Digital Foundry Gives Its Assessment Of Shin Megami Tensei V

At no point in roughly 30hrs so far in SMTV has a frame skip affected me in any important way. I’ve noticed them, and the resolution drops - but all deaths and bad battle decisions have been my own.

@Krull Quite right, it only affects the world navigating and not any of the combat, which is fine in my opinion. (Plus it’s really not even that bad, a few frames here or there. I’ve played MUCH worse).

@Krull yeah same. Honestly I've been surprised by it?
The only thing performance wise isn't even performance but a feature to help them and its the level of detail system giving simpler animations to demons when they're seen from afar.

And... that's it because actual performances were always very smooth for me?

Like... I loved Monster Hunter Stories 2 and THAT had framerates dips in Rutoh village but I still didn't mind it because the game proper was in the overworld and most pother villages were fine.

But what I mean is I've yet to even see a location as "bad" as Rutoh village in SMT5

I really enjoyed SMT5 a lot but if there is something to criticize then that's the performance, especially the resolution. There were moments where you couldn't even see the NPCs face during a dialoge since it was so blurry

edit: Can't believe I have to add this but I'm not talking about the faceless NPCs in Tokyo, I'm fully aware they are designed to have no face. I'm talking about NPCs that do indeed have a face but in some cutscenes the image quality it too blurry to actually see it

This game looks spectacular! But as the switch approaches it’s 6th year on the market, and next gen consoles show off their power, I wonder how much longer the switch can keep up. Obviously gameplay should take preference over performance and graphics, but it would still be nice to see Nintendo games on the same level of PS5 and XSX

I've not really noticed any major performance issues during my time with the game. Sure, it's not the smoothest or sharpest experience...but perfectly serviceable for a game in its genre, and a good-looking game all-around IMO.

For those who are un decided in getting this yet and have a ps4/ps5 I would wait as its rumoured to be coming to playstation

Been playing mostly in handheld, and performance is rarely an issue. Occasional slowdown when moving in the field is 100% tolerable. Absolutely love this game!

I've honestly noticed the skips and the stutters and half second to register my inputs after booting the game up or coming back to the Switch after putting it to sleep.

Did it affect my enjoyment of the game? Absolutely not, it remains my best gaming experience of 2021. I'd love for improvements overall to the performance through patches, but I also don't think they're necessary to enjoy the game.

Also why has the game became so non existent in the UK, out of stock in all shops and online and the ones that do have it are selling it for £60, even on ebay there's no one selling the base game just the collectors editions and loads of them

The switch is really in need of a replacement or an upgrade

@UltimateOtaku91 The thing mentioning that was patched out in that update, I think.

WOW even Switch exclusive can't seen to run well on the console, now is time urgently for Nintendo to release the Switch sucessor as soon as possible, or will gonna have a Wii U situation again.

See, too many people take videos like this and assume any performance imperfection is bad and means the game is bad. I can understand the curiosity, wanting to know how something runs, but how many people would honestly have cared had a video like this never come out?

Great game and I'm hoping it gets a port to a more powerful console one day for increased fidelity. I enjoy it as is and it has great style but increased clarity and texture quality world be a huge boon. Playing on a PS5/XSX then switching back to playing on the Switch is rough sometimes.

The dips during cutscenes are super noticeable, but, being cutscenes, I'm not too concerned about them.

Gameplay is usually fine. High 20s, as mentioned. Performs a lot like MH World did on home consoles at launch. It's much less of an issue here, though, since the game is a turn-based RPG.

I'm pretty sure the game dips hard when first loading into an area because of the amount of the map it's loading in, which would explain the super quick fast travel.

@TheCrabMan Nah. The DF guys are cool, and their analyses, like this, always take the limitations of the hardware into account when talking about games. With that said, this game objectively has some performance issues, and they're obviously not going to ignore that in an analysis.

Their fanbase may or may not be toxic, but that's not really on them.

@mariomaster96 ...you do realize the faceless NPCs are a stylistic choice, right?

@UltimateOtaku91 Looking forward to getting SMT V on my PS4 alongside that Switch copy of P5 people told me was coming for years!

