100%Nintendo Switch

It made SMT5 look like an unfinished game.

Great entry to the series.

85%Xbox Series X/S

4.25/5
An interesting story that doesn't quite result in an elevated narrative experience is sidelined in favor of some of the best turn based RPG combat from Atlus. Great character, enemy, world, and art design is the focus here and creates a best in class gameplay experience that leaves you wanting another playthrough as soon as credits roll.

90%PC

Still needa do Creation route

100%PC

Best SMT yet, completed it and it went by so fast, every single encounter is fun from start to finish.

I did the first campaign not the Vengeance route, can't wait to do new route on hard and try to fight demi-fiend this time.

85%PC

if you know ATLUS's taste and style, and if you like, you will love this game.
but dungeon like maze sometimes makes me tired, if you don't have DLC, grinding will be hard
I played on Hard, but the steep drop in difficulty in the latter half is a chronic issue with Atlus games. For casual players wanting to experience the essence of Atlus, I’d recommend the Persona series.

100%PC

Um ótimo JRPG. Com uma gama absurda de times e builds. Um jogo perfeito para quem gosta de desafios ou só uma historia e quer ficar explorando.

75%PlayStation 5

The story was fine at the start, but about halfway, it really started to lose me. Fortunately, the amazing combat and addictive exploration managed to compensate for that.

95%PC

SMTV but better

85%PC

I'm a megaten fan what can I say. Feels a lot more substantial than the original switch release, but I still wish Atlus put actual dungeons into this game.

60%PC

I played it at launch (one of four Switch games I own) and thought it was kinda bland, but Vengeance.. okay, it's still pretty bland since yanno, modern open-world game in post-apocalyptic Tokyo turned desert wasteland (poor thing never stood a chance), but it's still enjoyable enough and the new Vengeance story is vastly superior to the old Canon of Creation

Add to that the graphical, technical and performance upgrades that come with a PC version, and this is at the very least the definitive edition of this incredibly mid SMT game

Now bring SMT IV and/or Strange Journey to Steam, cowards

75%PC

Pretty good; not as good as Strange Journey however.

90%PlayStation 5

This was the one. This game was amazing; I'm now MegaTen pilled. It took me about 15-20 hours to "get it," but I think this is the best the series has to offer. I was absolutely addicted to the exploring, completing the compendium, and maximizing my team of demons. I've only played this, P5R, P3R, and now Metaphor, but after I finished I was so sad it was over. I immediately bought Soul Hackers 2, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, P4G and SMT3 and plan on playing all of them. I think if I replayed this one I might push the score higher now that I understand the game a bit better but overall I think it's one of my favorites of all time.

80%PlayStation 5

No doubt the best turned based JRPG out there gameplay wise. The story of CoV was great, but the final moments in the Chaos route was severely undercooked.

I reloaded a save to see the Law ending and it was miles better, it unfortunately feels like the "intended" ending which is a shame because it makes choosing the Chaos route a lesser experience. Overall a great game, must play for any JRPG fan.

85%Nintendo Switch

https://thekonnetwork.com/2024/07/01/smt-v-vengenance/

100%PC

Everything I wanted this game to become

85%PlayStation 5

Better than the OG smtv. Combat and story is improved

85%PlayStation 5

Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance is a pretty big improvement over the original release. The game is stunning on more powerful hardware, and I love the new additions to this definitive version! There are tons of quality-of-life updates that help streamline the experience. Using Magatsu Rails for traversal made exploration significantly more convenient. Battles have even more depth with new demon abilities. I also really enjoyed getting to see the demons’ personalities shine! The Demon Haunt is a breath of fresh air during the long stretches of battles and exploration.

SMT V: Vengeance’s main draw is the Canon of Vengeance. I had a refreshing experience with the new storyline. Yoko and the Qadištu were incredible additions to the game! I absolutely love the Qadištu’s lore and designs! Characters from the original game also get much needed character development as well. I vastly prefer the Canon of Vengeance over the Canon of Creation. However, I would’ve liked it if we got to explore even more new areas. The Qadištu were the best part of the game for me, so I wish we could’ve seen more of them throughout the story. My main gripe is that the core loop of exploring multiple large apocalyptic ruins can ultimately feel exhausting. Regardless, I still had a great time playing through SMT V: Vengeance! The game is just brimming with personality! I think fans of the base game will have a fantastic experience revisiting this definitive version of SMT V.

