Is SMT Vengeance Worth a Replay? First Impressions
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- Опубликовано: 25 июн 2024
- In today's first impressions review, I'm taking another look at Shin Megami Tensei V to find out if Vengeance is worthy of a replay? The new version of SMT V is currently available on all modern platforms, including Switch, PS5, Xbox Series and PC via Steam. In today's video I'm not deep-diving the gameplay mechanics or explaining the game's loop as that's been covered extensively in my full review, this is more of an 'update' geared towards people already somewhat familiar with the original release.
Link to the original full review: • Everything you need to...
For the purpose of this video I played on PC with the following relevant specs:
CPU: Ryzen 9 7950X
GPU: RTX 4060 Ti (16GB)
RAM: 64GB DDR5-6400 CL32
#smtv #firstimpressions #reviewunit
superderekrpgs.com/ethics/ 
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I'm at the end of the third area in the Canon of Vengeance campaign and so far I'm extremely satisfied. This is seriously competing for the top spot of my favorite SMT game.
The changes to the story are subtle but plenty at first, then really deviate by the second and third area, with the third area of the original game being completely replaced with a new Vengeance exclusive area. Characters are fleshed out and better realized here with plenty of moments forshadowed earlier via character actions, passing dialogue from other NPCs, or even brand new side quests. All of this is new and easy to miss, but compared to the original version these characters feel much more complete.
This also applies to the story and themes. Conflicting ideologies has always been central to the stories of mainline SMT and this aspect is just far better realized here, partly due to the Guest system. Two characters with conflicting ideals travel with you for the majority of your journey with both of them chiming in not just at major story events but even minor sidequests, with you being asked for your input frequently. This is a farcry from the alignment system (or lack there of) in original SMT V, and does a much better job of selling the characters and conflicts of this story.
Speaking of which, the new character Yoko really fits this cast and story like a glove. She feels like the missing piece of SMT V's original cast and challenges everyone's resolve. From what I've seen so far, its really obvious that she was always supposed to be there and unfortunately just got cut during the rewrites.
Gameplay changes are similarly subtle but add up in a big way. Demons having innate skills is a real game changer and adds a layer of depth when team building similar to what you'd find in a card game like Magic or Yu-Gi-Oh. Build variety has also been significantly improved thanks to all the new skills, demons, and Magatsuhi skills. Demon Haunts adds more flavor to your mons and brings stat bonuses that makes it easier than ever to continue using your favorite demon if you just can't bring yourself to fuse them away.
Something I don't see talked about enough is how all of these changes actually improve the gameplay balancing rather than completely breaking it the way Persona 5 Royal does. The difficulty remains challenging throughout. When you factor in all these story and character changes to the gameplay changes, the result is just a very fun mainline SMT, that while not perfect, is far better than the original.
Thanks for the additional input! I think I'll keep up my playthrough then :)
@@SuperDerek Thanks for reading all that! Like others have said in the comments, I would absolutely love to see a follow up video with your final thoughts if you end up making it through the whole game. Good luck!
As a longstanding mainline SMT fan and someone who didn't much care for 5, I'd strongly recommend Vengeance. The quality of life improvements elevate the experience, and make it more accessible for newer players. Even though I think 5's story leaves a lot to be desired, the Canon of Vengeance has done a lot for my opinion of 5's legacy overall.
Yes! It is! I’m 27 hours in and can’t stop
Awesome! Did you play the original release too? I'm still on the fence if I should keep pushing forward with the Canon of Vengeance or not :)
I'm at around the same point, and yeah...the game is going radically different places now. It genuinely feels like new campaign in the same setting now.
@@SuperDerek yeah derek I did it on launch (both on switch) and it was amazing. This is a complete upgrade and I’m absolutely loving it 🍻 keep playing the canon of vengeance!
Alright, I'll keep pressing on, maybe I'll do a "final thoughts" update after I finish knocking it out. :)
@@SuperDerek I’ll be up for watching that 👍 awesome
this will be my first playthrough of smt v , glad i waited for complete edition, currently finishing smt: nocturne remaster
This practice has me wondering about what to do about Metaphor, honestly. I feel like this practice is eventually going to hurt initial game sales. But we'll see, I suppose.
This feels like (earned benefit of the doubt) the version they originally wanted to make.
