Even then it had little conceptual ideas in the plot for the Chaos side especially in V. Law at least had some interesting ideas and scenes, and neutral also has its own case. But my god Chaos had it the worst. Yuzuru didn’t exist
@@aquano1972 yeah Chaos didn't even felt like Chaos, it was more Light/Neutral in the similar vein of the Divine Powers in Apocalypse. Hell, Yakumo's original plan was more chaotic
@@dantemustdie00 I dunno why does it have to law and chaos lol? The game never really says there are and the secret ending is SURELY not TRUE NEUTRAL that shit is like most evil ending easily (maybe like a Dark Law?). Dazai’s ending makes sense as like a “law” in the way that law normally is in SMT1 to my knowledge but idk chaos doesn’t fit and if it’s anythinf it’s “light chaos” instead of the more typical survival of the fittest dark chaos that they use in SMT. Yakumo’s feels like Dark Neutral for obvious reasons I guess. I haven’t played any other game tho please tell me if my minimal research is wildly incorrect I intend to play strange jounrey and SMTIV soon.
@@SamTheFoolishMan Chaos in Smt V is basically what chaos was in Smt 1. The survival of the fittest aspect was always present but it wasn’t its sole aspect. In Smt 1 it was more living with the old gods and it was more traditionalist compared to the law faction. Also, the names for the endings were given in one of the game’s manual. Those are the official name of the endings for what I know.
Glad to know that I was not the only one who thought about this. (Some part of me thinks that they wanted too, but due to the 2020 events, they were rushed into making the product ready by skipping/leaving out some things, and who knows how there operations were in 2020 being told to stay home, and you never know, some projects were cut/rushed in order to say "It's 2020, screw it, we have most of the assesta, and scenrios done, and we could lose staff members in a variety of ways, so let's polish what we have, and give people a product to buy, and worry about it at some other date." In terms of Story....they made me like SMT IV even more because I had initially thought we would get either an equal or better value in terms of story telling. In SMT V, it was kinda Quieter, and isolated in a way in comparison to SMT IV. (Perhaps by design seeing as we are in a wasteland of buildings that used to house humans...so...but still, would have been nice to do stuff with the other normal world, I kinda think that could have done more in the normal world, but again...some things may have been cut.)
It really hurt when I realized that the story was originally supposed to be you travelling around the Netherworld, uncovering Aogami's memories, and his essences with them. Instead, they just unceremoniously placed them in random treasure chests. The gameplay was fun in SMT4, but the story is what pushed me to keep going for hours and hours. I was really disappointed with this one, and I hope they take their time with the next game, be it an updated version or another title altogether.
you know that the "treasure chests" are engrams right? They are literally crystalized forms of data that exist as a crystal that grows out of the ground, the same goes for the Fruits of Knowledge that grant you large sums of glory. Da'at is a virtual world created by the collective unconscious of humanity connected through technology, the word Da'at translates literally to the word "Knowledge" from Hebrew, and is representative of a complete vessel, filled with knowledge of both Heaven and Earth to become something more. Magatsuchi, furthermore, is human knowledge in its freely flowing state without a vessel to be placed in, hence why it is so important - Knowledge is Power.
How so vengeance proves SMTV always had a good story. It was SMTIV that had a mess of a story and SMTIV Final was horrible. SMTV was the best and ahead of itself time.
@@ledinbaldia2156 never played an SMT game I see since the only mid ones where the SMTIV duology. Jank gameplay and a story that was all over the place that was the very definition of tell don’t show. The other was apocalypse that was just awful unless you went anarchy route. SMTV and SMTV:V is kino.
Something probably went wrong during Development cuz the maniax team said that they wanted smt v to be like iv and nocturne. Instead we get a game that tries way too hard to be like nocturne. V wanted a minimalist story like Nocturne had, but ignored why Nocturne made it work. Edit: I forgot to mention that atlus said in a recent interview that SMT V was supposed to focus on graphics.
The mistake was to try to do a story like Nocturne, when Nocturne's story/characters weren't even good to begin with, and they tried to do a minimalist story like Nocturne at the same time they tried to do a more exposing story like IV, and in the end it ended up being neither of them, and was just something weird and incomplete (I don't like Nocturne's story, but at least it didn't feel incomplete in any way).
