RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army

Mess around and summon your persona on these Taisho-era streets and watch Raidou put that mfer in a tube

Absolutely insane remaster. At this point I would probably call it a whole ass remake. Great combat, great puzzle, engaging story, wonderful world to explore, and all around just a fun time, despite being a Megaten game.

[h1]The Perfect Example of How a Remake SHOULD BE DONE[/h1] Man Atlus I have a love hate relationship with you. Your track record these past couple of years has surely been something. As one of the 10 people that played the original Raidou I was in utter shock once this was revealed. The term remaster is misleading, this IS a remake and a damn good one. This is one of the biggest glow ups I've seen for a game. The original game: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzonoha vs. the Soulless Army was a late PS2 title, that was one of Atlus' first attempts at an action RPG and while the game had a lot of charm and one of the best soundtracks of all time, the combat was very rough. Not here however, it's not on the level of Kingdom Hearts 2 or a Tales of game, but something akin to a Mana game. Raidou now has spell esque shortcuts he can whip out in battle, he has a perfect dodge, and he now has and actual combos for his heavy attacks amongst other things. The battle arenas are in full fleged 3D and you now have a movable camera. The swords from Raidou 2 return with a weapon tree, gifting him more abilities and passives, that he can keep. All of the pre rendered BGs have been remade in 3D, and voice acting has been added. (That is both hilarious and well done) This is an entirely different game from the original and it keeps most of its soul in tact. They even expanded upon the main antagonist which was a neat addition. Thankfully all of the wonderful music was not touched and kept as is with some tracks from 2 thrown in there. While I really do love this game I gotta get my gripes out fo the way big and small. The coloring. Just like every Atlus rerelease/remake so far they greatly messed around with the coloring. While I love the vibrant colors, I don't think it really fits Raidou and I miss the old Sepia filter the original game had it truly made you feel like you were in 1930s Japan. The game is easier than the original. (for better or for worse, the OG's difficulty was absurd at points especially on higher difficulties) If you're atleast decent at action games you won't struggle here. The battle UI is pretty barebones and kinda bad. You can't see how many bullets you have unless you pull up the gun. And your demons health bar is on top of the demon AND NOT THE SCREEN UI WHERE IT COULD CLEARLY FIT. Atlus decided to use the same yellow bar for health and also for exp. So in the battle menu they show your demon's exp bar instead of the health bar which created a lot of confusion early on. I have no idea if this is censorship or just a design change, but Lamia was given a scale bra and Belphegor no longer sits on a toilet. This is weird because these guys got changed but they added Mara the literal penis demon, into this game with an unaltered design. In spite of that, I still love this game. Here's hoping they give some of that same treatment to King Abaddon.