It’s time to return to the Netherworld. Following an apocalypse event twenty years earlier, the walls that separate the recreated Tokyo and Netherworld are beginning to collapse. Beneath the surface, an attempt to stop the cycle of recreation.

Shin Megami Tensei V is back with a Vengeance. SMTV: Vengeance brings a brand-new way to experience the game, with a whole new story, new subquests and new demons to direct in battle. Rather than examine the game in whole again, I’ll be focusing mainly on the new aspects that are brought to us with the Vengeance version of the game. I reviewed the original game back in 2021 and found the game to be rather middling. My biggest gripes with SMT5 at the time was focused around a lacking story, bland environments, poorly executed boss fights and a heavy focus on a necessity to grind out levels to remain equal throughout the game. Vengeance goes a long way to rectify a few of these issues but doesn’t go far enough in some respects to fully fix all these issues.

SMT5 Vengeance opens with a choice, giving you the option between choosing the Canon of Creation (which is the story from the original release) and the Canon of Vengeance (the new story brought in with the Vengeance version). For those who hadn’t picked up the game originally, this is going to be the only version worth picking up as it will give you both versions of the game. For those who played the game originally back in 2021, you will have to buy the game again to experience the new storyline. This is pretty commonplace for ATLUS titles, as people will recall with the multiple versions of Persona 3, 4 and 5. Understandably Vengeance is a whole game of new experiences, but is it enough a change to merit a full price second purchase? I’m on the fence about it.

The Canon of Vengeance storyline is almost a complete rework of the original story, and by connection a complete overhaul of the game as a whole. Canon of Creation suffered from long stretches of nothingness, peppered with heavy grinding and a lack of cohesive storytelling. Vengeance fixes a lot of these issues, putting new characters into the game alongside a plethora of new boss encounters (or changed ones to match the new story beats). This goes a long way to making the story feel far more filled out and intriguing but does in turn fall victim to the tropes of the series. Whilst Vengeance’s story is a somewhat unique take on the theme, it isn’t wholly unique.

ATLUS does seem to be falling into a habit these days of taking the same story, with the same type of characters, polishing it up and changing a single theme to try and pitch a narrative as something new. This on its own isn’t problematic, but in the case of SMT5, where the original story just needed more filling out, this seems like a change for the sake of ‘okay we’ll just do what we know’ more than a necessary one.

This leads to a bigger overall contention with Vengeance. Vengeance feels like what SMT5 should have been at release. The storyline is more coherent, the pacing is better, the bosses are far less obnoxious and obtuse to combat. The grinding hasn’t been fixed, and the areas are still vast wastelands of repeating environments. There are a few brand-new areas brought into SMT5 Vengeance, which are dramatically different and unique. Which makes it even more egregious that so much of the rest of the game was just desert cityscape #1, #2, #3 etc.

It is hard not to compare the two versions, when the original version is still in place in Vengeance and yet if you play through the Canon of Vengeance story, you’ll likely find it almost impossible to go back to the Canon of Creation story, because of how much better Vengeance does everything else. The story might be familiar, but at least its complete. The grinding still exists, but you are given far more opportunities to bolster your stats and negate some of that. The new areas are more thought out and less obnoxious, but it means the unchanged areas stand out even more so for their barrenness.

New subquests are littered throughout the Canon of Vengeance, and these go a long way in breaking up the monotony of the game. Rather than spending ten hours grinding out on the same demons over and over, you’ll actually have enough subquests alongside your natural compendium filling to be relatively evenly matched with the content as you go through the game. Close to 70% of the bosses have been changed out for Vengeance, which is actually a good thing. The Creation bosses for the most part is more a case of bashing your head against the wall and hoping you don’t get screwed over. The Vengeance bosses feel far more thought out and evenly balanced, and as a result each time you fight one it isn’t a sense of dread that washes over you, but relief. The end game suffers similarly to how Creation does, with a bloat of bosses that are just somewhat unfun to fight (also some of the only bosses that haven’t been changed). For the most part however, the new subquests and bosses make progress feel much nicer.

There are changes to the characters and an introduction of a brand-new character in Yoko Hiromine. Yoko is a nice addition to the overall cast, but it quickly becomes obvious that she is going to be insufferable to listen to long term. The characters in SMT5 have a habit of existing purely at one end or the other of their morality spectrum. They’re cookie cutter copies of other SMT/Persona characters but lacking any actual personality depth to make them enjoyable. Yoko is possibly the most egregious. Thinking of the world in only absolutes and showing so little actual character development through your interactions. It is nice to have a new voice and character in the story with a bit more life, but she is frustrating to listen to the negativity of throughout the entirety of the story.

Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance, goes a long way to fix the areas that were lacking in the original release. The brand-new storyline does mean, in theory, you’ll have close to 100+ hours of content to play through. Realistically, there probably isn’t enough difference in actual gameplay between the two storylines to justify playing through the game twice, especially will how unfortunately devoid of life the different regions actually are. Vengeance is how the game should have been at release three years ago, and we should have been looking at a Royal style addition that added a few new dungeons, expanded the story and added characters. It is strange the direction that SMT5 has gone, especially after the success of the SMT3 remake, the Persona 3 Remake and the general success of other ATLUSverse titles. SMT5: Vengeance is a solid entry, but I don’t know if I could justify returning players coming back for it. This is a great pick-up for those who didn’t play it originally, however.