+from front to back the best writing any rgg game has had other than yakuza 0. if that game is a gritty fxx semi-prestige with tints of bushido virtue, this one is a slimey and bawdy network crime serial that doles out gruesome reveals and hearty laughs in equal measure. it's episodic and perfectly suited for multiple play sessions while also managing to tie together a reasonably complicated conspiracy with many moving parts together without any major contrivances.
+so many great supporting cast members, whether from genda law, tokyo PD, random hoodlums in yagami's orbit, or any of the yakuza families that appear. much better than the usual yakuza formula, where a character will get like one moment for characterization and then will immediately die. and speaking of which: the deaths in this game are legitimately impactful!
+there's a lot of effort here to modernize rgg scenario design beyond being just dungeons of dudes to beat up, and when they get it I think they do a good job. infiltrating KJ art at the start of the game demonstrates this perfectly, with a wide range of tasks and hingepoints that make the mission more dynamic
+the new mortal wounds mechanic helps maintain that yagami is conceptually not the superhuman that kiryu is, and it prevents the player from just tanking damage like they might otherwise. it also makes guns more dangerous than ever before, which is probably how it should've been from the beginning.
+at first I wasn't sure what to think of dice & cube given how goofy it is and how weirdly the party game mechanics are incorporated in, but now I think it's one of my favorite ways to grind in the series. all of the combat scenarios they throw at you are wild and wonderful, and I just love getting some crazy new weapon like the railgun to try out on a pack of goons.
+ass catchem. this is probably the closest rgg has come to making a cumtown bit in-game.
+I honestly like how they balanced out yagami's personality traits to make someone more morally complex than previous rgg protagonists. before yagami, all protags were honor-bound warriors who deal in the underworld, with each game navigating this contradiction to some extent. yagami has others he's working for, but at the end of the day he's on a self-serving mission to redeem his own prior failing. justice is his guiding motive, but his methods are entirely less than legal; he'll stalk, kidnap, and torture in order to obtain evidence that he needs. he sleeps on a couch in his office at the age of 35 and spends his free time dating girls 15 years his junior. he should be utterly unlikable and yet the authenticity and straight-shooter personality takuya kimura brings to the role seals him as a genuinely interesting character that fits the game's tone perfectly. they absolutely nailed a grey morality with him that has shades of kiryu while being radically different in expression
+the drone is honestly cool as fuck and handles well too. finding QR codes around on various buildings is a fantastic twist on the old locker-key mechanic.
+the friendship system returns from y0 and is so well integrated here. there's 50 different friends around town, many of which you initially meet through the story or through shopping. returning to each friend frequently and fulfilling missions for them raises their approval and can eventually score you new items at the shops, skill books, and rare materials if you work through each friend's story. they really nailed it here by expanding it from y0 and having many random side characters appear as friends even after their plot relevance has ended. it goes a long way towards making kamurocho even more of a persistent and living locale.
+side cases replace substories perfectly. the y5 and onward model of substories that were mainly conversation-based one-shots were perfectly fun, but they lacked the experimentation that came before and that judgment returns to the formula. each case feels like a proper side quest chain with multiple activities and a solid stream of laughs, and even though there are fewer than in prior games the friend quests supplement them.
+kamuro of the dead is a neat bit of HotD worship that fulfills my rail shooter urges with a nice range of zombies and a full six levels. not as good as the scuba diving minigame from y6 imo but still up to snuff
+quickstarter makes choosing certain upgrades and perks a lot more manageable, as anything you don't buy has money contributed towards it up to the 50% point. if you're not gonna pursue stuff like shogi or D&C in the early game, you can save a lot of money buying their quickstarter upgrades later down the line
+one of the best finales in any rgg game without question. the characters feel so much richer than prior yakuza characters, especially in the villain department, where the motivations of each antagonist vary and their alliances mutate as the game continues. I even enjoyed the action stages in this section, even though neither of them were very long.
+you actually get to mow down cops in this one. fucking incredible.
+good things about drone races: the handling is interesting and versatile and the tracks are well designed
+the main plot actually incorporates side content in, with full side cases being interleaved into the main scenario. at times it's pretty obvious that they're just filler, but it's done much more tastefully than many of the prior rgg games. you also get many more breaks to go do side stuff in this one, including in the middle of long info dumps surprisingly enough. a surprising QoL change that I would not have thought of myself.
+didn't use extracts much but they're sort of neat! esp since carryable weapons are completely gone

