After i became obsessed with megatens and Atlus i wanted to actually start with SMTV but after looking it up on Reddit and google a lot of people recommended this one acting as a "bridge" between Persona and SMT and i must say it does it really well it takes stuff from both IPs and merges them together mostly gameplay speaking.
I want to say firstly that the game IS SO BEAUTIFUL , a lot of times it felt like eye candy
The thing that a lot of people i've seen talk about and i agree with them is the voice acting , It's phenomenal and the writing for each character does everyone justice. All the different accents and manners of speech really sold it for me. Everyone is so different from the rest with their backstories and their bond (s.link) makes you like them even more. There's also so many bits with comedy in them and i loved them
I have to say this is one of the few games where i liked literally everyone , even the villain who fights for his own type of "justice", all of them are really good and i'm so sad i didn't manage to get the last bond to max (sorry my Paripus friend)
The gameplay is different by quite a lot compared to Persona but it still has some things that make it seem familiar? or at least close to Persona.
The Archetypes (this game's personas/devils) look so cool and they are very diverse in terms of moves , strengths and weaknesses you can take moves from one and teach them to another making your own best archetype of choosing
The game itself does get grindy towards the end as there is a massive difficulty spike and takes a long time to get ready for the final boss even if you completed most of the optional/side quests.
Speaking of final bosses this one....really needed to to be completely changed/redone , a college degree should not be needed in a game , not only is it extremely long , if you die at phase 2 you restart the whole thing, making it a slog , sure the boss is cool and has some interesting mechanics but it can be really overwhelming and stressful to the point where i just let the first phase on auto battle , went to eat , done dishes , took a shower and they were still fighting with almost half of the damage done (on normal with just 2 levels difference)
Anywayy, that's mostly all the negative stuff about the game in terms of gameplay , the rest of the game was almost flawless with a not so good final boss
The soundtack.....this is where i'm a bit split but it's more of a personal thing.
I didn't like the battle music, like at all, sure it fits and works with the setting and what the game is trying to do but i just ended up replacing the normal battle music with other Atlus music.
The overworld music on the other hand was great , exceptional even especially the night versions
-"Martira(clear night)" is a song which i adore and i found myself just staying there and listening to it , it's such a good song that fills you with hope of a better tomorrow
-Virga's island night version is another really good song that i can't just take out of my head and i recommend people listening to this game's soundtrack
As some final notes
I really enjoyed this game and i'm glad i listened to Reddit , it's weird at first how close "Will"(the main character) looks like Makoto Yuki from P3 , it's a lovely experience that i sadly "will" never get to experience it for the first time again , they used the fantasy trope really well and there are some good twists , some that you won't actually expect.
Overall really good , 8.5/10
"Now, the Sanctist church has looked into it, and um....size matters." ~Batlin, when informing the public about the giant rock with the candidate's heads.
"I-Is that a big, beautiful horn in your pocket, or were you just that excited to come to my aid?"
– Craftsman
Fantasy lives on
