whatsarobot I am not sure whether I would recommend them to you; I am just a sucker for this sort of additional content in games I like. I purchased everything except the three Mitama cheating DLCs. Not that I would have minded being able to break the game on demand for later runs but I didn’t have enough cash left on that eShop account to buy them… I had just enough for the three standalone demons and the SMT3-themed DLC.
So, I was just now double-checking what’s in those DLC and I had completely forgotten Artemis was also a DLC demon. She can be fought and acquired around the time you complete the Golden Apple arc, so relatively early in the game. Her quest doesn’t really feel like a DLC (hence I had completely it was not part of the standard game). You can meet Artemis after beating the first area, she makes you chase after and fight another demon (around late 20s / early 30s level) then you can fight her yourself (she is Lv37).
The character seems fun to play with and, as an anime-loving kid of the 80s, I dig the extremely obvious Saint Seiya references. I am not sure how you access her essence (I guess through leveling) but that might be the most appealing part of the character system-wise: she has tons of blocks and resists, so if you can combine them with ice resist or the ice block trait, which IIRC is pretty easy to get from King Frost around the same moment in your progress, you will get a really strong protag very early on which might be helpful on the harder difficulty settings. On the skill side, she has a cute ability which is basically infinite spyglass but spyglasses are so cheap and easy to get that I do not think it’s worth wasting a skill slot.
Mephisto and Cleopatra are described as end game Bosses so, truth be told, you don’t have any reason to buy them right away. I already found Mephisto but he’s something like level 79. I don’t yet have access to the area where Cleopatra is to be found. Even if you are interested in the standalone DLC demons, I would recommend you only purchase Artemis and confirm if that felt worth your time and money, before you buy Mephisto or Cleopatra.
The most interesting DLC, easily, is the SMT3-themed one, apparently called Return of the True Demon. You get to fight the nine old Fiends from SMT3 (Matador & co.), then the demi-fiend / Hitoshura as an end game additional Boss. That’s a lot of contents, which is accessible from fairly early in the game (it starts with Matador at lv.24). The Fiends remain interesting fights even within the more flexible system of SMT5; they are also pretty easy to summon and rather useful as summons (I mentioned it earlier but Hell Biker is basically perfect for the second area’s final boss). That DLC is $9.99 but I find it to be much better value than the three standalone $2.99 demons combined.
Note that, unlike the Fiends, you don’t need to summon Artemis through special fusions to recruit her the first time. She joins your party if you have a free slot, then you can summon her again through your compendium. I assume it’s the same for Mephisto and Cleo. Also note that you cannot unlock demi-fiend as a summon.