A lot of gamers leading up to SMT5's release had a lot of questions along the line of "How is this going to top SMT3? SMT4? Apocalypse???"

It doesn't.

I'd explain myself, but you're going to have to wait three more years for this review to be rereleased with more content.

- Gameplay is turn based RPG where you develop your own demons to tackle to either progress or tackle specific bosses.
The gameplay is very complex and deep as is most mainline SMT games.
- The plot might as well not be there it does not matter, the characters too not memorable at all.
- The OST is actually great and is very fitting for what the mood the game is going for.
- The game sadly on the switch has actual performance issues, and while you can still play the game it is sometimes incredibly distracting.

провел в игре ~55 часов
это была моя первая смт и мне понравилось! игра невероятно стильная: дизайн персонажей, локаций, демонов - все на высоте!
музыка также, как и в большинстве мегатен игр, просто великолепна.
мне понравилась синергия непрощающей сложности этой игры с атмосферой и общей мрачностью нарратива.
кстати о нем - история очень даже ничего! после того, что я слышал в интернете, признаться, ожидал куда более худшего (помимо очевидного: выборы почти ни на что не влияют, а концовку дают выбрать, собственно, в конце).
в начале игра показалась эдаким нир автомата с геймплеем персоны, и я был рад когда оба этих первых впечатления были разрушены - игра лучше!
к слову о мире - исследование локаций это лучшая часть игры. это и сайдквесты! я, кажется, прошел все, кроме последнего.
впечатление от последнего данжа несколько подпортил последний сайдквест (кто знает, тот поймет), ради которого я два часа гриндил, сдался (!), а потом легко прошел финальных боссов потому что был слишком силен...

и все же впечатления сугубо положительные, хочу перепройти!

8+/10

J'ai été agréablement surpris par ce jeu. J'avais entendu beaucoup de monde dire qu'il n'était pas bon, mais après l'avoir fini j'ai trouvé qu'il n'était pas si mauvais que ça.

Honnêtement, je comprends et valide certaines opinions de la communauté : l'histoire fait très brouillon voire nanardesque, les personnalités du cast sont plates et pas forcément logiques, on a très peu de contextes parfois et le rythme de la narration est un peu aléatoire, l'exploration des maps peut se montrer assez lassante et répétitive surtout la dernière qui paraît interminable, le jeu n'est clairement pas optimisé pour tourner sur une Switch et rend certaines animations saccadées...

Mais j'ai tout de même plutôt bien aimé ce jeu car il a quand même de grandes qualités notables et j'ai passé des bonnes soirées dessus. Les graphismes (bien que limités par la switch...) sont magnifiques, les décors sont très riches en détails et agréables à explorer. Les musiques sont également très sympas et le gameplay est incroyablement fluide et intuitif, la difficulté est assez bien dosée et variée, puis le système de quête est super.

J'attends avec impatience la sortie de Vengeance pour voir toutes les améliorations et réécritures qu'Atlus va apporter à SMT V.
Si vous avez un peu de temps et que vous hésitez à le faire, n'hésitez pas à le choper d'occasion et de vous faire votre propre expérience. Il n'est pas exceptionnel mais reste sympa à faire !

Shin Megami Tensei V is my favorite SMT game, which is really odd to say because it is so deeply flawed. Exploring Da'at is very fun, and the combat is fantastic. Building your protagonist and demons is at its best here too. On the contrary, the level scaling and the elemental dampeners just take away from SMTs kickass combat. The two dungeons are pretty mediocre as well. Even then, the gameplay loop was just so compelling. The Superbosses here are some of my favorites in recent memory.

The story on the other hand has no swag lmfao. While there's some interesting ideas, it goes about them so half-assed. Aside from Dazai, there is zero time spent to develop any of the characters, and even then he isn't that great. The different routes are also very underwhelming, and the implementation of the True Neutral route is frustrating; especially after the shit Atlus got for the Neutral route in IV. Fortunately though, outside of a few exposition dumps in-between regions of Da'at and the finale, it doesn't really get in the way of the gameplay.

If you want to play this game, just wait for Vengeance. It appears to be fixing a lot of issues with SMTV, and it won't be trapped on outdated hardware.

40 saatlik Save gitti, daha da geri dönmem oynamak için. Ve evet baya üzüllüyorum 40 saat ilerleyip bitiremediğim için. Completion gidiyordum bir de, bütün demon'ları toplamaya çalışıyordum. Buna kasmasam bitmişti belki de.