@@leonardo25gabriel Nocturne's story is good. Every event in the plot and every location you go to has a good reason for you to go there, and every character scene gives you new meaningful information or shows character growth and changes. It may be brief with these things, and that might not be your cup of tea, but it's completely different than V, which does things for no rhyme or reason. "All of the lore will just be in plain dry dialogue in a computer room" "Suprise, Yuzuru is the chaos hero. Not because of any kind of rebellious desire for freedom though, he became the chaos hero just because his legal authority figure told him to and he respects authority." "Suprise, Abdiel becomes a hellish devil because... following the law and will of god to wipe out all other gods is um... darkness or something because he said no other gods before him, even though he's dead now so that wouldn't even apply and she couldn't be "before him" you just don't get a biblically accurate angel I guess." "Suprise, Dazai is now able to teleport anywhere he wants and has demonic glowing eyes. Why? Oh he became Christian. They can all do that right?" "Oops Yuzuru forgot about his sister lol" "This time the Neutral ending results in you throwing the world into lawless anarchy and chaos, in order to destroy the former order who's laws previously governed the way of the world. What? What do you mean thats Chaos and not neutral? The guy who makes the idea is a human supremacist who wants to purge the weak from society with violence. That's "Neutral" because humans are neutral, right?" "To get the true ending, you must befriend and form bonds with all different kinds of friendly demons from all walks of life. And then in the true ending you genocide all of that disgusting non-human filth out of existence!" I could go for hours probably. Nocturne is brief and quick with it's story bits but it's written by an actual person instead of an ai generator.
The easiest way to see how incomplete the story is is by noticing how the story said how important the Amatsukami were, despite the fact that there was the most notable one of the three missing. She was likely gonna be revealed to be Tao but none of that is mentioned, and Amaterasu isnt available for fusion
Man, it’s crazy how so many games just get screwed by the engine they’re being developed on. The second point you brought up just feels similar to Square Enix’s issues with Crystal Tools & Luminous Engine and how that threw off basically all of their games from 2010-2020. On a large scale, people seem to not acknowledge that but it’s nice that more and more people are catching on
@@aureateseigneur5317 If only pokemon fans realized the flaws in not reusing models that at best were touched up slightly. Despite the fact they've fact they've reusing models since pokemon colosseum and revolution
It does seem that Atlus was indecisive on Hayataro's role. Once you got to the point where you're able to get Hayataro - the demon is pretty much useless. Other SMTV characters that Atlus wasted their potential were Yakumo Shohei, Nuwa, and Goko.
Willing to bet everyone on the cover, and the other student characters had bigger plans that Atlus couldn't pull through with. I mean Khonsu's entire plot is a sidequest yet he gets to be on the boxart
Goko is literally just chilling he doesn't care about what's going on he just cares that something is happening in the world that has otherwise been completely still for the past 20 years Yakumo is from 1920 and is representative of Imperial Japan, Nuwa is one of the Three Chinese Sovereigns and part of her myth is that she created humanity out of mud and the humans she created initially were made from yellow mud/clay and became the immensely wealthy and noble castes while creating the rest of the Chinese People via mass producing them by dragging a string through brown mud, together they represent hardcore authoritarian/feudalist rule
I do. I have a theory as to why that was cut. It was most likely due to the protagonist dying and coming back would just be a Dagda 2.0 scenario. Least that's what I think.
@@flynn1545 Honestly I was suspecting, at the reveal, that we get to pick the MC or the Heroine as the protagonist, barely surviving the attack and get rescued by Aogami (or whoever gonna be the Aogami in the original script).
I enjoyed the discourse your video instigated, but I will say that I have a hard time believing that the job of the 3d modelers or anyone in the art department would impede the three writers in any way. There's a few instances where troubled or rocky development is hinted at like one of the final famitsu interviews which mentions rewrites or the liner notes mentioning rewrites. However, I think the conclusion "smt v had troubled development" is correct based on what I mentioned. Cheers!
@@voyan38 I do the same with tons of demon names it's tough, my one tip for Japanese is to just break the names up into the two letter sounds and that will usually work! Glad you put forth a discussion that people are engaging with
One thing I want to point out is how Hyataro joins your party at an extremely low level. This happens at the last area so you can’t use him for any fights (which are all just bosses)
I spent the whole game wanting to use him ever since I saw him and was sooooooooooo pissed when he joined at level 40 in a level 80 dungeon on exclusively the Chaos route
I knew about this so I stocked like 50 Grimores in advance and spammed all of them on him. He was still useless and awful at level 80. Waste of my time. I suppose you could replace all of his skills and make him another dime-a-dozen Critcal Zealot spammer and make him good but he's clearly designed to be a supportive dodge tank. But it's just useless.
