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
Main article: Persona 6 Recap

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
 * Walter & Jenine
 * Dad

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