Full ReleasePC

Persona5: The Phantom X

Black Wings Game Studio · RPG, Adventure

Overview

"We are the Phantom Thieves, and we’re here to take your heart!” The hit party-based RPG series with over 30 million copies sold is finally here!

“We’re the Phantom Thieves, and we’re here to steal your heart!”

The beloved RPG series with over 30 million copies sold finally arrives on PC and mobile!

Set in modern-day Tokyo!

Normal high-school student by day, villain-fighting Phantom Thief after school!

Explore the dungeons of the heart and defeat the distorted enemy Shadows!

Dive into dungeons of the heart called Palaces with your fellow Phantom Thieves, who have awakened their Persona, the power of the heart. Steal the Treasure to restore the warped heart!

Stylish, snappy, and satisfying turn-based combat!

Experience the signature flair of the Persona series with striking visuals and addictive moves that can wipe out all your foes in one swoop!

Level up your Persona, the power of your heart, and become the most powerful Persona-user!

Obtain new Personas, infiltrate dungeons of the heart, and prevent a future of ruin!

Enjoy your youth as a student!

Savor student life in an urban metropolis as a high-school student! How you spend your days after school is up to you—deepen your friendships, devote your time to clubs, or even work part-time!

Interact with a variety of fascinating characters!

P5X features tons of original characters, all created under the supervision of Shigenori Soejima and the rest of the Persona team!

Note: The interface and subtitles of this product downloaded outside of Japan are available only in English.

From the game's Steam store page.

THE GAMEQ VERDICT8,991 reviews analyzed

What players are actually saying

1. Summary

Phantom X is a free-to-play gacha spin-off that reviewers describe as Persona 5 with a new cast: the same Tokyo, the same loop of palaces and school life, the same stylish menus and music, plus character banners, stamina and a cash shop. Players praise the style, the soundtrack, the animated cutscenes and the character designs. Reviewers mock the story's opening (the first villain, the Subway Slammer, became a running joke), and a smaller group of mostly long-time players say it gets much better from the third palace. Much of the criticism is about the gacha. 29% of longer reviews compare the global version with the Chinese, Taiwanese and Korean servers, mostly to say global players got fewer rewards, weaker pity and a faster banner schedule, and 16% complain about pity and 50/50 odds directly. Others object to a cluttered mobile-first interface, shaky controller support, shop pop-ups, level gates and grind.

Opinion has moved a lot over time. Reviews from the first two weeks were mostly positive, and those from the five weeks starting July 7, 2025 were mostly negative as players compared their rewards with the Asian servers. Reviews written from mid-August 2025 onward recovered to 61% positive, with players crediting later updates and the later story arcs. Positive reviews often come from Persona 5 fans who accept gacha systems and see it as a free way to spend more time in that world; negative ones often tell players looking for a proper Persona game, or a fair gacha, to play Persona 5 Royal instead.

2. What keeps coming up

What players praise

Persona 5's look, music and presentation carry overHigh

Reviewers credit how much of Persona 5's identity survives: the UI style, the animated cutscenes, the Velvet Room, the battle flourishes and above all the music, with returning tracks and new vocal songs that they name by title. One player put it simply: "the soundtrack is what made me want to give this game a shot". Character and Persona designs get similar credit ("Characters and Persona designs are honestly amazing in my opinion"), and several reviewers who otherwise disliked the game still single out the opening song and animation. Within this theme, some reviewers point out that most of the music and many assets come straight from Persona 5, and that the in-engine animations look stiff next to the polished anime scenes.

Crossovers and returning charactersMedium

Persona fans like being able to field Joker, Ann, Ryuji and Morgana, and later crossover characters from Persona 3 and other collaborations. Crossovers come up far more in reviews written in 2026, after new collabs arrived. The events themselves get a cooler reception: an anniversary reviewer wrote "Miku being added was cool, but 3 minutes of story total", and others wish the game leaned less on old casts and more on its own characters.

New cast, Lufel and side activitiesLow

A smaller group likes the original characters (Motoha and Merope come up by name) and prefers the owl mascot Lufel to Morgana. Side modes such as the rhythm game, soccer and the Tycoon card game get occasional, fond mentions.

