Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux (3DS) Review

Following in the storied tradition of re-releases, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey now has a Redux. This release sees a new playable character, new endings, a new multi-level dungeon, some new story scenes, new monsters and some updated elements, such as UI changes.  Sounds nice, but admittedly it's a little lost on me.  I have not played the previous release, so I won't be as privy to these changes.  I do appreciate the added content.

Although part of the SMT series, Strange Journey is a spin-off, much like Nocturne. As such, it plays very similarly to the core games, but with a few differences. You still have demons in your party, and must recruit and fuse them to gain more. Like Nocturne, your main character is also a party member. While having a steady battle participant is good, it also means that having him incapacitated can mean game over.

I actually had that happen a few times. The random aspects of battle has that effect. Fights range from simple affairs too winning by the skin of your teeth. It really depends on how many enemies appear, and if they decide to spam certain techniques.  I can tolerate that, but it's far from ideal for my playstyle.  Later on there is an app that prevents game over from losing the main character in battle, which I understand is one of the new additions to Redux.  That's a good change!

Winning a fight gives experience, but it seems relative to the strength of the opponent.  This means grinding isn't that effective, which is an odd choice for a dungeon crawling-centric game.  Another big gripe I have with the game is the stat gain from leveling up.  It's random.  I'm very much against that idea.  Supposedly your random gains will favor whatever support you got from the opening personality quiz, but again, it's random.  While I'm mentioning it, I'm not really a fan of quizzes like that, either.  Just let me pick my focus instead of arbitrarily assigning me one based off vague answers to silly questions.  Or better yet, let me distribute my own stats!

In some cases, recruiting demons is easier than previous SMT game I've played.  Their speech and corresponding answers make more sense than they have (to me) in past games.  However, there are some cases where it is a lot harder.  Demons have alignments.  If they are a similar alignment to your main character, you may be able to recover from a wrong answer, or refuse more demon requests before negotiations break down.  On the flip side, opposing alignments won't even talk to you.  That seems a bit harsh.  Later in the game, there are some ways to get a tiny chance for them to join, but it's still far from ideal.  One step forward, one step back.

As mentioned before, you can fuse demons in your party to create new ones.  This feels very similar to previous SMT games.  You can pass on a skill or two, but the resulting demon has set skills and stats.  You can also pay money to re-summon any demon you have previously recruited. It's expensive, but occasionally worth it.  It's a good system for passing on skills, and filling out your demon book, but the fact that the resulting demon always starts at a set level with their own stats means it doesn't always help you move forward.  If you give up two level 10 demons, and they make a level 7, you are down in both power and numbers.  Choosing when and who to fuse is a skill, and not one I have mastered.

You can choose to pass on certain skills with demon sources, but after the first of each, you have to get lucky to get more.  I'm not a fan of that, nor of having the main character's skills based off his gun, with a few from apps.  Since they were updating features, it seems like there were a few that could have been made to skills and demon fusing to make it more player-friendly.

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux was still kind of fun, despite the personal issues I have with the game.  If you really enjoyed the previous release, there is enough new content to bring people back for another helping.  If you were interested before, but didn't play it yet, this seems to be the definitive edition.  Might as well get this release instead.  People more familiar with the later Persona/SMT games should probably stick to those.

The Good:
New content and some good changes likely make this the superior release of the game.

The Bad:
Too much random stuff for my tastes.

The SaHD:
I feel like the plot and early story developments are straight from some low-budget SciFi, sorry, SyFy movie of the week.

(Review code for Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey was received from the publisher)

Hard Reset: Redux (Xbox One) Review

Hard Reset Redux is a first person shooter set in a futuristic world where humans and robots are at war.  The city has a strong cyber punk and dystopian future vibe to it, and many places are run down.  All story scenes are told through motion comics between the stages, and they look pretty cool.

In some ways, the game plays like what one would expect of a first-person shooter.  Your crosshairs move with the right stick, your character with the left.  A Button is jumping, although you don't jump that high or far.  What sets Hard Reset apart is how the game handles the guns.  You have two basic guns, each with their own ammo count.  The first is the CLN gun, which uses physical projectiles.  The second gun is the NRG gun, which obviously uses some kind of energy as ammunition.  The guns have all of their ammo loaded, so while you will need to pick up refills, you don't have clips and don't reload the guns.  It still took me a bit to get used to this, as I am a habitual reloader, and would hit a button to reload, even though there isn't one.  Thanks, muscle memory!