I hate when people use Nocturne's storytelling as an excuse because I dare say they actually tried in Nocturne. I thought the story and characters were more memorable. V wasn't minimalist, they wanted to tell a story but never followed up on points that were never explored beyond conception
Looking at the final game, it was pretty obvious that it had a rough development with the story being so blatantly unfinished, the game lacking a certain polish, and that it just seems to cut so many corners all over. If anything, looking at the final result and it feels like it was a bloody miracle that the game was as playable as it was. Also, you are quite correct in the assessment of each game being different. This is what drove Kaneko and Cozy and why Nocturne is the way it did. They constantly wanted to reinvent and see what they could do with the series. That's why for instance Nocturne lacks the traditional alignments as they though of them as creative dead ends. However the moment they disappear the new staff instead just decides to retread old ground rather than try to innovate. You even saw some of the warning signs of this in IV with the second half playing it excessively safe compared to the first half. Also, I have to mention that the demon but doesn't really hold as most of them were simply ported in from Persona 5. The Doi ones were new, but almost all of the Kaneko ones are preexisting ones with a few exceptions.
I wonder if the current SMT team even wants to be working on this series. They're given the opportunity to make something really special with this series and instead they choose to do what has already been done in an attempt to please the fanbase.
@@athorem I am guessing more that they are just lacking in creativity and let themselves be taken up by memes and whatever is currently popular, proceeding to copy that. You can just see this with Soul Hackers 2 that looks like just about any other modern JRPG out there these days. They are just lacking a drive to innovate and just wants to settle for half-baked plots and waifu's.
The sad part is that I couldn't really enjoy the gameplay either due to the stupid level scalling thing. It dumbs down the game so much imo. This series taught me that I can defeat strong bosses with a team of key demons but now even if you got the perfect team, if the boss is 8 levels higher than you it will be all for naught.
This. I remember even in Strange Journey Redux (A game that doesn't even have the press-turn system) being able to fight bosses over 15 levels above me and still putting up a fight and winning through good strategy and party formation.
@@yieschu same, i actually dropped the game when i first fought jimenez at the neutral route, im not grinding like 10 levels worth for every demon hoping to change the outcome
I really wish Atlus would do more for Persona 1 and 2. Also would love for HD remasters of Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2(as one set) and both Raidou games.
I was just just about to get SMT IV when you posted this since it’s on sale on the eShop :o edit: like a year later doubt anyones reading this but but it was probably one of my favorite games. I have nocturne and V and apocalypse now too but i havent gotten into them as much yet
This is probably the best time in history to check these games out, the eShop is going away soon and the sale right now makes them dirt cheap (especially compared to physical, which is only going to increase from here.) That said, I really can't promise these games are for everyone. They're difficult and the appeal isn't as front facing as most games that I talk about here, but if you like turn-based RPGs, give em a shot. SMT IV is a good starter and only 8 bucks in the US.
SMT V was my first SMT game, and as a huge persona fan I was excited to see what atlus could bring to the table. What I got was a really fun game with the most underdeveloped story I've ever seen... like man there are so many characters that are set up to be big! The box art has two characters that rarely show up (the Egyptian guy is an optional character to fight in side quests!) And the only character to really get development was Ichiro Dazai (literally the only human name I could remember) and he sucked major ass :( I love the game play and all the demons but holy smokes did the story just... oof
I generally agree that a game can be forgiven for a bad story if the gameplay is solid. But SMTV is part of a franchise where your actions withing the context of the story beats tend to carry a certain weight, mostly through some sort of morality system influenced by the choices you make. These choices may lead you to wildly different plot progressions, and even different endings. But to make such a system work, the involved story beats and characters need to be interesting. And I couldn't care less about any of them. Your role as an outsider is unusually pronounced, with other characters barely having any interesting traits to latch onto, and most of the plot being so badly paced that they als odon't get enough screentime to change that. It's mostly you cleaning up after the others, and watching them stand around, but they never really interact with you in a way that makes them seem relevant. Because of that (and the fact that the morality system this time is just one choice near the end), the plot loses much of its appeal. You're supposed to be influenced by the characters you sympathize with, or at least their ideologies - but when everyone's an idiot or a dick, the most sensible chocie is to go for the "neutral" ending and give them all the finger. The most interesting aspect in terms of narrative was the interactions and side stories between demons and their twisted ideas and alignments. Those were fun to pursue, even though quest structures were 90% "go there, kill that, tell me about it". But when the enemies have more personality than the actual characters, something doesn't work.
