Shin Megami Tensei V is tries too hard to be like Nocturne, so much that the story pays a great price.

Gameplay wise , this game is perfect. Best use of Press Turn in any Mainline game. Exploration is great, i love the Mi-Men , voice acting is solid , visual and art direction is well done , OSTs is really freaking good.



The story tho, it's just mediocre, painfuly mediocre especialy compared to Strange journey or Devil Survivor Overclocked with a terrible pacing.

At least some of the sidequest are better and have some unique interractions with the demons and Demon's writing is great. Full of personality , better than the main characters. Actually best thing in terms of writing is the demons.


And the ''main'' characters.. ooof. Yuzuru might be my least favorite character EVER, Miyazu/Khonshu both have a total unearned deveploment at 80h+ in a secondary sidequest that's SUPER missable , Tao has the personality and characterzation of a door, Sahori is a plot device and the rest might as well not exist...

The only salvageable characters are Icihiro Dazai , Abdiel and Yakumo and even then , Dazai has weirdest 180° at the end of the game..

Tldr; Just play for the gameplay, ignore the story and characters. IGN was kinda right , it's kinda like Persona without a heart.