Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance review

//Played these games on Nintendo Switch(SMTV and SMTVV)
For now, since I don't feel like working on a more traditional review that I'd do for a game like this, I'll just copy and paste some information I was sharing with a discord server. I will update this paste later with more information and/or a new format for the review. But for now, this will provide a link to get the game off my 'now playing' list on https://www.rankone.global/spyray webpage.

So I finished Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance recently. I cleared the new story once and then reloaded my save file near the end of the game and beat the game again to get the other ending associated with the new story. The game now has 6 different endings(indicated by the clear data save files), which is up from 4 in the original version of SMTV. I haven't looked into challenging some of the new superbosses yet(not sure how many there are), but the main story was very intriguing, I'd argue that the new story content does about what you'd have expected differently from the original game and this is effectively the definitive version of SMTV.

Check it out if you:
-Enjoy difficult exploration and relatively unforgiving turn based combat
-Want a bigger than average RPG with lots of replayability
-Enjoy reading directories of trivia, such as found with the lore pages in the monster/demon conpendium

Consider skipping it if you:
-Are a completionist player, because getting 100 percent in this game is only for the most die-hard fans
-Hate difficult optional challenges
-Want a game with a lot of voice acting

The most interesting difference between this and the original version at least to me is the fact that Save Points are now obsolete. The 'Save Points' still serve every original function but the big change is that now you can save anywhere you can access the menu, whereas before you had to well, save at a save point. I guess it would be more accurate to point out that they were only colloquially called save points(as far as I remember they didn't use that actual phrase after all, which makes sense considering they were multipurpose service devices) as their actual name was something like a ley line or a font of power(well they might have had more than one name, I'm not sure) or something like that. Anyway, point is the save option was added to the exploration UI while the rest of the functions still require  you to be at specific places and touch the glowing stuff.

//After beating Ys 9 and AAHD I was able to reinstall SMTV OG and had this to add on the server chat channel:

For additional context on my SMTVV review: I finally got around to reinstalling the old SMTV, and from what I can tell, your main character and your monsters are all a lot stronger in the Vengeance version, even if you pick the original story/path/route. So the time to clear has been lessened significantly. I'm not sure how long it would take a first time player to beat it, but if my original save file was any indication, it looks like the inclusion of the hideout and the m-rails and the innate abilities(as I thought, these are all new, every monster now has one) and perhaps a few other less obvious things make battle progression a lot smoother now. The vengeance path seems to be the harder path to take so newcomers are encouraged to take the original path unless they want a grindier, more difficult journey for their first run. Time to clear may still vary depending on playstyle and cross over experience, but the new features should shave off roughly 30 hours, if not more. In the meantime, the players get quality of life interaction with character dialogue to keep the grind interesting. It's not just the things I mentioned just now, but being able to load your save outside of battle, saving outside of battle etcetera, there were so many QoL changes, you couldn't even access the menu in OG, if you wanted to return to main menu all you could do was close the game and start it again. It really feels like a whole new game and many of the criticisms that might have turned people away from the game are likely to have been addressed in this Vengeance expansion. Basically, the exploration UI was very minimalist before and now it's a whole modern new thing.

//I will update this with the traditional 5 category scores when I have finalized the review.
Exploration: 3/5
Story: 2/5
Progression: 5/5
Art: 3/5
Battle: 5/5
//end of review