1. well I like that you don't have to follow extensive guides to even be able to get the neutral ending (looking at SMTIV -.-). I'm perfectly fine with one choice near the end (and some sidequest requirements for the "true" ending) 2. I don't want to defend the story of V too much, it's really not great, but I think the same goes for III and IV. IV has a pretty good story, but every ending, even the "true" neutral one is ultra lame. at least V's "true" neutral ending had some interesting things happening and III's true demon ending is badass. Other than that, III's characters are behaving weirdly and only show up from time to time. V's characters are behaving more "normally", but show up even less and some of them are even forgotten (poor Miyazu). For me, it's always the demons that are the stars of the show. 3. you say "when everyone's an idiot or a dick, the most sensible chocie is to go for the "neutral" ending and give them all the finger.", but the neutral dude is also a dick :D it's like politics, you don't elect the party you can fully sympathize with (because there is none), you just elect the party you hate the least (at least that's how it works for me)
the worst part of all this is that its the best selling SMT game ever despite its flaws. I really hope whatever mainline title comes next will show people how SMT can really be special
Damn... You're so right. If they could fix the mess with the story. Making what it was supposed to be originally. It could have been not only the best SMT game ever but the best game on Switch. Just like IV was on 3DS. I wish things were different... Still a very good game tho. But you know. It could have been more
…Wait. You’re telling me that I coulda ridden on hayatoro’s BACK?! And he woulda been the first demon I got?! AND HE WOULDA HAD A BIGGER ROLE?!?! …well at least SMT V’s gameplay is Badass. *I STILL WANNA PET THE SPIRIT DOGE THOOOOOO*
Actually, my first SMTIV playthrough was right after the quarantine started back in 2020, and that game totally gives you the feeling of lockdown with the people of Tokyo living with uncertainty of what would be of them in the near future, like pretty much all of us were on those days. I haven't played V yet, but as far as I see, looks like they got a lot of development issues, so their solution was to emulate Nocturne's lack of explanations and active plot with a game not designed to be like that, and the result was a game reminiscent to Nocturne but with different results.
Tbh I was expecting something more like SMT I or SMT IV... Specifically IV in steroids. Obviously with a whole new story. Μany of the things they were talking about of the game in the first interviews made me expect this. A world nuked by a nuclear holocaust. A small surviving humankind struggling in a new world like in I or IV making the world more alive and way more interesting than Nocturne's one. I like some of the elements they gave the game tho. Like a "false Tokyo" existing while the original one was destroyed or the Nahobino and Gods knowledge subject. But yeah the story was disappointing. At least until the last hours. I seriously didn't want a rip off of Nocturne... Now I'm wanting to know how could the original plot go again like it happened to me before with games like Final Fantasy versus XIII
Definitely agree here, aside from the obvious representation & barebones story issues. The forced similarities with Nocturne did nothing to make V a special game, what I love the most about SMT is how each game tries to be different, do new ideas and execute the same ones differently and distinctly from each other, IV & Nocturne wonderfully stand to those words as basically going to their own road. V just forgets its own objective and tries to mimic its past brothers, which I turn, fell off in both, presenting an individual story & trying to be an SMT game imo. Watch how atlus shuts me up with SMT V Royal Mainiax Encore edition that overhauls the entire game.
I think what gave away that they're gonna release an updated smt5 was the pricing. Not even a month after its release you could find a steel book copy for like 50% off. And even now, that price is consistent. I see it sold for $35 way more than I see it sold for $60. That just doesnt happen for switch exclusives
Only nintendos games prices almost never drop. Nocturne hd remaster 20$ at game stop, smtV is 35 now,cathrine full body is 22$,persona 5 strikers is 33$ now. If you wait Atlus games will always drop in price. Also smtv starting price new was 50$ when I bought it 2-3 months after release.
@@iloveemiliaandrem9443 you focused on the fact that it's an atlus game and not that it's a switch exclusive, or an rpg. Every game that you mentioned is a multiplat release, not an rpg (which, barring a very few games, usually only go up in price), or is a rerelease itself. Even in the context of atlus games, only persona really dropped in price. Catherine's a multiplat rerelease, and still pretty much stays floating around the $25 mark
Gotta say, if they're going to rerelease this game but they don't fix everything that was wrong with the game in the updated version, its going to be very hard to convince people to buy this game again
It should have been noted that SMTV is the SMT games that Kazuma Kaneko doesn't have any involvement or contribution whatsoever up until that point Kaneko always been involved in various aspect in SMT games especially the writing (yes even Apocalypse was based on the story that Kaneko left to the team)
As a casual SMT fan (I've only played the Persona games, SMTIV A and Strange Journey), I found SMTV enjoyable enough. The story wasn't anything groundbreaking but I don't think it was "terrible." It was very simple which I can appreciate. The theology and philosophy made me think, but the gameplay is what made me go back to play more every day.