-my one issue with the pacing: to keep the audience hooked they basically have yagami figure out the entire mystery before getting any evidence around the 2/3 mark. it's lampshaded frequently and there's still reveals afterwards to keep the drip-feed going, but their plot solution for this issue is to just torture various people until they yield the required evidence. it's grimly funny in its own way though. this is more of a positive I guess but they spend a lot of time in this game lampshading the usual ridiculous plot points of a usual yakuza game to paper over the issues with this game, and to be completely honest it worked on me.
-combat sidesteps the loose freeform brawling of y6/yk2 and instead combines various old yakuza mechanics with methodical martial arts, and it's really a mixed bag for me. early game feels slow and ineffectual, with yagami's combos all doing roughly the same thing and his kit being boring early on. once he gains more abilities its definitely better, but it's still slow and clunky.
-styles make a return in a different configuration: there's now separate styles for crowd control and for one-on-one combat. the problem is that tiger style (one-on-one) is so much better than crane style that it eclipses it completely once charge moves are in play since you'll need that high damage output + the guard-breaking abilities. tiger style yagami is sick, but they really needed to give crane more notable abilities past mid-game to help it keep pace (though the final attack upgrade made them a bit more equitable)
-running is now accomplished by tapping the cross button instead of holding it down, and this running can be used in combat to wall-jump and leapfrog opponents. this handicaps yagami's maneuverability in fights considerably however, as quicksteps now must be done when locked-on (which makes them circle around the opponent instead of allowing proper free quicksteps), and his walk speed is slow. his quickstep cancel is also not as universally applicable as kiryu's, which is a big deal when certain attacks can decrease your max health.
-the keihin gang... easily the worst combat sidestory of all time, no question. the gang appears frequently and drastically increases the encounter rate until you take out one of their leaders, of which there are only four. unless you really want to go refight the same minibosses repeatedly to keep them at bay for a bit, you're stuck slogging through random battles until they leave on their own. you're also sent a passive-aggressive text once they leave guilting you into fighting them the next time, and it's unskippable. fuck off!!
-trailing sequences are atrocious auto-scrollers. there is basically no way to lose unless you walk up to the person you're trailing, and the stealth options are limited beyond pre-set hiding points, so each of these was like 5+ minutes of staring as my phone and holding the analog stick forward occasionally.
-chase sequences return in an endless-runner form that relies heavily on QTEs. boring and trite after the first couple occurrences.
-too many parts of this game lean on kamurocho... like you spend a lot of time staring at various representations of kamurocho's streets. D&C, the drone races, kamuro of the dead, the chase and trailing segments... all of these use kamurocho streets as stages and it's the most prominent sign that this game was limited on budget.
-later in the game there's a lot more traditional rgg action stages, and they're just not up to part imo. playing these after playing the top-notch dungeons from y6 is a shocking difference.
-the arcade is packed with choices, but the new emulated games just aren't as good as prior offerings imo. fighting vipers and motor raid just don't get me as excited as vf2 and virtual-on did, for instance.
-they really needed toughness ZZs in this game at the very least. eating seven bentos in a row to restore a fully-upgraded life gauge is so fucking annoying, not to mention running to every convenience store in town to load up on bentos, sushi, and oden.
-game crash right after the finale escort section X_X
-search mode is unreasonably stiff and more often than not ends up being 3D pixel hunting. intensely claustrophobic when you can't find the solution
-rocks to have a second phase on your final boss and it's exactly the same as the first one.
-bad things about drone races: doing five 3-lap races in a row is way too much commitment. I only played the first three leagues, but they all had the same courses as well (although the second league had all of the courses reversed). also basically entirely build-dependent, which requires grinding for materials
-there are so many fucking materials in this game. I like going out of my way to pick things up in yakuza games but this is honestly over the line. there's also special materials you can get from friends... why is there no way to track who has what in the game? unless I completely missed something
-hunger gauge from y6 was so perfect and they went back to the old system.... why?? bottomless stomach isn't hard to get, but unlike y0/yk1 you aren't ever told how to get it in this game. I was literally waiting for enemies to hit me once per fight just to keep working on restaurant completion.
-"Made in Dreams"-ass pinball game

on one hand this is top-notch for rgg studio in terms of writing, pacing, structure, side stories, characterization, absolutely anything other than the gameplay itself. whenever I'm just reading the dialog I'm having the time of my life; I probably laughed more with this game than any other in the series, and for once I was really impressed with how they wove a mystery that actually suspended my disbelief. every time I pick up the controller though I'm either wading through muddy combat, snoozing through a trailing mission, or half-heartedly playing a minigame before pausing it and scrolling twitter. fixing a small thing here or there would put this as an actual all-time favorite of mine rather than something I enjoyed with reservations; hell, just lowering the encounter rate would've really brought up my minute-to-minute fun. with the cast being so fun and the foundation in place for a great game, I really can't wait to try lost judgment and see how it improves on this framework.

