It’s been almost three years since the original Shin Megami Tensei V launched, and as is Atlus tradition, the obligatory enhanced re-release (complete with a new story centered around a new girl) has now arrived at All modern platformer in the form of Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance. Boasting a full-fledged alternate story and a number of gameplay and balance tweaks, SMTV: V is easily the definitive version of an already great entry in the long-running series. If you’re at all a fan of SMT, Persona, or JRPGs in general, you owe it to yourself at the earliest opportunity.
In this review, we’re going to focus more on the additions and tweaks made to the core SMT V environment with this release – if you’d like to get a more in-depth assessment of the core gameplay mechanics and the like, we recommend you read our 2021 review, which is still up here.
Let’s now briefly discuss exactly this what this release is. Atlus usually makes an enhanced version of their most popular games a few years after their initial release, usually with some fresh story content and balanced improvements to address complaints about the original version. Previous releases, such as Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux, Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology, Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker, or Persona 5 Royal, usually carried this extra story content to the end or spread it along the old story. What makes SMT V: V a bit more special, then, is that rather than just offering a “supplement” to the original plot, this version brings a full-length plot to choose from. instead of original.
SMT V: V starts out pretty much the same as the original release, but just a few minutes into the story, things diverge into new and interesting territory. In a bizarre dream sequence, you are presented with the spectral form of a young woman, while a disembodied voice tells you that you “will not allow her to exist” and offers you a choice. If you leave her there, the fate of the world will continue as it was intended, but if you decide to take her hand, she will become real and the world will go on an unplanned and unknown journey. Finally, here you choose whether you want to follow the storyline of the original SMT V release (here called “Canon of Creation”) or the new story “Canon of Vengeance”.
If you choose to save the girl, she will soon be introduced as Yoko Hiromine, a first-class and mysterious devil summoner who agrees to accompany Nahobin on his journey to determine the future of the world amid the ageless war between law and chaos. Yoko is a capable warrior with a quiet darkness, and her strength is a welcome asset when facing a charismatic new gang of antagonists who call themselves the Qadista. The Qadistu offer another interesting insight into the nature of truth in the strange world of Da’at, and become increasingly important to the story as events gradually diverge from the original plot in increasingly significant ways.
We were divisive fans of the original SMT V plots, but it’s hard to argue that Atlus’ second crack at the story here isn’t an improvement. In many ways, it feels like a developer story he wanted to say it for the first time – Yoko was planned to be part of the original release before being partially cut in development, and her addition to the main cast here feels organic and fills a gap that wasn’t previously apparent. Perhaps most importantly, this new storyline seems to focus a bit more on the interactions between the various human characters, making it easier to relate to this story than the somewhat barebones plot of the first issue.
While we’d encourage all players who pick this up to start with the Canon of Vengeance story, we’d still recommend playing through the Canon of Creation at some point – it may seem inferior, but experiencing both will give you a much greater appreciation. for what everyone brings to the table. Plus, if you factor in the 80 hour run time for both trips and multiple endings, it’s lots of of SMT V content to burn if you’re addicted to hard and engaging gameplay. Suffice it to say, it will take you a while to finally run out of things to work with.
In addition to the story, there have also been various improvements to the gameplay and quality of life to make the experience even more efficient and overall enjoyable. For example, you can now save anywhere with the tap of a button instead of having to wait for the next Leyline Fountain to be found. This helps shorten some of the dodges in tough encounters, and it’s much easier to avoid losing a ton of progress if you happen to be jumped by an enemy that lands a one-hit crit that will defeat you.
Da’at is still as enjoyable to explore and upgrade as ever, and to aid in traversal there are now grind rails strategically placed throughout the wasteland to help speed up travel. Some of these are immediately obvious and some need to be discovered first before they appear on your map, and we liked how they expand the existing map by allowing access to new areas while generally speeding up your backtracking. You’ll often unlock a new rail after taking the “long way” around a series of obstacles to ease your way to and from the top.
The Demon Haunt is another big addition that gives you a pretty cute opportunity to spend time talking and building relationships with various recruits. After the demon has traveled with your party for a while, it will ask to speak with you, and you can then choose to confirm its request at a comfortable rendezvous point accessible from any Leyline Fount. You can then exchange gifts or talk to them and the demon will usually get a stat boost after the conversation. Sometimes even Nahobino gets some direct reinforcement. It’s no Social Link system, but we still appreciated the effort to make you see demons as more than disposable possessions. At the very least, Demon Haunt provides a nice respite from the ever-present stress of the rest of the adventure, while the gameplay benefits these exchanges offer can help give you an edge to get through a boss encounter you’re hung up on.
These additions aside, the gameplay is otherwise almost identical to the original, which was excellent. Exploring a vast haunted wasteland as you go on your goofy run with Naruto, Press Turn is still one of the best turn-based combat systems ever created, thanks to its strategic and engaging approach to buffs, weaknesses, and turn-based economy as it recruits and fuses demons. it remains a compelling and addictive party-building mechanic throughout the experience. While the harder difficulty may be off-putting to some, there’s rarely a dull moment in any story given the abundance of objectives and gameplay options. Everyone has their own tastes when it comes to JRPGs, but it’s hard to argue that SMT V:V offers anything less than a polished and thoughtful gaming experience.
As with previous Atlus re-releases, the key thing to remember about SMT V:V is that it’s still very much the same game that came out a few years ago. Sure, it’s got a whole new story and a number of gameplay and balancing tweaks that make it a great experience overall, but those of you who weren’t thrilled with the original release’s gameplay loop and difficulty won’t find much here. change your mind. On the other hand, if you did Just like the original release – or even if you just had a few gripes that kept you from actually getting into it – this game is made for you. Atlus is removing the original game from store shelves to replace it with SMT V:V, and it’s understandable why, as this new version almost completely undoes the first edition through all the additions, modifications and original content.
Something that was remarkably successful No an improvement for this reissue is the performance, which is still not fantastic. While everything runs at a somewhat consistent 30 FPS, pop-in activation and fuzzy resolution are a given here, whether you’re playing docked or handheld. SMT V: V is still a visual marvel on the Switch, and it definitely feels like a game that has no business running on such modest hardware, but it’s clear that Atlus had to push the Switch as far as it could go to get the performance to an acceptable level. even if not impressive status is in
This is a bit of a disappointment, as we were hoping that a few more years of Switch development experience would lead to Atlus finding ways to squeeze better performance out of it. On the other hand, I feel like we’ve reached a point where there just isn’t much more that developers can reasonably do with limited hardware, especially considering that SMT V:V is built on a standard Unreal 4 engine. If the lack of image or resolution is a big problem for you in your games, we recommend skipping the Switch and choosing one of the versions available on other hardware platforms, if you have access to one. SMT V: V is a good experience on Switch in terms of performance, but it hardly feels like the definitive version of this release.