Another year, another set of rumors about a new Persona game. This time, the scuttlebutt tells us that we could be looking at a remake of Persona 4 in the near future. This is easy to believe coming off last year’s Persona 3 Reload, a game that leveraged the original Persona 3’s cult status, the popularity the series found following Persona 5, and a new simultaneous global multiplatform release strategy to become the fastest selling game in the series. Persona 4 is even more popular than Persona 3, and with the Nintendo Switch 2 on the horizon, we could be seeing another platform to drive sales even further. But all of this is speculation. I know just as much about a prospective Persona 4 remake as you do. I do have plenty to say about the series, particularly the visual style the series is known for.

The first three Persona games (notably not including Persona 3 due to Persona 2 being released as two separate entries) were released for PlayStation and hew fairly closely to the mainline Shin Megami Tensei series that Persona was born out of. Kazuma Kaneko was still the art director back then, and his character designs defined the look of Megami Tensei for a long time. Persona 3, in addition to making the leap to PlayStation 2, saw a fairly substantial shift in staff; a new division of Atlus now known as P-Studio was established, but most prudent to this discussion is that Kazuma Kaneko was succeeded by Shigenori Soejima, the new art director and character designer. He had done artwork for the prior Persona games, but once he took the reins, he was able to take the series in a very different direction. Despite this, it was easy to see how his character illustrations resembled those of Kaneko, and the whole of the game had more of a science-fiction presentation than what would come later, being highlighted in futuristic but melancholy blue tones. He would remain as the art director for Persona 4, although at this point, his art started to become more distinct from Kaneko’s. This time, yellow became the signature colour, and the characters and environments alike became much more grounded. Persona overall started to feel less like a spin-off of Shin Megami Tensei and more like its own series.

Persona 5 was a generational leap for the series. It was the first Persona to be developed for PlayStation 3, although its development took so long that it was simultaneously released for both PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4. Even on PlayStation 3, the more powerful hardware allowed for a much higher degree of detail, with characters and environments alike showing huge improvement. Of course, hardware is only part of the equation. Persona had stopped being just a spin-off and started being Atlus’s flagship series. Naturally, it got a lot more attention than something like Etrian Odyssey or even Shin Megami Tensei IV. One would be remiss not to mention that Shigenori Soejima was no longer the art director, however. He contributed the character designs and promotional illustrations, but art direction was now the responsibility of Masayoshi Suto, who had been the interface designer for Persona 3 and 4. It would seem that the user interface was a high priority for Atlus, and one look at Persona 5 will make that clear. The game’s now-iconic menus are big, bold, and brilliant, resembling the cut-up letters of a ransom note in stark black and white against bright red backgrounds.

The winds of change would soon return, however, and many of the veterans of P-Studio would relocate to Studio Zero, a new division of Atlus headed by former Persona director Katsura Hashino. Soejima departed for this new team which would go on to create Metaphor: ReFantazio, another big hit for Atlus. Meanwhile, P-Studio went forward with the aforementioned Persona 3: Reload with some new creative leadership. Character design was handled by Azusa Shimada, who had previously done illustrations for various Persona spin-off games and Persona 5 Royal, the enhanced re-release of Persona 5. Tomohiro Kumagai, the lead interface designer of Persona 5, became the art director. They sure do take their interface design seriously at Atlus. While they were both working in the existing framework of Persona 3, one can readily see the differences in their approach compared to the original. Perhaps the strongest impression from Persona 3 Reload is that there’s a world of difference between Persona 3 and Persona 5, in contrast to the usual narrative that Persona 5 was simply the continuation of the modern Persona formula established by Persona 3. In an ironic twist, Azuda Shimada’s character illustrations look more like Soejima’s character designs from Persona 5 than his original Kaneko-reminiscent designs from Persona 3 do. The bold menu design is even more evocative of Persona 5. If Persona 3 Reload was a test to see if the new guard of P-Studio can replicate the old guard’s style, it would seem they’ve passed with flying colours.