It certainly is a Famicom/NES-era rpg. However dis-similarly to other RPGs I've played from that era, this one runs a much wider range of interest throughout its runtime -in turn working for and against it. Obviously, its setting and general core is immediately more interesting as most people that know anything about the mother series will understand its more 'modern' take on the rpg setting. In addition to this, I wasn't too surprised but was entertained that even with this being the first game, much of the dry and offbeat humor wasn't absent throughout most of it. In fact I was glad that this game was the start/precursor to a good amount of mechanics/design choices I enjoyed from later games. For example: When you die, you lose money and are just sent back to the last phone you saved at rather than losing time progress, teleport is present in this game, and even distinct exploits in this game like the 'Onyx Hook' allowing you to immediately teleport back to magicant for free healing was certainly welcome. Hell, one point this does have over later games is your equipped items wont count towards inventory, wasting space.
Outside of this and the general premise being neat enough, I can't say I readily recommend this game. Beyond many of the quirks being a product of its nature like with Earthbound, there's just some bizarre design decisions I don't understand. Like, equipment/item upkeep in general is kinda tossed out after Magicant (your first visit being at the end of the first 1/3rd of the game). After you get access to boomerangs that's you main weapon for (almost) every party member until the final dungeon and magicant's shops sell every piece of armor in the game except last hour upgrades. This leads into the fact you'll just have tons of money to not spend on anything by the end of the game.
The game's macguffins are just placed sporadically throughout the world, including a canary in a village off the beaten path, a singing monkey and a random cactus. The game does give hints and there's even an npc once you reach the end of the game that'll let you know where the missing melodies are but this is such a bizarre way of doing this. Also the locations of hospitals/hotels/etc. is really inconsistent, certain towns won't have a hotel even if they're next to a dungeon (e.g. Spokane) and you'll have to travel back to either Magicant or Merrysville for heals.
Lastly and most pertinent to this game would be battling. Earthbound doesn't have the most interesting battle system I'll admit but I think there's at least enough there to make it stand out and its designed in a way that works pretty well despite its jank. It's pretty easy to pick up and play, despite Earthbound's age and some difficulty bumps at the start. Mother 1 is kind of piss easy and damn rough at the same time, I can't really say I understood where I was difficulty-progression wise when playing. Probably the best example of this is the end of the game where you cannot and are not going to beat most of the enemy encounters unless you grind like crazy. Don't grind here, just escape and get to final boss around level ~28-30 for Ninten, and beat the final boss since its practically on rails with how easy he is. That said, you will need to grind a ton in the early sections of the game because good lord some of these dungeons can be rough as hell.
Battling isn't helped by the fact that enemy encounters are just as sporadic as much of the other game's elements. Sometimes you'll step 3 tiles and get in another fight, sometimes you'll walk 30 tiles and not get in one. This also isn't helped by the fact that you can pretty much auto your way through most fights. If you play this game patched I think you'd be getting the most out of this game since combat is its weakest link, otherwise it bogs down what would otherwise be one of the neater rpgs on the system.

The tl;dr, spoiler free edition of this review is basically: I think this game is pretty good but if you’re on the fence try waiting a while and see if those rumors/datamines of a ps4/pc port are true. Despite performance issues and some story quips, this is one of the most fun rpgs i've played from a battle mechanic/world-exploring perspective and does a lot of interesting things regarding its quests, alignments and characters. The performance is a bit shoddy but its art direction itself is spot on (god bless you, Doi) and the music is also up there as one of my favorite soundtracks from the series (god bless you, Kozuka). There are some pacing issues and shortcomings the series has usually had regarding its structure but I can't be too mad at the latter. Easily up there with Nocturne as my favorite.

The long version is a much more complicated affair:
In starting my review of Shin Megami Tensei V, I should state the fact that this is my favorite game series by a long shot. This game was easily the game I’ve been most excited for since probably Persona 5, so my excitement and biases regarding the series should be noted as this means I myself can look past certain performance issues and also the barrier that is SMTs usually notorious difficulty, so certain hurdles don’t latch to my head as much as it might for others. Of course I try to keep a mental note of parts where it does get fairly rough, for example during a boss fight in the midgame I encountered moments in which battle animations would take a few seconds to even load. Other times I would have to think about certain level jumps or battles that might be mean to newcomers to the series. Shin Megami Tensei is a weird series to talk about, think outside the box, and honestly recommend with its requirement for players to remain vigilant in nearly every battle until the very end. Yet, the thing about SMT and with what changes V brings to the table I think its safe to say that not only is SMTV a much more approachable title but I think by this point it should be noted that this is a game that was meant to be exploited by anyone -and I think that’s fairly obvious from the get-go.

Shin Megami Tensei, mechanically speaking, is a series about exploitation of course. Ever since the introduction of the Press Turn system in Nocturne, SMT has taken pride in at least incorporating some form of weakness exploitation -> bonus actions/chain attacks/however you describe Strange Journeys gimmick into most of their games. Each of these games expects you to make use of every action you can get in one turn, as any kind of mismanagement or misfire means the opposing side can also take advantage of this system and abuse it (to varying degrees of A.I. difficulty competency). And despite even my fairly well versed understanding of not just the mechanics/exploits of the series (and a fair chunk of demon weaknesses), one cocky but misplaced move would often leave me in a pickle, or worse, a game over. Even with this, that shouldn’t deter players of course, especially since it’s never been easier to utilize your player character and demons to overcome any battle the game throws at you.

