4.5/5 ★ – StuckBoy's review of Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux.

*Potential Spoilers* This was my first experience with the older style of Shin Megami Tensei games, albeit through a remake that makes a fair number of changes to the overall experience. The premise is really interesting, as it shifts perspective to more of a sci-fi narrative than the typical fantasy one most other SMT entries follow. I enjoyed the conversations between cast members, as they typically involved exploring the nuance of their mission and the decisions necessary to accomplish them. Unfortunately, towards the end a lot of that nuance is stripped away for the tried and true Law/Chaos/Neither decision tree. However, the game does not simply toss out that depth, as the last few boss fights effectively serve as a final exam for everything up until that point. Speaking of combat mechanics, I at first was super intrigued by the importance that alignments took when it came to tactically dismantling encounters. Sharing an alignment with multiple members allows for massive burst damage by exploiting weaknesses. However, that same benefit is effectively turned against you by one of the final bosses. If you had been mostly sticking to fusions involving your alignment at the time, this can be disastrous as you suddenly have to build new demons specifically to counter this. Overall I enjoyed the game a ton, and I'd recommend it as a good starting point if one is interested in seeing what older SMT titles were like. Unfortunately, given that the 3DS eShop died over a year ago, the best you can do is hope to stumble across it in the wild or hope that Atlus actually does something with the 6+ games that are locked away to that platform.