Table of Contents for Shin Megami Tensei V:

1. Critique and Review of the Original Switch version from 2021.
2. Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance: Review.
3. Critique and Thematic Analysis of Canon of Vengeance.

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Please note the following: This review contains Major Spoilers for Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, Shin Megami Tensei IV, Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse, and of course, the original Shin Megami Tensei V.

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I must be frank: I didn’t really like this game. In fact, I was genuinely so bored after sixty hours of playing through it, that I quit and did not return back to it until two weeks after Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance came out. This game commits an unforgivable problem that I never expected from a Shin Megami Tensei: it was genuinely too boring for me to continue playing. Why? Because when I played for sixty hours, all the way up to stopping mid-way at the Demon Lord’s castle, there was absolutely no story whatsoever after the very beginning. I realized far too late that while Eirikrjrs can be seen as aggressively negative towards the series in many of his critiques; he was ultimately correct about the identity crisis and I had been putting my head in the sand regarding that issue. I probably did that because there really isn’t a competitor for what the Shin Megami Tensei series offers; can anyone name another series that does a mishmash of Western philosophy, certain elements of Dharmic philosophy, various mythologies ranging from the Middle East to South Asia to (in a few cases) Indigenous cultures of the Americas, and occult beliefs? It’s as a few people on discord once rightly argued to me; Atlus Japan doesn’t really have competition in this department and that may have been why I held on so strongly. Arguably, my views could be seen as a reverse of Eirikrjs Maniacs Retcon woes, where he wrongly interpreted everything in the most ridiculous manner possible and I pointed out the logical and thematic errors. Looking back, my mistake was that I attempted to interpret everything in too positive a manner out of disdain for all the negativity in MegaTen internet forums, I perceived certain people to be feeding off of for attention and clicks, and I must’ve gone into an extreme over-correction of trying to spread positivity in my own way. The “story” of Shin Megami Tensei V was a slap in the face with the harsh reality that I had been denying for far too long.

I probably should have written a piece like this years ago; but I felt too burnt out to care anymore. Real life took precedence as the pandemic still raged during that time. Moreover, I could go back and play Nocturne repeatedly (which I did) and I can honestly say that I played and completed six full playthroughs of Nocturne HD Remaster before finishing a single playthrough of Shin Megami Tensei V’s original version. Notwithstanding Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne being my favorite game of all-time, I was able to play and finish multiple other games and I couldn’t bring myself to go back to SMTV; I finished the main story of two Disgaea games, La Pucelle: Ragnorak Remastered, Mortal Kombat 11, Tekken 7, Scarlet Nexus, Final Fantasy X on Vita, and Tales of Arise. Yet, I couldn’t bring myself to go back to Shin Megami Tensei V. I did acquire Xbox Gamepass and tried playing Soul Hackers 2 and found it to have similar failings to Shin Megami Tensei V’s narrative. Prior to that, I tried Persona 5 Royal on PS4 and found it to be utterly boring compared to the original Persona 5 that I played on my PS3 due to the gameplay changes making everything feel too easy.

I enjoyed the usual demon compendium, I enjoyed the turn-based combat (it’s arguably never been better than Shin Megami Tensei V), I was impressed with the Hard mode difficulty, and I really enjoyed the majority of the side quests. The graphics were beautiful and although I had some criticisms of the art design; I thought it was decent overall; I liked some designs like Hydra and disliked others like the pokemon-looking fire dragon that is supposed to be a Lithuanian nature spirit, Aitvaras. I had mixed feelings about Nahobino’s design, but I liked a certain spoiler-character’s design and I was neutral to other designs like Abdiel, Artemis, and Manananggal. That being said, the core failings that completely destroyed my interest in Shin Megami Tensei V in its original release form was the godawful map, the enemy demons attacking when you can’t even see them, and especially the mostly non-existent story between the beginning and before you complete the Demon Castle. That’s 70 percent of the game without anything happening or being hinted at. They should have at least foreshadowed the Condemnation and alluded to why the Nahobino were forbidden instead of giving that utterly boring infodump that reminded me of that eyesore of a game, Chrono Cross. The “plot twists” or “plot revelations” of Aogami being Susano-O, the Prime Minister being his relative Tsukiyomi, the Condemnation only being revealed in a text infodump before Abdiel uses it as justification for her boss fight with you, and the Shekinah Glory reveal were extremely poorly done. In fact, this story was so poorly done, that if any players hadn’t played Nocturne or watched a Let’s Play of it or read forum comments about it, then they may not have even known what Prime Minister Tsukiyomi was even talking about when only mentioning the Conception in passing when the background info is suddenly dumped upon the player.

