The Persona games are some absolutely fantastic JRPGs, but they are inarguably time-consuming affairs. Between dungeon crawling, visits to the Velvet Room, maxing out social links, honing the protagonist’s social stats, and, of course, watching the story unfold, one can likely expect to spend around 80-100 hours before rolling credits on some of the series’ most recent entries. Finishing a game is a hefty commitment that is often easier said than done, but there’s one feature from the Persona-esque Fire Emblem: Three Houses that, if included in the long-rumored Persona 6, could alleviate that problem significantly.
Three Houses is quite similar to Persona in many regards. Both feature social links, explorable areas that allow players to engage in various stat-boosting activities, and each game places limits on how many actions one can perform in their free time. But unlike Persona, players can navigate through Three Houses’ three campaigns at a fairly brisk pace by auto-advancing through specific in-game dates. There are a few possible case for such a feature in Persona 6, andeach showcase why this would be such a valuable addition to the franchise.
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The most obvious use for an auto-advance function would be to skip over days that are lacking in significant plot developments. When days are skipped in Three Houses, any tutoring lessons or group activities Byleth administers to the class are randomly automated, and it’s easy to imagine a similar system working for Persona 6's more uneventful days. The game could randomly decide which activities the protagonist performed that day (working out, reading, eating) and assign the appropriate boost to the player’s stats.
However, that’s not to say this should be the most efficient way of progressing through the game. When Byleth’s students are auto-instructed, the results of their education and quality of the group projects they’re assigned to are lesser than they would be should the player have manually instructed them. This same model could be applied to Persona by lowering the degree to which players' stats can increase on skipped days, so as to reinforce that this useful, time-saving feature is not to be overused if one wishes to get the most out of the game.
The gargantuan lengths of Persona 3, 4, and 5 are intimidating to the degree that they may dissuade folks who don't want to make such a big commitment of time and effort, but are otherwise into the aesthetic, setting, or characters of these games. Obviously, an auto-skip feature would likely be geared towards this audience segment, but that's not to say those looking for "Persona, but shorter" are the only ones who would benefit from such an addition.
Those pursuing repeat playthroughs could also utilize this function to progress through the game at a faster rate than before. This would especially come in handy should one wish to get to a particular dungeon ASAP, or if a player simply wants to check out specific social links in a Persona game that they might have missed on their first go around, some of which are not available until after specific dates.
Furthermore, believe it or not, speedruns of Persona games are rather popular, but these runs are far from speedy; Persona 5 Royal speedruns clock upwards of 14 hours. Being able to skip through non-essential portions of the game would likely help speedrunners to fly through future entries like never before, and if the hardcore players still want to pursue traditional, marathon runs, there's always room for a "no-skips" run in the record books.
In all, the Persona series has everything to gain and nothing to lose by incorporating an auto-skip function similar to the one seen in Fire Emblem: Three Houses. It would likely revamp the speedrunning scene, add further motivation for players to start a new game upon completing their current one, and most importantly, invite countless time-starved players to finally jump into Persona while not having to worry about biting off more than they can chew.
Persona 6 is currently in development.
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