Great piece! Despite not being much of a fan of Just Cause 2 on the 360, it is the sort of game I tend to like (one of the reasons I played the older GTA titles so much as a kid was because it was a fun outlet to just do whatever you wanted in that fictional world), I have maintained some level of interest in the property over time, so I'm happy to see you writing about it. The wingsuit sounds like a fantastic addition to the series, frankly. I believe the grapple hook was also in Just Cause 2, but it never really did it for me on its own. Grapple hook + wingsuit sounds like the perfect combo to make you feel just like Batman. It's good to hear there's more design/mission variety in the sequel, which is important for a sandbox title like this.
And I see I'm not the only one who takes absurdly long breaks from games. I took a three year break from Twilight Princess HD when I was playing it, and it'll have taken me 2+ years to get back to Dragon Quest XI S at the rate I'm going (I finished the main, 100 hour story quest in one go, but I just didn't have the energy after that to do the post-game stuff).
The gunplay/action being somewhat mediocre on its own sounds about right, too, based on my experience with the seventh gen game, but it's also true that any action title with decent in-game physics is going to have some fun, stupid ways to kill enemies, and I imagine that's true here as well. Especially with a large arsenal of weapons
I appreciate the warning about the performance on PS4. I looked it up, and the game seems to run pretty well on my graphics card, so if I play this, I'll likely stick with the PC version.
Thanks for contributing!
Currently Playing: Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition
@Ralizah cheers, I’d be surprised if my ‘pen’ is called into action for a while though 😉… hope it is though as it’ll probably mean I’ve enjoyed a game far more than I expected to. If you do end up giving JC3 a go, I’d love to hear your thoughts,
[Note: I'll be discussing the first half of SMT1's story in a bit of depth. So... spoilers.]
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Shin Megami Tensei
Platform: Gameboy Advance (emulated via GBA emulator on Android)
Approximate time to completion: 32 hours
Despite only rather recently becoming popular in western markets, the Megami Tensei franchise has deep roots in the medium. I personally discovered it through Persona 4 Golden on the PS Vita, before branching out to mainline with Shin Megami Tensei IV on the Nintendo 3DS and becoming a rather huge fan of franchise overall. Unfortunately, nearly everything before SMT III (or SMT: Nocturne in the West) on the PS2 never made it to Western shores back in the day, so it has only been in the last two decades or so, as fan translation groups have patched Japanese ROMs of these games, that older entries in the franchise have been made available to us. To understand what Shin ("New") Megami Tensei is, though, it helps to understand, even vaguely, its roots in the older Megami Tensei games.
Curiously, the series finds its origin in a series of Japanese science-fiction/horror novels by writer Aya Nishitani, starting with Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei in 1986. The details of these narratives aren't really relevant beyond the basic premise, which involves a high school student developing a Demon Summoning Program that allows him to bring demons and mythological entities into the modern world. In 1987, a fresh-faced developed called Atlus would be tapped to develop its first video game, a sequel to the first two Nishitani novels, also called Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei, as well as an eventual sequel, Megami Tensei II for the Famicom, or what would be known outside of Japan as the Nintendo Entertainment System. Although quite different from later games in many regards, these original games, some of the earliest JRPGs ever made, still adopted certain concepts that persist to this day. Like all subsequent games in the series, Megami Tensei I & II were dungeon crawlers. The sequel did feature some overworld navigation sequences, but the original, I believe, was more like early western dungeon crawlers and fully set in a gigantic labyrinth. More crucially, both games featured two really cool, novel concepts: demon negotiations, which allowed players to add demons they encountered to their party, and demon fusion, which allowed players to take two demons and make a new, stronger demon out of them.
Eventually, Atlus, with more games and experience under their belt, decided to branch out with these concepts while removing themselves from the narrative limitations of the original novels and characters. As such, they created a successor series, Shin Megami Tensei, that would allow them to naturalistically evolve the game design of the original Megami Tensei games while also being able to freely explore new ideas and further expand the range of demons available to the player.
Shin Megami Tensei, then, is a game I've wanted to get into for years, but for a variety of reasons (mostly presentation-related, which I'll get into later in this piece), I've continually bounced off the game time and time again, inevitably opting to play more modern, player-friendly entries in the series on modern devices. That changed recently, though, when someone in this shockingly passionate fan community back-ported the script from that now-defunct iOS localization I mentioned into the Japanese-only GBA version of the game, which, as it turns out, apart from higher quality music, is almost identical to the SNES release. Being someone who tends to prefer waiting for official localizations on official hardware, this was probably the closest I was ever going to come to playing an actual official English language release of the game. As it turns out, the slight changes in the GBA release were exactly what I needed to finally get into the game. And get into it I did, given I completed this roughly 32 hour experience over the course of roughly seven days.
