It’s been nearly three years since the original Shin Megami Tensei V launched, and as is tradition at Atlus, the obligatory enhanced re-release (complete with a new story centered around a new girl) has now arrived in everything modern platformer in the form of Shin Megami Tensei V: Revenge. Boasting a full, alternate scenario and a host of gameplay and balance tweaks, SMTV: V is easily the definitive version of an already excellent entry in the long-running series. If you’re a fan of SMT, Persona, or JRPGs in general, you owe it to yourself to pick this up ASAP.
For this review, we’ll be focusing more on the additions and fixes being made to the core SMT V experience with this release – if you’d like to get a more detailed assessment of the game’s core mechanics and such, we’d encourage you you can read our review of the 2021 version, which still mostly applies, here, too.
Now, let’s briefly go exactly what this release is. Atlus usually makes an enhanced version of its most popular games a few years after their initial release, usually with some fresh story content and balance tweaks that address complaints about the original version. Previous releases, such as Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux, Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology, Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker, or Persona 5 Royal usually carried this additional story content to the end or sprinkled it throughout the old story. . What makes SMT V:V a little more special, then, is that instead of simply offering an ‘add-on’ to the original plot, this version brings a full-fledged storyline to choose from. instead of the original.
SMT V: V starts out pretty much the same as the original release, but just minutes into the plot, things veer into new and interesting territory. In a strange dream sequence, you are presented with the spectral form of a young woman, while a disembodied voice tells you that she “cannot be allowed to exist” and offers you a choice.
If you leave it there, the fate of the world will continue as it was meant to, but if you choose to take its hand, it will become real and the world will be set on an unplanned and unknown path. Ultimately, this is where you choose whether you want to follow the plot of the original SMT V release (here called “Canon of Creation”) or the new “Canon of Vengeance” storyline.
If you choose to save the girl, she is soon introduced as Yoko Hiromine, a mysterious Holy Devil Summoner who agrees to accompany Nahobino on his quest to determine the future of the world amid the never-ending war between law and chaos. Yoko is a skilled fighter with a quiet darkness about her, and her strength is a welcome asset as you face off against a charismatic new band of antagonists who call themselves the Qadistu. The Qadistu offer another interesting perspective on the nature of truth in the strange world of Da’at, and they become more and more central to the story as events gradually diverge from the original plot in increasingly significant ways.
We were fans of the original SMT V’s divisive plot, but it’s hard to argue that Atlus’ second crack at a story here isn’t an improvement. In many ways, it seems like this was the story of the developers required to show for the first time – Yoko was slated to be a part of the original release before being cut partway through development,
and her addition to the core lineup here feels organic and like it fills a void that wasn’t apparent before. Perhaps most importantly, it seems like this new plot focuses a bit more on the interactions between the various human characters, making it easier to relate to this story than the somewhat bare-bones plot of the first edition.
While we’d encourage all players who pick this up to start with the Canon of Vengeance storyline, we’d suggest playing through the Canon of Creation at some point—it might feel inferior, but experiencing both gives you much more appreciation for what each brings to the table. Plus, when you factor in the 80 hour runtime for each route and multiple endings, that’s one LOT of SMT V content to burn through if you’re into hard-hitting gameplay here. Suffice it to say, it will take you a long time to finally run out of things to do.
Apart from the story, various gameplay and quality of life improvements have been made to further improve the experience and make it more enjoyable overall. For example, you can now save anywhere with the press of a button, instead of waiting to find the next source of Leyline. This helps reduce some of the backlash for tough encounters, and makes it much easier to avoid losing a ton of progress if you happen to get jumped by an enemy who lands a mushroom to body you with one hit.
Da’at is still as fun to explore and platform around as it ever was, and to help with traversal, there are now grind rails strategically placed throughout the desert to help speed up travel. Some of these are immediately obvious and some have to be discovered first before they appear on your map, and we liked how they expand on the existing map giving access to new areas while also making it quicker to return to generally. Often, you’ll unlock a new rail after taking the ‘long way’ around a series of obstacles to make the journey to and from the top easier.
The Demon Haunt is another great addition, giving you the rather cool opportunity to spend time chatting and building relationships with your various recruits. After a demon has traveled with your party for a while, they will ask to speak with you, and you can then choose to accept their request at a quiet resting place accessible from any Leyline source. You can then exchange gifts or chat with them, and after the chat, the demon will usually get a stat boost. Sometimes Nahobino will get some direct boosts, too.
It’s not a Social Link system, but we still appreciated the effort to get you to see demons as more than ultimately expendable assets. At the very least, Demon Haunt provides a nice breather from the pervasive stress of the rest of the adventure, while the gameplay benefits these exchanges provide can help give you that edge to get you through a boss encounter you’re locked into. .
Apart from such additions, the game is otherwise very much the same as the original, which was excellent. You explore the vast, creepy desert doing your silly run in Naruto, Press Turn is still one of the best turn-based battle systems ever created through its strategic and engaging approach to buffs, weaknesses and turn economy , while recruiting and uniting demons remains a compelling and addictive party-building mechanic throughout the experience.
Even if the tougher difficulty may be off-putting to some, there’s rarely a dull moment in either story given the wealth of objectives and gameplay options. Everyone has their own tastes when it comes to JRPGs, but it’s hard to argue that SMT V: V offers anything less than a polished and thoughtful gameplay experience.
As with previous Atlus re-releases, one key thing to remember about SMT V:V is that this is still largely the same game that came out a few years ago. Sure, it’s got a brand new story and a bunch of gameplay and balance tweaks that make it an overall superior experience, but those of you who weren’t blown away by the gameplay and difficulty of the original release won’t find plenty here to change your mind.
On the other hand, if you He did like the original – or even if you just had a few gripes that kept you from really getting into it – this game is made for you. Atlus is pulling the original game from store shelves to replace it with SMT V:V, and it’s understandable why, as this new version almost completely cancels that first release through all of the additions, fixes, and original content.
Something he clearly did NO the improvement for this reissue is the performance, which still isn’t fantastic. Although everything runs at a somewhat steady 30 FPS, asset input resolution and blurry resolution is par for the course here, whether you’re playing on the dock or handheld. SMT V: V is still a visual marvel on the Switch, and it certainly feels like a game that has no business running on such a modest device, but it’s clear that Atlus had to push the Switch as far as it could go to achieve performance on acceptable level. although not impressive state that it is in
This is a little disappointing, as we were hoping that a few more years of Switch development experience would lead to Atlus finding ways to squeeze the best performance out of this. On the other hand, it seems like we’ve reached the point where there just isn’t much more that developers can reasonably do with the limited hardware, especially considering that SMT V:V is built on an off-the-shelf engine with Unreal 4 .
If the lack of visuals or resolution is a big issue for you in your games, we’d suggest skipping the Switch and opting for one of the versions available on other hardware platforms, if you have access to any of them . SMT V: V is a decent experience on Switch in terms of performance, but it hardly feels like the definitive version of this release.
