The Persona games are always stuffed to the gills with activities, to the point that it's nearly impossible to experience them all to their full extent in a single playthrough. Persona 4 Golden, for instance, offers players an extended roster of Social Links, lots of potential jobs, a long list of quests, and even a fishing minigame. Picking up fishing in Persona 4 Golden is a bit of a convoluted process, but once it's done, it'll supply the player with a steady stream of invaluable items. That's why Persona 6 ought to mimic P4G if it decides to offer a fishing minigame as well.
Fishing minigames are a classic trope of RPGs, whether they're Western-style action RPGs or turn-based JRPGs. Persona is no exception, featuring it in the last two mainline entries; it's also planned to appear in the mobile spinoff Persona 5: The Phantom X. However, while fishing is becoming a staple of the franchise, Persona 5 had a very different approach from Persona 4 that was arguably less worth the player's time. Persona 4 Golden not only made fishing an extremely valuable activity, but it encouraged the player to engage with the world around them in surprising ways, fleshing out Inaba to a remarkable extent.
Persona 4 Golden's Fishing Minigame Offers More Than The Catch of the Day
Persona 4 Golden's fishing minigame shines because it was so multifaceted. Fish could restore a remarkable amount of HP and SP to the player's party in dungeons, but they were also extremely helpful in the world around them. Players needed to catch fish to help certain NPCs, the most important of which was an old man who provided a quest relevant to the Fox Social Link. What's more, fishing encouraged players to discover bug-catching, which spawned its own series of NPC interactions, minigame practice, and resource management.
In contrast, Persona 5's fishing minigame in Ichigaya felt remarkably self-contained. Persona 5 protagonist Joker would catch fish in a contained pond, then immediately hand them in for prizes, most of which were fishing-related. While Persona 5 Royal added some useful accessories for Joker to earn, fishing remained insular in that expanded game, leaving little impact on game's characters, setting, and mechanics, outside the occasional Confidant event. The minigame was still fun, but it lacked the large-scale utility and interactivity that Persona 4 Golden's version featured.
Ideally, Persona 6 will tap into Persona 4 Golden's style over the P5 one. Fishing may not be the top-priority activity for most Persona players, but when it generates supplies that ease dungeon crawls and enable NPC interactions, it's an excellent option on days when Confidants or Social Links aren't available. Persona 6 could take the process a step beyond healing items and provide rare accessories or even weapons found only during fishing. A wider variety of items that can latch onto the players hook would in turn give Atlus more flexibility when designing storylines that players can kick off or move forward with the help of fishing.
Atlus could also lift the quantity of quest interactions in P4G's fishing system for Persona 6. Unlike its predecessor, Persona 5's side quests focused heavily on the world of Shadows instead of the physical world. That means Persona 6 has a chance to reinstate overworld quests as an improvement over the highly successful Persona 5. While Persona 4 Golden's side quests weren't always worth the player's effort, some of them integrated fishing in clever ways, encouraging players to try the minigame in order to earn quest rewards and advance Social Links. Fishing may not be the most original minigame Persona 6 could feature, but if it uses P4G as a blueprint, then it could implement fishing in a way that's true to the Persona spirit.
Persona 4 Golden is available now for PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