Shin Megami Tensei, something of an epic dark fantasy, begins with the player character having a mysterious dream where they encounter a variety of characters in different situations. One man, who will go on to become the representative of the law faction, is described as a man "devoted to the lord." You also encounter a figure beset by tormenting demons, who is described as a "dried-up soul who is yearning for power." This will go on to become the game's representative for the chaos faction. You also encounter a woman named Yuriko bathing in a lake, who tells you that she is your "eternal partner," although she goes on to become an antagonist. In a second dream that happens later, you encounter another woman who cultists are attempting to sacrifice in order to summon a God. This second woman will become the game's heroine and your player character's partner through most of the game.
In the midst of these strange dreams, it becomes clear to the player character that all is not right in Japan. A mysterious figure named Stephen is sending out emails containing executable code for something called a Demon Summoning Program. As your character runs errands for his mother, he encounters ominous military blockades in the streets, and rumors abound of encounters with demons. Over the course of a couple of days, you eventually discover that the men you met in your dreams were real, and they also share memories of these prophetic dreams. You, law hero, and chaos hero (all player named characters, mind you) band together to survive when it becomes clear what's happening: scientific experiments with teleportation systems have opened a portal to the Expanse, where supernatural entities reside, and demons have begun to invade the physical world. Stephen, the primary architect of these experiments, develops a program capable of summoning demons that people have formed contracts with and sends it out to as an email to as many people as possible in order to stave off a one-sided slaughter (since, presumably, this takes place in a universe without a Doom Slayer who can single-handedly slaughter armies of demons).
Predictably, this situation quickly snowballs. The American military occupies Tokyo and martial law is declared in an attempt to regain some control of the situation as demons run rampant through the streets. Meanwhile, a rogue Japanese general, Gotou, is taking advantage of this chaos to form contracts with demons and leading a militia in an attempt at a coup détat. Your characters use their COMPs, which are basically portable computers attached to their bodies (in more modern entries, COMPs are understandably replaced by smartphones), to take the demon summoning program with them as they fight their way through Tokyo and eventually meet the women in their shared dreams. The heroine (another player-named character) turns out to be the leader of a resistance group that is attempting to keep the war between American forces and Gotou from destroying Japan, and Yuriko is a mysterious, chaotic agent bent on destroying the bond between her and the player character.
As a dungeon crawler, SMT obviously features combat. Unfortunately, it lacks the highly tactical press-turn combat system first introduced in Shin Megami Tensei III, and is fairly generic JRPG combat as a result (if such an old game can be said to have generic anything, considering it was still helping to craft the standards of the genre). Certain characters resist certain elements and attack types, but there's no real penalty for bouncing attacks (aside from just not damaging the enemy, of course) and no rewards for hitting weaknesses. As a result, every battle boils down to a war of attrition and it ultimately doesn't matter too much which demons you have in your party so long as their stats are high and they have access to both physical and magical abilities. Like classic Dragon Quest, battles take place from a first-person perspective, so you never really get to see your demons in battle.
Surprisingly, given the hardcore nature of these games, the difficulty of these combat encounters is typically pretty... balanced. Perhaps accordingly, in these early games, your demons are somewhat gimped in terms of what they can do in comparison to later games. Unlike in SMT III, they don't gain levels or learn new abilities, and fusing demons together doesn't combine abilities from the fused demons, which has become a huge part of modern SMT games. Rather, the new demons have particular abilities, and you learn to deal with whatever they have, as they don't learn anything new. In truth, you can run through most of this game with just the player character and heroine in your party without issue, especially since the heroine gains access to some truly powerful offensive and healing magic.
One of the notable features of this series is how much control it gives you over the growth of your human characters. Taking a page from classic WRPGs, the player is able to totally customize the stat distribution of their characters. Stats themselves are fairly simple: Vitality feeds into HP and defense; Strength feeds into attack power, and, to a much lesser extent, HP and defense; Agility primarily increases evasion; Intelligence taps into magical accuracy, MP, magical defense, and increases your ability to successfully sway demons in negotiations (more on that in a moment); Magic increases magical attack, magical defense, and MP to a lesser extent; and Luck does... something. I'm never quite sure what the heck luck does in any game with a luck mechanic. I ignored it entirely without issue.
