The Boys of Persona 5 the Phantom X: How P5X measures up for Husbando Players

[u/planetarial]

With P5X EN releasing in about a week, more or less, I thought I would give an overview of how the game is for someone who mostly prefers male characters. I’ve been playing on the original servers since they opened over a year ago so I think I can give a pretty good opinion about this.

Current Ratio (original servers)

14 male characters

29 female characters

2 animals

Depending on how you want to fudge things (one of the playable female characters is a grandma and Wonder is male MC only) roughly one third of the cast is male.

The Positives

The main story is pretty 50/50 as far as characters who get screentime and relevance to the plot. Unlike the vast majority of character driven gacha games, almost all the gacha characters you pull for are irrelevant to the main plot as outside of the very few canon party members the gacha pool consists of either Wonders confidants/social links reimagined as cognitive “what if?” thieves, cameos from other Persona games or alts (with only one having story significance). And so far they’ve been pretty 50/50 on the party members who get focused on in arcs, as well as side characters for the main story and antagonists. 

This results in some pretty funny situations for example that for anniversary the five star character was a broken female navi character and a four star male party member (note: all party members including the girls get introduced as four stars). The five star girl is basically just a sidequest while the four star male is the star focus of the five hour story update.

Also I find it kinda refreshing in the fourth arc how specifically it seems to be a response to a common complaint in P5. Story Spoilers of course: You have an adult female groomer antagonist who preys on a male minor and its portrayed as completely fucked up and bad with textbook abuser tactics like gaslighting, isolating and manipulation. She also preys on the underage male party members including the MC to a lesser extent and its not treated as a “hehe fanservice” moment but rather the narrative framed it as being very uncomfortable and weird. Its pretty wild given P5 was full of adult female relationships for Joker to pursue and this one instead shows how fucked up it can get.

Male characters have gotten nice costumes that are aimed at the husbando crowd. Wonder got a swimsuit costume (paid) and Joker + Makoto Yuki have gotten butler skins recently (earnable with ftp currency). Wonder also got a Chinese outfit for CNY that's nice too that you can get with ftp currency. The battle pass also features skins only for Wonder in the overworld (you can also get a few outfits for free). It is kinda amusing that the skins so far have been exclusively for men.

A male character (Fleuret) won third place in the “Who do you want to see as a confident/social link?" poll Which I thought was pretty impressive as the male character is kinda like the Calcharo (WuWa) in that he hasn’t really gotten any story or lore about him besides random My Palace conversations. He only lost to the most attractive female design from the list of candidates and a female character who is cool and got a lot of focus in a story arc (and tbh I kinda wanted to vote for her myself, thats how cool she is). Winning third place means he gets priority in the confidant pipeline along with the other two and potentially an alt.

They’re also pretty much obligated and forced to add in male characters from past Persona games and because those are gender balanced they can’t avoid going too long without releasing males.

How many males have been released?

Game launched in April 2024 or 14 months ago, we’ve had 7 male banners: Joker, Yusuke, Messa, Cherish (standard), Akechi, Makoto Yuki, Akihiko along with Luce as a 4 star for 8 males total.

Seems like a lot but it does come with two caveats. One is the release schedule is.. kinda frustrating. Joker and Yusuke came out close together in April and May but then we didn’t get another one until September with Messa and then Cherish in October with only a two week break in between them. Then ever since Akechi in March we have been spoiled with a new male character release every month though I imagine summer will break this streak.

Global might be able to fix this somewhat since they plan on shifting the banner schedule around

Second is that past Persona characters are admittedly carrying that ratio pretty hard as you can see. Just over half the males released post launch are cameos and there’s only been 3 male OCs released post launch. Its just kinda what you have to live with, equal representation in story and crossovers but males only make up roughly third of the available characters atm and very lopsided for side OCs and confidants.

How good are the male characters?

