In the years since Persona 3 and Persona 3 Portable, the Persona franchise has changed and grown in a lot of positive ways. Dungeons have become considerably more detailed, Social Links have given way to more rewarding Confidants, and storytelling keeps getting more detailed. Despite that, Persona 3 Portable still possesses one unique strength: its female protagonist, often known as the FemC. Persona leans towards male protagonists pretty significantly, so it's refreshing to be able to play the franchise from the perspective of a teenage girl instead. However, Persona 3 Portable handles the FemC's Social Links in a surprising way that shouldn't be repeated for a possible female lead in Persona 6.
In some regards, it makes sense that Persona 3 Portable has different Social Links for the two protagonists, since it's one useful way to depict how gender impacts the school experience and the course of life. Overall, though, the Social Link distribution creates an uneven set of relationships between the two possible playthroughs. The female protagonist can develop far stronger relationships with the major characters in SEES than the male protagonist can, meaning she is arguably the superior protagonist for story-loving players. If Persona 6 has a female lead, she needs to share a much closer list of Confidants with her female counterpart.
Persona 6 Needs More Social Balance Than Persona 3 Had
In a male playthrough of P3, setting aside the overarching SEES Social Links, players can only move through Social Links with less than half of the team: Fuuka Yamagishi, Mitsuru Kirijo, Yukari Takeba, and -- in FES or Portable -- Aigis. What's more, most of these Social Links are romances that the player can't reject, meaning players are deterred from maxing out every Social Link. In contrast, the FemC has a Social Link for every playable member of SEES, giving her ample opportunity to bond with her teammates.
Ideally, this kind of imbalance won't appear again in Persona 6. The male protagonist has plenty of unique encounters on his Social Link list, like bonding with his homeroom teacher over an MMO, but ultimately none of these characters' inner lives are as important as those of the SEES members. Persona 4 and Persona 5 are ultimately richer experiences because they give players ample opportunity to get to know their teammates on an individual level outside the overarching mission and story, rather than settling for the bonds of the group as a whole. Team member Social Links and Confidants add a lot of extra dimension to a Persona game's most important characters.
This isn't to say that a male and female protagonist pair in Persona 6 would have to have the exact same list of Persona Confidants or Social Links. On the contrary, having a couple minor characters whose Confidant tracks are unique to either protagonist adds replay value and helps each protagonist feel more special. However, both leads should have Confidant tracks for all the playable characters. As the faces of the IP, their relationships with the player need to come before all else.
Atlus hasn't confirmed that Persona 6 will offer a female player option, but given that the Persona 3 Portable ports made a splash lately, the studio has certainly whetted appetites for it. Fans have been waiting for a new female lead for years, so hopefully it's finally time. While the FemC of P3P was a great prototype for a modern female Persona lead, she shouldn't be the end of the line. As Atlus has done with just about every aspect of the franchise, it could stand to improve dual-protagonist model a lot. A thorough list of social sim routes for Persona 6's team members coupled with side characters only met by certain protagonists could hit the mark where Persona 3 Portable missed.
Persona 3 Portable is available now on PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.