Better than SMT1 in every conceivable way. The atmosphere and the explorable world are also very interesting and cool, from the post-apocalyptic cities of Tokyo Millenium, to the underground world and the demon world.

It goes way beyond the scope and ambition of SMT1, especially with the inclusion of real characters and an actual fleshed-out story.

Game has a lot of really cool moments and set-pieces that make it pretty memorable. My only issue with this game is that it's pretty held back by the gameplay.

Not only are magic attacks (and therefore a good chunk of the demon roster) completely worthless, but at a certain point the game gets pretty much trivialized by AoE guns and nerve bullets, so even to the end of the game the combat is not engaging in the slightest; I beat the final boss by buffing first and then just letting auto-battle do its thing, only stopping to heal every other turn.

All in all, it's definitely a great game that any SMT fan should try out but it requires you to look past a bunch of flaws.

i liked this game. but it makes me feel very weird.

i get the choice to not have as much of previous characters since this is (well, was) kiryus last big thing where he's the main focus, but man it just does not sit well with me to have so many of the franchises characters completely shelved due to that. the new characters that were introduced are fine, they're silly goofy guys, but they don't have the same intrigue as akiyama and saejima and majima or daigo or anyone like that. and i don't mean that as a totally negative thing, those characters have been built up for multiple games to have that intrigue and screen presence that make them enjoyable to see. and yes akiyama is there but he has literally 5 scenes in the entire game, i don't think it counts. but yeah, i think my issues with the story are mostly just with that, the rest of it is just whatever, i mean there's the obvious "well why doesn't kiryu just go to the florist this game would be like an hour long" and that's fair, but i don't usually hold it against a certain piece of media for having that particular kind of plot issue like that, you can make up any number of reasons for that in response, idk

as for the combat, i mean this game is basically just kiwami 2 with a different story, so i didn't think it was bad, i liked it, i will say that the physics were definitely very underdeveloped and don't feel amazing and big guys don't feel very enjoyable to fight but other than that i don't have really any issues. i will say that extreme heat mode feels fucking awesome to use and i hope that i see it again in man who erased his name, kiryu is the strongest guy in the yakuza universe, i think it's perfectly acceptable to oneshot minibosses with one combo. oh yeah, as for the health bar change, i feel very neutral on it, fights don't drag out, but some feel a little undercooked because of it. like someya should realistically be a 4-5 minute fight, but isn't. joon-gi han should realistically be a 4-5 minute fight, but isn't. in spite of that, i still enjoyed them, i would have just liked them to be a bit longer.

soundtrack for this game was pretty okay, not on the level of 0 or 7 but definitely good enough to keep the energy going.

side content was good enough to make me want to do more of it and actively seek it out, so that's cool. a lot of super interesting ideas in them and also wacky goofy stuff that made me smiley face

yeah idk, people really dislike this game but i think it's pretty good and was worth playing, def overhated. man who erased his name next.