Shin Megami Tensei V Is A Switch Exclusive Launching This November

Oh it looks so pretty ! Pokémon should be a bit ashamed… SMT hero would be perfect for smash… just saying.

This looked pretty great!

The art style of this game for me honestly blows Persona 5 out of the water

I'm honestly stunned how good this looks. Also Press Turn is back and I couldn't be happier

Day 0 pre-order. Can't wait for next week

This actually looks really good, will definitely try this out.

Omg. This looks much better than I thought it would. LOVE SMT, even more than persona. Can not wait!

Out of everything showed this is the only one that got my attention. No offense to Metroid Dread or Botw2.

I'm ready to get the demons fused in November.

Imagine still asking for Persona 5 port when we're getting SMTV.

@TheFrenchiestFry Yeah, I was surprised how much better this looks than persona 5. Admittedly, it looks a little blurry, probably at a low resolution due to switch hardware, but the art direction shines through.

@Preposterous ofc I'm still going to ask. I want both.

So I chipped my monitor screen throwing my cc at it...

Hoping the give a bit more love to the battle UI but other than that this looks absolutely brilliant. Cannot wait!

Looks nice, basically the same game over and over again, but hey, so is Mario etc. - why change what's good right? This will be a nice replacement for Persona 5. Can't wait.

Pretty soul crushing for me personally, as I figured that combat would at least LOOK as exciting as TMS#FE. Like that would be the bar they would cross no matter what, even if they stuck to their guns and do a copy&paste of a really basic and traditional turn-based system.

This is just once more an exhange of menu prompts that also looks and feels like an exchange of menu prompts. I also hate to see that "Auto-Battle" option in the bottom right corner, as it tells me pretty much anything I need to know about what the system is shooting for - and what it shooting for is just being basic and generic.

I'll still play, as I love this kind of world, the music, the characters, the absurd symbol-laden stories and the monster designs (even though I had hoped for more detailed modells on Switch, which these were definitely not).

Edit: It's kinda funny rewatching the trailer, how the combat looks so underwhelming compared to TMS#FE when they pretty much used the exact same 2D elements for the battle menu ... flat-out weird to look at.

Looks amazing! Day 1.

Never played a game in the SMT franchise before; but the trailer surely did get my interest.

Day one buy for sure, Shin Megami Tensei is one series I can't ignore.

I hope Forneus and Decarabia will reunite.

This looks so good.

AAA Atlus.

I can't wait. I'm so excited.

Glad it's worth waiting all of these years for, looks like they have been busy!

Definitely an upgrade over Nocturne HD, even IV and Apocalypse. Very excited

Also, (damn, can't stop talking about this friggin' game) the protagonist looks soooo awesome!

It looks amazing I can't wait to get it along with Nocturne

Did anyone else think "another dimension? Pfft, dream on kid, that's your home in ruins"

I'm very relieved to finally see some proper gameplay that well and truly confirms that the game truly is a turn-based RPG and not a silly action game as it seems to be the trend nowadays.

The main character looks silly but that's fine, this is the game I am most looking forward to out of anything that's coming out.

S. M. T. V. 🤩

Nothing else to say, really, I'd buy it even if they didn't show anything at all!

@jcboyer515 It's not at all about the color scheme. You really mistook my meaning there. It was about how the battle encounters are designed. FMS#FE is just as turn-based as SMT or Persona, but it had a very active camera, very dynamic movement, elaborate attack animations and all of that.

Making a comparison is entirely reasonable here, same company, same universe (FE was hardly in TMS#FE), same turn-based mechanics more or less and as I said, they DID COPY the menu design straight out of TMS#FE.

So no, for all I care they could have put it through a Berserk filter, making it all black and white and gorey and stuff. It's all about how the menu selection are being visualized. TMS#FE set a new standart for that for Atlus. I - and yes, that is was purely my subjective expectation - thought they would never ever cross below that bar again.

Frankly, I have zero clue why they would go back to characters standing around pointing fingers or doing three steps forward shaking their body. It's ... not exciting to look at, and if it's not exciting to look at, then what is the point of these battle visuals/animations?