These new “writers” of the Mainline games do not seem to be capable of distinguishing what they knew and understand about their worldbuilding for SMTV and effectively communicating that information to the player. It’s as if they had believed that just because they think about it, then that must mean the players somehow know it. It’s incredibly bizarre. That’s why parts of this game genuinely make no sense, even as the events are happening. Tao dies, gets a mysterious voice giving her goddess powers, and then promptly dies again when fighting Lahmu and Sahori. No understanding is given to the player at that time of what happened and there is therefore no reason to care. Ambiguity only works when you give players certain crucial pieces of information and set-up prior to an event unfolding, but the “writers” of the original Shin Megami Tensei V clearly were not capable of understanding even this basic facet of storytelling. I’m not arguing that they should treat the players as stupid; many Persona fans have complained that the Persona games feel like the narrative is micro-managing the player and treating them like they’re morons by having every special item commented on to be used in specific story-relevant ways, even when it’s glaringly obvious that was the intention. But this game failed to explain anything to the player until after the Demon Lord’s castle. The explanations were also info-dumps that assumed players already played Nocturne; for example, the Prime Minister randomly mentioning the Conception without any explanation of what the Conception is or what it is even referring to. You had to have watched the opening events of Nocturne to understand what he’s even talking about, because nothing in the main story of SMTV actually explains it. That’s why this game’s story is very bad.

The marketing for Shin Megami Tensei V attempted to make it seem like a return to Nocturne’s concepts, worldbuilding, and themes. The actual content of the story of Shin Megami Tensei V in its original form categorically failed to provide any such narrative or thematic similarities. I will be blunt; I hated this story. I was very interested after the first area and Tokyo Tower, I thought things would pick-up after the Nuwa fight when getting back into the regular world, and then Lahmu happened… and then that absolutely confusing scene with Tao happened. And then, nothing else really happens from that point all the way to the Demon Castle. Nocturne was not like this, as much as people would like to argue. Hijiri was always there to provide information, maintained specific goals, and he had made his intentions and goals clear near the end of his story arc. As the Demi-fiend, we saw how Chiaki and Isamu respectively went from being worried for others, to re-assessing their circumstances and slowly formulating their own goals, to following those goals only to face massive hurdles, and devolving into extreme versions of their goals due to the trauma they suffered in the Vortex world. Their story arcs were similar to Greek tragedies in sequence and their actions made logical sense. By contrast, none of the human companions in Shin Megami Tensei V ever really show any degree of independent thinking or that they’re even capable of separating their personal interests from those of the adults in the “story” of the game. Whereas Chiaki and Gozu-Tennoh have an actual discussion of their own limits and failures, before they decide to unite as one due to having the same ultimate goal in mind; Ichiro is told by Lucifer to think for himself, only for him to suddenly show-up atop a ceiling in a random building talking aloud – as if to the player – about how he needs to think for himself. Whereas Chiaki transforms and then proceeds to ask the Demi-fiend if she’s beautiful before explaining how beauty and strength are the same thing, to essentially depict her sacrificing the last bit of her humanity and restraint to ascend to a higher form in vehement pursuit of her personal goals; Ichiro rambled to himself aloud about how he would think for himself because that’s what a mysterious voice told him to do and then randomly transforms into something that the player has no context for… yet again, the game does something without laying the groundwork beforehand to explain it. Chiaki sheds her humanity and laughs about how she’ll finally achieve her utopia; Ichiro… chronically cannot go two seconds without saying “Master Abdiel” this and that. At no point in Ichiro’s bizarre ramble did he think to question how or why Bethel and God’s Order would be necessary to keep Order in Tokyo, when it was explicitly established that they want to abandon it and let it vanish. His dialogue doesn’t even touch on that and that’s a very basic argument about the situation… I was genuinely confused by what I was watching or what on earth it was even supposed to represent based upon my understanding of the plot at the time.

