After the release of Persona 5: The Phantom X, the game faced a lot of criticism. The developers tried to make up for this with a stream, but they ended up doing the exact opposite.
What is the criticism? Persona 5: The Phantom X is a Gacha game based on Persona 5. This means it can be played for free but includes microtransactions. The items for purchase usually provide no significant advantage in the game; they are mostly cosmetic items.
Common for Gacha games are also the many different in-game currencies, which can also be purchased with real money.
The Phantom X was released in China a year ago, but only recently in the West. Thus, Chinese players have a significant advantage over Western ones. The developers, ATLUS, want to address this by releasing updates more quickly.
However, the reward system has not been adjusted to match the pace of the rest of the game. This causes a lot of dissatisfaction among the players.
The main point of criticism regarding The Phantom X is that the global version offers significantly less in-game currency, rewards, and codes than the Chinese version. This makes the game fairer to paying players than to those playing for free.
The criticism led to only 45% of the ratings on Steam being positive; The Phantom X thus only receives a “Mixed” rating.
“You might want to keep that to yourselves, folks”
Developers hold stream to calm the community: According to the developers, improvements will be made in update 1.2 for The Phantom X, but the community seems to see it differently. The developers are adding more login rewards and gifts with the update.
What is not addressed is the chance to obtain rare characters. Special characters are only added to the base character pool after they have been in the game for 6 months. The developers justify this by saying they want to “consider players” who use premium currency and thus real money to obtain rare characters.
The community is far from happy about these changes and appears even angrier. In a post on Reddit, user nightoftheghouls states: “To be honest: ‘We only care about people who spend money.’ You might want to keep that to yourselves, folks.”
Further voices from the community:
- __breadstick__ says goodbye on Reddit to the game: “It was nice knowing you, but I won’t play a game that doesn’t respect my time. I love Persona, but this is unacceptable.”
- LegalFishingRods does not see the update as an improvement either (on Reddit): “The six-month delay for inclusion in the standard character pool is worse than anything we have encountered so far.”
- VictorSant is disgusted by the developers’ behavior (on Reddit): “They have done one of the most appalling things they could do: They are only doing it to stir FOMO, but pretend it’s ‘for the players’ good. That’s disgusting.”
It remains to be seen how ATLUS will continue to handle The Phantom X and what future updates will bring.
Are you also playing The Phantom X, and if so, what do you think of the update? Let us know in the comments! If you’re more in the mood for Persona, we have a recommendation for another game for you. You can read more about it on MeinMMO: A new action RPG on Steam and Switch 2 is perfect for fans of Persona and Pokémon, offering over 120 monsters
