After clocking in a grand total of nearly 59 hours (58:50:01 to be exact), I finally finished my first Shin Megami Tensei game a few days ago. I've recently been on a binge to play unconventional JRPGs, starting with my first playthrough of Earthbound, and than onto Mother 3. With Atlus putting the game on sale for $15, and it being the sister series to my best friend's favorite franchise of all time, Persona, I knew that I had to play it next.
I want to start out by saying that I liked SMT IV, mostly because a lot of what I'll be doing here is criticizing it. That being said, SMT IV has made me sort of love the SMT "universe." It definitely won't be my last, and from the other games I've seen in the series through research after playing this entry, I'm kind of glad that IV was my first. For everything that I have to criticize it for, they are mostly only because of stupidly easy to avoid mistakes that could have been so easy to avoid. One which only a tiny number of people who play this game will even experience their first time through, but which added literally 11 hours of playtime (and not in a good way).
It was frustrating because in truth, I didn't just like the game; I loved it. I love SMT IV, but I love it in much the same way that I love Pokemon X and Y; in spite of some pretty gaping flaws, and primerily because the moment to moment combat was immensly satisfying. (For SMT IV, that combat comes from the singleplayer, while in XY, that combat comes from the multiplayer)
That's what suprised me. I went in with the expectations that I'd have to slug through turn based combat, which I'm not a fan of, to experience a gripping, unconventional tale lined with complex phylosphies about the tug of war between order and chaos. I wasn't expecting to be blown away by the choices I was supposed to care about, or about which ending I'd get, but by why those endings matter and how each ending would try to justify itself.
I also didn't fucking know that there was a neutral ending at all, let alone- I'm getting ahead of myself.
In truth, what blew me away was how much I loved the combat, and how fucking addicting fusing demons was. I've spent sometimes an hour at a time fusing demons, when I only expected to spend 5 minutes doing so. I played I'd say 90% of the game in the exact same Black Demonica suit because I didn't want to waste my precious demon-fusing macca on "useless" clothing. Every new demon was like a new toy that would be quickly thrown away, sometimes within seconds, for something better or at least different. I would sometimes take a demon that totally didn't need to be fused yet, and fuse them in cycles, just to check off as many of the demons marked "new" as I could, so I'd have more options in the future.
The app store revolutionized my demon fusion too. If I could change one thing about my playthrough, I would have maxed out my demon summon level and my consortium discount as early as possible.
The challenge was great. Moments that could have felt cheap were saved because of how generous the saving system is. The boss battles were almost always satisfying to win, especially the bosses towards the beginning and end. Especially the final two bosses. I admit that I was feeling a little OP towards the end, and they did a fantastic job of putting me in my place.
At first, I wasn't a fan of the Almighty moves. I felt like they were way too overpowered damage wise, both for the player and for enemies, and I felt like their ability to circumvent reflect moves and not be resisted be anyone was cheap. But then I thought about Pokemon, and how even Pokemon with no weaknesses can be defeated. Buffs and Debufs are your friend. And honestly, if it weren't for almighty moves, some of the toughest moments in the game would have been laughably easy. It's all about balance, and Almighty moves had a pretty punishing, but ultimately fair way of doing that. Tetrakarn/Makarakarn can't protect my from everything, unfortunately.
A monumental thing I loved about this game was how there was no grinding. None. And if you found youself needing to grind, you were doing something wrong. The game is seemingly built around getting you not to need to grind. Bosses who were significantly higher leveled than you could be taken on and beaten easily with the right strategy, while wild demons who's levels were significantly lower than yours could one shot your entire team.
I had a eurika moment while fighting Madusa. I went up to her, fought her, and she crushed me. I was so frustrated, because the reason I was dying wasn't because I didn't know what I was doing, but because all of my demons were low on MP, and the game was really sparce with MP recovery items early on. Also, I had only one demon, and my MC, with attacks she was weak to. That meant I'd get only two extra press turns. I was annoyed because the only way I could think of replenishing MP was to grind to the next level. And then I remembered demon fusion. Not only was I able to replenish all my MP, but I was able to get all of my demons to have the attack she was weak against. And beating her felt so extremely satisfying.
