Personagames have a habit of building on top of mechanics from past games, rather than dropping their ideas in favor of something completely different. The earlyPersonagames tinkered with the fusion system from theShin Megami Tenseifranchise,Persona 4and5built new features intoPersona 3’s Social Link system, and so on.Persona 6will probably build on new features fromPersona 5in turn, such as the Baton Pass mechanic, and it could breathe new life into mechanics from earlier games. In particular,Persona 6is the perfect opportunity to restore the franchise’s gardening mechanic to its former glory.
Atlus has a certain knack for turning mundane activities into avenues for character progression. Everything from working at a restaurant to doing homework to eating a hamburger factors intoPersona’s RPG system. InPersona 4, that included gardening; players could tend to vegetable plants to earn Diligence, strengthen bonds with the Dojima family, and harvest food with healing and protective properties.Persona 5also featured gardening, but in a very different way that wasn’t nearly as convenient. Gardening could fit right intoPersona 6, but ideally it learns more fromPersona 4thanPersona 5.
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Persona 5’s Garden is a Lesson in Convenience for Persona 6
Persona 4 Golden’s gardenis just about all upside. It unlocks automatically after only a month of in-game time through a prompt from Nanako Dojima, and from then on, the player can generate items that cure conditions, restore SP, cover ally weaknesses, and much more. Players can also spend their evening to maintain the garden and earn a variety of bonuses, including a bigger harvest. New vegetable seedlings can be purchased in a few accessible locations, and thanks to the garden’s convenient location at home, players are unlikely to forget about it.
Gardening returns inPersona 5, but it’s frankly a shadow of its former self. Gardening unlocks when players startHaru Okumura’s Confidant, and it takes place on the Shujin Academy rooftop rather than at home. Haru’s Confidant isn’t available until the end of October, meaningP5Rplayers only have about three in-game months to use the garden. What’s more, Joker must have maximum Proficiency to progress with Haru and reach the garden’s full potential, and the out-of-the-way rooftop location means it’s easy to forget the garden is even there. While some ofPersona 5’s vegetables are much more potent thanP4G’s, and they don’t cost money to plant, their obscurity and inaccessibility meansPersona 5’s garden is arguably weaker overall.
IfPersona 6features the garden, ideally it’ll take more fromPersona 4 GoldenthanPersona 5 Royal.A garden deserves to located somewhere thatthePersona 6protagonistnaturally passes by, whether it’s at their home or right next to their classroom, so that players always have it on their minds and verify to use it efficiently. It should also unlock earlier thanP5’s garden; introducing mechanics late into a game isn’t inherently bad, but something as basic and broadly useful as a garden shouldn’t take players 60 or 70 hours to access.P4G’s wider variety of vegetables and the ability to tend the garden for bonuses would also be welcome inPersona 6.
Persona 5’s garden didn’t do everything wrong. Tying it into Haru’s backstory was a great way to characterize her, soP6’s garden could connect to a Confidant again.P5vegetables were also a bit lower-maintenance thanP4G’s despite providing much stronger effects. Still, these strengths only make it a bigger shame that Atlus sequestered the garden into the far corner of the game, especially considering how many days get eaten up by the plot around the time the garden becomes available. Parts ofPersona 5’s garden could still be useful inPersona 6, but overallPersona 4 Goldenseems like the better influence.
Persona 6is in development.
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