I just finished this game and I had to rush to my computer and type out this post because HOLY SHIT is it good. If you need a monster collecting game on the go, put the Pokemon shit away and get yourself some of this hotness
The game follows the adventures of Flynn (or whatever you chose to name him), a strapping young man who has come to the prosperous city of Mikado to become a Samurai. After doing a sort of test to see if a mystic gauntlet will allow him to become a Samurai, he joins the ranks of the soldiers sworn to protect the people from demons that dwell in a cave just under the town called Naraku. It doesn't take long faffing around in there though before OOPS! You're actually in a post apocalyptic Tokyo and you must explore the ruined city and continue an adventure that will end up shaping the entire world.
Game play wise, for people familiar with SMT, it's more SMT goodness albeit slightly easier compared to previous entries. The game does however have an expert mode that, at time of writing, I have not tried yet due to it being locked behind a game clear but I suppose for real die-hard fans the challenge is there. For those not familiar with SMT, the game is sort of like a demonic Pokemon where you run around, recruit demons and use them to fight enemies and bosses. To get demons you have to negotiate with them, answering their questions or giving them money and items to convince them to join you. From there you can also fuse demons together to create newer, stronger demons which you are going to want to do if you don't want to make the game incredibly hard for yourself.
Usually here, with most SMT games I'd be warning you about the games difficulty as this series is sort of notorious (outside of the Persona spin-off franchise) for being quite difficult but if you were looking for a place to start, 4 is a good bet as it has a weird reverse difficulty curve. The first parts of the game in Naraku are tough as nails with certain enemies and bosses just destroying you and your demons. But after a while the game starts to get easier and easier. For me personally, I was so pumped up and overpowered that the final boss could barely touch me and even when he did get a few good hits in I was able to fully heal it off in a single turn.
The game is also pretty replayable with it's 3 (technically 4 but one of them is for little babies) endings. The game will pose a number of questions and situations at you and depending on what choices you make you will either go down the Law or Chaos path which have different bosses and such during each. For people willing to look at a guide you also have the choice to do a True Neutral path which involves doing a bunch of side quests and making some very specific choices at very specific times which is a good goal to go for on a second run I feel.
As far as criticisms go, of course I have to shit on the game for locking the expert mode behind a game clear. I'm VERY familiar with this series and the games normal mode after the opening area was pretty much a joke. Probably perfect for newcomers but for a seasoned veteran it's very easy so if the story doesn't sweep you up like it swept me up, then the game MAY get boring for you. Also I can't quite place my finger on exactly why but I hate the interface for demon fusion in this entry. I just find it clunky and annoying to deal with. My final big criticism is that the "Challenge Quests" are extremely uninspired and boring. I was trying to be diligent and do as many as possible at first but after a while I got so sick of them that I just ignored them entirely. Due to this it would EXTRA piss me off when you try to do a demon negotiation and instead of doing that they would waste your time with "hey guy wanna do a quest for me?" but once you accept it they stop bothering you about it so its a minor issue really.
Seriously though, if you're into these kind of monster collecting games I HIGHLY recommend SMT4, it's one of the best of it's kind and probably the best game I've ever played on the 3DS. So stop wasting time and go hunt some demons already
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