Highlights

  • Sub-Personas in Persona 5 Tactica added value to the gameplay, boosting stats and granting additional skills to party members.
  • Persona 6 could benefit from incorporating the Sub-Persona mechanic, providing more strategic options and customization for party members.
  • The inclusion of Sub-Personas in Persona 6 could revolutionize combat tactics and make the player's Personas more useful than ever before.

Persona 5 Tactica could have foreshadowed the best way to heighten Persona 6's combat through its Sub-Persona mechanic. The Personas themselves are the most distinctive aspect of the Persona series' gameplay, but Sub-Personas could add an important new layer to the dynamic. Persona 5 Tactica shook up the series' formula in a number of ways, with the genre shift to a tactical RPG being the main distinction. However, Sub-Personas are not only another major change, they're one that could easily join the main series. Persona 6 could put this mechanic to use in a way that could change the series.

One of the unwritten rules of the Persona franchise is that, aside from the main protagonist, every party member only gets one Persona. Their Persona may evolve into a new form, but they cannot switch between Personas on the fly like the main character can. This has historically led to party members lacking the flexibility that the main character is capable of. While party members can be switched out to suit what the player needs for an upcoming dungeon, it's not the same level of flexibility as the main character's Wild Card. However, the main character is always the only one who can switch Personas.

Sae Niijima with a Persona 6 logo modeled after Persona 5's
Related
Why Persona 6 Needs Its Own Version of Persona 5 Royal's Sae Niijima

Sae Niijima was a pivotal character in Persona 5, and she could provide the basis for an excellent new character in Persona 6's story.

Persona 5 Tactica's Sub-Personas Would Be an Excellent Fit for Persona 6

Persona-5-Tactica-haru-milady

Persona 5 Tactica's Sub-Personas Changed the Game's Strategy

One key way that Persona 5 Tactica could influence Persona 6 is through the Sub-Persona system. In Persona 5 Tactica, Sub-Personas can be collected and equipped to the party members, granting them certain benefits. An equipped Sub-Persona will boost the stats of their main Persona, and also grant their user a couple of additional skills. While Sub-Personas do not offer a full set of Persona abilities, possibly due to the shift in gameplay style, they are still an important part of strategy in Persona 5 Tactica. If the idea is revived in Persona 6, Sub-Personas could be made even more valuable than they were before.

While Sub-Personas are important in Persona 5 Tactica , their initial introduction came in previous Persona spin-off Persona Q .

Sub-Personas Could Be Incredibly Useful in Persona 6

Sub-Personas could be made into an important part of Persona 6's combat dynamics, especially with a rework to the system. If the main protagonist is a Wild Card as usual, then perhaps their Personas that aren't in use could double as Sub-Personas that could be equipped by anyone. While such an approach may require a larger initial inventory space for Personas, it would be a good way to streamline the process and make sure that the player would have a decent selection of equippable Personas and Sub-Personas available. That way, Sub-Personas could easily fit into the overall framework of Persona 6.

A Persona 6 Take On Sub-Personas Could Revolutionize Tactics In the Series

Sub-Personas could be even more useful in Persona 6 than the skill trees of Persona 5 Tactica, even if Atlus were to reuse both mechanics. There are some obvious potential advantages, such as using Sub-Persona skills to negate elemental weaknesses of various party members, making them more durable in fights. Players could even make audacious moves such as granting their party members such skills as Lucifer's Victory Cry or Alice's Die for Me by assigning the proper Sub-Personas. That's not even getting into the absurd flexibility that would come from the protagonist having both the power of the Wild Card and a Sub-Persona, potentially creating the most customizable protagonist in franchise history.

Sub-Personas are an absurdly useful idea for the series. While they could keep Persona 6 from becoming one of the hardest Persona games to date, the benefits more than outweigh the downsides. It would give players many more strategic options when it comes to their party members, as well as giving them more ways to make use of their full Persona stock. In fact, being useful for the whole party would make the player's Personas more useful than ever. Hopefully, Persona 5 Tactica's Sub-Personas can become core to Persona 6.