Not really that surprising it kinda just feels like the new guys entire purpose of being there is covering the random games nobody else has time to or even wants to for that matter.
I believe the stutters after teleporting are due to the map always being loaded, if you use the leyline to go from micro area to micro area it loads in just a few seconds meanwhile changing macro area requires a full loading screen
What you said doesn't make any sense. If the map's is loaded in at all times, then there shouldn't be any stutter as there's nothing to stream in meaning lower CPU usage. Unless you are implying some other bottleneck.
@@alexwise- the map may be there but assets still have to load in. It may be that it's harder to hide a stutter in a quick transition whereas they can hide the stutter when changing macro areas due to the loadscreen.
nope, the map is as a whole loaded during the first loading and since everything is in memory, it kills the hw ...you know, you have a big open world map and it loads in a 0,5 second when fast traveling, so it means that the map must have been loaded before
Each maps are separated into Scenes in the Unreal Engine. This is why you need a loading screen when transitioning to a new map. It doesn't have a loading screen when you fast travel within the same map because you're not moving to another scene. The entire map isn't loaded per se, just its entire geometry. You still need to stream assets such as props, texture, and Level of Detail data within the general vicinity of the player when you move within the map. This is what causes the stutters when you teleport because the engine would need to load all the data towards the destination at once (and also unload data from the origin point) rather than streaming it in the background while the player is walking towards it.
I beat this game two weeks ago, highly recommend. This was my first entry into the franchise. I did play persona 5 and 4 so there was a slight familiarity to the gameplay and demons in the game. I am a fan and look forward to more entries in this franchise a must buy on Switch
@@lifesanitch404 The story is I guess darker, in both you deal with death so I would say it’s just more of a serious tone. The gameplay and strategy is where this game shines I found the difficulty to be a bit harder than Persona , which I enjoyed.
Noticed the 1.02 patch seems to have brought a few improvements to the graphical fidelity and frame rate. Definitely in handheld I feel it looks a lot better.
This reminds me a bit of P5’s launch on PS3. They’ve clearly built this game to be port-able. They’re using most of the features of UE4 to create as cohesive a picture and landscape as possible.
PS3 was the main target console however, Atlus had initially for the games launch no intention to develop it on PS4 until Sony came along. SMT 5 feels like they pushed the geometry to a breaking point for the switch. ´Just so a potential port would scale well with some improved resolution, shadow and lightning. Feels like the definitive edition was always intended for an other platform. That said Shin megamin tensei has always been on a Nintendo platform, which kind of debunks what I say if it wasn't for rumors of the game coming to ps4.
@@88oscuro There wasn't rumors about ports, there is the Nvidia leak (that could be testing seems most switch games from thirds use it) and also the placeholders some data miners found, but that could be stuff for testing that can be done on unreal engine 4 and they just forgot they leave it there. If there is gonna be a port, that might be the Maniax edition of the game.
@@88oscuro SMT3 Nocturne was originally a PS2 exclusive and except for portable games most of the sub series of games have been mainly released on playstation consoles. I'm still waiting for a port of Digital Devil Saga series on something other than the PS2.
My biggest problem with the visual sacrifices is definitely: texture pop-ins. Still the game plays amazingly well and the game looks good for a Switch game.
Its an immersion breaker especially the foresty areas. The new patch improved the fps and and visual clarity but made the pop-in very agressive. Im 110+ hrs in the last area and very fun on hard but the story is like breath of the wild super minimalist on a fault but still very fun.
@@danieldossantos6092 Yes and no... The game is semi-open world. So you can go from one part of the map to another without loading. So even with longer loading you can't really load all the assets. Some assets need to be loaded while playing the game.
@@danieldossantos6092 man, really hope there will be a patch to improve pop-ins, the performance is very good in handheld except for the wind dungeon. Im on the last area and hopefully it will be smooth saling through the end.
@@abcbcd7974 I wouldn't say the story is simple. The story is actually extremely deep and complex specifically if you read on what mythology some story aspects or demons come from. The story is more world based and less character based. Is a different tyoe of story Persona is a story all around characters while SMT was always a story what is based on world-building lore.
I got it less than a week ago, last Tuesday after work, and have played it for 35 hours. I haven't binged a game this hard in recent memory. It's incredible, absolutely blows my mind. 10/10.
I had a better time with persona 5 overall, but SMT-V certainly scratches the itch of that inner strategic inside me, and the overworld looks really nice. It's no nocturne, but if you're looking for a "gamey" game, look no further
And just so you know overclocking does help but doesn't fix all frame drops. I really have to wonder what system they were targeting when not even a 70% CPU and 20% GPU overclock helps.
Sounds like the putrid memory bandwidth of the switch is the issue. Even though a 20% gpu overclock on a maxwell 256 core gpu still leaves you with an extremely weak gpu. Same with cpu too
@@BeatsbyVegas No it's gpu limited. The game can run at 60 fps if you set it to like 500p. The main reason it runs to bad is because the dynamic res targets 40ms aka 24 fps.
@@Neucher 24fps is motion picture quality. I'd be perfectly okay with that, if it actually stayed there. Hell, Ocarina was 20fps. When it's bouncing above and below, that's what makes it feel horrible.
@@juststatedtheobvious9633 For me, it's the pacing. I don't mind if it's at 20FPS (albeit at minimum), or if it varies beyond that: I just want there to be little to no stutter (for slower-paced games like this.)
You definitly feel the framerate dropping when you're travelling across the map even in such open environnements with a low number of ennemies , the console does struggle
In my experience cutscenes are where you can really see the console struggle with framerate - the open world has its issues, but outside of the few seconds post-load there don't seem to be too many lag spikes or dips that would interfere with gameplay. Despite not holding a consistent 30 the game so far has felt pretty responsive to me even when running through the environments dodging random encounters. The review spends a lot of time on the overall framerate, but in my experience the texture and object pop-in and the optimized animations at a distance are much more noticeable graphics-wise.
This game deserves so much more attention & coverage! Even with the technical limitations (due to its ambitious scope on the Switch of all systems), it truly is an *AMAZING* JRPG! Thank you for covering it! Few developers have attempted to build a AAA experience from the ground up on the Switch, & for that, I commend them. It's certainly more effort than Game Freak (with all the money in the world) has put into their IP... 😑 If a Switch "Pro" ever comes out one day, this would be one of the first games I'd like to see updated. Thank you Atlus, & props again to DF for checking it out 👏
I think people want to avoid the targeted harassment campaign the SMT fandom has waged since release. When a positive IGN review gets you death threats it's best to let this one slide and let SMT stay in Persona's shadow.
@@EmperorOfMan Eh, I don't think there's an active fear or reluctance to cover it due to idiots going after IGN. Every fandom has its idiots, and it's popular on the internet to hate on IGN, fairly & unfairly (despite them still visiting the site all the time). There was a campaign to tank the Metacritic score of Astral Chain just because some critics gave it better reviews than Nier Automata lol. SMT V stands on its own as another great game from Atlus though. Persona fans, Catherine fans, Etrian Odyssey fans, SMT fans, etc. surely all have their own cringe fanatics. SMT just has the misfortune of sharing a lot of similarities to Persona (which SMT fans severely downplay & pretend barely exist), thus giving certain fans a bit of an inferiority complex lol I'm an SMT fan first & foremost, but it's just amusing how you'll see other SMT diehards act like it's *INSANE* that SMT would ever be compared to Persona... They so entirely different after all! /s
@@EmperorOfMan The ign review was a little silly imo and should’ve focused less on persona given it felt like those comparisons took up the majority of the review, but getting death threats over it is pretty ridiculous. RPG fans can be pretty relentless, especially when they perceive a lack of respect on their favorite niche franchises. There’s nothing inherently wrong with bringing it up since the two are intrinsically connected and reviewers shouldn’t feel like they need to skirt around it. I mean, comparing the UI’s imo is very valid. As much as I dig SMTV, P5’s menus have way more flair and I wish they’d went a little crazier with it in this game. But yeah, SMT fans need to cope lmao.
