Persona 5 X is the latest gacha game to fall victim to server reward disparity

Another day, another gacha game drama – this time, Persona 5 X players are showing distaste for the disparity between rewards on the global servers versus the original Chinese server. But is there more to it than just favoritism?

Despite Persona 5 X currently topping charts in Japan, recent Steam reviews are tanking, with the game currently at a ‘Mixed’ rating in the West. All recent reviews are negative, with most mentioning the differences and missing features in the global server, compared to the Chinese.

So what are the issues? For a start, there’s no soft pity system on the banners, which means more of us are going to near or max pity before getting a five-star. Losing a 50/50 at this point hurts one’s soul and can mean a total of 160 pulls before you even get the featured five-star.

There’s also a delay in characters joining the standard banner. Marian, a character with her own featured banner right now, is not getting added to the standard pool for global servers, whereas in China, she was added right away. It’s not clear if she will ever join the standard pool worldwide.

You may notice a recent in-game mail giving 100 free meta jewels as an apology for maintenance – this is great, but China gets 300. If you play other gacha games, you’ll know that Hoyoverse and Kuro games also give 300 of their respective currency. There are also no Persona 5 X codes for worldwide servers, despite there being a fair few for the Chinese server.

While some of this is still inconvenient, it’s also worth remembering that the Chinese server has been active since April 2024, when the game originally released, so they’re getting the full experience. That said, the starting period of a game is usually the most lucrative in terms of rewards. The worldwide server is getting accelerated patches to catch up, but it’s still over a year behind. Accelerated patches also mean accelerated banners. I’ve not managed to get Joker yet, and I’m about to hit hard pity (and hopefully won’t lose the 50/50). I have no spare currency for the two new characters just released, nor to save up for future releases.

Other games have been through this same situation, most recently Black Beacon, though the company behind it listened and adjusted the offerings going forward. This YouTube video by MooseOnCaffeine highlights some other, similar scenarios. Perhaps recent player feedback will even out the unexplained difference in offerings between the servers, as it has with these other examples.

One thing that is explainable for P5X, however, is that this particular free gift of a weapon isn’t any old reward; it’s an apology for overheating issues. Though, would worldwide users get this same freebie?

Regardless, the game still has a classic Persona story and can be fun. We have a Persona 5 X tier list ranking all the characters, and a list of the best gaming phones if you’re looking to upgrade.