Persona 6

Persona 6 is a role-playing video game developed by Atlus and is technically the seventh game in the Persona series, which is part of the Megami Tensei franchise. The game was released for PlayStation in Japan on January 11, 2024, and was released worldwide on September 1st the same year.

The game, like the other games in the series, takes place in modern-day Japan. This time around, the game follows a young transfer student from an unspecified town that moves from Osaka to the suburbs due to their father getting a new job. The student, usually referred to as simply "Green", attempts to adjust to their new life and tries to start a better life, due to being rather bored with most things. Along the way, they make many new friends and uncover a horrifying plot that places all of Japan at risk.

Gameplay
The game is similar to the previous installments. The player takes control of the main playable character, usually called Green, as they attend school and go through their regular lives, which is usually interrupted by supernatural events and combat. The game features day-night and weather cycles as well as jobs and events Green can get/trigger. Depending on what the player does, Green can raise their stats and gain items while doing this. The player can also choose to spend time with different characters, with different benefits being gained if characters like you enough. One of these benefits is romancing different characters, with almost every named character being a possible love interest.

Along with the regular everyday life, there are also supernatural events, which includes dungeon crawling. Dungeons in the game can be found in a place known as .New (dot new), which is a parallel world inside of a person's computer that manifests someone's negative aspects into a being. The .New world also contains specific story-related dungeons named Databanks, which are similar to Palaces from the previous installment, being massive dungeons that are usually led by a boss.

As with previous titles, the game features turn-based combat against creatures known as Shadows, which are warped entities that manifest all of a person's negative attributes. In combat, the player is able to summon their own personal spirit known as their Persona, which has mystical abilities, or they can simply battle the enemies themselves using different weapons in their arsenal (which disappear in the real world). If a Shadow is weak enough, the player is able to commence "Bargaining", which is similar to a Hold Up from Persona 5. The bargaining can either be the Shadow bargaining with you or vice versa. If the Shadow is bargaining with you, you can gain extra items or yen in exchange for not gaining experience points and if you are bargaining with a Shadow, you start a dialogue with it in an attempt to make it switch sides.

The fusion system also makes a return from previous installments, where the character can sacrifice two of their Personas and forge a new one in their place.

Setting and Characters
Main article: List of Persona 6 characters

The game takes place in the suburbs of Tokyo and follows a group of high school students who gain the ability to summon supernatural beings known as Personas, which are manifestations of their inner desires and wants. All of the main characters attend a school called Tenko Academy. There are a few other locations the player can visit, including a few other, much larger towns which have cinemas and much more. They are also able to enter a place known as .New, which they can access from their computer and find people's "Databanks", which are ruled over by very powerful manifestations of a person's worst parts.

The main character of the game is a mostly silent protagonist of ambiguous gender who the player can name anything they wish, though they are commonly referred to as Green, after their tendency to only wear a green jacket. Along the way, they also encounter students who are accidentally sucked into .New and gain Personas of their own, aiding the protagonist on their journey to stop the corrupt forces of Japan.

Plot
The game begins with a white wall as people arguing are heard on the other side. The wall eventually cracks and shattered, revealing a massive green abyss. Ghostly images of people float through the abyss and groan in pain, unable to remember where they are. The protagonist is then seen sitting on a floating rock in the abyss and attempts to keep their mind active by grasping on to their memories, including the most basic such as their own name. After remembering this, they attempt to recall what led them up to this moment, a blast of burning energy emitting from them as they do.

The game then rewinds time to back to the beginning of the year, where the protagonist is shown moving into a new house after their father gets a new job. While on the train to Tokyo, they find a teddybear on the ground and attempt to give it back to a little girl. The girl accepts but the mother pulls them away from the protagonist, who they appear hostile towards. The mother claims they've "heard what they did" before getting off the train at the next stop and walking as fast as possible away from the protagonist.

The protagonist quickly makes their way to their new home in Tokyo suburbs only to discover their home's front lawn is incredibly overgrown and their father is nowhere to be found, leaving behind a note reading "mow the lawn". While upset, the protagonist does so and attempts to enter their house only to discover the door isn't even unlocked for them. Due to this, their neighbor, Mahiro Asai, allows them to stay in his house for the time being. Unfortunately, the protagonist's father doesn't return to them and they end up staying the night at Mahiro's.