This brings me to the chief problems I had with Shin Megami Tensei V’s narrative that I had only realized when writing my rambly brainstorming notes on my discord server after my sessions of playing the game. For this next section, I want to break it down in a list of points of what I felt were the worst failings of the story of Shin Megami Tensei V. Also, after finishing this next portion, while it may be more comical to do this, I want to give my own sarcastic interpretation of how I viewed each character in the game, because I honestly couldn’t take any of it seriously. First, I’ll go into the failings in as measured a response as possible, and then I’m going to go into a tangent regarding my personal feelings about most of the subjects that I’ll be touching upon:

 

1. The Original Shin Megami Tensei V is Paternalistic to the point of being Obnoxious and Insufferable.

I recall a comment on Youtube once about how it might be exciting to have a companion who is simply there to help the player and not be manipulative like Dagda from Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse. Unfortunately, this makes for a very boring character and I will argue to the umpteenth degree that Dagda is simply a much better written and even more believable character than Aogami. Dagda has his own flaws, his own personal interests and goals, and he gives you his expectations for you and for achieving them. He doesn’t lie to you, but he doesn’t tell you the full truth either. He may obnoxiously speak for you when making sure to secure you away from the Divine Powers influence and leave you to fend for yourself against the humans irate at you having released Krishna; and let’s be frank, if push came to shove, he would have jumped out of the phone and probably murdered every human in that café to make sure that his puppet could continue to be used for his own ends. However, this is what makes him compelling and interesting, regardless of whatever some people may want to call edgy. Dagda needs a pliable Messiah to achieve his goals and he’s chosen Nanashi for that task. As the player, you understand that there are terms in the agreement that you cannot cross or you will lose your life. For example, after Flynn is kidnapped by the Divine Powers; if you head immediately to the Ring of Gaea and talk to Ganesh, you can choose to sacrifice your soul and join the Divine Powers via death. Dagda immediately cuts the deal, you die, and the game ends. While mildly hilarious in a dark comedy sort of way; this is also good character depth, because it shows how serious Dagda is about his self-interests versus your personal choices.

In contrast, the character of Aogami saves you and repeatedly affirms throughout the game that he’s simply there to help you as a proto-fiend. No matter the ethics of your choices, or whatever horrible actions you commit, or your general disposition to the world around you; Aogami simply has your back and wants to protect you, no matter what. He doesn’t grow or change throughout the game; nor does he change his mind about anything based upon your actions, because he simply accepts everything you do without any judgment or disagreement. There’re three serious flaws with this:

First, what on earth is the point of his character? Why does he even have dialogue and why is he given any comments at all? If he’s not going to grow or change based on your choices, why not just replace his role in the game with an inanimate object like the Magatama in Nocturne? What would be the narrative difference of Aogami as presented in the original Shin Megami Tensei V and some holy armor of protection by Bethel that keeps you safe? I want to be clear; Aogami wanting to be kind and protective of you is fine. I’m not arguing that he needs to be a master manipulator, but the problem is that he has no sense of boundaries. There is nothing that you do that will cause him to question you or disagree with you. He does not grow or experience any depth from his interaction with you. He does not change his mind on anything significant in the story, based upon your actions. Instead, he doesn’t do anything but make you feel good. Why? Why does he even care about you, in the first place? Why does he even bother choosing to help you over serving Bethel Japan? Did he just want to be a slave to the person who held his Knowledge? Because he has no boundaries demarcating what is acceptable and unacceptable for him to agree with, he isn’t really a character. He’s just a talking plot device. If you disagree, then let me ask this: if you replaced Aogami with an inanimate object that turns the player character into a Nahobino, what on earth would change in the original story of Shin Megami Tensei V?