Lmao, who gives a shit. Niche games and genres will ALWAYS exist. Heck, even Metroid is a niche franchise despite its name and history if sales is anything to go by.
Despite the performance issues, this game is still amazing and is well worth it even at full price, but it happens to be on sale for between $35 and $40 at a lot of retailers right now. If you like RPGs and own a Switch, you owe it to yourself to get this game.
I don't quite mind it when dubs don't match lip flaps, especially in lower fidelity games like this where it really doesn't matter much. Often this requirement gets in the way of proper localisation and voice work, resulting in a lot of awkward lines and deliveries which you see a lot of in anime. I find games that almost completely ignore lip flaps have much much better dubs, see FFX and Genshin Impact for example. Of course, the best option is to completely reanimate the characters in different languages (like Final Fantasy started doing after 10 iirc), but that does get expensive.
Also people shouldn't critique a totally top notch dub just because the lip flaps are weird looking. Thats not on the voice actors. They are just doing the best with what they got.
I feel we need an episode on Atelier games, this looks good sure, but Gust just does a ridiculously good job at not only presenting a beautiful game but also making sure all versions, Switch included look basically identical and run great too.
As much as I enjoyed SMT5 I prefer some of Ryza's art design and detailed environments, it also runs really well on switch, it's sequel looks great on ps5 with its enhanced patch, I don't know how many options exists for the pc version but as far I can see it's a wonderful port that really shines on a good pc running everything on ultra, I actually like some parts of it over tales of arise, which is already incredibly good looking, sadly, it's a niche series like YS, despite it's longevity and surprisingly good sales (the secret series did incredibly well) it's unlikely they get as many eyes on it like for example, Persona 5, but hey if the tales series can finally get serious recognition after so long maybe the atelier series can.
This is a pretty decent looking game and they didn't seem to fall into the traps that a lot of Japanese developers make on their first UE4 game, I'm impressed.
@@matthewjuarbe5826 cuz they knew there will be an enhanced version down the road and they might get away with porting the game to other platforms. So why let the outdated hardware limits what the team wants to tell. It’s not ambitious, it’s just compromising/future-proofing
@@shawn7117 not really the director stated there will be no other version solely Switch cause he wanted people to play this game on the go and at home. I doubt theyll re release it
@Eduardo Carvalho using the Vulkan backend there is severe unknown pixalatio during cut scenes and crashes due to memory leaks so its not perfectly playable yet.
@@melloman999 Well This is more strategy focused than Persona 5 but Persona stole the main concept of the Press turn system and changed it to the One More system which is broken when used properly. Also Grinding is something I see a lot of people making the mistake of doing in this game. There are many times you are fighting easier enemies in hopes of grinding your level but the scaled EXP makes that really slow and irritating. That is by design as they want to push you to learn how to overcome the demons at or above your level. Which you can do. At Normal most fights can be conquered at least 5 levels under the Demons level. It will be a challenge but it is engaging and is a lot more fun than just killing a bunch of lower level demons for barely any EXP (As again it scales just like every Megaten game since it's conception). At risk of sounding like a jerk, You are playing it wrong. A new approach may help you. You're expecting a Persona like experience and this is in no way persona. Also the Demons are gonna be the same because Persona is just a Spin off from the Mainline that became it's own thing. The Demons are shared because of where it came from.
I may be biased because I like grinding but I didn't find this one grindy on normal difficulty. I only remember having to grind for the superboss. Even then, I didn't feel it took too much time to level up, specially if you make sidequests. Just buff/debuff, exploit your enemies weaknesses, and cover yours and you should be able to overcome a boss fight even if you are underleveled.
Thanks for mentioning the menu transition, because that's easily one of the things that kept pulling me out of the experience. It's super jarring. But hey, SMTV is a game I've beaten, happily, and I'll happily beat the game again if down the line, it ends up ported to the PS4/5.
I agree. The texture popin is fine to me, the framerate is tolerable (still excited to play at 60fps on something else tho), but its the menu switching and transitions that always annoys me. It doesnt feel like hitting pause should be so taxing on the system to make it feels like its skidding out of control.
@@user-fq3mr7bs4v the weird thing is that I tried this game on pc with yuzu emulator running at 4k/60fps, smooth as butter but the screen transition still looks choppy so is by design not because of hardware limitations. Either way I got used to it on my switch and it no longers bothers me but the first hours of playing was pretty jarring to me every time there was a menu transition.
THANK YOU!! I knew the performance was piss poor and it dropped into the teens but I could only gauge it by eye. I knew this game never even kept a 30 fps lock because of the terrible controller lag which I'm guessing is about 1/4 to 1/3 a second on a wireless controller. Now I have hard evidence of what I already knew and can tell anyone to refer to the DF video. That said, it is still an excellent game and all the bad points will not stop me from playing this game to completion.
@Porridge Ramen - I tried both wired and wireless controllers and to no one's surprise the wired one felt better. In my opinion it is very clearly tied to the performance and the poor framerate.
Yeah, it was jarring from going from Kirby and the Forgotten Land to SMTV... Felt like my control inputs lagged a bit behind. I adjusted my TV settings to reduce any possible lag or dip, which helped out. 20 hrs into the game and now Kirby feels weird lol!
This game is a masterpiece. The way the semi-openworld is created, exploration is so much fun. Demon collecting is really addictive and the game blends perfectly classic and modern elements. Highly recommended and surely the best JRPG i have played since the PS2 days!
Even with the issues I have been loving the game so far. Pretty much all of the issues here I have not bothered me at all. I have only played mobile so zero time on the dock. 25+ hours in.
Consider how well Catherine full body run on Switch, it's safe to said that Atlus own engine probably perform better on such machine. But clearly Atlus want to adopt Unreal Engine for their future projects including the new persona. As it goes, Unreal Engine just way more demanding than the switch could properly handle.
The numbers may say that but I have played this game on my Switch lite and this issues simply didnt affect my experience at all, game looked and played so well, loved it.
I think the performance is like this because it is atlus first time to use a UE4 unlike Tokyo Mirage / Catherine which I think has a better performance
I wonder if this would've gone differently if ATLUS had chosen a custom engine like they always do. I mean Luigi's Mansion 3 is the best example of this. Native 1080p, locked 30 fps AND brilliant visuals backed by numerous modern rendering techniques such as realistic PBR and lighting.
I think UI in UE4 is kinda PITA to implement, especially if you aim to complicated looks like what’s in P5. That’s probably why they go with more basic, rectangular style in this game. Of course SMT is not P and doing the P way wouldn’t fit the game.
Happily play it again if it ever gets ported, got quickly used to the frame rate. It'll be difficult going back to the switch version again though, much like Monster Hunter Stories was.
I mean, a game this good running on the switch is surely impressive on its own Personally it both goes to show how some switch games can look so much better and go higher (pokemon especially) and how lacking in power the switch is in the current market
@@kasumimello6014 Nice! I’ve currently clocked over 120hrs into it and the only thing I’m upset about is the fact I didn’t pick it up sooner! This game is a GOAT!
Absolutely love the visuals of this game. I'm so glad I bought it. It's a little blurry in docked mode, but everything else is so great. The coverage in this video paints a bleak picture, but I never actually noticed any of the issues presented. Also made me chuckle how he kept making persona 5 comparisons lol
Atlus worked really hard for this one. The exploration, combat mechanics, essences and level progression, art direction and the animations are all spot on. Its a shame that the story is what prevents it from being a fantastic game overall.
Honest question from a persona 5 fan wanting to try this, are they not similar in some ways? I’m trying to decide.. The enemies and combat elements look familiar but I’ve always wondered what the difference really was, the time period and tone of the game? What mechanics are different?
