7.5/10 – 49 hours
Addendum
I do NOT prefer the Smirk mechanic to the Magatsuhi gauge from SMTV. Smirk is way less skill based and way more random. You have to pray you get it when hitting a weakness, and pray that an enemy doesn’t get it when hitting yours. Magatsuhi can at least be toggled and used strategically.
Addendum 2:
After finishing SMTIV Apocalypse, I commend this game for being so memorable. Revisiting the map, characters, and music in Apocalypse was a surprisingly fun blast from the past. I was startled at how many areas I remembered and music tracks I recalled despite not listening to them a lot when playing the original.
Also its music is much better than most of the new tracks in Apocalypse, though those are certainly not bad at all.
Review as written on 5/17/2022
A solid RPG and memorable entry to the SMT lineup, but is still held back by archaic design.
Fantastic synthwave soundtrack. The story, with its memorable characters and windows into each route’s outcome, gives the player a reason to care about the world they are put in. Atlus also did a great job making a 3ds game so cinematic.
Leveling up is insanely useful in this game, as you fully heal up, have direct control over your stat growth, and gain points to invest in skills for yourself and your demon stock.
However the game is riddled with a startling lack of QOL. Enemies have a ridiculous spawn rate, and can spawn on the exact tile you are on quite often, which makes exploration MISERABLE. traversing the world is abysmal due to this, and the game locks faster modes of travel behind an obscure side quest only found by talking to demons in a tiny, tucked away area. The game also takes influence from Persona 4 as it makes movement in the world feel limited, and makes attacking demons in the overworld needlessly sluggish. The game could also do better at telling you where to go.
Demon fusion is also sluggish. They had the UI right in Nocturne, why flip it on its head? Too many menus and dialog boxes.
Smirk can be fun, and i prefer it to the Magatsuhi gauge from SMTV, but its rng nature is too broken. You either one shot the enemy or they one shot you. It would be ok if it could be triggered like the Magatsuhi gauge, and it does have more opportunity for diversity in strategy, but whether or not you can utilize it is all down to luck 🙁
The biggest mishap was the neutral ending’s route, which I stumbled into. Though its ending is wholesome and happy, the process of completing a random, unmarked set of side quests to get there is just not fair without the help of a guide. The game doesn’t tell you which side quests to do, or where to get them. How would anyone expect to do this without a guide??
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