Let's face, these are menu driven games and in no way shape or form are these menus (ripped from TMS#FE) as slick and stylisch as those of P5.

So really then, not as stylish as P5, not as dynamic as TMS#FE ... it's not exactly what I was hoping for in the 1st console based SMT game since 2003.

I'm looking forward to it, but I am also severly underwhelmed by the games visual flavour, and no, not talking graphics here, but art and animations as well as camera and such. Sorry it's just the way I see it. I hoped that had come a long way from Nocturne, which AT THE TIME was pretty impressive to me, but that was almost 20 years ago.

Same people who hype SMT 5 being exclusive to Nintendo...are the same asking for Persona to come to Nintendo...

Ok...

Do we know if there is any chance for a girl protagonist? If this is a "ordinary person pulled into another world" trope, and we have a character that's supposed to be a reflection of the player, I really want the option to play as a girl. It's 2021, if it's not a fully written character with a distinct personality, like, say, Shulk or Rex from Xenoblade 1 and 2, then we should be able to choose boy or girl.

@jcboyer515 No, doesn't have to do anything with art style. Go to the end of the trailer and look at the actual battle parts being shown. It's much more Pokemon than it is TMS#FE in terms of relaying any sense of "action".
I am soul crused about the fact, that combat system has virtually not evolved since the series inception and sadly, neither did said presentation of said system since Nocturne.

Again, has nothing at all to do with performance or art direction. Like I said, the lack of any sense of dynamic action during battles would not be helped a single inch by a Berserk filter being run on the game, or anything of the sort.

The combat just looks as static as it naturally is as a menu-driven game. In 2021 I kinda feel that is big no-no in RPGs, no matter how static the gameplay is, it should never ever look static or feel static to the player. I should always feel a significant difference from the game running just on text (which in combat this one could just fine).

The artstyle is giving me Astal Chain vibes and I'm here for all of it!

That looked extremely rough especially when P5 already had demons look so clean and smooth. And the MC looks absolutely ridiculous lol. Still hyped to play this

@jcboyer515 Well, if you say so, but barely anything is moving on screen, which to me is definitely a sense of staticness. Maybe you are lacking a proper point of reference? Have you played TMS#FE? Frankly though, as I always I only point towards RoF here, another turn-based RPG. If you haven't played these, you can easily find combat footage on youtube.

Even if this does not look static to you by itself, I would be surprised that if you drew the comparison with either, you would stand by that assessment - just saying.

And yes, the ROF system is a wildly different turn-based system, but that doesn't negate the fact, that it looks like a John-Woo movie in action. Nobody is gonna associate this footage of SMT V with anything action, and definitely not John Woo. It's more like Queens Gambits, intense stares and deft hand movements (amazing show though 😅)

@Ralek85
Camera in TMS was quite static as well, unless the characters used some special attack, which the game just had a metric ton of. The game felt so dynamic mostly because of those.
Basically, it was so dynamic because with almost every attack, you caused some chain reaction that caused your party to jump around like mad with the camera following all the action. SMT doesn't work like that and I don't want it to work like that.
When the protagonist of SMT5 unleashed a big attack, like in 2:47 the camera also wasn't as static anymore.

The stylish menu of P5 wouldn't fit an SMT game at all, imo.

For SMT, personally I think simple is best, honestly.
Intense action is the last thing I want to see from that series, I don't need that in every game.

@jcboyer515 Doesn't look that way to me. Unless it was a girl dressed as a guy. The person in the trailer was clearly a boy. He looks more feminine after he fuses with the demon, but I think that's it.

If it turns out that the MC is a fully written protagonist with a defined personality like Shulk in Xenoblade or Ryza in Atelier Ryza, then I'm fine with only having a male MC.

But since you can name your MC as seen in the English trailer where his name is just "Protag", it seems like it's one of those games where the MC is meant to be a reflection of the player, with a bare minimum of of personality for story reasons. If that's the case but we can't choose a girl option, that's gonna annoy the crap out of me.

