is it at least better than monark?

[Crim]

So on the fence with this game. On one hand, I really wanna try it due to the cyberpunk theme. On the other hand, all these neg reviews are really giving me some pause lol. Is this at least better than your typical B rated jrpg on steam?

[Mikozo]

Well i never played monark so i cant really help compare it, but based on my playthrough of sh2 i would say you should shelf it on your wishlist until it has a huge sale, compare it with other smt games its really barebones (like only the demons that make this game part of smt franchise and all other pre existing mechanics are not present in game), short and simple story/gameplay, easy, and really expensive considering its short gameplay. B rated? Well its more of a AA game, and yea its slightly better than b rated jrpg.

So tl;dr, silghtly better than b rated jrpg, better to buy it on huge discount

[allknowingeel]

Depends. This game has long and bland dungeons with no sprint button until later in the game where you can unlock it. The dungeons don't have chests, instead you send your demons out and they can find things for you. The battle system is new and not like previous smt games. In previous games, if you hit an enemy weakness, you only used up half your turn, you could turn 4 turns into 8 turns if you played well and got lucky. Now when you hit an enemy's weakness, you get a stack. At the end of your turn, the amount of demons in your stack will attack and you will do damage proportional to the amount of demons in your stack. Demon negotiation is also gone, in previous games you could interact with your enemies and answer questions correctly and give them stuff, if you did well, they would become your ally. In this game you can defeat a certain type of enemy enough, then one of your demons will find that type of enemy and if you listen to their single request, they will become your ally. Demons are also utilised differently in this game. In the previous games they appeared next to you in battle and were a party member. Now they are just tied to a character and you can use their abilities, like persona if you have played those games.

The characters are cool, they all have personality and charm and you can learn more about them with hangout events.

So the game play and dungeons are a bit meh. The dungeons can be a pain to go through but the characters make up for it, for some people. If you want a character driven story, this game might be for you. If you want good dungeon crawling, it might not be for you.

[WarWeeny]

this game is the definition of a B rated jrpg.
it has bland dungeons and a bland plot.

[Stoibs]

I didn't even get to the end of the Monark Demo, as someone who loves turnbased tactical games/JRPGs I found the combat in that one tedious :/

I'm quite enjoying how snappy and satisfying the weakness/sabbath mechanic works here, which later gets expanded with certain COMP combos and unlocks as you go.

I never hated Tartarus or the TV world from P3/P4, so I've got no comment on the dungeons here. They are *serviceable* and fine as far as I'm concerned.

While I disagree with a lot of the outright negative reviews here, the general sentiment that it's a very B~ level JRPG isn't wrong. Shame there's no demo for you to trial.

[VavTenZ]

Monark combat is outdated I rather play Caligula effect instead.