If SMT has a claim to fame, it's that it was one of the first monster-collecting JRPGs ever made. Granted, there was something akin to that in the older Megami Tensei games on the NES, but SMT featured a much wider array of demons to negotiate with, demon tamers to battle, specific locations to visit if you wanted to find specific demons, etc. The unique quirk of monster collecting in these games, as I alluded to, is that you have to talk demons into joining your party. Although even getting demons to the point where they're willing to negotiate can be a challenge in the first place. Early on in the game, most players will probably find that they have very little luck with negotiations. Most demons will just get angry at your responses, or, worse, try and bait you into lowering your guard so that they can get the jump on you and attack first. It's pretty miserable, frankly. What the game doesn't tell you, and even what a lot of players don't seem to understand, is that success with negotiations is directly tied to your Intelligence stat. Since your main character is an utterly normal human being with no access to magic, it's often recommended that players pump their early game stats entirely into Strength and Vitality. But this makes it where your ability to negotiate with demons is almost non-existent. Higher intelligence doesn't guarantee success with negotiations, but each point in that stat makes it significantly more likely that the demon will respond favorably to your answers.
So, once you figure this out and pump some points into Intelligence, you can begin to get a sense for the rhythm of conversations and the clever, even humorous, writing that goes into these encounters. Moreover, as the game goes on, your name gains some level of notoriety with the denizens of the Expanse, and oftentimes you can convince them to negotiate with you after telling them who you are. Although even when these negotiations go relatively well, they can still be painful: demons will shamelessly demand multiple infusions of cash, magnetite (more on that in a moment), and often rare items with no guarantee that these gifts will be enough to sway them to your side. Sometimes you'll bleed yourself practically dry trying to woo a demon, only for it to laugh at you and run off with your stuff. Even more offensive is that, despite the sacrifices required to get these greedy jerks to agree to help you in the first place, you also have to pay a fee every time you summon them.
As if all this wasn't enough, demons constantly consume magnetite when they're in your party. What is magnetite, exactly? Well... it's never fully explained in any of the games I've played. The Megami Tensei wiki describes it as "the living, mystical substance that demons' bodies are composed of in the physical world." With that understanding, the mechanic makes sense. You're often awarded with magnetite after battles (and can even negotiate with demons to contribute magnetite to you), and this substance seems to be used to allow demons to remain corporeal in our reality. Thus, they're constantly drawing from it. The problem is that this isn't really viable when you're not actively fighting a boss or exploring a difficult dungeon, so, more often than not, I didn't have my demons with me. It's literally a monster-collecting JRPG where you're punished for having your monsters on you. Wisely, this mechanic was ditched wholesale by the time Shin Megami Tensei III released on the Playstation 2.
SMT games are also known for featuring apocalyptic settings, and while it takes a bit of time, it does eventually get there. Roughly 1/3 of the way through the game, in what must have been a rather surprising twist for Japanese gamers in 1992, Tokyo is bombarded with ICBMs. When you find out about them, a little countdown timer appears on screen. The brilliant thing about this is the way it subverts video game design tropes: timers typically appear to signal how long you have to escape an environment. But there's just no way for your characters to escape from Tokyo by conventional means within the 30 second window you have after finding out about the nukes. I, probably like many people at the time, scrambled to run, only to discover that my effort was pointless. The game doesn't end for you there, though: the heroine and rebel leader you're been rolling with uses her magic to save you and your friends from the atomic flames that quickly engulf modern Japan by transporting you into another dimension.
When you and your friends return to your own dimension, thirty years have passed (since the game takes place in 199X, presumably it takes place some time in our own, newly entered decade), and the world you grew up in is long dead (which the game rubs your nose in when you find out that all of the yen you collected from fights and bosses early on is worthless now, since a new form of currency, macca, is in circulation; don't be like me and grind for money early in the game, or this will be a particularly painful moment). In the radioactive rubble of the modern world, The Order of Messiah, who worship God and seek to create a heavenly kingdom on Earth by purging the world of the unclean and unsaved, engage in a brutal civil war with The Ring of Gaea, whose followers worship Lucifer and seek a radically free, socially darwinian society where the strong rule over the weak. And it's in this new, very dark future where the alignment system starts becoming important.
Alignment systems are another one of those all-important features that define SMT games, as they appear in some form in every title. The basic idea is that the player aligns themselves with with one of the two factions, or against both factions, with their choices in the game. It has always been a very cool idea, especially given how static and linear JRPG plots tend to be. As I alluded to before, your friends will eventually drift toward one faction or the other (although at least it takes disruptive events in their lives to get them to that point, which I won't spoil; the characters don't just randomly become insane like in some later games), so you'll unfortunately become enemies with one or both of your former friends. I won't spoil how, but the heroine from earlier in the game who saved your butt from nukes shows up again and becomes your permanent party member as your friends run off and become important figures in their respective sides of the war.
