Preview: Raidou Remastered Offers a More Active SMT Experience

The original Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs the Soulless Army came out worldwide right before Persona 3 launched and basically showed a larger audience how incredible Shin Megami Tensei games could be. As a result, it ended up not getting the response it probably deserved. Now it’s 2025 and SMT is practically mainstream thanks to the success of entries like Persona 4, Persona 5, and SMT V, and this spin-off series is getting a second chance with Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army. I’m so glad, because it seems like the remaster really emphasizes how entertaining it can be.

We’ve seen different types of devil summoners throughout the SMT mainline and spin-off series, and one of the interesting things about Raidou Remastered is it starts with someone who knows exactly what they’re getting into. Things begin with a person from the Kuzunoha Village going through tests to see if they are worthy of becoming the next person to take on the name of Raidou, allowing them to serve the village and country of Japan by protecting the capital from malicious demons and ill-intentioned individuals willing to use the supernatural in unscrupulous ways. It’s a tutorial to introduce each element of combat, while also get someone accustomed to the action-RPG where our avatar fights alongside two summoned demon allies. The combat system feels tight and responses, and even during my brief preview session I could find and buy Skill Books to add more spells to my initial demons’ movesets. 

It’s this combat system that feels quite different from installments like SMT V, Persona 5, and Devil Survivor. Turn-based is absent here. Directly controlling your demon allies? Nah, you’re mainly just suggesting or letting them do their thing. Raidou himself can use light and strong sword attacks, with even aerial and plunging ones being an option, pull out a gun for a succession of shots, and use elemental magic. Even capturing is more active than in other installments. You’ll need to run up during a fight to attempt to Confine a foe with a flurry of button mashing, with your level and expertise determining if it’s even possible or you have enough room for a foe. Loyalty ends up being a factor and mattering, with demon allies gaining it alongside experience as you fight together, allowing for bonuses once that relationship is maxed out by working alongside each other.

Demons also feel like partners in another way. As part of his new responsibilities as Raidou Kuzunoha XIV, he works at Narumi Detective Agency. His boss there, Shouhei Narumi, works with Yatagarasu, who manages agents like the Kuzunoha. As such, the cases taken tend to involve demonic involvement. This means that the story portion does involve investigating cases. Calling these demon allies to appear alongside you to perform actions, such as Ukobach to Ignite passion or fury in a person to get them to reveal details or Alp to read minds, or to switch control over to one of them for a Solo Investigation segment to access an area that Raidou can’t. Some especially relevant demons I encountered while going hands-on with the game, like characters we’ll encounter, feature voice acting. 

My time with Raidou Remastered ended up being something of a limited session that involved only initially seeing what it’s like to fight alongside demons, take part in a larger investigation, and explore the counterpart of the Capital in the Dark Realm. This is a space between the human and demonic realms, and it’s something of a counterpart filled predominantly with hostile demons. (Friendly ones are there too, as a more amicable Pyro Jack and Alp appeared in my first journey into the area.) It serves as the dungeon experience, mirroring the real world and offering challenges to overcome with the right demon types or boss fights. Save points appear often here, and the quicksave feature is present both here and in most other parts in the “real” world.

Raidou Remastered seems like it will be a promising remaster from Atlus, as well as an opportunity to introduce a larger audience to an interesting Shin Megami Tensei game. From my early hands-on experience with it, I noticed it swiftly gets people introduced to the character, demons, world, and combat system. From there, it starts to set up a mystery while showing exactly why the Raidou Kuzunohas who apparently appeared over the years matter. It’ll be interesting to see how people respond once it drops in June 2025.

Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army will come to the Switch, Switch 2, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC on June 19, 2025. 

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