Highlights

  • Persona 6 must balance inspirations from past titles while creating unique combat for a fresh experience.
  • Persona 3 Reload improved procedural generation in Tartarus, blending random and crafted environments effectively.
  • Persona 6 should learn from Persona 5's disconnect between planned dungeons and RNG terrain by aiming for a well-balanced system.

Persona 6 is following in the footsteps of a handful of games that have given the series a glowing reputation in the West as well as its native Japan. The most recent example of the Persona formula done right is Persona 3 Reload, a re-imagining of the third title with stylish visual flourishes akin to Persona 5.

It's a big legacy to uphold, and while what has come before will likely give a lot of inspiration, it also presents some obstacles to overcome. Persona 6 will have to find a way to make combat feel well-crafted without losing that sense of unpredictability that randomly generated dungeons can provide. Persona 3 Reload's Tartarus is a big step in a positive direction, marrying two philosophies to ensure it is fun, unique, and lends itself to immense replay value.

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The success of Persona 3's remake has paved the way for the first two games in the series to do the same, and Persona 6 can capitalize on this.

Persona 3 Reload's Tartarus is a Marked Improvement

Persona 3 is the first Persona game of the modern style, as the first few outings were not without merit, but feel largely different to the series' conventions today. The art style, camera angles, method of storytelling, and color palette of Persona as fans know it today started with the 2006 title. Tartatus was the setting for the battles in Persona 3 and did well to keep the challenge up and give players a sense of progression through Persona 3's lengthy runtime. However, its procedural generation meant that it couldn't deploy any kind of pre-planned level design, so often times it could feel repetitive and lacking in memorable moments.

Persona 3 Reload made significant strides to correct the issue. Its art style is far prettier, the hallways change appearance as players progress higher, and there are spots within Tartarus that players won't randomly stumble upon. Because of this, the lines between random hallways and deliberately crafted environments start to blur, meaning it feels like a connected setting that pushes the player along at a decent pace and Persona 3 Reload's Tartarus doesn't fall into the same traps as the game it is based on.

Persona 5 Had a Procedural Generation Problem

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Persona 5 was a huge success in more ways than one, and its art, story, characters, and gameplay were superb enough that many consider it the most definitive Persona game to date. However, its two primary combat arenas felt largely disconnected from one another, which made the problems with each feel more apparent. Mementos is justified in the story of Persona 5 as the cognition of most people in Tokyo, and adheres to the procedurally generated norms of previous games, with the same issues persisting.

Palaces, however, feel much more meticulously engineered. It's great in the sense that the developer's vision can be effectively realized, but in being so pre-planned, it loses the sense of unpredictability and the ever-important replay value that comes with procedural generation. The two ideologies never truly mix in Persona 5. In contrast, the way that Persona 3 Reload handles its combat and dungeon design in Tartarus feels like a wonderful compromise that is potentially future-proofed for later entries in the series.

Persona 6 Needs to Find a Way to Make its Turn-Based Combat Entertaining

Persona 6 will have to find a way to mesh these two ideas, as it already has the task of finding new ways to make Persona's turn-based combat exciting. Its predecessor made decent strides in this, but with so many Persona entries, it can get old quickly. Adapting the battle environment by merging the random with the pre-crafted is a good way to keep the time spent in, and leading up to, combat fresh and engaging. Persona 6 has a lot to achieve and even more to prove, and Persona 3 Reload's Tartarus is a big indicator that it can continue to be special moving forward.