Unfortunately, the alignment system is also a royal pain in the ass in this game. Atlus chilled out with the alignment stuff in later games, where they mostly impact which ending you get, but you'll feel inconvenienced by the system no matter which side you opt for, because if you commit to either side of the conflict, literally half of the demons in the game won't listen to you. Seriously: if you become law or chaos aligned and have contracted with any demons of the opposite faction, they'll just refuse to come to your aid. There are also healing stations throughout the game associated with one of the three factions, and if they're an opposite-alignment station to you, they'll literally charge you extra money for using their services. Now, if you're neutrally-aligned, none of this necessarily matters, because you can summon both law (Messian-aligned) and chaos (Gaea-aligned) demons. So, if the alignment stuff is a pain, just pick neutral, right?
Well... it's not that simple. While neutral is the best alignment in a variety of ways, it's also one of the hardest to aim for. To understand why, you need to understand that SMT determines your alignment by invisibly adding on or taking off points when you engage in certain actions throughout the game, and if you fall outside of a certain range, you become either chaos or law aligned. And, look: it's not just important choices. It feels like literally everything in this game has an impact on your alignment. Summoning demons of a certain alignment will shift you toward that alignment. Killing demons you already have in your stock will shift your alignment. Using factionally-aligned healing services will shift your alignment. etc. None of which the game tells you, by the way. The game doesn't even have the decency to tell you your alignment score. No, you have to look at the way your cursor bobbles around on the world map to determine your alignment, and it gives you no sense of how deeply into one alignment you are.
But, OK: you're careful and you try to balance out what you do to stay neutral. And this actually works through most of the game. But the game will literally force you into situations where you HAVE to become law or chaos-aligned, because you're given no other options, and then, to go back to being neutrally-aligned, you have to overcorrect by doing stuff that'll net you points from the alignment opposite of yours. If you go online, you find out there's a relatively easy 'trick' for this in the game, but the game doesn't tell you about it. Turns out, if you go to the Gaean headquarters in Tokyo Destiny Land (which is a barely fictionalized version of Tokyo Disneyland; so, yes, the edgy lucifer worshippers make a shuttered Disney theme park their headquarters in the future, which is hilarious), there's a minigame that will shift your alignment. The game barely explains this, though, and you still have to look up what to do to avoid getting even more points for the faction you're already aligned with in the minigame. If this doesn't work (either because you're too deep in the factional hole or it just doesn't work, because the original SMT is buggy af), then you'll have to grind opposite alignment points by deliberately getting hurt and then healing yourself at the opposite-alignment healing centers I previously mentioned where you're charged extra every time you heal your characters. This is all as stupid and irritating as it sounds, by the way. I love that Atlus was so ambitious about trying to make your decisions in this game matter, but it was a terrible idea to not just tie alignment to a few in-game story choices like in certain later games in the series.
I expected a game this old to be rather terrible about telling the player where to go, as it opts for a semi-open world structure later in the game, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that there's very little aimless wandering around in this game. The plot is consistently engaging and directed enough that I usually had a sense of where I needed to go and what I needed to do in this game, and the layout of the overworld is such that there's a constant sense of progression to the game, as your journey across post-apocalyptic Tokyo mirrors the movement of the plot overall.
Ditto with dungeons. A lot of the older SMT games are notorious for irritating dungeons full of traps, teleporter tiles, etc. But the dungeon design in this game is... pretty good. There aren't really any puzzles like in SMT III, but there are also far fewer dead ends with nothing to find, and traps/teleporters/etc., while they do show up, aren't much of an issue until late in the game, when you should be well-equipped to handle them. I was shocked by how well the dungeon-crawling held up in such an old game in a series notorious for its difficulty.
Besides wanting access to the official Atlus translation for the first game, I also opted for this GBA version of SMT because, frankly, it's a huge step up visually from the 1992 SNES original. The game is a classic, but the SNES version's presentation is frankly terrible: half of the dungeons feature identical-looking pink or blue hallways and the overworld is an abstract conglomeration of basic geometrical shapes. It also features a super basic user interface. The total effect of the original is that you feel like you're playing a Commodore 64 game from the mid-80s or something. It feels ANCIENT. Thankfully, the GBA port is pretty wildly improved on this front. Dungeon tile sets actually have textures on them! Ditto with the overworld areas, which actually look like environments and less like abstract collections of shapes. The use of color is also improved: you won't be seeing gaudy pink pipes and yellow buildings everywhere in what is supposed to be a dismal wasteland. Character sprites in battles look about the same: even in the SNES original, the sprites were detailed and imaginative, and the same is true here. There are also improved visual effects during battles in the GBA version, though.
