Of Demons and Man

Despite being the mainline series responsible for the popular Persona spin-off games, SMT releases have been few and far between over the years, relegated to titles exclusive to the Nintendo handheld market. However, those who have followed along with the series know that even though SMT shares much of its DNA with the Persona series in terms of combat, its approach to minimalistic storytelling and brutal difficulty makes it stand on its own unique identity.

With the release of SMTV on the switch, this marks the series return to a home console in over 15 years and I was eager to see if the high standard of quality for the series would continue to be met.

While the visual fidelity presented here isn’t exactly top of the line, the art style and animation work does wonders to impress, being one of the best looking games on the Switch.

MSRP: $59.99
Platform: Switch
Voice Over: JPN or ENG
Length: 40~ hours

As a student of an ordinary school living a predictable life, a chance encounter at the wrong place at the wrong time reveals that the world as it appeared was nothing but an illusion and in order to survive, the hero is forced to enter a pact with a demon and become a Aogami, a fusion of man and demon, powerful enough to topple gods.

Given the typical styling of SMT, the story and character interaction in SMT V is decidedly minimalistic when comparing it to the Persona games. There aren’t any social links to rank up and no exams to study for. There is just the world at a precipice of a great change with different factions vying for control to see their ideals realized. It’s up to the player to decide what the world will become and to crush everyone else that gets in their way.

If Persona was about teaming up with your friends to kill shadows, SMT is about teaming up with demons to kill your friends. With that in mind, the overall tone presented here is decidedly darker and even though there is some time spent establishing what side of the conflict the characters end up with, it’s not a strong focus to the overall experience.

Instead, much of the time spent in this post apocalyptic world is focused on exploring the large open environments and becoming stronger to meet the challenges looming ahead.

Running away to fight another day is not only a smart option but the only option at times.

In previous SMT titles, the explorable areas were more like interconnected dungeons but here, there are wide open areas to explore with secrets and threats alike littered throughout the map.

There is a sense of excitement when entering a new area for the first time not knowing all the new powerful demons I’ll be able to recruit and quests/treasures that I can discover along the way. Given that the areas are so large, it’s nice that there are plenty of save points which double as teleport waypoints so zipping around the map was never an issue.

To those familiar with SMT games, the combat here won’t be a surprise with the emphasis on getting extra turns by exploiting enemies weaknesses and landing critical hits being at play here once more but to add to that were powerful Magatsuhi skills that needed to be built up but ended up being impactful enough to change the course of a fight. The standard Magatsuhi skill that made all the attacks made in one turn be crits was one I used quite often and made certain fights that seemed impossible at first be more manageable.

There were many different types of Magatsuhi skills I could unlock and use over the course of the game and upgrading and unlocking new passive skills by earning glory through a variety of methods was just as important as leveling up my characters.

Recruiting and fusing demons as well as customizing my own skills/weaknesses was of utmost importance during the tougher boss fights as walking into a fight unprepared with multiple party members that are weak to the boss’s attacks might as well be suicide. In fact, I made it a habit to treat the encounter with a boss to more of a scouting round and use the information I got from that first attempt to modify my party accordingly and then go back in for the real attempt.

I can’t lie and say that it didn’t feel cheap at times when the enemies ended up with some lucky crits and killed my MC which resulted in a sudden and painful game over but the most of the time, I felt I had good agency and if I ended up getting wiped it was due to my own lack of planning. It’s rare to find such a satisfying challenge that rewards planning and strategy and SMT V fits the bill.

Many of the encounters in the game are brutal but it’s very satisfying to overcome those challenges with clever planning.

While in terms of the quality of the game itself, I have very little to complain about, the technical performance is another matter. Even though SMT V does its best to maintain a 30FPS experience on the Switch, it struggles to keep a steady framerate whether in combat or out and about in the open world.

Since encounters are initiated by running into enemies on the map, not getting the preemptive slash and being ambushed instead due to janky framerates eating my inputs was never pleasant and there was one area particularly that required some precise platforming which was a chore to navigate through as I didn’t know if my jump would come out when I needed it to.

It’s a shame as the animation work on many of the attacks are stellar and it’s a joy to explore the open maps but when things are chugging along, it tends to get in the way of the enjoyment.

I would be remiss if I didn’t note the great OST with many different tracks for its numerous boss fights.

SMT V is a welcome return to home consoles for the series with an intriguing world to explore, filled with challenging encounters that are immensely satisfying to overcome. If not for the technical limitations of the Switch holding it back from being experienced in its best possible form, it could have been a new classic.

Fun Tidbit: There are multiple endings depending on the decision made near the end of the game but there is also a secret ending that expands on the story further for those who take the time to complete all the major side questlines.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.