It's 2021. Any game where you can customize/make your own your character should let you pick boy or girl.

It looked astounding, so pumped. Easily my favorite part of the direct.

Cannot wait for this.

@jcboyer515 Yeah that's a fair point too.

Again, if it turns out that it is a fully fleshed out main character that we can just happen to choose a name for, I am fine with that. A lot of great games have done that - though it bugs me that you end up having all these voiced lines and no one will ever refer to the MC by their name because they wanted to let us name the MC.

But if it turns out that it is a self insert blank slate but we can't customize the character beyond the name? That will annoy the crap out of me.

@jcboyer515 Well, you bought it, right, but I assume you, too, have a backlog? Just a wild guess! If you played TMS#FE to any extent, the comparison to SMT should be super obvious, even ignoring the fact, that the reused the battle ui from TMS#FE altogether. Maybe you cannot see, but I can certainly see a

The John Woo question is super easy, let me help with the RoF (Resonacne of Fate) part: https://youtu.be/M2B7zDxR1Fk?t=137

(Yes, turn-based jRPGs definitely can stand the comparison to the master of Hong Kong cinema, though I do understand your confusion, esp. if your diet was SMT/Persona and DQ for instance so far).

TL;DR: If you can't tell, that both SMT#FE and RoF feature extensive character movement across the "field of battle", with a non static camera, that actually turns, moves and cuts, then I dunno what else I can say. It's literally the visual language instilled by any action movie ever made (more or less) rigorously applied to a (jRPG) videogame.
RoF and TMS#FE are widly different games, but the above stated observation has nothing to do with. Hard Boiled and Guardians of the Galaxy are wildly different movies, but again, the everything true about framing, blocking, cutting, etc. is equally true for both. No relation to color palette, aesthetics or anything like it.

Not for nothing, but if one looks at this unbiased and with an open-mind these things kinda jump out at ya, I feel. 😅

And yeah, the fact that we are still doing menu based combat, when we long since learned to map buttons to actions (P5 anyone, at the very least? press x for attack?) and learned to pretend that this button push initiated some kind of cool visual action sequence in an epic battle scene ... crushes my soul a bit, particularly with SMT, which has been a favourite franchise of mine since the PSX 😲 I do tend to look very harshly at my favourites in particular, demanding what I consider improvement at every turn of every iteration. If you don't you'll eventually end up with A Good Day To Die Hard - excatly, a soul crushing sequel to one of the finest piece of action cinema ever committed to film.

@Kirgo "which the game just had a metric ton of. The game felt so dynamic mostly because of those." That's true, but there is no reason a more visually interesting camera needs to be tied to any kind of particular attack or effect. And really, I think the results speak for themselves. TMS#FE looked anything but a slapping match between two frozen-in-place opponents. I am certainly being hyperbolic here when it comes to SMT V, but TMS#FE came out 6 years ago (!) on the WiiU. I expect more a Switch game in 2021, esp. a mainline SMT game vs a rebooted spin-off/crossover game.

"The stylish menu of P5 wouldn't fit an SMT game at all, imo."
Agreed, but some kind of stylization definitely would have given the game a visual language of it's own, which I think would be a very good thing. The battle ui taken from TMS#Fe is a poor fit as well imho, as it stands.

"For SMT, personally I think simple is best, honestly.
Intense action is the last thing I want to see from that series, I don't need that in every game."

Almost every AAA 3d game in the world nowadays gives you options in regards to the camera. I see zero reason, why anyone who likes to look at as little movement as possible, should not get their wish. While somebody fighting the same monster for the 50th time, would want as much visual flavour as they can possibly get, even if that is just an empty taste.

You'll spend dozens and dozens of hours staring at that battle screen. And yes, sorry, to me it just looks dull. I hope the music is amazing or that inevitable grind (which I don't mind as such) really becomes and issue. Again, if the combat mechanics are really enjoyable, things again look different, but this Turn Press system is neither new, nor was it ever particular exciting.

Is it really so bad, to ask that a big jRPG like SMT offers the same (optional) visual flavour that TMS#FE (a by all accounts super niche title) offered? I think not, and like I said, I am all-in for the game, I just wished they had moved things along a bit because I think there is a lot of potential being left on the table.

