Released on 1987, the first game was released for Famicom known as Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei. Based on the Nishitani novels.
The controversial, dark and grotesque plot that usually offers the saga is generally rated M for the deep and mature themes.
Putting aside the debatable topics, what is SMT? It’s an old videogames franchise created for Aya Nishitani, Kouji Okada, Gin’ichiro Suzuki, Suzuki Kazunari.
The basic features of the saga have been defined by the first 2 games, an RPG by turns as battle system, a monster collector, and dungeon crawler with random encounters with modern and urban world in brink of destruction and post-apocalyptic settling.
The responsible studio of its development Atlus has included 2 routes for this entry, the canon of creation and the canon of vengeance; the recent review is focused on the Vengeance content.
The veteran and niche franchise Shin Megami Tensei has released the last installment of the monster collecting saga. Which includes a new story besides the vanilla version released previously on Nintendo Switch.
Highlights for Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance
Story
The Vengeance version includes 2 campaigns, you choose which one to play by “take her hand” or “not take her hand”.
Canon of Creation: A group of students passing by the Tokyo station encounter a gigantic horned demon claiming that killed god, the protagonist and friends will merge between the eternal conflict of demons and angels to take throne and remake the world.
Canon of Vengeance: A separated group of demons are plotting a big plan to take revenge against the horned god for what he did in the ancient times. A prodigious girl from other school is settled in your group to help protect Tokyo from the calamity brought by the gigantic demon that claims his victory over god.
The argument and story depend of the trail selected at the beginning; however, the characters and plot twists keep the same road. Its very similar with little tweaks here and there at least in the first chapters.
We have to align our decisions with some characters to pursue chaos, order and neutral endings.
Gameplay
There some kind of semi open world to explore sectioned in different parts of Tokyo. The very first area is a desert.
The apocalyptic formula that characterizes the series is present as well, with a little difference and some high schoolish topics you will understand the true behind the Daat.
The exploration is friendly with the player, the maps are easy to read and the side quests have icons to know where to go in most of them.
The Nahobino long hair waving in desert while sliding a slope seems a normal view around, the Magatsuhi Rails or automatic cool transport to a nearby area is really helping to get into difficult places to find some demons or quests.
Besides running the maps, we can reach safe spots to cure, save, fusion and get new skills, also to quick travel around the maps already explored, the leylines.
The battle system is very fast and addictive, very good addition for a turn-based saga, some of the known features in the SMT games is back, penalty for missed attacks and extra turn exploiting the foe weaknesses.
The amount of content is vast for each map, besides the level and teambuilding is more balanced than the vanilla version.
The first big boss is doable with a better team and higher level than before, making it easier or accessible would be the proper word. We all know what kind of snake we are talking about.
Teambuilding
The essences system helps a lot to get skills and fusions and change strategies for every boss if you know how to manipulate or exploit the weaknesses.
The difficulty of the saga is very high, that’s why a proper preparation it’s the half of the battle.
When we recruit a demon and level up a few times with it, this will share its essence with Nahobino so you don’t have to sacrifice it to get its skills or the fusion needed with it. Most of the strong demons will give you their essence only once in the game, common essences are for sale in the shop.
Any seasoned player in the series will know about the fusions, compendium and special fusions, but if you don’t know take a hint:
- Normal Fusion: Uses demons in your team to create a new one.
- Special Fusion: Uses certain demons to create a specific demon, usually this is ritual is used for strong or unique demons.
- Fusion from the Compendium: a new feature that allows you to get a demon using the demons registered in the compendium for macca, makes a lot easier to fill and complete the library.
Note: using this method will hurt severely in your funds.
There are some Aogami essences to get unique skills for Nahobino, these are around the maps and they respawn after certain amount of time, you can’t get them twice, so its better to use them and experiment different strategies if needed.
Graphics
The graphic engine used for the game is Unreal Engine 4, the characters and maps look amazing. The 5th entry in the main saga returns to 3d modeled demons like SMT3 Nocturne, also the universe is and some mechanics are shared as well.
Atlus uses every resource the best as they can in their games to make it run smoothly in any platform.
With that mentioned beforehand, we notice the classic faceless crowd and random people walking on the map as fillers and not as NPC.
The art director is Masayuki Doi, I must say that some characters are very cliché and easy to read like the saint and the jerk of the group.
The action scenes are fluid and impressive, maybe as Vanilla player on switch at 30 frame per second I felt very different this game at 60fps on Steam deck.
Sound
The Composer in charge is Ryota Kozuka, some of the music and original soundtracks are especially good, the new theme for the Nahobino appearance hits on point.
The Qadistu voices, skills mixed with the feminine and lethal actions that they do to get Magatsuhi are well implemented visually and sound, a total delicious media meal.
The sound effects are on point without any issues.
The music delivered in this entry combined with the vanilla version is over 8 hours, also the themes are matching so well that we can only clap for Kozuka once again, a total banger just like I remember SMT4 personally.
Performance
The Game runs smoothly at 60fps on the standard configuration by defect on the Steam Deck LCD 512GB model, the battery life is 3:10 hours and it may overheat the device after 2 hours if you play at hot places.
The comparison with switch vanilla version is huge, the graphics and detailed maps looks vivid and optimized for the new consoles.
There are no issues or glitches found on the program after 45 hours playing, tested on Steam Deck.
Conclusions
- The Vengeance version is an extended, polished and improved program to use all the next gen resources.
- The difficulty its balanced and access to some demons are better escalated to build strategies and make it accessible with more time to prepare.
- There are some differences with the original version but exploring a total new area and new character are the major noticeable differences.
