WONDER-FUL

PERSONA 5: THE PHANTOM X's gachafication works surprisingly well

- Mollie Taylor

I consider myself an insufferable Persona 5 fan, but even I'm beginning to tire a little of the Phantom Thieves. If there's one thing Atlus knows how to do, it's milk the ever-loving god out of a videogame. I presume that's exactly how we ended up here: Persona 5: The Phantom X, a free-to-play gacha game developed alongside Perfect World subsidiary Black Wings Studio, which has dabbled in this sort of thing before.

It’s bizarre, because The Phantom X looks like Persona 5 (and sure does play like Persona 5) until I dare to delve a couple menus deep and its iconic stylised UI starts to drown in all the information-dense gacha nonsense I have a love-hate relationship with. Yet, despite my exhaustion with the setting and all-too familiar formula, I gotta admit: The Phantom X is pretty freakin' good.

TAKE YOUR TIME... AGAIN

After all, it really is much of the same. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, yada yada. Hell, the game even opens with the same cutscene as the original game, albeit with tweaks to transition it into its gacha counterpart.

There are palaces to explore, Mementos to dive into, personas to fuse, bonds to form, social stats to grow, and calling cards to send as, once again, the Phantom Thieves. Though with a different cast taking up the mantle this time.

Even when