But what came next was infinitely more satisfying. It kind of blew my mind. To make this clear, I went into this game knowing literally nothing but a vague idea of how the mechanics worked. I definitely didn't know anything about the story, other than that it had multiple endings, and that you had to choose between order and chaos (which, in my case, couldn't have been a more accurate thing to say). So to frame this well, to me, SMT IV was a game where the hub world, Mikado, was basically a menu, and it let you go into little dungeons depending on the story. And fuck, I was fine with that. I was having a fantastic time with that. I wished for more, but it's just a 3DS game.
That idea clearly insulted SMT IV greatly. Killing Medusa reveals a cutscene that does one of my favorite things that only video games can do. It changed the scale of the world in seconds. And it did it so masterfully, that it's what probably impressed me the most. It's just so clever, when you don't see it coming. The entire game, you're lead to believe that you're in this alternate reality. It's got a medieval vibe to it, so it feels like it's set in the past, but there is obviously tech that doesn't belong. Now I just assumed that it was just a wierd japanese quirk to the the world of the game that really didn't mean much. But it's the whole fucking game.
What started out as this insignificant tutorial cave, turned out to really be a giant tower separating "heaven" from "hell." Heaven being Mikado and hell being fucking modern Tokyo. Now I'm no stranger to plot twists. It's not the plot twist itself that blew my mind, but how expertly it went in immersing you in the moment. Until that point, you're mearly role playing. You're a guy/girl, pretending to be a character in this fictional kingdom. But this revelation completely takes you out of that. It immerses you by breaking the forth wall. Now you're no longer role playing, but spectating. You're the audience, and the game knows you're there.
But at the same time that your mind was blown, the protagonists' minds were blown to, and for the same, and different reasons. You both experienced the world you've experienced until then expand larger than you ever thought possible. The Mikado is specifically refered to as the "Eastern Kindom." That implies that there are other kingdoms. As a player, you're lead to beleive that the world you're playing in exists only in longitude. You've interacted with an entire city through menus. The expectation for exploration has been firmly set, and it's set to be in tandem with the role you're playing. This "small" kingdom on Mikado, this medieval world, is all the Samurai really know. It's their world, and theirs no reason for them to believe that there's more latitude to the world than at first thought. The only thing below them is hell on Earth. And that's only in fairy tales.
What's so brilliant is that, while the protagonists are brought from a familiar one to an unfamiliar one, the player is brought from the unfamiliar kingdom of Mikado to the immediately familiar real world Tokyo. And yet the effect on both parties, while for different reasons, remains the same.
From then on, absolutely none of the exploration is done through menus. The world doesn't just get larger in theme, but through immediate gameplay mechanics. You're exploring an overworld for the first time. Going into specific areas allows for on foot exploration. The idea of a dungeon all but evaporates for a true sense of exploration. When you're in a town, you're actually physically walking into rooms. Walking into really people. The tribulations of the people of Tokyo are immediately understandable. They are hiding in these homes, afraid to leave because of the demons you had to kill, and be killed by, to get where you are. In Mikado, walking from area to area was so care free, there was no point in even remembering the treck to get there. In Tokyo, simply walking around is dangerous.
But to the Samurai, this isn't Tokyo; this is hell on Earth. And to the player this is Tokyo, which is now a hell on Earth. There are demons everywhere, and the only people there are the "unclean ones." The sinners. The people who are supposed to be in hell. But as a player, you understand how this isn't true. The intruige from then on comes from watching the samurai come to this same realization.
Or that's what it should have been.