40 saat oynadığım için elbet az biraz bir şey diyebilirim. Oyunun ilk 15-20 saati falan benim için illet derecede sıkıcı bir oyundu. Dungeon'lar yok ve overworld üzerinde dolanırken bir sürü düşman musallat oluyor sana. Sürekli aynı haritanın aynı kısımlarında dolana dolana grind yaptırmaya iten itici bir dizaynı var oyunun. Adım adım ilerliyorsun oyunun haritalarında cidden. Fazladan birkaç bölge ileri gidersen direkt overlevel düşmanlar ebene atlıyor.

Lakin 20 saat sonra oyunun bana verdiği avantaj nimetlerinden daha dikkatli ve yavaş yavaş faydalanmaya başladığım oyun daha çekilir olmaya başladı. Her ne kadar ilk saatlerde çok sıkılmış olsam da; oyun temelde iyiydi. Sonuçta yıllarca sürdürdüğü sağlam bir savaş sistemini temel alan oyun. Üstüne Unreal Engine 4'ü gayet güzel kullandıklarını düşünüyorum. Her ne kadar oyun kasıyor olsa da Switch'de.

Önceki Shin Megami Tensei oyunlarına göre iç açıcı yenilikler de var. Kağıt üstünde güzeller ama çoğu pratikte dökülüyor. Dökülüyor olsa da bu oyuna bir kalite standardı sağlıyor. Yani her ne kadar illet etsem de; oyun temelde sağlam. Tek sorunu oyunun illet derecesinde sabır isteyen ve sürekli tekrara düşürmesine sebep olan grind dizaynı.

Ki yeni gelen sürüm ile de zaten anlaşılıyor ki, bu oyun ekibin kafada tasarladığı oyunun yarısı falan anca ediyor. Early access gibi oyun, neden bu kadar inanılmaz derecede sıkıcı hatalar yaptıklarını anlayabiliyorum.

20 saat sonra oyunu kavrayıp daha yavaştan oynayınca oyun keyifli oldu desem de; oyunun pacing sorunu yine boy gösteriyordu. Oyun temelde hem sağlam hem de sorunlu. İlginç bir örnek bu konuda. Ama genel olarak oynadığım yere kadar sevdim ama keşke sonunu getirebilseydim. 2-3 sene sonra Vengance sürümü ile tekrar oynarım anca.

Daha kapsamlı bir yazı yazmak isterdim ama oyunu bitirmedim. Ama bence oyunun en büyük artısı ne savaş sistemi ne de yeni görselliği. Müzikler şahane, yani öylesine şahane yazmadım, harbiden bu övgü kelimesini hak edecek kadar şahane müziklere sahip oyun. 2 senedir falan bazı müziklerini hâlâ dinliyorum. En sevdiğim oyun albümleri diye liste yapsam net sokarım bu oyunu listeye.

Shin Megami Tensei V proves, like many other great JRPGs (e.g., Final Fantasy V), that a JRPG is not always defined by its story. The gameplay mechanics, level design, encounter design, world, characters, writing, story, music, visuals, and atmosphere are all pillars that can form the foundation of an RPG, but you don't need all of them for the structure to hold. The written story here is not good, so what? At least it stays out of the way - and frankly, I would rather have that than have a poorly-written story take up a significant portion of runtime. Gameplay can tell its own personal story, and my own experiences of playing through this were memorable and interesting. This game knows what it's good at, it's focused, but I can't deny it feels unfinished.

Field exploration is mostly improved. The areas all have an impressive amount of verticality, and trivial dungeon "puzzles" are replaced with figuring out how to navigate these spaces. Collectibles are useful upgrades to your abilities via Miracles and demon essences, instead of just single-use items or gear. Enemies can easily be avoided on the field.

The entire battling/collection/fusion loop is the best it's ever been in these games. Reverse compendium search, demon essences, more unique skills, the works - it all makes it more fun to experiment with different builds and create tailor-made teams for each encounter. You have to manage buffs/debuffs more now since they don't last forever, and there is a reasonable 2-stack limit. It's good to get players to think about when and where to apply these.

There are couple design desicions I think are a bit misunderstood.

The open-zone level design allows you to easily avoid fighting enemies most of the time. But by avoiding enemies, you miss out on valuable experience points, money, and recruitable demons. So how exactly does this make the game too easy? This is like complaining about the random encounter modifier in Bravely Default. In SMTV, not gaining exp and money puts you at a greater disadvantage, since these things are more valuable than the MP and items consumed during battle. Battles are always a net profit. Allowing you to skip most battles means it's more practical and fun to attempt lower-level runs. If this were a dungeon crawler like previous games, then skipping battles would actually make the game easier because resource management is an issue. However, SMTV is clearly not that kind if game; I think think the open zones complement this change to enemy encounters.

