KAMEN RIDER CITY WARS GACHA SERIES
This coupled with the inane plots of Apocalypse and Strange Journey Redux very well could have turned me off from the series forever if the gameplay hadn’t been so finely tuned. I would compare the experience to playing a gacha game, where occasionally you encounter a design that feels like a spark of genius amid a sea of the strange and off-putting.
Where Kaneko became renowned for predominantly keeping his demon designs loyal to their original myths (while still remaining interpretive or reverent of popular fashion of the time, hence the many Jean Paul Gaultier-esque designs in Nocturne), many of the demon designs of SMTIV felt ridiculous and unrecognizable to the original myths, slapping lasers, gross appendages, and fleshy abs on archangels and legendary warriors seemingly in the name of cool. The result was a rather scatterbrained melange of Kaneko’s designs throughout the years and several new designs that seemed to align poorly with Kaneko’s house style. Masayuki Doi, known for his work on the Trauma Center series, designed the main cast while a cavalcade of new demons were completed by Doi and a retinue of guest artists mostly known for their work on Sentai series such as Kamen Rider. SMTIV was the first game in the mainline series where Kazuma Kaneko was not the primary character or demon designer, and the role of creative director had been passed to Eiji Ishida. Many of these changes were a direct result of a change in hands. The process accelerated just a bit too fast in Shin Megami Tensei IV, then leaned in harder in Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse and Strange Journey Redux. Much like Dragon Quest, SMT has long been a bastion of the “old school” in the RPG sphere-the changes in the formula are far more incremental than many of their peers, but there’s an undeniable and marked evolution between each entry that feels considered and correct for each game and the time period in which they were released. Since Sega’s purchase of Atlus in 2013, I’ve felt ambivalent about the direction the series has taken. I had my doubts about Shin Megami Tensei V.