Persona 5: The Phantom X Global – How Different Can One Game Be?

Global players of Persona 5: The Phantom X are dealing with a growing list of changes that make their experience significantly different and more expensive than players in other regions.

For context, Perfect World Games published the original Chinese and Taiwanese versions, the global version is published by Perfect World, Sega, and IWPlay World. Despite having multiple publishers involved in the global release, the latest controversy involves how new characters are added to the game’s standard banner, sparking widespread criticism from the community.

The changes to Persona 5: The Phantom X were announced during the official Persona X-Stream version 1.2 livestream, which received such severe backlash that the developers had to disable the upvote/downvote feature during the stream itself. The poor reception was immediate and widespread, with viewers expressing disappointment not just about the six-month delay for standard banner characters, but about the overall direction the game was taking.

The biggest change affects how players can obtain characters after their initial release. In other regions like China and Taiwan, non-limited characters are immediately added to the standard banner pool once their featured banner ends. This means players can potentially get these characters through regular pulls using standard tickets. However, the global version is changing this system entirely.

Starting with the character Marian, global players will have to wait six months before these characters become available in the standard banner. This means that once a character’s featured banner ends, global players have no way to obtain them until half a year later. Other regions don’t have this waiting period at all.

To clarify the situation, X (formerly Twitter) user @NajoxP5X noted: “What they said was that she wouldn’t be immediately available on standard, it’s a small but important difference.”

Btw in case it wasn’t clear, Marian WILL go to standard at some point they never said she would be limited forever. What they said was that she wouldn’t be immediately available on standard, it’s a small but important difference (it still sucks tho)

— Najox P5X (@NajoxP5X) July 9, 2025

This change is just one of several differences that have made the global version more restrictive. Reddit user MonstaRasta expressed frustration about the timing, commenting: “6 months is way too long for new players or launch honeymooners to stick around for a game that doesn’t respect their time.”

Players have also pointed out that the global version lacks guarantee banners, has worse pity systems, and features an accelerated release schedule without additional compensation. The game also includes level requirements to progress through the story that weren’t present in other versions, forcing players to grind more or spend money on stamina.

Additional problems include intrusive pop-up advertisements that other regions don’t see and higher prices for beginner sale packs. What costs $1 in other versions reportedly costs $5 in the global release. The developer has provided some compensation in the form of 10 weapon pulls and 10 premium pulls, but many players feel this doesn’t address the core issues with how the global version is being handled compared to other regions.

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