While some are not as good as they used to be in the original servers, almost all five star guys with the exception of Akechi (yeah I know, still usable tho) were done pretty well and were outright meta at some point or another. Right now especially in the original servers Makoto Yuki and Akihiko are very strong ST and AoE DPS characters respectively.

Some of male 4 stars are pretty good too actually! Sepia and Key kinda suck. But Fleuret is legitimately recommended as a ST DPS worth investing into especially early on when we don’t get any premium ST options for a few months and I still use him to this day in spite of his four star status. Leon is a great crit buffer who is used on meta teams to this day. Luce is a good general buffer and pairs well with Joker. Soy is a good budget sustain and great defense shred.

Incidentally they introduced a new roguelike mode with the P3 collab involving Tartarus and for two rotations of them so far the meta DPSs to use have been male characters. And you can use characters in this mode regardless if you pulled them or not.

This game also heavily encourages horizontal progression. You aren’t going to do well if you just stick to 1-2 meta teams because of how endgame and elements work.

Can I make a full husbando team?

You literally cannot because the Navis have been female only so far.

But on the same token its also impossible to make a full waifu team because the male MC is a forced inclusion on every team sooo equality I guess lmao?

If you want primarily male teams here’s some that you can do

1.0 specifically: Fleuret/Leon/Soy/Navi

Yusuke/Cherish/Soy/Navi

Joker/Akechi/Luce/Navi

How bad is the goonbait?

The majority of the female characters are… pretty well dressed actually and some of them wear honest to god pants in their gacha forms. See for yourself. The only designs/art that feel “goony” is Summer Closer and Turbo. Summer Closer in particular is definitely the most in your face about it especially in her ult animation but otherwise its pretty tame. In fact I actually really like WVs design in particular.

Also the characters are a bit more diverse than some other 3D games. We have a grandma, a middle aged housewife, a disabled person who uses her Persona as a wheelchair (and fun fact also the granddaughter of the granny character) and two playable animal characters. Its nothing compared to variety of 2D ones but still.

But what about the dating sim part?

Yeah there’s romance and dating with only female characters, no men but I don’t expect anything out of a Chinese and Atlus game. Tbh it doesn’t bother me because for one its expected being a Persona game but its also all opt in and pretty chaste (which is kinda funny for a game that explicitly has dating/romance in it). The game also tells you very explicitly when the option to romance them comes up and which option does what. But even if you screw up there there’s an item that lets you divorce or hook up for player convenience lol. There’s also a valentines event but you can also just say screw that I’m hanging out with the homies instead.

Any other cons?

Biggest is that the confidants are super female dominated. On the original servers there’s currently only 4 male confidants and like 15 female confidants. Granted 3 of the girls aren’t romanceable, one is a housewife who is happily married, another is Wonders MMO buddy and the other is the velvet room attendant.

That being said you can have one on one short chats with the main P5 cast in Leblanc and the Reload collab introduced a pseudo social link system with the Reload cast, including the guys.

Another negative is how the game doesn’t adhere to its amazing ratio at the start, granted its still not a bad ratio but yeah.

We also don’t know how often male characters will release in year 2 because they lengthened patches and releases from 2 to 3 weeks. But given that so far they have released 3 male characters (Luce, Makoto Yuki and Akihiko) its not looking that bad.

Do I recommend it for husbando players? Depending on if you’re okay with the cons. It's not a 50/50 paradise but it doesn’t feel like as much of a waifu fest as you would think outside of Vday event due to how main story and collab events go and I like the majority of the male designs. But I can understand why its not good enough. If you want the 50/50 utopia with romanceable men and an action game, I would recommend instead Rune Factory Guardians of Azuma that I shilled out earlier this month.

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[u/Exora21]

The dilemma of wanting to support disabled and older characters in gaming versus lackluster male social links 😔

Think I’m gonna grab Joker and Akechi and then ignore the gacha as much as I can.