Maybe someone might look at BotW vs SS and nod along with that assumption. The time was ripe for a leap forward since Nocture, it still is ripe imho.

I strongly believe that this is going to be the number one rated game on the switch for the holiday season

The trailer has solidified that I will definitely preorder this. Can't wait for this, it looks great!

Who needs Persona 5 on switch when we got SMT V coming.

It looks amazing. I might get it but I wanna save up for Metroid Dread and Fatal Frame!!!

@Ralek85
The problem is, that you think TMS did it better, which I completely disagree with.
To me TMS just did it differently, more fitting to a flashy game.

Apart from that, it makes no sense to give out options here either, because there is no logical reason to make the camera move more, when the characters do not move as much.
Again, in TMS, the characters jump around like crazy and the camera follows that. How is the camera supposed to move, when the characters do not do this? This is a completely different situation.
Basically, the camera isn't much different, the moves are, at most.

When you fire just some normal skill or a physical attack in TMS, without chain reactions that don't exist in SMT, it doesn't look much different than it does in the SMT5 trailer.

Looks amazing but I have 1 small concern...where are the dungeons?is it no longer a drpg?

@Ralek85
Watch the Japanese trailer...

@Kirgo Well, not for nothing, but I don't see how the lack of character movement indicates a necessity for a lack of a camera movement. In fact, and I don't say that he should be the poster child here, but Michael Bay's signature move is the low angle circular camera swipe often paired with a parallax background movement centered on a still "man of action" character looking .. somewhere. In fact, the whole point of a camera is to guide the viewers eye, which is just as important with a static scene as a dynamic scene. Not sure what else to add here.

A static camera capturing a mostly static character/s can convey many things, even rising tension, but it rarely to never conveys action or active conflict. I don't see how that is different for videogames, unless of course the camera is player controlled, which - as we all know - is probably why outside of maybe Half-Life, most dramatic storytelling is done in cutscenes with not camera control of the player. Hell, even the shot-reverse-shot employed in dialogue scenes is basically a dynamic camera, since it constantly captures two viewpoints of just two people sitting/standing and doing the talking.

Also, there are plenty of RPG games that use different camera angles during mostly static combat. You can go way back with this to something like Ring of Red, which played out in a very slow manner on a 2D plane. The camera hid that very well though. It made everything look like a very dynamic combat situation, even though it was just about two giant mechs, which were barely moving, if at all (for way better accuracy). So yeah, if in the haydays of 3D jRPGs, a dynamic camera was at times very much a thing, and yes, to me, it made the games intensely better. Different? Yes, but also visually more appealing by keeping your eye guided and continually engaged.

Nothing about the movement in that game was crazy btw, like the complete opposite.

"When you fire just some normal skill or a physical attack in TMS, without chain reactions that don't exist in SMT, it doesn't look much different than it does in the SMT5 trailer."

True, but a) this is no law of nature, just the way the game was designed and b) you said it yourself: you are constantly linking attacks in this game, esp. once you are a couple of hours in. If you are doing just "normal" one-off attacks, you are playing wrong, and the game actually tells you this in abundance. Which funnily enough, is actually one instance where a game managed to create an actual gameplay mechanic out of the jRPG trope of "the power of friendship and trust"! 😂

@Kirgo I can't see why anyone would prefer a visualization that is highly static and highly repetitive, really driving the point how, that the battles play out in a highly repetitive and highly static manner in terms of actual gameplay/input. I am firmly in the camp of hidding the mundanity of mechanical design behind non-mundane visual design. Call it the Apple-Principle if you will. Would I prefer a more involved combat system that offers more choice and way more tactical depth leading to more varied encounters and more interesting battles long term? Yes, but apparently Atlus is not ready to take SMT there. They were in some ready with a "risky" spin-off like TMS#FE, but sadly not with a mainline entry.