8.7/10

90%PC

Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengence is one of the best games in the series. To be clear I want to make it known, that I loved the base game. I know that on launch the base game garnered praise, but that praise quickly turned to mixed reactions from fans. SMT V upon release in 2021, had its issues but it still managed to do a lot right for me and took a step in a totally unique direction for the franchise and did it very well, so it was easy for me to see past the flaws. With that being said, however, seeing a lot of these flaws be ironed out has undeniably made this the superior experience for SMT V. This is far from a Redux situation, where most of the new content is terrible. I loved SMT V in 2021, and I love it even more now with the additions. This title feels like a perfect example of an Atlus re-release that was done right! The new character Yoko, adds a lot of depth and fun to the story and it feels like she always belonged in the game in the first place. Some Atlus re-release girls do not feel this way and you can tell they were shoehorned in to make the game more appealing to customers buying the expanded version of said title. I do not this think is the case here. There were many times were Yoko’s edgelord dialog got a real laugh out of me, and I cannot say that about the base game at all. Yoko’s additions add life to this world and make it feel like the cast is more vibrant and distinctive from one another rather than just being a bunch of high schoolers with similar selfish motives. As a longtime fan, I loved the inclusion of Mastema, and all he adds to this game. Having Demi-Fiend and Mastema in this game is an incredible thing, especially considering Nocturne and (vanilla) Strange Journey are my favorite games in the Megami Tensei series! The new music tracks are amazing and I find myself coming back to them and listening to them on streaming. I have to say that Atlus always kills it with the music, but this is exceptionally good! I found that Cannon of Creation’s music is much more action-packed and aggressive whereas Cannon of Vengence’s music is much more dream-like, ethereal and groovy. I also wanted to say that I was worried with all the new additions to this version of V, that the game would be too easy. I saw the Demon Haunt and immediately assumed that raising demons stats would break the game but I was wrong! It seems to me that the bosses are adjusted for this new change and that the game still offers the player a challenge on Hard! I found this route to be harder on Hard, than the base game in 2021. With the way the level scaling worked in the original game, you would die instantly and once you were at or above the boss's level, you took them out almost instantly. This meant that the game was very unbalanced, and once you got to a specific level there was no challenge left to be had. Now, you can make this game harder by staying under-leveled, and if you are at the boss's level it is still harder because you can no longer destroy them because specific levels of you and your demons do not determine the battle anymore. These are excellent changes to the balancing and they help make this game feel like past SMT games, which is a welcome adjustment that they have made to this game. As for the downsides of this game, there is not much to say, but I do have a few gripes. With all of the criticism that Cannon of Creation’s story got you would think they would try to expand it and make it better. That is not the case. I do believe this a very bad thing, because, unlike a lot of people, I do not think Creation’s story is bad, rather I believe it is unfinished and leaves too much to be desired. It feels like Creation hardly has a story at all. An expansion would have made the Creation route such a better experience. My second problem with Vengeance is that the new Nahobino form takes too long to unlock. Atlus teased this new form and got us so excited about it, only to give it to us towards the end of the game. Not only this, but the new form ends up being taken away towards the end of the game and it makes its whole addition seem a bit underwhelming. I hate to say this last gripe but the new dungeon is bad. It is literally like 20 minutes long, and the puzzles are simple and mind-numbingly easy. I was really hoping they would learn their lesson with the dungeon Creation uses in this area of the game being subpar, but looking at it now I believe this new one is WORSE. Those were my biggest letdowns with SMT V Vengeance. Overall, Vengence like the original, still has its flaws, but manages to be a much more complete experience overall. Although I gave both versions of this game a 9/10, I do believe this is the better game and is the best way to experience SMT V!

80%PC

+ Adjustable speed settings

100%PC

Canon of Vengeance: Tao Isonokami Ending

90%PlayStation 5

Better than the original

10%PlayStation 5

Utterly terrible game, even more bloated then original version

85%PlayStation 5

Score with Creation and Vengeance Routes completed 85%

Pros:
Best Combat and Customization in the series
Good Bosses and Super Bosses
Exploration style should be standard going forward with some improvements like added dungeons with better design.
System allows use of favorite demons from beginning to end with Essence system
A good amount of Demons for the compendium and Demon Dialogue
Vengeance Route is mainly all new content
Vengeance Story is much more interesting than Creation with no Neutral option, so you have to be either Law or Chaos.

