Skill Cards are one of the Persona series' best ideas, but their incarnation in Persona 5 Royal was not as good as it could have been. With the Persona games getting more elaborate as time goes on, it only seems natural that Skill Cards would keep showing up as a mechanic. Even so, Persona 5 Royal still needed to fine-tune them a little more in order for players to get the most out of what they can provide. Although their effects are useful, they need to be implemented properly in order to be the powerful resource they should be.
Considering how vital getting the best skills in Persona games is, Skill Cards are the definition of simple, yet powerful. By using a Skill Card, the player can teach the card's skill to one of their Personas, even if the Persona couldn't learn it naturally. This added bit of customization can be remarkably useful, with some skills being incredibly powerful on specific Personas. While there are some restrictions, like fire-based personas not being able to learn ice skills, it still opens a lot of options. Whether a Persona is gaining a powerful new attack option or covering a weakness, Skill Cards are an undeniably strong asset.
Skill Cards Are One of the Best Persona 5 Royal Mechanics, But They Still Need Some Work
Unfortunately, Skill Cards still have a way to go in the series. Yusuke Kitagawa of Persona 5 Royal was that game's main way of giving the player more Skill Cards. While they could be gained through quest rewards or as rare drops in dungeons, players could give cards to Yusuke once his confidant link opened, and he would take a day to duplicate them. However, this requires the player to consistently visit Yusuke to keep making cards, and they would need to provide a Blank Card for skills he hasn't replicated before. While useful, this method of replicating skill cards is still a bit clunky in action.
The best use of Skill Cards was in Persona 4 Golden. Although Persona 4 Golden had a perfect confidant prototype, the player could instead extract Skill Cards from Personas by spending a day at the cafe. However, there were two other methods to obtain Skill Cards. One was through playing Shuffle Time after battles in dungeons, where they could win Skill Cards by timing their pick correctly. The second was through the Velvet Room. Just like their Personas, players could register Skill Cards in the compendium to buy them back as many times as they want, and it's puzzling that Persona 5 Royal didn't bring this feature back.
Making Skill Cards more useful and practical should be a focus, because out of all the past elements Persona 6 could keep, Skill Cards are near the top of the list. Bringing back Persona 4 Golden's ability to register Skill Cards in the Compendium is a must, since it's a reasonable and efficient way for players to collect Skill Cards. While finding them in dungeons works fine, a crafting system could help as well. It's common in Shin Megami Tensei for players to gain materials from defeated enemies. Persona 6 could follow this trend and let players collect materials to use in recipes as another method to obtain Skill Cards.
Skill Cards should make a comeback in Persona 6 due to their constant utility. At the same time, the importance of the feature in Persona 6 demands the best design possible. Making the process of obtaining and using skill cards easy to understand and keep up throughout the game will help it feel like a core part of gameplay. Considering how good of a mechanic it is, that should have been how it was treated all along. Persona 5 Royal let Skill Cards down to a degree, and Persona 6 can do a better job of fitting them into the player's routine.
Persona 5 Royal is available now for Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.