While I'm on the subject of improvements in the GBA version of the game, it's also worth mentioning the visionary items you'll find throughout the game. These items, most of which are somewhat hidden, don't have any function in the game proper, but if you exit out to the main menu after finding one, they'll unlock brief cutscenes that flesh out story moments which weren't well-developed in the original game. They're a minor aspect of the game, all things considered, but the added context for certain characters and storylines that are shuffled past somewhat too quickly is welcome.
The music is... less impressive. SMT1 has always featured one of my least favorite soundtracks in the series, and as with many GBA ports, the conversions here are incredibly compressed. I'll say this: I got used to the music. That's about it. It's not necessarily terrible video game music, but when modern Atlus games are famous for their amazing soundtracks, it's difficult to go back to something less impressive. There are still a few fun tracks, though, which I'll link below.
The first Shin Megami Tensei is a hard game to recommend to modern gamers, given its antiquated gameplay, lack of QoL features, bugs, and messy gameplay systems. Nevertheless, the core of the experience shines through: in a time when JRPGs were almost all telling simplistic tales of good vs evil in high fantasy settings, SMT explored adult themes, featured morally nuanced characterizations, and forced players to grapple with their own sense of right and wrong when navigating the nightmarish labyrinths of an occult near-future apocalypse. It also developed and kickstarted the monster-collecting JRPG genre. And, speaking more subjectively as a fan of Japanese RPGs, it laid the outlines for what would go on to become one of the finest gaming properties Japan has ever produced. SMT is a trailblazing classic of the genre, and a damn interesting experience in its own right.
@RogerRoger thank you Rog, as always your far too kind but I do appreciate it. I’ll definitely consider those dlc’s too… as I’m already missing playing it 👍… and no I can’t believe the wingsuit could be anymore fun 😉!
@Ralizah wow, that’s an awesome review there… kinda puts mine to shame a little if I’m honest. I love the context and history you added. I haven’t played any of the series but played a little (like 10 hours) of Persona 5 but am always at the very least interested in series’ that develop such a fervent following.
@colonelkilgore Nah, you did a great job with your first review. Far better than the first several pieces I crafted, for sure. And I'll absolutely tag you if and when I get around to playing JC3! One of the funnest parts of experiencing new games is discussing them with others.
I'm glad the history sections were worth adding. It's a looooooong post, and I didn't want to bore anybody, but there is a ton of fascinating history here, and I wanted to explore it a little bit in order to give a sense of how important and, in many respects, ahead of its time the game was.
Persona 5 has done a good job of attracting eyes in a way that other MegaTen games haven't. Lots of people who've never heard of SMT or even play JRPGs much in general have been checking the game out. Although I imagine that VERY regimented first 10 - 20 hours of the game also put some people off.
Thank you so much for reading!
@RogerRoger Yeah, SMT is gaining wider name recognition now worldwide, but it's still a very... imposingly Japanese name, lol, and most people aren't necessarily going to know much about it beyond it being "that series that Persona 5 spun off from." But the heritage there blows my mind. Anyone who has ever enjoyed a Pokemon game, for example, has been touched by the influence and design of Atlus' classic.
I don't usually go too much into story details when I talk about a game, but the set-up here is so cool and involved. Especially for an older game. Thankfully, there's a TON of cool stuff story-wise I just didn't touch on. And wouldn't, because then the piece would be twice as long as it is.
And yeah, I'm super impressed with the fan community that has made so many older MegaTen games playable. I love Atlus, but, like Nintendo, they don't treat their early catalog with the respect its deserves in the West. The fact that they just never bothered to update the iOS version of SMT1 to work on newer versions of that operating system speaks volumes, I think. If nothing else, that will keep this patched GBA version of the game relevant for years to come, since it's the only piece of software which you can use to experience the only official english localization of the first game in the series.
As always, thank you for reading, as well as for the kind words.
@Ralizah I’m glad you’ve taken the time to put your thoughts about the first SMT into some sort of structured order because I definitely couldn’t! A very very hard game to accurately critique because it’s hard to tell what’s helping create such a foreboding atmosphere and what’s just plain annoying from a gameplay perspective. You’ve covered so many bases though that you’ve done the impossible and actually come through the other end of that rabbit hole relatively unscathed though! It’s definitely an interesting game, just antiquated as hell.
@nessisonett Thanks. It's absolutely antiquated, but the updated presentation in the GBA version helps one to suss out exactly which aspects needed updating, IMO. Dungeon crawling is much more fun when you don't feel like you're crawling around the inside of a bottle of Pepto Bismol every level.