Unfortunately, the plot kind of takes a nose dive from here, with the characters to follow. It stinks, because it has a lot of the same issues that The Order had, but in a lot of ways, SMT IV does it worse. The characters are likable, but have no developement. At least, not until the end, where they change dramatically and kind of contradict their initial beliefs. Jonathan is shown to sypathize with the citizens of Tokyo, until it's his turn to make it clear that you're playing an SMT game, and he's all about law and order. Walter is literally shown to care about the underdog, until he suddenly decides that power is the most important thing, which completely goes against any reason to take out the Ashura-Kai, who's biggest crime was exploiting the weak.
It was all so stupid, and extremely disappointing to see. I went in knowing that people found the characters shallow, but after the first 10 hours, I thought I'd be disagreeing with that sentiment. I really liked Walter and Jonathan. They both had great voice acting and well written dialog. But every hour or so, they had to completely break character for a moment to push this law vs. chaos agenda, which not only ruined their characters, but lessened the game's quality over all.
When I'm making a choice, I don't need a little notification reminding me that I'm making a choice. But that would have been passable, but whenever you make a choice, and sometimes fucking before, either Walter or Jonathan have to step in and give their opinions on the matter, as if to say "just incase this wasn't already clear, that was/will be a law/chaos choice, just to you know. Better keep track, or you'll never get the video game ending you wanted!"
vs.
I chose to kill Issachar. Afterwards, I immediately regretted it and felt guilty about it, but that totally real feeling of remorse was completely trampled on a second later with Walter feeling the need to let me know that it was the most "realistic" choice, in other words "+5 for chaos!" It's insulting to anyone's intelligence. What harm would letting it remain ambiguous be? It's just as easy to believe that the chaotic choice would have been to let the raving demonic lunatic live; that killing your best friend out of mercy and respect was the lawful thing to do, to end his suffering. But Walter have to spell it out for you, and Jonathan had to reinforce it by voicing his disapproval a second later. And Isabeau was somewhere else being boring and neutral.
A similar moment of frustration happened in that hall where you make 3 choices based of some very interesting and ultimately complicated questions. The first was this:
"You are the ruler of a country. You have called upon your people to gather en masse for a game. Among those who attend, one is extraordinarily tall. What would you do? If you would exclude this person for the sake of fairness, go right. If you accept one's height is merely a part of their individuality and include this person, go left."
I chose to accept the person's hight, but that's not the point. The point is as soon as the question was asked, I made up my mind. I would have gone left. But I wasn't looking at the question as a chaos or law question; I was looking at the question from the point of view of trying to be a decent human. But before I could even excecute my choice, Walter told me left, Jonathan told my right, and Isabeau was as boring as usual. They took what could have been a nice and quiet moment of introspection, and fucking gamified it. It undermined the entire point of asking something like that. Now, I couldn't take each question for what it was. Now, all I could think about was what ending the game would give me. Now when I hesitated, it was because I knew that I didn't want to be tied down to any stupid ending, assuming things about me that obviously would be way off. And again, I didn't know of the existance of a neutral ending.
What's annoying about these choices wasn't what they existed, but that they had no subtlety. I later read on that killing the giant computer face in the chaos paths alternate future gave you some rediculous amount of points in chaos. I didn't even know that not killing it was an option. That's the kind of choices that I want to be making. Choices that I do because it feels right, not because it gives me points. The choices you make would have been infinitely more impactful if they weren't framed so poorly.
Walter and Jonathan would have been better if their characters weren't made solely to define a path. We all get it. Walter is the bad boy. Jonathan is the good boy. A demon even explicitely refers the them that way, as if he was being clever. You know what would have been interesting? If it turned out that Walter actually stood for order while Jonathan stood for chaos. Or if Walter and Jonathan didn't truly support either side, but felt as though they would result in the lesser of two evils. Or maybe Jonathan Jonathan feels like the only was society can maintain order is through the introduction of chaos, while Walter feels that the only way man can bring about freedom is through the institution of order.
