4 Things You Need to Know Before Starting Shin Megami Tensei V

Shin Megami Tensei V is the latest entry in Atlus’s popular turn-based JRPG series, and it’s also a pretty good entry point for newcomers. It’s definitely the best-looking game in the series, it runs great on the Switch, and the story is pretty easy to follow. Here are a few things you should know before starting your strange journey in Shin Megami Tensei V.

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Temper Your Expectations

Things You Need to Know Before Starting Shin Megami Tensei V

shin megami tensei v

If you’re coming from the Persona games and want to check out the SMT series to see where it all began, it’s best to keep your expectations in check and know what you’re getting yourself into. Persona may be an off-shoot of Shin Megami Tensei, but the two series are nothing alike at this point.

Whereas Persona is all about building bonds and friendships with characters and party members, SMT is more interested in world ideologies and philosophy. The characters you encounter in Shin Megami Tensei V are nothing more than driving forces and representations of the various ideologies the game wants to explore, so don’t go in expecting deep character development or social links and confidant ranks.

What you can expect, however, is a punishing combat system that turns things up to 11 right from the very start.


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Author
Zhiqing Wan
Zhiqing is the Reviews Editor for Twinfinite, and a History graduate from Singapore. She's been in the games media industry for nine years, trawling through showfloors, conferences, and spending a ridiculous amount of time making in-depth spreadsheets for min-max-y RPGs. When she's not singing the praises of Amazon's Kindle as the greatest technological invention of the past two decades, you can probably find her in a FromSoft rabbit hole.