I feel like this game is the literal textbook definition of going through the motions. It starts off pretty solid, and I appreciate it's simplicity compared to some of the more modern games, but at the same time there really isn't that much going on here strategically.

Some of the earlier chapters are kind of weighed down by the fact that it gives you some really overpowered units really early on, and you can kinda just use them to either steamroll the map, or give everyone else ample exp.

By the time you get to the midgame, while these units are mostly gone, or toned down a bit, as soon as the rest of your units get leveled and promoted, there really isn't any unit that can take any of them down unless you're positioned extremely horribly.

So it just turns into one of those cases where the further you get into the game and the more powerful your units get, it just becomes more and more trivial to play. It really wasn't that fun to get on when the entire gameplay loop is just putting a few of the many overpowered units in enemy range and looking at my phone until enemy phase is over. If I didn't have speedup on an emulator I probably wouldn't have even bothered finishing it. This problem gets even worse at endgame, where instead of being able to breeze the map with a few units, you really only need the protagonist.

Pair this with there not really being anything too interesting about any of the characters, be it their personal skills or reasons to use them outside of their mobility or some of their stats. It goes without saying that the weapon triangle doesn't really matter here that much either so that's another thing you really don't have to think about.

It's also kind of annoying to recruit characters. Whenever you see a unit that stands out among the enemies, you just have to drag each and every one of your own units next to them to see which one can talk to and recruit them.
And aside from just a few I can think of, the map design is also incredibly boring here. Not that I think there are many that are that bad, but most of them are just there. Kind of unremarkable.

If you're looking for a simple power fantasy, you probably will get some enjoyment out of this game, but if you're looking for a strategical experience I would recommend looking anywhere else.

I recently made a youtube video laying out my thoughts on this game (shameless plug) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4-dTYHgHds

And basically, I found that aside from not being the most faithful followup to the devil summoner series, or even to the original Soul Hackers, I still think it's a pretty good megaten game that is for the most part undeserving of it's hate and controversial standing.

I think this game has a really good gameplay loop and battle system, which does a really good job of utilizing modern megami tensei's gimmick of heavily rewarding exploiting weaknesses, while at the same time being unique enough to stand alone as it's own thing. Alongside with a very solid character progression/customization system that while being similar to modern persona games, feels infinitely deeper and more rewarding. It's definitely a more casual experience but that's not something I'm necessarily against as long as it remains engaging in it's own right, which I found this game consistently was.

A lot of the sidequests and some of the later/deeper soul matrix dungeon layouts were pretty annoying, but with the inclusion of the sprint button and faster battling added post launch these issues were nothing more than just a few minor annoyances in an overall pretty fun experience.

This was a game that at first, I really couldn't see myself having that great of a time with. I found the whole resource management part of the game to be extremely tedious, and the demon loyalty system to be very annoying to play around. And I did really feel this way for a little while.

However there came a point where I realized I was having a lot of fun with it. I don't know if it was whether it finally clicked for me and I fell into a groove, or if I finally accepted it for what it was instead of wishing it played exactly like mainline smt. I think realistically a little bit of both. I also certainly have to give a little bit of leniency to the mechanics designed for a game that originally came out in 1997.

With some practice and some time invested I found the systems which I found annoying at first to work extremely well with the overall gameplay loop that this game was going for. I'm not gonna miss the loyalty system in any other megaten game, but ,I will admit it sort of worked here.

This game also has some absolutely fantastic dungeons. I'm a huge dungeon crawler fan and a lot of the later ones in this game stack right up with some of my favorites. Pair this with the resource management that I found tedious at first and it was always a joy mapping out everything.

I also found the narrative to be pretty good, if not a little cheesy because it was written like 25 years ago about the future of technology, but I cared about the characters a lot .

This game is also really short. I rolled credits at a decent bit under 20 hours and frankly, the fact that this game doesn't overstay it's welcome or even come close to it makes it a little easier to appreciate.

All in all this is probably far from my favorite game in the series but if you're able to appreciate it for what it is, it's a pretty good time.