Besides the change in staff, Persona 3 Reload also came with some major changes in technology. While most people played Persona 5 on PlayStation 4, it was technically a PlayStation 3 game at its inception, and it was bound to that generation’s hardware. Persona 3 Reload was also a cross-generation title, but being for the range of PlayStation 4/Xbox One through PlayStation 5/Xbox Series X along with Windows PCs meant there was less baggage to worry about. Characters and environments are far more detailed, and even features like ray-traced reflections are included on compatible hardware. Image quality also sees a large boost; whereas Persona 5 was running on a proprietary game engine, Persona 3 Reload was developed with Unreal Engine 4. The switch to a different engine did not compromise the signature art style of the series, but it did introduce more sophisticated anti-aliasing to minimize the jagged edges that plagued Persona 5 even in its most recent releases. All in all, it was a compelling vision for the future of the series, but there are still places where it could use some improvement, and hopefully future games (whether that’s a remake of Persona 4 or the inevitable Persona 6) will make these changes.

Can't move fast without breaking

A video game only looks as good as it looks in motion. What works in still screenshots isn’t always convincing when you actually play the game. For how stylish Persona often is in motion, character animations aren’t always satisfactory. Movement in the field is often jerky with little transition between states and characters often seem to glide across the floor. There’s also a disappointing lack of bespoke animations in story events, which largely play out with character portraits superimposed over a scene with minimal character animation. More emphasis on the characters as they’re rendered in 3D would go a long way.

Let go of the remote

An issue closely related to the character animation is the use of animated cutscenes throughout the game. It’s easy to see why anime cinematics became common in the genre; there was a time when real-time graphics capabilities were limited but disk space was abundant. In the present, they feel like an anachronism. Switching gears from real-time 3D graphics to a traditionally animated sequence is jarring when the game is in such high fidelity, and these scenes could just as easily be rendered in real-time. Furthermore, there’s a genuine argument to be made that these animated sequences actually look worse than the rest of the game. Where Persona is known for being stylish in its presentation, the anime cutscenes are all unnecessarily literal. The opening sequences are usually good, but story scenes lack the panache that defines Persona. Thankfully, Persona 3 Reload shifted the balance a bit towards in-engine cutscenes, having fewer anime scenes than the original game, but I think they could go even further.

All society

Perhaps the biggest problem, both visually and thematically, is the level of detail in NPCs. There’s something of a hierarchy to the non-playable characters in Persona. The most important characters are given about as much detail as the main party members. Then there are interactive minor characters, who are considerably less detailed. Finally, there are the non-interactive passerby, who are hardly more than silhouettes. Obviously some compromise is necessary from a technical perspective, but the disparity doesn’t sit right with me. You could chalk it up to stylization, but what does this style say? Perhaps the cardinal sin of Persona is conformity. These games are all about resisting the call to be a mindless drone and standing up for yourself and others. The pedestrians having so little detail brings to mind a sketch from I Think You Should Leave in which Tim Robinson’s character declares of some people hit in a (fictitious!) car accident are “just like not important, like they don’t matter.” I’m not asking for every single human in the game to be equally detailed, which would either be unrealistic or to the detriment of the main cast, but plenty of other games show that it’s possible to have NPCs that at least at a glance resemble fully fledged people.

If you hold on, life won't change

Ultimately, the series needs to keep evolving. While Persona 3 Reload showed that the new team can do the old team’s work, I want to see them grow and change. Persona 5 was a paradigmatic shift in gaming culture, but it would be a mistake to frame every decision relative to that game. I do believe that the creative team responsible for Persona 3 Reload can make a Persona 6 that lives up to the lofty expectations fans have, but imitating the past will never do that. Part of what made Persona 5 such a big deal was how fresh it was. Persona 6, whenever it may come, will need to make a similarly big splash.