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In December of 2015 Gaijin works brought summon night 5 to the west a 2013 PSP SRPG, the game was quickly forgotten after release because
A: both the PSP and Vita where dead in the west.
B: The game is the 5th game of the summon night series which outside of 3 spin-off where never released out side of Japan.
Is this game a hidden gem on the PSP that had a unfortunate release window?
No, Summon night 5 is a very mediocre game in most aspects and the PSP has better game of the same line like Final Fantasy Tactics ( I am not an fan of FFT but most people will prefer it over SN 5), Tactics Ogre , Gungnir , Jeanne dark and Yggdra union.
However the game isn't bad either.
The Graphics:
They are good specially considering it is a very budget title, it goes for a anime aesthetic, that this game successfully replicate, the story is presented in a VN style which works fine for the most part however it really hurt the in in some more emotionally charged scenes, the ending for example could be as emotional as persona's 3 ending (they are relatively similar) however because of the way it is presented it really hurt it's emotional impact it could have, the art is really nice specially if you like anime, the game has a gallery to highlight it.
VN part use a unique technique where is it use 3D face with 2D bust, it is a really good technique, it always for more expressive face without having to abandon the 2D anime aesthetic however if feels like it is far from reaching it is true potencial, which is a shame.
The story:
It is a roller coaster chapter 1 and 2 give a terrible first impression, the lore is really confusing to understand and the game don't put the effort to explain it, even though it is not a direct sequels from the other summon night games the game assume the player is knowledge about the game universe and lore , and because the series is very obscure outside of Japan you won't find much information about the lore online and be able to fully understand the game's story. chapters 3 and 4 are fine, they present most of the character and some of the main antagonist and the writing some times get creative and funny, chapter 5 to 9 are the worst part of the game, there is nothing interesting going on no character development, with the exception of the main protagonist, his cross and that police woman get any attention or barely any screen time even though they have interesting personality, not to mention the main conflict of the game being a cat and mouse game is very boring and goes nowhere, it is 10 hours of nothing. chapter 10 to 15 however is when the game after 15 hours finally gets good, there is character development, the main conflict gets emotional and interesting and everyone gets their time to shine, even if it is one line of dialogue they are Banger quotes like "stop with this emo crap", and the ending is actually really good.
The music:
The OST is short only having 33 music, it works fine for this game and they are really nice to hear but they aren't amazing of anything special, 3 years after playing I barely listen to the soundtrack, which for me is a great indicator that I didn't find it memorable or worth going back to, Games with great OST I generally listen to them long after I played that game.
The gameplay:
It is not well balanced, it has some good ideas but the game don't take its time to explain them properly of even introduce them in a nice pace, the game is extremely easy if you grind a little bit but impossible if don't grind, because all the game maps are small empty arenas the battle system won't shine, I did have fun with trying to beat they as fast as possible, most of them are just kill the boss and XP is not given on how many enemies you kill but rather the game give you certain amount of XP after battle even if a character did nothing on battle they will receive XP.
I want to highlight 2 extremely bad maps, one of them is to not let the enemies reach area for 20 turn, on this map you will kill all enemies on the first 10 turn at least 3 enemies will spawn every turn so you will do the same thing which is kill this enemies for at least 10 turn, another map is one before the final boss where you have to kill 50 enemies, it works pretty similar to the one I mention before the difference being you will do this for more than 10 turn and you don't need to protect a area.
Conclusion:
The game feels extremely under cooked it has some really nice ideals but the designer didn't have time to create a fun and entertaining experience, I would recommend to SRPG fans that are hungry for a SRPG that otherwise you can skip trust me you are losing much.