Second, he doesn’t act anything like Susano-O as far as I’m aware. Susano-O is supposed to be chaotic, violent, and obstinate in his opinions from what little I’ve read into his mythology. This is actually worse than the depiction of Dagda that so many seemed eager to complain about. Dagda depicted in Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse wasn’t the fun-loving goofball like in Irish mythology, because he was meant to depict Nietzsche’s concept of the lion as part of the Ubermensch philosophy. Yet, Dagda’s actions in Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse were not out of the scope of Irish mythology itself, such as the stories of his interaction with the Morrigu. Aogami being revealed to be Susano-O, in the blandest dialogue possible and in the most boring way possible by having it info-dumped by a story-relevant NPC, doesn’t add anything to the story and doesn’t use his mythology. He could have been any Japanese deity from how the game depicts the revelation. What would have been the difference in story events?

Third, after seeing the cut scene between Yakumo and Aogami after beating Arioch in the Demon Castle and as I was thinking over the subsequent narrative afterwards upon writing notes on discord; I’ve come to the painful conclusion that this character suffers from the same failings as the Mother character in Treasure Planet. Due to the fact that he doesn’t have any boundaries that you cannot cross and the fact that he fully supports whatever you do in the game, Aogami is basically just the main protagonist’s surrogate father-figure. I don’t mean that he’s literally the main character’s biological father; but that the narrative itself treats him as the player’s surrogate father and it kills any meaningful sense of freedom and ruins any sense of adventure. Aogami is gently guiding you along and patronizing you. Any adventurous aspect of the story is ruined, because your own father is stuck in your head and constantly giving you moral sermons made to seem ambiguous, but are actually very weak and asinine. This would have been fine, if there was any future tension or conflict with him becoming more demanding out of genuine concern versus your freedom of choice. If that had ever happened, then Aogami… could credibly be called a character. But instead, he just does whatever you want him to do and the narrative suggests it is out of genuine compassion but the compassion comes from nowhere and he gives no explanation for it. Nothing through his actions give any implications for why he would do this either; as far as I could see. Essentially, you as the protagonist are just playing around in Da’at as your personal playpin as if you’re Aogami’s toddler and Aogami is sermonizing you in a neutral manner. Aogami is doing this while gently leading you by the nose, so that you don’t harm yourself because you’re his special little boy who deserves the world. The Aogami and Yakumo cut scene at the end of the Demon Castle portion of the game seemed more like Aogami was the paternal protagonist guiding his sidekick / child, the player character. Aogami didn’t really espouse anything meaningful either and the cut scene didn’t seem to add much of anything. All Aogami seems to do is ruin any sense of fun and adventure that the game could have had in terms of narrative.

This paternalism permeates throughout the rest of the game’s narrative. Prime Minister Tsukiyomi spends all of the story portion of the game just telling you what to do; Yuzuru displays no real reasons for why he agrees with the Prime Minister, he simply does and the fact that he’s Tsukiyomi’s Knowledge is treated as a way of it “making sense” that he’d be thoughtlessly obedient to whatever the Prime Minister says. Instead of using the concept of humans having knowledge of Fallen Gods within them that Gods seek to ascend to the Throne for any sort of intriguing character conflict or critique, the story instead uses it as a way to do away with character motives and goals entirely. Yuzuru and Ichiro just uncritically accept whatever the people whose Knowledge they hold say. Yuzuru doesn’t talk about his community, any concern for his sister who is still in the Fairy Village in Da’at (he seems to forget that she even exists, if anything), or why he thinks Tsukiyomi should be supported. He’s just a brainless sycophant. In the latter-half of the game, Ichiro can’t go two sentences without saying “Master Abdiel” – he literally doesn’t talk about anything else; never mind giving reasons why he believes following Abdiel is best in the first place. Unlike Isamu, who tried seeking support for Yuko Takao out of honest compassion and goodwill, only to reassess after being repeatedly tortured by demons, and paving his own way for his own personal goals; Yuzuru and Ichiro just uncritically accept the specific alignment that the narrative assigns them without any discernible reason given. The writers seem to think it’s perfectly normal for teenagers to obey the adults around them like chess pieces, instead of learning to think for themselves.