The protagonist lives in Mahiro's attic and sets up their computer, browsing the internet to pass the time. While doing this, they discover a conspiracy website that reveals several people have been going missing across Tokyo for unknown reasons. They then hear a voice behind them and turn around, revealing the walls of their room have become green code of ones and zeroes. A texture slowly forms over the code, turning the room into a chamber filled with hard drives and wires with three people standing in the middle of it all. The three introduce themselves as Walter, Jenine, and Beatrice and stand aside, revealing their master sitting in the middle of the room. The man reveals his name is Igor and welcomes the protagonist to the Velvet Room.

After an introduction to the Velvet Room, Igor ends the protagonist's visit by telling them he's interested in seeing their full potential. Igor then tells the protagonist to wake up, which they do, revealing they fell asleep while searching the web. Assuming the Velvet Room was just an odd dream, they head downstairs where they're informed that their father left a message for them. They play the message, which is just their father telling them he'll usually be at work and can't come to visit the protagonist very often, telling them to live with the Asais for the time being. While disheartened, the protagonist is comforted by Mahiro

Mahiro then gives the protagonist directions to their new school and they walk there. The protagonist is sat beside popular student Kaori Fujio, who they attempt to introduce themself to but are blown off. After their first class, the protagonist is introduced to Eiji Ishimura, who the teacher asks to show the protagonist around. They do so and, while showing them a garden-like part of the school, the pair run into a group of bullies, consisting of Goro Masuya, Kazumi Oshio, and their leader and Goro's brother, Daizo.

The Masuya gang picks on Eiji in front of the protagonist, who decides to help out and is beaten by Daizo for their troubles. Luckily, Eiji still appreciates their help and asks if the two can hang out later. The protagonist, while not sure about Eiji, agrees as to not seem rude. The protagonist visits Eiji's home, where they discover Eiji's parents are also usually out but in Eiji's case they leave him home a lot due to needing him to take care of his baby sister. Finding out they have this in common, the protagonist warms up to Eiji a bit more and the two begin to bond over the course of the night. However, things take a sudden turn when they get a notification from a website called P.New.

The pair initially dismiss the notification due to thinking it could be a virus but after it appears over and over they decide it might be important and click on it. A green light then flashes from the computer screen and scans the protagonist, who slowly transforms into green lines and disappears. They then wake up inside of what appears to be a digital world and hear an odd mumbling voice in their head, which they had been hearing a few times throughout the week. However, the voice stops when Eiji suddenly appears beside them, with him claiming he also clicked the link in order to make sure the protagonist was okay. Eiji is taken aback by the sight around him but his wonder turns to terror when he spots a figure in the distance. The figure charges towards Eiji, revealing itself as another version of him with glowing eyes.

The separate Eiji begins attacking Eiji, screeching about how much it hates him. In response to seeing this, the voice in the protagonist's head flares up and begins talking to them, asking the protagonist to speak its name. The protagonist does, calling out their first Persona Ezekiel and battling the other Eiji. When it is defeated, Eiji confronts his other self and asks if it's him. In response to this, the other Eiji explodes into energy that is absorbed into Eiji, though Eiji doesn't feel any changes within him. After this, the pair look for a way out and are unknowingly followed by a short person. Eventually, they find a door in the middle of nowhere and decide to enter, though they are confronted by the short person before they do.

The short person, identified as Seth and mistakenly referred to as a clown by Eiji, informs them that they were about to enter a door to a "Databank" and that doing so without a guide would've been suicide. The three enter the Databank where they are almost instantly confronted by strange looking creatures which Seth refers to as "Shadows". Seth helps the protagonist battle the Shadows and they are eventually met by the Shadows' leader, who appears to be the girl that the protagonist met on their first day, though Eiji quickly realizes that they are more than likely a Shadow of them like how Eiji had a Shadow of himself. Eiji gets ready to face them but Seth claims that would be foolish with how weak the three are at the moment. Due to this, they decide to run and eventually find their way out of the other world. When out, Eiji informs the protagonist that his parents are coming home soon and they decide to leave, though they agree to explore that world the next day.

More TBA

Development
Like the other games in the series, Persona 6 was developed by P-Studio, with development of the game beginning shortly after Persona 5 Royal's release. Like the previous installment, development of Persona 6 lasted about five years and during that time a number of ideas were considered and scrapped.

In the first year of the game's development, many ideas came up, such as including the lesser-known Megami Tensei character YHVH as the main antagonist or several different ideas for an eighth protagonist that were all scrapped in favor of the character Beatrice.

A good chunk of the game's system was recycled from Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal in an attempt to cut down on development time. Ironically, the many changes that had to be made to the system ended up creating more development time than expected.

