A solid first attempt at making a action RPG out of SMT. Yet other than the setting it doesn't stand out much.
With SMT: Nocturne getting a HD remake soon it seemed like a good time as any to go back to 2000’s era Atlus. This period of time was all about the many ways they could spin off titles from SMT to see how they stick. Out of the bunch Persona stood out the most but other spin offs like this one were also around. Real time combat is what this one is all about. But first some demon shenanigans have been going on in early 1920’s Japan.
A devil summoner named Raidou has been using his unique skills as a private detective. Some things can’t be seen and it is up to him to stop whatever vile deeds they are up to. Stuff starts to go sideways immediately as a teen girl named Kaya calls up to ask for help. Once they get out to help her a strange group of armed men intercept them and take her away. Reclaiming her will be no easy task as the plot to use her is quite devilish indeed.
Fights in this game still consist of random encounters on the overworld. Your party only ever consists of Raidou and one summoned monster. While the player can’t switch between them it is possible to tell the summon to attack an enemy a certain way. Which is very important since figuring out the weakness of your enemy and then exploiting it is a key to almost every fight. Fire beating an ice monster is an obvious weakness but it isn’t that easy all the time. A standard three hit sword attack is possible too and his side arm let’s him exploit weaknesses without any help. Which is good since gun attacks do very little damage so without that fact they would be pretty pointless. Slashing up demons is great but sometimes you need their help too.
Once you do find a weakness it is possible to capture them to add them to your crew. Thus letting the player have a good variety of helpers to assist in different fights. Earning their loyalty by using them will also let the player fuse them into more powerful monsters. Along with just throwing them into his sword if you want to power it up. I found quite a few of them were weak to fire which led to some ill advised fights at one point in the story. They are also used out of battle too. All of them have different non battle skills like the ability to read someone's mind. These are basically used to block the players progress in the story at key points. For the most part they include demons in the area that you can capture if you don’t have the right one. Yet it was very much annoying to not have the right type sometimes.
The overall presentation and narrative is quite compelling for most of the game. It starts out quite simple enough with a kidnapping but it eventually goes way off the rails. Much more so than the SMT games I’ve played before. Was quite amused by a few of the twists. Graphic wise I wasn’t expecting pre rendered backgrounds like Resident Evil. Does give it a fairly unique look and the SMT character designs always stand out from the rest. It also takes place in Japan during a era we don't see that often in the game. Which is cool to see.
As a first attempt at an action game it is fairly competent. I never felt like the game presented me with an unfair battle. Yet it did start to get pretty repetitive near the end. While it’s a little under 20 hours long I was ready to face the final boss when they decided to put in a boss rush. If I had a bit more to do a boss rush could be a great way to show the player how much better they got. Yet I just did the same thing as the first time. So it was kind of a downer ending although the final boss did make up for that a bit. Still this is a pretty solid action game. I wouldn’t say it’s amazing but if you want an okay action rpg in the world of Shin Megami Tensei then check this one out. It’s worth playing for that reason.