Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance

Having played Atlus games for the first time in recent years, and really enjoying Metaphor: ReFantazio, Persona 5 Royal, and Persona 3 Reload, the Shin Megami Tensei series seemed like a good place for me to continue exploring their work. Unfortunately, Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance didn’t click for me the way that the other Atlus games did. My main issue with Shin Megami Tensei V was that it became incredibly repetitive to play. While the minute-to-minute gameplay was very fun, there just wasn’t enough else going on to break up the similar battles and frequent fetch quests. In some ways, this felt a bit like the problem I had with Persona 3 Reload: Episode Aigis. While I really enjoyed the main game in Persona 3 Reload, I found the relentless dungeon crawling in Episode Aigis much less fun. The turn based battle system is great, as is usual for Atlus games. In order to find success with the press-turn mechanic, you need to think about fusing demons and building a team that can account for a variety of different enemy weaknesses. Every time you fuse a new demon, you need to ensure that you’re selecting a set of skills that not only are strong individually but also complement the rest of the team you’re bringing along. I also enjoyed the system of getting stronger through miracles, which are unlocked via a currency you find from exploring the world. Being able to afford a new powerful miracle felt like a great reward for exploration, and was one of the highlights of the game. For me, having the life-sim sections of the Persona games and Metaphor: ReFantazio alternate between dungeon sections really helped to keep things fresh, and avoid that burned out feeling that I was getting from Shin Megami Tensei V. Persona 5 Royal really nails that for me by not only frequently changing up what you are doing, but also by giving each dungeon its own unique theme. That contrasts with the very similar desert environments and slowly changing cast of demons that eventually burned me out. I found the story of Shin Megami Tensei V uncompelling, and it wasn’t driving me forward to keep finding out what was happening. Without anything pushing me forward, the fun individual elements of the game weren’t enough to keep me from bouncing off of it. The point where I decided to move on was after completing a fetch quest, only for the quest giver to immediately ambush and one-shot my team before I had a chance to save. I hadn’t lost a ton of progress, but it did make me realize that the moment-to-moment gameplay just wasn’t enough fun for me to want to redo work I had already finished.