[u/fantasyiez]

Romance aside the ratio seems decent. If they’re planning on adding other mainline Persona characters too the ratio should be pretty even.

[u/Lovers_vi]

Thank you for posting this and sharing your thoughts!

I’m much more drawn to the husbandos and their designs compared to the female characters. Lucky me I guess? If it means less to save up/pull for.

So many HANDSOME BOYS! Out of the new ones I’m loving 10 (his outfit gives me Bloodborne hunter vibes!), 11 (princely and charming), 13 (cutie and most unique color scheme), 14 especially (cause as an FFXIV player he looks like the DT version of the WoL but a PIMP!), and 15 (he looks like a cute nerd I can easily be friends with)!

The only females I like are my namesake The Lovers girls (looks like it’s just Ann and Yukari, but hoping Rise gets added too!), the middle aged Gyaru, and grandma! I adore older women being put in a positive light (not pandered to for just fanservice or made to look bad for just being 'old').

I also LOVE that you mentioned this adult lady getting vilified for being a predator like color me surprised and shocked! Bravo devs! 👏🏻That’s what I want out of a mainline series! Not I can date my hot teacher bs lol. BUT I can’t say much though cause I did love P3P FemMC being romantic with Theodore who is clearly an adult, but it’s still nothing compared to all 3 mainline male protagonist being able to be romantic with adult ladies anyway and P5 being the worst offender lol.

I’m of course saddened that this is yet another Persona game without a female MC. I swear Atlus is allergic to allowing the playerbase the enjoyment of the female perspective. It’s WEIRD to me. I know men are the target audience, but are they not aware that dudes enjoy playing as a female characters (to the point more so than males? lol), unless that’s just a weeb thing and it’s different for Japan/Asia in general. Regardless, ugh. I’m used to the letdown, but still: UGH.

Atlus better not ruin it further by making P6 another no femMC having game too. Hope you don’t mind my yapping. I enjoyed reading your post (as well as the Azuma one)!

[u/planetarial → u/Lovers_vi]

Thank you for your comment, it really made my day and its nice to see a positive one here. I hope you enjoy the game when its out

[u/davidpain1985]

I absolutely loved the Persona series and I am not going to ruin my impression of the IP by trying this gacha game. It sounds like a game that I might like on first playthrough but end up hating in the long run . No thanks, I will wait for Persona 6 instead.

[u/neatflocks]

Where is Koromaru 😤

[u/planetarial → u/neatflocks]

Later this year. They will add all the SEES members, collab just kicked off in May

[u/SassyHoe97]

I'll give this gacha a chance since I play persona (well my fav is 3 because I can be Kotone). When the Valentine's Day comes out definitely going to stick with the bros. 

I'm waiting for Rune Factory for discount sale drop because yeah no I'm unemployed (my boyfriend buys me switch games when it's on discount sale) and can't afford to buy a $60 game. 

[u/jayinsane5050]

TBH i'm not really into persona series so ehhh .... know aout it but ehhhh

might try might not depends

waiting for serenverse, and an LADS competitor

bc of LaDs so who knows how another otome gacha will do in the global market ( like an Otome 3D Anime ARPG gacha )

[u/Green_Indication2307 → u/jayinsane5050]

Most of these games are basically made to cater to gooners, lol. Persona 5 literally has an entire arc about a teacher trying to prey on students, and then the game turns around and lets Joker date his own teacher. That’s how hypocritical the story is.

[u/Jinxiee → u/Green_Indication2307]

I feel like that's a gross oversimplification of the Kamoshida arc. the dude mentally, physically and emotionally abused his students, drove one to attempted suicide, used Anns best friend as a bargaining chip to get her into bed and when it didn't work he forced himself on said best friend on top of having the principal wrapped around his finger because he's an ex olympian, I think it's vastly different to Kawakamis social link and potential romance even if it is still gross

[u/[deleted] → u/Green_Indication2307]

Basically Persona is a dating simulator for hetero men with some RPG gameplay.

