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| No, this is not verdict by a long shot, but there's a lot of grotesque demons on your journey to Godhood. (Captured in Handheld Mode.) |
One of the things I learned getting back into video games was that sometimes, sniffing the roses too much might take away from the actual experience. A simpler version of this occurred when I first started playing Shin Megami Tensei for myself with the forth mainline entry in which a medieval kingdom discovered the smartwatch before the steam engine. I almost stopped playing partly because of this weird disconnect, but additionally because medusa wiped the floor with me while I was trying to make my way down to Tokyo.
A little over a year later, I decided to give that game a second shot and told myself, “I’m not going to worry about why the calvary can operate an advanced digital watch without any trouble.” It worked, I defeated medusa and discovered that underneath that unusual detail was an interesting world and a game that focuses on both theological figures and philosophical matters. Simply put: Gods, angels, and demons get tossed into the post-apocalypse and the player tries to figure out their own ideological leanings while fighting them off.
Shin Megami Tensei V continues this trend where you play a role of a high school student who, upon investigating a tunnel in search of someone’s older brother, finds himself in another world called Da’at at the pointy end of a daemon’s spear. In flash of light, a humanoid-like figure shows up by the name of Aogami, fusing with you to become a god-like being known as a Nahobino in order to help you strike down the daemon and start your journey to reshape the new world.
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| One of the game's strength-based attacks. Or alternatively: Nahobino claws a cryptid in Konan. (Captured in Docked Mode) |
Gameplay-wise SMT V is an all-around joy to play in which the classic “press” turn system gets emphasized even more with strength-based, elemental attacks and the new Magatsuhi gauge where upon filling it, all of your attacks deal critical damage until your next turn. Recruiting demons feels more straightforward than in previous games where you could end up losing precious resources because of a simple difference in opinion. Fusing new demons is even easier. No longer do you need to do advanced searches or take a gamble on a fusion since the game allows you to look up all possible combinations with a tap of a button—either for the demons in your stock, or them plus the ones registered to your Demon Compendium.
Sophia, the deity who rules over the World of Shadows, also allows you to perform another type of fusion called “essence fusion”. This new mechanic blends the Magatama ingestion from Nocturne and the Demon Whispers from IV into another layer of customization for you and your demons, You can use essences that you find throughout Da’at in order to provide yourself and your team with skills that could turn the tide of future battles, or just to gain back a skill lost when fusing a new demon. However, once you fuse an essence, you lose it forever and unless you provide the Nahobino with Miracles, the entire essences’s skill set won’t be available to you.
Miracles, much like the App Points system from IV and Apocalypse, provide you with additional quality-of-life improvements in exchange for Glory—which you can find throughout Da’at. Many miracles, however, are sealed until you prove your worth as a Nahobino by vanquishing demon nests on the map called Abscesses.
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| Not the best money shot by any means, but the Miman prove to be excellent tour guides for the Tokyo of yore. (Captured in Handheld Mode.) |
That’s the other major change about SMT V: Exploring Da’at. Previous entries took a more traditional, JRPG, approach where there Tokyo was the overworld and the districts acted as a “town” which sometimes had more monsters between shops than on the streets. With Da’at, the game takes an open world approach with four huge urban wastelands where you can encounter monsters in the open and find treasures within geometric gold alongside Glory crystals for the afermentioned miracles. Terminals from previous games are replaced with leyline crossings which serve the same purpose and then some—saving, fusion, healing, and shopping are all under the same roof.
There are also other things to scour in the post-apocalyptic wasteland—relics that are stuck inside vending machines, the Miman that somewhat reminded me of the Koroks from Breath of the Wild, and the afermentioned Abscesses which blot out any nearby markers until you destroy them.
Between the exploration and the gameplay, Shin Megami Tensei V lives up to the excitement I had for the game when they announced it. The series is one of the very few roleplaying games where I enjoy grinding out levels and this game just makes that experience even better.
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| World-building from familiar territory featuring the game's two allegorical stand-ins for law and chaos. (Captured in Handheld Mode) |
The story? This is where the game falls short. Not in the “smartwatch samurai in the middle ages” sort of way, but in the game’s philosophical and theological dealings. The transition from voice-acted visual novel to full-on cutscenes, and the major changes to gameplay mechanics, meant that the narrative as a whole took the backseat. Considering how the combat and exploration turned out, this is far from a bad thing.
When it comes to trying to persuade you to go with one alignment or the other though, the game has a bad case of tunnel vision. There’s a major focus on one particular character through quite a large chunk of the game to the point where he gets more cutscene time than any other. The other main characters, who also act as alignment allegories, barely get the same amount of time on camera. One of them even sits out for an entire section of Da’at. Even if it’s not exactly how the alignment system works, the lack of arguments for or against a particular world vision make the overall story much weaker. Sure, near the end they do have a brief tit-for-tat, but that’s it.
Things is, much like the weird nature of the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado in Shin Megami Tensei IV, Shin Megami Tensei V finds ways to shift the focus from the elements which don’t exactly mesh together to what works. It's a turn-based roleplaying game with battles that are fast-paced and challenging, but gives players enough to work with in order to make their journey to Godhood a smooth one.
In Sum: A game that brings a lot of changes to a series, putting gameplay and exploration center stage, but making the story and philosophical debate second fiddle. A mystical marriage which values life a little more than knowledge, but remains a strong candidate as a potential god for the new world.
Score: 8.5 out of 10
Additional notes: The nods back to Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne are really cool whether it’s the sandy nature of Da’at, the monster designs that carried over, or other little references scattered throughout the game.