This game’s biggest asset is easily the addition of the ‘Essence’ system. This is Naho’s main method of accruing skills and affinities throughout the game, similar to Magatama in SMT3 without the leveling requirement nor the need to do stuff like block puzzles. The secondary aspect to this is that it also applies to your demons as well (minus the affinities part). By all means you can get through the game okay by not fine-tuning every demon into a monster for a specific fight. You can get through the game alright with what demon’s you’ve normally fused, recruited and what have you. However this system does allow for a greater degree of exploitation fun as you can give the demon that has the right affinities but not the right spells more attacks that can work for a boss or quest that you’re having trouble with. This comes to a head especially later in the game not just because you might encounter tougher enemies but you’ll start getting essences with much crazier combinations to work with, you might have a finalized demon party in your head, you might have a bunch of essences stocked up on to make weirder move combos, etc. You’re only limited to the single essence per demon and when Gustave, your shopkeep starts selling them the ones he offers aren’t entirely useful but this is such a neat mechanic in an already really customizable game. Again, you don’t need to utilize this all the time- however if you wish to ham with your demon loadout, you have another means to deck them out.

The essence system is also brought up on top of the return and introduction of several other mechanics and items like the skill potential system which prioritizes skills for a demon by having certain elements be of greater or lesser use/function with how large the interval is for that element (e.g. a demon with +3 in the Ice element will have ice skills at a reduced mp cost while a -3 will make those skills cost more), as well as sutras, which allows you to boost a demon’s skill potential so long as that has said element at +1 or higher (so demons with no affinity in ice can’t use ice sutras). Alongside this, you also have Grimoire and to a rarer extent, Gospels, which helps max out the exp bar to level up after your next battle to your demons and Naho respectively.

Other returning changes include the Hama/Mudo skills doing normal elemental damage rather than being purely instakill spells (instakill has a chance of activating if target is weak rather), player upgrades in the form of ‘Glory’ (vs the apps in Strange Journey and 4) and the moon phases returning once again play a role in negotiations and fusion accidents. Minor additions to the battle mechanics include spell additions like the ‘dracostrike’ series of spells -strength based skills with elemental attributes to help with weakness exploitation, (de)buffs now last 3 turns but can be stacked twice, an additional level above -dyne for common spells (relegating prior ‘severe’ spells like Ice Age or to having different functions). On top of this are some unique/exclusive skills found on demons throughout your journey that range from party heals that give buffs, damage spells that cause debuffs/status ailments, or even just better versions of other spells (e.g. Mermaid’s Stormcaller Song being a better Ice Breath). Your chance to get these is fairly sporadic sadly, as a good chunk of them are locked behind either DLC, late game or new game plus, but they’re neat to check out the animation/effects of. Unique demon conversations are also a returning feature that is greatly appreciated, less from how useful it is but just how neat some of the flavor dialogue is. In fact, a DLC mission has a unique cutscene following a battle if you have an end-game demon in your party, there’s a lot of neat flavor conversations between some of these demons. Some of these are easy to try out, some might need a bit of smt trivia knowledge (Decarabia + Forneus) some of these I just got by chance like having Cirronup when approaching Koropokkur, not realizing both came from Ainu culture.

The last major battle mechanic I’d like to talk about is the magatsuhi gauge, a new feature in which as a battle progresses you will fill a gauge up until it is full and you can activate a litany of special moves that you unlock by getting talismans. These moves cost nothing to cast, don’t waste a turn and are often extremely powerful. Getting these talismans can be done mostly through quests but some might require just talking to npc demons on the overworld, like the foul talisman. These are a really neat idea but the weird thing about them is that SMTV hands out arguably two of the best ones right off the bat, one giving you guaranteed crits on all attacks and the other being a single enemy nuke. There are others throughout the game that you’ll definitely find more useful in a pinch such as the ‘Femme’ skill reducing the cost of all your spells to 1MP that turn, or some can be used to exploit even the game’s superbosses like the ‘Beast’ skill boosting damage output for 1 turn based on damaged you are. A lot of them are pretty alright but might not be as enticing as the first two you get for a long while, skills like ‘Hit’ and ‘Dance’ or ‘Dekajaon’ basically never had any chance of me trying them out. I’ve seen some talk that the first two that are given are the only two you’ll ever need, which I wouldn’t agree with. Certain skills like ‘Fairy Banquet’ giving you a free all stat max buff is amazing and even stuff like ‘Luck’ or ‘Sincerity’ are nice to consider if you need to grind exp/macca or want help with negotiations. That said it is still very odd that the two given at the start are as immediately busted as they are.

