The last few years have been a real treat for Shin Megami Tensei fans. Between an excellent remake of Persona 3, a sequel to Soul Hackers, and a more fully-realised version of Shin Megami Tensei V, there’s something for every fan of ATLUS. While it’s nice to see this JRPG behemoth boom in popularity since Persona 5 dropped, it makes me even happier to see them pay homage to their roots.
Perhaps one of the most outlandish examples of this is the Raidou Kuzunoha games under the Devil Summoner spin-off brand. At the time, it was a bold blend of Shin Megami Tensei’s RPG hallmarks and demon collecting with third-person action elements that were rising in popularity at the time. It’s not a series of games I’d ever thought would receive the remake treatment, but ATLUS have proven me wrong again with RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army.
Set in the Taish? period of Japan, RAIDOU takes place against the backdrop of rapid change in Tokyo. Gods and spirituality alike are being brushed aside in favour of rampant militarism and modern ideologies as world superpowers wrestle for control on the global stage.
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We step into the shoes of Raidou Kuzunoha XIV, a school aged detective who also happens to be a Devil Summoner. Under the orders of the Yatagarasu, a body dedicated to protecting Japan from demonic threats, Raidou is posted at the Narumi Detective Agency to protect the capital of Tokyo.
It isn’t long after his initial posting that he’s swept up in a missing persons case involving soldiers clad in red armour and a high school girl from the prolific Daidoji family. Needless to say, it slowly spirals into a conspiracy that’ll envelop all of Japan, and eventually the world if left unchecked. It’s something entirely different from the typical trappings of a Shin Megami Tensei or Persona game, and even now feels distinct in structure, tone, and pacing.
Its episodic delivery means it slowly peels back the layers obscuring the truth of this mystery. Events that are seemingly disconnected from the core plot are revealed to be integral to what’s unfolding and it’s all delivered in digestible chunks with impeccable pacing. It lands on the shorter side of ATLUS RPGs, but that works in the favour of the way RAIDOU tells its story. It’s much more constrained in scope compared to something like Metaphor: ReFantazio.
The real highlight here are the characters. Instead of blowing its cast out with a large number of supporting members, RAIDOU regularly loops back around to previously established characters. It means you learn more about the people connected to this mystery and how they fit into the world. Its also a story that feels hauntingly timely to today’s global landscape despite being nearly 20 years old.
Gameplay is an area where the original experience has been less preserved to varying effect. The core of combat is really solid, reworked to be more fast-paced, responsive, and smooth. You’ll alternate between light and heavy attacks to whittle down demons, interspersing elemental skills to exploit weaknesses and stun enemies to open windows for big damage.
You can bring two demons into combat with you at once. You can choose if you want them to cast on their own or by using commands to better manage your resources. Leaving them to their own devices isn’t a bad choice, though. They’re very proactive in healing and exploiting weaknesses, but it implores you to keep your Mag stocks up with light attacks and counters only accessible via perfect dodges and guards.
It’s a fairly simple combat system overall but is kept fresh by throwing new challenges at you with tricky boss fights, and elegantly bows out before the repetition can set in. It’s also in the midst of combat that you can recruit demons to your cause for use in battle or Fusion is your heart so desires.
The changes I’m not so keen are are the adjustments to navigation and Episode progression outside of combat. For a game where you play as a detective, there isn’t much investigating going on here. Every single objective is now marked on the map, making it abundantly clear who you need to talk to or where you need to go to progress the story. It takes so much of the rewarding deduction and self-fuelled exploration from the original.
It’ll certainly be nice for those who are averse to the rough edges of the original, but will no doubt come across as a downgrade for those who enjoyed the original’s quirks. One change that’s an undisputed upgrade is the exclusion of random encounters. Demon now roam the overworld allowing you to sneak attack them for an early advantage in battle. Aril Rifts now populate the overworld that provide quadrupled experience if you need to grind.
Your demons also play more of a pivotal role outside of combat. They have exploration skills that can be used to interact with the environment or characters to progress your investigation. They’re also heavily used in the optional side cases and make for some light puzzle solving and logical thinking that provide a nice break from all the handholding and combat.
This is also a great selection of demons to recruit and fuse. Many additions have been made compared to what was in the original game. It means there’s more room to play around with Fusion and craft parties for the tougher encounters. It’ll no doubt add value to those who’ve played the original and bulk out the roster for newcomers.
Another undisputed win is just the uplift of all the production values here. While RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army is technically a remaster, it does teeter on the edge of being a remake. The image is so much sharper while retaining much of the arresting vibe of old-school Shin Megami Tensei games.
Characters sport the same wonderful designs by Kazuma Kaneko as the original, with Shin Megami Tensei’s iconic and unique illustrations and models that are instantly recognisable. Perhaps more entrancing than anything else is the soundtrack, which effortlessly pulls you into this world and stays in your head long after credits roll.
Unfortunately, performance is a bit all over the place here on PC. While the vast majority of my runtime was smooth, I saw frequent hitches and frame drops when the game got visually busy, and even had a few instances where it entirely locked up for 30 or so seconds before unfreezing. It’s an unfortunate blemish on an otherwise impressive remaster from a technical perspective.
RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army is a real throwback to a time where ATLUS were constantly trying new things with Shin Megami Tensei. It still mostly holds up, with some worthwhile improvements and other changes that shave back some of the rough edges of the original that’ll no doubt be divisive. If nothing else, it’s a worthy modernisation of ATLUS’s experimental undertaking that newcomers should check out.