As my first SMT game (not count P4G and P5R), I really enjoyed SMT V. The game's sense of atmosphere was something I was really in to, the game felt depressing and somber and constantly beat down on you. I will say, I would've loved if the game got maybe another 6 months or a year in development so they could improve upon the story.
Nocturne and SMT4 are still so memorable and makes me want to play them again. While I enjoyed SMT5 I felt like after I finished it i had no motivation to start a newgame+. Didn't care about any characters including the protagonist, instead of the story feeling personal it felt like we were watching from the outside
Wait there is a character in nocturne you care about I hated all the human characters except for the teacher in that game forgetably boring is an upgrade to complete hate
Just wanna say that IV is a Massive throwback to earlier SMTs, specifically I and II, which is possibly part of the reason why V is more of a throwback to III than I/II or IV.
I think, there was a lot of hit or miss in terms of gameplay as well. the progression felt forcibly walled around massive level gaps making the story also feel really badly paced and tedious at times. the demon spawns where so easily avoidable and felt sort of sparse in variety. the dungeon puzzles also where overly simple and just sort of felt like an after thought. In other games the story had more weight with actual meaning towards the choices you made but in this one the only actual choice is made near the end of the game and sort of didn't have the usual moral dilemma of actually caring about the consequences. the characters are sort of "meh" I didn't have any emotional investment to them because of just how shallow and under developed they where along with the city of Tokyo and the mannequin like inhabitants in it. overall yeah I think Atlus clearly did not foresee just how ambitious they where trying to be with the constraints they had. you can clearly see the potential the game was going for and you can tell with more time, more resources the game would have been a complete banger I could play over and over again.
I also really hate the MP economy in this game. They decided in the same game to inflate MP costs and to make MP restoring items a limited resource. A lot of boss fights, I found myself switching out really good demons
I enjoyed the vast majority of the side quests; the demons would have interesting reasons for their positions with solid writing (Loki legit got laughs out of me). I still think the single hardest decision in the game for me was the very first sidequest choice between The Water Nymph or The Spirit of Love. It felt like picking one was going to paint my whole story going forward. It's a pity that it really didn't get to work out that way. I can tell that Atlus WANTED to fill the world with that quality of writing, and they kind of did on the side content. But man, the main story and characters got shafted hard. Poor Dazai. He was almost a real character, right up until the end when the game made him a joke.
Even though SMT V is one of my favorite games of all time, I went in expecting a simple yet effective story with well thought out themes and great but simple characters. What I got instead was a story that reeked of multiple rewrites and not knowing if it wanted to be more like Nocturne or more like IV.
@@randomduck8679 My favorite games so far are 1. Xenoblade 1 2. Fallout New Vegas 3. Yakuza Like a Dragon 4. Metroid Dread 5. Modern Warfare 6. Super Mario Galaxy 7. SMT V 8. Persona 3 Portable. 9. Halo 2 10. Kirby and the Forgotten Land
@@nitro5247 My updated one so far is 1. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 2. Metroid Prime 3. The Legend of Zelda Tears of The Kingdom 3. Persona 4 Golden/ Xenoblade Chronicles 4. Yakuza Like a Dragon 5. Super Mario Galaxy 6. Persona 3 Portable/ Persona 5 Royal 7. SMT V/ Metroid Dread 8. Sonic Adventure 2/ Halo 2 9. Kirby and the Forgotten Land 10. Animal Crossing New Horizons
The only things I know about SMT are Persona, Battle Theme V8 from SMT5, and that Playstation Magazine wouldn't shut up about it back in the day. This was fun to watch.
And I thought Squareenix was the only one who was making the jump from whatever engine to UE4 without thinking about what it requires. It feels like Dazai is the only character they felt was worth exploring that wasn't a God of some kind so I ended up loving him the most. Plus with Miyazu begging you at almost every turn to be friends with her brother, only for Yuzuru and Hayataro to barely exist, it ends up feeling like the game is begging you to interact with a story that isn't there. I'm still going to get a remake if they do it since the gameplay is super fun regardless, but I can only hope they don't fumble this hard with Persona 6.