I sincerely love the gameplay of Shin Megami Tensei. It’s hard for me to think of a battle system I’ve fallen in love with more than these ‘press turn’ games. There’s a certain rhythm you get into once assembling a fine party of demons, especially when you prep for an upcoming boss and know the ins and outs of a ‘proper’ team. However even going beyond the normal SMT battle system a lot of the changes made to V just add so much more enjoyment to each battle, especially in boss fights. I think the best thing this game adds unironically is certain bosses being weak to ailments. For once I can build a demon and legitimately consider ailments as a feasible spell and mean that unironically, especially if said demon can get normal damaging spells that inflict these ailments and combine that with support skills that allows said demon to get back MP for inflicting these ailments. These don’t break the game of course but I was more than satisfied getting a late game boss confused, having them pop their own magatsuhi: critical, having said boss hit themself in confusion 4 times (said attacks critting himself) and basically waste an entire turn. Charming boss fights with multiple opponents, getting Mirage off at all, even just being able to poison bosses for extra chip damage feels so goddamn right. Even the superboss isn’t entirely nulled to every ailment. That superboss too is also a great (if fucky) example of this game wanting you to take any advantage you can get to beat it. It’s an odd fight to try to recommend because
1. If you want to get the secret ending you have to fight it before the alignment lock
2. This boss is level 93 in a game where said alignment lock happens after a level ~80 dungeon
3. The strongest enemy combatants you can farm are level ~87 and you can get decently leveled just off this until you’re level 87 yourself
4. Gospels are fairly hard to come by so if you don’t have that 4 dollar mitama-farming dlc good luck if you want to be at least equally levelled without too much grinding.
5. Grinding to beat this boss means the bosses thrown at you in the final hours are kinda cakewalks (this could be a good thing).
The fight itself can be done without needing to be exactly the same level as the superboss but I do wish it were easier to reach their level without needing DLC. If you don’t get said DLC but are fine doing a second run I would just recommend that instead. Otherwise have fun trying out the superboss, in which many of the game’s mechanics and philosophies can be put to the test or just absolutely broken. You can go in with level 99 demons and use the most broken magatsuhi skill in the game (a damage barrier that reduces all attacks down to 10% their original value), a demon that can reliable keep the boss debuffed for long periods with Boon Boost EX and a general party healer. At this point it becomes a typical fight similar to others throughout the game with the added trouble of managing the cronies our boss summons that can throw a wrench into everything, healing/rebuffing/debuffing/having spell blocks/etc. Additionally our boss having access to a party-wide severe almighty move that drops all opponents defense to rock bottom, as well as their own chance to proc magatsuhi: critical can lead to some tight situations. But same as ever, just remain vigilant and you can succeed. Alternatively, you can enter the fight at low health -> boost yourself to max buff -> debuff our god’s defense to as low as it can be -> survive the first turn but remain at as low hp as you can -> pop your Beast magatsuhi and take advantage of an exploit that allows putting demons back in your stock to stack half turns to do 4 Murakumos and beat the boss in two turns. There’s more prep that’s not mentioned here but that’s what I enjoy about Shin Megami Tensei, it’s ability to be broken. Weakness exploitation is merely the first step but dig deeper and you find way more ways to take advantage of the system, helped by its immense customizability. Even tinier combos early in game like getting a demon with a poison skill and a demon with Venom Chaser, a move that does significantly more damage on a poisoned target, felt really fun especially when I tried that out on a later boss.

Here’s where things start to get a bit harder for me to fully think about and analyze myself as I would also like to think more about the overall world exploration and the story aspects/weaknesses of the game. I’ve already spent 2200 words in this review but dammit this is the one game I’ve been hard looking forward to the past few years, I’ll keep these sections more brief and maybe down the line ill edit in a more in-depth opinion.

The world exploration is pretty fun, if straightforward. I do wish there was slightly more variety in our map themes. For the most part its Tokyo but blasted into a desert but each area is a different shade or tone to differentiate it from the last. Certain sections of an area might differ overall, like a forestry area in the second half or certain sections of the final area utilizing the ‘geometric/runic’ vibes of 3 into certain parts of the map. It was definitely fun exploring and seeing Tokyo in an open world environment finally, although some variety would have been appreciated. Additionally that 3rd area has some really confusing layouts, not sure if intentional or not. Could have just been me but I found myself get lost often in certain areas of that map. I do enjoy the additions of the Miman and Abscesses quite a bit, I would say I found these more fun on average than the Botw equivalents of the Koroks and the Open World Towers but that might just be me (also helps 200 is a much more manageable number to collect and you have an npc that helps reveal them at the end of each map). Also a shame there’s not too many dungeons outside of like, 2 and a half. I did really enjoy the final Tokyo map however, I think that’s a better way of starting the third act than the latter parts of dealing with Chi Yous, Ongyo-Kis and odd door puzzles. The final Tokyo map just says fuck it and drops you in the middle of the map to locate three waypoints (meaning bosses) that you can tackle in any order and its just exploring the area from there, really fun way to do the last exploration-based area of the game.