And yeah, I 100% prefered the combat in TMS#FE. In fact, it's my favourite Shin Megami Tensei Combat yet, outside of some handheld titles, like Devil Summoner, which actually had a tactical map, something I always appreciate but does not work for every game of course.

Last but not least, Persona 5 did cheat the game's presentation by some super simple tricks, like actually animating menus, focusing heavily on visual menu transitions (which is a very cinematic thing to do, as scene transition is an important aspect of any movie, but hardly an game does anything else than a hard cut or fade to black) and mapping buttons to the most often used actions, thus forgoing like 60% of the menu inputs altogether without chaging a single thing about the gameplay mechanics. I applaud that, as these things made the game flow better, make it visually less stilted and come at no cost whatsoever.

I see little to nothing of all of this in SMT V. It's disappointing for what will be 60+h RPG for sure. Thats not me demanding the impossible or hating on the game, just a Day1-buyer and fan who had hoped for some simple, yet important changes to the games appeal. And you can bet, that most gamers would prefer visual Bayhem to the whole chess charme.

One of many reasons why PErsona has significantly outpaced the core SMT series in the last 15 years. More people would play and BUY SMT, if it looked more exciting that it does (and than it actually is). Hence it would be in any fans best interest to hope at least for superficial changes to drive interest. Feel free to disagree of course, but there is a reason that the only new SMT games we saw in the last 18 years were hardcore handheld ones. While we got 3 Persona games with a metric tone of spine-offs and ports. Food for thought.

@Ahlvin23 Thank you, I just did. I'd recommend the treehouse section: https://www.ign.com/videos/shin-megami-tensei-5-gameplay-deep-dive-treehouse-direct-2021

Anyways, Characters rarely move, the most work the camera does is a zoom in, otherwise it is nailed down tight 🤷‍♂️ It's not horrible, it is just not how you frame a battle encounter, at least not in my view and if it supposed to feel exciting and ... meaningful. It's boring to look it once you have gotten used to the cool SMT monster design, which are always appealing.

Also, it never made sense to me way characters engaged in deadly combat, would stay still. Even if it just for show, it just defies logic for a character to not move while the opponent considers his next move. It's simply not done. You always keeping moving: float like a butterfly, sting like a bee ... not stick like a gum, get stung like a fool. That alone makes me prefer visual obfuscation of the turn-based system below.

@Ralek85
"True, but a) this is no law of nature, just the way the game was designed and b) you said it yourself: you are constantly linking attacks in this game, esp. once you are a couple of hours in. If you are doing just "normal" one-off attacks, you are playing wrong, and the game actually tells you this in abundance."
So you basically do not want the SMT combat system at all, but a heavily changed version? Just so they can make it look more flashy?
I like the combat how it is.

Honestly, considering all you are writing, I think what you want is just a completely different game at this point.

@Ralek85 It sounds like you're just complaining about not getting a certain level of glitz and glamour. Which sure, TMS#FE had in spades, yet lacked in gameplay fluidity. E.g. why were Session attacks made to have long, unskippable animations? This pretty much means every time you want to hit a weakness using them, that's time you have to spend waiting around- adding up to possibly tens of minutes to over an hour over the course of the whole game. Long, unskippable animations are a relic of a bygone era. So what if they look nice, if they hinder your progress? Not all that glitters is gold, so to speak.

Gameplay is king, and IMO based on the Treehouse presentation/playthrough, SMT V seems to deliver on gameplay without bucking series conventions.

The 3D models look half-finished 😅

I keep thinking the protagonist is a she and not a he when there is long hair on the protagonist

I don't how to feel about the UI that was obviously taken straight out from SMTxFE crossover.
It certainly looks good on its own right, I loved that game on Wii U, but now in a mainline SMT title... it looks kinda lazy from Atlus, if you know what I mean.

Even more so, if anyone remembers SMTxFE had really bright, colorful world and presentation which of course was reflected in its UI. And now having the same shiny gleeful icons doesn't look right to me in a much darker and gritty SMT5 world.

