Genuinely surprised by Atlus doing big wide open exploration based environments, but I love it. Each area is full of side quests and miman to find that you're constantly going off the main story path to explore. I do miss the intricate dungeons that Nocturne had but there are still a couple of well crafted dungeons to explore too.

The story and characters are solid, I love Tao a lot but none of their reason paths really resonated with me. I think Nocturne handles that better but there aspects of SMTV's story that hit pretty hard.

I always appreciate how SMT characterises it's demons and SMTV knocks it out of the park with it's dialogue during negotiations.

The biggest flaw with the game though has to be it's performance on Switch. Even as someone who doesn't mind framerate dips or stuff like that, SMTV unfortunately dips often.... and long enough to take you out of cutscenes as you watch them stuttering throughout. It's a shame because the game deserves better but it's clear that the Switch itself is the issue here.

Atlus are the masters of a well crafted JRPG. Aside from a couple of nitpicks, this is a fantastic evolution of the series and an excellent starting point for newcomers