I might as well take this time to also talk about the music and art direction of this game and to be honest I can’t put it any other way than I just adore it. The main thing holding back this game visually is that its a switch game, this game desperately needs a PC port. I can live with poor performance myself but I think most people would better appreciate this game if it was on anything that wasn’t just Switch. Otherwise I love a lot of the new designs, Naho, Aogami and Nuwa/Shohei were already some of my favorites of the cast, on top of a lot of the new demon designs and 3D introductions for older designs. It’s also great to see Atlus just, once again, having a game where battles utilize these snappy af animations and cool unique cutscenes for certain attacks. It is funny seeing the demons Doi designed get way more treatment as far as these animations go, but I’m not complaining- I would be lying if I said Idun’s little dance she does for an idle animation didn’t go a long way as to me keeping her on active roster (also the fact Golden Apple is super good but thats beside the point). Alongside the art is the soundtrack which, admittedly I had my reservations about once going through the first few hours.

The primary battle theme is so good and I was desperately wanting a full version ever since hearing it this last E3, the only shame is that it will be the main battle theme you hear for the entire game. That’s basically just the RPG way but at least the theme we do get kicks ass and the other battle themes are just as great. They oddly range from clear bangers to this more mellow tune for certain quest fights, and this could honestly apply to a good chunk of the soundtrack as a whole. Ryota Kozuka continues his delve into this experimental/industrial/rock fusion while also keeping some tracks way more atmospheric to fit the more ethereal tone of the world and it works superbly in my opinion. The first area’s main theme sounded alright and I was mostly siked to hear it after knowing it from one of the first few trailers, but then you get to Shinagawa, the 2nd area of the game and just ‘aughhhh’. Music in general is a very hard thing for me to analyze in general to point its hard for me to even describe my own taste or what I like in certain tracks outside of just saying like ‘i like its vibe’, but I do think SMTV’s music is just another example as to the talent over at Atlas kind of evolving/branching into new territory while acknowledging its roots all over. There’s a lot of tracks here that sound like Persona, like Digital Devil Saga, like 16-bit SMT, like SMT4/Apo, some tracks sound like multiple kinds of SMT titles. It’s hard in general for me to pick a favorite SMT soundtrack but this certainly goes up there. Absolutely crazy that I heard fans saying this game had a weaker soundtrack.

In a similar vein to the exploration, I think quests in this game are done way better than they were handled in 4. It seems like quests (more involving quests at least, unlike the ones that just involve giving demons certain items) are way more rewarding and engaging this time around as they might often twist into another direction based on what you align with. They also tend to involve certain story elements or sideplots in a way that’s very neat. Only issue being that I honestly thought certain characters would be given more screen time (mostly because they got introduced alongside what would be our ‘alignment’ characters), rather these characters kinda get relegated to an odd side quest chain. Not bad, per se. Just not what my initial thoughts of these characters were gonna go.

The story might be the last thing I want to touch up upon and I’ll keep it brief. I don’t think the game has a necessarily weak story, I think it’s subjects and characters are done pretty well on a surface level. My main issue I would say is that it suffers from really weird pacing. I think if certain elements were better arranged and introduced there’d be much less of a fuss from fans in general. I don’t want to spend too much time on the story because to be honest, I don’t go into these games with the story on my mind. I could spend time comparing the structure of this game to something like Nocturne or even some of the older smts but I would just say go into this game knowing that SMT in general isn’t story-light per se, but story-minimal in a sense that many characters can kind of just come across as one dimensional in their arc or some characters might not get as much time as you’d think. It didn’t really bother me too much especially because by the end I quite enjoyed what the game was getting at thematically and on the grand spectrum of the Megaten meta/universe.

There’s a lot more I can probably touch upon or explain better but to be honest it’s 3 in the morning and this has gotten to be way longer than I imagined. My closing thought is just how I compare this to my current favorite SMT, Nocturne. There’s still a lot of other SMTs I’ve yet to play but hear are just as fantastic, the DDSs, the Devil Survivors, the Devil Summoners, Eternal Punishment, etc. but as it stands Nocturne was the game that showed me the transition from early SMT to what SMT stands for now, while providing an interesting twist on series old conventions and ideas. It stuck in my mind for its aesthetics, its gameplay, its themes, etc. A few years later and sure enough I still enjoyed that game immensely, while acknowledging its flaws and shortcomings. But this time around I’m faced with a game that faces a similar situation. There is a lot that can be improved upon, even some quality of life stuff I forgot I wrote down until now like quests having clearer level indicators or just, maps having waypoints. I could still be in a honeymoon phase and maybe I’ll reevaluate certain thoughts about this game but as it stands, I could see myself liking this more than Nocturne in the long run. Even so, the more important thing is less which is better but that I also see this game as the next step in SMT as a series. I'm very glad to have spent as much time as I did on this game, Shin Megami Tensei still remains some of the most fun JRPG shenanigans out there and I'm thoroughly looking forward to what comes next, mainline/sidegame/spin-off/etc.

I went into this because a friend kinda forced me to by buying it for me at full price.