The alignment stuff... I'm glad Nocturne mostly dropped it. The magnetite mechanic as well. Nocturne ensured you weren't overpowered when running around with a full crew of demons by making the actual battles more tactical.
I noticed I didn't mention the moon phases, but, tbh, they don't matter much in this game (unlike Nocturne; I was furious when I discovered I was missing good items by opening chests at any time other than full Kagutsuchi). That's supposed to be a mechanic in this game as well, but I experimented with it via save states and, if it is, it's far less reliable about it.
Two other things I should have mentioned: this version has a system where you can mark points of interest on the map. It's incredibly helpful, and I don't think that feature was in the SNES version. Otherwise, it feels almost identical gameplay-wise.
It's also still buggy as ever. Because I'd defeated some of the four kings before going to the Great Cathedral for the first time, I was denied the opportunity to go for the best neutral armor and weapon set in the game. Still annoyed about that.
I hope somebody (hopefully Atlus; c'mon, man) translates the PS1 version at some point, because I'd absolutely play it a third time in that case.
Never played SMTII, though. You have any experience with it? So far, only the SNES version is still translated.
@Ralizah Yeah, I’ve played the second game through the aforementioned SNES patch and it’s at least easier. It’s also not quite as interesting plot wise and the music’s pretty rubbish. Probably worth checking out though, and with a guide because it’s still incomprehensible.
@RogerRoger I also think in this case, the pretty dramatic shift a third of the way through the game makes it difficult to talk about coherently without some discussion in that regard. Pre-apocalyptic Tokyo and post-apocalyptic Tokyo are such different places.
Anyway, I appreciate the praise. I wasn't sure if I revealed too much. I tried to be deliberately vague about certain elements, but that also risks calling attention to certain details accidentally in an otherwise detailed recount. As it stands, I think the way I approached it was probably the right way to go, even if it spoils a bit of the surprise of the game. It is, after all, an almost thirty year old game in a series that hits the same plot beats much quicker in subsequent entries (the pre-apocalypse is all of half an hour in Nocturne unless you wander around a lot, for example).
Atlus is WEIRD. Like... why is Persona 5 a Playstation exclusive? I can understand SMT V being Nintendo-exclusive, considering how much slack the Big N is picking up on distribution and marketing to ensure a successful simultaneous worldwide release for that game, but, as far as I can tell, Sony doesn't tremendously push Persona games.
For that matter, even if, let's say, we totally grant it's reasonable for new entries in both series to be exclusive to different ecosystems to maintain good relations with both (as this is what I believe they're doing)... why on Earth is the HD port of Persona 4 Golden not on PS4? The game sold at least a million copies on Steam alone.
For that matter, SMT I, II, and ...If are all part of Japan's NSO lineup. But they're nowhere to be seen on the service over here, even though the first game, if nothing else, has a full translation.
But yeah, fans are awesome. Fans are often the only reason large portions of a developer's legacy aren't almost completely forgotten over time. I've always been amazed at how people can invest so many manhours into passionate creative work on a game, and then just treat the end result like it's disposable.
In this case, I think it's a cultural barrier thing. While Atlus is amazing about localizing almost every new project they develop (and have been for almost two decades now, before riskier Japanese localizations became more common), there seems to be a disconnect with their older games. SMT I, II, and ...If are everywhere in Japan. They've seen SNES releases, PS1 releases, GBA releases, mobile releases, releases on NSO and probably the Wii's VC. But there's barely any recognition that maybe fans in the West might want to enjoy these games. They dumped a localization of the first game on iOS and then just didn't... update it. All the work that went into that localization would have vanished if not for the passionate work of fans to preserve it. How hard could it possibly be to put that version on Android, on the iPhone, on the Switch eshop, etc. and, once every year or two, tweak a few lines of code to ensure it works on newer firmwares?
It's frustrating because the lack of consideration for these older games outside Japan seems almost random. It's not even like they just don't care about ensuring access to older games of theirs in the West. I don't know about Europe, but in the States, they've been reprinting the physical versions of SMT: Nocturne, Digital Devil Saga 1 & 2, Persona 3 FES, Persona 4, etc. on the PS2 for so many years after their initial releases, which has kept the prices on a ton of their older games low enough for new fans to afford. I bought those games in the 2010s and didn't pay more than $20 for almost any of them. Keeping PS2 games, of all things, in circulation seems like an incredible level of dedication. But they can't update an iPhone version of one of their games?
@RogerRoger Ironically, Atlus has a disastrous history when it comes to localizing products in Europe, with games arriving months/years later than they did in the States, and often without physical releases at all (whereas Atlus releases in NA/Jpn pretty much always have a physical option). That is hopefully changing now since Sega took Atlus under its wing.