 

2. The Original Shin Megami Tensei V is Painfully Misogynistic.

I want to make it clear that this is not some attempt at being “political” or some such nonsense. People can talk about issues of misogyny in art without arguing any attempt to do so is somehow “politicizing” a topic. The fact is, so long as human social systems exist and impact our lives, so-called political topics will always exist too. The writing of the original Shin Megami Tensei V was genuinely so bad that if anyone wishes to argue this point, then please feel free to give me counter evidence in the comments. Before you do, consider these questions though: Can you give me a single compelling reason for why Miyazu exists as a character? Why does she stay in the Fairy Village instead of just going home to the illusory Tokyo? Why isn’t she interested in what is happening at her home? Why are she and her brother not showing any concern for each other or even any awareness that they’re siblings in the latter-half of Shin Megami Tensei V’s original narrative?

The Panagia Tao plot twist was honestly one of the most misogynistic and idiotic cut scenes that I’ve ever had the displeasure of enduring. Tao comes back to life a second time and suddenly has telepathy to inform you to meet her in secret with no explanation or foreshadowing. She goes on some bizarre spiel about how you’re her Hero because you . . . failed to save her friend Sahori? She just could not stop thinking about… how hard you tried, maybe? She proceeds to transform into a full-fledged Mother Goddess and pledges her undying loyalty to you and wants to help make you the God of the world in complete submission to you. Even if I give this scene the benefit of the doubt; Tao hasn’t actually grown-up with or known the main character for any meaningful length of time. She is not established to be the player character’s childhood friend. At best, she knew him for maybe two weeks, but the narrative seems to suggest that it was only a little over two days. Apparently, after being brutally killed by the monster possessing her friend, all she could think about was servicing you and pleasing you for all eternity. Do I need to say anything more about why this scene was blatantly and unambiguously misogynistic? For those who may still disagree, let’s examine mundane things that she didn’t talk about: She doesn’t talk about how much she missed her parents or express any thoughts on them, she doesn’t think about her school sports team or any possible friends that she may have had in whatever school sport that she’s part of, she doesn’t talk about her prior loyalty to Bethel or why she’s okay with betraying the organization to serve you, she doesn’t ever say anything about feeling betrayed or wanting any type of revenge against Bethel for how her human life was cut short due to circumstances forced upon her, or anything that depicted her having any clear reason or opinion for why she would ever choose to do this. This scene is made even worse by the fact that the writers actually had a perfectly logical set-up already in place from early in the game. Her and Abdiel’s disagreement over what to do with you and her resolve to protect you and her other classmates from being harmed could have been seen as a hint or some form of foreshadowing. If, during the Panagia Tao revelation scene, she had ranted about how she had to hold her tongue and secretly hated Bethel all along because they ruined her life somehow, or how she felt a kinship with you as a fellow Nahobino whose life had been ruined by Bethel’s machinations and the demons attacking Tokyo, or simply made the two characters into established childhood friends with Tao acting like your best friend in the beginning of the story; then it would have likely been ham-fisted and rushed, but it wouldn’t have been blatantly misogynistic like what was depicted in the game.

Some might be quick to argue that Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse’s Dagda route has an arguably more misogynistic scene with you killing your companions to brainwash one of them into being your Goddess. There are three counterarguments that I find disprove such arguments and why comparisons to the blatant misogyny in Shin Megami Tensei V are unfounded: first, you can choose between your male or female companions to turn into an obedient thought-slave in Apocalypse. It’s not gender-specific like the Panagia Tao plot twist. Second, the characters establish disagreement with your choice and fight you to the death; even a character like Toki, who initially seemed willing to support you, decides to flip-flop when confronted with you actually choosing Godhood and gives very concrete reasons about her views on how she values her humanity as her reasons why. Her intentions and motivations are independent from Nanashi despite her acting like a fangirl for most of the game. Third, the narrative treats it as a morally horrifying choice to make and doesn’t try to establish it as simply an awesome moment or some bizarre celebration of purity culture imposed upon women. Whereas turning a companion into a thought-slave in Apocalypse is appropriately treated as psychologically disturbing; Panagia Tao blithely informing you of how she wants to submit to your every thought and deed for all eternity is portrayed as “cool” or “awesome” by the narrative from the music, to the world reshaping around her, and her own Goddess transformation with the term Panagia possibly being a reference to a woman’s submission to the Abrahamic God and emphasizing her purity in her behavior.

