Persona5: The Phantom X

rodou

A lot of people look at P5X and go "Gacha = Bad". I find that view to be an extremely bad faith argument. As someone who's played HSR, ZZZ, WuWa, and plenty of other gachas for a short time, this is by far the most F2P friendly one. The unit requirements for teams are so much more open and varied than something like HSR, the weekly/monthly bosses have a very low score requirement to obtain all the pull currency, and going beyond that is for high score only. I have spent money on this because I feel like it's been worth it, but there are many MANY people who can attest to the F2P friendliness. The combat mechanics take a spin on the Baton Pass system from P5, but rather than passing your turn, you have each character deal damage based on their main element, which can feel surprisingly rewarding to pull off right. Enemies have down points that go down with crits and weaknesses, meaning bosses can be knocked down with some additional effort, unlike in the base series. And each character feels unique, play off kits of other characters in a multitude of ways that allow for varied team comps, unlike in something like HSR which by comparison has VERY STRICT teams if you want to get anything done. The story (after some dredging through Chapters 1 and 2), is genuinely spectacular and on par with Royal (given they got Royal's writer for Ch3 and beyond). The characters get the focus they deserve because the limited 5 stars aren't shoehorned into the plot to make you want to pull them, a majority are just social links which I honestly prefer as it gives the main story the time investment it needs for the characters to be fleshed out properly. Yes, things can trudge between patches and events. But when you're caught up, dailies take around 5 minutes, so it won't consume your life with pointless tasks and you can play other games. If you truly can't look past the gacha mechanics, then it's not for you, but calling it bad simply because they exist is looking past all the great things this game has to offer. If those mechanics aren't an immediate dealbreaker for you and you're a Persona fan like me (as in someone who actually plays the games), this game will respect your time and you will find enjoyment.