This is indeed one of the best 3DS JRPGs in the market.
The battle system is pretty incredible, it's strategic and has the perfect challenge... well in boss fights anyways. Yes, the random battles are a joke due to the auto-pinpoint app. Press L and you simply win the battle. Now I wouldn't have opted to use it but the amount of random encounters is a lot. So using the auto-pinpoint also removed the tedium the game would have had without it, and besides, random battles are a joke without auto battle anyways.
Surprisingly, the exploration is great, level design is actually fun to traverse through the general areas of Tokyo and the varied dungeons. I personally preferred the level design to something like SMT 5 which felt too open and had repetitive locales and terribly designed dungeons. The graphics are fantastic for a 3DS game, the low resolution is masked by the dark, gritty atmosphere the game holds, it's really well executed. Oh and the music is incredible.
Finally, the story and world building was fantastic, it's not peak Atlus story telling, however it does have the best worldbuilding out of any Atlus game. All the crazy factions, locations, lore and history this world held was a delight to uncover overtime. Visiting parallel worlds and shaping the very destiny of the world made me feel like my actions mattered in this detailed tapestry Atlus has created.
Even the characters are great, Johnathon and Walter were pretty good representatives of their alignment, I feel like Walter isn't as nuanced as Johnathon but he's still cool. I like how your dialogue choices forces you into an alignment, it's like everything you say matters. Oh and Issabeu was just funny for that manga line lmfao.
So really, this game is great, but it's biggest weakness is the random battles, if those were actually challenging and less plentiful I'd have this game at a strong 9. But even despite that, the gameplay is still superb, would highly recommend this to any JRPG enthusiast
The battle system is pretty incredible, it's strategic and has the perfect challenge... well in boss fights anyways. Yes, the random battles are a joke due to the auto-pinpoint app. Press L and you simply win the battle. Now I wouldn't have opted to use it but the amount of random encounters is a lot. So using the auto-pinpoint also removed the tedium the game would have had without it, and besides, random battles are a joke without auto battle anyways.
Surprisingly, the exploration is great, level design is actually fun to traverse through the general areas of Tokyo and the varied dungeons. I personally preferred the level design to something like SMT 5 which felt too open and had repetitive locales and terribly designed dungeons. The graphics are fantastic for a 3DS game, the low resolution is masked by the dark, gritty atmosphere the game holds, it's really well executed. Oh and the music is incredible.
Finally, the story and world building was fantastic, it's not peak Atlus story telling, however it does have the best worldbuilding out of any Atlus game. All the crazy factions, locations, lore and history this world held was a delight to uncover overtime. Visiting parallel worlds and shaping the very destiny of the world made me feel like my actions mattered in this detailed tapestry Atlus has created.
Even the characters are great, Johnathon and Walter were pretty good representatives of their alignment, I feel like Walter isn't as nuanced as Johnathon but he's still cool. I like how your dialogue choices forces you into an alignment, it's like everything you say matters. Oh and Issabeu was just funny for that manga line lmfao.
So really, this game is great, but it's biggest weakness is the random battles, if those were actually challenging and less plentiful I'd have this game at a strong 9. But even despite that, the gameplay is still superb, would highly recommend this to any JRPG enthusiast