Summary
ThePersonaseries subverts typical JRPG tropes in a lot of ways with its modern-day setting and typically more grounded themes. However, one area where the series tends to fall back into those tropes is with their twist final bosses that tend to reveal themselves as gods the players will need to defeat. With how often the series follows this formula, it’s likelyPersona 6will do the same. But there is room to make this trope much more interesting than past entries ifPersona 6can find a way to make these bosses feel a lot more personal to the game’s cast.
While these 11th-hour reveals of the true mastermind behind the game’s events can be surprising for a player’s first playthrough, seasonedPersonafans will likely come to expect atwist villain like this fromPersona 6. For a series that tends to focus on more grounded stories with human villains, having a god be the final boss can feel a bit jarring tonally. IfPersona 6does continue this trend with its final boss, it can make the villain feel more memorable by giving the characters a stronger connection to them from the beginning before revealing them as the twist villain.
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Persona 6 Should Make its Final Boss More Relevant to its Cast
MostPersonagames are very subtle when it comes to the relationship between their true final boss and the party of heroes, with only small teases of their true identity that players are unlikely to pick up on unless they know the twist ahead of time. InPersona 3, players will encounter the mysterious boy Pharos who gives the protagonist cryptic messages before revealing himself to be the appraiser ofNyx,Persona 3’s final boss.Persona 4is even more subtle about the presence of its true final boss, Izanami, who only appears to the player as an inconspicuous gas station attendant until revealing her real identity during the game’s true ending.
While these twists result in epic battles, they don’t feel as personal to the party as most of the time only the protagonist interacts with these characters prior to their final encounter. The true final boss ofPersona 5 Royalis a great example of how to make a boss feel more personal to the entire party and give them a greater role in the plot leading up to the final clash.Takuto Maruki gets to know the Phantom Thievesas a whole throughout the game as the school counselor at Shujin Academy, making his twist villain role much more impactful.
The final boss of vanillaPersona 5, Yaldabaoth, who assumes the identity of theVelvet Room’s Igoruntil the game’s climax, also falls into the trap of being hinted at as a villain to the protagonist but not the rest of the party until the final act. What makes Maruki such a great final boss is that he is an ally to the Phantom Thieves throughout the game until his true abilities and misguided way of thinking are revealed. Persona 6 should follow this trend and allow the player to know a character and even sympathize with them before revealing the twist that they are the true villain of the game.
The problem with these types of out-of-left-field, god-like final bosses is they can undermine an otherwise personal and grounded story. Theending ofPersona 4in particular suffers from this problem as its story is largely about solving a string of murders in a small town that loses some of its identity when it’s revealed that a god has been pulling the strings the whole time. In order to give the game a more cohesive narrative,Persona 6should strive to develop a character that both the players and characters get to know before revealing they are the true enemy of the game.
Persona 6is in development.
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