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ATLUS’ Shin Megami Tensei has breadth and depth. From the colourful modern leanings of the Persona games, to the apocalyptic settings of the mainline Shin Megami Tensei series, to the cyberpunk-ish trappings of Digital Devil Saga (and to an extent, Soul Hackers)…there’s something for everybody. That’s why RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army feels right at home for the series.
That’s despite its rather archaic setting.
Unlike other entries in the series, the Raidou games take place during the turn of the 20th century Japan. The Taisho era makes for a marked change from the present or futuristic (or even apocalyptic) settings of the other games in the series.
Does that make RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army stand out more, or does it mean that the game should’ve been much more like the others?
What is RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army?
RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army is a third-person action JRPG and is a remake of Raidou Kuzonoha vs the Soulless Army, which was originally released in 2006 for the PlayStation 2. The game was developed by ATLUS, with publishing duties handled by SEGA. It is available right now for PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation and Xbox consoles.
Our review copy was provided to us courtesy of SEGA. Thank you so much!
RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army is the story of Raidou Kuzonoha XIV, the latest to take up the title of a famous Devil Summoner from the Kuzonoha clan. Sworn to protect humanity, Devil Summoners make pacts with devils and fight alongside them to eliminate threats big and small.
The game begins right as the latest Raidou (and his talking cat, Gouto-Douji) arrives in Tokyo, after being granted the title by the Kuzonoha clan for surviving a dangerous trial.
Assigned to work as a detective with the Narumi Detective Agency that collaborates with the clan and the organization they belong to (Yatagarasu), Raidou is drawn soon into a conspiracy that involves a missing girl who’s destined to be sacrificed and her ties to mysterious figures in red that are terrorizing the citizens of Tokyo.
The story follows the original game closely so players who’ve played that will be right at home. I remember playing Raidou Kuzonoha vs The Soulless Army back in the day, but I wasn’t really that gripped by the story.
Sadly, that’s the case for me this time around too.
I mean the story is fine and all, but there’s little to be intrigued by. It’s rather basic and straightforward. Too straightforward. Everything here is by the book JRPG. You get exposition, you head to a dungeon, you fight a boss…and repeat.
There’s nothing revolutionary or exciting to hook you in like the Persona series’ Social Links system or even Soul Hackers 2’s Soul Matrix system. In fact, the game feels a lot like Shin Megami Tensei V (with its strong focus on demon recruitment) but with RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army having real time battles instead of turn-based ones.
The good thing is that the battles here are no longer random.
You can see enemies wandering around, and you trigger battles by running to them, or by asking your summoned devil to attack on your behalf. It gets better! If you’re clearly stronger than the enemies in the area, you can even finish them off without a battle! You get items and XP still, just without the need to fight!
Perhaps that’s the issue here.
The battles don’t really feel fun so you don’t really look forward to duking it out.
Enemies are sponges that can take an insane amount of punishment (unless you’re attacking their weakness). Even with Raidou’s strength stat maxed out, you feel much too weak.
There are other issues with the battle mechanics, with locking on being a major one.
It can be a tremendous hassle to lock on to the enemy you want to target. Sometimes you’ll need to cycle through multiple foes. Try that when you’re being swarmed with melee and ranged attacks and you’ll quickly learn creative new curse words.
Apart from targeting, the battles also feel like Raidou’s just along for the ride and not pivotal at all.
That’s mainly due to the new MAG Drain System.
There’s no MP in the game at all. Instead, magic cost is shared by the team of Raidou and his two summoned demons. There’s a green bar under Raidou’s lifebar in the middle of the screen that represents the MAG meter, which drains as Raidou or his allies use magic.
To replenish it, Raidou needs to do light attack combos, which will suck out the MAG from enemies.
The issue here is that melee attacks don’t really do much damage, so it all comes down to abusing skills (which use the MAG meter) to fight. As the AI can’t drain MAG from enemies, it’s up to you to do it. In battles, it feels like Raidou is there just for that purpose alone while your AI demons lay the smack down.
It’s supremely boring.
You’ll be forced to fight and dodge your ass off, during dinky damage to drain MAG, just so your allies can have the fun of dishing out the pain with their powerful skills. Raidou doesn’t feel like a Devil Summoner, he feels like a damn maid in the service of his masters.
You can, of course, order your devils not to use MAG, but that hamstrings their fighting capability. Battles depend on your team exploiting the weaknesses of your enemies to deal massive damage (or to drain massive amounts of MAG) and there’s no way to do that without resorting to skills or magic, which of course needs MAG.
