Persona 5: The Phantom X Hands-On - The Phantom Thieves Of Mobile Wallets

You have to respect Atlus for how much mileage it’s gotten 🏅out of Persona 5. Over the last nine years, the RPG has grown into an entire franchise unto itself, with a manga, anime adapta♏tion, and genre-spanning spin-offs like Persona 5 Strikers, Persona 5 Tactica, and the upcoming mobile game, Persona 5: The Phantom X.

I spent a couple of hours with The Phantom X ahead of its June 26 launch, and I came away impressed by how closely its gameplay and story align with Persona 5. It may seem like a free-to-play mobile spin-off is the furthest thing from a triple-A console game, but The Phantom X is Persona 5 through and through - albeit 🏅with some tighter loops that make it easier to play in short bursts on the go.

I have some reservations about its monetizat☂ion, as everyone should, but I’m looking forward to seeing how The Phantom X can add a little Persona style to my daily routine.

Welcome Back To The Metaverse

Mobile has a long history of being a deeply unserious platform, but the tide has been changing recently thanks to some console-quality spin-offs from major studios that practically stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their triple-A big brothers. Games like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:League of Legends: Wild Rift, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Destiny: Rising, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Genshin Impact, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Zenless Zone Zero have helped 🌼establish mobil𒁏e as a legitimate platform, and The Phantom X has as much scope and polish as any of these games, if not more.

Whether you’ve played Persona 5 or not, you won’t have much trouble jumping into The Phantom X. It has a nicely balanced approach to its world-building so as not to leave newcomers behind, but it has its own story to tell too, with only a marginal connection to the origi꧙nal Phantom Thieves of Hearts. It follows a new protagonist, codename Wonder, and his school friends as they discover their Personas and learn to navigate the Metaverse.

All of the iconography༺ remains intact. Shadows, palaces, the Velvet Room, the endless Mementos dungeon, the confidant system, and even the “1 more” battle mechanic are all here, with only minor changes to the formula. The biggest difference between Persona 5 and The Phantom X is that it has an energy system that acts as a time gate instead of Persona 5’s calendar system.

Combat hasn’t been simplified at all for mobile, and in fact, it sometimes feels like you have even mor🐠eꦬ decision points in battle. The way you can combine each character’s kit of Persona abilities to stack debuffs and elemental effects on enemies gives combat plenty of depth. If you’re imagining a watered-down version of Persona 5, you might be pleasantly surprised by what The Phantom X has to offer.

A Day In The Life Of A Persona

The Phantom X has crossplay between mobile and PC, and when I spoke to Yosuke Uda, Chief Producer at Atlus after the demo, he explained he imagines players will use the two different platforms to engage with The Phantom X’s two different sides. During the day, they’ll use short breaks to explore Tokyo with Wonder and raise his social stats. When they get home at the end of the day, they can switch to their PC to grind battles in Mementos and🌊 enjoy enhanced graphics and performance.

I can see the appeal of aligning my own schedule with the game’s. A lot of the gam🍸e’s life-sim aspects are perfectly timed for train rides and mental health breaks. You can pop open the app and take Wonder💛 to see a movie or let him catch up with confidants around Shibuya in the same amount of time as an office-appropriate bathroom break. Daytime in The Phantom X is more or less an endless process of running small errands and leveling up your stats, which can fit in whenever you have a few extra minutes here and there.

Nighttime in The Phantom X is the real meat of the game, though. When you want to dig into it, the main campaign will take you through a Persona-sized story filled with characters, cutscenes, and lots and lots of dialogue. Seriously, the first hour of the game is basically a visual novel. The first scenario, which involves infiltrating a palace and taking down the Shadow Self of a guy who likes to hang out in Shibuya Station and assault women, has all the plot beats and character development you’d expect in a Persona game. I play lots of different kinds of games on my phone, but I can see people preferring to experience the story and boss battles on a bigger scre✱e♐n, too.

There’s Always A Gacha

I had very little exposure to the monetization in The Phantom X, but from what I understand, you can play through the entire campaign and unlock all of the main story characters without having to worry about energy or engaging with the gacha system. It’s onlღy once you’re beyond the campaign and into the live-serviceness-of-it-all that the microtransactions come into play, which I imagine Persona fans will be happy to hear.

The monetization is still concerning, though. All of the dark patterns we’ve come to expect from mobile 💫are present. There are tons of overlapping currencies designed to obscure how much things actually cost, for example. And, even if the new cast is great, you’re probably going to want to get Joker, Morgana, and the rest of the Phantom Thieves on your squad. To get them, you’re going to have to play a slot machine. There’s no telling how expensive or predatory the whole system will be at this point, but ultimately, it’s a Persona game with a real money slot machine baked into it, and I don’t begrudge anyone who sees that as a dealbreaker.

What I can say is that The Phantom X is no mere casino disguised as a video game, like a lot of other mobile titles. This is a fully featured, highly polished, and authentic Persona 5 game, with its own identity, mechani✃cs, and influence on the franchise. I’d prefer to pay $60 and get a complete experience, of course, but regardless, The Phantom X is shaping up to be mobile game worthy of the Persona 5 title.