Originally released in 2021 for the Nintendo Switch as Shin Megami Tensei V, Almost 3 years later, an improved version arrives for the rest of the systems, with the subtitle Vengeance. A pretty big expansion for a relatively recent game.
SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI V: VENGEANCE It is available for Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch and PC
HELL ON EARTH
Everyone who has ever played any SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI Or any PERSON they will feel right away like at home both with the story and with the game mechanics of this title.
As happens in many titles of these sagas, we are going to play the role of an unnamed high school student (who, of course, will be called like me, as in all the titles in which I am allowed to edit the name of the character major). Due to plot circumstances, this student and two classmates, Yuzuru Atsuta and Ichiro Dazai, go to take refuge under a bridge during an earthquake. The bridge is going to end up collapsing, and the boys are going to be suddenly transported to Da'at. This place is a kind of post-apocalyptic version of Tokyo, where a bloody war is being waged between angels and demons, in a plane hidden from the human eye.
Separated for different reasons, our protagonist is attacked by a group of demons, and just when he was about to die, he is rescued by Aogami, a very powerful being who fights for the side of angels, and the last survivor of a huge squad. After rescuing him, Aogami tells the boy that he has just realized that he is the one chosen to merge with his powers, and thus create the Nahobino, an entity that is above everything, and become a kind of deity. .
Both will merge to end up forming this being, and will also be recruited by Bethel, an agency that has been fighting demons from the shadows since time immemorial. But who is right in this eternal confrontation? The final decision will be in our hands.
I HAVE TO CATCH THEM ALL!
Although the general structure of the game is that of a relatively classic turn-based JRPG (as I already said in my recent Review of PERSONA 3 RELOAD), The most important and interesting detail of the game is the fact that how our group is configured depends entirely on us. What does this mean? That the only fixed character of our party is Nahobito himself, the rest of companions They will be purely and exclusively of our taste and choice, and they will be all those demons that we manage to convince to join us in our crusade.
The way to convince each type of demon will be different, and even the same type of demon can have several ways of reaching an agreement with us, so the variety in this section is very high. During the fights, in addition to the classic options of Attack, Use Skills, Items, Defend and Escape, we will have the option to Talk with the enemies. Once we choose that option, the selected demon may or may not be interested in talking to us. If he does not want to speak to us, the fight continues as normal. But if he decides to pay attention to our words, a kind of minigame starts where we must execute the correct actions to convince the bug to join our gang. As I said, there are a lot of humidity variety of possibilities. From reacting to a gesture or action of the demon with the correct reaction, offering them money, items, health, magical power or even a kind of Chinese shadow game where we must guess which demon is the one that appears on the screen (in the manner of “Who is this Pokémon??*). If we manage to respond to the demon's requests correctly, it will join our party and fight at our side in combat. But even if we did everything right, it may happen on certain occasions that the demon does not join us, because we do not have enough level for him to join us. respect, so we will have to look for it again when we are stronger.
The demons section is vast and almost the most important part of the game.
Once we have them on our team, we can put them in and out of battle at will, combine them to form other more powerful demons, exchange their abilities and even “raise” them in a shelter, giving them gifts and chatting with them. This will increase the personal relationship we have with each one, making them become increasingly stronger and even giving us items. The entire compendium, the fusion of demons and several of these characteristics we already saw in PERSON (We are even going to recognize most of the demons from those games), but here the breeding, development and fusions are quite accentuated, since the demons are not mere companions/summons but literally the main members of our Team.
A LOT OF TEXT
Even for someone used to playing JRPGs, the amount of options and possibilities of SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI V: VENGEANCE It can get overwhelming, especially with the amount of options added with the expansion.
In addition to the complex demon management that I already explained above, the maps are terribly loaded with things, which does not make exploration easy or fast. Although the battles are “optional” since we see the enemies on the map, the fact that they run at high speed every time they see us and that they also respawn all the time does not allow us to clean areas to explore calmly. As I said, the mapping is very loaded, and we are not only going to see the enemies, but also items to collect, secondary missions, passages and shortcuts, save points, etc., etc. This wouldn't be so annoying if the maps weren't so complicated to navigate. With an Open World system and a race button and a jump button, the maps also have multiple levels of heights and sometimes even in order to advance we must find the exact passage, the correct place from which to jump or get on, or the transporter that take us to the right area. Since finding that right spot is often complicated, and the enemies are constantly breathing down our necks, it can end up being frustrating to travel around an area for a long time looking for that place and falling into battles all the time.