@@DrGamelove The biggest differences is that Persona is much more focused on people and the story of the game while SMT is much less story focused and instead focuses more on exploration and such. SMT doesn't have social links either. I may have missed some things or got something wrong but this should be the jist of it. Feel free to correct me
I recommend using your TV’s post processing for this game. Normally I turn those things off, but they really helped smoothed out the frame rate for me.
I tried that on my parents' Samsung QLED (120Hz capable) with some PS3 games. The framerate feels all over the place tbh, like a mixture of 30 fps and 120 fps. Very weird experience.
In some games i get incredible results with this, Breath of the Wild for example looks like 60 FPS all the time without any visual problems. SMT doesn't work, i think because it never hits a constant framerate.
I finished DQ11 and SMT5 and DQ11 is way better technically. Runs at 30fps all the way through and looks gorgeous, basically the PS4 version but at a lower resolution. SMT5 looks good but framerate is not good enough
@@bwoeYT "basically the PS4 version but at a lower resolution". Not compared to the OG PS4 version. The S version was a pretty big visual downgrade. That is true if you are comparing the S version on both systems though, half the fps on switch though.
@@BaconTopHat45 DQ XI is 30fps on PS4. The Pro consoles got a 60fps patch for S though. Only Platform DQ XI ran at 60 and above on from their inception was PC. Calling the Switch port half the fps of the PS4 one is wrong. The Switch version is an amazing port. The changes made although many were not Glaringly bad. in direct comparisons you will find the lighting to be better in the S version as well. The 3D models look better in the OG one though.
Both of the games are amazing and among the best JRPG's made. SMT V takes it for me from purely the gameplay perspective. DQ XI is better optimized and a way smoother game visually though. With it's insane amount of content and excellent plot it's a fever dream for JRPG fans. DQ is made by one of the biggest developers in the entire world and had a budget that likely devours SMT V's. With that said hopefully they will work on patching the game moving forward to run better on the Switch. As it seems unlikely it's going anywhere for a long while.
Oh God guys whinning that no game is perfect is good to u I mean it's fine but counting frames is bruh these videos couldn't be more booorring if they tried but it ok to watch for a game u like but all there videos o God noo
I played it on pc with yuzu after i couldnt bear the framerate on switch. 2k 60+fps with rare glitches on r5 5600x/3070. If you have this game and a have a good pc i would play it on pc.
Yep, just take some time to fully grasp the battle system. There are instances where you can feel incredibly overpowered and in need of leveling up but most of the time that won't be necessary. An effective use of your items, for example, might be all you need.
It's a good game, but I'm disappointed with the "alignement system" (law, chaos, neutral). I was expectating a lot more change and diversity with it. It only change a little the small ending and some side quest in the end. In the SMT franchise (exclusing the Persona series), Digital Devil Saga 1&2 are still my favorites. Story and character are a lot more developed.
My main gripe (I still think it's one of the best JRPG's released in the last 10 years) is the Alignment system being almost meaningless to appease prior gripes of how tight it was in IV. At least it feels like that was the reason. The Ending coming down to a single choice really Kicked me in the balls. I hate that kind of ending decision. I want to have a game define my ending by my choices in the story. And in V there is none of that. 9/10 game but the story and the endings were severely disappointing compared to the older games.
Even for 1080p videos, can you please upscale them to 4k and then upload to UA-cam? 4k videos on UA-cam have higher bit-rate and hence loses a lot less data to compression compared to 1080p.
This is one of the most beautiful games I've seen on Switch, it's amazing that even after the launch of the PS5 and Xbox Series X the little Switch still manages to surprise me.
Some of the grinding i a bit agregious says while showing himself in an area with underleveled demons that should have been fused into more powerfull demons a long time ago... after a demon learns all its skills it should generally be fused away dont keep old demons just for the sake of it you ll be underpowered.
You really don't need to grind in most SMT games I finished SMT1 recently with zero grinding and it's one of the more outdated games on the franchise Usually, grinding is something you will do to low the difficulty if you are having problems coming with a good strategy or balanced moveset
@@l3rvn0 idk what you are on about, but on hard mode, I started the 4th area at level 54 and all the bosses in the area are 72. You absolutely need to grind if you aren't using gospels which I didn't. The grind isn't that awful because the enemies are high level but considering it is the only mandatory grinding in the game, it feels out of the blue.
@@mikek3927 Normally in SMT it would be possible to defeat enemies 30 levels higher than yours or die to random mobs 30 levels lower than yours, but SMTV has level scaling, that means you can't even scratch enemies 20 levels higher, so yeah.. Anyway, I got at the fourth area at level 55 or 58, but I did all the sidequests including Artemis and the Fiends (till the four knights of apocalypse) from the DLCs before reaching it.
The funny thing is that SMT always had a bit of a "Lo-Fi" style on both its presentation and OST to help bring home the "Digital Devil" theme of the series You can see this on SMTV OST, a lot of the music have "corrupted" sounds and low fidelity instruments giving it that heavy lo-fi digital feel So its shortcomings on the performance and technical side can almost pass as intentional, giving the same corrupted digital feel to the visual presentation
@@Randomdude556 never know atlus has also surveyed not that long ago if we want the smt franchise on the other platforms, so it feels like a shift they are making and vice versa persona as well
@@Randomdude556 well that's different that's fans just wanting it and stuff because they kind of always had a home on portable devices, but then an actual survey and now this so called leak, it has potential/higher probability, never know, i mean atlus clearly wants to switch things up and not keep their series as gated anymore (no pun intended), they literally have nothing to lose but only gain, they rereleased persona 3 for pc, rereleased nocturne, maybe to get switch running smooth it's taking longer there, or least for the ps and pc end smt is going to be done first or after some timed exclusivity clause ends...least the assumption it's giving me
@@Randomdude556 in general gaming is headed that way u see even xbox get more and more, they brought the yakuza games over, or like square with all the final fantasy titles, so it may take some time with some of it, but yeah...besides devs in general have gotten more familiar/better at porting, maybe grew in size and budget or it gotten easier and less costly for them, etc a little of everything opens up those inevitabilities
Yeah, I mean I enjoy my Switch but this game is absolutely not the best version of itself it could be thanks to limiting itself to such underpowered hardware.
By the way they word this they make it sound like the framerate makes it unplayable or unpleasant most of the time, and idk I'm about 50 hours in and I rarely even notice it lagging, if anything occasionally it feels like it's just loading slow for a second or two
Eh kind of an exaggeration to say “run poorly on Switch” when it’s at a steady 27-28 FPS for the majority of the game. As you say also during turn based actual combat it serves no relevance Yes there are certain one time cinematics that is a rough sub 20 FPS, but let’s be real that pops up less often then the instances that the game actually holds 30 FPS I don’t know “runs poorly on Switch” is something I use for games like Deadly Premonitions 2 or Age of Calamity
@@danieldossantos6092 It does. Don't forget that everyone react different to low framerates and you spent much time exploring outside of battles. Playing on an OLED TV makes it worth too, because OLED has problems with low framerates (more stutter).
@@MarkusFFFF I already completed the game with 110 hours so what i'm saying is my experience. Yes it could be better but it's definitely playable. But maybe someday there is a steam release so people can enjoy with all the frames they want. I just wish if that's the case the same happen with persona 5
If you have to grind, then you’re not playing the game correctly. Yeah, you have to level up- but this game gives you a plethora of tools to counter any situation. Even if you’re “over leveled” you still need the right strategy.
I notice the frame drops but they really don't but a damper on the game at all. My GOTY. I also completely disagree with you about the demon animations not being good. They're awesome.
Great analysis. In the future, it would be nice to note if bug fraterate issues while docked are alleviated with an overclocked Mariko-based Switch. In this case, I think the answer is “no” based on other Unreal games on Switch, but I’d still like to see it as part of the data included in the formal analysis.
that much work is a time killer i tried this and it takes so long to do especially when you try to match scenes up.you're essentially doubling the time it takes to analysis the frame rate. honestly its not worth showing 1. cause you will need a cfw switch which might enable piracy talk. 2. there are other factors to consider like memory bandwidth limitations. even a cpu gpu overclock you might see no performance gain cause the problem is else where.
