It’s now been almost three years since the launch of the original Shin Megami Tensei V and as is Atlus tradition, the obligatory enhanced re-release (complete with a new storyline surrounding a new girl) has now arrived. all modern platforms in the form of Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance. With a full, alternate storyline and a host of gameplay and balance adjustments, SMTV: V is easily the definitive version of an already excellent entry in the long-running series. If you’re at all a fan of SMT, Persona, or JRPGs in general, you owe it to yourself to pick this up ASAP.
For this review, we’ll focus more on the additions and tweaks being made to the core SMT V experience with this release. If you want to get a more detailed evaluation of the underlying gameplay mechanics and such, we recommend you read through our review of the 2021 version, which largely applies here as well.
Now let’s go over it in detail What this edition is. Atlus typically releases an enhanced version of its most popular games a few years after their initial release, usually with some new story content and balance adjustments that respond to complaints about the original version. Previous releases such as Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux, Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology, Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker or Persona 5 Royal usually tacked this extra story content on to the end or sprinkled it along the old storyline. What makes SMT V:V a little more special is that, instead of simply offering an ‘addendum’ to the original plot, this version offers a full storyline for you to choose from. instead of of the original.
SMT V:V starts off in much the same way as the original release, but just minutes into the plot things diverge into new and interesting territory. In a bizarre dream sequence, you are shown the spectral form of a young woman as a disembodied voice tells you she is “not allowed to exist” and offers you a choice. If you leave her there, the fate of the world will continue as it was intended, but if you choose to take her hand, she will become a reality and the world will be set on an unplanned and unknown path. Ultimately, you choose here whether you want to follow the plot of the original release of SMT V (here called “Canon of Creation”) or the new story of “Canon of Vengeance”.
Should you choose to save the girl, she is soon introduced as Yoko Hiromine, a primitive and mysterious Devil Summoner who agrees to accompany the Nahobino on his quest to determine the future of the world amid the Timeless War between law and chaos. Yoko is a skilled warrior with a quiet darkness, and her strength is a welcome asset when faced with a charismatic new band of opponents who call themselves the Qadistu. The Qadistu provide another interesting perspective on the nature of truth in the strange world of Da’at, and they become increasingly central to the story as events gradually diverge from the original plot in increasingly important ways.
We were fans of SMT V’s divisive original plot, but it’s hard to argue that Atlus’ second attempt at breaking a narrative here isn’t an improvement. In many ways it feels like this was the developers’ story popular To tell you the first time, Yoko was intended to be part of the original release before being cut mid-development, and her addition to the core cast here feels organic and like it’s filling a gap that wasn’t previously apparent used to be. Perhaps most importantly, it feels like this new storyline focuses a little more on the interactions between the various human characters, making this story easier to connect than the somewhat bare-bones plot of the first release.
While we’d encourage any players who pick this up to start with the Canon of Vengeance storyline, we still recommend playing the Canon of Creation at some point as well. It may feel inferior, but if you experience both, you will gain much more appreciation. for what they bring to the table. And if you take into account the 80 hour runtime for both paths and multiple endings, that’s a lot of SMT V content to burn through if you’re hooked on the cool and engaging gameplay here. Suffice it to say, it will be a long time before you finally run out of things to do.
In addition to the story, several gameplay and quality of life improvements have also been made to further streamline the experience and make it more fun. For example, you can now save anywhere at the touch of a button, instead of having to wait to find the next Leyline source. This helps to reduce some run-backs for difficult encounters, and makes it much easier to avoid losing a ton of progress if you happen to get jumped by an enemy who lands a critical hit that kills you in one shot.
Da’at is still as fun to explore and explore as it ever was, and to aid in traversing there are now gravel rails strategically placed throughout the wasteland to speed up travel. Some of these are immediately obvious and some need to be discovered before they appear on your map, and we enjoyed how they expand on the existing map by giving access to new areas and generally making it quicker to return too. Often you’ll unlock a new rail after completing ‘the long way’ around a series of obstacles, making it easier to travel to and from the top.
The Demon Haunt is another great addition, giving you the fun opportunity to spend time talking to and building relationships with your various recruits. After a demon has traveled with your party for a while, they will ask to speak with you, and you can then choose to acknowledge their request at a relaxing meeting spot accessible from any Leyline Fount. You can then exchange gifts or talk to them, and after the conversation the demon usually gets a stat boost. Sometimes even the Nahobino also gets some instant boosts. It’s not a Social Link system, but we still appreciated the effort to push you to see demons as more than ultimately expendable assets. At the very least, the Demon Haunt offers a nice respite from the ubiquitous stress of the rest of the adventure, while the gameplay benefits these exchanges provide can give you just that edge to overcome a boss encounter you’re stuck on.
Other than such additions, the gameplay is otherwise pretty much the same as the original, which was excellent. You explore the vast, eerie wasteland by doing your crazy Naruto run. Press Turn remains one of the best turn-based combat systems ever created due to its strategic and engaging approach to buffs, weaknesses and turn economics as you recruit and fuse demons. remains an immersive and addictive party-building mechanic throughout the experience. While the harder difficulty may be off-putting to some, there’s rarely a dull moment in either story, given the wealth of objectives and gameplay options. Everyone has their own taste when it comes to JRPGs, but it’s hard to argue that SMT V:V offers anything less than a polished and thoughtful gameplay experience.
As with previous Atlus re-releases, the most important thing to remember about SMT V:V is that this is still largely the same game that came out a few years ago. Sure, it’s been given a brand new storyline and a slew of gameplay and balance tweaks that make it a superior experience overall, but those of you who weren’t thrilled with the gameplay loop and difficulty of the original release will here don’t find much. to change your mind. On the other hand, if you did Just like the original release (or even if you just had a few criticisms that kept you from actually getting into it), this game was made for you. Atlus is pulling the original game from store shelves to replace it with SMT V:V, and it’s understandable why, as this new version almost completely wipes out that first release with all the additions, tweaks, and original content.
Something that happened in particular not An area for improvement for this re-release is the performance, which is still not fantastic. While everything runs at a somewhat consistent 30 FPS, asset pop-in and fuzzy resolution are par for the course here, whether you’re playing docked or handheld. SMT V:V is still a visual marvel on the Switch and certainly feels like a game that wouldn’t run on such modest hardware, but it’s clear that Atlus had to push the Switch as far as possible to get performance to acceptable levels however not impressive It says it’s inside.
This is a bit disappointing, as we were hoping that a few more years of Switch development experience would lead to Atlus finding ways to get better performance out of this. On the other hand, it feels like we’ve reached the point where developers simply can’t do much with the limited hardware, especially considering that SMT V:V is built on an out-of-the-box engine with Unreal 4. If it lack of visuals or resolution is a big problem for you in your games, we recommend that you skip the Switch and choose one of the versions available on other hardware platforms, if you have access to one of them. SMT V:V is an okay experience on Switch in terms of performance, but it hardly feels like the definitive version of this release.