We may be getting a rerelease of Shin Megami Tensei V very soon.
While Megami Tensei is one of the big RPG franchises of Japan, it’s really its spinoff series, Persona, that has received the lion’s share of the success and acclaim in recent years.
Shin Megami Tensei V, released in 2021 exclusively on the Nintendo Switch, was the first numbered release in the series in eight years. The series itself really started with Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei, a 1987 Famicom game where the player is a human entering a series of dungeons populated by demons.
While that game was itself an adaptation of an Aya Nishitani novel, Atlus’ next game, Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II, featured an original story. It is also the true beginning of the franchise as Atlus has defined it; stories of teenagers discovering the demon world hiding in the real world, and its core turn based monster collecting gameplay preceding Pokemon by a good 6 years.
Shin Megami Tensei V was well received as a return to form for the series, with the modern gaming touch the franchise has repeatedly passed over, as Atlus favored providing this treatment to their Persona games on the PlayStation. Still, this title didn’t avoid criticism for technical performance issues.
As reported by Gematsu, the Korean Game Rating and Administration Committee gave the title a rating, published online. While the rating has since been removed, it indicated that it would come with improvements and additional content.
So, some fans speculate that this version of the game would come bundled with all the DLC, but it may be a bigger release than that. Korea’s rating does not seem to have indicated platforms, so some fans have speculated that it could be becoming a multiplatform release, after two years of being a Nintendo Switch exclusive.
This speculation may be based on precedents set by other third party titles on the platform. Monster Hunter Rise was originally a Nintendo Switch exclusive as well. It then came to Windows a year later, and then to PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S the year after that.
But, this may be based on shaky assumptions, that Atlus believes Shin Megami Tensei could do well outside of the Nintendo Switch. The studio is moving towards making Persona, and the newer Metapho ReFantazio, more multiplatform.
But even Shin Megami Tensei V has some qualities that are unique to the franchise, and may not make the game appealing to a bigger audience. In any case, there would still be a big market to sell Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance to the niche of Japanese RPG fans on the Switch, especially if this one has perfected performance and QOL changes.