Also, since everything we do is constantly explained in quite long texts, we are going to spend a lot of time reading, if we want to know exactly what to do at all times.
PAY HEALTH OF THE LITTLE ANGEL OR THE LITTLE DEVIL ON THE SHOULDER
I already mentioned that VENGEANCE It is an expansion of the title that originally came out in 2021, and the new features it brings are abundant. From the start it has a completely new extra plot line, called “Canon of Vengeance” (the original is called “Canon of Creation”) that adds 2 more endings to the game, which already had 4 endings from the previous version. Each of these paths can be chosen at the beginning of the game, and the endings will depend on certain moral decisions and secondary missions that we decide to carry out or not. The issue of secondary missions is quite important, since in different situations we are going to be presented with dilemmas, such as having to eliminate an angel or demon, and one of the options is going to cancel out the other, so we are not only going to having to play the game several times to see everything it offers us (at least 6 times), but also the ending we reach will depend on these decisions.
Other additions in this new version include 40 new demons, 17 new companion demons (they point out important items and points on the map), the demon refuge, shortcuts that take us quickly from one point to another on the map, new characters, dialogues and situations that correspond to the new plot line, and two new levels of difficulty. It is worth clarifying that the game has a difficulty option called “safe”, where the game becomes even much easier than in the default casual mode, and where it is almost impossible to lose a combat in the game, but said difficulty is downloaded from separately and optionally from the store (in case anyone considers it not worth it), but in any case it is completely free. Oh, and another of the changes that was implemented in this version is that the level cap of the characters was changed from 99 to 150, so we will be able to become much stronger even.
THEY GOT ME BADLY USED
I have two important (and totally personal) problems when analyzing the technical qualities of the game. And both problems are due to the fact that I played not long ago. PERSON 3 RELOAD.
Let's start with the first one. The game looks nice, the character designs and their armor are very good, and the demons are very interesting (and they are also mostly the same as the game I already mentioned). The scenarios, on the other hand, are beautiful although they suffer from a bit of repetition, and, as I already said, some sections have very convoluted designs and it is difficult to locate yourself and find the correct path. He but is that I come from the graphics of the Person on PS5, and it is obvious that this is a game that was born on Nintendo Switch. Be careful, in no way do I want to say that the game looks bad, in fact quite the opposite, but I'm missing that little extra touch that made the other one look really superb.
Something similar happens to me with music and sound effects. The game is full of strident melodies that “annoy” the ear, growls and infernal guttural screams. They are very good for a game that focuses on demons and trips to the Underworld, but again they make me miss the work done with the previous title, where the music itself (with vocal parts included) was totally part of the soul of the game. What stands out most in this section are the voice performances, all of them wonderful and top-notch, and where we will not take long to recognize actors of the stature of Kenjiro Tsuda (Nanami in Jujutsu Kaisen, Kishibe in Chainsaw Man) as Koshimizu , Saori Hayami (Shinobu Kocho in Kimetsu no Yaiba, Yor Forger in Spy Family) as Tao Isonokami, or Toshiyuki Morikawa (Kagaya Ubuyashiki in Kimetsu no Yaiba, Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII) as Aogami, just to give a couple of examples of the cast of luxury that we are going to listen to here.
Playably, it is an entertaining title, although it can become slightly frustrating due to things such as the enormous amount of options and possibilities or the poor fluidity of the plot's advancement, due to the unintuitive settings. It is not a game for the impatient, and although it has a very high replay value (I already mentioned that it has up to 6 different paths) it will require an investment of more than 120 hours to get the most out of it.
- The entire system of capturing, raising and fusing demons.
- Six different stories to play, which gives it a very high Replay value.
- The voice acting is impressive, with a truly luxurious cast.
- The music and sound effects were not my favorites.
- The maps are quite complicated to navigate.
- The enormous number of tutorials and visual overload can be maddening at times.