In 2021, Atlus released Shin Megami Tensei V (SMTV) on the Nintendo Switch. Three years later, it has released an expanded and improved version, dubbed Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance (SMTVengeance) on all platforms, widening the potential audience and polishing its already slick JRPG gameplay to a mirror sheen.
Apocalypse Now
The plot of SMTVengeance is much like the average SMT title: the protagonist is a Tokyo high school student who finds himself swept up in a divine struggle for the fate of the world, torn between dueling philosophies and the gods who champion them. In this particular case, the protagonist learns that he is a Nahobino, a fusion of the human and divine, and thus one of the only people who can choose to remake the world. There’s more to it than that, of course, but that’s all you really need to know about it. Players explore the surreal realm of Da’at, a vast wasteland realm that also, somehow, seems to be the ruins of Tokyo. As they learn more about the mystery of Da’at, they recruit demons to battle alongside them in a long march to the level cap.
Story has never been SMT’s strong suit, though that doesn’t mean that the franchise is disinterested in narrative. It just dials it back to the essentials and stays out of the way of its gameplay. SMTVengeance is not the best-written game in the series (I would say that award goes to SMTIV on the 3DS) but it does a decent enough job, particularly on the Canon of Vengeance route (more on that later). But if you are someone who prefers your RPGs to have meaty narratives, you might struggle to appreciate what SMTVengeance has to offer, and if you are a fan of Atlus’ Persona franchise, you might be put off by the vast differences in priorities and systems between the two series.
Choose Your Fighter
So what kind of game is SMTVengeance, anyway, if it’s not a typical story-driven RPG? Well, at heart it’s a monster-collecting JRPG, like Pokemon or Digimon. You accrue a party of critters to fight alongside you through your adventure, and success comes from leveraging their strengths and accounting for their weaknesses. In SMT’s case, all of the monsters are pulled from real-world mythology and religion. At lower levels, you’ll be recruiting creatures pulled from folklore, like sprites and unicorns, and the occasional cryptid like Mothman. In the endgame, you’ll be rolling with the likes of Vishnu, Beelzebub, and Zeus.
In SMT, demons are recruited to your side rather than captured or otherwise forced to join you. This means that when you battle enemies, you have to actually negotiate with them via a conversation mini-game. These seem to have a significant amount of randomness involved, so recruiting new demons can occasionally be frustrating, but these conversations are often weird and funny. Demons might flirt with you, criticize your haircut, or quiz you. They will demand money and HP and MP, and they might take your gifts and run off. It’s all very quirky.
In addition to recruiting demons, you can fuse them at save points. Fusing demons means that you take two or more and actually combine them into a new demon, which will be able to inherent skills from its “parent” demons. Demons have rigid soft caps for their levels–a pixie recruited at level five might only reach level 10 before the experience required makes it functionally impossible to level up again–so to continue increasing your party’s power and to make room for new recruits, you’ll need to regularly fuse your demons. If you want a demon you’ve acquired previously back, you can always summon them from the Compendium for a fee. Fusion is the secret sauce of SMT, really. Defeating bosses will typically add them to your fusion list as “Special Fusions,” often many levels above you, and they bring their potent abilities and great stats with them.
Press Your Advantage
All of the demons, whether allied with you or facing you in battle, follow the rules of Atlus’ venerable Press Turn combat system. It’s very simple:
- At the beginning of your turn, you will receive one Action Token for each demon in your party. The rules differ a bit for enemies and bosses to make things fair, but generally speaking that means that each side will cap out at four Action Tokens per turn.
- Performing an action consumes an Action Token and gives the next member of the party the chance to take an action.
- If a skill hits a target’s weakness, the Action Token is not consumed. Instead, it flashes, indicating it can be used one more time this turn. If every action taken in a turn hits a weakness, that means that the party can take eight actions in the turn instead of the usual four.
- If a skill misses a target or is 100% blocked, then two Action Tokens are consumed.
- If a skill is absorbed by a target (the target gains HP from it instead of losing HP) then the entire turn is forfeit.
