One of the hardest SMT games out there, let alone JRPGs, but beating it is doable without an “excessive” amount of grinding. I beat it at Lv 84 Mag/Vit build MC, with a Lv 78 Huang Long, Lv 76 Thor, and Lv 83 Trumpteer, all acquired with minimal use of Sources and no Mitama/Elemental boosting. I still put excessive in quotes though, as it did require a LOT of battling with little to no running away as I was traversing the sectors. The final fight was tense and worthy of the game’s last encounter, but that boss has completely fucked attacks and behaviors. Mother’s Kiss being capable of hitting 3-8 times and damn near always hitting 7 or 8 times. MA just outright KILLING your MC with the only defense being a one-time use accessory. Really wish they could’ve achieved this level of difficulty without having to resort to this level of cheapness.

Good plot overall with a nice cast of characters, though I wasn’t crazy about SJ’s rendition of Law and Chaos; both the theologies and the heroes themselves. Jimenez starts off perfectly realistic and likable, which makes his tragic fall carry some weight to it. Though after the transformation, its hard to imagine anyone genuinely siding with his ideology with how unhinged he becomes. Zelenin’s a whole other can of worms, considering how transparent it is that she’s being used by the angels, and just how useless she is throughout the story. Law ends up being even more unappealing than usual as a result. Neutral, as per usual, ends up being the ‘common sense’ ending, and I wish we could get some SMT games that try to play with these ideologies in more interesting ways.

Lastly, the dungeon crawling itself is about as varied and engaging as 1st person dungeon crawlers get. One-way doors, conveyor belts, warps, hidden doors, etc. If you got the patience for it, its surprisingly fun to slowly uncover a map all the way through. Combat-wise, SJ definitely falls short of Nocturne, DeSu, and IV/IV:A. The Demon Co-Op system isn't anywhere near as engaging as Press Turn or Extra Turn, and actually pigeonholes you to a limited amount of demons to fuse for/recruit. Some demons even punish you for favoring a given alignment in battle, which just sucks even more. And thank god this was one of the last SMT games that stuck to that archaic fusion system where you couldn't pick the specific skills you wanted to inherit. Clicking in and out to get the skill combo you want was mind-numbing.

Cool SMT game with engaging dungeon crawling and solid story. Stiff difficulty curve but weak combat. Not my favorite SMT, doubt I'd ever play it again.

O Dungeon Design é horrível, muito complexo e cansativo, em especial Eridanus que me deixou traumatizado. O jogo conta com um sistema de batalha legal e interessante o que era de se esperar de um título Shin Megami Tensei, mas que inevitavelmente fica repetitivo após um tempo, o que é de se esperar. A trilha sonora é onde o jogo brilha, impactando em diversas ocasiões, colocaram o DS no limite pra produzir aquilo, meus parabéns Shoji Meguro, você conseguiu. maioria dos Bosses são monótonos e difíceis, não que seja algo ruim. não consegui me apegar muito a maior parte da narrativa do enredo, exceto na rota final do jogo. Gostei da filosofia trazida pelas partes do Law, Chaos e Neutral, acho que são críticas interessantes a se refletir.

The best mainline entry for me.
I'm a big fan of the sci-fi genre,
And the way that this jrpg was able to make it iconic in my eyes is something i wouldn't of thought possible by a turn based jrpg.
Strange Journey is one of the most iconic
Turn based game's of all time
Once you play it you won't forget about it.

Strange Journey is a great 1st person D-Crawler. One that will make you smash your DS on the floor, one that will make you wonder where you are and how to proceed, one that will frustrate you until the end to give you the satisfaction of beating a dungeon that you're not supposed to beat (or will make you search for a map of the dungeon on Gamefaqs but we don't talk about that). In a way I'd say that SJ is even rougher than the SNES titles besides If..., for the better and for the worse. The combat of the game is pretty ok and makes use the alignment of the demons of your party, you also have to get formas to buy items and equipements. For the most part the bosses are pretty fair, I never had problems with the famous Orobouros, though be prepared for tricky boss fights (especially the final boss).
Anyway, pretty good rough d-crawler overall.
Though I'm not a fan of the soundtrack. I get that it's supposed to be a callback to old sci-fi movies and to be honest I wouldn't imagine SJ with another soundtrack since it has become a part of its identity, but I can't forgive the lack of awareness of the soundtrack. It isn't bad on it's own but it doesn't fit anything most of the time. It's a soundtrack that I appreciate outside of the game.
As for the story I have things to say..This is an SMT game. SMT games are games that go far in questioning established judgements, that puts the player in front of questions without right answers. Games that captures the worse of the human condition to make us realize the best of it, while still doing all of that subtly (for the most part).
What does Strange Journey do? It tells us that humans are greedy and destroy the planet. And I already knew that when I was 7. To me it's a rather stupid and cliché message for a SMT game, if the game told me that water was liquid I would have the same reaction. Not to mention Jack's Squad as big greedy bad guys, angels that brainwash people because law sucks lol, dungeons based on the seven deadly sins like it was something original... Yea I'm not much of a fan. I kinda like Jiminez though. And Gore was great as a neutral rep too even though he didn't show up that much in the game.
The pacing really doesn't help, it's as repetitive as Persona 4 and really gets boring if you're not hooked by the gameplay. Also some scenes and events are taken straight up from SMT 1, but I guess that was intended as callbacks so I won't count it as a bad point, not to mention SMT IV did that worse. It kinda worries me about SMT V, I don't want this game to try to take things from past games and make them worse, I want something new and genuine, something that is different from Atlus games of the past while still being as worthy as them
To conclude I'd say Strange Journey is quite a strange game. Its simple-minded text and subtext really disapointed me but I guess it wasn't for me since a lot of people seem to know how to apreciate it, but it's also a really complete and neat dungeon crawler. If you played any 1st person d-crawler and enjoyed it, I'd recommend this game.