To show that I’m not unjustly dogpiling negativity onto the original version of Shin Megami Tensei V, I would rebuke any accusations that Amanozako was an attempt at loli-bait as some players assumed. In fairness to those who assumed that when playing the game, the story was so poorly written and explained that they should not be blamed for completely misunderstanding the writers’ intentions. As far as I understand of what they intended from my playthrough of the original game, the writers’ seemed to be trying to portray a rather cool concept of a nuclear family of Husband, Wife, and Child deities reuniting to takeover and make a new system. The player character’s Knowledge is of Susano-O and Aogami is Susano-O, Tao seems to be implied to be Amaterasu who is Susano-O’s sister, and Amanozako is Susano-O’s daughter in Shinto mythology. The player character is the Brother-Husband, Tao is the Sister-Wife, and Amanozako is supposed to be their child in this story. The reason this didn’t work is because the writers did such an awful portrayal, to a mind-bogglingly stupid degree. They seemingly do not understand that not conveying information in their heads into the game prior to cut scene events happening means that players will not understand what on earth is going on; they don’t know how to leave enough breadcrumbs for foreshadowing and worldbuilding to make players curious about the setting. For example, Amanozako almost does confess to being the Daughter of Susano-O, but then doesn’t say it. Every subsequent interaction is just her espousing info-dumps of dialogue repeated with no explanation of why or how she knows the information about the keys to the Empyreon, a litany of bland and poorly added Shounen comedic tropes, and then she leaves in the most idiotic manner possible. She did not give you her opinion of you, she did not explain that she wanted to be closer to her father who is Aogami, and the game fails to explain why she even joined for that portion, to begin with. The new writers’ failed so thoroughly and completely in writing basic explanations for the interaction that some players reasonably assumed it was loli-bait when the writers seemingly intended to show the wacky hijinks of your demon goddess daughter. Yet, they couldn’t commit to a nuclear family consisting of deities and that led to even more confusion as to what Amanozako’s intended purpose even was. Then, the optional side quest has her reveal that she believes you are her soul mate. This could credibly be interpreted as loli-bait and having her join after Panagia Tao for similar reasons could credibly be perceived as Harem anime tropes; but it’s entirely possible that it was meant to convey Amanozako having an innocuous child-like personality. The brief explanation by Kurama Tengu leads me to believe that it was the latter reason. She holds onto a set of beliefs of you being her destined protector and there is some vague implication that her previous human half prior to her transformation was a blood relative of your real self who died in the real Tokyo. But because the writers did such an awful job in explaining anything, it’s difficult to parse and Amanozako herself doesn’t give enough clues on what the circumstances were regarding her transformation or who she sees when she’s looking at you. Insofar as I understood it, the implication was that she was a human experimented upon by the Tengu to create a Nahobino after everything went to hell with the destruction of Tokyo, but then the experiment went wrong. After that, upon seeing you, her human feelings still remaining within her recognized you as her protector and the Amanozako half latched onto Susano-O being her father. The implication from how I understood it was that she was either your real-self’s child or younger sister, but the writers flopped in their explanations just as they did with the entirety of the original Shin Megami Tensei V’s story.

The interactions with the bosses in Da’at Taito didn’t produce anything of substance either. The dialogue was especially stupid for the boss fights. Zeus just espoused shounen anime cliché after shounen anime cliché in his dialogue; the most prominent Greek mythological deity and head of the Greek pantheon did not espouse any Greek philosophy or Greek philosophical critique or served as any sort of Greek allegory, he just spat out the stupidest cliché lines possible and the game treated it as wacky Shounen anime hijinks in the blandest manner possible. You can imagine my utter disappointment when witnessing that scene. However, despite how absolutely terrible all of this was, there is one character in this game’s story who could credibly be argued to be the absolute worst written character in the entirety of Shin Megami Tensei Mainline series thus far and that brings me to the next point.

