Apocalypse is somewhat of an expansion of Shin Megami Tensei IV to put it lightly. But reality is it's own beast with a new story, set of characters, etc. It still uses most of the assets of IV as it was planned to be the refined final revision of the title but ended up being bigger than previously intended. It takes place around the Neutral Ending on SMT IV, almost by the end so I recommend you playing that one before going deep into Apocalypse in case you care about the world building.
It does a lot good, and a lot bad as well. Let me clear out the bad first. The story it's-- alright. Main problem comes from the party cast itself. Ever played a Persona title? The modern ones at least? It's almost the same feeling, whereas most SMT games for the most part never center their stories around characters as any Persona game does. So the story pacing takes a hit, stopping at certain moments to center and develop these characters. That would be all fine and dandy, but the story itself doesn't have enough time to develop them like a Persona game would, which gives us an oportunity to see who they really are. Here instead, a glimpse of it is shown but it isn't enough time to make us really want to care about them. Outside of maybe Navarre.
However, this alone doesn't throw the whole game down. If you end up liking the party cast, you'll have a blast since as most JRPGs tend to flesh out as much of the party members as possible. If you don't like them, well. Look, they're not intolerable or anything but don't expect to see big deep character growth in it. Just stick to the already stablished archetypes and run with it, in case you didn't end up liking them. Personally they were just whatever.
For that very reason I choose to side with Dadga, he's interesting and mysterious. Even after all the tries this game had to convince me that the Bonds Route is the way to go. Denied that in hopes to witness a more interesting take on the Neutral Routes and what Dadga really meant by his plan of going beyond everything: Demons, Angels, Deities and even the creator himself [!$#&]. The game gets really good around the endgame, after about 45 hours or so. Won't get in depth into the combat system just in this review or I'll be here forever and because there are already fantastic videos explaining how it works, better than I ever could here.
As for the positives, the story and battles were really good. Boss battles in particular were much better than in base SMT IV if you ask me. The story itself goes way beyond SMT IV. Remember that I said Apocalypse was supossed to be the "Maniax" version of SMT IV? It is similar from going base SMT: Nocturne to SMT: Nocturne Maniax Edition. I can't get into the meaty parts of the story since there are major spoilers of both SMT IV and Apocalypse itself.
I'm not here to sell you on Apocalypse by any means. However, I think it's a very enjoyable title, but it can't be compared to the more centered experience of SMT IV. It's more of a power fantasy trip in the world of SMT IV rather than a title of it's own, like something totally separated from it that you really don't need to take seriously for the most part.
It does a lot good, and a lot bad as well. Let me clear out the bad first. The story it's-- alright. Main problem comes from the party cast itself. Ever played a Persona title? The modern ones at least? It's almost the same feeling, whereas most SMT games for the most part never center their stories around characters as any Persona game does. So the story pacing takes a hit, stopping at certain moments to center and develop these characters. That would be all fine and dandy, but the story itself doesn't have enough time to develop them like a Persona game would, which gives us an oportunity to see who they really are. Here instead, a glimpse of it is shown but it isn't enough time to make us really want to care about them. Outside of maybe Navarre.
However, this alone doesn't throw the whole game down. If you end up liking the party cast, you'll have a blast since as most JRPGs tend to flesh out as much of the party members as possible. If you don't like them, well. Look, they're not intolerable or anything but don't expect to see big deep character growth in it. Just stick to the already stablished archetypes and run with it, in case you didn't end up liking them. Personally they were just whatever.
For that very reason I choose to side with Dadga, he's interesting and mysterious. Even after all the tries this game had to convince me that the Bonds Route is the way to go. Denied that in hopes to witness a more interesting take on the Neutral Routes and what Dadga really meant by his plan of going beyond everything: Demons, Angels, Deities and even the creator himself [!$#&]. The game gets really good around the endgame, after about 45 hours or so. Won't get in depth into the combat system just in this review or I'll be here forever and because there are already fantastic videos explaining how it works, better than I ever could here.
As for the positives, the story and battles were really good. Boss battles in particular were much better than in base SMT IV if you ask me. The story itself goes way beyond SMT IV. Remember that I said Apocalypse was supossed to be the "Maniax" version of SMT IV? It is similar from going base SMT: Nocturne to SMT: Nocturne Maniax Edition. I can't get into the meaty parts of the story since there are major spoilers of both SMT IV and Apocalypse itself.
I'm not here to sell you on Apocalypse by any means. However, I think it's a very enjoyable title, but it can't be compared to the more centered experience of SMT IV. It's more of a power fantasy trip in the world of SMT IV rather than a title of it's own, like something totally separated from it that you really don't need to take seriously for the most part.