Persona 5: The Phantom X Is a Game of Both Extreme Highs and Lows
Highs and lows.
Over the last decade, I’ve spent so much time and money on gacha games that I’ve lost count — Fire Emblem Heroes, GranBlue Fantasy, Dragalia Lost, Final Fantasy Record Keeper, Genshin Impact, Phantom of the Kill, and many more. From that list, only half of those games still exist. Do I regret all the time and effort I spent on gacha? Yeah, I do actually.
If you’re not in the know, gacha refers to a specific type of monetization model in games, where you have to spend in-game currency to do random draws for characters, weapons, items, etc. Genshin Impact is the most famous example, where you can use real-world money to purchase currency, or earn it in-game, and then spend said currency to do random pulls for characters. It’s a genre that’s riddled with insidious practices and predatory monetization, even in major established franchises.
I’ve sworn off almost every mobile game for those exact reasons, but the allure of a brand-new Persona story, a series that I love dearly, was enough to reel me back in. After over 20 hours with Persona 5: The Phantom X, I’m genuinely enjoying a lot about it — the game’s a true Persona experience with its own dedicated story. But there’s simultaneously something else that’s happened. I’ve decided once and for all that the gacha games as a whole are bad, and opposed to meaningful stories and gaming experiences; and I really wish The Phantom X wasn’t one of them.
The Phantom X is the latest in a long line of Persona 5 spinoffs, but this game specifically plays with the idea of almost being a pseudo-sequel to the original game. You play as a new protagonist who, one night, has a dream where he attacks Joker during the casino heist from the original game. The next day, this new protagonist inadvertently discovers the Metaverse, meets an owl-like being called Lufel (this game’s Morgana), and awakens his Persona.
There’s a bizarro, almost Twilight Zone appeal to how The Phantom X mirrors Persona 5, like you’re playing in an alternate universe where an entirely separate cast of characters become The Phantom Thieves — and I think that’s intentional. And the story is, by far, my biggest surprise with this game.
The Phantom X has a genuinely strong cast of main characters, and plays around with being “Persona 5.1.”
For all intents and purposes, The Phantom X is a brand-new Persona game, with the lengthy, complex storytelling to match it. You have hours of dialogue and cutscenes, social links, dungeons tuned to villains, everything you’d expect. I’m genuinely surprised by how much story is here — as I thought things might feel more streamlined for a “mobile” experience.
On top of all that, this story is doing some fairly interesting things. In particular, the first villain is genuinely hilarious, feeling almost like a parody of Persona villains. With the nickname of “The Subway Slammer,” he’s become a criminal known for tackling and pushing women in the subway. But this is an actual real-life issue in Japan, known as “Butsukari otoko,” or “bumping man.” It’s an actual horrible thing, but The Phantom X’s villain is so comedically pathetic that it’s almost endearing — even if it’s simultaneously a bit troublesome in the process.
But the crux is that the story and writing genuinely have me invested in The Phantom X — right up until I hit the mind-numbing gacha mechanics. It’s a real high and low experience that has me struggling to stay invested.
Combat in Phantom X feels like a “lite” version of Persona, with a little less depth because of the mobile format.
In the mainline Persona games, all of the RPG elements are masterfully woven into the time management system and high-school experience. There’s real depth to Persona, but it’s easy for anyone to pick up — leveling, equipment, and Persona management are all intuitive and approachable.
I, unfortunately, cannot say the same thing about The Phantom X, and all of the game’s enhancement and leveling systems feel needlessly obtuse and in some cases antithetical to what I want from a Persona game.
The time management system is completely retooled for a mobile experience, now using a Stamina system where you can expend charges to work part-time jobs, hang out with friends, and see side stories. Like many mobile games, this Stamina recharges over time, or you can use items to recharge it — items you can earn in-game or buy with real money.
Then there’s the whole structure of the game’s party and combat system. You can use a handful of different kinds of currency on gacha pulls for new characters, Personas, and weapons. And then each of these elements has its own advancement systems dictated by even more currency. There’s so much to wrap your head around that it’s easily overwhelming, even though the first 20 or so hours of the game function as one giant tutorial to introduce everything. Even if you just want that core Persona story, it’s hard not to see the gacha-ization seeping into everything. Even the sleek and stylish menus are sensory overload in The Phantom X — with your screen constantly filled with a dozen icons all crowded together.
Phantom X piles on different currency and gacha options, which makes the whole experience feel more complicated than it needs to be.
These systems feel limiting in a way that the base Persona games don’t; you can clearly feel your progress being gated, with the only way around it to sink more time into dungeons, battles, and grinding.
The party system also ends up feeling odd, as a gacha game needs a wide array of colorful characters for players to draw. But many of these party members are only bit characters in the story, or don't appear in the story at all — hand waved away by them being people in the protagonist “cognition” even if he just saw them in passing or on TV. While you can continue to use the story party members, you’ll typically get stronger results from characters you’ve pulled — and that creates a disconnect.
In Persona games, I become so invested in the progression of party members because these are characters I care about — as my bond with them deepens, so too do their skills. It’s a meeting of narrative and mechanics that only something like an RPG can do. And I simply don’t have that same connection in The Phantom X. But I think the core reason why that is simply comes down to the sheer design of gacha games. These aren’t games that breed meaningful connection with characters; they’re designed to incentivize you to always be trying to get the newest and shiniest one, or to ever strive for more upgrades. Gacha games are inherently built around the carrot-and-stick idea, always tempting you with what’s next, instead of letting you sit with what you have.
Phantom X’s UI, unfortunately, often feels far too busy and cluttered.
The Phantom X is easily one of the most “generous” gacha games I’ve played to date. Even after dozens of hours, I haven’t felt any need or urge to spend real money. And while that’s great, the sheer nature of integrating these systems into a Persona experience makes it lose some of its luster. The story, characters, and worldbuilding are enough to make me stick with the game for now — I’m invested enough to trudge through the spiderweb of menus that make my eyes glaze over.
The Phantom X genuinely has fun playing with the established world of Persona 5, and it’s a real kind of meta treat for fans of the original. I hope there’s enough continued substance to the story to make it all feel worth it, but that does bring up my secondary worry with every game like this. What happens to this story when the game eventually shuts down? Does it just become lost for the rest of time? But then, that’s just enough inherent flaw of this kind of game, isn’t it? The feeling that I need to experience it now, while I can, before I lose access forever. While I want to see more of The Phantom X, it’s hard to get that bug out of the back of my mind — and I hate that it has to be that way.
