Persona 5: The Phantom X – Everything We Know

Persona 5: The Phantom X is a brand new cell and PC spin-off of the very fashionable Persona 5. It’s presently solely slated for launch in China, with no information of a global launch but.

P5X’s very first closed beta ended on March 31, and we have listed under what we all know to this point concerning the gameplay and story. Keep in thoughts that mechanics and different particulars revealed throughout the beta might change for the complete launch.

Who’s making the sport?

Publisher Perfect World and developer Black Wings studio are making Persona 5: The Phantom X with “deep involvement” from Atlus and Sega on the creation of the characters, story, and music. Atlus character designer Shigenori Soejima–a Persona veteran who served as character designer for P5’s Phantom Thieves–designed P5X’s primary character, Wonder, and his Persona.

Is there a launch date but?

Nope. More importantly, we additionally have no idea if P5X will get localized for a global launch. Persona 5: The Phantom X was introduced on March 16, with closed beta registrations opening on March 17. The closed beta occurred March 29-31, and in keeping with the official announcement, was obtainable to PC and Android customers in China solely.

What’s the story?

Joker, the protagonist of Persona 5, will not be the primary character. The new primary character’s code title is Wonder, and a main theme of Persona 5: The Phantom X is “a lack of desire.” From the trailers, it seems that Wonder–you get to call the protagonist, however we’ll discuss with him as Wonder for comfort’s sake–encounters P5X’s new mascot, an owl named Luffy. Wonder will then meet a person who’s “twisted by desire,” and he’ll enter the person’s baseball-themed palace to steal his Treasure.

Wonder’s persona is Janosik, a hero who “robs the rich but doesn’t kill innocents.”

Below is a extra detailed, however nonetheless transient, breakdown of the primary palace’s story within the closed beta. (Click or faucet on the black bars to disclose the textual content.)

The sport opens with Wonder in a classroom scene filling out a kind detailing his future plans. He’s visibly bored and, after falling asleep, will get transported to Igor’s Velvet room. They chat about need. Igor leaves Wonder with a warning that being with out need could cause one to surrender on themselves.

Wonder then meets Luffy–an owl-trying avatar that replaces Mona’s position as companion–when he falls asleep on the subway. They go on a jaunt into fight, and Wonder awakens his Persona.

Fast-forwarding just a little bit, Wonder’s at a subway cease, and he sees a man trying to kick a feminine classmate, Motoha Arai (code title Closer), off the practice platform and onto the practice tracks. Arai’s pal tries to defend her, however sadly, she turns into the one to get kicked.

Wonder enters the palace of the evil man, and Closer secretly follows him. She will get kidnapped after which, beneath duress, awakens her Persona. It seems the evil man was once Closer’s baseball instructor, however he has a grudge in opposition to Closer as a result of when she was an elementary faculty child, she efficiently hit a pitch from him. He apparently misplaced his skilled status on account of that occasion. The story shares a number of parts with P5’s first arc revolving across the abusive volleyball instructor Suguru Kamoshida.

The closed beta’s story didn’t appear to resonate with some gamers. The story is “short and incomplete,” mentioned consumer 以身为J of their analysis of the sport. “The progression of the story is too abrupt… the main character suddenly becomes a Phantom Thief and gets an owl companion.” Bilibili consumer Treedad additionally agreed in a P5X closed beta evaluate, loosely translated, “The ‘You are me, I am me’ happens right in the beginning of the game, and then when you’re still confused about what just happened, the owl immediately tells you how to start fighting monsters.”

The builders addressed criticism in direction of the primary storyline, and their feedback are included under, within the closed beta submit-mortem part.

Gameplay

Combat

P5X’s fight is essentially the identical as P5 and remains to be flip-based mostly. However, there are a number of adjustments. (Thanks to YouTube consumer Faz for importing recorded fight gameplay):

• One More mechanic: Triggering One More nonetheless works because it did beforehand. But in P5, gamers might select which talents to make use of within the additional flip. In P5X, One More is a particular assault and gamers cannot select.