I knew next to nothing about Mass Effect, and I honestly wasn't giving the game my full attention at first. I think ME1 is the weakest of the series mostly for gameplay reasons. But as I went on I started really enjoying the writing, the characters, the story, the gameplay got better. Granted the ending does suck and I do have a lot of problems with ME1, but overall I just can't get enough of these characters and this world.

I loved Mass Effect.

A few notes going into this review:
To be honest, this is really just covering the psp version of Final Fantasy 4, not The After Years. I enjoyed my time with 4 enough- but as I'm going through the FF games I didnt really feel much of an itch to try out the other half of this collection just yet. I'll probably edit this review whenever I do get around to that but for now I'm just sticking with prime FF4. Secondly, this isn't exactly my first time touching FF4. My first experience with a Final Fantasy, let alone 4 was actually the DS version of this game, several years ago. I didnt get too far (Cagnazzo walled me as a teen) so I tried that version again when I got around to playing 4 again. After opening the DS again and messing around with that version I just decided to play this edition instead. Said DS editions bosses and overall gameplay just wasn't what I was looking for, although I don't mind the 'cuter' aesthetic and it was cool seeing a ds game with voice acting and that kind of direction.
As for this edition, and FF4 in general, it's alright. It's definitely the first FF in the series that feels genuinely 'Final Fantasy' despite me generally liking 1 and 3 as well. Its interesting going through these chronologically as you realize tiny details that might seem commonplace picking this game up weren't actually in prior games or might have been picked up/tweaked from a prior game. Hell, it's weird to think this is the first FF game without 'fully' customizable characters (unless you count Cecil's class change), or that its the first with a truly expanded roster. It's really interesting going through and seeing this game as a culmination of the prior 3 games' ideas melded into one cohesive package. The issue is really how well it holds up.
Despite this intrigue, when actually going through the game I didn't find myself caring all too much about the game as it actually was. I think a good chunk of this is just how often you switch party members that are kinda so-so to begin with. Cecil, Yang, Rydia are probably the only ones I really liked, the rest are kind of just okay or are Edward who I completely forgot existed when revisiting this. I don't dislike any of the team members but some of them just kinda exist, like I don't know how much i really cared about Cid as far as his battling prowess went. Tellah and Fusoya are cool for the hour you have either of them. Edge is okay but I kinda wish I just had Yang the entire game (I have a bias for monks). Its a pretty alright cast overall but hey, it's more of a cast than 3 or what I can remember from 2.
Additionally the story's just alright. I definitely feel like it peaks WAY too early, Cecil only being a dark knight for about a fifth of the game. Otherwise its just dealing with Golbez's shenanigans across the map, dealing with fake character deaths and some side dungeon stuff for cool rydia summons.
Although one big complaint I did have throughout is god I hated managing inventory in this game (also, I do think the devs were being a bit cheeky with some of the hidden passage hunting but maybe thats just me).
I'm definitely glad I finally finished this game, despite not being the original version I had growing up. There's a bit that could be talked about but I think I can just sum it up with 'its fine'.

When my wife and I started to play Lost Judgment, we were faced with a question: Which one of us was going to start the game? While we knew that we’d be trading off from time to time, we came to the conclusion that it didn’t really matter who started, because the first chapter would basically be a wash, consisting of the standard cutscenes and sparse tutorial gameplay that Ryu Ga Gotoku games always start with.

Turns out, we were wrong.

Much to our surprise, Lost Judgment starts far snappier than any other entry in the franchise. It presents a much more confident tone in an introductory sequence that keeps you active as it walks you through the game’s various mechanics, as though it’s proud of just how much it’s expanded on the groundwork set by the first Judgment.

And, honestly, the RGG team has every right to be proud. Judgment was no slouch, and it’s a game I’ve only looked back on more fondly, but it was clear pretty early on that Lost Judgment would have to do something immensely wrong to not be my favorite in the RGG franchise.

It didn’t.

Honestly, there’s very little I can bring up to the game’s detriment. I can say that the game’s economy isn’t as tight as the first game or Yakuza: Like a Dragon, but that’s more of a matter of preference, and any aspects of the game that do wear thin thankfully don’t overstay their welcome. What stands out way more is everything the game gets right, which is just a laundry list of me gushing about the characters, the combat, the main story, the extensive school stories, and everything in between.

It’s easily my favorite game in the RGG franchise, and I’m very excited to see what comes next, whether it’s with Yagami Takayuki or one of the other pairs of characters that Lost Judgment sets up as potential new protagonists, should appeasing Takuya Kimura’s representation ever prove to be too much.

recently when I mentioned I had picked this game up again to one of my friends he recoiled a bit: "I thought you said that game was shit." after starting it last year I put it down after just a few hours and decided it simply wasn't for me... too scuffed and too boomer-ish. deep down I knew it was just a mad-because-bad reaction, but I had to pretend otherwise for the sake of my own pride. I couldn't stay away forever though, and earlier this week I hopped back into it to try to see it through, ending with me shotgunning the second half of the game as I couldn't stop playing it.

