Atlus recently announced the remaster of Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army, and yet and the information drop has yet to stop.
The remaster, titled Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army is an action RPG, with real-time battles. However, the remaster won’t be carrying over the game’s original combat system. Rather, it will be using the combat from its sequel, Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon, but with improvements.
The combat itself still involves players directly controlling Raidou as he slashes, shoots, jump and dodge via button presses.
This is how the combat system in Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army:
- Have two demon allies on the field instead of one (including two of the same demons, should you have them).
- MAG Drain System. Light sword attacks deal less damage but gain Magnetite (MAG). Skills by Raidou and demons use MAG. Heavy sword attacks deal more damage but don’t gain MAG.
- Exploit weakness to immobilise enemies. Hitting immobilised enemies guarantees crits, do more damage, and drain more MAG.
- Demon enemies can be captured via The Art Of Confinement. Demon conversations are involved.
- Devil’s Bane skill available to use on immoblised enemies or after perfect evading an enemy attack. Deals big damage and drains more MAG.
- Certain conditions can raise Spirit. When maxed, can use Spirit Slash to deal massive damage on all enemies
- Raidou’s melee weapon selection includes swords (well-rounded), axes (big hits) and spears (multiple hits).
Why Raidou Remastered Is Using The Second Game’s Combat System
The reason why Atlus is changing the combat system of Raidou Remastered to the one in its sequel, which we’re going to refer to as Raidou King Abaddon, is fan feedback.
Raidou Remastered director Kazuyuki Yamai (who’s also the director of Raidou King Abaddon) said: “After we released the sequel, King Abaddon, we received feedback from fans that they wanted to play a version of the Soulless Army that had the system from the second game.
“At the time, the original version of the Soulless Army has received feedback that the character modeling, world and scenario were good, but the system was not up to expectations. So I always thought that if we were going to bring the Soulless Army back to life, I wanted to make sure that we replaced the game system with that of the second’s, King Abaddon.”
Based on pull-quotes on Metacritic, there were critics that point out the combat being a weak point for Raidou Soulless Army. GameSpy says the game is “severely hampered by a mediocre combat engine”.
Meanwhile, there were clear praises for Raidou King Abaddon’s combat system. 1UP said “the total revamp of the battle system makes [Raidou King Abaddon] more than ‘more of the same'”. GameZone said it has a “great combat system”, PSX Extreme praised the game, saying the game “excels—like Atlus games typically do—in the battle department” and GameSpot said it has “fun combat”.
Raidou Remastered is doing more than just a bare minimum remaster, and for good reason. And Atlus is clearly listening to right people for feedback.
Raidou Remastered isn’t just about the real-time combat. Outside of battles, you’ll be sleuthing through 20th-century Taisho Era Japan. Raidou can use demon abilities to interact with the world, and even send the demons to off-limit areas to continue his investigations.
Raidou also has access to Demon Fusion (it may not be in the title but this game is has Shin Megami Tensei lineage). 50 new demons (some from King Abaddon, some from the more recent Shin Megami Tensei V) will be added to the remaster, pushing the list of summonable demons to over 120. Hayataro and Idun, first debuted in SMTV, is confirmed as a demon of the Volt Order and Skill Order respectively.
On another note, Angel will appear in Raidou Remastered but won’t be adopting her Raidou King Abaddon/Devil Summoner 2 appearance with the bondage gear, or the redesigned SMTV appearance where they appear with the golden mask and more covered robe. Their new design looks closer to the SMTII (for the Super Famicom) design with blue hair, angelic wings and loose robe covering from the chest down.
Angel (of the Wind Order) alongside Black Frost (Pagan), Sylph (Element) and Saki Mitama (Mitama) are fellow Raidou King Abaddon/Devil Summoner 2 demons that are being added to Raidou Remastered’s roster.
Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army is releasing on PS4, PS5, PC (Steam), Xbox Series X|S and Switch on June 19.