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Status:
Complete (Case, cover and cartridge) and Play Tested
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Developer: Atlus
Genre: JRPG
Release: 2021
Shin Megami Tensei V delivers a dark, demanding JRPG experience focused on strategic combat, demon fusion depth, and philosophical themes. It emphasizes atmosphere, challenge, and player agency over character-driven storytelling, standing apart from more narrative-heavy RPGs.
Combat uses the Press Turn system, where exploiting enemy weaknesses grants extra actions while mistakes are heavily punished. Battles are tense, tactical, and often unforgiving even normal encounters can be dangerous without proper preparation.
Demon recruitment and fusion form the core of progression. Negotiating with demons, optimizing team compositions, and creating powerful builds is highly engaging. The Essence system expands customization by allowing skill inheritance and flexible character builds, adding depth and experimentation.
Difficulty is consistently high, rewarding careful planning, elemental awareness, and smart resource management.
The game shifts from traditional dungeon crawling to semi-open areas set in the ruined realm of Daat. Exploration is a major highlight, with vertical traversal, collectibles, side quests, hidden encounters, and roaming demons scattered across expansive environments.
The world feels desolate and mysterious, supported by striking environmental storytelling. However, navigation and map clarity can sometimes feel unintuitive, and objectives are occasionally vague.
SMT V focuses on ideological conflict between Law, Chaos, and Neutrality, with the protagonist merging into the godlike Nahobino. The narrative explores themes of power, creation, divine authority, and moral extremism.
While the themes are intellectually compelling, story delivery is minimalistic. Character development is limited, emotional engagement is restrained, and major plot moments can feel abrupt or underdeveloped. The game prioritizes concept and atmosphere over character-driven storytelling.
Artistically, SMT V excels in demon design, lighting, color palette, and overall visual identity. The games atmosphere is haunting, stylish, and memorable.
On Nintendo Switch, performance is a noticeable limitation:
Frame rate dips during intense scenes
Resolution softness and texture compromises
Occasional pop-in and visual blur
Despite technical constraints, the art direction remains a strong point.
The soundtrack is a standout, blending industrial, electronic, ambient, and metal influences to create a powerful and oppressive tone. Music enhances both exploration and combat, reinforcing the games bleak identity.
Sound design is impactful, and voice acting supports the tone effectively, even with limited narrative emphasis.
SMT V offers multiple endings, New Game Plus, optional bosses, and extensive build experimentation. Replayability is high due to branching ideological paths and deep demon fusion mechanics.
Some pacing slowdowns and grinding spikes appear in the mid-to-late game, but long-term engagement remains strong for players invested in optimization and exploration.
Deep and rewarding turn-based combat
Exceptional demon fusion and customization systems
Strong atmosphere and distinctive art direction
Challenging and satisfying difficulty curve
Excellent soundtrack and audio design
High replay value with multiple endings
Underdeveloped story and limited character depth
Navigation and map clarity issues
Performance limitations on Nintendo Switch
Occasional pacing and grind concerns
Emotionally distant narrative presentation
Shin Megami Tensei V is a mechanically rich, atmospheric JRPG that excels in combat depth and thematic ambition, but falls short in storytelling depth and technical performance on Switch.
Score: 8.5 / 10
