To get the bad out of the way first, I think it’s a tad long in the tooth and I’m not a big fan of the way they changed skill inheritance in this one. Combat is expectedly great for an SMT game, but I prefer Persona’s ‘one more’ and SMT’s ‘press turn’ systems over Strange Journey’s alternative. I would’ve liked a little more focus on story, and the main characters are too transparently just manifestations of the different moralities.

The best things about the game are its dungeon crawling and its atmosphere. I expected the dungeon crawling to become tedious before long, but they throw new ideas at you frequently enough that I never felt it became tiresome.

They do a great job at making the world feel really hostile and alien. Everything is out to kill you, even the world itself. It’s a crude caricature of earth. It’s super cool. And Shoji Meguro’s orchestral OST is the perfect accompaniment. The first area theme is the most evil sounding shit ever.

Other than that, it excels at basically everything you expect an SMT game to excel at. Play this, it’s really good.