What can I even say about this game? Back when the Switch was announced this was one of the titles that drew my attention. I have been a fan of the franchise for many years now, starting with my first taste towards the end of the PS2 era with a copy of Persona 3 and there was no looking back. Since then I have gotten into as many of the franchise as I could get my hands on and while I know I will never be able to collect them all, I wasn't going to miss this. I had a the console ready and this was the second game I would play on it (and the third I would finish). I don't know how many more games I will play on this machine just yet, but this was definitely a worthy journey to get one for.
Story: You once lived a normal life. As a student in Tokyo, the world was a mundane place, at least until recently. A serial killer has recently been on the loose and keeping the city on edge. No one has seen the man, but all of their victims were left in a terrible mutilated state as if an animal had done it. But all that changed one day when you and your friend Ichiro were caught in a tunnel during an earthquake. When you got out, instead of your familial city, the two of you found a desert. An angel found him and proclaiming the area too dangerous for humans, whisked him away for safety. Your fate would not be so lucky.
Still all was not lost for when a demon came for your life, a god-like being came to your aid. To help you survive he fused with you, making you no longer human, but a being called a Nahabino: a cursed being who's very existence is denied by God's law. Traveling and fighting to survive among the demons of this wasteland, it doesn't take long for the first real twist to be revealed: you are still in Tokyo and everything you thought you knew about your world was a lie.
This is just the opening gambit to an epic tale you are about to play through but to explain more is to spoil more then just this opening and that would be a disservice to you, the player. What I will tell you is that you are about to embark on a trail which, once it pulls the rug from under you in this first act, tells it's story with natural stride that many wish they could achieve, even as you never leave the absolutely epic scale this first step brings you to. Enjoy what is arguably one the biggest scale storylines I have ever seen, from start to finish. Now if only the endings landed a little better, I would easily give this an even higher score then I am now.
8/10
Graphics: I'm not entirely sure I can be so kind to the visuals of this game, however. Don't get me wrong, the game looks great overall, but it almost seems to be a blend of styles that can be jarring at times when dealing with the "normal" world. In essence you have "dark anime" style mixed over CGI where the animations will admittedly reflect that this is a game more then a show. The result is when you are dealing with human characters, they can feel just a little bit off... not enough to take away from the game, but enough to feel it before you get used to the limits of what the dev team could do.
The models themselves, however, look absolutely fantastic for this art-choice, bringing the world in general to it's own brand of liveliness befitting of the tale itself. And this goes even more for once you are no longer dealing with humans. The style simply is perfect to fit where the real artistic freedom was spent... and I mean that literally. These are designs that have been in development since the franchise began, being refined with every new release over the past 30 years and it shows in every design, from the first slimes you see to the final boss. Expect some of the finest monster designs in an RPG.
And just as worth noting is the world itself. While not quite as varied (which would be a VERY high demand to make) it is expertly detailed. Most of the time you will be in a hellish ruined landscape made of the remains of mankind now long gone and destroyed. It feels every bit as desolate as it should for this, and yet alive with it's new residence... enjoy this landscape made barren and dangerous by neglect and the malicious intelligence that has taken up residence. And when you are not looking at the world or those you are engaged with (peacefully or otherwise), you will find the UI is pretty effective at displaying the information you have without getting in the way of the spectacle. What might get in the way, however, is the system itself.
As anyone who has been gaming for a while can tell you, the Nintendo Switch, while an interesting beast, is not exactly a powerhouse. And while SMT 5 is a gorgeous game, it clearly is so due to the style the game uses and despite the limits of the hardware. For the most part it isn't an issue but there are times you can see the game chug and when enemies are enough of a distance you can clearly see they are no longer the 3D models you get up close, but flat sprites with absolutely abysmal frame-rates in their own right, taking away from the vision of the world while in motion.
8/10
Sound: As with all the previous games in the franchise, the music is going to carry the audio brilliantly. Most of the time, what you will hear is subdued as you wander the world, used more for mood then anything else, and to this end it is actually really good. But even better is when the action gets hot and heavy, be it in a standard fight or a boss encounter. Then the metal rifts start and it's the kind of music designed to put some energy into the situation. It sounds absolutely great.
But like the last two games, we have a lot of voice work this time around too, and this will be the star when all is said and done. Be it demons taunting you before a story point, major boss encounters, or your allies, everyone is on their A game for this one, giving extra character to their roles. You will most likely even be pulled into side-missions you didn't have to take on by the pull some of these characters will have, or change how you wish to complete them. Seriously can not give these actors enough credit for their work this time around.
And backing all of this is a descent sound effect library as well, if not one that will wow you half as much. But considering how high quality is standard in this field for AAA games, that seems to be more of a statement on how good things have gotten then a knock at the work done for this game.
