After almost 8 years of waiting and 4 years since its announcement, Atlus is gearing up to release Shin Megami Tensei 5 in 2021. Better yet, thanks to Nintendo’s backing, the game will be the first simultaneous global launch in the publisher’s history, hopefully bringing an end to the nearly year-long wait between Japanese and worldwide releases of Atlus titles, as previously seen with Persona 5 Strikers.
While fans will be getting a Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne HD remaster to hold them over in early 2021, there is still some time to go until Shin Megami Tensei 5 makes its way to Nintendo Switch, leaving some time to speculate and hope for what innovations Atlus may bring to Shin Megami Tensei 5, given that it is the studio’s first major RPG release since 2017’s Persona 5.
One of the most unique elements of Shin Megami Tensei 4, the last mainline entry in the series on Nintendo 3DS, was the game’s opening hours, which took place in the fictional, fantasy-like Kingdom of Mikado. This served as a departure from the usual setting of Tokyo, which took the player a few hours to get to after the game’s narrative opened up. While nobody’s asking for a Shin Megami Tensei game to take place outside of Tokyo, featuring some newer locations for the player to travel to with more distinct visual styles would be something the dev could use to set Shin Megami Tensei 5 apart from other mainline entries in the franchise.
The game’s trailers so far have implied that, much like in Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, Tokyo will take on a more desert-like visual aesthetic this time. This is reverting to the franchise’s typical visual approach to apocalyptic Japan, unlike Shin Megami Tensei 4 and its sequel, which took place in a cyberpunk interpretations of Tokyo. Given the lack of any overworld footage, it’s hard to pin down the exact visual style of Shin Megami Tensei 5 yet, so there is still hope that fans can see an interpretation of Tokyo unlike any the series has yet to tackle.
During the PlayStation 2 era, Atlus made a lot of JRPGs, so it was understandable why each of these games would feature very closed off, reused locations outside of main dungeons: areas like Digital Devil Saga‘s closed-off, linear environments or Persona 4‘s Inaba. While Shin Megami Tensei 4 continued this design philosophy, despite featuring more detailed worlds than its predecessors even on the Nintendo 3DS’ hardware, Shin Megami Tensei 5 has the opportunity to feature the most fleshed out world Atlus has ever built.
The Shin Megami Tensei games are renowned for their bleak, isolating atmosphere and nowhere is that more apparent than each titles’ oppressive and destroyed worlds. Now that Atlus has had experience building a JRPG reinterpretation of Tokyo’s iconic Shibuya crossing (to the point that some seem to think that Persona created Shibuya) along with the rest of Persona 5‘s ever-changing, interconnected world, that experience can be expertly transferred to Shin Megami Tensei 5 to create the most realistic depiction of an apocalyptic Tokyo yet.
As previously stated, the Shin Megami Tensei series is mostly renown for its incredible sense of atmosphere, so franchise newcomers coming off of Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal are in for disappointment if they come into Shin Megami Tensei 5 expecting social-sim and dating elements. Despite Persona stemming from the Shin Megami Tensei series, they couldn’t be any more different in this regard. Despite this, SMT games have managed to tell incredible stories in the past and Atlus only gets better with every entry.
While Shin Megami Tensei 4 included an immensely memorable cast in Isabeau, Jonathan, and Walter, and some of the franchise’s spin-offs such as Digital Devil Saga feature some of the best stories in JRPGs, Shin Megami Tensei 5 still has a lot it can improve on. While it’s safe not to expect a familiar group of party members similar to other JRPGs, each SMT title usually includes some army, group, or cult trying to seize control of Tokyo amidst its apocalypse. Learning from others in its genre, Atlus has the opportunity to flesh out these factions causing a tangible internal conflict in the player similar to Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne‘s if it takes some lessons from contemporary RPGs such as NieR: Automata and the SMT-inspired Undertale.
While the Shin Megami Tensei series is known for its intense difficulty, made so by its relatively simplistic battle system, Persona 5 Royal has proven that there is still a lot to be explored with adding new and interesting mechanics to this tried and true gameplay formula. Namely, Persona 5 Royal‘s use of the Baton Pass system on top of the franchise’s usual press-turn battle system. While a feature such as Baton Pass may make battles a bit too streamlined for seasoned Shin Megami Tensei fans, it sets a good precedent for how Atlus can continue to differentiate Persona and Shin Megami Tensei‘s gameplay styles through clever mechanical differences, aside from the usual demon conversations and fusing, which the franchises now share to different extents.
Shin Megami Tensei 5 is poised to be a great JRPG if Atlus plays its cards right and could see huge success considering the popularity of Persona 5 in both Japan and overseas. Positioning the game as the studio’s first worldwide release in just the beginning of new possibilities available for how Atlus can introduce new fans and perfect the Shin Megami Tensei formula with Shin Megami Tensei 5.
Shin Megami Tensei 5 will release exclusively for Nintendo Switch in 2021.
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