I can't believe I wrote about the first Shin Megami Tensei game in 2018. In fact, I can't believe I started this blog in 2015! Jesus, I'm old! Well, it's now 2022 and I finally finished the sequel Shin Megami Tensei II. I've said this before but at this point, I just have to live with the fact that I'll die of old age before I finish every game in my closet. I no longer try to force myself to finish awful games (fuck you Avalon Code) so the fact that I was able to complete this one already means it was enjoyable enough to reach the end.
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| I'll enjoy SMTV in like 10 years, in the meantime... |
Probably my favorite part of the first game was the beginning, talking to your mom and going to the mall. The events in normal Tokyo leading to the apocalypse was fun and pretty much all I remember from the first game.
Remember when everything didn't suck? Oh man, the good ol' days
In this sequel, it's not clear what happened to the first game's characters but apparently they did end up building Tokyo Millenium, which was maybe the Law ending? In any case, you start out as a gladiator with memory loss, which doesn't seem to be the most original start to a story. But no worries, without any spoilers, the story did not disappoint.
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| Is it amnesia or... something else? No spoilers on this blog! |
Even though 95% of the game consists of filling maps, grinding, and going here and there, you'll read some brief dialogue that drop some bombshell revelations. It is a good reminder that you don't need hours and hours of dialogue to tell a good story though I won't complain if it's voiced by Kana or Ayachi.
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| Fully voiced remake when? Ahh, it'll probably suck cause it won't be the same (huh?) |
As for the gameplay, it's a pretty mixed bag, nothing surprising if you've played the previous games. First of all, the Mag consumption really discourages walking around with demons in your party. I almost always played with just two characters. The only time I felt the need to recruit and fuse demons was when you had to go rescue Hiroko all by your lonesome and to beat Abbadon. You really, really need to fuse a demon with Tarukaja because trust me, I tried to beat him whittling away at his HP on auto mode and gave up after a couple HOURS.
Near the end, you run into enemies where neither swords nor guns work but I just ran away from them. Maybe because I pumped all my points into speed, I had no trouble running away from any enemies that were annoying to kill.
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| Apparently this is Cero A... fine with me? |
All in all, it was pretty much auto battle all the way. The enemies in this game are so generous in dropping full health items, I hardly used any magic. Now, you could conceivably go to town, recruiting and fusing, and devising all kinds of clever strategies but I just slashed and shot everything and ran away if that didn't work. Near the end, Hiroko learns a spell that allows you to summon your demon as undead and that seemed almost a cheat because they're pretty much invincible. I just spammed Tarukaja and whittled away at the final boss to reach the neutral route ending where you basically kill everybody... again.
A quick couple things to note if you are interested in playing this game. There are two points in the game where you have to raise both your INT and MAGIC to 10, really annoying for a character that doesn't use magic. Though I suppose INT is supposed to help you recruit demons. Also, the direction your avatar spins no longer shows your alignment. You can check with law/chaos exclusive gear or by trying to heal at either.
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| It's a classic, you gotta use your imagination, damn kids these days... |
Fortunately, I was able to switch my alignment back to neutral even after the game asks you a bunch of questions near the end that swings it pretty hard one way or the other. The final point to decide is when Zain asks you to join him, about 10 hours from the end of the game so you may want to keep a couple saves at that point. For me, I doubt I'll ever come back to replay the other routes.
Score: "Oh, you like Nocturne? Kids these days..." 3 dismissive snorts out of 5 (45 hours to beat)
All in all, this game is tied for my favorite Megaten game so far with Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei 2. I liked that your character has an actual backstory to reveal instead of just some generic kid from the first game. I also really like Beth's character and would totally play a remake with her voiced by some cute voice actress.
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| Hot springs event / bikini DLC, c'mon Atlus it's free money!!! |
The difficulty balance was weird and quirky but at least it wasn't super frustrating and frankly fairly easy to play through even on so called EXPERT mode. Yeah Abbadon was a pain but at least his body wasn't too annoying to navigate again if you didn't have the proper skills to beat him. All in all, not a bad way to spend my ever dwindling life span... I guess?
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
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