I’m still a bit behind on posting retrospectives for 2024, but May’s entry is worth the wait. Let’s get right to it:
Now this is what I’m talking about. I came away from the original Megami Tensei game, Digital Devil Story, wishing it had more to offer beyond the basic dungeon crawling grind that wore out its welcome halfway through. Well, as if the Archangel Michael himself answered my prayers, revamped successor Shin Megami Tensei finally delivers on the design framework Megaten 1 laid down, this time complete with fleshed-out worldbuilding and characters, handy convenience features, and meaningful player choice. I know, choices that matter, in a JRPG? Color me shocked as well, and SMT pulls them off brilliantly.
The game’s premise involves a player-insert protagonist caught up in a battle between order and chaos, played out on a local scale at first via two warring cults, then escalating to a grand conflict between gods, using humans as pawns — particularly your character. Actions you take throughout the game put you on either the Law, Chaos, or Neutral alignment, which affects gameplay in myriad ways, such as the bosses you face, dungeon availability, even the demons you can summon. It’s a surprisingly deep system for 1992, and though it may be an earlier Super Famicom title — I played a fan translation — SMT is full of surprises and that quintessential Atlus flavor.
Right off the bat, Shin Megami Tensei sets the mood. We open on our protagonist — I’ll call him Kazuya since that’s what the strategy guide for the PS1 remake goes with. He’s having a prophetic dream, filled with the horrifying depiction of a man strung up on a cross, another man being attacked by a demon, and ending with the classic imagery of a naked lady in a lake. They don’t make ’em like this anymore, folks. These intro scenes set up the three major factions of the game, which will come into play soon enough. First, Kazuya wakes up to a message on his computer from a hacker dude named Stephen, who has mass-sent a “Demon Summoning Program” out to anyone with the balls to try it. Naturally, Kazuya downloads it before wandering outside, where he realizes his hometown of Tokyo ain’t quite how he remembers it. Namely, there’s a lot of police activity, rumors of demon appearances and attacks. It’s not long before he finds out these rumors are true, but in a mysterious stroke of what can’t be luck in an SMT game, Stephen makes contact and shows Kazuya how to persuade demons to join his side.
That’s right, you can summon demons from your computer to fight your battles, but before Kazuya gets to do much of that, he’s wrongfully accused of a crime and tossed in jail, where he serendipitously meets future party members, the Law Hero and Chaos Hero. Turns out, these are the guys from Kazuya’s dream, and they both had similar dreams, too, so everybody recognizes each other. Surely this means they must work together, so they set out for more information. Now, you can rename the Law and Chaos Heroes, but I’m gonna keep calling them that since they tie heavily into the plot and the player’s decision making — you’ll see.
Demon summoning works much like in Digital Devil Story — did you know that was Atlus’s first game? I’ve got a retrospective on it, too, if you’re curious. Thankfully, unlike in that game, you can now recruit demons even if there’s more than one left in a stack, fixing one of my big complaints about the first game — nice! At the start of a turn, Kazuya can choose to talk to a monster, initiating a text-based minigame of sorts, where the demon will do stuff like ask for cash, ask a yes or no question, or straight-up flee. Often it takes multiple correct responses to various pseudo-random requests to win a demon over, yet you don’t always automatically fail from one wrong answer. Often the path branches, and while outcomes most do lead to failure, SMT’s recruitment process manages to feel less punishing overall than in Megami Tensei 1. Usually if I wanted a particular demon, I got it after a few encounters.
The system’s also just a lot more engaging. Much of what the monsters say in these asides makes next to no sense or comes off as childish or disturbing, and while you might chalk some of that up to the translation, I’m betting it’s also in the spirit of the original Japanese. I don’t need to speak the language to know that this is one weird game, full of trippy cutscenes, religious motifs, and sequences where dreams are indistinguishable from reality, not to mention loads of macabre and disturbing events. It’s almost as if the devs just thought demonic and satanic imagery is cool and decided to go hog wild using it in a game. And it works, in large part since the devs play the religious theming straight. Shin Megami Tensei isn’t satire; it’s a JRPG that takes inspiration from Christian, Jewish, pagan, and other mythologies because they’ve got bad-ass iconography, instead of the more typical choices of the genre. After playing so many Japanese RPGs that pull heavily from either the classic elements; or Greek, Roman, and Norse myths; or Zoroastrianism and other Eastern traditions; SMT fulfills my desire for novelty, and it goes hard.
In fact, presentation is probably its strongest asset: this game is gorgeous, easily the best looking from 1992 I’ve played so far. It’s got a classic 80s anime vibe, with smooth, flat colors that I’d directly compare to today’s cel-shaded 3D games, only these were hand-drawn, at least for the most part. Dungeon backgrounds tend toward the simple side, making the fully detailed characters and demons pop — seeing each new monster sprite was a treat, especially since I’m familiar with most of their old portrayals from Digital Devil Story, not to mention Persona 3, the only other game in the series I’d played up to this point. “Ooh, I’ve GOT to have one of those” was a familiar thought throughout this 35-hour demonic adventure, despite being deceived by monsters whose looks outmatch their combat utility more often than I’d like. On the plus side, there’s relatively few palette swaps. (SMT: 1, Dragon Quest: 0)
Kazuya begins with the ability to summon only a few demons at once, an interesting restriction that gets lifted later on. I say “interesting” because at first it doesn’t seem necessary, since my “favorite” resource Mag also returns — I hope you can tell I’m being sarcastic. Like in Megami Tensei 1, Mag drains while walking around with demons summoned and is replenished by battling, a mechanic that should remove the need for summon limits if it were well balanced. The problem is that here Mag feels even more pointless than before: at least in the first game I occasionally found myself low and had to limp along with my humans for a while. In SMT I barely paid attention to the number and never had a problem — it’s not even displayed most of the time. So why include it at all? The summon limit is enough of a balancer.
But.. back to our party, wandering the streets while they turn into a warzone. They soon learn their city is being invaded by demons from a place called the Abyss, and that American forces have seized control, presumably in attempt to quarantine all of Tokyo. Those damn Americans, doing American things. It’s all quite the mess, especially since a Japanese militia group headed by Gotou, one of the game’s major players, has risen up against them. It’s up to you to choose a side — work with the American ambassador Thorman and his rule of law, or go with Gotou’s military to start some chaos. Of course, there’s also the neutral option, which involves our final party member, the leader of a resistance group. I’ll call her simply the Heroine, since I’m sticking with Law Hero and Chaos Hero for the boys. These guys, by the way, though happy to work as part of one happy party at first, eventually show signs of stirring disagreement, both with each other and with Kazuya, depending on what choices you’ve made and when. These are no generic NPC party members: as their names imply, they play key roles in the story, even potentially leaving your party, or worse.
Yep, more than any Japanese RPG I’ve played, SMT pulls out the stops to ensure your choices matter in terms of both story and gameplay. I walked the Neutral path, figuring I’d see a little of everything that way, and to my surprise I wasn’t disappointed — usually RPGs don’t put as much effort into neutral routes versus the more obvious outcomes of good or evil, but here I think Neutral might be the best choice. The game’s set up in a way that you’ll explore most of the same areas no matter which path you choose, perhaps with only minor differences like the location of NPCs or bosses that come earlier or later in one route versus another. All the while, subtle decisions tick your alignment toward either Law or Chaos, even when you might not realize it, a facet I appreciate in an era where designers love to spell out every consequence for decisions before you even make them. It’s not until deep in the game that you can actively choose to boost one alignment over the other, and only at one point: an oddly-pachinko-esque monster gauntlet that probably doesn’t make much sense to anyone not using a guide. But it is there if you need it.
Your choice of alignment also affects demon availability. You can capture or fuse whichever ones you want, but only a Chaos-oriented Kazuya can use Chaos demons, and same for Law. However, this doesn’t impact the game too much — since I picked neutral I missed out on a few powerful Law and Chaos demons, but there’s always powerful Neutrals available, and for the most part you’ve got plenty of time to change your mind mid-game and either repent for your sins or embrace Lucifer.
And I mean plenty of time. SMT is lengthy, filled with dungeon after dungeon, and while it’s supremely well paced with plenty of short scenes, dialogue, and surprises to break up the flow, it’s still a hardcore dungeon crawler with old-school sensibilities. You’re forced to take to your time, learn each new area — where all the shops are at, which monsters to look out for because they can one-shot you, which demons to catch, and so on. I love that kind of thing, but it’s not for everyone, so know what you’re getting into. At the same time, no one should be afraid of a game like this just because it’s old. It’s from ’92 during the heyday of the SNES; this ain’t some early CRPG dungeon crawler or even Megami Tensei 1, a much more painful and tedious experience.
SMT1 ain’t tedious. Like in its predecessors, you can run from battles, but when you don’t they’re snappy and fast, with a handy auto-battle function some player might poo-poo but I consider a godsend. I’m all about games that let me configure my setup then execute my will indiscriminately, and for a game all about using computers to control demons, that’s a perfect fit. Yo, give me an SMT game with FF12’s gambits, pronto!
Aside from all the devil summoning, battles themselves play out about as traditionally as JRPGs get, only with Atlus’s now famous naming scheme for spells, based on its own blend of language inspirations. However, this time your human party members are no slouches. Instead of needing to protect him, most of the time I had Kazuya at or near the top of my party, soaking up hits while attacking with swords for good damage, comparable to what my demons were putting out for the duration of the game. In fact, he was often my best damage dealer in boss fights. Score one for the hominids. The Heroine, your only other permanent party member, is best suited as a strong magical attacker with occasional gun support for enemies weak to them. (Sadly, while guns are a main weapon type along with swords, they go under-used.) You can distribute each character’s stats upon recruitment and through level-up, but each have clear roles to play, which I stuck to. No need to be a rebel on my first playthrough.
You still get zero XP when you run from battle, even from stacks you’ve already killed (Boo, when will that mechanic go away?), but thankfully now, if you talk a demon out of combat you will get XP from previous stacks. That means talking demons down becomes a viable if not outright desirable way to end a battle when a “surprise” stack of six of the worst monster in the dungeon pops up after taking down another (yeah, that sick mechanic made its way back, too). Admittedly, this is less of a chore on an emulator — persuading demons can take a long time.
While much of the action takes place in ordinary locales like the Kichijoji district’s local mall, hospital, labs, and office buildings, the happenings are anything but, and that’s the true appeal of SMT to me. The story eventually takes the party all over Tokyo, from Ginza to Ikebukuro to Ueno, and even a send-up of Tokyo Disneyland called Tokyo Destiny Land. All of these are far from familiar, steeped in a dreamlike haze where seemingly anything can happen — at least, anything involving the occult or demons. Of course, from my perspective a JRPG set in Tokyo is exotic enough on its own, but putting that aside, there’s a lot of crazy stuff going on here. Possessed computer terminals, corporate conspiracies involving magic, encounters with Buddhist deities, NPCs who somehow know way more about the forces of Law and Chaos than you, and most intriguing of all, a mysterious woman you come across in the depths of various dungeons named Yuriko, who from the moment you meet her is obviously more than she seems.
Cleverly, Atlus again chooses to restrict the action to a window with the UI below it, which only takes a few minutes of getting used to and presumably lets the devs do more visually. But it also helps immerse the player in the dystopian nightmare version of Tokyo they’ve crafted — I’d find myself zoning out grinding for half an hour or more, not even realizing which controller buttons I’m pressing, absorbed by the depths of a cult’s headquarters or a creepy government building. If this is the kind of atmosphere and visual appeal Atlus could accomplish for a relatively early SNES project, I can’t wait to see what SMT2 looks like.
And I haven’t even mentioned the music, a huge step up from the just-OK soundtrack of Megami Tensei. (It’s got some killer tracks, but I’ve got to be discerning in such a rich category of amazing music.) Returning composer Tsukasa Masuko makes the most of the Super Famicom’s sound hardware to dish out a course of layered, chunky atmospheric tracks; dark and spooky overtures, and intense, pulsating rhythms. Primarily voiced by synths, the OST as a whole goes for “haunting and creepy” as a central theme, one well-suited for a game all about the demonic. Masuko never forgets about melody, though, laying down chunky bass line, thumping drums, flute and vocal sections, even the occasional upbeat, jazzy tune. But, it’s mostly dark electronica, and it rocks.
Alright, while I won’t go into full endgame plot details, next up are some minor mid-game plot spoilers and endgame character spoilers — skip to the “END SPOILERS” paragraph marker below if you want to play SMT1 absolutely untainted by the words of a lowly YouTuber. Otherwise, let’s go.
A third of the way through, in a pretty neat timer-based sequence, Tokyo gets destroyed and civilization as we know it is lost. Yep, for real. The party ends up in a mysterious place where they meet an equally mysterious man named En-no-Ozuno who explains they’re in a place called Kongokai: basically the Abyss, or afterlife. He offers to send everyone back to Earth, albeit with a warning: it might be different from when they left due to all the destruction that’s been wrought. The heroes swear to defeat the demons and bring peace back to the world. Before fulfilling his end of the deal, En-no requests some “Soma” water from a spring somewhere in Kongokai — of course, the whole place is a dungeon, so it’s a bit of a trek to find. Upon your return, just to troll you, he sends you all the way back to fetch another glass for him. What a dick! Now that’s some classic Japanese humor I can appreciate.
The party eventually does get zapped back to a ruined Tokyo, where they hear about Ozawa, a new villain who’s been on a tear of psychologically breaking the population’s minds. He does this by enslaving individuals with psychic abilities, then forcing them to twist the minds of others. This guy now runs Shinjuku, and what’s worse, rumors are that the Roppongi district has turned into a zombie filled wasteland. Furthermore, Tokyo’s about to get flooded. These are but a few of the new challenges awaiting our reluctant heroes, who’ve now got no choice but to either embrace or balance the forces of law and chaos to try and save the world.
That’s the premise for the rest of the game, which centers around a dungeon called the Great Cathedral that Kazuya and his traveling companions will visit several times, progressing either high into its towers or deep into its depths, depending on your chosen alignment. It’s only around this point where your decisions start playing out in major ways involving the Law and Chaos Heroes, each associated with one of these “wings” of the dungeon in various ways. Depending on what choices you make and when, one or both will leave your party to become a major antagonist. Their personal stories get touched on throughout the game, as they periodically leave and rejoin the party for ego-driven reasons, spitting spurious fire each time — these guys’ dialogue is a highlight of the game.
END SPOILERS
But the coolest part about Shin Megami Tensei is that I never knew what to expect. For most JRPGs, the general structure and vibe is predictable. You’ll go from town to town, helping people and learning more about the world and some great evil, then maybe have your party shaken up before picking up the pieces, collecting some magical artifacts or weapons, then defeating the ultimate baddie — usually temporarily, on a galactic scale. In other words, your standard hero’s tale. SMT totally flips the formula, all taking place in a single region of Japan, but letting you explore all kinds of otherwise mundane locations that feel fresh when explored in a dungeon crawling JRPG setting. One minute, you’re exploring well-known locations in Tokyo, the next you’re fighting demons and uttering spells like Mazionga, the next you’re in purgatory, or in a dream world speaking to a demon queen.
This feels like the first “true” Atlus RPG, the one that took their fledgling demon summoning concept and meshed it with with the kind of worldbuilding, storytelling, and characterization they’re known for today. And well, I think Atlus felt the same way. Megami Tensei means “Reincarnation of the Goddess”, referring to the protagonists, an idea used again here. But shin means true or genuine, and this indeed feels like Atlus’s attempt to make the series their own. Given the untouchable legacy SMT has spawned since, I’d say they succeeded.
Let’s take a gander at some of the most popular and well-known contemporary JRPGs to when SMT was released. We’ve got Final Fantasy IV and V, Dragon Quest IV and IV, the early Shining games, The Legend of Heroes I and II, Romancing Saga, and Fire Emblem Gaiden. I’d say that’s a pretty good selection of classics. None of them look as good as Shin Megami Tensei, and none bring anywhere close to its level of immersion. For storytelling some might look to Dragon Quest V, FF4, or The Legend of Heroes, and that’s hard to argue. It’s a toss-up for me. But pound-for-pound, it’s hard to top the total package offered by SMT. This is one of my favorite games on the SNES and among my favorite JRPGs, period. But most importantly, it’s fun to play. (And pro-tip: if you get tired of grinding, fuse some demons instead. You’ll save yourself a lot of time.)
Thanks for reading May’s belated entry for JRPG Journey 2024. I’ve been having a ball writing these. See you soon, when I’ll examine a fresh take on the start of another long-running series with the Super Mario RPG remake for Nintendo Switch.
