This review contains spoilers
As someone who has played a majority of the SMT games, this game is a treat, but slightly disappointing.
They crafted a really fun overworld dungeon/open map idea that was pretty fulfilling to explore. My goblin brain loves to collect crap all over maps.
It sucks however that the switch just can’t do this game justice. It’s playable, and I’m not a huge graphics and performance person, but this game is dying for a better resolution and console power. luckily it’s getting that atlus re release treatment, and I’ll for sure be playing that on ps4 instead.
My biggest issue is the endgame area. it does feel kind of rushed. Each of the four gods(Zeus, khonsu, Odin, and shiva) should of gotten their own dungeon. The balancing is awful at the end as well. I have the same issue with smt4/4A but you can just become stupid broken at the end, and they just hand out items like it’s just candy. I played this on hard because i’m experienced with this series and it was a good challenge up until after the lahmu fight.
It may just be me knowing how to build my character/demons in these games but after is when you could feel the quality drop. Both nocturne and strange journey stay consistently engaging with it’s dungeons and bosses till the end.
Also, when will rpgs stop putting super bosses at a higher level than the actual main final bosses?? It is criminal that shiva is level 96. If they were good at making engaging boss fights they would just keep shiva in the 80’s anyway. His mechanics are still hard, why does it have to do with level, you get stronger demons at the 90’s so it makes being a high level pointless cause of the better skills higher level demons can get. Why can’t that optional fight still be optional and not as a high level. I don’t understand. it’s also not as simple as “well just don’t do the true neutral ending then if you don’t want to fight shiva”, ummm no, make the fight better. don’t ruin your own god damn ending atlus. They chose it to be like this and it sucks. (Also all the optional bosses to do the true demon ending in nocturne are at a good level before the last boss and lucifer. it’s actually balanced well and makes sense god dammit.)
Not to be all negative, the game is still a blast. Aesthetically its eye catching and has that SMT flare to it. The music is also some of the best in the series, the vibes in these games are un matched by any other.
oh the story is also fine. Not as bad as people say it is in my opinion, it definitely loses steam after lahmu for me, but I feel as if the later story had the dungeons and creativity to back it up it would be much different.
I’m excited for SMTV vengeance, and i’m glad I got to finally experience the regular game now to compare. It’s no nocturne or strange journey, and I may have complained about it a lot, but SMT just has that special addicting sauce that I can’t hate.
They crafted a really fun overworld dungeon/open map idea that was pretty fulfilling to explore. My goblin brain loves to collect crap all over maps.
It sucks however that the switch just can’t do this game justice. It’s playable, and I’m not a huge graphics and performance person, but this game is dying for a better resolution and console power. luckily it’s getting that atlus re release treatment, and I’ll for sure be playing that on ps4 instead.
My biggest issue is the endgame area. it does feel kind of rushed. Each of the four gods(Zeus, khonsu, Odin, and shiva) should of gotten their own dungeon. The balancing is awful at the end as well. I have the same issue with smt4/4A but you can just become stupid broken at the end, and they just hand out items like it’s just candy. I played this on hard because i’m experienced with this series and it was a good challenge up until after the lahmu fight.
It may just be me knowing how to build my character/demons in these games but after is when you could feel the quality drop. Both nocturne and strange journey stay consistently engaging with it’s dungeons and bosses till the end.
Also, when will rpgs stop putting super bosses at a higher level than the actual main final bosses?? It is criminal that shiva is level 96. If they were good at making engaging boss fights they would just keep shiva in the 80’s anyway. His mechanics are still hard, why does it have to do with level, you get stronger demons at the 90’s so it makes being a high level pointless cause of the better skills higher level demons can get. Why can’t that optional fight still be optional and not as a high level. I don’t understand. it’s also not as simple as “well just don’t do the true neutral ending then if you don’t want to fight shiva”, ummm no, make the fight better. don’t ruin your own god damn ending atlus. They chose it to be like this and it sucks. (Also all the optional bosses to do the true demon ending in nocturne are at a good level before the last boss and lucifer. it’s actually balanced well and makes sense god dammit.)
Not to be all negative, the game is still a blast. Aesthetically its eye catching and has that SMT flare to it. The music is also some of the best in the series, the vibes in these games are un matched by any other.
oh the story is also fine. Not as bad as people say it is in my opinion, it definitely loses steam after lahmu for me, but I feel as if the later story had the dungeons and creativity to back it up it would be much different.
I’m excited for SMTV vengeance, and i’m glad I got to finally experience the regular game now to compare. It’s no nocturne or strange journey, and I may have complained about it a lot, but SMT just has that special addicting sauce that I can’t hate.