50 hours into this game, pop-in has surprised me a couple of times but not once has this ever really impacted my game. Without a doubt one of the top Switch games of 2021, despite not being a technical masterpiece.

80 hours into the game, final area... not once have I noticed or been bothered by performance. Amazing game. Highly recommended.

nah, the visuals are not that impressive and the framerate is bad ...tho the video was abysmal, boring and stupid

@mossimac thanks god you do not review games

@mariomaster96 NPCs in Tokyo do not often have faces actually, which is lame

@Ralizah That was not what I was talking about...
I'm not talking about the faceless NPCs in Tokyo, I'm for example talking about the fairy king (forgot his name) in the fairy village. He for certain has a face but it was too blurry to see during a dialog

@BlackenedHalo ignorance is bliss?

@mariomaster96 Gotcha.

I'm not sure how much of that is down to the resolution, though, which, as mentioned, stays above 720p when docked. He has pearl white skin, white eyes, and understated facial features. Titania's face is much easier to see thanks to the more natural skin color used for her.

Performance over graphics always.

@BlackenedHalo Thanks god you don't make them.

Beat the game including dlc awhile ago. Game maintains a steady 27-28 FPS range vast majority of the game which is more then playable especially when the gameplay is turn based combat that makes frame rate even less important. Locked 30 is preferable obviously, but steady high twenties is still far from unplayable

As DF mentions it rarely locks at 30, but it also rarely hits sub 20 FPS too. I only really encountered that dip in frame rate when loading a file in the first two seconds of the map and certain cinematic cutscenes. Otherwise had a relatively stable experience from overworld travel to combat. Pop in is noticeable though, but not GTA Definitive editions levels bad. Never once got screwed in overworld because of pop in.

Complaining about the relatively simple battle attack animations is also silly. You are comparing P5R where you have limited party members and can spruce up their animations while SMT V has a ton of party members you can splice in. Even then a lot of them have unique attacks that has unique animations anyway

Some of the complaints though like the pause menu design is silly just because it’s not overly styled like P5R or TMS. That style wouldn’t suit a more grim game series like SMT.

Worth noting too the resolution looks gorgeous for a Switch game and you can tell Atlus try to push the Switch to the limits for that which IMO is worth it if frame rate only went down to 27-28. For reference that was how Dying Light performed on launch during the nights on Switch without the patch and people still praised that port.

I definitely wouldn’t file SMT V into the same category as DP2 or AoC levels of technical bad. Sunk about a 100 hours and was fine. Some of the users here really blowing the complaints out of proportion either never played the game or is trying to use this as an excuse to port beg

Its a testament to its all its very high points that the framerate while extremely noticeable and at times annoying doesn't really change how i feel on the game, its getting very close to being my GOTY what i think it will once i'm done and is easily one of my favourite games on the Switch.

@UltimateOtaku91 Sure man just like the rumored P5 ports years ago. Atlus definitely known for porting their games in a timely fashion lol. It took P4G over 10 years to be ported. The upcoming Persona 4 Arena Ultimax ports took about 8 years. Horrible advice. Advising people to emulate would be more practical in comparison

Amazing game, really enjoying it. Who's the new guy doing the DF vids? He sounds like a charisma vacuum.

@Arawn93 Over ten years to release a 2012 game? Hmmm.

@Giancarlothomaz No, just no. That's not going to happen. Just because the system is underpowered doesn't spell the death of the console, or that Nintendo needs to replace it. SMT V is a taxing game on the system, but it's because of the way the game is. It's a massive world with very little loading screens, and enemies that pop up constantly.

Also, you don't seem to get what made the Wii U fail in the first place. It wasn't the console's power, but instead the console being way too similar to the Wii. People thought the Wii U was just a extension of the Wii when it first released, so they didn't bother getting it. Not to mention the lack of exclusives.

There's no way in hell that the switch would even fail like the Wii U in this stage of it's life, given how successful it is.

To be honest, the FPS stuff isn't that big a deal. Yeah, it drops constantly, but it never actually bugs me. I never understood the importance Digital Foundry had, or why their assessments matter. What matters about a game is it's gameplay rather than how it runs.

