Peak SMT. The best entry in the SMT PS2 era. Everything from the characters, gameplay, story, etc are all so good. Oh, and this is Shoji Meguro’s best work on an SMT OST other than Persona 4. It uses the incredible press turn system, and adds combo attacks to test out skills you’ll learn later on and adds exclusive skills. There is pretty good customization where you can choose the exact skills and build you want from the Mantra tree.

My main gripes with this game are the repetitiveness of some of the dungeons, the pacing, and the cliffhanger ending, which makes all of the buildup require you to play the 2nd game to reach the conclusion. This game is mainly spent developing characters and the plot to make way for DDS2.