I'm rewriting this since I've gathered my thoughts on the game. the combat and gameplay is fantastic and very on par with IV Apocalypse or even better, the exploration is beyond what other shin megami tensei games offer and seeing this entire desolate land overran by gods,demons and how they interact in a huge explorative environment is simply great. the story has a lot of interesting and good concepts but I feel like they didn't give the game's story enough time to be fleshed out and the end game is rushed, but the core concept of how you shape the world within this game is great. the end credits are some of the best I've ever seen in a video game, it perfectly reflects the desolation you feel after having power over a world in ruin, while you shape the world how you see fit.

generally a fun game if you learn to not take it seriously. when you start laughing and appreciating what we thought was "cool" back then you can actually enjoy the game a lot instead of sperging out about how shadow is edgy, it's fundamentally just a better sonic heroes and the mission structure can be fun on certain levels. people saying that it's on the other level of bad sonic games just want to parrot what's been said for years, mechanically it's no worse than the adventure games or heroes. when you look past it all it's just a blast even if the game isn't amazing or great

a classic game. simple but chaotic and hard as fuck, the difficulty really scales better here than Payday 2 as Normal is actually Normal rather than Normal being Very Very Easy. while Payday 2 does have all the heists from this game,better mechanics overall and a bigger soundtrack. this game still has tons of charm with it's 4 original heisters and more simplified heists (besides no mercy), personally I'd like a Payday 3 to mash up the simplicity and character of this game and modern mechanics and range of heists akin to Payday 2. the simplicity and character of this game is easily it's strongest

while having a decently fun story,characters with unique personalities and designs. and some pretty good combat

the game is easily bogged down by it's gacha mechanics and grindiness, if you want to play a specific character you'll have to either save months for primogems or spend hundreds of dollars and you aren't guaranteed unless you lose a 50/50 on the character banner before for event characters and despite even that part it's extremely grindy to get certain materials and things due to resin and weapons are also pretty much locked behind the gacha mechanic

it's sad because there's a lot of potential here that's just ruined by the predatory gacha system that can turn the game into a slog and kill your enjoyment of the game