Was Shin Megami Tensei V Worth It?

It’s time for another romp through post apocalyptic Japan. We’ve covered Nocturne, IV, and IV Apocalypse in anticipation of this title. Was Shin Megami Tensei V worth it?

Background

The Shin Megami Tensei series has been around for about 30 years, but really went nuclear in the PS2 era with titles like Nocturne and Persona 3/4. There have been quite a few Persona spinoffs in the past few years, but the last mainline game was IV Apocalypse back in 2016.

Shin Megami Tensei V would get some teaser trailers in 2017 and then went dark for a few years. While I’m sure it went through some development hell, it was finally released in late 2021.

As always, I’ll try to avoid spoilers.

What does Shin Megami Tensei V do well?

Combat

SMTV has broken away from some of the main gameplay “rules”. Notably, there is much less reliance on buffing and debuffing this time around. Stat changes only last for three turns and are much less powerful in terms of numbers. The potential for huge nuke turns is dialed up to 10 in this game, and the press turn system is as excellent as ever.

I’d like to laud the game for bringing back a dedicated vitality stat. There wasn’t one in SMTIV/SMTIVA, which made battles feel more like rocket tag. Vitality is actually worth putting points into in this game.

Resistances have been toned down and shuffled compared to previous entries. The reasoning behind this has to do with the fact that you can adopt a demon’s resistances. Elemental specialist demons have an easier time now because of this.

There are both magic and strength based elemental skills. The Gun element is gone, but it’s no real loss since now your physical attackers can hit elemental weaknesses with their better stat. It’s great and I hope it stays in the series going forward.

Demons

Everything about the demons is great. They look great, and they have a lot of personality.

Collectible Hints

Thank YHWH for the little critters in each region that will mark the Miman locations on your map.

What could Shin Megami Tensei V do better?

There are a few parts where the game stumbles.

Location

If you’ve seen any of the trailers, then you’ve probably noticed something. This game doesn’t take place in Tokyo – it’s in Da’at.

I’m intentionally being vague, but this game is more of an isekai narrative.

Area Traversal

The various regions are annoying to traverse, even more so when tenacious flying enemies join the fray. I really got sick of some of the areas, especially after getting all the collectibles and sidequests.

There’s been a lot of discussion about the specific dungeon that got patched but that was small potatoes compared to how frustrating the larger areas are to explore. I still wonder why there wasn’t some kind of super jump or flight ability to make traveling easier. To be fair, the areas do look good when there isn’t a filter over everything.

Narrative

It’s clear that the story got rewritten several times before release. It’s a mostly cogent story, but it’s clear that the main story beats changed a lot during development. Again, being vague, but don’t get too attached to some of the characters you meet early on, because you won’t be seeing a lot of them.

DLC

The game shipped with a bunch of DLC. You can see my opinions on each pack in Is the Shin Megami Tensei V DLC worth it?

How does the music compare to previous titles?

Music is an important part of the Megaten franchise, whether it’s every single gaming youtuber using Persona 5 music as background tracks for their videos or the plethora of memes about rejecting god (that’s not actually the lyrics, by the way).

While some tracks in Shin Megami Tensei V are absolute bangers, it’s just not quite on the level as previous games. There were some areas where the music hits just right, such as the Da’at -Shinagawa- (Konan 3rd Block) track. The first time I heard this as I entered an area, I was blown away. The Shiva boss fight is another example.

However, I don’t find myself humming music from SMTV like I do with songs from the other games, despite having played SMTV much more recently. There’s also the issue of some songs being quite good but also underutilized.

I have an issue with the Battle Da’at track, as it’s a slowed down version of the Naraku battle music from SMTIV. Context: have you ever emulated a game on a device that couldn’t quite run it? You know how it sounds when the music doesn’t quite play properly? That’s what this song sounded like to me and I was worried that my Switch literally couldn’t run the game.

Was Shin Megami Tensei V fun?

I enjoyed the game, though I admit that it didn’t really sate my appetite. I chalk that up to the weaknesses in the narrative and characterization.

Shin Megami Tensei V is more of a “enjoyable gameplay loop” deal rather than a “eagerly looking forward to what happens next” situation.

In all fairness, if you judge it by the “monster collecting genre” standard, then there’s no contest. It is clearly head, shoulders, wings, and forked tail above the rest.

Was Shin Megami Tensei V worth it?

It’s easy to say that Shin Megami Tensei V is worth it. Shin Megami Tensei V is a robust JRPG with an interesting world to explore, and a huge cast of colorful characters. It’s a solid entry in the franchise, and future titles that build upon this will probably be even better. Let’s hope the next SMT doesn’t take half a decade to drop.

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