When we end the world, I'll be sure to spare an aquarium for my babe.

Playing this after the Paper Mario: TTYD remake was crazy whiplash, but what a double whammy demo as to why JRPGs are the best fucking things in the world when done well.

I enjoyed the original SMT V a lot, and yet it was still a disappointment. Its predecessors set the bar too high and its writing just couldn't keep up. Narrative is fixed now. Yoko saves the game and the other characters get a little more as well. Tons of QoL improvements, new quests, all the past DLC is included, along with the original campaign.

Creation and Vengeance get super different towards the mid-game, so it's worth playing both if you're new. I LOVE the demon haunts. Every demon in the game basically becomes an AC villager except there are like 270 of them and all of their personalities are unique. So much funny dialogue. Boss fights are plentiful and rule ass per usual, the Miman are still fun to hunt down, etc. This is a MASSIVE, wonderful game that finally feels complete and this now rightfully stands among the JRPG greats.

I love the Qadištu (Some of the series best designs Imo) and Yoko. The Canon of Vengeance is now my preferred SMT V story. I am a little confused on how this was supposed to be an 80 hour story though. Cause the og story isn't that long either.

(Made 2 saves at the decision)

So after getting both Law and Chaos endings, I prefer the Chaos ending. The Law one makes more sense in the grand scheme of things but the Chaos ending is much cooler and you get to do a whole lot more.

Crazy how sexual tension between 2 girls and a guy makes the story that much better.

Everything else is just better than the original too, absolutely zero issues aside from the last like 20% of the story, it's a bit too samey to og considering what happened just before it but apart from that I loved it.

Chaos ending is so cool man, I think law fits more and is better but chaos is just COOL.

I loved this game a lot. The sense of speed it gives and the reward for playing well is so addicting. It takes elements from Sonic but also more conventional platformers in a way where it can avoid the design difficulties of 3D sonic while also taking from that series elements that I really love. The music and art design are top tier, the only thing holding it back from being perfect is that it can be incredibly janky at times. It's really not fun to have a perfect run of a level and then get softlocked by jumping on a tiny piece of geometry.

People tend to overstate the importance of movement in platforming games. While it's the number one most important aspect, a lot of people have the wrong idea on what exactly makes these games fun or interesting. Having many chainable air actions that 'flow' together doesn't necessarily make your game good. Nor is that actually fun. This game is essentially just a more convoluted version of Mario Odyssey in terms of stringing together moves. It was already cumbersome in that game (cap jumps weren't interesting after the first couple times you did it. there's basically no skill to it either unless you're doing esoteric trick jumps off slants that hardly ever work because the game's physics are terrible) but this game makes it more of a chore.

It's commendable in a way that this is a game that tries to not rely on scripting so much though. On top of having actual slope physics. But it's disappointing that just like cap jumps, the main thing you can do in the game kind of only really works in one way; And it isn't engaging within the context of the environment almost ever either. People get the wrong picture about movement because it's more specific than just having moves, or being able to traverse great distances freely.

5 hours in and this is already much better than the original

Already alot more interactions (I really like the demon haunt, it's the little things like that, that make the game more memorable IMO)

The new features fit in perfectly, more specifically the QoL improvements (mostly saving on the spot and auto-battle) make the game insanely smooth to play

Not trapped on the switch so it consistently looks great, new tracks are pretty good so far

But again it's only 5 hours and I don't have super high expectations (mostly of the new story), so i'll see what happens - could either get better or get worse. At least the non main story stuff feels good atm.