By getting enough kills and/or picking up yellow credit pick-ups during stages, you will fill your Nano meter.  Each time it is filled, you gain one point to upgrade your guns or yourself.  The CLN gun starts as a machine gun/assault rifle, but with upgrades it can change into a shotgun, RPG, grenade launcher and mine thrower (strangely no sniper rifle, though).  The NRG gun gains a very useful short-range blaster mode, plasma mortar, rail gun and smart gun.  The smart gun is really cool, since it tracks and shoots through objects.  Each shot of the different types of guns takes a different amount of ammo, so even with the upgrades you only have two types of ammo to keep track of.

There is definitely some overlap with the upgradeable funcitons, as the initial modes and the close range modes behave similarly.  They also both have a kind of explosive launcher.  The last two of each differ, though.  Besides that and the different ammo counts, there isn't much difference between the two weapons that I could see.  Enemies didn't seem to be more resistant to one than the other, so I think it mostly comes down to situations and personal preference.

Each weapon also has an alternate fire you can purchase as an upgrade, but I rarely used any of them.  At one point in the game you also get an energy katana, likely as a nod to one of the developer's other games, Shadow Warrior.  It isn't very useful, sadly.  The third upgrade section is for your character, and is mostly for upgrading health and shields.  There is some useful stuff in there for sure, but it's not a very flashy tree, just utilitarian.

Hard Reset is very much a run and gun type fps, since only one weapon can aim down the sights (and it is really weird about it).  Enemies come quickly and tend to travel in groups.  Small ones will rush you and jump around, making them not only harder to hit, but more annoying.  Some bigger enemies will rush you too, notably the big, strong and tough gorilla-like ones.  You have a short dash that can help move you out of trouble, but it seems to get me stuck on the environment when it is least convenient.  There are also lots of things in the environment that can explode or shoot electricity to take out enemies (or yourself if you aren't careful), giving the game an arcade-like feel.

When not in a battle for your life, you walk and occasionally jump around the various locales that you character will travel to.  There are several switches to push to unlock doors so you can proceed.  Several enemy ambushes will also open the way forward.  Poking around in nooks and crannies can reveal secrets to get more credits to fuel your upgrades.  There's sadly no map, so you have to keep track of where you came from and where you need to go.  Even so, I rarely got lost or confused as to how to proceed, since the game is pretty linear.  Some stages even end in a boss fight that can make you scramble around trying to stay alive.  There were several times I had sweaty palms while taking on the harder foes.

I played the game on the Normal setting (I would have copped out and played Easy, but several of the achievements want you to at least play on Normal...bleh) and it was an appropriate level of difficulty.  There were a few more difficult parts, but they still felt like the right difficulty for a 'Normal' setting.  Health and ammo power-ups are fairly plentiful in each area.  Ammo/energy itself will even refill up to a certain point if you get low, so the game is really nice about keeping you alive and full of bullets between fights.   A majority of my deaths were not from fights, but the environment (traps, pits, etc.)

There are a few unlockable things, too.  My favorite is the artbook of concept drawings that gets filled out as you play the game.  Upon completion, you get an EX Mode, which is basically new game+, but lets you change the difficulty.  I would assume this makes the harder difficulties much more manageable.  Last is Heroic Mode.  This mode is harder than the Insane difficulty, and only saves at the beginning of the level, so you have to do each one in one shot.  While that's fine for others, it is definitely not something I would ever do.

Since the game is all single player, the meat of the game is story mode, and runs about 10-15 hours depending on how much you poke around for secrets.  However, there is also a survival mode thrown in.  There are four arenas to pick from, and power-ups around the area.  At the end of each wave, you get an upgrade point that you have to quickly put into a skill.  The mode is fairly fun, but I would of course love it if there were multiplayer (even though I don't have any friends with the game yet).  Because it is single player, I'm not sure why you have so little time to allocate your upgrade point.  You would have to already know what each point does, and what you would want to buy, since you don't have the luxury to look.  It just seems unnecessary since it's just you and not online.

All in all, Hard Reset Redux is actually pretty fun.  It is a very action oriented first person shooter with many enemies rushing you and not giving you a moment to rest or a safe place to hide.  The two guns and upgrade system is cool, giving the game a very unique quality.  It's not too hard on the Normal setting, and the length is just about right for its price.  There is even a survival mode added to give you something else to do after completing the story.  I'd recommend cyber punk fans and fps single player fans definitely try Hard Reset Redux.

The Good:
Cool upgrades that give your two guns different uses while keeping ammo and inventory management simple.

The Bad:
It can be really hard to hit the little enemies as they jump around and behind you.  Dodging enemies works pretty well until you get caught on the environment at a crucial time and take unnecessary damage.

The SaHD:
That main character really sounds like Steve Blum, but it's not him.  It also took me embarrassingly long to find the option to invert the aim.  Why wasn't it closer to the top!?

(Review code for Hard Reset Redux was provided by the publisher)