Well, the weird thing is that there doesn't seem to be any evidence of actual exclusivity deals. This has been discussed for years, and it seems like the consensus is that Atlus just... chooses to keep certain IPs exclusive to certain ecosystems. Maybe there's some secret back room stuff going on, but that's hard to believe considering Persona only recently became a breakthrough hit (previous games were well-received, but didn't sell several millions of copies like P5 did). Although Sony has since come out and said Persona is "important" for Playstation as a brand, so I have no doubt at this point they'd break out the check book if they felt like they needed to like they have with recent Final Fantasy games.
It's effective for me, at least. As long as I have to continue buying Playstation consoles to play MegaTen games, I'll remain invested in Sony's ecosystem. Although we'll see if that changes with both Sony and Atlus recently expanding out to PC distribution of their software.
Currently Playing: Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition
@RogerRoger The difference, I think, is that, for the longest time, Atlus has had a dedicated U.S. branch, whereas their games only came over to Eu when they partnered with publishers in your neck of the woods. Again, one should hope that Sega publishing their games put an end to this.
This sort of thing is why Shin Megami Tensei V being Atlus' first ever simultaneous worldwide launch is such a big deal. It's always been Japan first, then the U.S. six months to a year later, and then Europe... whenever they could work out a publishing arrangement, lol. Nintendo has taken up publishing duties in certain regions and is likely helping with resources for the simultaneous localization, which is probably the only reason it's possible at the moment.
With that said, Atlus is a biggish developer now. SMT V is one of the most notable third-party exclusive releases of the year, and Persona games now sell millions of copies. Hopefully they can figure out the worldwide release thing when it comes to the next big Persona game without a larger company having to step in.
Come to think of it, the last few consoles I've purchased were for Atlus games. I got my 3DS primarily with Etrian Odyssey IV in mind. Persona 4 Golden was at the front of my mind, and was my very first retail purchase, when I got my Vita. For the Wii U, I was hyped for the "Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem" collab between Atlus and Nintendo (which turned into the hilariously divisive and weird Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE; I can't wait to talk about that game eventually). I decided to get a Playstation console after Persona 5 was announced. And I preordered the Switch after SMT V was announced at the system's reveal presentation. I had other games in mind as well when I grabbed those platforms, but an Atlus exclusive was always at the forefront. I actually didn't quite realize until reflecting on it that their games were driving pretty much all of my console purchases! Sounds like I'm fixated 😂
Anyway, I enjoy this community, so even if I never touched a Playstation game or console again, I'd still stick around to be a nuisance regardless.
Currently Playing: Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition
@RogerRoger Haha, yeah, I imagine Mecha-Naruto probably had "filler character" written all over his metallic face. It's interesting to hear how the developers pretty much conjured an entire filler experience out of thin air. A tournament on a remote island is certainly a good setup if you aren't allowed to move the broader story along at all. With that said, getting high-quality animated cutscenes, new characters, and mixed-up combat mechanics seems pretty good for an experience that amounts to padding.
Unfortunately, fans often aren't kind to series entries that stray too far from what came before. But I suppose if your enjoyment from this series came from being able to mix up different attack approaches, only been limited to one type during a battle would probably come as a bit of a disappointment. It does sound like a correct application of a 'less is more' approach to game design, though. Sometimes, all you need is to tighten the focus of the mechanics that were already available in the first place.
That menu screen looks potentially stylish, by the way, in that first screenshot. Is that a static background, or is there actually an animated transition between menu screens?
Very well-written review, as always. You've said you basically bang these out in one go, right? Your pieces are always much more organically constructed and effortlessly written (or appear that way, anyhow) than my own. Always a pleasure to read.
As for the response post:
Atlus, while better than many others (see Falcom and their long history of not localizing games they develop for many, many years and/or expressing shock when discovering that gaijin actually play and enjoy their games when they're published overseas years after the fact), has never fully transcended the mindset of a traditional, smallish, Japan-focused console developer. This has its upsides and downsides: while they can seem a bit deaf at times to the wishes of their fanbase outside of Japan (because, like Nintendo, I imagine their U.S. branch largely just deals with localization/promotion overseas and otherwise answers to the Japanese branch in the motherland), they also haven't attempted to Westernize their games in pursuit of bigger sales numbers like Capcom and Square-Enix have or change the way their games are written to "align with global values," or whatever the current Orwell-speak is for when Japanese developers are told by corporate suits that they need to become subservient to American cultural imperialism. You take the good with the bad, in this case, and I think the way they are now is the lesser of two evils.