I think that’s what the developers said, they said that they were not satisfied with how they created the original as it didn’t really meet their vision, also it’s important to note that the game originally went in development hell and it’s story had to be rewritten multiple times so there was a lot of development issues. In my opinion I wish they would go back to design Smt games the way they did in Smt 4 where areas are broken down into smaller parts instead of the open world-like design they went with in Smt 5 in order to simplify development. I think creating the entire overworld must have definitely made development hell of a lot harder for the devs. So I do hope we go for a simplistic design like in Smt 4 and have areas be broken down into smaller parts and focus more on story and world building instead of trying to go open world. An issue with many franchises is that they feel pressured to go open world just because it’s the most popular thing to do when in reality open world isn’t a genre that is needed and very few games have properly executed open world effectively, the only franchise that has properly executed it was eldin ring.
Still sold it full price though
I missed it when it first came out so I'm looking forward to picking this up.
It feels like a whole new game to me.
Tbh feeling of loneliness is the main shtick of entire smt series. I mean its an apocalypse, after all
It does change alot more after where you are tbh, it makes it a different experience so far to me
Imo yes and it looks amazing on PS5
I only played the original for about five hours and I’m playing the new one now and I see enough differences to be worth having started over again. I’m enjoying my play through much more with some of the changes like the human characters and such is totally worth another $90 Canadian I don’t know but I’m enjoying my time with it immensely
So if I buy the game I should just go through the path of vengeance route even if I haven’t played the base game ?
You don't have to go through the path of vengeance to get the enhanced gameplay features. And I think that I can appreciate the deviations from the Creation path because I played that first. Having an understanding of how certain characters are gives me a better understanding of what influence Yoko is having on the timeline, which appears to be poised to veer off more substantially soon.
Unfortunately I don't think I can give a solid answer to this question yet. But the first 10 hours don't seem to be all _that_ different at least.
It depend. I have lot of time and want to experience what was the story like before cov so I chose Coc first (48hrs in now) and will play cov later. But if you have less time and want to play just 1 play through or want to play the new version then just go with cov. No right no wrong. Just pure preference.
And from what other ppl says that in cov there’s some coc reference so I went with coc because of that too but it’s nOt a deal breaking in anyways so Go with the one you want.
So if I never played the original, should I start with the newer campaign or start with the original?
Stiil have my switch versiom sealed… so many games to play is getting hard to manage the backlog. I Think i’ll get the ps5 version for the enhanced graphics tysm fornthe review Derek
Played the original release of SMTV extensively with two full playthroughs, and though I didn't 'Complete' the game, I got pretty close to 100%. Vengeance is absolutely worth playing. The first few hours definitely feel like you're playing the original game with some small to medium changes and new characters, but the second half of the game is significantly different in ways I won't further spoil here. Combine that with quality of life updates, 60fps, about 40 new demons, new aesthetics, new locations, and a bunch of other great stuff and I'd say it's a must play for fans.
My big question is: if you've never played it, will new game plus allow you to do the second route faster?
It can, but that depends on which option of NG+ you pick.
Newborn only carries over the Enemy Info, Demon Compendium, Fusions you have unlocked and certain miracles like the Demon Stock upgrades. Your levels, party, skill and etc however doesn't so this is handy if you wanna experience the other route fresh
If you want to carry over those as well, you should pick Reborn instead which does carry over every single Miracle you have, your levels, skills, demons in your stock, items,Macca and etc. That would be your pick if you want a way more easier time getting trough the game to get another ending
You can also NG+ into Godborn which is like Reborn but enemies have way higher levels. I won't spoil on how to get it but I do hope this clears things up around NG+.
I have not played the original. HOWEVER: Considering how integral the new characters of Yoko and the Qadištu, I can say that Canon of Vengeance will significantly change how the story plays out. There may be overall the same beats more or less, but I don't see how it couldn't make a substantial difference. But again, this is said only playing Canon of Vengeance.
The answer is yes.
0:48 Yes, if you pick Canon of Qadištu bootiness route. 😏
And I'm actually enjoying more this route, than the vanilla one.
I was thinking about buying the original SMT 5, so I would assume I should go with this one? Also, I have never played any of the other SMT games. Is this one OK to jump into? I know it is on the more difficult side, but that does not bother me. Also, I do not care about the story, just the game play.
Like Final Fantasy or Persona, SMTV is seperate from previous games story-wise other than some sharing themes. You don't need any previous knowledge to get trough this game and is accesible for a newcomer to get into.
