Atlus is a Japanese studio that is practically bursting at the seams with RPGs, and their lineages are all interwoven. Branching out from the core Megami Tensei series – games like 2024’s Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance – are subseries like the well-known Persona franchise, as well as more underground hits like Devil Survivor or Devil Summoner.
The studio’s latest release, RAIDOU Remastered The Mystery of the Soulless Army first released on the PS2 under the Devil Summoner banner, and despite my best efforts it was an Atlus title I was completely unfamiliar with before this review. While all the different Atlus series borrow and learn from each other in terms of game mechanics and storytelling, RAIDOU Remastered presents a version of the Atlus RPG I’d never encountered before – and it’s one I’d be excited to see more of.
Set in a fictionalised version of Taishō-era Japan (1912-1926), the game stars a high-school aged man in a world infested with demons. Gifted with the ability to summon and control these demons to fight for him, he undergoes a great trial and inherits the title of “Raidou Kuzunoha the 14th,” a Devil Summoner tasked with protecting the capital from demons and the Dark Realm, all while keeping his duties secret from the world at large. Working undercover as a detective-in-training at the Narumi Detective Agency, Raidou and his cat familiar Goutou use their position to identify and combat supernatural threats to the city.
As RAIDOU Remastered begins, we find Raidou and Detective Narumi investigating the case of a missing heiress, which soon leads them into the supernatural side of the Capital. Once rescued however, she presents them with a shocking request – that they kill her. Before Raidou can ask any follow-up questions, the girl is kidnapped by unidentified soldiers in red capes – setting him on the trail of a greater mystery affecting the entire Capital.
It’s safe to say that this is one of the wilder stories I’ve encountered in this greater family of games, and that is SAYING SOMETHING. Looking at the title and early trailers for this game, I truly could not have predicted even half of the story beats I flew through. As much as the game’s side content was a fun ride, it was tough to resist the urge to follow the critical path and see what else it had in store.
Whichever way you choose to work through this game, you’ll be engaging with a very different kind of combat system to most games in this family of titles. Unlike the more common turn-based systems of most games, RAIDOU Remastered’s fights happen in a kind of active arena battle, which brings the Tales series’ combat to mind the most.
When you enter a fight, Raidou fights with a pistol and katana, which can be upgraded to transform into other weapons like an axe or spear during combos. He can also summon up to two of his demon allies in combat to fight by his side, who attack automatically based on the skills and spells they know. Your demons almost act like auto-turrets, firing off attacks or support skills for you and each other as needed.
While you can’t customise their combat behaviour (beyond limiting what skills they know), they do seem to act intelligently in combat. I never found myself frustrated at my team not coming to my aid, like the way Donald would refuse to heal you in Kingdom Hearts – they would always fire off a heal only when needed, attack weaknesses effectively and truly act as a support in the fight.
The complication comes from the fact that both Raidou and his demons share the same pool of “MAG”, or Magnetite, to power their spells. Left unchecked however, your demons will fire off skill after skill until they deplete the pool entirely. Instead, you can toggle each of your summoned demons between using their full arsenal, or only basic physical attacks that recharge the MAG pool. Combat becomes a management game about controlling when your party members can attack or heal you, or when they’re recharging the team’s shared pool. Attacking a stunned enemy also generates extra MAG, so going all-out at the right time can actually refill MAG too. It’s a great balancing mechanic that lets you manage your party, without needing to prompt every move they make along the way.
Demons are also RECRUITED in a different way too – in combat, you can walk up to one and initiate the “Art of Confinement”, capturing the demon in one of Raidou’s demon-storage tubes (think, ye olde Pokéball). This also has a MAG cost however, meaning a Level 12 enemy will cost 12 MAG to capture. by default this is a “tap-to-complete” QTE event, though I highly encourage you change this to a “hold the button” prompt in the settings ASAP as you’re going to be doing it A LOT.
This give and take of MAG between different needs is a lot of fun, and makes you pay attention to your demon’s MAG-hungry behaviour; mismanage your party in a fight, and you’ll never be able to capture new recruits. I really enjoyed that the demons almost work against you in this way – they’re clearly creatures that love violence and greed, so it makes sense they’d burn through a shared resource with no regard for each other. While Raidou’s Devil Summoner abilities give him a unique control over their kind, it doesn’t change the basic nature of the demons themselves.
Alongside assisting you in combat, your demon buddies also have Field Skills that you can use out in the game world. A demon who can Fly can gross gaps for you, others can read minds or lift great weights, helping you traverse the world, unveil clues or find hidden secrets. You’ll often need different skills in both the main quest and the game’s “Case File” sidequests, encouraging you to constantly recruit and fuse new demons to mee the needs of each new challenge. Fusion is also a joy every time, as you’re inexplicably helped – in the Capital of Japan – by a labcoat-clad scientist using trapped lightning to complete the fusion of different demons, in what I thought was only a cheeky nod until they revealed his name as simply “Victor”.
This balance of levity alongside the game’s shocking and twisting main story means there’s always something new and exciting to pursue, across both the Capital and its Dark Realm counterpart. RAIDOU Remastered always wants you to feel like a cool demon-fighting detective, right down to the way he flips his mantle cloak into a cape for fights.
While Raidou himself is a silent protagonist, he’s still given a lot of character in the way he moves and dresses. I had a great time unpacking the game’s wild story, and knowing that a sequel to this game already exists has me hoping it will receive the same love in the future – because I want to see what Raidou the 14th gets up to next.
RAIDOU Remastered The Mystery of the Soulless Army was reviewed using a promotional code on PS5, as provided by the publisher. Click here to learn more about Stevivor’s scoring scale.
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Raidou Remastered The Mystery of the Soulless Army19 June 2025PC PS4 PS5 Switch Xbox Series S & X
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