@VoidofLight i know that due to bad marketing Wii U was a flop, but Switch been a underpowered console is a detriment to Nintendo and the third party that release games on the console, be it exclusives or not, Switch is sufering to even run it own exclusive, timed or not.

I only play docked and while the performance issues are noticable, I'm surprised that it hasn't negatively affected my experience playing it one bit.

@Giancarlothomaz Well, SMT V pushes the boundaries of what's possible on the system, so I'd say that's probably why the switch struggles to run it, given that it runs so many of it's exclusives without issue.

@UltimateOtaku91 thats what i am going to do, worst case scenario it won’t come and ill just play it on my switch

@Giancarlothomaz ah yes, the classic nintendoomed comment and all it's associated buzzwords.

I am someone who will always sacrifice graphics for performance as I rather my games to run at a solid 60 fps. But I am not too bother with them in games like SMT as they are turn based games. So while I rather have a solid fps it not that much of a deal breaker for games like these for me.

I'm around 4 hours into this game and haven't had any issues performance wise.
Either the the framerate and resolution dips are further into the game or they're minimal at best and just heavily overexaggerated.

@Aaron00 - I remember people saying the reverse when the GameCube came out. The PS2 was still favored for the vast market it still had.

I'm still on the fence with this game, I've heard nothing but good things but I'm not 100% into traditional JRPGs.

I played DQ11 and enjoyed it alot, Xenoblade was decent too but i get burned out quickly with the genre, i got those two games close to when they released and put around 130 hours into DQ and 80 hours into Xenoblade.

I dunno if i want another big JRPG game in the same veins but im not sure, i may grab it when it comes down in price next year.

Of course those nerds have something to say

Something about SMTV just isn't hooking me the way SMT normally does. I'm not sure what it is about it, but for some reason I'm totally aloof and uninterested in picking this one up most of the time. I can't put a finger on it. But the choppy frame rate may be part of it. Somehow it feels like a "low quality experience" subconsciously. I'd have much preferred they toned down the visuals and kept performance smooth. It sounds strange, maybe it's an OLED thing since i"m playing on the OLED model, but it just feels kind of janky to navigate. 4 totally hooked me, 2 hooks me but the aged design doesn't keep me engaged, but 5 for some reason just lacks that addiction factor for me, and I'm very conscious of it's performance jankiness, turn based or not.

is it better than Monster Hunter Stories 2 though?

@Giancarlothomaz you can go back 5 years and see the exact same comment from other people. It's ridiculous you have said Nintendo could have another Wii U on there hands.

@Ralizah Yeah, that "inevitable" P5 port that was RUMORED since 2017. Thanks to that, I have trust issues with people claiming to be Atlus insiders lol Never believe an Atlus port unless it is announced by them

@Giancarlothomaz The Switch is most likely going to overtake the PS4 so as long as theres money to be made games will be put on it. Atlus had a choice with SMT V in either going all out or toning it down for better performance, clearly they went all out and pushed a bit too hard what they most likely knew but because it is turn based they knew they could get away with it more.

Dying Light a pushing game on PS4 recently got a solid port what even Digital Foundry liked so clearly the Switch has life left in it depending on the games and Dev. End of the day the console prints money so no way are Nintendo moving on just yet, 2023 will be earliest i bet for a Switch 2 or whatever its called.

It never bothered me in my two play throughs.

@Ramen756 The rumors will never go away given the game featured two lines of code referencing PS4 and PC versions (the PS4 code was subsequently patched out).

Atlus almost never ports games they announce as exclusives to other ecosystems. I guess it could happen, but I'll trust years of precedent on Atlus' part before "rumors" that mostly amount to disguised portbegging.

@kobashi100 when Nintendo got a sucesuful console on her hand, they got too cocky and comit a lot of mistakes on the next console, that a Wii U situation.

I definitely won't pay full price for an atlus game anymore. 1st time i bought a new game that wasn't a 1st party title in forever & it was $32 1 month after release, when i paid $60.

