Before I became a full-fledged Persona aficionado, I’d always perceived the series as completely unremarkable in every way. To be frank, I didn't even find Persona 3 particularly appealing when I first booted it up. Mundane schooling experience, teenage banter that was neither engaging nor impressive, gorgeous soundtracks juxtaposed against the most basic of dungeon designs; a formulaic nature that I deem crucial to the series' DNA, but wouldn't call it a compelling-enough reason to stick around for long.

Nonetheless, I remained committed to the series, and over the years, its real allure — the way the games change over time in profound, metamorphic ways — blossomed within me. And that's why I have to express my dissatisfaction with Atlus' latest project, Persona 5X: Phantom of the Night, because it fails to capture the essence of what has made the series so extraordinary.

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For me, the essence of Persona has always been the sheer thrill of seeing a familiar setting through an entirely new lens, in light of how Atlus has consistently transformed and repackaged its beloved games to a near-unrecognizable state compared to their initial releases. Persona 3 delivered an entire epilogue and a female-centric route in its Portable remake (which our Jervon is a big fan of), while Persona 4 was enriched with a wealth of new content in its Golden version, even inviting A1-Productions to adapt as its own separate anime.

Persona 5, on the other hand, has undergone a complete overhaul with its Royal edition, one that rewrote the very fabric of its story. It's almost funny how the Persona games in the hands of fans today are not the ones we grew up with. And whether it was for the sake of effacing the games' clichéd first impressions or cultivating a longstanding relationship with fans, it was hard to ignore a developer so fervently eager to change and grow.

persona 5 x phantom of the night owl car companion-1

Unfortunately, this growth seems to be sorely lacking in any promotional material for Persona 5X, a new Persona endeavor that feels like a shameless display of a lamentable creative bankruptcy. As we now know, the game is sticking to the same tried and true formula of Persona 5, with its trademark Daily Life/Metaverse duality and the unaltered streets and neighborhoods of Tokyo that are all too familiar to fans by this point. The protagonist even has an animal-car hybrid companion of sorts, which feels as uninspired as someone making a draft of a new Persona 5 game on ChatGPT and going with whatever the result was (and the news that Chinese beta testers see the first arc as a clone of Kamoshida's prologue story doesn't do much to improve my initial repulsed impression in any way).

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Sure, you might consider having cognitive characters without human alter egos to be a novel concept in the Persona 5 Metaverse, but it falls far short of Atlus’s old efforts to shed any new light on its captivating mainline games; a mere soulless imitation, devoid of any real experimentation, revision, or destruction (depending on how far into the old changes and expansions you were), and I can't help but wonder if Atlus has misplaced its creative energies, pouring them into a direction that does little to advance the franchise's storied legacy.

persona 5 x phantom of the night confident conversations

You could also argue that a spin-off is different from an expansion or a remake, or anything that touches on the base games in any way; that it doesn't have to try as hard to play with the groundwork of its parent game. But Atlus already broke that mold before with Persona 5 Strikers (the spin-off/sequel to Persona 5) and redefined how a spinoff should be. Strikers' exhilarating, action-packed gameplay felt like a stunningly fitting showcase for what its turn-based predecessor wanted to communicate through its bold and vibrant aesthetic direction.

What's more, the character dynamics felt refreshingly evolved, with the game moving away from Tokyo as its primary location and incorporating other cities like Osaka and Kyoto into the Phantom Thieves' journey, as well as its particular focus on seamlessly integrating AI into the mundane aspects of everyday life; a theme that feels almost unsettlingly relevant in light of the ongoing uproar surrounding OpenAI and ChatGPT. Even though the old cast reprised their roles, and the whole Jail thing was not that different from the original Palaces, the effort made to revitalize the base game was evident from the first few hours of my playthrough.

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This is just a drop in the ocean of how Atlus has meticulously reimagined its beloved titles in a variety of inventive ways; from Persona Q's adorable mash-up of various casts, to the dancing spin-offs grooving to the rhythms of the series' signature music, and even beyond the realm of Persona with Catherine Full Body's re-exploration of the protagonist's sexual identity. And on a macro scale, it's obvious that the most popular JRPGs nowadays are those that the creators have taken the time to love, strengthen, and refine beyond their initial value. Final Fantasy 7, Xenoblade Chronicles, Kingdom Hearts, and Nier, to name a few, have all undergone various forms of revision to their core identities — through sequels, rereleases, remakes, or expansions — despite their originally enduring success, with mobile spinoffs actually serving to expand and build upon the worlds they established while crafting their own separate identities, like Kingdom Hearts: Dark Road and Nier: Reincarnation.

persona 5 x phantom of the night battle gameplay

In a bleak alternate universe, I could imagine the developers of these games resting on their laurels, lazily regurgitating the same old titles into cash-grab lookalike mobile parts instead of breathing new life into their beloved creations and giving us amazing new products like Xenoblade Chronicles - Future Connected or Final Fantasy 7 Remake. And because I'm wary of such a future, I cannot help but feel alarmed by the existence of Persona 5X: Phantom of the Night. I certainly hope that Atlus does not continue down this path and instead goes back to pursuing creativity and innovation again as it has done for ages.

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