Nothing depicts the end of the world quite like Shin Megami Tensei. While other games will seek to showcase small slivers of hope alongside a bustling personality from the ruins of destruction, Atlus’ JRPG series is transfixed on misery in a morbidly fascinating way.

The beloved SMT 3: Nocturne turned our protagonist into a demon as he’s forced to explore Tokyo as it crumbles to oblivion, and the fifth installment pursues a similar thematic goal, albeit on a much larger scale. You play as a silent protagonist in a similar vein to Persona 5’s Joker, a high school student seemingly content with his life as a young man in modern day Tokyo. The opening scenes are reminiscent of this metropolitan existence. You weave through crowds of faceless people on their way to work and school, residing on a plane of existence where individuality feels meaningless.

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Initially, everything seems dandy. Then one day a tunnel collapses atop of you and your fellow students, transporting you to a parallel dimension. Here, the world is in ruins, occupied by angels and demons with only minute specks of humanity surviving amidst the chaos. Tokyo is destroyed, everyone is dead, and there’s seemingly nothing you can do to prevent it. Suddenly everything is not so dandy.

Shin Megami Tensei 5

The apocalypse has come and gone, with a new ecosystem thriving amidst the rusted husks of vehicles and the decaying foundations of skyscrapers that continue to crumble into the scorching sands below. It’s immediately striking, compounded with a sense of mystery that I’m unable to delve into as part of this preview, but I will say that the circumstances of this world are far deeper than you think. The world hasn’t just ended in the blink of an eye, there are reasons behind its demise that you’ll soon come to discover.

You emerge in this foreign place awaiting your death, with demons immediately descending upon you. Fortunately, a mysterious figure known as Nahobino decides to crash the party and fuse with our protagonist, resulting in a powerful figure capable of commanding creatures and dishing out lethal spells while wielding a fluorescent blade that sprouts from their hand. You were once defenseless, but now you’re ready to fight back against a place that threatens to swallow you whole at every turn. Shin Megami Tensei 5 makes a distinctive first impression. It knows it inspired the likes of Persona, and now exists in a medium where it has long been surpassed in terms of popularity and cultural impact. It has a point to prove. It comes out swinging, making its mission statement clear in the opening moments as it takes hold of you and refuses to let go. I’m smitten with this game, even if it keeps kicking my ass.

Shin Megami Tensei 5

Shin Megami Tensei 5 is punishingly difficult, abiding by the old school rules of booting you back to the main menu whenever Nahobino falls in battle. This happens a lot, so it’s essential to save your progress and heal your growing party of demons whenever you stumble across a save point in the open world. The majority of battles are imbued with a profound aura of anxiety as you’re blissfully unaware if the cavalcade of monsters before you will dish out an attack that wipes your entire team in a single round of turns. You’re powerless to stop them as you make observations of what moves they execute and exactly how you might go about countering them. Losing is part of the experience, and at times it can feel unfair or obtusely designed, especially when it’s held up against its contemporaries.

Yet it all feels deliberate, because SMT 5 is all about identifying the weaknesses of your enemies and exploiting them to the point of excess, pounding them into the ground until it’s impossible for your opponents to fight back. Enemies will always be weak against a certain element - whether it be Fire, Lightning, or Darkness - and when hit with these attacks you will add another turn to your current rollout as you’re invited to chain similar commands together to increase your time on the battlefield before the tables inevitably turn. As a result, each new area invites you to experiment, dipping into combat with the knowledge that your ass might be beaten into next Tuesday as you’re thrown back to the main menu to lick your wounds. But now you’re smarter, outfitted with the knowledge to change up your party and beat these dastardly angels and demons at their own game. You always feel powerful, but aware that this power can always be exploited and snuffed out at a moment’s notice. Even when turning the difficulty level down to casual, battles still offer ample challenge.

Shin Megami Tensei 5

There’s a false sense of security associated with a formula like this. Even in the opening area that I can discuss as part of this preview, I felt like I was unstoppable until a more powerful adversary came along and grounded my expectations in mere moments. I always had to be on my toes, ready for the game to remind me that I’m destined to lose again and again until I come out on top. Much like previous entries in the series, you fight alongside a bespoke party of demons each with their own unique skills and abilities. You can fuse them together to create new creatures, or even steal their abilities to use them as their own.

Nobody will play SMT 5 in the same way because its mechanics are so malleable to customisation. I go for the rule of cute, so my party is just filled with mermaids, angels, and succubi who also happen to kick ass and take names until they’re all out of bubblegum. When they fall in the battle, you can’t swap them out in an instant, every move in this game is mediated with a level of rhythm that punishes those who fail to recognise its inner workings. Even in the early hours I’ve already screamed at my Switch in frustration, but it only spurs me onward to try harder and get better. Obviously, not everyone will gel with something this punishing.

Shin Megami Tensei 5

Post-apocalyptic Tokyo is a gorgeous glimpse into a ruined future. Sand has buried much of the once sprawling metropolis, with demons forming a small yet broken community amidst the societal carcass. Not all of them are your enemies. Many are neutral, happy to strike up a conversation or even join the righteous cause if you’re savvy enough. A number of side quests will require you to make moral decisions, siding with angels or demons as you consider the argument of each party and determine which outcome feels right to you. Both of them could be lying, or both of them could be telling the truth, there’s no way of knowing, and SMT 5 is filled with dynamic moments like this that make its otherwise traditional world design feel alive.

Even the opening area is massive, filled with winding paths and hidden collectibles that encourage exploration, and going off the incentivised route is downright essential to earn experience and demons that will lower the risk of being smoked the second you step into battle. You’ll have to wait until the full review to hear about everything this marvellous JRPG has to offer. While it is bitingly traditional when compared to Persona 5, it uses this archaic approach to its advantage. The narrative intrigue and character development are both top notch, providing just enough details to keep you guessing as each new revelation reveals itself. I cannot wait to see where it all goes, even if I had to beat myself up to get there.

Shin Megami Tensei 5 has the potential to be one of the year’s strongest RPGs, and with its Nintendo Switch exclusivity, it could also attract a large enough audience to bring this niche slice of brilliance into the limelight. Persona is wonderful, but SMT depicts the end of the world and the plight of being a young person in a society actively working against you in a way that is bleak, honest, and depressingly enthralling.

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