mechanics heavily outweigh the partial loss of replayability, and the rich storytelling within dungeonsmakesPersona 5far more immersive.Persona 6would lose a lot if it went back to the far more simplistic model ofPersonadungeons.
Rather than returning to the past model,Persona 6should build on the innovations fromPersona 5.The Palace dungeon model still has plenty of room to grow. For instance,ifPersona 6is about a road tripin the way thatPersona 5was originally going to be,Persona 6’s dungeons could include large outdoor sections that are fantastical versions of the real biomes and landmarks that the protagonists visit.Persona 5 Strikersalready reimagined urban outdoor areas in excellent ways, so building nature intoPersona 6’s dungeons doesn’t sound too farfetched. The Phantom Thieves' adventures will likely come to an end oncePersona 6rolls around, but the experiences they had could shape the dangers faced by thePersona 6party in a big way.