Where players are split

How close it feels to mainline Persona 5High

Reviewers argue about this more than anything else in the split. Some say it plays like a real Persona game: "A full on Persona experience with gacha elements, with the quality and polish you expect from a modern Persona game." Others call it a hollow copy, "A watered down version of P5R that turned one of the best parts of P5R, palace exploration into something so boring", or more bluntly, "This game only looks like persona 5, but there is no cohesion in the themes and the whole thing feels like a hollow shell." Both camps describe the same trade: the setting and mechanics are recognisably Persona 5, while the gacha structure removes the deadlines, reshapes social links and turns progression into upgrade materials. Critics often say to skip it and buy Persona 5 Royal, and a few point out that Royal on sale costs less than one shop bundle.

The story: weak opening palaces, stronger from the thirdHigh

Reviewers criticise the first two palaces for low stakes and familiar beats; "The Subway Slammer has already been memed to death, but the second arc is not that much better either." The villain's catchphrase also became a stock joke in short reviews. A smaller group insists the story turns around, often naming the third palace: one edited review reads "3rd Palace is absolute cinema and they're treating players with respect now." A few dozen longer reviews make this "it gets better" claim, and it shows up more often in reviews written from mid-August 2025, as players reached the later arcs. Critics who stopped early answer that a live-service story never really ends, and that the protagonist Wonder has little backstory or personality.

Generous or stingy for free playersMedium

Some players say the game is easy to enjoy without paying ("F2p players will not have a hard time"), that palaces are full of free pull currency, and that 4-star characters can clear the story. Others found the pull income thin, for example "Getting a ten pull requires close to 70 percent of dungeon completion." The split often tracks what reviewers compare it with: those who know other gacha games tend to call it fair, while those coming from Persona alone tend to feel nickel-and-dimed. During the summer of 2025 the global reward gap, covered below, turned some players who had defended the game toward the stingy view.

Combat changesMedium

The turn-based core is still weakness hunting, knockdowns and All-Out Attacks. Some prefer the rebalanced version ("Even does a few things better then p5r such as baton passes being balanced") and like the navigators you control and the boss gimmicks. Others feel it has been simplified to suit gacha characters: three skills per character, at most three Personas for the protagonist, auto-battle, and a One More that "now forces you to use a skill instead of you know actually letting you do one more turn". Some add that battles are either trivial on auto or brutal damage checks aimed at premium characters.

Daily life without a calendarMedium

Some welcome losing Persona's calendar because they can do social links and palaces at their own pace: "with a lack of time limits to do social and training events I am finding it a bit more enjoyable than the mainline game." Others say the stakes vanished with the deadlines and that action points simply replaced the calendar with a slower timer ("deadlines are better than timegates"). Their specific grievance is the fixed refill of city-life action points, which one reviewer summed up as "you only regenerate FIVE PER REAL-LIFE DAY".

Palace designLow

Reviewers describe the palaces as much bigger than Persona 5's. A few love exploring them ("Lowkey has more engaging dungeon layout and exploration than Persona 3-5 too..."); others find them padded with repeated rooms and chests ("The palaces and Mementos are extremely long and boring.").

What frustrates players

The global version gets less than the Asian serversHigh

29% of longer reviews (952 of 3,251) compare the global release with the Chinese, Taiwanese or Korean versions, and they use the comparison to list what global players got less of: smaller maintenance compensation, no redeem codes at launch, login events paying weapon pulls instead of character pulls, a free healer and her weapon removed from beginner rewards, and limited characters held back from the standard banner for what reviewers call a six-month wait. The faster banner timing made it worse: 11% of longer reviews mention the accelerated schedule, usually because "an accelerated release schedule paired with decreased amounts of currency" left less time and less currency per banner. The comparison is much rarer in reviews written after mid-August 2025, when reviewers report fixes with the 2.0 update ("The 2.0 update has absolutely redeemed this game for me."), but the standard-banner delay keeps coming up.

Pity, 50/50 odds and banner pressureHigh

16% of longer reviews raise the pity system. Reviewers report missing or barely noticeable soft pity, an 80-pull hard pity that still ends in a 50/50, and a separate weapon banner with its own 50/50. One wrote: "I'm around 300 pulls into the game and haven't received a single 5 star banner before hitting 80/80." Several overlapping limited banners in the first weeks added to the pressure, and reviewers say a guaranteed 110-pull option they knew from the Asian servers was missing at launch. A late review mentions that a guaranteed banner did arrive, and complaints about soft pity still appear in reviews written in 2026.

Cluttered interface and weak controller supportMedium

Reviewers describe a mobile UI dropped onto PC: on-screen touch buttons, red dots and exclamation marks everywhere, nested menus and many currencies. One wrote that "Menus feel deliberately confusing and crowded". Controller players report more trouble, with some menus impossible to navigate without switching to a cursor mode or the mouse, and one reviewer concluded that "gamepad support is just straight up unfinished." These interface complaints lean toward reviewers with only a few hours played.