The original SMTV is unfortunately delisted from the e-shop, but you can still play the original campaign in Vengance if you wish and most of Vengance's improvements carry over to that campaign as well!
I'm at level 68, 100 hours in and love it theres a ton if demons each comes with their own attitude. Def worth the price of admission on the PS5
I never finished my first playthrough of the original game and holy heck I love the second story path.
Flatout this is worth it.
Definitely summed up where I'm leaning with my wallet on this one. To me, the new demon additions, characters, and character design are very enticing but I feel a little cheated having already played through the original to see a new definitive edition come out so early at full price. It's definitely on my list of "wait until it's 20 bucks."
Yeah
People really need to play the game at least 30 hours in to see the major changes in the narrative before reviewing it. You barely even get past Minato 10 hours in.
I typically _finish_ RPGs before writing my full reviews. As far as talking about "first impressions" though I think 5-10 hours is typically fair. I'm looking forward to making a follow-up a bit later on to give my final thoughts.
ordered my copy and it's my first smt entry .. as a persona series fan
By the way the disc version for ps5 copy is 43$ in my country in dubai 😁 alot cheaper than psn store price
@7amid- Its my first SMT since I dabbled in 3 a bit and, for me coming off of persona 4 and 5, I think I may enjoy SMT more as a series. I think youll love it.
I loved the "original" SMTV. Put over 100 hours in it. Still not sure on a repurchase, but you kinda sum up my doubts. Likely pass on for now. Maybe if your next/updated review is more positive I might change my mind. Thanks for this video.
It will be. The game changes majorly after the first area
I repurchased it again on the switch and ps5
I’d love to hear some final thoughts if you actually keep playing this. I know it’s a decent sized game but taking 30 hours or so to really mix things up in a new campaign seems like egregiously long. I barely replay long games as it is, give me a reason to keep playing earlier than that.
That's what I've been hearing, I think I will keep on pressing forward. I'm going on a trip, so I'll bring my Steam Deck along for the ride. :)
I already played the game 3 times to get all "maria" versions. I just don't have it in me to re-buy the game again, rebuy the dlc again, and put in the time to fully capitalize on the money spent.
I get ya. Fwiw, the dlc from vanilla is included. At least the Nocturne one is, I know.
Do i need to play the standard edition to understand this one ? 😂
Nope!
@@SuperDerek awesome, cheers Derek
So your paying 60-70 dollars for 2-3 hours of story scenes and some quality of life improvements that should have been in the game already! Sounds like an Atlus game to me lol! I guess it could be worse! Could be a something like a DLC that already existed in a previous version of the game for 40 dollars, at least Atlus would never be that much a bad company and if they were no one would be dumb enough to buy it right?!?!
While ATLUS' rerelease practice is truly terrible, you're getting a lot more bang for your buck here than you are for Persona 5 Royal or Persona 4 Golden.
@@tabris95 haha yeah I am just mostly joking around. Just cracks me up that things that if other less liked studios did them would create a meltdown online. Atlus just gets away with this stuff scott free and is actually mostly praised for it.
Smt4 still better
tl;dr Derek has only played 10 hours and can't answer the question stated in the title of the video.
Sega’s last game on Xbox
Its not that its not worth it but when you charge people full price in a year with rpgs like ff7 rebirth, unicorn overlord, persona 3 reload, elden ring expansion, paper mario remake, dragons dogma 2 etc that is a hard sell to me. And when you already bought SMT 5 at full price last time, paying full price again isnt exactly working on me this time over. However, if I didnt play&finish smt 5 back on switch, I think this game is def a buy. The world was very depressing, but im glad I did the journey, but going back to that world again? its a hard sell
Vengeance has waaaay more new content than Persona 3 Reload and launched at $10 less.
With all the new tweeks to the battle system its not the same game anymore. Let alone the story, which has more development and new quests even at the begining. The devs really show they cared for the game with all the improvements, way more than P3R and P5R.
Is Vengeance worth playing? I would think so.
Is it worth rebuying? *NOT TO ME*
Would it have been worth it if it also came as paid DLC for the original release, in addition to the full retail version? Sure!
Am I angry at Sega / Atlus that it's not available unless you buy the whole game over again? *YOU BET.*
Persona over SMT.
Eh, they both offer vastly different experiences that appeal to different people. I wouldn't say one is better than the other, though I personally have gotten far more enjoyment from SMT than Persona.
Persona and, SMT completely play differently
Say the one who actually never even play Persona Revelation and Persona 2 duology.