These rules apply to everyone in the game, friend and foe alike. If you have resistances to the attacks that a boss uses, you can not just reduce the damage taken, but even nullify the boss’s turns. If you have abilities that can exploit a boss’s weaknesses, you can double the number of actions per turn you get. If you are unprepared, however, then the boss will get those advantages and stomp you into the ground.
SMT lives in the intersection of the demon collection and the Press Turn system. Tinkering with your party to diversify your offensive and defensive capabilities rewards you with deadly enemies rendered helpless before you. You feel oh so clever when you face down an opponent and crush them. And if you do badly, you often just need to reload your save, tinker with your party composition, and then challenge the foe again from a position of overwhelming advantage. It’s absolutely brilliant.
Crawling in my Skin
Connecting the two pillars of the SMT gameplay is exploration. SMT is typically a dungeon-crawling franchise, taking the player through labyrinths filled with puzzles. This is not really true of SMTVengeance, however. Seemingly taking a cue from the phenomenal success of Breath of the Wild, SMTVengeance is structured as a semi-open world experience. The game is divided into four large maps, which are played through in sequence, and the player can run around each of these maps to their heart’s content, fighting enemies, gathering treasure, completing side quests, and more. There are a few more traditional dungeons, but they are not nearly as complex as those in the franchise’s past, with little in the way of puzzles or navigational challenges. Roaming the wastes of Da’at is the real focus, and it shines through as adding to the fantastically compulsive loop of Explore, Recruit, Fuse, and Fight.
Edgelord
The occult vibes of SMT aren’t just for show. This franchise has a reputation for being hard as nails, and SMTVengeance certainly offers a stiff challenge. But Atlus has done a phenomenal job of finding ways to open it up without compromising the gameplay. Money is primarily acquired through looting sellable items from vending machines, which periodically restock. Save points are your all-in-one stop for shopping, fusing, and fast travel. There is an easy difficulty setting and what amounts to a Baby Mode available as free DLC if you really need the help (or if, like me, the optional super bosses are just too tedious for you to bother beating them “legitimately”). You don’t even need to grind, as doing all the side quests you find will pretty much guarantee that you’ll always be at least on par with the mandatory bosses, if not over-leveled for them. It’s not the easiest game I’ve ever played, but it’s also not the hardest, and it’s the most welcoming the franchise has ever been.
The Avengers
SMTVengeance is, of course, a rerelease, so it’s worth discussing what is new and what is changed. Here is a list of the new features:
- An alternate story path, the Canon of Vengeance
- Save the game anywhere at the press of a button
- All DLC for the original game bundled in
- New grind-rails for all maps, allowing you to more easily backtrack
- The Demon Haunt, a social space to chat with the demons currently in your party and receive stat boosts and gifts from improving your relationships with them
- New demons
The new story path is available whenever you start a new game, and you’ll even receive a tutorial pop-up about it when you start. The Canon of Vengeance offers a significantly changed story that I would say is superior to the original. If you want to play the original, however, it is also available as the Canon of Creation. The Canon of Vengeance has two endings while the Canon of Creation has four, and a playthrough of either campaign is going to last you anywhere from 50 to 80 hours. There is also a New Game+ system and even a special, unlockable NG+ mode that raises the level cap to 150 for a supreme challenge. This is a tremendously meaty game, however you look at it.
There is also some DLC available for SMTVengeance, adding two new demons (Sakuya and Dagda) and the ability to dramatically increase the rate at which special “treasure goblin”-style enemies appear. These aren’t really worth it, but I snagged them as part of the deluxe edition because I loved this game back on the Switch and knew I wanted as many demons available as possible.
Perhaps the biggest improvement is that the game is now available on all platforms. Since it is mostly turn-based, the not-very-impressive performance on the Switch isn’t that big of a problem, but you can’t beat the smooth framerate and crisp image quality that you can get elsewhere.
Megaten-out-of-Ten
This has been a banner year for Atlus. Between Persona 3 Reload and Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance, they’ve already got two slots secured on my Game of the Year list, and Metaphor: ReFantazio may net them a third. If you love JRPGs, then SMTVengeance is as easy a recommendation as I have ever been able to make. It is slick, it is compulsive, it is just an absolute delight to play. Don’t sleep on it.