You’re damned if you do, you’re damned if you don’t.
That’s disappointing, because otherwise Raidou can be killer in battles. He can do combos, he can unleash special skills (you can customize them) assigned to your sword and he can even do a super cool finisher that does massive damage!
It’s just that you rarely get to go on the offensive yourself because you’re usually farming MAG to fuel your allies’ rampage.
Even recruiting devils to join your team doesn’t have the same kick as it does in other games. There’s really no risk to it this time around. You just run up to the devil you want to recruit and then bash a button to fill up the capture bar for the Art of Confinement.
That’s it.
As long as you’re of the same level or higher, you’ll always catch the devil you’re attempting to nab. It’s as boring as it sounds.
Thankfully, devil fusion is still as fun as ever.
Combining your allies to get more powerful ones has always been the cornerstone of the Shin Megami Tensei series and RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army does it as well as any other entry.
Like before, you can pass down skills to the new monster. RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army also introduces Passive Skills, which are traits you can imbue to the fused devil. Depending on the type, you might be able to offset weakness or reinforce the devil’s strong traits. It’s a nifty feature, but one I didn’t really put much thought into.
In a nice touch, you can even get farewell letters (and items) from your monsters after you fuse them. These can be funny, or weird…even touching. It gives your devils some personality and I really like it.
Search Fusion and Reverse Fusion (fusion styles available in recent SMT games) also make a return here. Reverse Fusion is particularly welcome, as it shows you a list of devils you can get with the current makeup of your team without needing to manually select a devil first.
In fact, there’s a ton of depth to the devils themselves. All of them have a given type, which provides them with skills needed to complete some quests (and side quests) or just give you more options.
For example, some demons can read the minds of certain people, which may give you hints or allow you to progress in a questline. Tiny devils can go into small spaces, which might have an item or two. Some devils can fly, allowing you access to inaccessible locations. You get the drift.
While a neat feature, it’s also a bit of a double-edged blade.
Since the skills are defined by types, you will want one of each type at least to have in your party. It can be a issue if you get fusion crazy, as you’ll suddenly realize you’ve fused a monster you needed and have no replacement of the same type.
You’ll have to head all the way back to Victor’s lab to resummon one…which can kill the pacing. It happened to me multiple times, so I’m speaking from experience.
Thankfully, RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army adds more devils to the mix, so there’s really no shortage of them. Unfortunately, a handful of the devils in-game are simply retextured versions. So while their names are different, and they’re stronger, they look a lot like weaker devils from earlier in the game, just colored differently.
It’s a bit lazy to be honest, not to mention disappointing.
In fact, I’d say that about the visuals as a whole.
While the remaster’s done everything in 3D, the character models don’t look much different from the originals. Just sharper. It’s easily evident in the cutscenes.
The visuals just look bland and basic for the most part.
Character design and environmental design are both lackluster, especially when you compare them to modern entries like the newer Persona entries. The devils look great but then again, they’re just reusing the same designs from other games…so it’s not like it’s really this game that made them look cool.
The basic visuals do have a benefit if you’re on a handheld PC. You can run the game on 1080p on the ROG Ally X with maxed out settings with zero hassle. I’ve encountered no slowdown or hitches or any technical guffaws while playing on the go. The game is just as stable as it is on our desktop rig.
The Bottom Line.
RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army attempts to remaster one of ATLUS older titles for the modern crowd. It’s a bit unfortunate, but the remaster stumbles more than I’d like.
While there are some plus points for it (the ease of fusions being a choice highlight), the misses outweigh the hits by a definitive margin. The original wasn’t a really good game, and this remaster is pretty much just putting lipstick on a pig without really addressing the underlying issues.
It’s worth a play if you’re a hardcore SMT fan, but even then, there’s not much payoff to it.
TLDR:
Only for hardcore SMT fans who need to play everything in the series.
The Good:
- Fusing devils is fun.
- Able to skip fights if you’re strong enough.
- Runs great on portable hardware.
- Interesting, if straightforward, story.
The Bad:
- MAG Drain system needs a rework.
- Raidou feels too weak in battles while enemies have too much HP.
- Some devils are just reskins.
- Art and environmental design are bland.
Salehuddin Husin, EIC
Sal's been in the industry since the early 2000s. He's written for a ton of gaming and tech publications including Playworks, Hardwarezone, HWM and GameAxis. Recently, Sal served as a juror for the Indie Game Awards at Taipei Game Show 2020. A geek and hardcore gamer, Sal will play everything, on any platform.
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