7/10

From the moment that Atlus was acquired by Sega, it seemed an inevitability that one of Atlus' IPs would receive an entry for mobile, after all Sega have made a habit of prioritising mobile platforms in recent years, with games like Sonic the Hedgehog 4 and Heroki coming to mind. The only surprising part is that it has taken Sega around 5 years since their initial acquisition of Atlus to release one. So how good is Shin Megami Tensei Dx2?Well, to a fan of the series, it may seem that there are worrying signs abound: its free to play nature, the lack of involvement of Team Maniax (or much involvement by Atlus full stop) rather being developed by a team at Sega, or even the fact that it looks to be aligned somewhere closer to Persona than it does some MegaTen games. Well, the finished result is a mixed bag, surprisingly good in some ways but often falling foul to many of the problems one may worry it would have.Sega have translated the core of the SMT experience to smartphones with aplomb. The press turn battle system, which will be familiar to anyone who has played any SMT game from Nocturne onward, makes a return here. There aren't any refinements to the system a la Tokyo Mirage Sessions, rather Dx2 plays it safe and the result is a faithful rendition of what can be found in the IV and Apocalypse. This serves as a massive positive for the game, due not only to the fact that its a battle system that continues to be one of the best in the RPG genre, but it also ensures that the game feels at home with the series' name, when some aspects of the game risk indicating otherwise.Dx2 is intended to be as close of a translation of mainline SMT in both gameplay and structure as is possible in a free to play smartphone game, and as such much emphasis is put upon recruiting demons to your party to use in battle. One such way is to convince those who you face in battle to your side through making the right conversation choices, ranging from sassy to kind, the demon's are temperamental and can be annoyingly tough to convince. This brought a smile to my face as while I love the spin-off series Persona I found the conversations with demons to be little more than a formality, whereas Dx2 pulls no punches.However, this is not the only way you can add demons to your team, after all this is a free to play game on smartphones in the year 2018, so naturally the game is built heavily upon a Gacha system. Where the Gacha system comes into play is the ability to summon demons, much in the same vein as summoning characters in Fire Emblem Heroes or Granblue Fantasy, for a price of course. That price takes the form of gems, the premium currency of Dx2 which are priced in a set of bundles, the cheapest coming in at £4.99 while the most expensive hits a sizeable amount close to the £50 mark. Far from the worst out there, but certainly not leading the way for fair prices in a free to play game. More important than this though is that as far as iOS/Android games come this is quite a generous one, with little need to spend a penny (or dime for my friends over the pond). Of course, If you want to speed up your progress and guarantee yourself a couple of 5 star monsters and play for hours at a time uninterrupted by your energy running out, that's when you'll want to buy yourself some energy, but if long play sessions are what you want I would recommend one of the entries on 3DS, this game is best experienced in bite sized amounts. The presentation of Dx2 is hit and miss,there are some major positives such as the decent musical score or the animations that characters will perform during the visual novel sections which provide a surprising amount of personality and flair to characters which could have as easily been portrayed by 2D illustrations. However, along with such positives come a flurry of negatives, such as the relatively poor character design. While the art style suits the animated intro, which is quite fantastic, when actually in game, most characters look relatively poor, often looking more like a 3D incarnation of a Moviestar Planet avatar than a character in a game about the struggle between order and chaos. The demons models are no joy to look at, certainly one would hope that those used for the next mainline entry on the Switch will be slightly more impressive, but they are serviceable.These visuals are representative of the wider problem with Dx2, one that is quite unsurprising and can possibly be attributed to the fact that nobody who has made any of the classic entries in either the SMT or Persona series is seriously involved with this game. That problem is that though everything in Dx2 is far from a train wreck and seems to offer a full Shin Megami Tensei experience, it misses one huge element- the soul. It is hard to nail down just what it is that makes this game seem as though it's missing something but I think ultimately it cannot be pinned down to just one thing, it is a matter of the game working as an SMT game, but not harnessing that bit of magic, whatever that may be, that makes the series great.The story offers another example of this, its standard fare. Honestly, this is what one would expect from a mobile entry in the series, and there are little elements that are fun, such as the little wink and nod that your battles are functioned through your phones. It's very meta but doesn't feel forced and I like it. However, ultimately, whatever story is there is bare bones. It can be reduced to the following: you're the good guys (Liberators) and you protect the unknowing citizens of Akihabara from the bad guys (Acolytes) by besting them in demon battles. Maybe this is what is most missing from the game which makes it feel somewhat soulless.Furthermore, during conversations with your fellow devil downloaders you will have chances to reply with a comment, which is of no consequence to the story. While this isn't a big deal, what does grate is that the vast majority of the time your options to reply are standoffish and mardy. Why is your main character such an unlikable person? It is commonplace for your main character to be a bit of a non-entity within an SMT or Persona game, but never are they so obnoxious and unlikable. They may tread the line of what is right and what is wrong, but they're always relatable, they're always your character, in this game the protagonist is simply not.Shin Megami Tensei: Liberation Dx2 is a game which is an above average free to play Smartphone RPG, with all the micro transactions and trappings that come along with that. It offers a fun experience on the go when played in small bursts and is quite generous in its gifting of currency. A good smartphone game yes, but it is far from being a good Shin Megami Tensei game. It misses the charm of the mainline games or any of its spin-offs due to both a story that is lacking and largely uninteresting characters.