@Turkey Jeff by Rich’s own analysis, several games get to a locked framerate when using homebrew tools to overclock. The OLED switch isn’t reliably jailbroken (yet), so I’m not requesting analysis there since it would be impractical. I think UE5 might scale *better* than UE3/4, since a given scene can scale geometry/compute down much earlier in the rendering pipeline versus just late-stage dynamic resolution.
I do believe the game config files had graphical parameters for both PS4 and PC, hopefully this means a port should come in a few... years. It is Atlus, after all
No More Heroes 3 struggled a bit too with Switch Unreal Engine. Yet Travis Strikes Again was silky smooth... And that was an EARLY Switch Unreal Engine game
I sunk 140 hours in the game and the frame rate never bothered me. What bothered me were the graphic pop ins of the character models. This is annoying especially when consulting/fusing demons.
@Turkey Jeff ah yes, hoping for acceptable performance should be a deterrent to buying games No longer is the onus of decent performance on devs, or expecting the very bare minimum of stable 30fps, but let's not just buy the game and allow more low performance releases
@@TonyJenn it's not "just technical stuff", it's measurable and for many can lead to very poor experiences, me included, who forked over 160aud for fall of man edition Once again, everyones tolerance will be different, but not meeting the bare minimum standard is not something to be happy about, nor should it be justified.
All these games gonna get on hold until god knows when next gen of nintendo console release then it should be perfect for remaster. Right now it just pain to play back any games below 30fps after enjoying too much of 60fps
Spent 140 hours on this game and not once the game soft froze or crashed. There have been many times when the screen transitioned and I thought the game was gonna crash but never has. Atlus's dubs in their recent games are more of a serviceable performance in a more audible user friendly sense where if you're too lazy to read or have reading issues or understanding how to pronounce certain japanese words then the dub does a good job at that. When I first saw this game is being made on unreal engine 4 I was super worried because alot of games have draw distance issues, frame rate issues, lighting effects can get too bonkers to uncanny levels at times. I'm glad atlus nailed the SMT art style well in this engine though they're not very good when it comes to the common UE issues of alot of assets popping in, and issues with rending other things too close. if the draw distance issue only applied to far off objects it wouldn't be distracting at all but it does at times. But yeah I've spent 140 hours on this game so heheheh yeah I love the game warts and all it still lands it's presentation and gameplay well.
"The game runs pretty poorly on the Switch at the moment" Well I've played the game 65h and while it's not perfect I wouldn't call it "pretty poorly" wth
Seems like they did the best they could with the hardware. We just desperately need a Switch Pro at this point. A game like this shouldn't have so many performance issues and texture pop-in.
Well this is a nice surprise, didnt expect them to cover this.
Exactly what i thought, nice to know these guys played and loved it
Same, I just finished it myself.
Why? No games are releasing, they will make video on anything
Not really that surprising it kinda just feels like the new guys entire purpose of being there is covering the random games nobody else has time to or even wants to for that matter.
@@theninjamaster67 Hope that is the case!
I believe the stutters after teleporting are due to the map always being loaded, if you use the leyline to go from micro area to micro area it loads in just a few seconds meanwhile changing macro area requires a full loading screen
What you said doesn't make any sense. If the map's is loaded in at all times, then there shouldn't be any stutter as there's nothing to stream in meaning lower CPU usage. Unless you are implying some other bottleneck.
It's Unreal Engine 4, so of course there's stutters.
@@alexwise- the map may be there but assets still have to load in. It may be that it's harder to hide a stutter in a quick transition whereas they can hide the stutter when changing macro areas due to the loadscreen.
nope, the map is as a whole loaded during the first loading and since everything is in memory, it kills the hw ...you know, you have a big open world map and it loads in a 0,5 second when fast traveling, so it means that the map must have been loaded before
Each maps are separated into Scenes in the Unreal Engine. This is why you need a loading screen when transitioning to a new map. It doesn't have a loading screen when you fast travel within the same map because you're not moving to another scene. The entire map isn't loaded per se, just its entire geometry. You still need to stream assets such as props, texture, and Level of Detail data within the general vicinity of the player when you move within the map. This is what causes the stutters when you teleport because the engine would need to load all the data towards the destination at once (and also unload data from the origin point) rather than streaming it in the background while the player is walking towards it.
I beat this game two weeks ago, highly recommend. This was my first entry into the franchise. I did play persona 5 and 4 so there was a slight familiarity to the gameplay and demons in the game. I am a fan and look forward to more entries in this franchise a must buy on Switch
So the tone of the story is much darker than P5 i reckon? I never play any SMT as well so i have no clue about it.
@@lifesanitch404 SMT V barely has a story and the characters are even worse. That's the major complaint about the game.
Play Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor. It's tactical game play but really good. It was out on DS
@@wood1066 ah so SMT game huh
@@lifesanitch404 The story is I guess darker, in both you deal with death so I would say it’s just more of a serious tone. The gameplay and strategy is where this game shines I found the difficulty to be a bit harder than Persona , which I enjoyed.
Noticed the 1.02 patch seems to have brought a few improvements to the graphical fidelity and frame rate. Definitely in handheld I feel it looks a lot better.
Bleh
This reminds me a bit of P5’s launch on PS3. They’ve clearly built this game to be port-able. They’re using most of the features of UE4 to create as cohesive a picture and landscape as possible.
PS3 was the main target console however, Atlus had initially for the games launch no intention to develop it on PS4 until Sony came along. SMT 5 feels like they pushed the geometry to a breaking point for the switch. ´Just so a potential port would scale well with some improved resolution, shadow and lightning. Feels like the definitive edition was always intended for an other platform.
That said Shin megamin tensei has always been on a Nintendo platform, which kind of debunks what I say if it wasn't for rumors of the game coming to ps4.
@@88oscuro It's possible but i'd bet the performance problems come from this being their first open world-ish game
@@88oscuro There wasn't rumors about ports, there is the Nvidia leak (that could be testing seems most switch games from thirds use it) and also the placeholders some data miners found, but that could be stuff for testing that can be done on unreal engine 4 and they just forgot they leave it there.
If there is gonna be a port, that might be the Maniax edition of the game.
@@88oscuro SMT3 Nocturne was originally a PS2 exclusive and except for portable games most of the sub series of games have been mainly released on playstation consoles. I'm still waiting for a port of Digital Devil Saga series on something other than the PS2.
P5 was maked on Ps3 my friend from the ground and later they try to port it on Ps5.
My biggest problem with the visual sacrifices is definitely: texture pop-ins. Still the game plays amazingly well and the game looks good for a Switch game.
Its an immersion breaker especially the foresty areas. The new patch improved the fps and and visual clarity but made the pop-in very agressive. Im 110+ hrs in the last area and very fun on hard but the story is like breath of the wild super minimalist on a fault but still very fun.
Most texture pop-ins could be fixed with a longer loading. But still is a great game.
@@danieldossantos6092 Yes and no... The game is semi-open world. So you can go from one part of the map to another without loading. So even with longer loading you can't really load all the assets. Some assets need to be loaded while playing the game.
@@danieldossantos6092 man, really hope there will be a patch to improve pop-ins, the performance is very good in handheld except for the wind dungeon. Im on the last area and hopefully it will be smooth saling through the end.
@@abcbcd7974 I wouldn't say the story is simple. The story is actually extremely deep and complex specifically if you read on what mythology some story aspects or demons come from. The story is more world based and less character based. Is a different tyoe of story Persona is a story all around characters while SMT was always a story what is based on world-building lore.
Don't sleep on this game. Even with it's blemishes, it's a great time.
I got it less than a week ago, last Tuesday after work, and have played it for 35 hours. I haven't binged a game this hard in recent memory. It's incredible, absolutely blows my mind. 10/10.