Hey man, great quick video. As an atlus fan who never dipped my toes in SMT tbis was my first game and while the gameplay was great and the final decision very interesting the overall story felt bland even to like trauma center lmao. But the philosophy law major in me and the potential of what the formula gives I wanted to play more of the games. I was gonna buy Strange Journey and/or SMTIV of the eshop now with the sale to see if I like it bc I heard thoses plot and atmosphere are generally better. END GAME SPOILERS IN THIS PARAGRAPH I don’t even think the plot is the primary issue in SMTV it’s the characters that really shackle the game down. I don’t even remember the glasses’s guys name and I beat this game like 2 weeks ago and he’s the fucking chaos rep that’s how little impact he has. Ichiro Dazai too felt like the opposite where they rushed and exaggerated his appearances so that he really isn’t a character he’s a fuckin law rep plot element. Nuwa and Yakumo too just kinda show up and scream their ideology at you without any subtext or like things that make a very philosophical game about the rule of law and power, meaningless. Overall it’s a blueprint from a deeply profound game about the rule of law, “demon” worth, and even what does “god” as a concept really mean and I see inklings of it like in the meeting in bethel. But the flat characters and the lack of general subtlety kill me inside. Anyway idk why I typed this if you read this for reason play the great ace attorney it’s on sale right now peak fiction about a lot of loaded topics in funny and interesting ways :)
@@Antasma1 yea unfortunately when they make a SMT5 Royal/Redux/Apocalypse/full body/second opinion that is $60 and hopefully not weird about the characters everything will probably end up being actually pretty great. Just I’m a little upset I’m playing $120 for the full experience lol
off topic (the game appeared in the first 10 seconds of the video) but man the situation with rune factory 5 is such a shame like behind the awful performance i see an alright game but i cant stomach the performance of that game
this game needs a definitive rerelease so bad. Its a decent RPG, but certain aspects like the story's pacing and the damage scaling based on level alone needs reworking.
I do agree that previous entry criticisms probably played a big role: for example the neutral ending has a lot of shades of the Massacre ending of Apocalypse, at least moreso that the Friendship ending, which of the two endings (both of which were considered "neutral") the fanbase seemed to consider Massacre the "more SMT" ending of the two
The 3d model console comment makes no sense considering all the games after smt 4. Let’s be real here. Unreal engine combined with covid didn’t help the development one bit . I be covid had a huge role in all of this.
So, as someone who purchased and finished the original on release and was kinda dissapointed, did they fix it with Vengeance? I'm holding my money on this one.
All the real world stuff felt preeeety bad and didn't need to be there at all. Maybe that one scene on the rooftop where we see Tokyo disappearing, but all the rest is baad
You think they would port it to the PS5? Atlus has that strange thing going on where they focus the SMT games on nintendo devices these days and the persona ones on the playstation. While it makes perfect sense to do it it also goes against the established patern.
5:21 That article, and what it stated is exactly what was left out from the game. Like, they really need to step it up on the story now. There's no excuse, they got the other half of gameplay right, now they should have lot's of time to think of the story. I'm sure they are doing that as we speak. I honestly think that 100 demons would have been okay if it mean't we get more time for story. Then in the sequel, they add 100 more demons...it really wasn't a big deal. Just use the popular/most noticably demons to get people into it.
Also wish some SMT fans would stop using the blatant cop out that is "SMT isn't about story". If SMT isn't about the story then don't inject a bad story into my game and defend it by effectively saying it's meant to be bad. And even if SMT in some reality isn't about the story, it can't have bad characters as they're meant to communicate ideas to the player and to entice them into making important decisions for later on. 3, 4 (lol to an extent) 4a (same as 4), and SJ all had at LEAST decent to pretty good stories that had characters and reps with personalities I could somewhat connect to. In a game about choosing a side, if none of your reps entice me then why would I root for or care about any of them?
LMAO yeah SMT Nocturne had such good reps as the girl who you met during half a minute, the guy who says he doesn't want to be hurt so fuck it let's make a world about that or a literally bad guy who after destroying the world asks for your help. Let's not forget SMT IV where both major routes are just asking for massive gen0cide, I'm sorry but you're just being nostalgic, because those routes weren't enticing at all with the exception of the true demon route in SMT 3 and neutral route in SMT IV.
@@jake0749 you didn't read what I said properly. For multiple I said "to an extent" and for characters and reps I used "somewhat". I didn't say they were the pinnacle of story telling lol And it's not nostalgia as I got into SMT around 2018 or so. It's that 5s characters and story is so much worse by comparison that 4 may as well be shakespear. I did TDE and got neutral in 4 because the reps of 4 went off the deep end a bit too quick for my liking. But at least they had personality to make them entertaining. With 5 I'd be hard pressed to remember the name of any of the reps. Strange Journey blows them all out of the water. My bad for not elaborating more but in my opinion, if those characters even with all the flaws they do entice me more than 5s then that just says a lot about 5 lmao
That garbage argument is used by the normies jrpg fans who hopped on the smt bandwagon on Nocturne remaster/V’s release. They don’t care about a story so they project that into the franchise. It’s sickening.