Likewise, level scaling is an important and integral part of the game's balance. If you're a lower level than your opponent, you'll be much weaker. Simple enough. Most RPGs have some form of it. But you can still defeat opponents even 10+ levels above you if you put any effort and thought into your party composition, demon fusions, and actions. I don't know where people are getting the idea that the game is just impossible unless you level up and that stats and moves are meaningless; it's just not true. Analyze your opponents abilities and adjust your party accordingly. Take advantage of the tools at your disposal. To me the aggressive level scaling in SMTV is just another thing that makes the game more fun to play at lower levels. The real issue with the level scaling is that it allows you to become too powerful too quickly when leveling above an opponent.

There are still several issues I have though.

I feel like by now, enemy weaknesses should just be visible from the start. All hiding the weaknesses accomplishes is making you use a spyglass and restart the fight. Magatsuhi is an interesting idea, but it quickly becomes apparently how much more useful Critical is over all the others.

The game as a whole feels unfinished. The level design by itself is good, but the field areas look too similar to each other. There are pockets of visual variety like the fairy village and weird floating cube zone, but they're few and far between. On the three times the game decides to throw a dungeon at you, it's pretty terrible. They're too short and too half-baked to be interesting. I think the game would've been better without these. Major quests are locked behind DLC paywalls. Worse still, a maid dress for Nahobino is not included in any DLC. And obviously, the story is undercooked. The game feels so lacking sometimes that it feels like they planned Vengeance from the start, they probably did.

The core systems of the game are so polished and well-designed that they hold up the experience and make it worthwhile. The presentation ties it all together, with some beautiful (if monotonous) visuals and a stellar soundtrack. I had a really fun time with this one.

I've now beaten the game, and while my opinion has changed it's less of a 180 and more of a 90. This is definitely one of the most solid Atlus games gameplay-wise and one of the most customizable, which is something I adore in an RPG. I also appreciate the music much more now, and the visuals were no longer headache-inducing since they added the brightness slider. Unfortunately, the lows are still low. There's very little area variety; each overworld location is a different colored flavor of "Tokyo but desert," which had long since worn out its welcome even before I went back to play, and while there are dungeons to break up the monotony, there's only two or three in the entire game that are saved for the latter half of the game, for some reason. The story is still garbage too, it's just a big nothing burger that wishes it was Elden Ring — which makes me want to talk about the endings. Unlike Elden Ring, you don't have free will in this game about how you want to reform the world. Instead, you get to pick a side (none of which appealed to me) in a conflict between three different pairs of characters you meet throughout the game. The (already unlikable) character representing the order ending randomly turned into a Very Obviously Evil edgelord psychopath right before the end, like the kind you find at Westboro Baptist Church. I didn't want to side with them for the aforementioned reason. The neutral(?) ending is bland character A and bland character B, who want to create a world where everyone is a god for some reason. I found these characters bland, so I didn't side with them, leaving me with the chaos ending (ironically what I chose in Elden Ring); I felt coerced into this rather than making the decision myself, and I felt like I didn't really do anything to earn it, again, unlike Elden Ring where you very deliberately choose the ending you want depending on which quest lines you pursue. Speaking of characters, I really tried to endear myself to them this time, and I. just. couldn't. You never get to know them well enough for that in the first place, but they don't even show potential, they're just all bland and unlikable. Maybe Vengeance can fix them, but I don't know. I like this game enough now that I might pick that up on sale to try the new content.

I recommend this game now if you like RPGs, just go in for the gameplay and don't expect much from the story and you'll probably have a good time.

A fun turn based RPG from Atlus. This was my first non-persona Atlus game and I was addicted to it. I loved the fusing of demons and the freedom to customize the main character to a play style that worked best in your team. I also loved the how challenging the game was as well. I felt like Persona has always had a issue of making the games a bit easy, but SMT V even in it's normal mode gives you a challenge that feels rewarding and forces you to strategize your next move. Overall a enjoyable experience and recommend for anyone looking for a good turn base to play

One of the most fun combat system i have played in a jrpg. Fusion mechanics are addictive all the way through. The pacing of the game is excellent. Difficulty was just right for me, even though there some extreme level spikes, they give you tools to remedy that. The music is oustanding, maybe the best in the series. The graphics are stunning given that is a nintendo switch game and taking into a account the last game in the franchise. The only reason this isn't a 10 it's that the story while being decently good it isn't anywhere close to its predecesor. The characters are unfortunately very lackluster as well.