Review: Shin Megami Tensei 4 (SMT IV)

#SMTIV was released in the US for the Nintendo #3ds on July 16th 2013. It will be available as a digital only download for Europe on the Nintendo eShop starting October 30th 2014. This #videogame is an #RPG made by #Atlus.

The story of the game begins with a trainee Samurai who is sent on missions to stop the Black Samurai, who is causing trouble all over your hometown of Mikado. You delve into Naraku, a multilevel cave filled with demons, to capture the Black Samurai. You can convince most demons to join you with conversational choices during battle with the "Talk" command. You have a four person party, included the main character, and a stock of 8 total demons, which is expandable over time. As you progress through Naraku, you will eventually find yourself in Tokyo. There the world opens up with various missions, side quests, and towns. There is also an element of choice to the game with three different endings depending on the decisions you make. Who is right, who is wrong? You can decide.

An example of the world map of Tokyo

Shin Megami Tensei IV, pronounced Sh-in meh-gā-may Ten-say, has a reputation of being difficult. This game is no exception in the early parts of the game. The difficulty balances out after the first 5-7 hours when you reach Tokyo. The main series has been around since the NES days, but the games that were localized were never that successful in the west. The spin-off series Persona has enjoyed a great deal of success that the main series just doesn't receive.

A standard battle

All of the fights are in the first person perspective. It uses what is called the press turn system. This means if you hit an enemies weakness or get a critical hit, you get an extra turn. When you miss or hit an element the enemy is strong against, you lose a turn. You can only get one extra turn per party member. The reason this game can be hard is the enemies are under the same rules. If they hit a weakness or achieve a critical hit on you or your party members, the Demons get an extra turn. There is also a chance of being powered briefly when you dodge, get a critical hit, or hit a weakness. This all boils down to quick victories and quicker defeats.

An example of a location

Once you get to a location on the world map, you go into a third person view of the environment as opposed to the top down look of the world map. The graphics are a bit blocky in places, but is surprisingly good considering the hardware. The 3d is as finicky as always to get in the sweet spot, but it is really nice when you can find it. Makes the world feel much more open. There are chests and relics, which you sell for money or use to complete quests, to find hidden about in each location. There are no random encounters like SMT 3, which is a blessing. You can see them before you fight them and swing your weapon to get a preemptive strike. If you miss, the Demons have a chance at a preemptive strike on you.

The fusion screen

At anytime in the pause menu, you can fuse your demons to make bigger better versions. You can even unlock a skill to fuse them during combat. Each monster has a type. You need 2 or more of certain types to fuse each new Demon. You can also only fuse demons at or below the level of the main character. There really is no reason not to fuse early and often. I found I would often fuse when I ran out of mp because it is automatically full on the new fused Demon.

Learn new skills from your pet Demons

The last thing of note is how you get and upgrade your battle skills. Every time one of your demons level up, they have a chance to learn a new skill or exchange a new skill for an old one. When this happens, you can have your main character learn any number of skills from that Demon (as shown above). There are some skills that aren't transferable, and any skill you already know will get leveled up. That means it gets a bit stronger and may even have the mp cost lowered. Since your main character doesn't learn skills on his own, choosing the right skills is vital.

Now the question, is it shit?

No, the game is quite good and worth a look. The early game can be difficult, but if you can get past it, the game can be a good time. There really isn't as much strategy as you'd think from the press turn system, but it is just enough to punish you when you get careless. The Pokemon-esque system of capturing demons to form a party can often get tedious. From what I saw, the correct response to the question the demon asks is purely random so it turns out to be more luck based. Luck shouldn't be a factor to gain new Demons. The music did its job of setting the right kind of creepy atmosphere, but the voice acting is pretty terrible. Surprisingly, the game isn't grindy like a lot of RPGs, especially for an Atlus RPG. Overall, the game tries to tiptoe that line between hardcore and accessible and it does a decent job.

Overall score: A surprise mountain destroying explosion... by shoe.