Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army Review

Japanese role-playing game titan Atlus defined its hold on the industry in the mid-2010s with titles like Persona 3, 4, and Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. This era of demon-collecting adventures also featured a celebrated assortment of jazz and pop tunes, along with sleek interfaces and character designs that have set a celebrated standard for the studio. Then, in 2006, along came the unassuming Raidou Kuzunoha XIV, a quiet young chap tasked with protecting the Capitol of the 1930s Kanto region. A big setting change from the otherwise contemporary or apocalyptic series’ locales, Raidou’s debut title retains the series’ folklorish figures and trendy sensibilities while introducing a radically different approach to gameplay. No longer safe behind the comfort of lengthy, considered turn-based demon skirmishes, they have been replaced with fast-paced arena combat for you and up to two accompanying demons. 

Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army could almost be considered a spin-off of a spin-off, originally launching under MegaTen’s thematically eclectic Devil Summoner brand. For established fans of the sprawling MegaTen franchise, most of what folks love is already here and accounted for. Over one hundred voice-acted demons from across the greater series, with familiar (and some fresh) faces to battle, fuse, negotiate with and recruit. The voice acting is my favourite ‘new’ feature of this remaster, with dual English and Japanese tracks generously covering most of the dialogue. The music features upbeat jazz sure to infect, plenty of nice PlayStation 2-era pre-rendered backgrounds, and pretty, mostly decent menus. This is, by all accounts, a proper MegaTen production aiming to please the Persona and SMT crowds.

Going fishing with some live bait

The fourteenth protector of the Capitol and his guide, a talking cat named Gatou, will dash around early-modern urban Japan moonlighting as detectives for the Narumi Detective Agency. We’re tasked with investigating the disappearance of a teenager, leading to a wealthy textiles dynasty with a family curse, who is also involved in a military conspiracy. Satisfyingly for series fans (but perhaps less so for those expecting a compelling detective story), this plot soon jumps the shark for something much weirder and befitting the inherent oddness of its pantheon-spanning creature-cast.

Across the game’s dozen or so episodes, player character Raidou will meet an ensemble of colourful clients and suspects in the corporeal world before venturing into the mirroring dark realm. Entering the ‘dark’ versions of discovered locations allows the player to fight and recruit demons roaming the familiar streets. Upon returning to the real Japan, Raidou’s roster of demons can be summoned to influence characters’ mood ala Ni No Kuni, explore out-of-reach areas, and assist in solving the many case files (side quests).

Treat ’em mean

The biggest twist of Raidou’s debut game is the change to battling demons. Combat, by far, is where this obscure SMT entry both succeeds and flounders. Encountering a wandering creature in the dark realm will launch the player and two hot-swappable captured demons into a battle arena. Here, Raidou will hack, slash, and dodge his way around the enemy demons until he either eliminates or recruits all the opposition. Fighting is fast-paced but limited by an achingly few basic moves. Most player input will be alternating fast attacks to gain magic points needed for player and demon abilities, heavy attacks, dodge rolls, and the occasional stagger or super attack. Raidou’s combat repertoire is virtually complete in the opening hours, relying on the player to switch out his two accompanying demons during fights for efficiency in heavier battles. The demons do a good job of behaving autonomously in a fight, focusing on enemy weaknesses and team utility with no micromanagement needed outside of boss fights. However, with the player character’s limited fighting arsenal and no arena-based mechanics to switch up fights, combat does begin to feel stale pretty quickly. 

While the incidental combat becomes familiar far too fast for my liking, it remains fundamentally solid and sets up for routinely satisfying boss fights. These fights force player mastery under pressure, with the expectation that Raidou and company must be constantly manoeuvred to avoid telegraphed attacks, devastating laser patterns, and incoming projectiles. When firing on all cylinders, the player is expected to constantly be using items, retreating demons away from hazards, and disrupting attack patterns. It clicks remarkably well when the game throws tailored challenges at the player, but I wish I encountered more than the paltry dozen or so unique bosses across my 35 hours. 

Boss fights force you to tactically retreat your demons to avoid arena-clearing attacks

Raidou Remastered is a much shorter JRPG by MegaTen standards, but benefits from a more considered pacing that will probably gel with contemporary audiences. Each episode breaks down into an update on the major case, soon followed by a foray into the dark realm of that episode’s focal location/s, which includes a bunch of demon battles and maybe a boss fight, and finally a cutscene to wrap up. Episodes usually take two to three hours to complete, with additional side cases that open up as the episode progresses. Mechanically, case files are usually fetch quests with a twist or two. Fast travelling around the Capitol while completing these meant that I never needed to grind, but still managed to find the difficulty curve satisfactorily maintained with my progress. 

Final Thoughts

My initial impressions of Raidou Remastered were good. From the new real-time combat and voice acting to the music, presentation and pacing, everything has been tweaked to cater to a contemporary player experience. Despite remixing all the best parts of its older siblings, no one element is done better here, nor does it compel me in the same way its SMT and Persona siblings did. This remaster of the obscure 2006 title is altogether well done, despite lacking the confidence in itself to do anything majorly innovative beyond adapting its fabulous turn-based combat systems to real-time. While the story doesn’t involve any actual investigative work from the player’s perspective, it pulls on enough supernatural weirdness spectacle to have appealed to the SMT sicko in me by the time credits rolled.

Reviewed on PS5 // Review code supplied by publisher

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