Shin Megami Tensei 4

Hoy!
 

I just finished this game and I had to rush to my computer and type out this post because HOLY SHIT is it good.  If you need a monster collecting game on the go, put the Pokemon shit away and get yourself some of this hotness

The game follows the adventures of Flynn (or whatever you chose to name him), a strapping young man who has come to the prosperous city of Mikado to become a Samurai.  After doing a sort of test to see if a mystic gauntlet will allow him to become a Samurai, he joins the ranks of the soldiers sworn to protect the people from demons that dwell in a cave just under the town called Naraku.  It doesn't take long faffing around in there though before OOPS! You're actually in a post apocalyptic Tokyo and you must explore the ruined city and continue an adventure that will end up shaping the entire world.

 Game play wise, for people familiar with SMT, it's more SMT goodness albeit slightly easier compared to previous entries.  The game does however have an expert mode that, at time of writing, I have not tried yet due to it being locked behind a game clear but I suppose for real die-hard fans the challenge is there.  For those not familiar with SMT, the game is sort of like a demonic Pokemon where you run around, recruit demons and use them to fight enemies and bosses.  To get demons you have to negotiate with them, answering their questions or giving them money and items to convince them to join you.  From there you can also fuse demons together to create newer, stronger demons which you are going to want to do if you don't want to make the game incredibly hard for yourself.

Usually here, with most SMT games I'd be warning you about the games difficulty as this series is sort of notorious (outside of the Persona spin-off franchise) for being quite difficult but if you were looking for a place to start, 4 is a good bet as it has a weird reverse difficulty curve.  The first parts of the game in Naraku are tough as nails with certain enemies and bosses just destroying you and your demons.  But after a while the game starts to get easier and easier.  For me personally, I was so pumped up and overpowered that the final boss could barely touch me and even when he did get a few good hits in I was able to fully heal it off in a single turn.   

The game is also pretty replayable with it's 3 (technically 4 but one of them is for little babies) endings.  The game will pose a number of questions and situations at you and depending on what choices you make you will either go down the Law or Chaos path which have different bosses and such during each.  For people willing to look at a guide you also have the choice to do a True Neutral path which involves doing a bunch of side quests and making some very specific choices at very specific times which is a good goal to go for on a second run I feel. 

As far as criticisms go, of course I have to shit on the game for locking the expert mode behind a game clear.  I'm VERY familiar with this series and the games normal mode after the opening area was pretty much a joke.  Probably perfect for newcomers but for a seasoned veteran it's very easy so if the story doesn't sweep you up like it swept me up, then the game MAY get boring for you. Also I can't quite place my finger on exactly why but I hate the interface for demon fusion in this entry.  I just find it clunky and annoying to deal with.  My final big criticism is that the "Challenge Quests" are extremely uninspired and boring.  I was trying to be diligent and do as many as possible at first but after a while I got so sick of them that I just ignored them entirely.  Due to this it would EXTRA piss me off when you try to do a demon negotiation and instead of doing that they would waste your time with "hey guy wanna do a quest for me?" but once you accept it they stop bothering you about it so its a minor issue really.

Seriously though, if you're into these kind of monster collecting games I HIGHLY recommend SMT4, it's one of the best of it's kind and probably the best game I've ever played on the 3DS.  So stop wasting time and go hunt some demons already

Imagine If... Shin Megami Tensei AR Game

 

I remember when Shin Megami Tensei Dx2 Liberation was announced.  It was around the time that Pokemon Go was still riding a wave of popularity and I got the (mistaken) idea that Dx2 was going to be that kind of game but when it came time to download I was sorely disappointing.

 When I spoke about Dx2 on the blog I had a few nice things to say about it.  Despite the awful gatcha system and some legendary amounts of grinding that needed to be done, for a shitty little mobile RPG it wasn't actually that bad.  There was even a mode available to some phones where you could use an AR thing to take pictures with your demons in the real world but it didn't really have anything to do with the game itself.  So I'm going to use this post to sort of dream up what I think a proper Shin Megami Tensei AR game would be like and hopefully someone at ATLUS will stumble on this page and steal the idea.  Probably not but a mans gotta dream.

Your phone in this hypothetical game would take the place of the COMP or maybe the gauntlet from SMT IV.  In fact the gauntlet from SMT IV makes a little more sense because in that game you buy "apps" with "app points" as you level up allowing you to store more demons, get more skills or make various features cheaper.  From your phone then you'd manage your team, manage your items, buy player focused skills and you could probably put the Cathedral of Shadows in the main menu too.