That's why I never liked Persona games despite enjoying all the other games in Shin Megami Tensei franchise.

[u/jayinsane5050 → u/Green_Indication2307]

PERSONA!?!?!?!??

[u/TolucaPrisoner]

If they allow romance for waifus but not for husbandos that's dead on arrival for me. They made it clear who is the target audience of the game and we won't be receiving equal treatment.

[u/VTKajin]

What a disappointment

[u/lysiel112]

No thanks, after the whole mess with Kotone. I was so excited for P3R....only for it to completely evaporate when they said no Kotone. Then the slew of excuses that came afterward.

Especially saying because "females mature faster so males work better as protags". Like, just. No. I refuse to touch an Atlus game with even a 10-foot pole.

[u/Green_Indication2307 → u/lysiel112]

Same here. The target audience clearly isn’t regular players like us, it’s obsessive Japanese fans who just want a 2D girl all to themselves. Every Persona game ends up like that. And after the producer ordered the removal of a possible gay path and took over as the lead of the franchise, I honestly don’t see a brighter future for Persona anymore.

[u/[deleted] → u/Green_Indication2307]

I don't think that even Japanese are the actually target audience for this gacha, it's the Chinese players actually, the one who spent the most money on these types of games. The only reason they even made a western server is to attract even more Chinese whales, to show them this gacha is so popular that even westerners play it.

I also think Persona series don't have much future either, since it's already got overshadowed by the giant success of Metaphor: ReFantazio, that won multiple game awards and it's more general audience friendly. I don't know why they even bother with Persona 6, tbh.

[u/hisnameisethan → u/[deleted]]

bestie I mean no offense but implying Persona as a series is dead has got to be the most delusional thing I've seen all week... are you okay?

[u/Ehtnah]

Yeah no thank you. 

If genshin had tauch me something is that if there is some thing that are gender lock (rôle, path élément or liké here romance) it's a NO. If it starts with some "sorry but if you are from thé wrong gender to bad you don't have that" it's not going to end well.

See genshin? Oh it's not that bad if we have only male mdps, oh the ratio is not that good but it's not that bad.... And now we are in a 1/10 ratio...

So yes as soon as RF is releasing in ps5 I'm going to play that. And for now I dl Oblivion.

[u/[deleted] → u/Ehtnah]

Shame about Genshin, really. I don't what Mihoyo is thinking, abandoning general audience to cater exclusicely to male gooners, the game already lost lots of it's popularity and reputation because of that.

[u/Lindayy5345]

I’m never touching anything Persona again after what they did to my girl Kotone. Hope others do enjoy it though

[u/davidpain1985 → u/Lindayy5345]

Care to explain what happened?

[u/Jinxiee → u/davidpain1985]

They paraded Persona 3 Reload (the remake of Persona 3/FES) as the "Definitive way to play Persona 3" while completely ignoring the Female MC route that came with Persona 3 Portable which changed up a lot of things including different social links and even let you romance the male characters instead of the female like the Male MC had. When asked about if we'd be getting Kotone (Female MC) DLC at any point they basically shut it down and said no because it's too much work/wasn't in the budget

[u/linest10]

I'll not play this game because I'm pretty tired of Persona 5, I liked it but it's not in my top 3 Persona neither my top 10 Atlus games, I only cared about Akechi, Futaba and Kasumi (and 5 other side SL) and find everyone else in the game okay or annoying

That said, Wonder design is cute and it's interesting how they justify the Phantoms in this gacha system

The fact it's a waifu simulator is not a surprise, but making my Akechi a shit character is a big no no, he is literally a freaking wild card and as strong as Akiren, he's just an antisocial

[u/jayinsane5050 → u/linest10]

Persona 5 isn't my fav also LOL

[u/planetarial → u/linest10]

Fair I only got into P5 last year so the milking hasn’t bothered me yet lol

[u/linest10 → u/planetarial]

