RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army takes us back to a time before Atlus’s name became synonymous with the Persona series, itself an offshoot of the Shin Megami Tensei franchise that Atlus had been regaling gamers with since 1987. Originally titled Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs The Soulless Army, the Devil Summoner series is also an offshoot of the Shin Megami franchise.
Raidou Kuzunoha, however, seemed to fall between the cracks as gamers latched onto Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne and Persona 3, making this a case of a remaster been a wonderful thing as it, hopefully, brings this forgotten gem back into the light.
RAIDOU Remastered pops you into the shoes of an apprentice Devil Summoner for the Kuzunoha clan in 1931. After a grueling graduation test, you’re gifted the name of Raidou Kuzunoha XIV and tasked with protecting the Capital of Japan from supernatural threats, as the Kuzunoha clan has done for generations. But when a kidnapping case pulls you into a much larger conspiracy, you’re skills as both a detective and Devil Summoner will be tested.
If you’ve delved into an Atlus RPG before, especially anything in the Megami Tensei series, then you’ll be right at home jumping into RAIDOU Remastered. From the main Shin Megami games, to Persona and into Devil Summoner, there are shared mechanics that make each game easy to get into, if not easy to beat.
The main mechanic of collecting and summoning demons that is the franchises trademark, is as important a mechanic in RAIDOU Remastered as it is anywhere else. But unlike Persona or Shin Megami which can make capturing demons a challenge in itself, RAIDOU Remastered has simplified this mechanic to holding a button down to capture a demon when you’re close to them, like some unholy Pokemon trainer, and then, sometimes, answering a question or two. It’s a nicely simplified mechanic that extends into how you maintain your demons and use them in gameplay.
Demons are essential to navigating the world and helping Raidou solve the various cases he takes on. You can summon a demon to hang around you at all times, swapping them out at will to help explore the world. Demons can read peoples thoughts, helping you gain clues. They can reach items you can’t, explore areas you can’t get into and are all around a right royal help.
Levelling up your demons Is important as well. The higher their level, the more useful they are. Levelling them increases their stats, unlocks new abilties and, if you increase their loyalty, let them give you gifts. Demon Fusion also makes an appearance here with a simplified system of revealing what type of demons and their levels you’ll get when sacrificing two of your demons for a bit more power.
Take note though, just as you can’t trap a demon of a higher level than you, you can’t fuse one of a higher level than you either. Sorry guys, but that sweet looking level 21 demon can’t be yours when you’re at level 14.
It’s in combat where your demons are most valuable, and it’s also combat where RAIDOU Remastered departs from the series. For the most part, RAIDOU Remastered is as traditional a JRPG and Atlus game as you’re going to get. From exploration to story and even to the world map and how you navigate it’s grid-like construction from one location to another. But the combat is another beast entirely, one that certainly feels – or felt? – ahead of it’s time for JRPG’s.
Instead of turn-based combat, the developers of RAIDOU Remastered opted for a real-time, hack and slash battle system making RAIDOU Remastered an action RPG with some simplified but no less cathartic Devil May Cry combo flavouring.
You’ve got light attacks that restore you’re MAG, heavy attacks for higher damage, a gun to slow enemies down with, a dodge to avoid attacks and, new to this remaster, a jump to both avoid attacks and engage in some aerial combos. Raidou even has a special meter that builds up as you attack enemies which, when used, delivers a screen-filling attack that devstates multiple opponents.
You can quick dash behind enemies and use critical strikes when enemies are stunned or staggered and have access to elemental AOE’s that can stagger enemies. In retrospect, it’s a rather modern combat system in a time when traditional JRPG’s still ruled the roost.
And your demons? Well they’re basically you’re support and party member rolled into one. You can swop and summon demons in an dout of combat, to capitalise on an enemies elemental weakness, at will. They can provide support in healing you or attacking the enemies physically with their magic attacks. Demon have two settings here, go all out and use special attacks or don’t.
It’s a lot more useful to have them set to using magic attacks because you’re usually fighting multiple enemies at a time and the right attack can stagger an enemy and take some pressure off of you. The downside is that they chew through your MAG really quickly so it becomes a balancing act between light and heavy attacks to keep your magic topped up when exploiting a staggered monster.
Combat falls into the fast and furious category in which you really have to pay attention to what’s happening around you. Spells may have cast and cooldown times, but you’ll find that enemies aren’t going to stand around and wait for you to finish of one opponent before they can attack. So make use of your dodge and dash moves liberally as they can keep you from taking an ice shard to the back in the combat zones relatively small play area.
As with other Atlus RPG’s, RAIDOU Remastered presents a pretty significant challenge at it’s default difficulty. There are multiple difficulty options, including a no death mode for you and your demons but the rest of the modes are going to make sure you invest in some serious grinding and fusion to prepare for upcoming enemy and boss fights.
Along with that grinding, RAIDOU Remastered has a bit of pacing problem. There’s a little too much back and forth between locations that can make forward story momentum feel a little stifled. It may be par for the course with how detective work is done, but that doesn’t change how time consuming and tedious those moments can feel.
From a visual perspective, RAIDOU Remastered looks and runs great on modern platforms. The art-style stands up really well with the higher resolution assets.
So what’s been changed for this remaster? A significant number of things beyond the obvious visual and quality of life changes. The battle system has been overhauled so much so that it feels closer to the second game in this spin-off. There’s the new jump, Raidou’s special and passive abilities, a lock-on feature, a stealth strike to initiate combat and multiple demons fighting beside you.
For the rest of the package your looking at quality of life changes, such as been able to fully heal at your base, a fast travel system, some 30 plus new demons added to the roster, new voice-overs, quick and auto-saves, all demons you own receiving XP after a fight and expanded locations. There’s a significant roster of changes that elevates the gameplay and, essentially, makes this not only a remaster but the definitive version of the game.
RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army in its original incarnation may be one of Atlus’s most underappreciated games. It may be a smaller game with a shorter runtime than the traditional Persona game, but it’s no less addictive in part due to a fun story and it’s enjoyable, challenging and chaotic combat system. Pacing and grinding issues aside, if you didn’t cotton onto this gem of an RPG anytime since its original release, now’s the perfect time to experience it in it’s definitive form.
RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army
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Game code was provided by the Publisher.
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