8/10
Gameplay: SMT 5 is a played from a behind the character view of a 3D world and most of the time this is going to give you everything you need. You will be able to explore vast open world spaces, and I do mean vast. In fact they are vast enough to lose a couple hundred hours to the content available even though there are only four "overworld" maps with a smattering of dungeons within representing the basically the final destination within each of the overworlds. And yet they are distinct enough to feel like complete worlds all their own, containing deserts, ruined cities, mountains, distinct locations from when the city was populated... and that's just the first one! Explorers will find a lot to love about the world itself! To help you with this the "+" button will open a full map of everything you have seen including (for the most part) enemies current locations. And you will want to take advantage of this to plan because as I said, these maps are huge.
But if you were just exploring it wouldn't be much of a RPG, much less a turn based one. While you wander, you will find demons populating the world with you, many of which will want a piece of you if they see you. (This will change based on your level vs theirs, but some enemies are too dumb not to be aggressive as you will see later while playing.) Level, who attacks first, and if the enemy is even aware of you will all factor in when contact is made and a battle begins, deciding if you or the enemy gets the first turn.
These battles will use the Press system established by previous games in the series: When its your turn, you will be given a "press" for each character actively in your party. When it's any given character's turn to act, they will use a certain number of presses for an action: using a skill (including a basic attack) or an itemwill usually use a single press. However you can reduce this to half if you hit the enemy with their weakness or a critical hit. However if you miss or hit an enemy with something they block, reflrect (so you take the damage) or even drains (gain life from getting hit with it), it doesn't natter how many you crit or hit with a weakness of theirs, it will cost you 2 turns. Thankfully all halved presses count as whole for these costs and are used up first, making it a little easier to use them efficiently and get extra actions. The bad news is the enemy can do the exact same thing, either side being able to up to double their available acts. As such, it becomes important to keep an eye on the strengths and weakness of your enemies and allies to maximize the combat for your advantage. Of course if the current character doesn't have any good moves for the enemies you face, you can always pass to the next for half a turn as well, which may come in handy more then you might think to get that maximum efficiency.
But combat is not the only thing you will do when engaged with enemies. You can always try to escape if you wish, but part of any game in the SMT franchise is to recruit the demons you fight, and this game is no exception. If you beat down an enemy badly enough they may beg for their lives, giving you the chance to bring them into the group rather then get killed, but far more likely you will talk to them in an attempt to coerce them into joining you. If you are at least their level (and the phase of the moon is not wrong) this will result in a conversation that properly navigated will see you trading items for an ally, but navigating poorly could see anything from the demon stopping talking to leaving entirely, or even getting pissed and giving the enemy the turn right there regardless of how many presses you had left.
When not in combat, you will also always have the chance to use items as well which will come in handy especially later when you get the return pillar: the one item you can reuse as many times as you like to warp you back to the last leyline you used. These are places where the energy of the world bubbles up, offering you several options when you access them. And you will want to use these as they are offer necessities such as the store, a place to heal (for a fee), save, and even the ability to instantly warp between other leylines you have discovered already. But even beyond that, this is where you will visit the World of Shadows.
This is one of key places you will increase the power of your party and you will do so in a few ways: the most immediate and common to the franchise is demon fusion. When you choose to do this, you will be given several ways you can review the possible combinations. Depending on your taste, you can choose to look up the demon available to you and find what you have to make them, see what you can make by selecting a demon and previewing what combining them with others will make (my personal choice as I like to use the lowest ranking I can on principle), or you can look at special fusions: demons you need a very specific combo (or have had the demons in the combo already and the money to pay for them) to summon. This is likely going to be the most common way you upgrade your party between convincing demons to join you and using them as fuel to make these more powerful ones.
Still this realm offers two other paths to power which will prove useful as well: Essences and Miracles. Every so often you will get demonic essences, be it finding them in the field, one of your demons offering up theirs for leveling them up, or even buying them in the shop. These can then be applied to you or a demon of yours to give them abilities from the essence. In addition you can use them instead to replace your alignments, changing what elements you are weak and strong against with the ones from the essence. The only catch is you can only have one essence from any given demon at a time, so while there is not a lot of reason to hang on to an essence if you think you have a use for it (there is plenty of opportunity to get more later) you can only use one of a demon's essence at a time, so you may have to choose which way is more beneficial to you.
In addition you can also learn miracles: special enhancements you can gain here provided you have the glory points to do so. And you will also earn these in the field in three forms: glory orbs you collect as rewards and hidden treasure, as rewards for finding wayward demons known as mimons (the shop will explain these early on) or killing giant demonic energy hubs called abscesses. These last ones will while living will also cloud up the area around them on your map and add to the miracles available to learn when you kill them, making them amazingly good targets to take out while you play.
All of this combines for a very solid playing RPG title that lasts and still plays great from start to finish, strong enough to more then outlast the time the game will ask of you.
8/10
Bugs: I could find no issues with the game as outside the limits of what the hardware could do.
Score: This was simply an awesome RPG title. True, it isn't flawless, but I played this for a solid 150 hours from start to finish, playing every side mission I could find and still loved it to the last minute. If you like turn based RPG games, this is one of those must-play titles you should get into. In fact this game has reached a status where I can see it being a killer app to sell Switches to this audience. If you like RPGs at all, I can't recommend this game enough. Check it out and enjoy.
8/10
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