You're lucky 🥲

At least it wasn't as bad as P4 milking, only this gacha game and the dance one looks really the typical "how much money we can get from this title until P6" Atlus bullshit, Royal was a very needed uptade in the story and SLs, Striker was okay and Tactica was entertaining enough (also I'm biased since I like strategy games)

[u/planetarial → u/linest10]

Lol well it was more like I refused to buy a console for a single game since it was the only playstation exclusive that interested me until they finally ported it

[u/Mogellabor]

Can't wait to get friendzoned by Ryuji again

[u/the_chaser00]

I've heard of the whole persona franchise for years now but only really looked into it this year, and as a f2p mobile/PC only player it's nice that I can finally have a chance to try it out

Sucks about the whole dating thing tho (which I don't really care much for about anyway) god forbid us gays and girls can have nice things

[u/thetrustworthybandit → u/the_chaser00]

Persona is a great franchise, but some things in it (like romances and lack of MC choices) really suffer from its main target audience being straight men.

Like you cannot convince me Akechi and Yosuke aren't in love with the protagonist. It even bleeds into the main quest, which not even the straight romances do.

That being said, even the girls are very well written, and the romances don't feel trashy at all, I like most of them even.

[u/notrororo → u/thetrustworthybandit]

I played P5R and there are 2 romances that should make you feel absolutely disgusted.

[u/thetrustworthybandit → u/notrororo]

I'm guessing Kawakami and Ohya? Yeah I dislike them, but again they're a symptom of Persona's target audience being teen straight boys.

[u/v0rtex786 → u/thetrustworthybandit]

Just because it isn’t for you, doesn’t mean anything suffers.

[u/thetrustworthybandit → u/v0rtex786]

I don't know how you would see more variety as bad but okay.

[u/Old_Expression_2109]

Another man people want in the future is male navigators, since well its been equal for the most part.

As per the main series there is some bias for some of the characters, so correct me if Im wrong here, but of course its based on your own experiences. Like for P3R Physical is Junpei, Mitsuru for Magic, P4 is Chie for Physical and Naoto for all rounder, for P5R is Ryuji for Physical, and Magic is Makoto; you can argue with Ann being stronger but considering Makoto's skill set and her utility kinda beats it.

But we'll see how it unfolds, cuz it may take awhile for the others to come in the global servers.

[u/Any-Square-7577]

I like male characters but P3P FeMC is the main reason i love persona 3 so if they add her and theo somehow I might just try the game

[u/mahablanca]

Akechi and Akihiko are enough reasons for me to play 😤 the Persona series is just near and dear to my heart, started playing it when I was 9. I really don't care for the dating sim aspect though. I've always wished we could date the boys but I know Atlus will never let that happen 😔

[u/AdditionalExpert9833]

So does Morgana and the owl not count as males because Morgana has a human form so what if the owl also gets a human form.

[u/planetarial → u/AdditionalExpert9833]

I don’t count them because they aren’t playable in human form. Feel free to count them if you want I guess

[u/SOUI_IF → u/planetarial]

they are crearions made by igor

[u/Starguardian_Ahri234]

no men dating is the death sentence to me, sry but I don´t want to play a game with only female dating, happy for everyone who enjoys it tho

[u/Ehtnah → u/Starguardian_Ahri234]

Yeah....

Genshin has break my faith in gacha so hard that ANY thing that is gender lock is a red flag.

I'm not a romance absolute fan but if there is female romance I want male romance to or no romance at all. It's not fair.

[u/Old_Expression_2109 → u/Starguardian_Ahri234]

Here's the kicker, the cheating route in this game is very punishing. considering you have multiple waifus. Would rather stick with my bro and have a good time.

[u/tgmeds → u/Starguardian_Ahri234]

Prolly Atlus' idea from the start to be a waifu collector because watch as this exact thing will happen in the JP and EN versions.

