Back in 2017, ATLUS would reveal a teaser trailer for their upcoming project: A brand spankin' new mainline entry in the Shin Megami Tensei series, in high definition, exclusive to the (as of then) recently released Nintendo Switch console. While in retrospect quite foolish on my part, this announcement served as the impetus for me to buy my own Switch console, because there was no way in hell I was going to be missing out on the latest entry in my favorite JRPG franchise of all time. So with my Switch secured, all I had to do was wait for the game to come out. So I waited. And Waited. And Waited some more. Finally, 4 years later, after ages of "Never Ever" jokes amongst friends and colleagues, my most anticipated game of the year was actually primed and ready to play inside my glorified paperweight of a console, and it was finally time to see if ATLUS could deliver on a near half-decade's worth of hype.

Shin Megami Tensei V could best be described as the next generation's take on ATLUS' magnum-opus, Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. An average Japanese teenage boy is lifted from his average life and thrown into a world of demons and ideological warfare, fuses with a demonic creature to become a powerful half-human half-demon warrior, and must pick a cause to fight for in order to bring about a new world from the hotbed of chaos. But rather than feeling like a retread of old ground, SMT V serves as a culmination of the series' many mechanics, combining them into a Greatest Hits amalgamation of gameplay to create the best feeling JRPG I have played in years. Essence Fusion is the next step in the Demon Source mechanic from Strange Journey, constantly forcing decisions between defensive options like Affinity Fusion or offensive options like new skills for Nahobino and his demons, as well as offering new build depths via Passive Skills that can now be used by the main character. Character progression and party composition that makes the player design teams around both the highly limited skill slots you'll be working with throughout the game, while also developing unique demon builds catering to their innate strengths and weaknesses, building off the Demon Affinities and Apps from IV to offer a whole new depth of strategy to both battles and character builds. The new open world navigation bringing together the verticality of IV's dungeons and exploration with brand-new incentives to explore via the Korok-esque Mimans who provide invaluable character building resources, and the new Abscesses, which incentivize exploration, the way they unveil more of the world map and offer new character skills when eliminated. The absolutely sublime soundtrack by Ryota Kozuka taking the game in a more ambient, atmospheric direction with the overworld music while kicking it into high-gear with the many, many battle themes. It all comes together with a level of experience and polish, gained by decades of experimentation and refinement, that truly makes SMT V the best playing, most balanced entry in the entire franchise thus far.

While I could ramble about the sublime gameplay and the quality of life changes, there are aspects of SMT V that miss the mark. While the brand new open-world approach is a breath of fresh air and opens up a lot of new avenues for level design and exploration, this comes at the cost of the dungeons, of which there are only two in the whole game, both of which are fairly disappointing in terms of design and difficulty. The new open-world segments are fairly meaty and will make up most of your playtime, but the general aesthetic of "ruined city" starts to wear thin when its all you really have to chew on for ~30 hours. Alongside this, the story feels somehow both bloated and anemic, with sections in-between the open-world exploration that feel like monotonous padding full of exposition, but paradoxically having a finale that rushes towards a conclusion that feels unearned and slapdash, and the new approach to alignments killing any real incentive to make choices. It's a step up from Apocalypse's writing to be sure, but it's sad that it fumbles the ball, especially when the themes and allusions apparent in the world design, lore and plot beats are all so strong.

SMT V had the (somewhat unreasonable) goal of justifying a $299 console for me, and yet despite that high mark, it managed to pass with flying colors. Even with my criticisms, this is my game of the year: I could not put this game down for the life of me. SMT V is a shining gem of both the Megami Tensei franchise and JRPGs as a whole. I loved this game, and it was honestly worth the 4 year wait I endured for it. I don't know how ATLUS will top SMT V, or if they even will (on a gameplay level at least), but SMT V has skyrocketed to being both one of my favorite MegaTen entries and one of my favorite JRPGs of all time. God damn this game fucking rules!