Finished the game, took me 98 hours. Hard mode, did every single sidequest available, no DLCs.
Enjoyed my time very much. I'm unable to draw a proper gameplay comparison to Nocturne and SJ considering I last played both a decade ago but the battle system didn't deviate too much from back then. Press turn manipulation never gets old.
- Main character was built as a STR/VIT physical attacker, later focusing in Almighty damage. Murakumo + Crit Zealot + Crit Aura appears to be this game's rendition of SMT3 Freikugel + Focus, with the benefit of never missing. Crit Zealot itself is impressive, noticed it lowered normal damage by around 10% and boosted criticals to 30~40%, which was corroborated by other players findings. Add Almighty pleromas, buffs and debuffs and you're in for fun times and big numbers.
- I didn't warm up much to the affinity system in the end, although it's understandable why it was put in place after the Debilitate/Victory Cry spam in Nocturne. I sorely missed being able to put a bunch of skills into whatever mon I saw fit and be done with it. As it is, there's no way around the system either because MP costs are huge and the game is stingy with MP items, so specialization is mandatory instead of an added bonus. As a consequence, skills that combine two or more effects are more valuable than ever due to MP economy, like those uniques that mix Luster Candy (buff all stats by 1 rank) + healing. No wonder people were saying Idun was broken.
- Exploration was okay, always something to find in every nook and crane. You have to be in a platforming mood to get the most out of it though, which is not always the case. I left a bunch of items and mimans behind in the third area for example, since I was fed up with that map. Tiny corridors + greyscale + repetitive music = no. Out of all maps, the 1st and 4th (the one after the castle) were the best: relatively open and easier to "read". Dungeons, if you can even call them that, were forgettable.
- Difficulty was alright except for serpent lady in the beginning (lacked decent fire mons at the time) and the bizarre spike in the 4th area, got there at level 55 and was smacked around until getting a couple of levels in, then it was back to smooth sailing. Wanted to fight the secret boss but I hate grinding so it was a pass. Maybe I'll go back to an early save, load up those cheat mitama dlc and power level to 99 to face him off.
- Demon negotiation had fun exchanges. It was also a nice touch to have demons talking to each other too, like Loki pissing a Valkyrie off or Mara and Girimekhala's... relationship.
- Opening act was pretty good and had the perfect "dystopic demon overriden world" atmosphere going for it, only for that dumb plot twist to happen. Oh god, why? I would be fine with MC slowly unearthing the truth about Nahobinos, the relevance of the Throne, the old gods and the Creator shenanigans instead of getting discount Devil Survivor. Pacing was terrible too, long stretches of nothingness followed by giant lore dumps.
- I cannot get over the MC design, why he had to look like some fruity magical ice skater? Goddamnit, Doi. At least the demons make fun of his hair.
The short of it is that SMT V has good gameplay (and music) yet everything else is either undercooked or flawed.
but in the end is a
. I'm kinda annoyed at Atlus they dissapointed me twice in the year. First Persona 5 and then this. Still a good game on its own and much better than P5, i guess my expectations were just too high.