• Weakness “meter:” In order to realize knockdown, gamers have to set off weak a certain quantity of occasions to cut back a weak point “meter”–somewhat just like Persona 5 Striker’s combat–to zero earlier than the monster is knocked down.

• Highlight: Showtime has became Highlight. This is triggered when all enemies are knocked down. Players can select one character to Highlight, and the Highlighted character can deal a number of harm of a particular attribute sort. The attribute {that a} Highlighted character will deal is proven on the Highlight “wheel.”

Mementos

Mementos is expanded in P5X, and gamers can unlock elements of Mementos with “map parts” that they ram into with the Luffy bus. Mementos, in keeping with 八咲Ureshiiiiii’s closed beta write-up, can be the place the place gamers go to do each day quests.

Training workforce members and social hyperlinks

Players can degree up their workforce members, their weapons, and likewise their Personas. Each character has stats like assault, crit, protection, and extra, which had been absent in P5. There are nonetheless social hyperlinks, and like in P5, you may present character objects. The extent of dates is unknown proper now.

Aside from Wonder and Motoha Arai, gamers can even embrace different companions on their workforce like Seiji, Mont, and Yuki. They even have their very own particular Personas.

Exploration

Players can discover Tokyo and do the next actions:

• Fishing
• Taking images
• Going to the batting cage
• Bathing within the public bathhouse
• Exercising within the gymnasium
• Signing up for work shifts
• Watching films
• Going on dates

It’s mainly the mode that incorporates acquainted minigames from Persona 5, with the addition of the model-new fishing exercise. A participant has already put a fishing information up, so there is definitely pleasure across the new minigame.

There are new locations on the maps, just like the protagonist’s very properly-furnished and gigantic house. But a number of acquainted locations from P5 are current, corresponding to Tae Takemi’s clinic. Sojiro will not be current anymore, and LeBlanc has been changed by a special espresso store with a brand new barista. The inside of the brand new store does, nevertheless, look nearly equivalent to LeBlanc. Player Faz tried to go up the steps to Joker’s earlier dwelling space, however the sport mentioned it was a restricted space.

Will there be gacha? What about different mechanics present in different cell video games?

It’s possible there will likely be gacha mechanics. While gacha was not lively throughout the closed beta, every character had gacha-like animations. P5X can be a cell-centric sport, so let’s simply say there’s a first rate probability we’ll see gacha sooner or later.

In the closed beta, gamers obtained characters, together with the unique P5 workforce members, via store foreign money and quest completions.

Similar to Genshin Impact’s resin, Persona 5: The Phantom X additionally has a stamina system. According to 八咲Ureshiiiiii’s closed beta write-up, if gamers wish to degree up Personas and weapons, they’ve to make use of stamina to enter the Metaverse to struggle particular monsters.

Closed beta submit-mortem

Persona 5: The Phantom X retains a number of the mechanics from Persona 5 intact, and the artwork path is nearly indistinguishable from P5. There are gacha cell elements–stamina meter and probably gacha for character and/or weapons–but that is not too shocking for a free-to-play cell sport. What individuals will possible be maintaining a tally of, as sport growth progresses, is how the model-new storyline in P5X will evolve.

The developer acknowledged some gamers’ dissatisfaction with the primary storyline in a notice posted after the closed beta ended. “[I want to say] thank you to every player that offered feedback and criticism of the main storyline–like the abrupt story progression, fast pacing, weak character development, and more,” mentioned producer V. “It’s true that there are problems with the story. Also, there are currently a lot of important story moments that are getting 2D and 3D animated scenes and a majority of those are still in production. We couldn’t show those in the closed beta, and that’s why some of the story felt disjointed.”

V went on to say that Atlus’ Kazuhisa Wada and the unique growth workforce take the sport’s script very severely, and with their assist, P5X’s growth workforce believes they will ship a greater and extra thrilling story.