In some respects, Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army is a very hard game to review. Whenever I review a game, I never look at what other people have said about it until I’ve written my review in full. I do that out of morbid curiosity to see if what I thought about a game was the same as what others thought it. For this game, though, they didn’t.
The reason is that most of the reviews I’ve seen seem to focus on the fact that this is an excellent remaster of a 2006 PS2 game called Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha v.s. the Soulless Army. For that, I do agree that it is a great remaster. What I don’t agree with is that just because it’s a good remaster, it therefore makes is also a good game. This isn’t a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, far from it. It is, however, just an okay one. Let me explain.
First and foremost is, although Atlus has made a lot of improvements from the 2006 PS2 version of the game, especially in the visuals, it is still at heart a pretty 2006 game with all its 2006 issues.
One of those is a very typical issue from the era. The game struggles to help gamers play it. Back in 2006, games didn’t really lead you down the path and weren’t accessible to all. Games made you find your own feet. Some argue that is what made them good. But when a game, as Raidou Remastered does, bombards the player with a humongous amount of information from the get-go, it becomes overwhelming and off-putting. When this happens, press this, then X, then etc., etc., etc.
It’s a huge bugbear of mine with many JRPGs that they try to explain too much too fast, to the point where you haven’t even had an opportunity to practice the first thing you were told about before more information is thrust upon you. So, to be honest, the first 4 hours I had with this game, I wasn’t enjoying it. I was mostly trying to remember everything I was told, and if not, trying to find the tutorial that did mention it somewhere.
For example, to get past one of the first bosses, you need to have acquired a certain demon of a certain type. First of all, the game didn’t explain where this enemy was, and when I did find one and tried to capture it, I had too many demons in my inventory. I then had to search the game AND the internet to find a way to release one of the demons I did have. This method was not in any in-game tutorials or even on Google. After nearly 30 minutes of searching, I just happened to find an icon on one of the many menu pages that said “release demon”. I lost a whole hour of gameplay doing just these two things.
The game, by modern standards, and especially modern Atlus JRPG standards, feels messy and awkward to navigate, both in the game and its menus. A few times in the early going, I didn’t really quite understand where I was meant to go or how to get there. Again, it does start to make sense after a while, but the initial hours are confusing.
If you can grind through these moments, however, what you do get is a pretty decent, albeit very similar, game to any you may have played in the Persona/Shin Megami Tensei/Atlus library.
You play as a demon-summoning detective tasked to unravel a 1930s Tokyo case that spirals very quickly into a supernatural thriller. By day, you are a detective, by night, a demon hunter. The story, I felt, was the best aspect of the game. I’m not normally a fan of supernatural adventures, but the way this narrative unfolds was excellent. The voice acting in English also elevated the overall game. It really sounded like the actors had a lot of fun playing their roles.
The main difference between this and many other Atlus JRPGs is that the combat is real-time hack-and-slash. It’s a very basic hack-and-slash, too, but the hook is that you also have two demons to fight with you in real time. You can summon any you have with you, but you can’t fully control them. You can also ensure that they don’t expend too much of the element (MAG) you need to launch spells in the first place. You also wield a gun and have to be aware of enemy elemental weaknesses so you can make it a point to have those elements at your disposal.
Having three ways to attack enemies is actually very cool, but you can still add to this by using your sword’s light melee attack to restore your MAG gauge, which adds another tactical layer to this system. So, there is a lot to think about and balance on the fly during battles, which makes them fun and engaging.
However, a lot of that engagement is lost in the mess on-screen. With lots of elements, characters, movement, and effects all happening at once in real time on the screen, with not a huge amount of visual detail to distinguish what’s what, it’s actually very hard to see what is really going on (we are back to a 2006 visual fidelity issue). I honestly enjoyed the boss fights far more than general combat since you’re very much focused on one enemy and could see the whole situation better.
Aside from combat, the other use for the demons you carry is to solve mysteries or search for clues in the real world (combat is found in the demon world that you travel to. Again, think how it works in a Persona game). These moments were very simple, and although a new element, they weren’t very engaging.
Aside from this, there are side missions, people to talk to, your normal RPG system progression systems, and that’s about it. If I seem a bit flippant about this, it’s because nothing really stands out in this game. Apart from the story, everything else just felt “okay”. The good aspects (story and voice acting) are negated somewhat by the game still feeling like the clunky, hard to navigate 2006 game that it once was.
I did like the soundtrack and effects, and I also enjoyed the cutscenes. Even though the visuals are nice and polished, they still make the game look old, but the smooth 60fps helped alleviate the presentation.
Finally, I have to mention the game’s price. Technically, the price of a game doesn’t actually affect its quality, but I do feel here this will be a hurdle for some. Coming in at around £45 for a game that will take around 30 hours to complete, this doesn’t sound too bad. It just doesn’t look or feel like a £45 game. It feels more like a £25 to £30 game that you would feel comfortable getting once it’s on sale.
Summary
I know I may have flown in the face of many gushing reviews this game is getting, but then I’m not gushing over how the remaster is better than the original as I never played it. I am simply playing this game from new here in 2025 and comparing it to 2025 contemporary game standards. If you view it this way, it does fall short, especially for the price.
However, if like me, you are a fan of Atlus and their many JPRG titles, you will enjoy this one despite its 2006 warts. It’s competent but just doesn’t excel in anything other than an interesting story in a new and interesting universe to explore.
Developer: Atlus
Publisher: SEGA
Platform: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox X/S, PC
Release Date: 19th June 2025
Gaming Respawn’s copy of Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army was provided by the publisher.
