“Become a mighty demigod and battle through a decimated Tokyo in a war between angels and demons. Make new allies along your journey, engage in intense, turn-based combat, recruit hundreds of demons and forge your own path to dictate the fate of all existence.” – Steam Synopsis
I haven’t been shy about my love for this series and the style of turn-based combat that it created. I loved my time with Persona 5, which was over like 300 hours. I have about a dozen in SMT IV, I have almost a hundred in Metaphor. And of course last year’s Digimon game wasn’t made by Atlus, but it was heavily inspired and done in this style of game. With all of that being said, I have loved every single one of these games, and not to mention I started (but haven’t finished) Persona 4 as well. So as far as my personal experience goes, Atlus has yet to miss. Unfortunately, not every series is perfect, and SMTV is a real downgrade from the rest of Atlus’ work, but! SMTV Vengeance is a fair amount better.
It’s very clear that the base game had a troubled development cycle. Just going through my first playthrough, it felt hollow. The story was so sparse and almost piecemealed together. Like there were ideas, but not enough went into those ideas. It made the game actually hard to get through. I felt like I was playing a beta. This feeling only gets validated once I played through Vengeance. Now there are some story beats that I wish got transferred over like the rest, but without a doubt, Vengeance actually feels like a complete game with a story it wants to tell. With interesting villains and motives. And gameplay features added that were missing.
The story for both versions starts off the same and hits very similar beats throughout. You’re a student in Tokyo who stumbles upon a demon attacking a classmate. Following that, you’re transported to a post-apocalyptic Tokyo and get thrust into this war for the future of mankind and demonkind as a nahobino, the fusion between man and demon. You ultimately decide the fate of everyone. Now for the base game CoC (Canon of Creation), that’s pretty much it. The story is very sparse, so are character moments. But really, the gist of what I just said is all you get, and there are interesting moments that come from that. Some cool character moments and philosophical ideas. But overall it’s severely lacking in the story department, with only moments. Now the CoV (Canon of Vengeance) introduces new villains with new motives, new characters, more character moments, and is overall a way more complete and engaging story than the base game. Actually having tangible villains who are constantly doing things to go after adds so much. So does having actual constant push and pull to character ideas. In the base game, it feels like characters often bombarded you with their beliefs and you could reflect but not really push back, Yoko will push back. And you can agree or disagree with her, but having her there just feels like she should’ve always been there. CoV is the story of this game.
The MC is really just a blank slate. There’s nothing of note about their character outside of the choices you make for them. Which kind of sucks. Will (the Metaphor MC) has an actual backstory, and while you do make choices for him, they all feel in character for him. Same thing for Joker. The MC of this game is really just here. Someone to play as. As such, I just don’t have much to say about him. His Nahobino form is really cool design-wise, I guess.
The other characters are hit or miss. Everyone isn’t bad per se in CoC, but everyone is just better in CoV. Characters like Yuzuru, who is a very justice and moral-driven person, Ichiro, who is a lost soul, and Yoko and Tao both have this aura of there’s something that they are destined to do. If you’ve played an SMT game before, then it’s fairly easy to see which alignments they fall into, but they’re interesting nonetheless. Same with the various opposing forces you come across in both versions of the game. Particularly Nuwa and Yakumo. This demon and human pair. She who stays by his side no matter what, even tho he despises demons to his core. And he who relies on her power and clearly has some affection for her. They are interesting in both versions, but as the trend goes, way more in CoV than in CoC. I loved every scene that involved them; same with the main antagonist group in CoV, the Qadistu. The lovely ladies on the cover of the game who look as cool as they are in-game. This game just has a lot of interesting ideas and setups for characters that are fine in CoC but are pretty much across the board elevated in CoV.
I’m on record multiple times expressing my love for the press turn system that Atlus created. It is my favorite type of turn-based combat. Here it’s no different. The combat is amazing; fusing demons and affinities is just as fun as it always is. Traversal in the overworld is smooth and fun, despite some area design annoyances. The animations are great. All in all, gameplay is as great as you’d expect from an Atlus game and the shining point. Visually, though, this game looks a generation behind. There are moments in the game where the scenery is amazing; the third area in CoV really comes to mind. But overall I think the visuals were lacking. Same with the soundtrack. In CoC, the music basically faded out in my mind, but there were moments in CoV with new tracks that were amazing.
So yeah, SMTV: Vengeance was a massive letdown to me overall. It shines in the areas that Atlus always does; the gameplay is amazing, and anything around that is expectedly great. On the flip side, the base game story feels seriously unfinished, especially compared to the CoV. It’s glaring, and I struggled to get through my first playthrough. I had moments of fun; I’m still going to plat this game just cause, but it really disappointed.
Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeace – 6/10
Notes – I tried my hardest to not lower the score due to my nonsensical drive to get all the trophies in these types of games. It seriously took weeks because I hated it and it drained me so much. I like the game less, but I did it Atlus. I did it. I put 100+ hours into a game I don’t like that much…
