Raidou Remastered Hands-On: Remaster or Remake? A Bit of Both!

The debate today in a sea of remasters and remakes of games from yesteryear is the understanding of what is considered a remaster, and what counts as a remake. The broad and straight to the point answer is; remasters are when games that are fundamentally the same, but the graphics are updated to HD quality with minimal to no improvements to gameplay, and remakes are when the game has not only been updated graphically, but also been changed fundamentally from its original gameplay to resemble something new and old at the same time. Most of the time, it’s cut and dry to decide if a game is a remake or a remaster, and sometimes it is not as clear. Until now, Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army definitely fell into the latter “unclear” category. While it’s branded as a remaster, after having a chance to sit down and play the first two chapters of RAIDOU Remastered, I found that it offers way more than many remasters.

As a huge Raidou fan, seeing what has changed from the original to this version was quite a privilege. Having replayed Raidou 1 and its sequel for our annual summer marathon on Twitch last year, I have refreshed myself on both the good and bad of the original. The original, although fun, is definitely a flawed PS2 game. It was one of Atlus’ first attempts at taking the SMT formula and making an action RPG out of it. And although I will say the setting, story, characters, and the idea of having demons help you investigate are all great in Raidou 1, the combat and some of the gameplay choices for the game are mediocre at best. While Atlus fixed much of that in its sequel, Raidou 1 is a diamond in the rough. So what has been changed, and is it for the better? Let’s break it down into three categories: battle gameplay, normal gameplay, and graphics.

Battle Gameplay

So right off the bat, battles in Raidou Remastered are leaps and bounds different, and more importantly, way better than the original. It is a completely new combat system that borrows much from its sequel. The camera is now fully controllable, in contrast to the original’s locked static camera angle that made some fights very frustrating. The battlefields are big and spacious enough to make good use of this change as well. Second is Raidou’s katana attacks. He now has access to the weak and strong attacks from the sequel. Square (on PlayStation) performs a weak (but quick and precise) attack that also recovers MAG, which is short for magnetite. Triangle is now used for strong attacks that do not replenish MAG, but do way more damage. Also returning from the sequel is the ability to give your sword the properties of a sword, spear, or axe, which is reflected in your strong attack, but more on that later. You have to play a balance act between both actions to make sure you do damage, as well as keep your MAG filled.

MAG now matches its role from Raidou 2. Instead of being used to summon demons, MAG is now used as their shared MP pool. Demons can’t cast spells unless you have MAG, and you want them to use spells to hit weaknesses and stun enemies. Stunned enemies give twice the MAG back, and take 1.5x damage from strong attacks. Demons will use healing spells on you as well. And yes, I am using “they” as a plural, because now you can dual summon, which was formerly only in Raidou 2. Their AI is so much smarter now, so you won’t have to babysit them anymore. Raidou still has his gun as well, but the elemental bullets and the need to stock bullets are gone. Hitting L2 puts you in first-person mode to lock on to a target and ready your shot. The gun is now used as a means to stunlock and stop enemy movement, and it feels much better to use. You are limited in ammo in battle until it replenishes by itself, which it does at a decent pace.

One of the best changes is Raidou’s movement in battle. He can now jump to avoid attacks that crawl on the floor, or do jump attacks to surprise attack enemy demons. His dodge roll is now smart: hitting it in the direction of your enemy will dodge behind them to allow you to blindside them and continue your assault. Or you can dodge backwards for a small hop, which, if followed by a sword attack, will thrust you back toward the enemy. Containing demons is super easy now, too, by walking up to them and, if you are at or above their level, holding R1 and either holding or repeatedly hitting the circle button. No more awkward hitting weaknesses and accidentally killing demons. In general, Raidou feels way better to control than he ever did in the original or the sequel.

He has a few new tricks as well. First is his Devil’s Bane ability. If you knock a demon off balance with a well-placed assault or dodge one of their attacks perfectly, you will get a prompt to hit circle and X together to do a quick cinematic strike, dealing high damage and stealing a ton of MAG. In place of elemental bullets, Raidou can now use combat skills by pressing R1 with a face button to use elemental attack skills. They are tied to a cooldown and aren’t just for attacking. You can learn moves that heal you or replenish MAG and other stuff via sword alchemy. And, last but not least, by hitting enemy weaknesses and building the combo gauge, you will build up for a super move called Spirit Slash. This move hits all enemies for the affinity that will do the most damage and pierce any defenses for enemies immune to it.

Combat-wise, Raidou feels like a modern action RPG that you would expect to play in 2025, and not the slow, clunky mess that existed from the PS2 games. But combat isn’t all that has changed.

General Gameplay

Raidou Remastered brings some big, noticeable, and appreciated changes to normal gameplay. For one, almost everything is voiced in this version. And I do mean almost everything: the only conversations not voiced are NPCs on the street. This change is welcome and, honestly, the biggest improvement. The original Raidou and its sequel lacked any voice acting, leaving much to be desired from a game with a setting as cool as 1930s Japan.

The next big change is no more random battles. Random battles, especially in Raidou 1, were obnoxious. Even walking around town, you were forced into random battles. Now battles are limited to Dark Realms and dungeons where you can see enemies on the field and choose to engage them or not. You also now have access to fast travel to get around much quicker, even if you still gotta pay the streetcar fares to get to other districts.

Demon fusion now allows you to pick the skills to inherit like modern SMT games. There is now a limited second demon chart that allows you to store a different version of the same demon in the compendium. The map now gives you objective markers and shows you where hidden items are that you can use your demons to find.

Another excellent change is that when controlling your demons to investigate stuff on the field, you no longer have to do battle as them alone. They took one of the worst parts of Raidou 1 out completely, and I cannot thank them enough.

Finally, we have the addition of the sword alchemy chart to see what future swords you wish to make, and what skills and previous weapon you need to make said sword. All great quality-of-life changes.

Graphics

Graphically, Raidou Remastered looks much better than the original, even if many of the generic NPCs are kinda blocky. But it was nice to see they kept the non-interactive NPCs still walking around the town, including my favorite, the kid with the stick! It’s also very clear they swapped the old pre-rendered backgrounds with actual 3D models, instead of trying to upscale them and making a blurry mess. Demons all look better as well, and their and Raidou’s animations are so much better. Basically, it still looks just like Raidou 1, but you can tell it was mainly redone from the ground up in, I believe, Unreal Engine. It’s what you would expect from any good remaster.

So, the bottom line: is Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army an actual remaster or a remake? The simple answer is that it’s a bit of both! It’s Raidou 1 done right, with proper combat, better gameplay, and the same cool story and characters we enjoyed back in the day. I hope we see the sequel get the same kind of treatment, because these games are such a blast to play and will be even better this time.

Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army will be available June 19th for PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 1 and 2. Look for more coverage on RPGFan leading up to release!