@ShadowBocksin I generally find SMT fans to be way more toxic than persona fans.
@@naqibfarhan4356 that’s probably because you’ve never criticized persona. SMT fans only give shit to people who really ask for it.
😴😴😴
I had a better time with persona 5 overall, but SMT-V certainly scratches the itch of that inner strategic inside me, and the overworld looks really nice. It's no nocturne, but if you're looking for a "gamey" game, look no further
This game is so good, one of the best JRPG i played in this year
I have severely enjoyed my time with the game so far
And just so you know overclocking does help but doesn't fix all frame drops. I really have to wonder what system they were targeting when not even a 70% CPU and 20% GPU overclock helps.
Sounds like the putrid memory bandwidth of the switch is the issue. Even though a 20% gpu overclock on a maxwell 256 core gpu still leaves you with an extremely weak gpu. Same with cpu too
@@BeatsbyVegas No it's gpu limited. The game can run at 60 fps if you set it to like 500p. The main reason it runs to bad is because the dynamic res targets 40ms aka 24 fps.
@@Neucher
24fps is motion picture quality.
I'd be perfectly okay with that, if it actually stayed there. Hell, Ocarina was 20fps.
When it's bouncing above and below, that's what makes it feel horrible.
@@juststatedtheobvious9633 For me, it's the pacing.
I don't mind if it's at 20FPS (albeit at minimum), or if it varies beyond that: I just want there to be little to no stutter (for slower-paced games like this.)
@@juststatedtheobvious9633
Now do one on vengeance no balls
there wouldn't be any complaints aside from fps which would make it a boring vid.
You definitly feel the framerate dropping when you're travelling across the map even in such open environnements with a low number of ennemies , the console does struggle
In my experience cutscenes are where you can really see the console struggle with framerate - the open world has its issues, but outside of the few seconds post-load there don't seem to be too many lag spikes or dips that would interfere with gameplay. Despite not holding a consistent 30 the game so far has felt pretty responsive to me even when running through the environments dodging random encounters.
The review spends a lot of time on the overall framerate, but in my experience the texture and object pop-in and the optimized animations at a distance are much more noticeable graphics-wise.
This game deserves so much more attention & coverage! Even with the technical limitations (due to its ambitious scope on the Switch of all systems), it truly is an *AMAZING* JRPG!
Thank you for covering it! Few developers have attempted to build a AAA experience from the ground up on the Switch, & for that, I commend them. It's certainly more effort than Game Freak (with all the money in the world) has put into their IP... 😑
If a Switch "Pro" ever comes out one day, this would be one of the first games I'd like to see updated. Thank you Atlus, & props again to DF for checking it out 👏
I think people want to avoid the targeted harassment campaign the SMT fandom has waged since release. When a positive IGN review gets you death threats it's best to let this one slide and let SMT stay in Persona's shadow.
@@EmperorOfMan Eh, I don't think there's an active fear or reluctance to cover it due to idiots going after IGN. Every fandom has its idiots, and it's popular on the internet to hate on IGN, fairly & unfairly (despite them still visiting the site all the time). There was a campaign to tank the Metacritic score of Astral Chain just because some critics gave it better reviews than Nier Automata lol.
SMT V stands on its own as another great game from Atlus though. Persona fans, Catherine fans, Etrian Odyssey fans, SMT fans, etc. surely all have their own cringe fanatics. SMT just has the misfortune of sharing a lot of similarities to Persona (which SMT fans severely downplay & pretend barely exist), thus giving certain fans a bit of an inferiority complex lol
I'm an SMT fan first & foremost, but it's just amusing how you'll see other SMT diehards act like it's *INSANE* that SMT would ever be compared to Persona... They so entirely different after all! /s
@@EmperorOfMan The ign review was a little silly imo and should’ve focused less on persona given it felt like those comparisons took up the majority of the review, but getting death threats over it is pretty ridiculous. RPG fans can be pretty relentless, especially when they perceive a lack of respect on their favorite niche franchises. There’s nothing inherently wrong with bringing it up since the two are intrinsically connected and reviewers shouldn’t feel like they need to skirt around it. I mean, comparing the UI’s imo is very valid. As much as I dig SMTV, P5’s menus have way more flair and I wish they’d went a little crazier with it in this game. But yeah, SMT fans need to cope lmao.
Lmao, who gives a shit. Niche games and genres will ALWAYS exist. Heck, even Metroid is a niche franchise despite its name and history if sales is anything to go by.
Whoa! Didn't think you guys would cover this. I figured this would have been a perfect case study on old Unreal tech for switch's portable mode.
Despite the performance issues, this game is still amazing and is well worth it even at full price, but it happens to be on sale for between $35 and $40 at a lot of retailers right now. If you like RPGs and own a Switch, you owe it to yourself to get this game.
Which retailers have the game on sale?
@@ramen.9537 Gamestop have it at $36 until the 24th Dec..
Highly recommended.
Nice to see a Switch title reviewed! Please do more
I don't quite mind it when dubs don't match lip flaps, especially in lower fidelity games like this where it really doesn't matter much. Often this requirement gets in the way of proper localisation and voice work, resulting in a lot of awkward lines and deliveries which you see a lot of in anime. I find games that almost completely ignore lip flaps have much much better dubs, see FFX and Genshin Impact for example.
Of course, the best option is to completely reanimate the characters in different languages (like Final Fantasy started doing after 10 iirc), but that does get expensive.
iirc there's technology that allows mouth animations to match voice acting pretty well with little manual input nowadays
@@PkmnMT I think it was used in Yakuza like a dragon
Also people shouldn't critique a totally top notch dub just because the lip flaps are weird looking. Thats not on the voice actors. They are just doing the best with what they got.
I disagree its jarring
Final Fantasy X has a good dub ? LOL LOL
I feel we need an episode on Atelier games, this looks good sure, but Gust just does a ridiculously good job at not only presenting a beautiful game but also making sure all versions, Switch included look basically identical and run great too.
As much as I enjoyed SMT5 I prefer some of Ryza's art design and detailed environments, it also runs really well on switch, it's sequel looks great on ps5 with its enhanced patch, I don't know how many options exists for the pc version but as far I can see it's a wonderful port that really shines on a good pc running everything on ultra, I actually like some parts of it over tales of arise, which is already incredibly good looking, sadly, it's a niche series like YS, despite it's longevity and surprisingly good sales (the secret series did incredibly well) it's unlikely they get as many eyes on it like for example, Persona 5, but hey if the tales series can finally get serious recognition after so long maybe the atelier series can.
This is a pretty decent looking game and they didn't seem to fall into the traps that a lot of Japanese developers make on their first UE4 game, I'm impressed.
i feel they were too ambitious with the art direction and that's causing the performance hitches.
@@matthewjuarbe5826 cuz they knew there will be an enhanced version down the road and they might get away with porting the game to other platforms. So why let the outdated hardware limits what the team wants to tell. It’s not ambitious, it’s just compromising/future-proofing
@@shawn7117 not really the director stated there will be no other version solely Switch cause he wanted people to play this game on the go and at home. I doubt theyll re release it
@Eduardo Carvalho using the Vulkan backend there is severe unknown pixalatio during cut scenes and crashes due to memory leaks so its not perfectly playable yet.
@@matthewjuarbe5826 Shinji Mikami said the same thing about RE4
Thank you for covering this game.
I can't believe this game is on the same platform as Pokemon scarlet and violet...
Thank you DF for the review ! Great to see some love for niche series like SMT.
Just got to new game plus. Incredible game y’all. If you like JRPGs. This is for you.
