Persona 6 should sink its hooks into a Persona 4 Golden minigame structure

Persona games are always packed with activities, to the point where it’s nearly impossible to experience them to their fullest extent in a single playthrough. Persona 4 Golden, for example, offers players an extensive list of Social Links, lots of potential jobs, a long list of quests, and even a fishing minigame. Catching fish in Persona 4 Golden is a somewhat complicated process, but once done, it will provide the player with a steady stream of priceless loot. That’s why Persona 6 should emulate P4G if it decides to offer a fishing minigame as well.

Fishing minigames are a classic of RPGs, whether Western-style action RPGs or turn-based JRPGs. Persona is no exception, featuring him in the last two mainline entries; is also planned to appear in the mobile spinoff Persona 5: The Phantom X. However, while fishing is becoming a franchise staple, Persona 5 took a very different approach to Persona 4 that arguably was less worth the player’s time. Persona 4 Golden not only made fishing an extremely valuable activity, it encouraged the player to engage with the world around them in surprising ways, developing Inaba in remarkable ways.

Persona 4 Golden’s fishing minigame shines because it’s multifaceted. Fish could restore a noticeable amount of HP and SP to the player’s party in dungeons, but they were also extremely useful in the world around them. Players needed to fish to help certain NPCs, the most important of which was an old man who provided a quest relevant to the Fox Social Link. What’s more, fishing encouraged players to figure out catching bugs, which spawned its own series of NPC interactions, minigame practice, and resource management.

In contrast, Persona 5’s fishing minigame in Ichigaya felt remarkably self-contained. Persona 5’s protagonist, Joker, caught fish in an enclosed pond and immediately handed them over for prizes, most of which were fishing-related. While Persona 5 Royal added some useful accessories for the Joker to earn, fishing remained isolated in that expanded game, leaving little impact on characters, setting, and game mechanics outside of the occasional Confidant event. The minigame was still fun, but it lacked the full-scale utility and interactivity that the Persona 4 Golden version featured.

Ideally, Persona 6 will use the style of Persona 4 Golden instead of P5. Fishing may not be the priority activity for most Persona players, but when it generates supplies that make it easier to crawl dungeons and allow for NPC interactions, it’s an excellent choice on days when Confidants or Social Links aren’t available. Persona 6 could take the process one step further than healing items and provide rare accessories or even weapons only found while fishing. A wider variety of items that can attach to a player’s hook would, in turn, give Atlus more flexibility when designing stories that players can start or advance with the help of fishing.

Atlus may also increase the amount of quest interactions in the P4G fishing system for Persona 6. Unlike its predecessor, Persona 5’s side quests focus heavily on the Shadow world rather than the physical world. This means that Persona 6 has a chance to reinstate the overworld quests as an improvement over the successful Persona 5. While Persona 4 Golden’s side quests weren’t always worth the player’s effort, some of them did integrate fishing for clever ways, encouraging players to experience the mini-game to earn quest rewards and advanced social links. Fishing might not be the most original minigame Persona 6 could feature, but if it uses P4G as a blueprint, it could implement fishing in a way that’s true to the spirit of Persona.

Persona 4 Golden is available now for PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.