Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux

It was my first SMT and i got amazed by such original story and addictive combat

Score: 7 -----------------------------------------------------------------

great story. the battle system is uninteresting comparing it to the turn pass system buuuuut is playable. the level design is very nice for a dungeon crawler. tha talk system sometimes seems a bit too easy but u can switch off the mods for talking whenever u want.

The biggest fans of the SMT series are surely to still like this game, but it doesn't justify being played by anyone else nor is it really worthy for everyone else, as what changes are mostly tweaks that many won't even notice, give preference to the original game first if you wanna know the series, it also looks better.

OH MY GAWT WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?! So alright, I read the reviews. I played the original and adored it. Frustratingly adored it. I have this idea of perfection that no games can get close to, but they have snippets of brilliance that would work AMAZINGLY well in the right circumstances. Etrian Odyssey was great. Until it wasnt. And then it was. And then SMT took the engine and turned it into the opposite ~ non map based, with an emphasis on story over gameplay. Which would be horrible, except that the Persona gameplay is jarringly good... it flawed. Years of playtesting via all those other games, and a testing ground of people who have played pokemon... make this game PERFECTLY balanced. (Not this 3ds garbage, the older DS version) perfectly balanced in that it strikes the JRPG chord of grinding, the paper rock scissors variations of weaknesses and strengths, fusions and guided evolution, and knowing that, unlike etrian odyssey, with just 15 more minutes of grinding your characters, and 2 hours of fuse/evolve magic... you could breeze through the next 3 floors on autopilot/autofight. This game, though.. has none of that. Which isnt to say that a newcomer would see that, necessarily.. because for every UI improvement, higher definition video or monster avatar.. there is something far more broken. I would like to call Al Pacino from devil's advocate, except I'm going to edit it for this game. Excuse my version of it, but I believe.. like John Cusack from High Fidelity said, you are using someone else's poetry to express how you feel. It is a subtle art. Ahem, anyway: "Atlus likes to watch. He's a prankster. Think about it. He gives PC/player's character... instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does He do? I swear, for his own amusement... ...his own private, **** reel... ...He sets the rules in opposition. It's the goof of all time. Make it easier to visualize the story with actual NPC models, but edit the dialogue and their location badly. (This encounter used to be OVER THERE... in that room. That ROOM now has no purpose. What did you save me, 15 seconds of exploration?! Were people getting lost?) Talk to those characters or those demons, but now the conversations arent unique or endearing. Improve the UI to get to the Dia healing faster, but now you'll have to heal every 2 battles because the combat isnt as previously balanced! Condense the information on the bottom screen so you can get to it with the press of a button. But now it isnt as intuitive as scrolling with L + R. Go through the game expecting demon placement to make sense, as it used to? HAH NO! The rare encounters are now common! The next evolution of THOSE demons are now uncommon encounters! You are fighting the basic 2 demons WHILE their fusion isnt even necessary, because the next version ... YOU WILL BE FIGHTING AFTER A FEW BATTLES! I mean, why should I pick up basic demon A and basic demon B, when I can just hire their output?! You changed the voices to match their modern versions. Okay, not bad. Not good, either. But for a 'redux', that is to be expected. Music and SFX.. ehhh, nothing special. Feels more or less forgettable. Going back to my DS version .. or rather, playing etrian odyssey 5 ~ which has the modern or FM music option, I'm actually partial to the unique sounds of the older versions. (Hey, warcraft 3 reforged is getting the same flak right now, too! :) Items of a consumable nature are dropped more frequently, and forma seem to be dropped in a less compelling way. Farming mats is always a chore, but the remix they did and the emphasis on UI improvements or hunting mats is.. well, if you've played other Atlus games, you'll know. Its just that feeling you get when you play certain manufacturer's games... and in the specific time period.. like you know how rare a potion drop is in old squaresoft games, or how often you'll be overloaded with healing herbs in modern Atlus (COOKIE CUTTER RPG) games.. They all feel the same, and yet not. Stella Glow, Radiant Historia perfect chronology and Rune Factory 4 all generally hand out their items in a certain fashion. Modern atlus feels like modern atlus. Anyway, older DS atlus games were tougher but consistent. This one loses the consistency for no reason. And that reason becomes highly apparent if you install the DLC. Or to explain it to anyone who will never buy/install the DLC... it feels like those smartphone freemium games where you are artificially.. ARBITRARILY... forced to grind for hours upon hours for no reason. But yeah, the game is rebalanced around those experience and macca drop DLC items. Even after installing and playing with those, the new balance is way off. More mis The game is now unbalanced. And while you're jumping from one demon to the next, what is Atlus doing? He's laughing his ass off.