Mixed:
Mixed feelings on the quality of the 3 or so dungeons in the game
OST is Hit or Miss for me

Cons:
The "Creation" Story Route is not it at all... underbaked characters, undercooked storyline.

90%PC

Virtually fixes every single problem that the original had but not by expanding on the story but rather just giving you another one entirely, kinda cool if you played the original, but If you haven't is probably just gonna feel really weird how they just kill major characters and how others just disappear from the story after doing nothing, I would highly suggest that you play the original route before touching the vengeance storyline, but that aside the combat is fantastic and the boss fights are amazing, I like that they added coliseum type fights that you can play whenever you want, and the level cap for the hard versions of the bosses is 150, the only thing that I would say I didn't like was the way the new story was handled, it was an improvement over the original but still doesn't utilize half of the characters in interesting ways (Yakumo my boy, is even forgotten completely half way through since there's no neutral alignment ), And also the music is a bit too atmospheric for my liking, but that's mostly just nitpicking at this point, amazing game, I'm just glad that SMT V is no longer being handicapped by the Nintendo switch's hardware, beautiful game to look at, the art direction can be breathtaking at times.

95%PlayStation 5

Pretty cool, took 8 playthroughs but it was worth it in the long run. I've been playing it since the day it came out. Masakado is a must have for any playthrough. I would play it again.

100%PlayStation 5

Gameplay is super fun and the OST has a ton of good tracks. The story additions are nice, I really liked partnering up with Tsukuyomi.

90%PlayStation 5

Es un JRPG excelente, con el Press Turn System que es adictivo. Lo único que no me gustó fue el boss final, que requiere grinding.

40%Nintendo Switch

from SMT3 this serie for me is bad... aready SMT3 was not peak... the magic from the first two game is lost...

90%Nintendo Switch

Wonderful game, with wonderful pacing apart from the end. The final dungeon was an absolute slog to get through. Great time, especially when turning difficulty down to safety and just enjoying the story.

80%Nintendo Switch

(Canon of Vengeance only playthrough since i played canon of creation on base smt5 already) Added lore and sidequests and innate demon abilities/ additional magatsuhi skills improve the game significantly, this definitely is the definitive way to experience the game. The music and side quests are by far the best part of the game

80%Nintendo Switch

Canon of Creation - Neutral Ending - Normal difficulty

Story: Should've played the CoV route, as there's hardly any story in CoC.
Characters: Didn't like them that much, as they were too generic. I liked the appearances of Yakumo and Nuwa and the background information from and about the Nahobino.
Music: The music was good and atmospheric. Nothing too special.
Gameplay: The gameplay is the best thing about this game - press/turn perfection! Essences for skills and affinities and skilling the MC was awesome! The best new thing was being able to save anywhere.
Graphics: After playing the switch version I'd say go for any other option. For being such an old Android tablet, the Switch ran it surprisingly well. Only the last two areas had huge FPS drops and the loading times were longer. It was playable and okay.

Story 5/10
Characters 5/10
Music 6/10
Gameplay 10/10
Graphics 6/10

90%PC

Already played for like 300 hours the original, i loved this one even more.

Peak music
Peak gameplay
Great story with alignment choices that matter like the other games in the series !

Couldn't ask for a better re-release thank you Atlus.
The only thing i didn't really like are the first 2 zones felt too similar even with all the stuff added and the last zone in Vengeance felt a little out of place considering the other route but other than that Shinjuku is really amazing :3
9/10 peak fiction

