My opinion of the original V was that the hub areas felt kind of empty and aimless, and that I wished they served more as an overworld that funneled the player towards bespoke dungeons. There's a small handful of those but they're incredibly underdeveloped and weak, and so much of my time with SMTV was spent being disappointed that they'd trade on elements so identifiable to what the mainline series is.

From what I'm gathering, Vengeance isn't really addressing the stuff I'd want to see changed, which isn't entirely unexpected but still a bummer.

Been a bit but to the first point, I kinda hated how base SMTV was just these four very samey color-coded locations where you entered into the same dry loop each time. Part of the draw of prior mainline entries for me was the dungeon design, and there's nothing in SMTV that felt quite so smartly designed or dangerous as anything found in SMTIV or Nocturne. Even the world came off like it had less personality by comparison.

Anyway, if they got rid of abscesses I hope they found some way to keep the battle theme in.

But is it better or worse than someone making a whole game where the gimmick is "what if it was a more playable CD-i Zelda?"