As one of the top turn-based RPGs in the industry, Persona always has to defend its throne by keeping itself unique. Thankfully, it has a few tried-and-true tricks up its sleeve. For instance, Persona games have something of a unique character archetype in the Navigator, a non-playable party member who analyzes enemies, provides dungeon information, and supports the team from the backline. Futaba Sakura from Persona 5 Royal is a particularly potent Navigator with a huge wealth of utility. However, while Futaba is a high point of Persona 5 Royal, she also makes a strong case for unlocking the official Navigator earlier in Persona 6.
Over the course of the last few mainline entries, Navigators have joined their respective Persona parties later and later. Fuuka Yamagishi first acts as a Navigator during the second major story boss, less than two months after the protagonist joins SEES. In contrast, Rise Kujikawa joins at the end of Persona 4's third dungeon, while Futaba Sakura joins after the fourth P5 dungeon. All in all, it's clear that Atlus has slowly been pushing the Navigators back. Given the sheer amount of utility that Futaba provides in contrast to her predecessors, though, Persona 6 might have more rewarding progression if its Navigator arrives early.
Persona Navigators Like Futaba Need Time to Shine
Aside from arriving increasingly late in the games' timelines, Persona Navigators have also gotten much more powerful and complicated with time. For instance, Fuuka is a very simple navigator, analyzing enemies in battle and only gaining a couple of extra utilities both in and out of battle. In contrast, Rise was a major step up; her analysis skills get significantly stronger as she levels up, and she frequently interferes in battle by buffing or healing the party and boosting All-Out Attacks. Futaba then doubled down on Rise's many abilities; aside from inheriting Rise's healing, Futaba provided far more utility by mapping Mementos, generating treasure, and more.
All in all, it's clear that Navigators have become far more powerful than they used to be, but they're more reliant on active player progression too. Both Rise and Futaba have a ton of abilities that must be unlocked through their respective Social Link or Confidant track. That means that their full skillsets are far less accessible than Fuuka's skills were. Since Futaba joins the Phantom Thieves halfway through Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal, and her Confidant comes with a major Social Stat barrier, many first-time Persona 5 players likely never saw all that Futaba was truly capable of.
That's why Atlus should consider adding the Navigator to Persona 6's party much earlier than it's done lately. New Persona abilities are a great boon for party member Confidants, but in the case of a Navigator who joins the game late and is hard to befriend, that character can feel like they're playing second fiddle to everyone else in combat. Navigators are naturally a bit less important than party members in the line of fire, but as a unique class of support and a staple of the Persona games, Navigators still deserve to feel mechanically equal to their peers. An early arrival would mean players have more time to complete a Persona 6 Navigator's Confidant track, which in turn lowers the risk that they feel mechanically incomplete.
Persona games also feel dramatically different after the official Navigator arrives. Characters like Teddie and Morgana do their best to fill the void in the meantime, but they simply don't pack the utility of a true Navigator, which sometimes completely alters the course of a fight. Adding the Navigator early on could make Persona 6's gameplay loop feel a little more consistent, rather dropping tons of new combat and exploration variables onto players halfway through the game.
Perosna 6 likely won't add the Navigator as one of its starting party members, since it's more important to focus on the fighters at that stage, but maybe they can join the team quickly in the same vein as Fuuka Yamagishi. While that means the Navigator would probably join with only a couple minor abilities, that only means players will get to watch them grow into their playstyle like every other party member while getting more time to enjoy the Navigator's contributions overall.
Persona 5 Royal is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