Did you play persona 5? I feel it's too similar from a combat perspective and that puts me off (the grinding and collecting the same monsters etc)
@@melloman999 there is no grinding needed to beat the game if you complete all side quests
@@melloman999 Well This is more strategy focused than Persona 5 but Persona stole the main concept of the Press turn system and changed it to the One More system which is broken when used properly. Also Grinding is something I see a lot of people making the mistake of doing in this game. There are many times you are fighting easier enemies in hopes of grinding your level but the scaled EXP makes that really slow and irritating. That is by design as they want to push you to learn how to overcome the demons at or above your level. Which you can do. At Normal most fights can be conquered at least 5 levels under the Demons level. It will be a challenge but it is engaging and is a lot more fun than just killing a bunch of lower level demons for barely any EXP (As again it scales just like every Megaten game since it's conception).
At risk of sounding like a jerk, You are playing it wrong. A new approach may help you. You're expecting a Persona like experience and this is in no way persona. Also the Demons are gonna be the same because Persona is just a Spin off from the Mainline that became it's own thing. The Demons are shared because of where it came from.
I may be biased because I like grinding but I didn't find this one grindy on normal difficulty. I only remember having to grind for the superboss. Even then, I didn't feel it took too much time to level up, specially if you make sidequests. Just buff/debuff, exploit your enemies weaknesses, and cover yours and you should be able to overcome a boss fight even if you are underleveled.
Thanks for mentioning the menu transition, because that's easily one of the things that kept pulling me out of the experience. It's super jarring.
But hey, SMTV is a game I've beaten, happily, and I'll happily beat the game again if down the line, it ends up ported to the PS4/5.
I agree. The texture popin is fine to me, the framerate is tolerable (still excited to play at 60fps on something else tho), but its the menu switching and transitions that always annoys me. It doesnt feel like hitting pause should be so taxing on the system to make it feels like its skidding out of control.
@@user-fq3mr7bs4v the weird thing is that I tried this game on pc with yuzu emulator running at 4k/60fps, smooth as butter but the screen transition still looks choppy so is by design not because of hardware limitations.
Either way I got used to it on my switch and it no longers bothers me but the first hours of playing was pretty jarring to me every time there was a menu transition.
@@cabuya1697 yes i have gotten used to it. Disappointing to hear its part of the design. Hopefully that'll be changed for any future port
This is surprising , I remember seeing a twitter post from johh that they wouldn’t have time to cover SMT, glad they reconsidered
Yea, unlike Gameranx which didn't even bother making a before you buy. Quite disappointing because I used to respect those guys.
didn't expect DF to cover my fav series! Thanks a lot
THANK YOU!! I knew the performance was piss poor and it dropped into the teens but I could only gauge it by eye. I knew this game never even kept a 30 fps lock because of the terrible controller lag which I'm guessing is about 1/4 to 1/3 a second on a wireless controller.
Now I have hard evidence of what I already knew and can tell anyone to refer to the DF video. That said, it is still an excellent game and all the bad points will not stop me from playing this game to completion.
Someone on GBATemp found out that controller lag is built into the game, likely to compensate for the frame stutering.
@Porridge Ramen - I tried both wired and wireless controllers and to no one's surprise the wired one felt better.
In my opinion it is very clearly tied to the performance and the poor framerate.
Yeah, it was jarring from going from Kirby and the Forgotten Land to SMTV... Felt like my control inputs lagged a bit behind. I adjusted my TV settings to reduce any possible lag or dip, which helped out. 20 hrs into the game and now Kirby feels weird lol!
The Switch doesn't do this game justice. Hoping for a PC port at some point in the future.
That would be DOPE.
This game is a masterpiece. The way the semi-openworld is created, exploration is so much fun. Demon collecting is really addictive and the game blends perfectly classic and modern elements. Highly recommended and surely the best JRPG i have played since the PS2 days!
Agree with all of this 100%. It's been a long time since I enjoyed a RPG as much as I enjoyed this.
I play this game everyday it’s really fun when fusing the demons and killing bosses
@Quality High Yeah, that wasnt all that great. It is manageable though
Sadly the story was very meh
@Quality High Yeah, the castle was very easy and boring
Even with the issues I have been loving the game so far. Pretty much all of the issues here I have not bothered me at all. I have only played mobile so zero time on the dock. 25+ hours in.
I put a 150 hours my first playthrough. You won't be disappointed.
Same here I can’t stop playing the game it’s one of the better jrpgs on switch
Consider how well Catherine full body run on Switch, it's safe to said that Atlus own engine probably perform better on such machine. But clearly Atlus want to adopt Unreal Engine for their future projects including the new persona. As it goes, Unreal Engine just way more demanding than the switch could properly handle.
I'm really hoping for a pc port as this game could look real nice scaled up and less pop in as the art direction is already great
I've seen emulator versions at constant fullHD + 60fps and yeah, it looks really damn good.
@Turkey Jeff
Yes he has
@Turkey Jeff I have too. It's literally here on UA-cam.
@Turkey Jeff Yuzu exists.
It will come eventually. Third party Switch exclusives normally make their way to PC at least.
Glad to see this game covered!
The numbers may say that but I have played this game on my Switch lite and this issues simply didnt affect my experience at all, game looked and played so well, loved it.
I think the performance is like this because it is atlus first time to use a UE4 unlike Tokyo Mirage / Catherine which I think has a better performance
@@ninja4955 And FighterZ but come on, that one is a fighting game
I wonder if this would've gone differently if ATLUS had chosen a custom engine like they always do. I mean Luigi's Mansion 3 is the best example of this. Native 1080p, locked 30 fps AND brilliant visuals backed by numerous modern rendering techniques such as realistic PBR and lighting.
Atlus got a deal with Nintendo and Epic that's why they used Unreal 4
FINALLY. I almost thought you guys skipped it.
I think UI in UE4 is kinda PITA to implement, especially if you aim to complicated looks like what’s in P5. That’s probably why they go with more basic, rectangular style in this game.
Of course SMT is not P and doing the P way wouldn’t fit the game.
funnily enough, SMT V's UI are based on Tokyo Mirage Sessions' UI (a "cross-over" game between SMT and FE)
I can stop playing this game so addicted 😂
What grinding?
I'm playing in hard mode and i never have to grind. Just read the item descriptions, bro.
Yeah, somebody is not using their dampners effectively 😂
Good luck defeating Demi Fiend without grinding
@@frozenskelly2702 that's a super boss DLC, it is a completely different thing.
Happily play it again if it ever gets ported, got quickly used to the frame rate. It'll be difficult going back to the switch version again though, much like Monster Hunter Stories was.
Crazy that a 3rd party game, looks better on switch than the new Pokemon
Probably because they had 4 years lol
I mean, a game this good running on the switch is surely impressive on its own
Personally it both goes to show how some switch games can look so much better and go higher (pokemon especially) and how lacking in power the switch is in the current market
This game is so addicting!
stayed up hours playing it exploration was amazing: minimen and item orbs which contain skills and items.
@@kasumimello6014 Nice! I’ve currently clocked over 120hrs into it and the only thing I’m upset about is the fact I didn’t pick it up sooner! This game is a GOAT!
Easily one of the best games on the switch
I was beginning to think you guys weren’t going to cover this one 👍
SMT5 is a fantastic game & im glad DF covered this. 🔥🔥
Absolutely love the visuals of this game. I'm so glad I bought it. It's a little blurry in docked mode, but everything else is so great.
The coverage in this video paints a bleak picture, but I never actually noticed any of the issues presented.
Also made me chuckle how he kept making persona 5 comparisons lol
Atlus worked really hard for this one. The exploration, combat mechanics, essences and level progression, art direction and the animations are all spot on. Its a shame that the story is what prevents it from being a fantastic game overall.
@@theevokeruser2356 not a smt fan, but I enjoy the hands-of nature of the story.
Lucky you. I had to stop playing because of the performance and resolution.
Fingers crossed for PS4/PS5 version someday in the future.
Honest question from a persona 5 fan wanting to try this, are they not similar in some ways? I’m trying to decide.. The enemies and combat elements look familiar but I’ve always wondered what the difference really was, the time period and tone of the game? What mechanics are different?
