Shin Megami Tensei 5: Vengeance Preview – Can Persona’s progenitor hit the big time?

thesixthaxis.com:

We’ve all heard of Persona — it’s one the undisputed kings of the RPG right now, each game pitting one unwitting school kid against an evil adult, using an army of angels and demons to achieve the insurmountable odds stacked against them. But how many people have played a Shin Megami Tensei game, the franchise from which Persona was born? We’d guess comparatively few people. Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance is the latest opportunity to change that.

There’s no shame in not having played Shin Megami Tensei, of course. SMT is much bigger in Japan than in the West, and as a ‘hardcore’ RPG, it plays to a different audience. Its lack of availability on most consoles doesn’t help, with 2021’s Shin Megami Tensei 5 being a Switch exclusive, and Shin Megami Tensei 4 coming out in 2013 on the 3DS, of all things.

Shin Megami Tensei 5: Vengeance seeks to address that, by bringing a god-tier RPG to more modern (and more powerful) consoles. Having sat down to play a good four-hour chunk of the game on the PS5, we can say that this opportunity to open the franchise up to a much wider audience is not one to be missed.

But first, what is Shin Megami Tensei 5: Vengeance? How is it different to the original, and is it worth getting if you’ve already played SMT5?

For a start, Shin Megami Tensei means ‘Rebirth of the goddess’ in Japanese. That’s not too important, but we know you were curious. Without getting too into the weeds, you’re a teen who stumbles into a shadow universe, an apocalyptic version of Tokyo, where angels and demons are at war. You fuse with a deity to become a forbidden being called a Nahobino, and try to stop the war from spilling over into your world, where something is already turning people into salt.

For those of you who have played a Persona game, you can think of it as a darker, grittier and substantially more difficult version on the series. Persona is a spun-out version of the world, using the same demons, angels, gods and mythology, but to a lesser extent. In