@Kirgo Read into my comments what you want. I will not deny for second that I would really enjoy a changed combat system, if only for the fact, that I already spend hundreds of hours with the exciting one. What I was actually writing about though, and obviously, I was really unclear about that (?), is the game to AT LEAST obfuscate the fact, that the system is positively ancient, was never that deep to begin with and can grow stale really fast.

Hard, hard, hard no on "a completely different game". But I said as much already. SMT is very unique in it's tone, tackling of philosophical and religious themes and symbolism, it's approach to post-apo-fiction and much more.

If you want to really narrow it down: I played SMT IV and IV/A despite the combat. I certainly lost interest in combat after a dozens or so hours, precisely because it is shallow and I have played almost identicial systems for an ungodly amount of time before. It's everything else, as mentioned above, that kept me going.

If you enjoy the same basic combat over and over and over again, that is fine, but I just don't. Again, I feel moving significantly beyond something from 2003 is not that tall an order.

I remember how much I HATED combat in Witcher 1, how Witcher 2 tried to make it bareable and Witcher 3 finally succeded without every making it particularly enjoyable. Everything else about those games was enough to keep me going despite that though. I just wish SMT would half as hard at improving a stale and uninspired part of it's package 🤷‍♂️

@PlywoodStick Agreed! The option for skipping animations (as well as cutscenes on replays) should readily available, just as random battles should be a thing of the past. No argument there.

What you call glitz and glamour to me is just the games visual expression of what it wants to convey at any given time. You can do that in a various of ways, but to me it is key that all relevant information being relayed to the player, while also making it visually enganging during the battle no. 1 and during no. 10.000. I'd also believe that the player should spend as much time as possible interacting with the game as directly as possible, meaning that menus need to be kept to the necessary minimum, as they are a crutch.

"Gameplay is king"!
Absolutely, if you have broken systems at play, it does not matter how you present them. A polish turd is still a turd after all. Many a AAA game of the past years can easily attest to that.
I'm hard pressed to point to SMT though as the most engaging combat systems in jRPGs to day - or even in 2003 for that matter. It's not broken, it's mechanically sound. It's also super basic and really never goes anywhere in terms of depth. It just becomes a stat game, that is slightly evalted by a growing number of skills/effects you need to be aware of/prepared for.

In fact, the rules are easy to grasp and with a properly prepared party and fight is a breeze. (Which is also probably where that Auto-Battle comes in, I guess).

I don't want to sound condescending, but I would really suggest trying (if you haven't) a variety of games like Grandia? If not, I would at least suggest "Star Renegades", a little indie gem talking strong inspiration from Grandia repacking it into a modern jRPG'esque game. Other ideas that have seen much love in the last 30 years (!?) like FF's ATB system, Brave Default's Boost System, timed hits like Super Mario RPG/Lost Odyssey/Shadow Hearts and so on and so forth.

And yes, my favourite is still Resonance of Fate, since it not only looked amazing, it demanded awareness of a 3D space, tacking in account aspects like line of sight within said space, accounting for positions of three party members and several enemies, while thinking at least two or three moves ahead, plus account for different types of damage and much more.
Every battle demanded precision and thought. Stats alone got you absolutely nowhere. It was such a grindy game, with mostly a nonsensical story, and thus a prime example of a game that basically lived and died by the design of it's systems and the way they were presented (making the Matrix look kinda lame at times ^^).

All of this WITHIN the strict constraints of a turn-based system. You can mix and match these ideas, expand upon them and introduce entirely new ones of course.

Would I want something LIKE that in a game, that has me already absorb with its world and story and amazing creature design? Yes, please! Some of the responses I get here, sound like this is a kind of mad request. Like SMT could not possibly be SMT without battles that feel ripped straight out of the 90s. That's insane to me, but whatever ... maybe people play SMT for nostalgia then, who knows 🤷‍♂️

Edit: Just to be clear the games referenced above are but a small selection, dozens and dozens of other games like Valkyrie Profile, Chrono Cross, Parasite Eve and on and on went to creative and often very engaging places with what at heart still was a very basic combat formula!

Has anyone noticed the weird shine / glare on the sand during gameplay? I wonder if it was just a poor video quality or something we should be worried about