@@DrGamelove The biggest differences is that Persona is much more focused on people and the story of the game while SMT is much less story focused and instead focuses more on exploration and such. SMT doesn't have social links either.
I may have missed some things or got something wrong but this should be the jist of it. Feel free to correct me
I recommend using your TV’s post processing for this game. Normally I turn those things off, but they really helped smoothed out the frame rate for me.
I tried that on my parents' Samsung QLED (120Hz capable) with some PS3 games.
The framerate feels all over the place tbh, like a mixture of 30 fps and 120 fps. Very weird experience.
In some games i get incredible results with this, Breath of the Wild for example looks like 60 FPS all the time without any visual problems. SMT doesn't work, i think because it never hits a constant framerate.
I’m not saying it will fix the issue, but it’s makes it less noticeable. It also depends on how your TV handles its post processing.
The performance is pretty bad, but once I stopped thinking about it and just focused on the game I didn't even notice it anymore.
@Walther Penne So you mean you spent your entire playthrough obsessing over the framerate and your brain never phased it out? Damn.
The Switch NEEDS an Upgrade!
It would have been interesting to compare it with DQ11 which also uses UE4 and has very similar game structure
DQ11 is way better
I finished DQ11 and SMT5 and DQ11 is way better technically. Runs at 30fps all the way through and looks gorgeous, basically the PS4 version but at a lower resolution. SMT5 looks good but framerate is not good enough
@@bwoeYT "basically the PS4 version but at a lower resolution".
Not compared to the OG PS4 version. The S version was a pretty big visual downgrade. That is true if you are comparing the S version on both systems though, half the fps on switch though.
@@BaconTopHat45 DQ XI is 30fps on PS4. The Pro consoles got a 60fps patch for S though. Only Platform DQ XI ran at 60 and above on from their inception was PC. Calling the Switch port half the fps of the PS4 one is wrong.
The Switch version is an amazing port. The changes made although many were not Glaringly bad. in direct comparisons you will find the lighting to be better in the S version as well.
The 3D models look better in the OG one though.
Both of the games are amazing and among the best JRPG's made. SMT V takes it for me from purely the gameplay perspective. DQ XI is better optimized and a way smoother game visually though. With it's insane amount of content and excellent plot it's a fever dream for JRPG fans.
DQ is made by one of the biggest developers in the entire world and had a budget that likely devours SMT V's. With that said hopefully they will work on patching the game moving forward to run better on the Switch. As it seems unlikely it's going anywhere for a long while.
Looking forward to the new PC review if you guys do it 👀
Can't wait for it to be cleaned up on the inevitable Switch 2 or PS5 re-release. Or PC.
Take a shot every time the game's title is said in full
Way ahead of you. Lol
DF content helping make the days more bearable.
Oh God guys whinning that no game is perfect is good to u I mean it's fine but counting frames is bruh these videos couldn't be more booorring if they tried but it ok to watch for a game u like but all there videos o God noo
lol...if you like watching paint dry, sure.
@@calebb7012 lol agreed
I played it on pc with yuzu after i couldnt bear the framerate on switch. 2k 60+fps with rare glitches on r5 5600x/3070. If you have this game and a have a good pc i would play it on pc.
IV never got a port, so I'm doubtful, but it would be nice to see this game on more powerful hardware.
You have to take into consideration that it's a 3DS game made with 2 screens in mind, so it wouldn't be as easy to port
@@BitchChill Well Mega Man Zx on the legacy collection could be how they could port it... Right?
@@EggFighterXB- I never said it was impossible
@Spitznock it's much better on the switch
Hopefully when a pro/next gen switch comes out, this game can get an upgraded rerelease similar to p5 royal
Yeah, and they will ask 60 bucks for it again! Must be nice to be a game dev!
Switch Pro really could have made this game shine
Will I be able to understand what’s going on if I’ve never played a SMT game before?
SMT games are like final fantasy games, numbered releases have no story connection. They just might or might not be in the same universe. ; )
Yes
Yep, just take some time to fully grasp the battle system. There are instances where you can feel incredibly overpowered and in need of leveling up but most of the time that won't be necessary. An effective use of your items, for example, might be all you need.
Switch definitely needs an upgrade. It is limiting some AAA publishers developing more games on it.
A next Gen switch is coming
It's a good game, but I'm disappointed with the "alignement system" (law, chaos, neutral). I was expectating a lot more change and diversity with it. It only change a little the small ending and some side quest in the end. In the SMT franchise (exclusing the Persona series), Digital Devil Saga 1&2 are still my favorites. Story and character are a lot more developed.
My main gripe (I still think it's one of the best JRPG's released in the last 10 years) is the Alignment system being almost meaningless to appease prior gripes of how tight it was in IV. At least it feels like that was the reason. The Ending coming down to a single choice really Kicked me in the balls. I hate that kind of ending decision. I want to have a game define my ending by my choices in the story. And in V there is none of that. 9/10 game but the story and the endings were severely disappointing compared to the older games.
@@HoudiniFontmeister same here.
Even for 1080p videos, can you please upscale them to 4k and then upload to UA-cam?
4k videos on UA-cam have higher bit-rate and hence loses a lot less data to compression compared to 1080p.
4k videos take a lot of rendering time and eat up a lot more space on a pc
@@junglezone7323 One last step upscale before uploading is literally a 10 minute thing.
SO HAPPY THEY HAVE THIS GUY TO DO JRPGS NOW!!! :D
This is one of the most beautiful games I've seen on Switch, it's amazing that even after the launch of the PS5 and Xbox Series X the little Switch still manages to surprise me.
Vengeance.
That is all.
Some of the grinding i a bit agregious says while showing himself in an area with underleveled demons that should have been fused into more powerfull demons a long time ago... after a demon learns all its skills it should generally be fused away dont keep old demons just for the sake of it you ll be underpowered.
Nah he's right. The grinding at the fourth area is totally out of the blue
You really don't need to grind in most SMT games
I finished SMT1 recently with zero grinding and it's one of the more outdated games on the franchise
Usually, grinding is something you will do to low the difficulty if you are having problems coming with a good strategy or balanced moveset
@@mikek3927 ok I agree with you on that one, but the one He shows in the vid there aint no grind
@@l3rvn0 idk what you are on about, but on hard mode, I started the 4th area at level 54 and all the bosses in the area are 72. You absolutely need to grind if you aren't using gospels which I didn't. The grind isn't that awful because the enemies are high level but considering it is the only mandatory grinding in the game, it feels out of the blue.
@@mikek3927 Normally in SMT it would be possible to defeat enemies 30 levels higher than yours or die to random mobs 30 levels lower than yours, but SMTV has level scaling, that means you can't even scratch enemies 20 levels higher, so yeah..
Anyway, I got at the fourth area at level 55 or 58, but I did all the sidequests including Artemis and the Fiends (till the four knights of apocalypse) from the DLCs before reaching it.
The funny thing is that SMT always had a bit of a "Lo-Fi" style on both its presentation and OST to help bring home the "Digital Devil" theme of the series
You can see this on SMTV OST, a lot of the music have "corrupted" sounds and low fidelity instruments giving it that heavy lo-fi digital feel
So its shortcomings on the performance and technical side can almost pass as intentional, giving the same corrupted digital feel to the visual presentation
Damn, I just thought it was 30 FPS with bad Frame pacing. It’s crazy how playable it is with that frame rate.
My personal GOTY. Hope to see it in other platforms as well for many to enjoy!