@@jake0749 I actually like the cast in 5, though I have yet to finish it. I don't own 3, but my best friend liveblogged it to me over the phone. He actually thought that the Demi-Fiend's friends were both terrible people and had shitty justifications for their paths, to the point were he just went full on True Demon path to spite them and Hikawa, lmao (the entire Noah boss fight made him hate Isamu even more)
@@jake0749 LOL. You claim the IV neutral ending is good writing? Yup i was fucking right, it is you brainless normies that suddenly infected the communities who only care about the « golden route happy endings that massage your ego» . Now go play redux kid, it’s right up your alley for « jrpg that massages the player’s ego ». Don’t play the original, no, it might hurt your feelings since every ending has a flaw!😱😱😱 Can’t have my self insert be anything than a perfect saviour hero! Don’t worry, the brainwashing song is actually, NICER brainwashing! Don’t worry about humanity being stuck in a perpetual state of hatred, greed, terror and wars, they don’t get to suffer consequences from the evil black thing and your self insert looks heroic! You don’t actually care about the endings, you just care about how they’re framed. Ending frames ME as a hero = amazing 10/10 ending Ending suggests that I did something wrong = trash ending 0/10 Piss off. Law and White ending are the better endings in IV. They’re not great either though. And I could elaborate on IV’s law ending if you want since it seems your brain rotted while you were playing it.
Its why I didn't like SMT5; half assed story, lackluster artstyle, bland sandbox zones....literally sand in four different colors and only 2 dungeons, basic exposition/reveals, severely underbaked characters. Wait we woulda gotten chaos doggo as a mount? Removed story elements? Daaamn 💀 Its really sad cuz the game got high reviews and sold very well anyways. Its like pkmn sword/shield all over again, undercooked game is successful ugh.
SMT I and II are something else, too Bad modern ATLUS hates them, and remaking them would practically be impossible, too grand of a scale, and budget would be needed
you make totally real and excellent points. i think i just related to the game so much because i play for battle, and i kind of hate the drawn out stories of things like p4a ultimax or persona 5 strikers. you know… those scenes where its all the characters who have to all get their word in on a topic. i was coming off of that, and i just loved the world of shadows, the battle, the esoteric world… it felt like the opposite of all that and its why i think i latched onto it so hard at the time of its release. i felt the same way i did when i caught pokemon in blue or gold when i was a kid, it was all about the addiction of fusing this demon with that and seeing their vulgar interactions.
I think the reason why the story of SMT V was so lacking was because it was rewritten so many times even developers forgot what it was about. It usually happens when a videogame has being developed for a very long time (I remember it was announced along with a Switch presentation before the release, and by the trailer it might be in the oven for even longer) and no one agreed what plot it needs. At some point it feels they wanted it make it look like Persona with the bullied girl subplot, but that didn't go anyway of substance. And maybe is just me but I'm don't like stories where they start with a protagonist having so many friends you are supposed to care because you know them since childhood, but you as a player you cannot care less, you only know them for 5 minutes and then they dissapear for most of the story except for cutscenes. Also all sides seem to be just a bunch of egocentric kids wanting to change the world for whatever reason they might have, but when I was playing I only care about getting more demons. Is like that video of JelloApocalypse "I just came to catch a Bulbasaur". And they cheat with the "your decisions matter" by only having effect on a question just before the final dungeon. If is was gonna be like that just don't do it, don't bother with fake player intervention. I was also odd out how those subquests where you help one demon or another didn't matter either, it would be a good way to tell which aligment you are more inclined too. And last why Aogami has so little presence after all? Is because they thought that would make it too gay ("Sighs" Japan and homophobia) and people would ship him with the protagonist? I dunno, if you where that scared then why you don't try to develop your female characters better? Ps: The game is still fun to play, just skip the story.
Okay, so I'm like not even a minute in, but Jack Bros, Persona, Persona 2, Last Bible, and Devil Children all were on North American shores before Nocturne. Demi-Kids even has the SMT logo spread across the game. Some of these are a little less SMT than the others, but there's demon negotiations, first person dungeons, classic spell systems, and mascot characters right there, years before Nocturne showed up.
Thank you for bringing up the 3D demon modelling; it appears that the team ran into technical difficulties during development. With everything that's been said, I still don't find it excusable to release a game half-baked. Obviously gameplay is important aspect, but even then V didn't deliver in that front imo, and SMT's writing is important to its gameplay or alternatively said ''the writing is the gameplay'. I am gutted that none of our choices matter in the whole trip. V's absence of an alignment journey makes the game feel less of an SMT game, and well more of a megaten spin off. I do whole-heartedly agree that emulating other styles do not work, what made other SMTs good is how unique and original they were.