Another thing that added to the game's development time was rendering the Personas, as it took quite some time with the previous installment and redesigning and rerendering the Personas took just as long as last time.

Story and Themes
After the success of the previous installment, it was very difficult to try and come up with a story just as good as it. The game's story more or less floated around for a bit, with even the main theme of the game not being clear for quite some time.

However, after the design of the main protagonist was finished, the developers realized the perfect theme for their game: technology advancement and how the world is reacting to it. Due to this, the protagonist of the game was made to have a reliance on technology that they slowly overcome throughout the game. The main antagonist of the game also relied on technology, using nuclear weapons in order to accomplish his goals.

In the game, the character's Personas are meant to symbolize a certain part of their character (the only two this doesn't apply to are the main protagonist and the mascot Seth).

Kaori Fujio's Persona, Morgause, is meant to be a queen but is often overlooked, symbolizing how Kaori's ego makes her believe she is more important than she is.

Eiji Ishimura's Persona, Don Quixote, a mad man that believes he is a knight, symbolizes Eiji's inner anger and his outer face of a happy-go-lucky person.

Beatrice von Housen's Persona, Tripitaka, a monk who travels the land in search for enlightenment, symbolizes Beatrice's pride in her knowledge.

Goro Masuya's Persona, Heck Thomas, a law martial that was feared due to how determined he was to kill criminals, is symbolic of how Goro's tough nature hides a strong sense of justice.

Eiko Kumada's Persona, Ching Shih, a prostitute turned pirate, symbolizes how Eiko outgrew her past and forged her own destiny in life.

And Kazumi Oshio's Persona, Mulan, a woman who dressed as a man in order to join the war, is symbolic of how, despite dressing as a girl, Kazumi is incredibly tough when he wants to be.

DLC
The game has several DLC released for it. The first three DLC released were referred to as the Persona Pack DLC, which were three costume packs that allowed the characters in the game to dress as the characters from the previous games. A second costume pack based on the game Catherine was released shortly afterward. The costumes were as follows:
 * Protagonist - Makoto Yuki, Yu Narukami, Ren Amamiya, Vincent Brooks
 * Eiji Ishimura - Junpei Iori, Yosuke Hanamura, Yusuke Kitagawa, Toby Nebbins
 * Kaori Fujio - Yukari Takeba, Yukiko Amagi, Makoto Niijima, Katherine McBride
 * Seth - Ken Amada, Teddie, Morgana, Jonny Ariga
 * Beatrice von Houser - Akihiko Sanada, Chie Satonaka, Futaba Sakura, Erica Anderson
 * Goro Masuya - Shinjiro Aragaki, Kanji Tatsumi, Ryuji Sakamoto, Orlando Haddick
 * Kazumi Oshio - Fuuka Yamagishi, Naoto Shirogame, Ann Takamaki, Rin
 * Eiko Kumada - Mitsuru Kirijo, Rise Kujikawa, Haru Okumura, Catherine

Technological Madhouse
A full DLC pack was released around a year after the game's release. The DLC pack, dubbed Technological Madhouse, includes a new mode in the Velvet Room referred to as "Persona Royale" where Igor allows the player to challenge and possibly capture several boss-level Personas, all of which belonged to the previous protagonists of the series (such as Io, Jiraiya, and Captain Kid).

In addition to this, the DLC also adds Persona 6's Ultimate Boss. Or rather, Ultimate Bosses, as when the protagonist captures all of the Personas from a certain game (3, 4, or 5), Igor will summon a Persona user made of energy that takes the form of the protagonist of the game. When all the Persona 3 Personas are captured, a clone of Makoto Yuki will appear and so on. When the Ultimate Bosses are defeated, they transform into the protagonist's main Persona, which is instantly given to the Persona 6 protagonist as a reward for defeating them.

Technological Madhouse also includes the three costume packs for the previous Persona games as well as including the entire soundtracks of Personas 3, 4, and 5. The player is able to listen to the songs from inside the protagonist's room, where they can play them from the computer in their room.

Reception
TBA

Notes and Trivia

 * The protagonist's canon name is Hikari Nakajima, as it is used in all media where the protagonist is named.
 * The .New world is similar to that of The Wire from the anime Serial Experiments Lain, as both are virtual worlds that host a person's consciousness.
 * There are only four Confidants in the game that the player is unable to date:
 * Seth
 * Mahiro Asai
 * Wolf
 * Dad

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