Persona5: The Phantom X

Sometimes it feels like a company can't sink any lower — all for the sake of money, cutting corners, or not finishing things properly. Persona 5: The Phantom X is a perfect example of yet another step in Atlus's decline. In recent years, the studio has noticeably dropped in both content quality and overall approach to releases, while fans are ready to consume this kind of slop. On one hand, I don't judge people who buy collector's editions or deluxe editions of their favorite series. It's normal to want to get closer to something you love. But in Atlus's case, it has crossed every boundary — your favorite franchise turns you into a slave of the brand. My Journey with Atlus My first game was Metaphor: ReFantazio. From the very first minutes, I fell in love with the atmosphere that no other game could create. It was the first title that actually made me cry during the credits. Then came Persona 5 Royal, which strengthened my faith in the studio even more. Next was Persona 3 Reload. That's when things started to crumble. The spark of Atlus was still there — great music, locations, and the feeling of a grand adventure. But the characters and story were disappointing. It felt like the developers themselves didn't know what they wanted to say, and the narrative lacked any clear meaning. The gameplay became exhausting toward the end: 250+ floors, death sending you back to the last save, and you can only save at specific points. While that was still bearable (the game remained decent, even if it was a downgrade by Atlus standards), the monetization decisions were unforgivable. Buyers of the premium edition were scammed with DLC costing half the price of the game (including Aegis). They removed the FeMC (female main character), who was in the original. The developers' response was something like "it's too complicated, too many dialogues to change." Like, dude, that's your f#cking problem that you don't have the brains to include the content that was already in the original game, In other words, they simply copied the dialogues, updated the graphics, slapped on a $70 price tag plus $35 for DLC that was already in the original game. Here's your corporate slop — open wide and enjoy. Atlus Release History In the past, Atlus released many quality games at a good pace: Persona 3 (2006), Persona 4 (2008), Persona 4 Golden (2012) (with real new content), Persona 5 (2016, which blew up the market), Royal (two years later), and Persona 5 Strikers (2020, a solid continuation). Ports and remakes actually added value instead of just milking fans. Now it's endless pumping out of ports and remakes with zero new content. In P3 Reload, they cut what required real effort and wrapped the rest in a high price tag. The drought has already lasted 6 years and looks set to continue. When I open their Twitter, it's a complete disaster. I've never seen such aggressive marketing in any official game Twitter account. It feels like a teleshopping channel begging you from every corner to buy all kinds of junk — "oh buy the figure, oh buy the merch, buy this, that, and the tenth thing." The peak of madness and greed came after the Persona 6 announcement: they tried to sell me a plain black t-shirt with just the Persona 6 logo on the front for $45. The game doesn't even have a trailer or gameplay footage yet, and they're already pushing products. You just... fell from grace. This shows a huge and terrifying shift of Atlus into a typical greedy corporation of the gaming industry, and this needs to be fought against. Why The Phantom X Is the Bottom Atlus launched another gacha project, outsourcing it to Chinese developers. The low-quality, eyesore visuals are obvious immediately — the models weren't made by the original designers. Playing this kind of schlock means not respecting yourself. The story is typical gacha trash — just an excuse to grind currency for the casino. There's tons of pay-to-win garbage, the progression system is built around endless resource farming, and enemies are damage sponges. Any good element eventually leads back to the gacha system. This isn't a game — it's a beggar simulator. I honestly can't imagine any sane person praising it. Real Persona fans won't swallow this. Positive reviews mostly come from gacha gamers, whom I barely consider real gamers or even people — their opinions can be ignored. Conclusion Atlus has hit rock bottom in the name of minimal effort and maximum profit. If you still believe in the studio, better play some truly good games instead of this gacha ♥♥♥♥.