I played smt4 thrice- once for every alignment ending. its one of my favorite games of all time!! i didn't like apocalypse as much but i did at least finish it. i picked up smtv recently and was surprised by how little I wanted to play it... I literally got my favourite demon at level 30+ and dipped. To me there's something stilted and unnatural abt the plot and dialogue, and the themes of opposing forces battling for control of the world feel so superficial compared to older games, to the point that I mixed up the alignments for the Law and Chaos heroes . thanks for putting some of my thoughts into words :-p
some other thoughts from someone who's worked in animation and concept art: visually, smtv is a lot more polished than iv in terms of consistency of art style, but there are a lot of missteps when it comes to the pacing of the cutscenes. impactful scenes feel comedic, epic cosmic battles just feel kind of drawn out.... And this is just a personal opinion, but even though the environment looks pretty cool in game, i think it lacks the cool landnarks and small, interesting details of previous titles. take a shot everytime you crawl thru a ruined office building w some metal beams and vending machines. and i totally agree with the look of the game drawing too much inspiration from smt3. I think even in the character art for V, you can see Doi referencing Kaneko's soft painting style from nocturne, rather than using the cellshade style he's used on other titles he's worked on.
The problem is that the plot literally went by In 4 freaking days and can literally be written down onto a single piece of paper it's like day 1 discover demon world day 2 lose friend day 3 partake in massive battle day 4 kill a litteral God. just imagine being in the main characters shoes one week ago you were chilling with your friends with your biggest worry being if you would be able to pass Fridays math test and now uh oh 86 hours later you are now god. If you were like me and just got into the series with this game it's so quick and the plot is so freaking thin that I feel like I missed half of the things being said like in one seen your friends all like by the way I can summon demons and I'm just like.. ok cool I guess I feel like that should have slowly been built up over the course of the game or at the very least been elaborate on a bit further like I just assume the how is explained in another game because they never tell you how it happens here and again I have never played another shin megama tensi game before so I'm so confused on how that works they have like nothing on them that could imply how normal humans do that so ya. Tell you what though after all that it does make me want a more fulfilling shin magama game I think I'll go play nocturne next.
I waited since my freshman year of highschool to play SMT5 because in middle school I got into the series with 4 and 4A. After waiting half a decade for this game, only for it to be half baked. I can agree. God does give his worst SMT plots to his strongest megaten fans.
to be fair, a little bit of the "modern issues" actually does show up in the game. you gotta talk to the NPCs in regular tokyo tho -_-. some of them actually have funny little plotlines like one guy who was excited that his job was getting a new vending machine or something only to then later be disappointed because he has to work from home. also, u say that smt5 might have been trying to reference nocturne, and then u split the video into REASONS O_o the conspiracy goes deep
I just downloaded on 3ds with the sale all the megaten games I didn't already have. Deciding between starting devil Survivor Overclocked or strange Journey Redux
If you're feeling the lack of story left you sore, shoot for Devil Survivor. IMO One of the best portrayals of demon-occupied Tokyo and the societal frenzy that comes alongside it. But if you're looking for more character driven, SMT style dungeon-crawling with alignment, shoot for Strange Journey. Although Devil Survivor definitely has strong characters too.
Nocturne's story problem for me is I hate all the characters. At the start of the game it's understandable how they're confused and scared as anyone would be given what happened to the world. But as the time goes on everyone becomes complete assholes. Everyone's reason and how they want the world to change suck in my opinion. Be it self isolated worlds, a world ruled by the strong, or a world lacking free will, or screw the world and go to fight god. Even the "good" end of making the world as it was doesn't feel worth it. I get that's what the story is meant to be but hard to get invested in the game when you don't like any outcome. Smt 5 story issue really is just how bare bones it is. It has the frame of a good game but when you can speed run all four ending in the span of three days it's not an smt game.
Worst thing is that they don’t release interesting DLC that could focus on a specific alignment such chaos or law giving them more interesting deep and replay ability to the game (because the game itself without any sub quest and high leveled is a walk in the park on reborn)
agree, but how many times do we have to tell the modern SMT team that we don't like their stories until they make something we like? story was the largest complaint with apocalypse as well
imo I just think smt3's and smt5's plot were supposed to be connected at some point. There is way too many similarities to the game's theme, environment, and Nahobino feels like a heavenly version of Demi-Fiend.
I think they could have rescued it because a barebones story isnt a fatal flaw, but the problem is its not telegraphed what ending youll get very well. Like, the guy with Nuwa dressed as a cop spends the whole time killing demons, so if you like demons youre not going to side with them, yet their ending is arguably the best for the demons.
