Quick Review
It's been a while since a game has left me with a lot of mixed feelings. Some good, but some glaring bad stuff too.
Despite how it might seem, the game doesn't strike the 50% story and 50% dungeon crawling balance that I'd liked. It's actually closer to 30% story and 70% dungeon crawling.
The story started off interesting, but fails to make notable and interesting progress and development afterwards until near the end of the game. The events in between add very little to the main picture. The story overall wasn't anything special.
The core 4 characters plus Figue are solid. They have good chemistry and it's nice having a cast of older adults as well. They don't have a lot of character growth, but their backgrounds do get explored quite well.
There is however, a lack of notable story NPCs. Probably just about a handful that are involved in the story and that's pretty much it.
The cyberpunk setting is great, but the game rarely ever makes use of it. I would've believed if somebody told me the game took place in present day Japan or something especially with the dungeon locations.
Speaking of dungeons, they are poorly designed in the sense that they are very boring to go through. They are very lifeless and a few of the dungeons are essentially reused, but with essentially a different layout.
Music is okay for the most part. The only standouts for me are the various boss themes and some of the town themes. The Comp Smith theme is my favorite song in the game. Dungeon music on the other hand is just a bland atmospheric track that is reused for all of the dungeons except for maybe the final one.
Graphics looks nice especially the character models. I do think those looks better than any SMT or Persona game. The animation in some of the cutscenes look great as well.
Gameplay is solid, but is lacking compared to SMT and Persona. The Sabbath system is neat by itself, but not as interesting or dynamic as SMT's Press Turn system and Persona's One More system. Demon fusion is still fun, but feels very restrictive compared to the other games. It's harder to inherit certain skills now and maxed skill slots is only 6 compared to 8. You even start off with just 4 and have to unlock the other 2.
Regular encounters are straightforward, but boss fights have decent challenges requiring you to adjust your strategies.
Overall, there's some potential here, but a combination of a lack of budget and strange game design choices really sours my opinion on the game. There's still fun to be had, but it doesn't have anything particularly special compared to the other games in the series. Other than the unique and voiced MC of course.
It's been a while since a game has left me with a lot of mixed feelings. Some good, but some glaring bad stuff too.
Despite how it might seem, the game doesn't strike the 50% story and 50% dungeon crawling balance that I'd liked. It's actually closer to 30% story and 70% dungeon crawling.
The story started off interesting, but fails to make notable and interesting progress and development afterwards until near the end of the game. The events in between add very little to the main picture. The story overall wasn't anything special.
The core 4 characters plus Figue are solid. They have good chemistry and it's nice having a cast of older adults as well. They don't have a lot of character growth, but their backgrounds do get explored quite well.
There is however, a lack of notable story NPCs. Probably just about a handful that are involved in the story and that's pretty much it.
The cyberpunk setting is great, but the game rarely ever makes use of it. I would've believed if somebody told me the game took place in present day Japan or something especially with the dungeon locations.
Speaking of dungeons, they are poorly designed in the sense that they are very boring to go through. They are very lifeless and a few of the dungeons are essentially reused, but with essentially a different layout.
Music is okay for the most part. The only standouts for me are the various boss themes and some of the town themes. The Comp Smith theme is my favorite song in the game. Dungeon music on the other hand is just a bland atmospheric track that is reused for all of the dungeons except for maybe the final one.
Graphics looks nice especially the character models. I do think those looks better than any SMT or Persona game. The animation in some of the cutscenes look great as well.
Gameplay is solid, but is lacking compared to SMT and Persona. The Sabbath system is neat by itself, but not as interesting or dynamic as SMT's Press Turn system and Persona's One More system. Demon fusion is still fun, but feels very restrictive compared to the other games. It's harder to inherit certain skills now and maxed skill slots is only 6 compared to 8. You even start off with just 4 and have to unlock the other 2.
Regular encounters are straightforward, but boss fights have decent challenges requiring you to adjust your strategies.
Overall, there's some potential here, but a combination of a lack of budget and strange game design choices really sours my opinion on the game. There's still fun to be had, but it doesn't have anything particularly special compared to the other games in the series. Other than the unique and voiced MC of course.