ThePersonafranchise has been a major success thanks in part to its loyalty to a well-loved structure. Its various stories about high schoolers visiting supernatural worlds and learning about themselves all manage to be distinct from one another while repeating conventions that definePersona. Odds are good thatPersona 6will still lean on many of these conventions, even if it experiments in some ways.Persona 6will likely be another story about ordinary teenagers thrust into extraordinary circumstances, which sounds great for lovers of thatPersonaconvention. What really matters is howPersona 6changes the formula by tweaking its details.
One detail particularly worth tweaking is the inclusion of supernatural companions who’ve lost their enemies. In several recentPersonaentries, the playable human teens team up with a being that they meet in the Shadow world. While that being doesn’t remember where they come from, they do have valuable skills and knowledge that helpPersona’s human protagonists wield Personas and explore this alternate dimension.Persona 6ought to have a supernatural companion similar toPersona 5’s Morgana and his peers, but it shouldn’t lean on the recent pattern of amnesiacs. To avoid repetitiveness,Persona 6needs a supernatural ally whose knowledge is limited in new ways.
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Persona’s Amnesiac Pattern
Anyone who has playedPersona 4is well acquainted with Teddie, the anxious but eager bear-shaped ally that the Investigation Team meet in the TV world when they start investigating Inaba’s murders. Although Teddie spends much of the game worrying about his forgotten origins, he still proves to be a useful companion, thanks to his basic knowledge of the Shadow world and his unique ability to sensePersona 4’s dungeons. Teddie’s journey of self-discovery works well inPersona 4andPersona 4 Golden, adding a new layer to the Investigation Team’s adventures in the mysterious Shadow world.
Atlus clearly liked Teddie’s structure, becausePersona 5has a strikingly similar character: Morgana. Although the cat-like Morgana has profound knowledge aboutPersona 5’s Palaces and Desires, he doesn’t know where he came from. Much like Teddie and the Investigation Team’s friendship, Morgana bonds withJoker and the Phantom Thievesover his amnesia; uncovering the mysteries of Morgana’s past becomes an increasingly important subplot asPersona 5goes on. Anyone playingPersona 4andPersona 5back to back is sure to notice the similarities between Morgana and Teddie right away, but their different personalities and circumstances at least manage to set them apart.
Still, these two amnesiacs apparently weren’t enough for Atlus.Persona 5 Strikers' Sophiaadds a third recent amnesiac to the list. While her journey to learn about the human heart often puts her amnesia in the background, Sophia still serves an extremely similar role to both Teddie and Morgana in their respective original games, sniffing out Jails for the Phantom Thieves. By now, Shadow world guides with forgotten origins are well-trodden territory for thePersonafranchise. IfPersona 6features a fourth character of this type, there’s no doubt that it would feel repetitive, which could seriously hamper the game’s overall plot.
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A Different Style of Persona Guide
AlthoughPersona 6shouldn’t have a character whose backstory resembles that of Morgana, Teddie, and Sophia, there’s definitely value in givingPersona 6’s human characters a guide first found in the Shadow world. After all, without characters like Morgana and Teddie,Personaprotagonists would have no way to learn the basics of the Shadow world, like Persona usage. No matterhow cleverPersona 6’s protagonists are, it’s hard to believe that a few human teenagers could navigate the Shadow world on their own.Persona 6needs to offer its protagonists a guide.
Atlus is already sitting on the perfect blueprint for a new style of Shadow world guide: Jose fromPersona 5 Royal.InRoyal,the Phantom Thievesmeet the mysterious Jose in Mementosas he studies humans. Jose does tell Joker and the Phantom Thieves new things about the Shadow world, but he clearly knows exactly where he comes from. Rather than telling the Phantom Thieves everything there is to know about the supernatural world, Jose avoids answers and keeps working toward his own agenda, even while cooperating with humans.
Jose seems like the ideal model for a supernatural companion inPersona 6.A character who clearly knows a lot about Shadows and Personas but refuses to tellPersona 6’s protagonists everything sets up all kinds of interesting potential narratives. AsPersona 6’s characters learn more about their otherworldly guide, they might question the guide’s intentions, interact withother supernatural entities like Philemon, and so on. There’s major value in givingPersona 6’s characters a guide, but there’s also something to be said for straying from the recent guide archetype.Persona 6will be far more compelling if its characters aren’t just tweaked versions of earlierPersonastars.
Persona 6’s Cast of Characters
It’s entirely possible that Atlus is actually setting Jose himself up to be the nextPersonacompanion character, although that’s probably not likely, due toPersona 5 Royal’s dubious place inPersonacanon. It’s more likely thatPersona 6will conjure up an original character who reflects the game’s representation of the Shadow world, whether it leans intoPersona 5’s concept of Palacesor comes up with its own representations of the human psyche. While it would be great to see Jose again, a new character handcrafted forPersona 6’s story and aesthetic would probably be better.
SincePersona 6seems to be in early development, it could be years before fans get even a glimpse at the game. In other words, it’ll be difficult to say what the game’s cast will be like for a long time. Fans can safely assume that there will be a few characters who resemble some ofPersona 4andPersona 5’s Persona users, but if at least one character archetype gets a drastic change, it should be the supernatural companion.Persona 6needs to tell a unique story about Personas and Shadows if it wants to be as successful asPersona 5, and one great way to ensure that it has a distinct identity is through a new style of supernatural guide.