80%PC

SMT V Vengeance is a worthy rerelease/multiplatform release. To a degree I’m glad they waited until Vengeance was expanded to what it was before allowing it to release multiplatform, but at the same time I understand the gripes that come with ATLUS’ fun release strategy of release a good game, and then release a fantastic version of the same game a few years later for the same big price. They solidified that fun pattern with p5r however p5r felt worse since it also released only for ps4 at the time and vengeance was expanded as a multiplatform release. That aside, vengeance and its respective new storyline make this game feel much more worthwhile than it originally did. SMT V was a JRPG that relied far too much on its history as a series with its lore that had already been founded and demons that we already knew with very few added. Of course I always had a potent respect for SMT Vs handling of Irish mythology in particular, it doesn’t erase what wasn’t added. (Plus Miyazu pronouncing Fionn as “Fee-on”). SMT V did not, really did not have good or strong characters you felt attatched to in any way. While I don’t think vengeance made it strong in that regard, it’s definitely much better in its handling of characters. With the deaths the game incurs finally having weight instead of being a fun game of dominoes while you ascend the throne. The new additional world is far preferred to its counterpart in CoC and is absolutely stunning. It makes sense too, it was amazing to see such a beautiful world on, to put it bluntly, actual good hardware. The original no doubt made its mark as a switch exclusive, I remember how big of a deal it was, I remember the trailer releasing. But it was about time it was freed of its shackles. The megaten series to this day has an issue with being compared to SMTIII so I will refrain from comparing it to other games in the series, as despite the Demifiends optional appearance, the other games are unrelated, as V can be played on its own. In that same breath, CoV can be played without CoC although I think I’d recommend CoC first for the comparison with what originally released. All this just to say, good game. And a game well worth beating to 100% (even if I really didn’t want to do the Law ending of CoC.)

100%Nintendo Switch

HEY HEY HEY! OH YOU WANT SOME? WELL DO YA?

First of all I absolutely love the music in this game. In fact I think it's one of the best videogame music ever made. Ryota Kozuka nailed it again. Shit's so good it almost puts you in tears every time. Absolute bangers with an incredible amount of soul and talent. EVERY track is a banger, from background themes to boss battle music

Just listen and see for yourself

https://youtu.be/95wONY1rMAg
https://youtu.be/_tG99JM25JE

Finished Law Path

Never played the original V, but this is a peak SMT game and peak JRPG combat in general, and you have no excuses to skip this game if you love this genre.

Combat is definitely the best in the series and it feels like a press turn system got fused with the Demon Coop system from Strange Journey which is exactly what I wanted. Also this game has more stable difficulty curve compared to SMT IV. There are lots of sidequests which are actually pretty fun and creative and many explorable areas to traverse with different navigators (pyro jack was my favorite)

Of course SMT VV has a crazy ass amount of demons and bosses from the whole series, some of them were executed in 3D for the first time and they're just great with unique designs and abilities. I finished the compendum for ~ 74% and I'm gonna unlock every creature in this game later

I also like how you can actually talk with your favorites in the Demon Haunt and they are dropping some funny one liners at you based on lore and mythology. This social stuff is clearly inspired by Persona and it suits the game very well

I promise that Beelzebub music theme will stuck forever in your head after the fight lol

Okay, I'm gonna replay the Steam version on Hard, see ya!

10/10

90%PC

A very good SMT title. Good quality of life improvements in the Vengeance version make the experience a lot smoother.

All original content plus whole new story with new endings for even more replayability than usual SMT titles.

90%PlayStation 5

Really beautiful looking game with a banger soundtrack. Honestly my second favorite game in the franchise just behind 4. I really like the new story and how the new characters are. This may or may not be my favorite megaten but it is my game of the year so far.

100%PC

Play the new route if you've already played the original on the switch. It's at the beginning of the game when you make a choice between taking the girl's hand or not. It pretty much changes 80% of the story and changes a lot of the encounters and so on. It's almost like playing a new game altogether and worth the price of the port by itself.

I gave the original on the Switch a 9/10, and that's despite the performance problems and the somewhat lacking encounters, save a few. However, this game pretty much ups the ante and fixes many of the shortcomings making it a perfect version of the game. I can't recommend it enough and possibly my GOTY for 2024(helps I'm a sucker for SMT, but still)

80%No Platform Specified

I was more than happy to revisit Shin Megami Tensei V, one of my favorite games of 2021, through this definitive version. Vengeance doesn't necessarily make drastic improvements per se, but I enjoyed the new twists, content, and quality of life upgrades it does bring all the same. And while the storyline and route exclusive to Vengeance are a bit better than the original, their appeal as a returning player is really just in how they shake things up at certain points. Don’t get it twisted, though – there’s never been a better time to play this hard-nosed RPG, if not for its satisfying turn-based combat, then for its masterful execution of a uniquely demonic world. There’s a certain attitude that comes through vividly in its art style, character design, and music that you just don’t get in other games. So, if you're simply looking for more SMT or have yet to experience Atlus’ devilish RPG series, Vengeance is absolutely worth seeing through.