Shin Megami Tensei Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs The Soulless Army is a very long title, so for levity's sake, I'll refer to it as "Raidou 1" from here on out.

Taking place in the Taisho Era (that's the "Roaring 20's" for us American dogs), you play as the 14th designated inheritor of the title of "Raidou Kuzunoha". As part of the Narumi Detective Agency, you take on the stranger, more demonic cases brought to your attention. You go around town, talking to people, using your demons' powers to get further reactions out of the populace. You can also send your demons out solo, to get past the unaware humans or reach areas that Raidou can't get to. Some of the more innocent demons refer to this as "playing detective", which is the cutest thing ever.

The world is presented via pre-rendered backdrops with fixed camera angles. The Taisho era definitely gives this game an atmosphere that no other Megaten game has. This game has my favorite "Cathedral of Shadows/Goumaden" of the whole franchise, literally a mad scientist's laboratory. I really like how expressive Kazuma Kaneko's character designs get to be in this game. Shoji Meguro accompanies this world with one of his funkiest, jazziest soundtracks ever. It kinda feels like he brought his signature Persona vibes over to this title, giving us some perfect tunes for a detective on the beat, or a summoner in battle.

Of all the SMT games out there, one mostly universal constant is the demons providing quirky dialogue to offset the dark tones that the games typically thrive on. Raidou 1 stands out from the crowd by having a fairly quirky tone all throughout, and in turn is one of the most amusing SMT games I've ever played. When investigating, NPCs have consistently enjoyable dialogue, and you can draw even funnier dialogue out by using a demon's skills on them. There are moments where the game has you do "demon negotiation" as a gag, seeing as Raidou's typical way of making friends is confining them into test tubes. The tone is a lot more lighthearted than most SMT titles, but it does know when and how to reel things back in, get serious, and keep you invested.

Also unlike most SMT games, Raidou 1 is a real-time action game. Raidou wields a blade and a gun, but unfortunately, this is no Devil May Cry. All you get is a three-hit combo, a lunge attack, and a spin attack. None of it really chains together, and combat feels really stiff overall. The bullets you can shoot come in many different elemental varieties, and are mostly used to hit an enemy's weakness, opening them up for more damage via your sword strikes. Raidou can also guard with his blade, integral to survival. Being a Devil Summoner(TM), Raidou can summon one of his demons to fight by his side in battle. Their helpfulness can go either way, if I'm being honest. If you're attacking efficiently as Raidou, you'll often end up pushing your demon's targeted enemy juuuust out of the range of their attack, due to long windup animations. There were times where I tried to attack the enemy in a way that wouldn't squander my demon's attacks, but that felt like a makeshift solution to a problem that shouldn't have been there to begin with. I also found that giving a demon a healing skill activates a very dominant strategy: tanking all damage and letting your demon heal you. To be fair, if your demons aren't attacking effectively, putting them on eternal support mode isn't the worst idea, but it kinda locks off gameplay potential. Lastly, when a demon is sent out on a solo investigation, you actually have full control over that demon during random encounters, which is pretty novel for an SMT game, spinoff or otherwise.

I think the big hangup with the combat comes from the pacing. If this were a turn-based SMT, I would likely be at the edge of my fucking seat for every turn of battle, even if the fight took upwards of 20-30 minutes. When you shift to real-time action, you shouldn't keep enemy health pools that large. Repetition and tedium set in really fast when you're required to be directly involved in combat at all times. Several bosses feel like they go on for far too long, really just boiling down to becoming a war of attrition. I admit that it's entirely possible that I just wasn't playing the game right, and didn't fuse the powerful demons I should've had at that point. One problem with that: You can only fuse demons that you have max loyalty with. This feels like a pointless extra step that only serves to enable more grinding. Furthermore, I tried to keep a party of demons that would allow me access to as many field skills as possible at any time, partly because I enjoy all the flavor text, but also because you never know when a field skill will be mandatory for progression. Fusing demons did in fact lead me to hit a roadblock like that on more than one occasion. I may also just be directionally challenged, but I found the overworld map very confusing. A lot of train fares were wasted on me not remembering which area was called what, and not knowing where to go next.

Raidou Kuzunoha VS. The Soulless Army is definitely a game of ups and downs, but for the most part, I was delighted by this title every step of the way. It's just unfortunate that its roughest spots are kind of the most critical ones. This game has been mentioned quite a bit in Atlus's customer surveys as of late, possibly testing the waters for a potential remake. Raidou 1's rough spots could probably be ironed out with a good remake, or perhaps......a sequel.