Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse Review

Game: Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse

Developer: Atlus

Genre: Tactical JRPG

Release Date: September 20, 2016

Completed: July 2025

Nanashi and Dagda. Source

Overall Impression

*This review is written a lot in comparison to the first game in this duology, Shin Megami Tensei: IV.

SMTIV:A is an epic sequel in its duology in regards to gameplay, but a bit of a downgrade in terms of story. Fortunately, I play most Megaten games, especially mainline, primarily for gameplay and a good story is just a bonus. The combat system features some very strong tweaks in hand with a more detailed and selective version of Mido (fusion). With one of the most renowned difficult final bosses, the excitement and tension for gameplay completion makes up for what lacks in the narrative elements of this sequel.

Gameplay Mechanics & Performance

Overall Apocalypse features huge improvements on gameplay from the first game. Firstly, the partner system is overhauled allowing players to not only select their partner (AI team member), but features skill progression for each unique selectable character. The newly added assist gauge fills one marker at the end of each turn, until reaching 10 markers filled. After 10 turns, the assist gauge depletes and releases a huge AOE attack, heals, buffs, skips the enemy turn and gives “smirk” to at least one member of your team. While this sounds fairly broken, it does take time to build. Utilizing the assist gauge added to my combat and turn management strategies. 

Furthermore, the “smirk” system is also upgraded in addition to being more well balanced than the first game. Some unique demon skills have added effects for “smirking” like instakills, buffs, debuffs and pierce. This made “smirking” feel more multi-faceted, adding more than just a confirmed critical attack. In addition to the “smirk” system upgrade, skill affinity is added for all demons and Nanashi. I didn’t super pay attention to this besides trying to prioritize skills of high affinity and avoiding negative affinity. I realized later that it's more important than I thought as I discovered skill cost is also lowered by positive affinity. 

The demon compendium features some changes, most notable for me was the high cost of summoning demons. I enabled all 3 cost-lowering upgrades for Mido, and still found it difficult to budget for the kind of demon summoning fast-fusion-fun-time I am partial to. Outside of Mido, the demons players encounter feature an icon to show if the demon has been registered or not which is extremely helpful. I think I ended the game with 87% compendium completion. After a quick search, I found that some demons are only available through fusion accidents and I don’t have that kind of time or patience, despite being a semi-completionist.

Dungeons are somewhat repetitive, unsurprisingly reusing a lot of maps and structures from the first game. I didn’t mind this very much, I think I played the first game over 2 years ago. I also enjoy call backs in this franchise, like how the Ginza map is so visually similar to the one in SMT:III Nocturne. Some new to this game dungeons like the Ark are cool and concisely designed, but later dungeons, especially YHVH’s universe, are unnecessarily long, and very wide. I felt like I had to do so much extra walking just to get the whole map on my lower screen. There are a good amount of relics to plunder and corpses are left for players to suck the AP out of. Morbid, but useful. 

Combat and bosses are overall very enjoyable, with cheeky negotiation and smirking fun. The auto battle system is a bit strange and doesn’t seem to target chronologically which is frustrating as I feel like this genre of game is beloved by players wanting to assert precise and tactical control of their artillery. There is no guard function in combat which is questionable but overall fine for me personally, as generally aggro-style player. As for bosses, many were fine, but Sesha was super boring and annoying. No music, barely any gameplay and you have to do it some-3 times. Super boring. In contrast, YHVH is one of the most difficult and unique final bosses I have ever encountered which really challenged my gameplay style. Truly a heart-rate-increaser, I loved destroying that big old head.

YHVH. Source

Story and Characters

The lowlight of many other online reviews of this game, the story and characters are not the strong suit of SMTIV:A. I think the story is carried heavily by how it picks up after the neutral ending in hand with being able to rely on the scaffold of the events and personalities of the first game. 

In regards to characters, I feel like only Navarre (and perhaps also Gaston and Hallelujah) experience a “full” growth arch. Many characters’ personalities/characteristics are frustrating, even ones at the beginning like Manabu who seems white washed in a way that reminds me of Cielo from Digital Devil Saga. This frustration is sidelined initially as there are a bunch of quick deaths in succession at the beginning of the game, including your own. This is when the primary character Dagda fuses with you/Nanashi so you may ascend to the title of Godslayer. Dagda, while having a fun accent, doesn’t seem too deep and I didn’t feel very attached to him despite our fusion.

As the story progresses and your team grows, players become more intertwined with the cast of the first game which held more weight for me than most of the new characters. Flynn being voice acted felt a bit weird, as a previous silent protagonist, but he goes through so many different changes in this game eventually that weirdness dissipates. It was extremely epic to return to Mikado and Naraku and I love how late in the game this happened. It added a weight that I felt lacking in the story. 

I did not find the story super compelling or deep. I didn’t even pay much attention to the Divine Powers who were supposed to be such a central part of the story in this game. We killed them, and then they returned? It just didn’t feel super cohesive and the weight of my actions as the protagonist didn’t feel surmountable. Furthermore, as with many JRPGs, SMTIV:A features a cast of mostly children, which for me, removes some of the seriousness, especially when random cringe dialogue is included, mostly because of the casts’ age. For example, the love triangle between Asahi, Toki and Nanashi was extremely unnecessary and just pissed me off. Doesn’t need to be there at all. 

The one thing in the story that did get me was the Zombie Flynn jumpscare from Sesha. I was playing at night in the dark and it truly scared me!! Well done, Atlus…

Graphics and Sound

The graphics and sounds, similar to the map and dungeons, feature a lot of reuse from the first game. Again, I didn’t mind that much, but would have appreciated a few new songs, as always. I tend to be a bit greedy when it comes to OSTs for Megaten games. This game’s composer is Ryota Kozuka who worked on some of the Persona and Devil Survivor games. The OST is overall good, but the game seems to utilize silence with a sprinkle of ambient noise in favour of music, perhaps to build tension or drama. Some sound effects are squishy and gross, particularly the eating to heal sound. Other sound effects feel great like “smirking”, critical hits and repel (only when it's my team doing it lol). This game is fully voice acted which was helpful for following the not-engaging story, but was also confusing because it features many familiar voice actors from Persona 5 in particular. It's hard not to hear those other characters, especially because Megaten often typecasts specific personality types. 

The graphics, almost identical to the first game, fit the eerie and sinister setting. The only notable changes I found besides QoL upgrades in the visuals are some interesting alternative renders of certain demons. I noticed new (for me) renders of Titania and Oberon. As well, a new Medusa design is used, which is interesting because she was such an iconic boss in the first game. I enjoy seeing call back designs like the Baldur render from Devil Survivor. Overall enjoyable graphics and sound in this game, in line with its narrative, but nothing that super stands out to me.

Titania, Oberon & Baldur renders Source.

Comparisons, Final Thoughts, Conclusions

The gameplay in Apocalypse is  better than SMTIV but the story is much worse. Very little character development, and the story doesn’t feel like it has the same weight of destruction or creation of the previous game. Fortunately, the gameplay is so undeniable fun and evolved that it makes up for this, and was the encouragement I needed to beat this game. I went into this game knowing that YHVH is one of the most infamous bosses in the franchise so it felt like such an accomplishment (I was level 98!). I would replay both of these games from scratch again in a few years, both are worth playing for sure. 

Overall Arbitrary Rating: 8/10 spoopies