Shin Megami Tensei if... attempts to bring back the magic of the SNES Shin Megami Tensei games for one last hurrah, but as a side story ends up on the short and difficult side and digs into a questionable mechanic.

Ideo Hazama, a bullied student at your high school, manages to become a Demon Emperor (how?) and transports the entire school to the demon realm of the Expanse. The story is mainly just saving your students and teaming up with a student of your choice to fight the threat. The main draw of this story mechanic is that worlds and even the ending of the game can vary based on partner, and New Game Plus unlocks a whole new partner and an entirely new set of dungeons.

The actual layout is traditional SMT fare, with fusing demons, a party of six with a back/front layout, the option to use swords and guns, an automap feature, and evil traps abound. The step back is in that the entire game is in the 3D dungeon layout - there's no 2D map, making the progression an exhaustively cohesive whole. There are towns on certain floors and shops thrown about, but it can be difficult to navigate.

The dungeons are also particularly fiendish. Whether it's killing time to make sure the students dig out a hole in the World of Sloth, tiles that turn the player around in the World of Gluttony, rooms of darkness and areas where the demon summoning/map computer fails to function in Envy, and much more. Demons are also pretty powerful in this one, jumping directly from level to level and not giving the player the chance to do a lot of things other than grind or power through with instant death spells. On the bright side, the game expands some offensive potential with making the -kaja/-unda spells particularly powerful and introducing -dyne spells.

The main new mechanic is the Guardian mechanic. When a player dies, instead of restarting at a save point they jump back to the beginning of a dungeon (or end of battle if their partner dies) and a Guardian will give stat boosts and different spells to that character. It's random, save for the fact that leveling up a few times before dying will give a better Guardian. It doesn't quite create a good strategy but eventually pushes the player into stronger forms.

As a side story, Shin Megami Tensei if... has some interesting new demon designs but pretty much reuses visuals and tunes from the past two games. It's pretty disappointing, but it's good to know these tracks still rock out. The game also tries its hand with some interestingly out there demons like the Druj and Aji Dahaka instead of the usual Beelzebub and Metatron.

Shin Megami Tensei if... won't be anyone's favorite SMT game anytime soon but it tries its hand at the high school archetype for RPGs (which Persona would soon take up) and attempts a new mechanic. If you're an SMT fan and don't mind a grueling run, if... will be worth a look.