Persona 5: The Phantom X isn't what I expected from a Persona 5 mobile game, for good and ill - hands-on

If, like me, you only took a cursory glance at Persona 5: The Phantom X - you probably don't quite know what it is. It's a mobile and PC, free-to-play gacha game of course; but what actually is it? Who's the new protagonist, and how does he tie into Joker and the original crew? Is it merely a spin off, or something a bit more? It's a bit more complicated than that.

During a hands-on session with the game last week in Irvine, California we had the chance to play the opening hours of Persona 5: The Phantom X, and delve into what makes the game tick compared to the original. To cut to the chase; Persona 5: The Phantom X is being billed as an alternate Persona 5. Not just in the sense that it's a different universe, or that it's a new cast of characters, but even down to the story - it's a mobile game using the scope of the original Persona 5 and offering an alternate take on what a Persona 5 could have been if it was only ever a mobile and PC game.

You might have some assumptions about such a statement, and you'd probably be justified in some of them. What stands out the most about The Phantom X, however, is outside of the monetization and the loss of the calendar system, it really and truly does feel like a mainline Persona entry. You explore the city and dungeons on a 3D map, just like Persona 5. Mementos is here, and while some of how it works has been retooled - fundamentally it doesn't feel all that different from how it did in Persona 5 and Royal. Bits and pieces of the game have been streamlined to better fit the mobile experience, but not in such a way that it really gets in the way of most of what made the original release great. Demon negotiations are automatic, you can change the time of the day on your own, and naturally this means that any time limits that aren't tied to login bonuses and global events aren't exactly present.

Notably, we played the game on PC, which does a lot to mask the game's origins as a mobile release. During a roundtable Q&A, the team expressed that part of their rationale for the game's release platforms was imagining players doing social links and more casual activities on their phones, before logging on with their computers at home to tackle dungeons, Mementos and to view key story scenes. For the most part, the illusion is kept; and in fact certain aspects of the game surprised me, such as how each of your party members have unique mechanics that they take advantage of, like a rotation, in addition to whatever abilities you've acquired from Personas.

What breaks the illusion, of course, is the monetization. While the game doesn't quite get in your face about paying for gacha pulls as badly as some other mobile releases I've seen recently, what is ever present is the sheer overload of various currencies. Multiple different currencies, sometimes multiple each for every type of pull you could conceivably do. One common currency I struggled to even figure out what it was used for, because of just how many different currencies that seemed used exclusively for one element of the experience. Even when I was enjoying the game during my session, it stuck out like a sore thumb.

Not helping matters is the background to it all - while Persona 5: The Phantom X is coming out globally next month, it's been out in China and other Asian territories for a while. On one hand, comparisons between the original and global release can be positive; during the same Q&A mentioned earlier, the team confirmed that while some elements of the game had to be preemptively censored to release, some of the original designs have been preserved for the new global release. That's good; a change that almost everyone can be positive about. If that was the only change besides the addition of new languages there would be no problems.

You may or may not have seen it making the rounds, but one comparison between footage of the new global version of the game and the original release has shown that payouts for some currencies for stuff like social links have been lowered for the global release. Naturally, I had to ask the team about that - and clearly I haven't been the only one holding their feet to the fire, as even without mentioning the exact source of the comparison the team seemed acutely aware of the image in question. The official line is that since there have been additional QoL features added to the global release, the numbers have been changed in order to keep the game balance the same. However I feel about the excuse is going to depend on the full state of the final game, but it's also worth noting that the team dodged the question when asked if any changes to monetization have occurred with the global release.

There are other lingering issues I have with the game, but much like with the monetization it will have to wait until we can get a bigger picture. Despite my worries, and overall distrust of gacha game releases, I think Persona 5: The Phantom X does have promise. It's too early to say for sure how the story will land - I do think the first impression it leaves could feel overly derivative of Persona 5 as it exists today, and the ways in which it echoes the original maybe doesn't invite the best comparisons. Yet, from a gameplay perspective what seems to be the potential for team building and deep RPG mechanics leaves me (perhaps morbidly) interested to see more. Persona 5: The Phantom X launches June 26 for mobile (iOS/Android) and PC (Steam)