Persona5: The Phantom X is a new free-to-play gacha game on Steam and mobile, that uses the structure of Persona 5 to tell a new story about a different set of Phantom Thieves. My expectations for this game were fairly low, since it wasn’t made by Atlus, and the free-to-play model didn’t suggest that it would be a highly polished game. But the next Persona game, a remake of Persona 4is a way off, and I love turn-based gamesso it seemed like it was worth trying. I was delighted by how surprised I was with Persona5: The Phantom Xas it has pretty solid writing, a fun villain to start the game, and a new cast of characters that are great. Now that I care about Persona5: The Phantom Xthe monetization has made me extremely frustrated with how it was woven into the game.
The premise of Persona5: The Phantom X
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A new reality with a slight twist on the original
The setup for Persona5: The Phantom X is that it appears to be either an alternate reality or a sequel to the original Persona 5but the exact nature of the world is a bit of a mystery. In a slight twist on the premise of the original game, Persona5: The Phantom X is about villains stealing people’s positive desires, causing them to give up on life. You are still ultimately stealing the twisted desires of these villains, but their impact on the world feels more ethereal. The first villain is the Subway Slammer, who violently slams into people, typically unsuspecting women on the subway, in a way that isn’t enough for the police to step in. It’s a bit silly how low-stakes the first villain is, but the way the story unfolds and how it connects to Mohota, your first recruit, makes for a solid story. The story plays out similarly to the flow of normal Persona games, but the gacha mechanics make some drastic changes that aren’t ideal.
The gacha elements fundamentally change the Persona formula
Limited stamina, rolling for characters, and pop-ups make the monetization hard to ignore.
Despite following the Persona formula fairly closely, the gacha elements make some drastic changes that I don’t care for. First off, you get new party members through Contracts, the gacha aspect, in Persona5: The Phantom X. You still get new party members through the story, but because the game required me to engage with the gacha elements, I already had the first two party members prior to getting them in the story, which took some of the excitement away. While I haven’t spent any money, nor have I felt like the game was trying to force me to spend money, there are pop-ups that happen after completing story quests, which just feels off-putting. You also have to engage with the daily stamina system to get upgrade materials, which puts a strain on progress. There are also characters you get from the contracts who aren’t part of the story. While there is an in-universe explanation, it also robs those characters of opportunities to have character moments in the story.
The story is engaging and hasn’t been gated so far
There is a ton to like in Persona5: The Phantom X
Despite some of the downsides from the gacha elements, I am enjoying my time with Persona5: The Phantom X so far. While I don’t think it can hang with the mainline series, it does a pretty good job of recreating the best parts of Persona 5, with well-designed dungeons called Palaces, along with a ton of story. The story is voiced, but there is only a Japanese voiceover, which is a common occurrence among JRPG fans. It’s got enough compelling pieces, and the personal connections each new party member has to the villain introduced at the same time have been compelling so far. Even the Subway Slammer has a compelling, if pathetic, backstory. The battle animations are taken straight from Persona 5but there are two tweaks that make it different enough to be interesting. The first is the Baton Pass, which now can’t be used to endlessly deal weakness damage, instead limiting each party member to one attack per baton chain, so you can’t just pass it back and forth. The support slot can now be directly controlled, with you choosing to use different support moves on cooldowns instead of it being a chance to happen in combat. I do think if you love Personaespecially Persona 5there is plenty to enjoy here.
Without the gacha elements, Persona5: The Phantom X wouldn’t exist
It’s not like the alternative was a normal Persona game
While not the most compelling argument, it’s unlikely that a version of Persona5: The Phantom X would exist without the gacha elements. This game was built with full intentions of being a gacha game, and that seems like the only situation where Atlus would allow another developer to work on its flagship series. While that doesn’t make me especially forgiving of its monetization, it does provide some defense since I do think there is enough compelling content in Persona5: The Phantom X for it to justify existing. It also hasn’t blocked or gated my progress in the first 13 hours of gameplay, although that could change eventually.
Gacha mechanics are the worst kind of microtransactions
I would pay $70 to never see any of it
While I can forgive Persona5: The Phantom X needing to have monetization of some kind, the gacha elements shouldn’t be given a pass, even if the game is good, regardless. Gacha games are ultimately gambling, and having to pay for a microtransaction in a game never feels good, but spending money to have a chance to get the character you want sucks. Spending a large amount of money and not getting the character you want is just scummy, no matter how many five-star characters the game guarantees in a certain number of rolls. Combining that with the microtransaction bundles having pop-up ads after completing story missions makes it even harder to ignore these systems. This isn’t the first, nor will it be the last, gacha game, but this style of microtransactions can be deeply frustrating. Persona5: The Phantom X has a good game underneath that stuff, but it makes it difficult to recommend it to anyone.
