Persona 5 as a whole was special for a lot of reasons when the game came out in 2017. Upon reaching the 20 year anniversary, the fifth numbered entry in the JRPG franchise served to modernize and expand Persona for the latest generation. Despite a few delays, Persona 5 came out to both PS3 and PS4 to near universal praise. Everything from its RPG mechanics, social links and confidants, turn-based combat, and overall aesthetic were praised. But as refined as Persona 5 truly is, there is one major aspect where the game was lacking.
Even though the aesthetic and visual design of environments was impressive and unique, actually exploring many of the environments often times felt wasteful or unimportant. Whether it's the Palaces, Mementos, or real-life Tokyo, finding interesting secrets around corners and rewards for exploration were few and far between. Some of these issues were improved with Persona 5 Royal, but the lingering effects were still there in spite of these fixes. With more powerful hardware, the next Persona has the opportunity to meaningfully focus on and refine these aspects and in turn make a more engrossing game.
Persona 5's Environmental Design
First off, Persona 5's environments are aesthetically and visually fantastic. The art direction for the fifth Persona, much like many other aspects of the game, reflects a signature style that isn't like many other games. Vibrancy and high contrast colors, made especially crisp in the PS4 version of Persona 5 Royal, craft a mystical Metaverse and fantasized version of real-life Tokyo full of memorable vistas and scenes. Prime examples like the game's fourth and sixth palaces (omitting names to remain spoiler-free) which have a distinctive theme and style centered on their respective depictions of the Seven Deadly Sins. Persona motifs and themes have always been artfully crafted to reflect the myths and legends each game is based on, but some limitations caused the environments themselves to feel empty.
Considering the core experience of Persona 5 was originally developed for the PS3 architecture, there are some drawbacks associated with that. Along those lines, despite all of the great aspects of Persona 5, exploring some of the dungeons often yields middling rewards. Many rooms in palaces, the main dungeons of the game, have several entire rooms just dedicated to random loot items or treasure chests. Obviously exploring the palaces outside of the main quest was never really the main focus of the game, it still doesn't justify the size of the dungeons with the amount of gameplay content within it.
Almost There with Royal
In Persona 5 Royal specifically, the game did manage to curb some of the issues by implementing the grappling hook and the Will Seeds in each Palace. Joker's grappling hook added a new sense of verticality to the level design, and the Will Seeds did genuinely encourage minimal exploration of levels. The grappling hook surprisingly becomes a core traversal mechanic that encourages more exploration, even if not all of the world justifies its inclusion. Not to mention there are some genuinely interesting maze segments like in the sixth Palace, where there's a dark corridor that players have to navigate through to find the right exit.
That being said, every other Palace had pointless rooms or areas in one form or another that only hid things like a treasure chest or additional loot sources. There was some minimal design details in these areas as well, but often times there'd be several sections that very much resembled the "empty hallway" trope that linear JRPGs find themselves in often. Players will find that there's honestly more reason to explore in the social simulator Tokyo sections then there are in Persona 5's Palaces or Mementos, despite attempts to make exploring these areas more worthwhile.
Exploration in Future Persona Games
Despite the myriad of development issues for Persona 5, the Persona franchise is in a much more stable and comfortable position. Thanks to the success of Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal all over the world, it's almost certain that the next Persona game is already in development. What's more, it'll be in development for next-gen hardware and be able to take advantage of so much more resources and power compared to Persona 5. Persona 6 could absolutely remedy the "empty hallways" issue that tends to come up a lot with JRPGs from time to time.
Dungeons in the next Persona game don't have to necessarily take on an open-world approach, but the environments need more purposeful detail. Rather than devoting entire empty rooms for just one treasure chest, maybe apply the same level of detail in other parts of the dungeons to every portion of the game. Persona 6 should emphasize the improvements made in Royal's grappling hook traversal to at least make getting that treasure a little bit more difficult than finding a vent or having to fight a tough enemy. Some of the sections in the third palace did this very well throughout the bank sections, where the Phantom Thieves had to dodge cameras and move to different subfloors to fully explore the area.
Persona 6 will have the time and resources to play with how the series can improve and emphasize more exploratory elements in dungeons. Rather than some extra rooms with treasure, make it worthwhile for players to run around and see every nook and cranny of a dungeon and be rewarded for it.
Persona 5 Royal is available now for PS4.