This was a pleasant to see. Great work as always, DF. Really enjoying this on Switch but hope a PC version comes down the road.
yeah i think it was already leaked coming to both ps5 and pc
@@Randomdude556 never know atlus has also surveyed not that long ago if we want the smt franchise on the other platforms, so it feels like a shift they are making and vice versa persona as well
@@Randomdude556 well that's different that's fans just wanting it and stuff because they kind of always had a home on portable devices, but then an actual survey and now this so called leak, it has potential/higher probability, never know, i mean atlus clearly wants to switch things up and not keep their series as gated anymore (no pun intended), they literally have nothing to lose but only gain, they rereleased persona 3 for pc, rereleased nocturne, maybe to get switch running smooth it's taking longer there, or least for the ps and pc end smt is going to be done first or after some timed exclusivity clause ends...least the assumption it's giving me
@@Randomdude556 in general gaming is headed that way u see even xbox get more and more, they brought the yakuza games over, or like square with all the final fantasy titles, so it may take some time with some of it, but yeah...besides devs in general have gotten more familiar/better at porting, maybe grew in size and budget or it gotten easier and less costly for them, etc a little of everything opens up those inevitabilities
@@Randomdude556 i hear ya i definitely always buy all 3 essentially due to the exclusives and this gen they all are coming with them galore
Oliver Mackenzie? New guy at DF? WILLKOMMEN! I remember hearing a while back about someone going through their probationary period. Would that be you?
This game sold 800,000 and glad more people are playing this game on switch and not on emulators
imagine hating emulators, while nintendo drip feeds you the tiniest amount of classic games
@@Youraveragegamer_97 your just commenting on me for no reason and I'm not talking to you
@@Youraveragegamer_97 imagine defaulting to this asshurt tired bs when we're talking about ATLUS, not Nintendo.
I really hope this is a timed exclusive. I would love to see this on ps5 or pc in the next year or two.
Yeah, I mean I enjoy my Switch but this game is absolutely not the best version of itself it could be thanks to limiting itself to such underpowered hardware.
Dataminers found some text saying "ps4 and pc" so it could be the case.
It's atlus they'll likely stick to last gen for a few years so if it does go multi platform it'll likely be ps4 instead
Also a PC port would be nice, but I doubt I would pick it up twice. The Switch version serviceable. I am tempted though
@Tyler Yes yes but persona 5 is actually in a playable state on ps4 at least.
Still far better than the new Pokémon games
this is actully the reason why i want a Switch now cause of Shin Megami Tensei V
SMT V is pretty great, and there are a lot of other games on switch worth playing too.
it might go to other platforms
Try Bravely Default II, many people forget because The Game Awards hates it
I would love to see this played on a modded overclocked switch to see if it can brute force it a bit more
Game runs great on PC, better than on switch.
By the way they word this they make it sound like the framerate makes it unplayable or unpleasant most of the time, and idk I'm about 50 hours in and I rarely even notice it lagging, if anything occasionally it feels like it's just loading slow for a second or two
Eh kind of an exaggeration to say “run poorly on Switch” when it’s at a steady 27-28 FPS for the majority of the game. As you say also during turn based actual combat it serves no relevance
Yes there are certain one time cinematics that is a rough sub 20 FPS, but let’s be real that pops up less often then the instances that the game actually holds 30 FPS
I don’t know “runs poorly on Switch” is something I use for games like Deadly Premonitions 2 or Age of Calamity
The game really does run very poor, especially in docked mode. It does hurt the experience.
@@MarkusFFFF It really doesn't. Most of the game are battles and they are fine. Cutscenes are fucked though.
@@danieldossantos6092 It does. Don't forget that everyone react different to low framerates and you spent much time exploring outside of battles. Playing on an OLED TV makes it worth too, because OLED has problems with low framerates (more stutter).
@@MarkusFFFF I already completed the game with 110 hours so what i'm saying is my experience. Yes it could be better but it's definitely playable. But maybe someday there is a steam release so people can enjoy with all the frames they want. I just wish if that's the case the same happen with persona 5
@Walther Penne No! I mean OLED TVs.
If you have to grind, then you’re not playing the game correctly. Yeah, you have to level up- but this game gives you a plethora of tools to counter any situation. Even if you’re “over leveled” you still need the right strategy.
I notice the frame drops but they really don't but a damper on the game at all. My GOTY. I also completely disagree with you about the demon animations not being good. They're awesome.
Thanks for covering the game guys, but this review was kinda lacking.
Great analysis. In the future, it would be nice to note if bug fraterate issues while docked are alleviated with an overclocked Mariko-based Switch. In this case, I think the answer is “no” based on other Unreal games on Switch, but I’d still like to see it as part of the data included in the formal analysis.
that much work is a time killer i tried this and it takes so long to do especially when you try to match scenes up.you're essentially doubling the time it takes to analysis the frame rate. honestly its not worth showing 1. cause you will need a cfw switch which might enable piracy talk. 2. there are other factors to consider like memory bandwidth limitations. even a cpu gpu overclock you might see no performance gain cause the problem is else where.
@Turkey Jeff by Rich’s own analysis, several games get to a locked framerate when using homebrew tools to overclock. The OLED switch isn’t reliably jailbroken (yet), so I’m not requesting analysis there since it would be impractical. I think UE5 might scale *better* than UE3/4, since a given scene can scale geometry/compute down much earlier in the rendering pipeline versus just late-stage dynamic resolution.
@@mattdhargett thats if the bottleneck was the cpu or gpu or both. Remeber the switch has alot more bottleneck like limited ram and memory bandwitch
Don't expect that nice surprise DF 👍
I do believe the game config files had graphical parameters for both PS4 and PC, hopefully this means a port should come in a few... years. It is Atlus, after all
I'm surprised you didn't talk about the texture load issues this game has.
I love this game so much
No More Heroes 3 struggled a bit too with Switch Unreal Engine. Yet Travis Strikes Again was silky smooth... And that was an EARLY Switch Unreal Engine game
I sunk 140 hours in the game and the frame rate never bothered me. What bothered me were the graphic pop ins of the character models. This is annoying especially when consulting/fusing demons.
@Turkey Jeff ah yes, hoping for acceptable performance should be a deterrent to buying games
No longer is the onus of decent performance on devs, or expecting the very bare minimum of stable 30fps, but let's not just buy the game and allow more low performance releases
@@spiral-blades752 yes it could be better, but not everyone takes technical stuff that serious.
@@TonyJenn it's not "just technical stuff", it's measurable and for many can lead to very poor experiences, me included, who forked over 160aud for fall of man edition
Once again, everyones tolerance will be different, but not meeting the bare minimum standard is not something to be happy about, nor should it be justified.
All these games gonna get on hold until god knows when next gen of nintendo console release then it should be perfect for remaster. Right now it just pain to play back any games below 30fps after enjoying too much of 60fps
Spent 140 hours on this game and not once the game soft froze or crashed. There have been many times when the screen transitioned and I thought the game was gonna crash but never has.
Atlus's dubs in their recent games are more of a serviceable performance in a more audible user friendly sense where if you're too lazy to read or have reading issues or understanding how to pronounce certain japanese words then the dub does a good job at that.
When I first saw this game is being made on unreal engine 4 I was super worried because alot of games have draw distance issues, frame rate issues, lighting effects can get too bonkers to uncanny levels at times. I'm glad atlus nailed the SMT art style well in this engine though they're not very good when it comes to the common UE issues of alot of assets popping in, and issues with rending other things too close. if the draw distance issue only applied to far off objects it wouldn't be distracting at all but it does at times.
But yeah I've spent 140 hours on this game so heheheh yeah I love the game warts and all it still lands it's presentation and gameplay well.
Literally none of this is UE4's fault.
The Switch is insanely weak it always was, since day -1 (March 2nd 2017).
I wish this game was on a more powerful console, lets just pray that the leaks are real.
"The game runs pretty poorly on the Switch at the moment"
Well I've played the game 65h and while it's not perfect I wouldn't call it "pretty poorly" wth
The frame graph doesn't lie.
the fps is okay, but the terrible texture pop-ins on the character models are hard to look at.
Thank you for addressing the menu transition effects. It bugs me more than anything in the game
Digital Foundry keeps surprising me! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Seems like they did the best they could with the hardware. We just desperately need a Switch Pro at this point. A game like this shouldn't have so many performance issues and texture pop-in.
If they can lock the framerate that would be great