Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei（デジタル・デビル物語 女神転生）

Finally, I finished my first SMT game err, I mean MT? Ugh what a stupid acronym. Anyways, what I actually played was the first half of Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei, the updated SFC remake of Megami Tensei 1+2. This is the DRPG and not the overhead action MSX/PC88/etc Nihon Telenet thing. For those new to this blog, DRPG is what we call 1st person dungeon crawlers since we don't need to waste a stupid letter to identify JRPGs (known to Jhipsters as RPGs).

The first thing you'll notice when you start up the game is all the reasons why this game was never localized. NOA was so busy trying to suck up to Congress saying THEIR games were wholesome family fun and would never have filth like Night Trap, they had to pretend this game didn't exist. Thanks to no internet, that was easy to do back in the day. I doubt this game would have helped their PR image if Shitaku was around back then.

Quick, somebody call Congress, it's time to hold to a hearing!!

I think this is the first game I've played that's actually a sequel to a bunch of books (for the kids, this is that Egyptian papyrus with words printed on it stacked on top of each other). Since the only version of the books available online are English fan-translated pirated stuff (typical), I decided to check out the OVA instead to get caught up on the lore.

Since YT has Content ID, I'm sure this is TOTALLY legal
Unfortunately, the anime only covers the first book and ends in a cliffhanger with a message from Set. However, I didn't really think the anime was so great anyways and I got enough of the gist to play the game. Maybe the books present it better but basically, you play as this asshole Nakajima who decided to make a program to summon devils cause first world problems and now you have to fix your own giant mess. You don't have to worry about how you defeated Loki and Set in the books because lo and behold, Lucifer helpfully resurrected them for you to beat again in the game.

Man Loki, I already beat you. Didn't you watch the OVA??

So the game is pretty much a standard map filler exercise. Thankfully, it does have an auto-map so no pen+paper needed. If you're obsessive compulsive, this is a great game to go fill in all the squares. If you explore every corner, you won't miss anything and should be able to get through the game without getting stuck except for the last sword which you have to go back to a random spot to find. I also looked up the map once to get through the halls on fire. It was really annoying to lose health on every step and I didn't want to wander around aimlessly constantly losing health trying to find Izanami's clothing (it's not what you think).

Umm... that's a very interesting way to decorate your walls.

The fusion stuff was pretty original for its time but man was it really skewed toward fucking Salamanders for some reason. For example, in order to fuse a level 57 Odin, you need a Sphinx and a Hanuman. To make a Sphinx, you need a Salamander and a Yasha. In order to make a Yasha, you need a Tsukuyomi and another fucking Salamander. And in order to make a Hanuman, you need a Zebec and ANOTHER FUCKING Salamander. Of course, it didn't help that I already had just finished fusing a level 55 Ganesha which also requires a Yasha and Hanuma which is TWO MORE Salamanders. So to make 5 Salamanders, I had to basically find 5 Dwarves and Pukas, the former which was annoyingly difficult to encounter.

Odin - mix 3 salamanders and a pinch of lemon for flavor

I also didn't really get the point of the moon phases and the date. There isn't any kind of time limit (thank god) and the only thing I cared about was NEW MOON because that's when you can't recruit any demons. Overall, the gameplay was just the standard attack and use magic to heal affair. You just grind away and eventually, you'll be able to get through with the handy AUTO battle. Though if you walk around with your demon friends, you will lose some MAG on every step so some resource management in necessary. I REALLY hated that enemies can sometimes knock down your level though. It made me save like a paranoid tinfoil hat crazy and if you get leveled down, you might as well restart. And for fuck's sake, could you show the stats for equipment in the equip menu?? I mean, it got so annoying going back to the item menu that it was easier to just look up the equipment list online. Lame.

Ugh, would it kill you to show some numbers here? It's a freakin' SFC remake!!

In terms of the plot, there's really nothing to spoil and it's as simple as can be. You're in there to kill some fucking demons and that's what you're going to do. Oh congrats, you killed em! Game Over. Thanks for playing! There is a floating city though so that's cool. You can fly to the final dungeon halfway through the game and die instantly just for giggles.

Dunno about the original FC version but check out dem SUPER graphics!!

Score: 2.5 Ignorant congressmen unaware kids in Japan were brainwashed into devil worship out of 5.

A dead simple game but still strangely addictive. I played while multitasking a visual novel and it was a perfect distraction while I listened to some imouto dialogue going on about oniichan, oniichan. I wish I was joking here but unfortunately, this is actually totally true.

The music was pretty good but it got far too monotonous after hours and hours of dungeon crawling. Eventually, I just turned it off to listen to my imouto in the other multitask game.

Yeah, might sound good to you now but try listening through 8 floors of Daedalos
A few more totally random screenshots just to highlight the wonderful Nintendo platform.

Ahh, fucking RICK. Man, what a great character and what a great story!!

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely