Majin Tensei（魔神転生）

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!!! I finally, finally finished Majin Tensei after 59 scenarios of tedious fucking hell/makai. I really need to question my own sanity. I guess I'm a glutton for punishment? Unfortunately, I didn't realize the snapshot feature on my emulator overwrites the previous snapshot so I pulled most of these images from other JP bloggers that are almost as crazy as me. I say almost because they stopped updating before finishing the game, which in retrospect was probably the right thing to do.

Ugh, seriously, fuck this game

I'm going to go on a little rant here because this game has a LOT of problems. The biggest problem is all the goddamn waiting for enemies to move and sometimes those fucking yellow neutral demons that take their own turn. It's so bad that the game was pretty much unbearable without a fast-forward emu button. I really, really should have started using the turbo button from the start. Even with that, it was a bear, especially Scenario 56 near the end with the fucking sprawling desert that you can only travel at 2 squares a turn.

Fuck this desert. I'm too fed up to even come up with a funny caption.

Now, I'm not too big into SRPGs so it's not like I have a ton of experience to compare to other games in the genre but I can tell a shitty game when I see one. Not only is the waiting just unbearable but the whole demon fusion part is completely useless. You generally only want to play with just the two main characters because the demons only get a few levels in the form of stars and experience is pretty much wasted on them. On most maps, it's the same spiel, rush to the nearest blue healing pool thingy, kill all the nearby enemies, rinse and repeat.

The other issue is your tiny inventory space which makes items and most of the treasure chests an absolute waste of time. Basically, you just hoard the jewels until you can trade them in for some aura gear or Excalibur.

Thanks for making items essentially useless

If for some crazy reason that I can't fathom, you are interested in playing this game, you might want to look up the conditions to unlock the "best" ending cause why the fuck would you want to play this any longer than necessary? One of the annoying requirements of this ending is to visit Atlas 3 times with 3 floors, essentially extra repeat playthroughs of 9 maps (almost as fun as stabbing yourself with a fork!).

I unfroze you so can you please get out of the fucking cave?

The other tip I would offer before you go down to hell/makai is to recruit both the army guy and the blonde dude by finding Izanami on a random square in a cave. At the very least, I recommend the angels because they can fly around fast to plug up those pesky spawn circles.

She's in a cave somewhere, just google jp it. 

Score: 1.5 "so good I cried in joy when it was finally over" out of 5 (too many hours of my life wasted to beat)

Honestly, besides the boring waiting game Atlus thinks somehow qualifies as "gameplay" and the fact that none of the mechanics are fun or serve any practical purpose, I thought it was a pretty good Megami Tensei game. I can't comment on the music because it was playing at 2x speed pretty much the entire time but the story however minimal it was, has the standard Megaten shenanigans.

If you don't mind fast forwarding after every turn and really, really must play ALL the Megami Tensei spin-off series, I would say give it a go. However, to play the game as it was originally intended without emulation is just a pure exercise in self-flagellation. (I mean if you're into that kind of stuff, I won't judge.)

Thankfully, I'm here to warn the 2 people that read this blog to avoid a game they were never going to play anyway so I'll conclude my contribution to the greater good of society here. Don't say I didn't warn you...
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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