 

3. Shohei Yakumo is the worst character that Mainline Shin Megami Tensei has ever created thus far.

When Shin Megami Tensei V’s promotional material was revealed and I first saw this character, I was so excited. I loved the design, I loved the team-up with the Goddess Nuwa as it seemed intriguing at the time for a Japanese man in a police officer uniform and a Chinese Creation Goddess to join forces, and my mind raced with anticipation on what Atlus Japan could possibly be doing with this character. Was he part of the fourth branch of the four Devil Summoner families meant to protect Tokyo, the one we never learned anything about in terms of story and worldbuilding? Was he possibly a Dark Summoner seeking his own nefarious interests like the ones you fight in the first Raidou Kuzunoha game? Could he be a Summoner from one of the Four Summoner clans that failed the initiation and was forced to walk a dark path in life due to internal clan politics? I don’t know if I can fully express into words how excited I was about this character reveal and how eager I was to play Shin Megami Tensei V because of him. I hoped that he wasn’t just some puppet that Nuwa created, as was being theorized at the time in the discord fan server I participated in at the time as that would have been disappointing to me. I really hoped that he was either a Dark Summoner or a Devil Summoner and had some specific goal in mind that didn’t align with the Bethel organization.

I hadn’t read any spoilers and avoided spoiler discussion channels on Discord, so when the Nuwa fight first appeared, my excitement spiked-up. Yakumo appeared and it seemed like an alright introduction, then the scene with Tao revealing the destroyed Tokyo in another world was the real Tokyo and we were all arguably illusory physical manifestations was revealed. My mind excitedly raced with possibilities; could Shohei Yakumo be the last-living survivor of the destroyed Tokyo, forced to live out his existence there to survive while struggling against demons and while the angels of Bethel try to wipe him out as an inconvenience to their plans? Could he see us all as phantoms mocking how his life was ruined by demons and stolen by the angels and seek vengeance for living as the sole survivor of the real Tokyo for so long? Could he possibly be part of the Four Summoner Clans and struggle to make sense of his ethical code of protecting Tokyo when the real Tokyo is destroyed and it was replaced by a physical but phantasmic Tokyo? Could he be questioning what value humanity has or what his humanity even means to himself anymore, when God can just replace his whole life in the blink of an eye once it is convenient to do so? Could he be questioning what the greater good even is or even means, when humans can so easily be replaced at the convenience of God?

What did we get instead? Yakumo expresses his shock that you refused to listen to him about abandoning Bethel as you work under Bethel to try to save your classmates who’ve been kidnapped and maimed by demons. He doesn’t give an opinion or try to help with this dire situation of literal children being kidnapped, maimed, or devoured by demons; he just shows-up to complain that you’re still working for the organization that is actively trying to protect your home and your school friends from literal demons that mean to do harm to them. Nuwa chimes in that you got your school friend killed and how she watched it happen. She didn’t try to interfere to help you at all and she didn’t tell Yakumo beforehand or try to get Yakumo to help you protect innocent children being attacked and harmed by literal demons. She just blathers about her shock that you failed to protect them. Neither of the two express any independent opinions, aims, objectives, or priorities outside of apparently spying on you from time to time to comment about how disappointed they are that you weren’t convinced to quit living your current lifestyle based on an approximately thirty-minute conversation with them. They’re so utterly shocked that you haven’t quit working for the organization that’s protecting the only life that you know while they watch it from the sidelines and don’t try to help your classmates at all. They expect you to quit living in your dorm, quit going to your school with friendly classmates, and quit working for an organization that has only been shown to protect Tokyo up to that point in the game because of a single, short conversation with them. They don’t give any credible reasons why you should do this either. They just express shock that you didn’t do this, because they told you that Bethel was bad without really informing you why or how. Meanwhile, Tao dies trying to protect you and Sahori because she genuinely cares about both of you and it was arguably in service to Bethel up to that point in time. Nuwa reveals she watched Tao lay down her life for you to protect you, Tao herself seems to be very loyal to Bethel up to this point in the story but simply has disagreement when it comes to making sure her friends are safe from Bethel’s internal politics, and then Nuwa uses this example of Tao’s self-sacrifice to express shock that you didn’t quit Bethel because of that random conversation beforehand. Are you following the logic here? Because, I certainly am not and I must’ve missed it.

Much later in Shin Megami Tensei V, after defeating the Demon Castle dungeon, you have the scene between Aogami and Yakumo, where Yakumo talks about how he wants to flood the world with demons to help the honest people. Aogami questions what he’s talking about. Yakumo proceeds to go on a tangent about how the elderly and handicapped will be necessary sacrifices to make humanity stronger by flooding the world with demons, so that only the strong humans live. Yakumo asks the player character if he agrees with his nonsensical rambling that is somehow presented by the game as a deep moral and philosophical choice. Later in the game, after the Panagia Tao plot twist, you can talk to Nuwa who gives some vague pabulum about how Yakumo somehow believes in humanity or something. When I found Yakumo’s NPC near the leyline fount closest to the Eternity dungeon and decided to click to see dialogue, Yakumo proceeded to ramble on about how he wanted to flood the world with demons to slaughter all the liars in the world, so that only the honest people would live. He doesn’t ever express any opinion or awareness of the false Tokyo world or how he views it. He just wants to flood the world with demons because he believes it will kill all the liars and then only the honest humans will live. He literally says this in his optional NPC dialogue. So, basically, any parent who has ever lied to their child to manipulate their child to eat broccoli or to protect their child from harm, is going to die in Yakumo’s ideal world?

Needless to say, I found him to be the worst character in the game and possibly the worst character in the entire mainline Shin Megami Tensei franchise. To repeat what I said in my discord server after reading that NPC dialogue of his: Shohei Yakumo really is the equivalent of if the culprit of the murders in Persona 4 were put in the Neutral route and made to seem reasonable as they rambled incoherently and insanely about how much they wanted to kill people.

 

For the next part, I decided to just make a bunch of meme images to express the dissonance that I felt from my expectations based on previous Mainline games and what we ultimately got with the original release of Shin Megami Tensei V. I think I’ve exhausted all I can say about these characters:

 

The music was mostly great, albeit a bit same-y from Shin Megami Tensei IV. Dancing Crazy Murder is definitely one of my favorite music tracks in the game. I really enjoyed the battle system for this game and most of the grinding, albeit some parts felt like pointless padding and that was exacerbated but the abysmal “plot” of the original Shin Megami Tensei V. I liked some of the side quests when you could choose who to align with, but some others were extremely lazy like finding cheap items that were five steps away from the leyline fount from a demon floating right next to the leyline fount. The absolute worst aspect of this game by far is the utter garbage of a map system. I couldn’t understand most of it and I wasn’t the only one expressing how godawful the map was on various discord channels. It’s made worse by the shitty camera that doesn’t show when monsters attack from behind. All of this could have been avoided, if the demons weren’t actively on the field but activated after an allotted amount of time like older turn-based battle systems such as Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. If anything, this game is a solid counterpoint against enemies running around in a map area, because it can be implemented so poorly and ruin the excitement of turn-based combat. This game proves that it can instead be turned into a chronic frustration.

For all that and more, and especially because of my absolute loathing for being forced to use a useless character like Amanozako in the latter-half of the game with no real explanation and thus artificially extending itself when the game could’ve been done faster with other navigators like Pyro Jack or Decabaria; yet, I did enjoy most of the Eternity dungeon and final dungeon portions because I liked how the game gave me a strong feeling of accomplishment once my party was around Level 80 or above. The victories from then on felt very earned; I’ll give the originally released Shin Megami Tensei V a very generous 3 / 10.

Now, after a break for a few weeks, I’ll probably be off to play Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance on my Playstation 5! Please, no spoilers in the comments section, as I am very excited based upon what people whose opinions I value have told me.