WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD for Persona 5 Royal. Proceed at your own risk.
Summary
Throughout many of thePersonagames, party members constantly shift in prominence and role, sometimes coming and going altogether.Persona 5 Royalis perhaps one of the most notable examples of this. Not only does it play with party members briefly dipping out of the Phantom Thieves line-up, but it features two characters who are only playable in a small fraction of the game’s story arcs –Goro Akechiand Sumire Yoshizawa. Their distribution of playtime is rather unorthodox too, and while it’s a creative contribution to the story, it leaves the party composition in a notable state of disarray.
Persona 5 Royalcan be forgiven for its unusual use of its party, given that it’s the expanded version of the game and had already proven itself enough to be creative, but it still comes with its downsides. Even if Atlus wants to use party members in a similar creative way inPersona 6, it needs to learn from the disadvantages of scattering the player’s teammates. Parts ofPersona 5 Royaloffer decidedly different gameplay from others due to party composition, for better or worse.Persona 6will need the right balance of creativity and efficient distribution
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Some Persona 5 Royal Party Members Get the Short End of the Stick
Goro Akechi andSumire Yoshizawaare arguably two of the most interesting party members inPersona 5 Royal. Akechi is remarkable because he’s the only character whose set of abilities changes completely between dungeons; he wields one Persona that focus on Bless and Curse skills in Sae’s Palace, and another that drops Bless for a wider variety of damage types and status skills in Maruki’s Palace. Yoshizawa, meanwhile, packs a brutal array of DPS abilities and rounds out the party’s damage types with a focus on Bless skills, but can only be used inP5R’s last Palace.
While this makes Yoshizawa and Akechi feel special in their respective circumstances, it also means the Phantom Thieves are at a noticeable disadvantage in terms of damage types in certain parts of the game. By the mid-to-late game of bothPersona 3andPersona 4, the player’s teammates offer access to every damage type in the game. In contrast, players go through most ofPersona 5without a teammate that deals Bless or Curse damage (including the originalP5’s last two dungeons), putting pressure on Joker to cover those types. That’s doable throughout those stages of the game, but given the precedent ofP3andP4, it’s a remarkable inconvenience to make the player character scout for particular damage types when fusing Personas, rather than just letting them tag in a specific party member to handle enemies in a certain area of a dungeon.
The restriction of these party members has impacts beyond simply the damage types they provide. Atlus always works to givePersonaparty members unique playstyles, and that includes Yoshizawa and Akechi. However, given their limited playtime, and how dramatically Akechi’s skills change between Palaces, players don’t get much time to enjoy their particular abilities, including their Showtimes with Joker. They also both have very little progression in skills, which can make them feel shallower than other party members. What’s more, some of their progression is almost useless; Yoshizawa and Akechi only awaken to their final Personas right beforePersona 5 Royal’s final boss battle, meaning players have next to no opportunity to enjoy their signature skills.
Limited access to Akechi and Yoshizawa made their presence in the party feel more special, but the mechanical pitfalls are clear. IfPersona 6limits players' access to certain party members at any point, it may want to balance it more in favor of mechanical satisfaction than dramatic impact, especiallyifPersona 6has all ofPersona 5 Royal’s damage types. Perhaps a party member is only missing for part of a dungeon, or they’re only available in certain areas or types of dungeons.Persona’s characters are one of the top reasons that the franchise is so beloved, and so it’d be best to give fans more consistent playtime with all of them.
Persona 5 Royalis available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
