Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance is truly the definitive version to experience the wonderful Shin Megami Tensei V, enhanced with many quality-of-life improvements and completed with a new story campaign with much content to explore.

With fans rejoicing over its recent release, we got an opportunity to interview the development team at ATLUS about Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance.

Canon of Vengeance

One of the biggest elements added to Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance is a completely new story route called the Canon of Vengeance. While it has been said that players can play any story route without having to focus on which one is a more definitive choice, especially with all the improvements that are also implemented in Canon of Creation, it does seem like there’ll be more interesting stuff to see and experience in Canon of Vengeance.

In regards to the new route and its play hours, the developers said, “Both the Canon of Creation and the Canon of Vengeance clock in at 80 hours, adding up to a total of 160 hours of gameplay. The Canon of Vengeance has multiple endings, just like the original story. We hope you enjoy everything it has to offer.”

Quality of Life Features

Besides the new content, there are a substantial amount of quality-of-life features being introduced.

Talking about the changes, the development team expressed, “To make Vengeance the best way to experience Shin Megami Tensei V, we made extensive improvements to the game, adding in an entirely new story “the Canon of Vengeance” as well as numerous adjustments to the mechanics. You can enjoy the Canon of Vengeance or the original Shin Megami Tensei V‘s story with all of these gameplay tweaks”

Qadištu

Qadištu, the new antagonist group composed of beautiful female demons led by the seductive Lilith, holds a very important role in the Canon of Vengeance with each member having their own unique traits, and how Naahmah seems to be already a fan favorite. Since we already had an idea of their design concept, we asked the developers what the process of designing their boss battle and balancing the difficulty between each one of them like.

To that, developers responded “We designed the Qadištu with a distinct aesthetic that highlights the contrast between beauty and monstrosity, with each having some grotesque feature on their body. We started with a general concept for each of them, then fleshed it out while thinking about their roles and relationships in the story.”

Yoko Hiromine

Apart from the Qadištu, Conan of Vengeance also introduces Yoko Hiromine, who will be accompanying the player through and play an important role in the story. It was mentioned in the past interview that she was considered to appear in the original game but was ultimately scrapped.

“The new character, Yoko, has existed since the development stage of Shin Megami Tensei V,” explained the development team regarding the decision. “She was conceived as an agent of Chaos to contrast with Tao. In this title, we have incorporated her original settings into the story as much as possible. We hope you enjoy how her presence guides your gameplay into a different narrative from Shin Megami Tensei V.”

New Nahobino Form 

In Canon of Vengeance, the main character Nahobino gains the new form Tsukuyomi, which not only has a series of new cool abilities but also gains a badass shinobi fashion aesthetic.

For the new design, the developers noted, “Since it involves the core part of the story, it seems like anything I say would be a spoiler (laughs). However, I consciously designed it to have a different atmosphere from the original Nahobino, so I hope you will check out the story to see how this appearance comes to be!”

New Demons

There are also a lot of new demons being added to Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance, so we asked the developers which is their favorite.

“My favorite is Amabie. I find its quirkiness endearing, and I can’t wait for everyone to meet it. That said, it might take a bit of creativity to recruit it,” replied the developers.

Optimization Challenges 

Having the game launch on more platforms is definitely a huge win for many players, especially since it can now be played with better graphical quality and performance.

When it comes to the process of developing the port and the challenges when it comes to optimization, the development said, “Our goal with Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance was to expand on the Shin Megami Tensei universe even further.”

“Since the original game was so well-received and sold so remarkably well on the Switch, we felt that a multi-platform release would broaden its reach. However, we wanted to do more than simply make a port of the Switch version. Our aim was to turn it into the definitive way to experience Shin Megami Tensei V, so we added new content and revamped gameplay based on player feedback, resulting in the final product.”

That concludes the interview. We would like to thank the development team at ATLUS for taking the time to answer our questions about Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance.

Wondering if you should get into Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance? In our 9/10 review of the game, we said: “Aptly titled Vengeance, this new entry of Shin Megami Tensei is like retribution for the already amazing original fifth installment, improving almost every weakness of it into a perfect JRPG experience.”

Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance is now available for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch, and PC.