In other words, Persona 6 might gamble on some major changes to fundamental mechanics after all. However, it doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel to make worthwhile change. In fact, the newest addition to the Persona family of games offers something of major value to Persona 6. Persona 5 Strikers introduced a system of Bond Points and Bond Skills that offered an alternative to Social Links and Confidants, since Strikers just didn’t have room for a full Confidant system. Persona 6 could really freshen up its own Confidants by blending them with some aspects of Persona 5 Strikers’ Bond system.
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The Benefits of Persona 5 Strikers’ Bonds
Persona games are traditionally several dozen hours in length, with Persona 5 cresting well over 100 hours even for non-completionists. Persona 5 Strikers, in contrast, can be beaten in half that time. That’s intentional and reasonable, as Strikers takes place over a summer, not a full school year. However, the short time frame of the game meant that Joker didn’t have the time to forge relationships with Confidants like he could in Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal. Instead, he could earn Bond Points by hanging out with friends in the real world and fighting alongside them in the Metaverse. These Bond Points could then be spent on a long list of Bond Skills that would empower the party.
The Bond system contributed a lot to Persona 5 Strikers’ design. Bond Skills could offer all kinds of passive benefits: bonus healing from items, more raw stats for the Phantom Thieves, more chances for Joker to get new Personas, and much more. The diversity of Bond Skills meant that a lot of tactical thinking went into how Strikers players chose to purchase and upgrade Bond Skills. Players could optimize the party for raw power, or they could focus on making the Phantom Thieves use resources as efficiently as possible. Bond Skills were a rare opportunity to shape the Phantom Thieves’ strengths in a detailed, refined way.
The cost of Persona 5 Strikers’ Bond system is the loss of burgeoning friendships between Joker and his Confidants. Strikers just didn’t have the structure to support wholly new interactive friendship arcs for every major character in the game. However, Strikers still provides lots of plot-relevant cutscenes that make the most of the Phantom Thieves’ friendships, and Bond Skills are a solid way to similarly make up for the mechanical side of Confidants.
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How Persona 6 Could Integrate Bond Points
Considering the elegant simplicity and satisfying utility of Bond Skills, Atlus should consider using them again. In fact, Persona 6 might be the perfect venue for it. If Atlus wants to shake up Confidants as part of the process of outdoing Persona 5, then Confidants and Bond Skills could blend together. In theory, Persona 6 could have a base Confidant system that’s very similar to Persona 5, with each Confidant offering unique Confidant abilities that empower the protagonist and their team. Then, players could earn Bond Points and spend them on unlocked Confidant abilities to make those abilities stronger.
There’s tons of ways that Bond Points could be earned in Persona 6. Persona 5 Strikers gives players Bond Points in all kinds of occasions, including simple cutscenes where the Phantom Thieves hang out or achieve major goals. Joker also earns Bond Points from every fight that the Phantom Thieves win, as well as from certain sidequests, many of which focus on doing favors for the Phantom Thieves. Persona 6 could incorporate any of these methods. It could reward players with Bond Points at all kinds of important story beats while letting them earn additional Bond Points from combat, sidequests, and Confidant quality time.
It’s not hard to imagine how Bond Points could upgrade Confidant abilities, either. Persona 5 Strikers Bond Skills provide the perfect blueprint. For instance, if Persona users in Persona 6 keep Confidant skills like Harisen Recovery and Follow Up, then players could invest Bond Points in those abilities to make them more likely to activate, or even give those abilities additional effects. Non-Persona user abilities wouldn’t be hard to upgrade, either. Players could spend Bond Points to improve discounts from Confidants, empower skills that the protagonist learns from Confidants, and so on.
Bonds Could Make Persona 6 Stand Out
Bonds could definitely complicate Persona 6 a little bit, for better or for worse. There’s a chance that some players will find Bonds confusing to manage, for example. However, Persona tends to be pretty good at explaining how its central mechanics work; Persona 5 has a pretty lengthy tutorial in the first forays into Kamoshida’s Palace, but it pays off, introducing fans to many of the game’s basic concepts. As long as Persona 6 makes the distinction between Bond Points and points earned toward befriending a Confidant very clear, there shouldn’t be too much room for confusion.
Integrating Bonds into Persona 6’s Confidants would be a great way to take a risk that’s not actually that risky. Persona 5 Strikers provides the proof of concept necessary to have faith in Bonds, and the Confidant system is already a thoroughly established success. It’s simply a matter of bringing the two together and playing off of each system’s strengths. By integrating Bond Points into the Confidant system, Atlus can significantly expand the social simulation side of the Persona series. This would go a long way in distinguishing Persona 6 from the highly accomplished Persona 5, and since Atlus already has two solid social systems on its hands, it makes sense to make the most out of both of them.
Persona 6 is in development.
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