The main meat of the game I suppose would be the same thing as Pokemon Go.  You would go outside, walk around and get into encounters on the map where you would fight demons. In those fights you could kill the enemies for EXP or you could do demon negotiation to recruit them into your party.  That of course isn't enough to hold an entire game by itself so you'd have to lift some things from Pokemon Go, mainly the raid system.  Instead of calling them raids though you could take a page from the Nocturne book at have "Fiend" battles where groups of players would fight a single enemy.  For the 6 people in the world that have played Dragon Quest Walk, sort of similar to how raid battles work in that.  When you beat a raid in Pokemon Go you are granted a chance to catch the rare monster but that wouldn't really work in a game like this, so pulling from the SMT3 book once again, a Fiend could drop a menorah that you could use to access a dungeon.  These dungeons would be separate from the walking around and be done in a first person view, a nod to the classic games for the long term fans, and in these dungeons you'd have a chance to get rare items and recruit strong demons.  Although it would be unfair to lock out players from this side of the game if they aren't strong enough to do the fiend encounters so randomly around the map you could spawn "Amala Terminals" or something like that.  Players could walk to these and take part in a sort of mini dungeon-crawl  and these areas would have their own loot and demons to gather.

Of course, this is just my personal dream of what an SMT AR Game would look like, I'm sure some actual game designer with many years experience over me could put something better together but it's nice to dream about something that could be.  Although, being really honest, I'd rather ATLUS just get SMT 5 out rather than focus on side projects like this.

 

Dx2 Shin Megami Tensei Liberation First Impressions

I never thought in my life I'd be impressed to the point of gushing HARD on a mobile game but it's finally happened and OF COURSE it's a fucking Shin Megami Tensei game that has me frothing at the mouth with excitement.

I've talked about it before but just in case I'll cover once again what Shin Megami Tensei is before I continue in case a new reader has stumbled across this post.  Shin Megami Tensei is a long running series of RPGs that has been going since the old NES days.  It has its roots in tile based dungeon crawling but as the series has progressed that style has dropped in and out.  The big gimmick of the series is the whole "demon negotiation" thing where you can convince your enemies to join your ranks and use their skills in order to reach the end.  The series has seen some massive success recently with it's spinoff series Persona and at some point a Shin Megami Tensei 5 has been cited for release on the Switch.  In a VERY basic way just think of it as sort of Grimdark Pokemon.

So I woke up on Sunday with a big fat hangover and grabbed my phone only to find that Dx2 SMT Liberation was on the front page of the Japanese app store and despite my pounding headache I did a little squee and downloaded it.  As far as mobile games go it's not all that different from any other RPG where you collect monsters and battle them but if you're a fan of the series, especially the mainline series, the look and feel of the game will have you hooked pretty quickly.  EVERYTHING you expect from a tried and true SMT game is present in this title just sort of simplified a little bit because it's on a phone now but presented in a way that makes it perfect for short burst plays on a train, bus or while you take a shit.

 I'm not going to go into too much detail about how it all works because there's A LOT going on and I've not levelled up enough to see it all but curiously the game has only 2 out of 5 stars on  the app store.  Addressing some of these complaints I've seen in the review section will help you to understand something about how the game works though so here I go.

The first big complaint I've seen is that they say (in Japanese) that the demons and the artwork look like crap.  The game has opted for the older SMT look as opposed to the more modern art direction that they have used in games like Persona so this is more of a taste thing.  I started the series with Lucifer's Call on PS2 when it was still using that sort of older look so it doesn't bother me really, this is just a taste thing but be aware the art style looks a bit "dated" which will be nostalgic for some and hard on the eyes for others.

The one thing I can't forgive though is people complaining about the fucking "gatcha".  If you don't play mobile games then a gatcha is the way most games give you new items or characters.  You pay a number of whatever currency it may be and the game randomly gives you a character.  If you're lucky you'll get a rare thing and if you're not lucky you won't, it's the main way these free to play RPGs make cash by making people pull lots of gatcha for mad rare shit.  These are usually a big part of mobile RPGs but in Liberations case it's not such a big thing.  The complaints state that the gatcha is too expensive and the rate of rare shit coming out is too low, which is fine I guess but that's not really how your supposed to expand your roster of demons.

As you play levels, occasionally a demon will offer to talk with you and you enter a negotiation.  If you complete the negotiation successfully the demon will join you, this is how SMT has worked basically since the beginning.  From there, you have you fuse the demons together to make new ones in order to strengthen your ranks and this is the main way that the player in Liberation gets rarer things.  For example today I took a 1* demon and a 2* demon and fused them into a 3* demon with some sick fire skills.  The gatcha does give you rare shit but the game wants you to focus on negotiation and fusion, you know, the thing where you actually have to understand how the game works, rather than just dumb luck.  While paying your way into the rarest demons is an option and probably how Sega plan to make profit, doing it the old fashioned way is preferable and series fans will probably enjoy this more than just "push button, receive demon".

I've never been this hooked by a mobile game before so if you're a SMT fan then absolutely try it out and if you've never played one before then this free outing into the mainline may be a good place to find your feet. 

Some Persona Fans Piss Me Off

I can feel the hate mail coming just from the title so hold your fucking horses and let me start with a clarifying statement.  I fucking love Persona 5, it was an amazing experience with both style and substance and is probably my personal favorite game on the PS4 right now with very little chance of being overthrown any time soon.  I'm also a big fan of Persona 3 and Persona 4, also great games that I sunk many many hours into and loved dearly.  Persona 4 Golden (and Dancing all Night) was pretty much the entire reason I bought a Vita.

But with that said, god DAMN some of you Persona "fans" on the internet piss me the fuck off.  Now I'm not talking about the legions of Weaboos that seem to make up the games fanbase, that's just sort of par for the course when it comes to titles like this and while they are cringy as fuck their slightly overzealous enjoyment of games in this style aren't really the problem.  My problem comes when I see posts from supposed "fans" shitting on mainline SMT or Persona 1 and 2.

First I think it's important to understand where I am with this series.  Way back when I lived in the UK, I remember my mum telling me about this game called Lucifer's Call on the PS2.  God knows how she came across it but it piqued my interest and I grabbed a copy and went from there.  This game blew my goddamn mind.  It was a bit like Pokemon but instead of shitty little woodland animals coming out of my balls and winning the day with friendship the whole game was basically a struggle to survive in a harsh world of demons that you had been thrown into (there's more to it than that, but for another day).  So I played the fuck out of that and then I don't remember playing much of the series until Persona 3.  It wasn't until that game that I realized that I wasn't just playing "Persona 3" but I was playing "Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3".  So I did some research on the series at large and the obsession grew from there.

Now the reason I can't stand the people who shit on Persona's 1 and 2 is just because I'm a ponce.  Those games are harder and a bit dated but it just seems silly to shit over the first two games and then go around the internet touting yourself as "a fan of the series".  Let's face it folks, Personas 3 and up and designed for ages 3 and up.  Easy mode SMT for people new to the series, a nice little way to break you in.  It's a great place to start if you've never played a MegaTen game before (although I'd argue that Digital Devil Saga is better) but by ignoring the rest of the series because it's "too hard" for you is just a crying shame.  As Souls fans say, "Git gud" because you're really missing out on so much and if you just spent even a LITTLE bit of time learning the basics of these games even notoriously hard entries like Strange Journey won't seem so impossible.

The people who get my back up though are the ones who shit on SMT as a whole.  The ones who are elated to point out the fact that ATLUS dropped the "Shin Megami Tensei" off the front of Persona 5.  The ones who will type out pages and pages of stupid, backward reasons about why the series sucks and Persona is the only thing keeping it alive (untrue).  These people are a bunch of stupid fucks that need to shove a Mara up their gaping assholes.

I can get why one might say "I don't like these games, they are hard and dated" because they are.  I'm currently replaying Megami Tensei on the NES (not even Shin) and coming off the back of P5 GODDAMN it's taken some readjusting.  But to turn around and say that SMT sucks is just fucking stupid.  Without SMT there wouldn't even be a Persona and as much as you probably don't want to admit it you are just playing easy mode MegaTen.  Hell, you could rename Persona "Shin Megami Tensei USA" because that's almost what they are at this point.

For those of you who didn't get the joke

Persona as we know it today wouldn't even be a thing if it wasn't for a very specific Shin Megami Tensei game called Shin Megami Tensei If...

It wasn't a hugely successful or popular title but two things in this game were direct inspirations for Persona.  First was the high school setting and the second was the guardian spirit system but if you think Persona 1 and 2 are dated you don't stand a chance with SMT: If...  The point is, everything that you love about the later Persona games has been tried, tested and perfected throughout the rest of the series at various points.  Disliking it is fine but shitting on it just makes you look like a fucking moron.

If you've tried the games and felt that they are dated or too hard, I implore you to go give them another try.  Use a guide if you have to or play the next best entry game after Persona in terms of difficulty, Digital Devil Saga.  If you think that SMT in general just sucks and you aren't willing to try again or even accept the massive impact its had on your so called "favorite" game, then have Morgana put you to bed and then do the world a favor by never waking up.

Persona 4 Golden

Persona 4 Golden is easily one of the best games on the Vita and everyone should play it.

I don't really have many complaints about this game so this post is going to be mostly gush.  I have a couple of bad things to say but I fucking love this game and nearly everything about it.

Persona 4 Golden follows the adventures of a player named high school student as he moves to the small rural town of Inaba.  Upon his arrival, a strange string of murders starts to occur where bodies end up in telephone poles on foggy days.  From there, rumours of the "midnight channel" start to spread which is a TV show that you can only see at midnight on a rainy night when you stare into a switched off TV.  The characters have to unravel the mystery of the midnight channel and the world on the other side of the TV that they can enter thanks to the power of their "persona".  It is up to you and your team of buddies to stop the murders and catch the mastermind before it's too late.

There's more to it than that obviously but I'm trying to sum it up in one short paragraph and that's kind of hard to do.

Anyway, the story actually isn't all that great but it's told in an engaging way that keeps you interested anyway.  The game is also filled with a bunch of side stories known as "Social Links" where the struggles of the games varied cast are played out and you get to play your part in helping them overcome their problems.

It's the game play in Persona 4 where things really start to get good.  By day, you are a high school student who must study, make friends, do part time work and other things.  By night, you are the hero of Inaba, braving the TV world with your friends in order to prevent horrific murders.  The TV world is made up of a number of randomly generated dungeons that you must work your way to the end of by a certain date or get a game over. 

The battle system revolves around your characters Persona's.  Each character has 1 persona that grows slowly over the course of the game with the exception of the main character who can store up to 12 persona's for use in battle.  You get these persona's by winning fights and collecting them from cards that appear randomly at the end of fights.  You can also fuse persona's together to make new, stronger ones which inherit skills of the two base monsters so you can make some really powerful stuff if you know what you are doing.

I have a few complaints about the game but none of what I'm about to say really tarnishes the experience at all.  First, the pace of the game is a little bit all over the place.  When the story gets going and when you have a dungeon to explore things are really good but the action gets a bit low when the case goes dead for a while.  Between dungeons there is a lot to do but it's all a bit samey and becomes rather dull rather fast.  That said you do get to explore the social links during these times so it doesn't feel too drawn out but these quiet segments do last a bit too long.

The combat is a little stranger in Persona 4 where if your main character dies then it's game over even if you have remaining party members.  I didn't game over much but when I did it was because an enemy or boss got a lucky hit on my main guy.  This was annoying because I had characters with revival magic but the game decided that didn't matter and I had to start over.

My final complaint is regarding the dungeon exclusive to the Vita version, the Hollow Forest.  While it's a cool addition to the game, the challenge presented is complete bullshit.  All the enemies are easy as shit but the game drains a huge chunk of your mana after every fight.  If you're not a dribbling idiot it's still an easy dungeon to overcome but the challenge comes more from having one hand tied behind your back rather than actually tough enemies, which is a disappointment.

Anyway, Persona 4 is an amazing game and it's easily my favorite game on Vita thus far.  That's saying a lot considering that the Vita has 2 Hatsune Miku games as well, so think about that for a while.  Give it a go.

Pokemon might just need to stop

Pokemon is a hugely popular series.  There are toys, games, TV shows, movies, all sorts of shit to be sold so that someone, somewhere can get rich and fat.  This is fine but I think we've finally hit a point where the games should really just stop.

Pokemon X and Y is the upcoming Pokemon title for the 3DS and marks the first time the game gets rid of the overhead 2D camera for a proper 3D game.  From what I have seen of the screen shots on a quick google image search, it looks like something that could have easily been done on the regular DS, so why the fuck did it take so long?

But that graphics aren't what people care about, it's the new Pokemon right?  But the problem there is that every Pokemon made after the whole Gold/Silver games have just been a bit shit really.  One monster that sticks out in my mind is something called Gurdurr

Anyway look at this fucking thing, its literally just a clown with a girder, talk about phoning it in.  I've heard that the total number of Pokemon has reached something insanely high like 700 or something, so no wonder it' has all started to go a bit shitty.

But what made me laugh the most was the name of these games, X and Y, really?  They have used up all their creative talent so now they are naming their games like Microsoft Excel spreadsheet cells.  I've had people tell me "oh, it's supposed to me chromosomes!" or some bullshit, but this is a load of crap and you KNOW it is.  Think about Pokemon, there has pretty much ALWAYS been a 3rd game with changes from the initial two (e.g. Yellow, Platinum or whatever).  So when Pokemon Z comes out you can stuff that chromosome shit up your arse, Pokemon isn't, and never will be that clever.

Still, despite my ranting I'm sure the Pokemon fans will eat that shit up, and it's fine, I don't have a problem with people enjoying Pokemon, it's just not for me.

(If you asked me I could probably name about 10 different monster breeding games better than Pokemon, go look up Shin Megami Tensei if you want a REAL monster breeding experience)