few other remakes exist which came from the original team in such a short time frame after the original's release, and it's apparent for anyone comparing this to the modern resident evil remakes. the designers behind this game held up the early "survival horror" style as a conscious action game design and not a limited-by-resources restraint as we do today, where the pre-rendered backgrounds, tank controls, and obtuse puzzles feel dated. every choice this remake makes expands upon the original and seeks to elevate its strengths, such as keeping backgrounds prerendered in order to make the character models ridiculously high-poly, and adding the body-burning mechanic to avoid dangerous crimson heads that can quickly negate any QoL features you may have been leaning on. every camera angle feels purposeful and tense, and the game knows how to lull you into complacency before busting out a zombie located just out of view after entering a room. features like these are amplified by the far-superior hardware of the gcn compared to the psx, and I applaud the developers for finding ways to enhance the original vision rather than water it down.

of course, swallowing my pride required making a few other caveats in order to keep myself going. for one: I really needed to use the HD-exclusive alternate controls instead of the original tank ones. this makes enemy dodging much more trivial a lot of the time, which admittedly reduces the tension, but its erraticism in areas with frequent camera angle changes balances it out a smidge. on ps4 with alternate controls mapped to the analog stick and tank controls mapped to the d-pad, I felt like I got the benefits of both styles depending on the situation I was in. I also had to dip into a guide occasionally to figure out how to handle some of these puzzles. none of the puzzles here feel completely arbitrary like in the PC adventure games that inspired them, but they do retain those games' proclivities for pixel-hunting interactable objects. it's easy to overlook important objects in cases where there's no camera angle highlighting them or flickering light indicating their interactability, especially since the areas are so dark and it's impossible to zoom in on the scene. it doesn't help that items can be purposefully tucked away from view, requiring new players to walk around mashing cross in the hopes that the playable character will finally pick something up. a particular puzzle that the game was not particularly helpful with was retrieving the yellow/red gemstones from the hunting trophies... it never felt clear to me that the eagle having the MC in its line of sight would keep the gemstones from coming loose, but this may just be my brain failing to make some sort of connection. most of the other parts that confused me were mainly just puzzles that crossed multiple areas or required remembering about an item from hours prior; these are understandable puzzle designs given the overall small scope of the world and tight area design, but I need a helping hand occasionally.

the rest of the game is simply so tight that I was willing to work past the above in order to enjoy just how excellent the gameplay loop is. early on when playing I fell into the trap that I imagine many new players get ensnared in, where every bit of damage taken feels like failure and death feels like a major setback. that's not a healthy attitude to take with this game, and in single-player games in general. instead I found the game encouraged a dungeon-crawler type loop, where an area must be observed and a plan must be developed before doing "a run" and actually attempting to execute a given section. death can serve as a way to explore areas prior to planning, where there's no sense of finality in the player's actions and any accomplishments made are to further the player's understanding of the environment. the game neatly encourages this via making your saves a finite resource via the ink ribbon system. infinite saves would encourage players to divvy up the game into bite-sized pieces in order to reduce the consequences of failure in a segment, and would in turn ruin the pacing. limited saves force decisions on how much can be accomplished with a single set of items, and the player must guess how long they can last before a sudden death could lose them a large chunk of time. in this way saves become part of the resource stack along with ammo, inventory space, health, and kerosene, which creates scenarios that challenge the player to make trade-offs they may be uncertain of. its this uncertainty that fuels player fear, where making a wrong decision feels like it could permamently jeopardize one of your resources and leave you lagging in the late-game. of course, the game parcels out items with little care, and I found that after being so thrifty in the early game I was vastly overencumbered with resources by the late game, but the tension still exists that made me feel obligated to make "smart" choices such as leaving zombies alive to preserve ammo/avoid crimson heads, or rerunning sections after studying enemy attack patterns to reduce damage.

indeed, I feel like a more accomplished gamer now having beaten this, as I've been able to consciously conceptualize the above approach to playing and put it into practice among other games that have given me trouble. part of what helped me get back into RE was playing dark souls and smt4 recently and realizing that this observe-plan-execute framework can apply to all three and make what seem to be difficult games more manageable. its part of what makes these games rewarding, as the patience involved yields immense satisfaction. REmake is a thoroughly japanese game that seems more intent on molding the player in the image of the game design, rather than attempting a simulacrum of cinema with instant interactive gratification for the player, and in the process encourages critical exploration of the game design itself.

Easily one of the best, most memorable games with an impact that will stay with me for a long time.

Overall I'd say it falls short in terms of story when compared to the first game, but that is quickly ignored when you factor in the sheer amount of gameplay upgrades and QOL additions.

This is by far one of the greatest games in the last while, and it's a shame that it isn't really a GOTY contender due to the fanbase not being as big as others.

One of my favourite games of all time.

The story is amazing and captivating, the combat has had decades of work to feel flawless, and the gameplay is entertaining.

This is one of those games that has left a big impact on me, and will not be forgotten for a long time. It's rare when a game as fulfilling as this releases.