@iLikeUrAttitude same for me. I was thinking it must be later in the game. I'm a huge graphics whore & frame rate nit-picker, & if i can tolerate it, something's not adding up...

The Wii U debacle was not down to Nintendo being cocky. I am not even sure why you even trying to compare Nintendo today to the Nintendo of Wii U era. This idea that the lack of power in switch hardware is gonna see Nintendo in trouble is laughable. This was said on day 1! 5+ years later after huge success people are still sticking to this argument. Truly astonishing!

@kobashi100 exactly, the sales are great & most of us don't want to buy a new console again,, already. I think Nintendo is too Smart to split the player base between a pro & Normal system, which would screw developers (having go make 2 different versions of every game). A switch successor may come in a few years, but it's not needed ASAP, IMO.

The games all look great, they just need to be stylized & not photorealistic. Ppl who want that look have other systems they can play on. I like that look sometimes, but own PlayStation & Xbox, so i can get those game types if i need them. The games on the switch are perfect for me & i have been a graphics whore my entire life. I dislike the bad framerate, but that's present in bad games on every platform, not unique to switch. 1st party & quality games don't usually have that problem tho, anyways, on switch. I honestly haven't had any issues in SMT V yet, framerate wise. I've played mostly in docked, FWIW.

@kobashi100 People will say anything in an attempt to justify their want to waste 500 dollars on a brand new console that's not needed.

@twztid13 Personally, I'd rather not have to shell out 500 more dollars to keep playing Nintendo games. At least, this soon. I don't get this fanbase sometimes, and the constant want for new consoles. This has been the same thing ever since the Switch itself was released.

Thankfully it's a turn-based RPG, so the frame rate didn't really affect my overall enjoyment of the game. It's still RPG of the year in my opinion, and my runner up for game of the year overall after Metroid Dread.

That said, the frame rate is absolutely abysmal in the game. Seeing some people here try to downplay it as "a few frames here or there" is so disingenuous it's embarrassing. It is what it is. Lying about it doesn't change that.

I feel like the frame rate is better on portable mode, and really it looks pretty solid imo, the Switch is far from a powerhouse so expectations have to be kept in check, not every team knows Switch hardware inside and out like Nintendo themselves. Do I wish the game ran better? Yeah I do, but the game is so fun I can look past it, it is a quality game despite it.

@Giancarlothomaz To be fair, switch exclusives couldn't run well in 2017. We pretend botw did, but it had massive slowdowns any time there was fire and the lost woods ran at like 15 fps on the og switch.

@VoidofLight It's been 5 years, man. That's time enough. The last gen lasted unusually long.

Loving this game. Graphics could be better, and frame rate could be better, but it would have very little impact on the overall product or the enjoyment of the game.

@Xansies The 3Ds lasted for 7. Nintendo said the Switch is just now through half of it's lifespan. This implies they aren't done with the system yet, and it's still selling like hotcakes.

Not to mention, they couldn't make a new system, even if they wanted to, given the shortages for semiconductors going on at the moment, which are getting worse and worse as time goes on.

@Snaplocket Yeah, Covid didn't stop Sony from making the PS5, but you can see plainly what happened to them, can't you? No one can actually buy the blasted things because of the chip shortage, which might I add, is getting worse as time goes on. Graphic cards manufacturers can't even get semiconductors, so they have to make 6 year old chips, and sell them.

Currently playing through Nocturne and loving it. I might pick up V at some point.

I don't agree with the insinuations of the article. There is a lot of work and optimisation done here, you can see many examples in the Digital Foundry video. There's just so much that the Switch can technically do so except for small patches here and there to fix the frame rate pacing and some other oversights, we won't see this game in better form until it's running on better hardware. The "impossible" Switch ports don't really exist as they turn down the resolution, frame rate, texture quality, post-processing and the quantity and quality of the assets. At least, this game has been built for Switch and that seems obvious in the video but the Switch is technically dated and only the frame rate pacing inconsistency seem possible to fix.

I’ve been playing this game nonstop since it’s launch. It does have performance issues for sure and tbh some aesthetic choices regarding the world are not to my liking. However, since it’s a turn based rpg first and foremost, it has not effected combat.