With how many times this references SMT2 I just wish they'd remake that game instead. Every bad thing you've heard about this game is true, but it's not all terrible.

The story was a major step back from SMTIV in my opinion mostly because of the juveline cast, their uninteresting spats, and the tired power of friendship trope.

Combat wise, this is a peak in the series (matched only by SMTV) in terms of balancing and strategizing. However I don't understand why they made autobattle slower than in SMTIV? This is extremely important because you'll get a lot of trash mobs you need to burn through, even though they're not nearly as annoying as in the previous game.

Walking around in this game is a joy: you don't have much guesswork to do, the world map is very easy to read, and you're not constantly getting swarmed with random encounters. In fact, I think the best feature of the game is the amount of quality of life changes they introduced such as the quest markers and the removal of the need to activate a demon hunting challenge quest before taking it on.

All in all, I would say this game is the Final Fantasy X-2 of the SMT series, but I actually like that game and I can't say the same about this one.

I definitely will not revisit this and to me the story ended with SMTIV.