Shin Megami Tensei V is a demonically difficult, dark and deep JRPG masterpiece

Shin Megami Tensei V is a JRPG, tactical, strategy game developed by Japanese developer Altus. Announced back in 2017, it’s the fifth game in the mainline series, which also includes multiple spin-offs such as Persona and Tokyo Mirage Sessions.

Most of the games are set during or just after a supernatural apocalypse changes the world, with the main character set to play some important part in the new realm.

Beginning with the emergence of mythical demons and spirits, revolving around the themes of religion, the occult, destruction, and rebirth, as well as a conflict between order and chaos with the main character usually deciding the outcome.

The SMT series goes all the way back to 1992 on the SNES, with titles also appearing on the Sega Mega-CD, Xbox and PS2. The fantastic DS and 3DS games were the highlights of the series, and a remaster of SMT 3 was released on Switch back in May.

Shin Megami Tensei V is the latest game in the long-running series and is a Nintendo Switch exclusive. SMT 5’s story isn’t connected to previous titles, but it does follow similar themes and uses many of the same mechanics. It is also functionally similar to its more popular spin-off series Persona.

There is no character customisation and you assume the role of the mostly silent protagonist, an androgynous high-school boy that you can name.

After hearing about weird monsters appearing in modern-day Tokyo the player is transported to the desolate remains of the city in some sort of destroyed Toyko desert.

You’re immediately attacked by hostile demons until another being comes to your aid and offers to merge with you, to lend you their power.

Once merged you become a powerful creature, neither human nor demon called a Nahobino, which is very reminiscent of SMT 3 and SMT 4 Apocalypse, as both games also featured the protagonist merging with demons. You then set out to look for your friends and try and discover what happened and how you got here.

Even though the protagonist is a schoolboy this is not Persona, and this world has a much darker tone and a playing to higher stakes, including death, biblical themes and of course mythical demons as opposed to the high school, interpersonal relationships, heists and abstract whimsical backdrop of Persona games.

SMT 5 uses the Unreal Engine 4 and is the best looking game in the Shin Megami Tensei series.

Featuring stylised, anime visuals, despite the grim setting the game is vibrant and colourful with a variety of strange and striking looking demons that look great on the Switch.

SMT fans will love seeing classic demons from the series looking more menacing and detailed than ever, especially when compared to the lacklustre remaster of SMT 3 Nocturne.

Environments look great; when exploring the remnants of ruined Tokyo, which is mostly sparse, it can get a little repetitive. The particle effects are impressive, especially animations such as freezing an enemy to death and watching them shatter.

Resolutions look sub 1080p on docked and sub 720 in handheld but, despite this, the game still looks good – just not quite as sharp as I’d have liked it.

Performance was a reliable 30 FPS, with a few stutters in both either docked and handheld mode. The UI is easy to understand and very familiar to series fans but with a few tweaks and quality of life improvements.

After fights or completing quests, you receive experience points that are distributed among your team.

With enough experience, you level up and gain an additional stat point that the player can choose to place in either Strength, Magic, Vitality, Agility or Luck allowing some customisation to suit your playstyle, whereas Demons in your party distribute this stat point automatically.

Thankfully there are no random encounters like some previous SMT games, which used to be very annoying. This means you can choose to engage or avoid hostiles but be warned, avoiding combat too often could leave you underpowered especially in boss fights.

There are many systems to learn and get the hang of like fusing demons, fusing essence and miracles just to name some which the game does explain but they do take a little experimentation to get the hang of.

You find glowing areas called Leyline founts which allow you fast travel, to purchase items, as well as travel to the World of Shadows.

In the World of Shadows, you can further evolve your character and your team by spending a resource called Glory.

Glory is spent on abilities called Miracles; these can include unlocking more space for demons, special abilities in and out of combat like advantages when negotiating with demons, further benefits to fusion, extra move slots and more.

Fusing has always been an interesting mechanic of the series but SMT 5 makes it easier to understand, listing all the types of demons you can get with your current roster.

Fusing allows you to merge two existing party members to create one tougher demon while inheriting some moves from their previous forms, this can lead to some dynamite combinations, and you need to think carefully about your party’s attacks as they only have a limited number of slots.

You can also transfer a demon’s essence – which copies some of their moves or their strengths and weaknesses – to another demon or the player.

This gives you more customisation than ever and can allow you to make a powerhouse of a team, but it took me a while to get the hang of.

The founts also act as a save point, this adds challenge as you can’t just save before a big fight or reload a demon negotiation, and if the game wasn’t hard enough you can use the founts to heal your team, but it costs Macca (the currency for this fallen world).

The game also encourages you to swap out your party as you’ll often come across incredibly tough encounters that can’t just be beaten by grinding and require you to pay attention to the enemies’ weaknesses, as well as your own.

Exploration is a big part of SMT 5, the addition of the ability to jump offers an easier way to explore and adds some verticality. Your searching can lead you to nooks and crannies and sand dunes to explore that will result in discovering quests, valuable items and strange little creates called Miman you are tasked to find.

Finding these useless little critters awards you with Glory; it can also be obtained by destroying Abscesses, these glowing areas on the map obstruct areas and spit out hostile Demons, which you then need to defeat to progress.

Negotiating with demons plays a huge part in the series. Bargaining is tricky, as demons have different personalities and wants, some respond well to flattery while others prefer threats.

They also ask for things like money, items, MP or life to coax them to you. Not only that, but the position of the moon, which is indicated at the top left of the screen also affects their moods and how receptive they are.

After all that they can even just decide they don’t like you and leave, making it a risky but rewarding experience.

You can fill your team with up to 4 demons with others saved in your stock which is limited at first but can be expanded via miracles.

Combat will be very familiar to those who have played Persona, Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE, and Dragon Quest, it uses the press turn system with each user taking a turn to attack.

SMT combat stands out not only because it has always been challenging and unforgiving, but it encourages you to exploit enemies’ elemental weaknesses, not only does this do more damage but it gives you an extra attack.

You can gain up to 4 extra attacks – however if you miss an attack, you lose a turn and if you attack with an element the demon is resistant to, you will lose all your turns, and the enemy can gain extra turns by taking advantage of your weaknesses too, this can and will completely decimate you in some boss fights.

There’s even an Auto-Battle button but its use is limited as it only uses basic melee attacks but it does speed up the game and is good for when you accidentally encounter lower lever foes and don’t want to use up all your good magic nuking them out of existence.

You can also skip battle animations rather than sitting through the same one constantly. And for purists, Shin Megami Tensei V is available with Japanese or English dub.

Verdict

Shin Megami Tensei V is a vast improvement on previous games in the series (like the lacklustre SMT 3 remaster), and with the capabilities of the Switch it surpassed the classic DS titles, too.

While it lacks the style and flair of Persona, making it a darkly, unique and fascinating adventure, it’s a challenging old school, hardcore RPG that hugely benefits from improved graphics, better-implemented exploration, an easier to use combat system and added levels of demon customisation – making SMT 5 the most accessible of the series and the most enjoyable so far.

If you like weird, deep, engaging and often challenging tactical combat, Shin Megami Tensei V is a devilishly good time that offers plenty to sink your teeth into.

Shin Megami Tensei V is out November 12^th and available for digital download and physical release for £49.99 on Nintendo Switch, Switch OLED and Lite models.