Shop pop-ups and pressure to spendMedium

Reviewers complain about full-screen offers after clearing a palace or pulling a new 5-star, time-limited bundles and a shop button that never stops flashing: "the constant pop ups in this game to get you to spend money is super scummy". Some add that pack prices and the battle pass are high for what they give.

Grind, level gates and turn limitsMedium

Reviewers say story progress is gated by account level and that the protagonist gains little experience from ordinary fights, so players hit walls (level 30 before the first palace boss is an example that comes up) and must wait for daily stamina and quests. "They time gate you by forcing you to come back once you're a specific level for specific sections of palaces" is how one reviewer put it. Multi-phase bosses with "an arbitrary turn limit of 120" frustrate a smaller group, and players with long playtimes mention power creep and enemies that feel like damage sponges.

Performance, bugs and loadingMedium

Reports include pauses when a battle starts, stutter in menus and Mementos, freezes and crashes on hardware that should cope, and softlocks during All-Out Attacks or cutscenes: "Buggy and laggy with several seconds of delay between hitting an enemy and starting the battle on all platforms I tried." Steam Deck reports range from runs well to needs heavy tweaking.

Large downloads, launcher trouble and lost accountsLow

These complaints are more frequent in reviews written later. Players report the game downloading most of its content in-game, then forcing large re-downloads after updates or breaks ("now i need to download 65 GB worth of content?"), launcher failures that stop the game from starting, and progress lost when an unlinked guest account was reset ("My guest account got reset after update"). A related group reports purchases that never arrived and slow support.

Long, hand-holding tutorialsLow

The opening hours are tutorial-heavy, and puzzles come with markers pointing at the answer: "The game holds your hand through every last step". Series veterans find this especially tiresome.

No English dub and few languagesLow

Reviewers report that Japanese is the only voice track, which fans used to the series' English voices dislike ("Voice acting is only in Japanese, which is also a letdown."). Some also note that text comes only in English and Japanese, locked by Steam region.

3. The player conversation

Opinion swung sharply by date. Reviews written up to early July 2025 were 62% positive, mostly first impressions from Persona fans pleased to get a free spin-off. In the five weeks from July 7, 2025, 3,617 reviews arrived and only 30% were positive: some players who had been enjoying the game edited their reviews to negative over the reward gap with the Asian servers, some posted near-identical lists of differences, and a run of short reviews simply demanded equal treatment. From mid-August 2025 the tone improved, with reviews written in the rest of 2025 at 66% positive, as players credited the 2.0 changes and the third palace. Reviews written in 2026 were 56% positive, with crossovers and new characters drawing praise and downloads, lost accounts and thin events drawing criticism.

Jokes run through the whole conversation: the Subway Slammer, gambling gags, pulling Joker and chat channel memes fill one-line reviews on both sides of the vote. Among the substantive reviews, those written after only a few hours lean toward the tutorials and the clunky UI and controls. Reviewers with long playtimes write more about pity math, banner pacing, standard-banner delays and power creep, and most of the reviews vouching that the story improves come from them.

4. What the developers could do

Match global rewards and banner pacing to the original servers. 29% of longer reviews compare global with the Chinese, Taiwanese and Korean versions, and they ask for the same things: comparable compensation and codes, and limited characters entering the standard banner on the same schedule.
Make pity visible and stronger. Reviewers report that soft pity is absent or meaningless and that 80-pull 50/50s on both character and weapon banners feel punishing; publishing exact rates and pity behaviour would answer much of the suspicion.
Redesign the PC interface and fix controller navigation. Reviewers want hideable touch buttons, fewer nested menus and notification dots, and menus that work fully on a gamepad without cursor mode.
Cut the shop pop-ups. Reviewers single out full-screen bundle offers after story moments and new pulls, including some who otherwise enjoy the game.
Loosen story level gates and boss turn limits. Players hitting account-level walls mid-palace and 120-turn limits on multi-phase bosses ask to progress the story at their own pace.
Stop forcing full re-downloads and protect guest accounts. Later reviews describe repeated large downloads after updates and progress lost on unlinked guest accounts; prompting players to link accounts early and keeping installed content would address both.
Smooth battle loading and fix softlocks. Reviewers report the pause between touching an enemy and the fight starting, plus All-Out Attack softlocks, on PC, Steam Deck and mobile.
Add an English voice track and more text languages. Fans of the series' English dubs and non-English speakers both ask for it, and region-locked text frustrates players living abroad.