Shin Megami Tensei V is an exceptional game. A true spiritual successor to Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne (already considered by many to be the best title in the Megami Tensei series), this very stylish work by Atlus has proven to have very little to envy to the much more popular Persona, thanks to a very high level map design, to perfectly calculated gameplay and a difficulty level brutal enough to represent an exhilarating challenge even for long-time JRPG fans.
Even with all these qualities, however, Atlus’ latest Megaten did not entirely satisfy historical fans. The narrative of the game, simpler and more rushed than many expected, failed to reach the levels of some of the past chapters of the saga; a waste of enormous potential, if we consider the very rich universe of which the saga is part or the connections with the aforementioned Nocturne.
Among the ranks of Atlus itself, this must not have gone unnoticed, because now the game leaves the prison of exclusivity, but it does not do so with a simple remastered version, but with a complete re-release called Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance. The news? A completely reworked campaign, with new explorable areas, new characters, seriously modified primary events and brand new antagonists.
We, obviously interested, we flew to London to try out a practically complete version of Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance, with some rather advanced saves available. Here’s what we discovered.
The duality of an angel
Much of the Vengeance’s new plot revolves around the actions of the Qaditsu, a group of fallen angels whose intentions are still unknown, but who will have very important roles in transforming the timeline of the new campaign. For the record, this campaign in Vengeance is not activated by making different choices from those of the original adventure: it can be selected immediately at the start of the game and, if chosen, leads the events involving the Nahobino to continue in a very different way compared to the past, although many chapters develop in similar ways and through areas already explored.
One of the major changes, for example, is the almost immediate introduction of a character called Yoko Hiromine, an exorcist aware of the situation in which Tokyo finds itself and was investigating with the protagonist the transformation of some people into salt. To complete the investigation we found ourselves with her in a completely new and very interesting map, which immediately showed how, although this new version of Shin Megami Tensei V has quite a few helps and improvements, the difficulty has not decreased in the slightest.
Of course, the save available to us allowed us to control a Nahobino around level 40 that wasn’t built to perfection (it was a physical build practically devoid of useful passive abilities and with little flexibility), but we still had a good amount of demons available from more than decent level, and the chance to team up with human characters like Yoko and Tao (the latter knowledge known to anyone who has played the basic title). Despite the advantages, wandering around the new area and defeating the bosses present there was the classic “Megaten experience” where the choice of even just the wrong resistance or not very functional moves is more than enough to lead your group to a quick death . With a little experience and a careful study of the enemies, we still managed to advance enough in the story to immediately notice one of the most significant changes: every single main narrative avenue feels edited out and in particular the one linked to order seems to have replaced the – in truth rather flat – character of Abdiel with Mastema, an angel well known to historical fans of the brand and infinitely more interesting. We won’t go into details to avoid spoilers, but the use of Mastema gives us the impression of being a clear signal; Atlus has listened to fan feedback on the original story and seems to want to use multi-faceted characters to give the player more titillating options before Vengeance’s finale. Even the characterization of the other supporting characters seems improved, and we wouldn’t be surprised if some of their past moments had been completely rewritten.
Nahobino’s Pro Skater
Let’s go back to the improvements, because the first and most important is definitely the ability to save anywhere. The change, in reality, is not huge, given that the checkpoints were intelligently scattered in the original version and returning to them to save wasn’t particularly difficult, but certainly being able to save before each battle greatly reduces the frustrations of a game like this, where even a seemingly harmless demon can lead to a game over if you make a mistake or have a lot of bad luck.
The change we appreciated most, however, is the inclusion of fast travel points called “magatsuhi railways“: in practice energy tubes on which the Nahobino can slide to quickly return to some important areas of the map, which in some cases also seem to act as alternative passages to reach normally inaccessible places. Considering that the quality of the map design of the new area explored seemed to us to be of a comparable level to the already notable one of the original game, this addition offers even more options to the Atlus developers to indulge in the creation of places with atypical morphology or, even better, the (already confirmed) new dungeons . That’s not enough, if the close-up camera confuses your ideas, it’s now also available a useful view from abovenot very functional during vertical exploration, but fantastic for quickly orienting yourself on simpler maps.
Any other news? Quite a few, to be honest. Vengeance matters more than forty new demons, many of which come with unique abilities that make them potentially usable for a long time. Furthermore, the new form of the Nahobino revealed in the trailers could be linked to the possibility of exceeding the level limit set to 99 of the original title, and therefore to discover a much more difficult endgame than the already very bad one faced in the past. Even more importance seems to have been given to the collection of demons, given that in a special den, certain conversations with them now offer not only useful objects, but also enhancements to the Nahobino’s statistics. Finally, in Vengeance all old DLC sold separately by Atlus are already included (with the exception of that of the Mitama), no small feat considering the power of demons like Cleopatra and Artemis. However, if you are hoping that this will put an end to Atlus’ classic strategies on extra content, you are in for a disappointment… other DLCs similar to the launch with new demons have already been confirmed; the Japanese company makes great JRPGs, but unfortunately it really doesn’t want to lose the vice of content sold separately.
Overall, however, the direct test with Megami Tensei V Vengeance convinced us, as expected. Atlus’ title has never been so beautiful to look at, the changes made don’t seem to have simplified it, and the work done on the narrative could elevate it even more in the eyes of those who had already appreciated the original. We wait confidently.
With Shin Megami Tensei 5: Vengeance Atlus could have limited itself to doing the classic homework, but this re-edition seems really full of new gems and the additional campaign, from what we tried, gives the impression of being an almost total rewriting of the original story. Whether it will actually be better than what we have already experienced remains to be seen, but for now the inclusion of new characters like Yoko Hiromine and the return of well-known faces like Mastema are spot on and give us hope. With a solid base like that of Shin Megami Tensei V, however, Vengeance could reach truly unpredictable peaks with all these new features; all that remains is to wait and hope that the expectations of historical fans are respected.
