Shin Megami Tensei has slowly turned into the underdog of its own franchise, something that rarely happens in media. The only other example I can think of is comparing this to Cheers, while Persona is compared to the likes of Frasier; if you get that comparison, I applaud you. But yes, when looking back at the cultural impact of the series as a whole, the Persona games have gotten more spotlight in recent years, mainly starting with it becoming a Western sensation with Persona 5, but that’s a different discussion. The road to the fifth main entry in the Tensei franchise is an interesting one, as for the longest time, it was mainly referred to that JRPG vaporware that showed up at the Nintendo Switch Reveal Conference back in 2017 and wasn’t heard from again until a random Nintendo Direct in the midst of COVID. The game came out in 2021 and is now released on better hardware that can support the scope the game is aiming for, so the main question to ask is, should you jump on this game if you are a Persona fan?
Like I just said, the game was first released as a Switch exclusive back in 2021, and I played it for a bit, until my 20-hour save got corrupted, and I was not motivated to go back and recover the time lost, but I remember liking what I played. But that was before the Persona bug hit me with a vengeance when they dropped on Xbox a year later, and I finally got why everyone loved these games, so I did have the interest to go back and try again when rumors started to come out about a re-release on better hardware I decided to wait, and that’s where we are now.
Should note that I did pick the new story path option at the beginning, so any introduction “spoilers” will be based on that path. The game starts up, and your custom character and your friend Ichrio are pulled into a post-apocalyptical version of Tokyo. This is the point where I start to see why Persona is the more approachable option of the series. As the story quickly becomes convoluted that, after finishing a dungeon and getting to the next story moment, I have to sync up my phone to remember everyone’s goal.
This is a good point to bring up the gameplay and its turn-based battles, but for me, somehow even more deep and complex than Persona’s. But at the same time, I liked it more because I have to actually plan out my attacks instead of falling back on my usual fix, finding the most powerful attack and spamming it like crazy; here, if you try that, you will get stomped into the ground like a bug. It reminds me a lot of Elden Ring in a weird way that each battle can either be one of the same that you can use this elemental to weaken or slap it like crazy till it faints, but you also have another option, which leads into my favorite aspect of the game.
I remember someone saying the game has a Pokémon-like collection element to it, and when I discovered it, everything just started to click because despite the tone being an emotionless bore that looks like the album cover of the early 2000s “rock” band, the anality personality that has leaked over from the Persona games are present here in the collection aspect. During some battles, you have the option to talk and convince the demons who are currently pummeling your face in to come and join you on your adventure. This then caused the OCD aspect of my mind to click, and I started to collect as many demons as I could and combine them, once again making the Pokémon connection with fusing since I’d been playing a fusion hack of the game at the time of writing. This was where I was getting the most fun out of this game; even though the story wasn’t grabbing me, I still went on through to see what would happen next.
So, in the end, should you give this game a chance if you are a Persona fan? I would say no because, for a majority of the time, you will be unfairly comparing this to the Persona games and what they did better. But if you want a different type of JRPG that takes a while to throw you into the fantasy façade, then I would give this one a try. But I do hope more games like this come out because I’m open to trying them even if they aren’t what I’m expecting; I just want to say I tried it.
Score: 7 out of 10
Reviewed on PlayStation 5