Something complex. Something deep. But what we got was no better than in Infamous games. It's just Good vs. Evil in a new coat of paint, and it's shallow. And yes, the simple act of reframing these two positions does make things a little more interesting just by it's nature, but compared to the reveal of Tokyo, this doesn't even come close. It's severely disappointing, and a let down.
I kept saying that Isabeau was boring, but she was actually my favorite character (aside from Burroughs, who's a boss), because even though it became clear to me towards the end of the game that she was neutral all along, there were no neutral choiced to push on you, so those invasive lines of dialog just weren't a problem with her. The wasn't the neutral character, she was the character who liked to read these anchient picture books called "manga," was pissed when the ending was spoiled for her, and deeply appreciated it when the MC allowed her a moment to read the final chapter she found in an abandoned book store in Tokyo. I even forgot sometimes that a defining part of her character was that she too was a Luxuror.
Even calling her neutral isn't correct. In truth, she's unsure. She's conflicted. She's pretty much the player. She represents what the player becomes when they pick a side. When you look at her, knowing all three outcomes, she looks like a pushover. But when you look at yourself across the same outcomes, it becomes clear that she deserves more empathy. She's a mirror; in many ways the opposite, but in many ways the same.
The MC is male while Isabeau is female. The MC's hair is long while hers is short. Whichever path you chose, she'll choose the opposite. When you're looking at her, that's what she sees in you. When you walk the neutral path, it's because you both come to the realization that you don't like the either of the cards you've been dealt, and together you can build a new deck. She doesn't represent the neutral path, because she's only neutral in 1/3 of the endings. What she represents is the player's path.
At least I'd like to believe that.
Unfortunately, Isabeau is tied to what has to be the biggest and most gaping flaw about this game; the Neutral path. I knew that there were multiple endings, but I didn't realize that they would be just three straight foward endings. (and a forth bad ending that I stumbled upon, thinking I tricked the game into letting me circumvent picking sides) I assumed that the endings would be different branches of chaos and different branches of order with varying severity, based off the choices you made. In truth, there was the bad ending, the evil ending, the just as evil ending, and the good ending with a caviot so bad that I'd seriously recommend just going straight chaos or law. As satisfying as the ending was, it isn't even remotely worth it for one reason.
It's basically a completionist ending. If you were, like me, unfortunate enough to lock yourself into the neutral ending, you're forced to do eighteen, previously optional, sidequests, or you can't finish the game. It took me 11 hours to finish those 18 quests. I said earlier that it took me about 59 hours to finish the game. That means that more than 1/6 of my totally playtime was comprised of the most blatant example unabashed of padding that I have ever experience in a video game. None of those 11 hours were enjoyable, and I only gained like 2 levels from it, because most of the enemies were from very early in the game, so it wasn't even an effective grinding tool.
I almost gave up. I only finished the game because first, I found a list of quests that needed to be completed, and two, I had already spent like 40 hours on the game. I wanted to finish it. In fact, I wanted it to be done since the first fakeout ending. By the time the I was locked into the neutral path, I had thought the game was over 3 separate times. That's the worst thing a game can do, because the ending felt like it was dragging on hours before I was even presented with the Chalice of Hope. All that did was make matters unrelentingly worse. You never prepare your audience for the end, and then delay that end. Not for that long. Not unless you're really clever and delicate with it, which this was the antithesis was.
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Shin Megami Tensei IV is a weird game for me to love. It's one of those games that I love in spite of itself. If I were to give it a score, it probably wouldn't be a very good one, but it's given me a love for a franchise I never thought I'd be into. I want to play Persona 5 now. I want to play SMT x FE even more now. I want to play Nocturne. I want Kaneko to return to being the primary SMT artist, because even I can see the clear non-SMTness that solely comes from a lack of his character designs. I desperately want to play a SMT V, and I want it to fix all of IV's silly, easily avoided mistakes, because the foundation is golden. But mostly, I just want more SMT. Anything.