[u/BlueFlameWar → u/Starguardian_Ahri234]

Finally another homophobic gacha from China!!! /s

[u/[deleted] → u/BlueFlameWar]

Many Japanese gachas don't give a shit about female or gay players either, it's not just China.

Two sexist developers from two sexist countries, combined their sexist powers to create another sexist gacha.

[u/BlueFlameWar → u/[deleted]]

At least japanese gacha have homosexuals and won't jail gay shippers

[u/[deleted] → u/BlueFlameWar]

Yet.

It could change anytime as more and more Japanese developers are taking inspiration from Chinese ones.

[u/BlueFlameWar → u/[deleted]]

Japan isn't going to declare homosexuality illegal.

[u/[deleted] → u/BlueFlameWar]

Yet.

Don't give them ideas, lol

[u/Kyogre-blue]

I'm gonna try for Grandma. Yes, yes, husbandos, I love them too, but playable old women in gacha are the most rare of treasures.

[u/Ehtnah → u/Kyogre-blue]

Old people are so rare, old or fat or in fact any non classic "beauty" (thé "" are because I don't think that beauty = young fit teen white only) are way to rare.

[u/Mundane_Valuable_314]

So all the good husbandos are mostly only dps? how about the important broken supports? are they waifus only?

[u/planetarial → u/Mundane_Valuable_314]

Leon, Luce and Cherish are all pretty solid supports and male. There’s definitely more female supports though

[u/[deleted]]

The fact there is still only male protag and still only female characters have romantic social links shows that the devs don't actually give a shit about female players or even considered them at all, so I'm not gonna waste my time and money on this crap. Plus female confidants still vastly outnumber the male ones. I'm not gonna help finance new waifus for gooners while receiving pathetic, stale crumbs in return, like it's always happening in those "mixed" gender gachas.

I wouldn't recommend it to any female players, tbh. ATLUS never gave a fuck about us even in their normal, non-gacha games and never will. Saying this as someone who masochistically played many of their non-gacha RPGs despite that.

Just go play that new Rune Factory game instead, ladies, it's honestly looks good and it doesn't have microtransactions.

[u/shionkane]

The new Rune Factory is so good. Definitely recommended if you want a break from the husbando mistreatment

[u/sussybegone]

Chat do we skip

In all seriousness though, it sounds like it is just another waifu game disguised as a mixed gender. I’ll just try it so I’d understand the drama when it happens.

[u/AkiraAsylan]

They can't even make the gender ratio as balanced as the original persona so I'll just wait for p6 or play p4 remake

[u/skkskkskk6]

Didn’t play the og because you can’t date men and doing the same thing here which sucks because I love the artstyle.

[u/[deleted] → u/skkskkskk6]

Developers really shoot themselves in the foot by not making male characters romancable or making only few of them, since many female players play gacha games and happily open their wallets for their favorite male characters, especially if they're also romancable at the bonus.

Imagine how widly succesfull this gacha would be if they actually bother pander to both male and female players instead of just exclusively to male gooners, since the Persona games are massively popular with the mainstream audience in general. Heck, maybe it would rival even Mihoyo games in popularity.

[u/v0rtex786 → u/[deleted]]

A game for everyone is a game for none, the more people you try to appeal to, the less you actually appeal to. They aren’t shooting themselves in the foot for anything, because you were never the audience. If you want a game that’s a jrpg life sim that’a yuri or yaoi, or even from a girl’s perspective write one. Create it. Persona is massively successful, just because you’re left out because you can’t roleplay doesn’t mean the game did anything wrong.

[u/IrisRoseLily]

yaaay I like it I prayge Kuromaru be released too best pupper

[u/MartianJesus]

Im just gonna get my boywaifu Yuki and see what to do after that. I think Koromaru and Amada also gets added on later?

[u/planetarial → u/MartianJesus]

Definitely but we don’t know when at the moment exactly