Haha, the PS4 isn't my favorite console in the world, but it still has its upsides and gets a lot more use than my poor Wii U does (which pretty much only hasn't been retired at this point because it doubles as a Wii, and Wii Fit is still popular with my family). Putting aside my large-ish backlog of games on it, it'll have a place in my entertainment center until it craps out, because it's the only device I can use to play P.T.
I also really like my PS4 themes. I have no idea what Sony and Nintendo have against system-wide themes on consoles these days!
Despite several people having completed this game and posting impressions, I noticed there are no user reviews here on the game so I figured I’d fill that void. I hereby submit my expanded thoughts in case there’s an odd passerby who would like a more substantial player review to look over in preparation for the upcoming sequel.
THE PREMISE
Did you ever wonder what it was like to live through the 1300’s? In an era referred to as the Middle Ages; a time of brutal wars, plagues and pestilence, and religious patriarchy? Maybe we need a game to capture the essence of that time period…
“But we have plenty of games set in the European Middle Age and lots of gaming stories of knights and monarchy,” you say? …True. But we don’t have any that are told from the perspective of a 15 year old girl and her younger brother. And that is what makes A Plague Tale special.
The game is set specifically in France during the Hundred Years War, where folk were not only constantly under threat of wartime violence but also suffering from the Black Death, or Bubonic Plague — the greatest recorded pandemic in human history. (Well, I guess we’re working on that, but I digress…)
The year is 1348. Ironically, it’s a time period nestled tightly between some other popular historical based game properties — Ubisoft’s first two Assassin’s Creed games (1100’s and 1400’s respectively), and shortly after Ghost of Tsushima (1200’s). You won’t find the Hundred Years War in any Call of Duty or Battlefield campaigns, and the presence of The Plague during the time period certainly makes for a unique gaming setting which forces a different approach. And with that, Asobo studio is really on to something here.
GRAPHICS and TECHNICAL PERFORMANCE
I played the first third of the game on PS4 and then finished it on the PS5. In both cases the game ran well - no crashes or major hiccups. It’s no surprise that the PS5 version is a nice step up in quality and is quite beautiful in dynamic 4K with 60 fps. The textures and environment can be jaw-dropping at times with wonderful art design to showcase the grim world of the Black Death. Human and animal carcasses abound and are contrasted periodically with beautiful vistas and lovely ancient architecture. The haptics and adaptive triggers are subtle but add to the experience quite a bit. The 3D audio on the other hand isn’t nearly as transformative, although I’m sure it’s indistinctly an improvement.
The character animations and especially the facial animations do leave room for improvement. There are times when characters look really great when static, but during movement, gesturing, and speaking then the uncanny valley kicks in. Overall it’s a minor point, but a few times the wooden facial capture was off-putting. The character and facial animation is certainly on par with early PS4 offerings but not up to quality of the latest AAA games, which is a high bar, certainly.
The swarms of rats, likewise look great at times, but if you inspect closely then the tricks used to animate the sheer numbers becomes apparent. The individual rats do not always behave independently and so groups of them can look mechanical when hundreds of them animate with clearly an identical movement code. Fittingly reminiscent of the work from another French artist, sometimes the game is a Monet - you have to step back to appreciate it as a whole scene and not look too closely.
CHARACTERS and STORY
Much has been made about the main protagonists Alicia and her younger brother Hugo. Their relationship is sweet, but also complex, and I think it comes across fairly well. I thoroughly enjoyed playing as a vulnerable youth, with all the tension that creates. The English voice acting has come under fire, and I’d have to agree that some of the line delivery and script writing is mediocre, but it didn’t affect my enjoyment. Hugo is especially cringeworthy at times, but supposedly choosing the French audio version with subtitles makes the character perception much better, but I’m not a fan of subtitles.
The story, like I said, is a unique and fascinating peer into a oft neglected setting. I enjoyed the overall plight of the De Rune siblings. There is a lot of fiction and fantasy mixed in this historical piece, probably a little too much for my taste, but I can still appreciate what the developers were going for.
MUSIC
I’m not a good source of opinion about the musical score, as I have a tendency to ignore it unless it gets on my nerves. In the case of APT:I, what I remember of the music was mostly melancholic and rather sorrowful sounding classical string orchestrated tones. Nothing too overt, but I think it added to the atmosphere. I’m not searching the OST to listen to it again, but I also don’t remember anything bad about it.
GAMEPLAY
The gameplay has been compared to that of The Last of Us, and I think it’s an apt parallel. APT:I is quite linear, and the focus is almost solely on stealth with an emphasis on environmental takedowns and each combat situation is a mini puzzle of sorts. Like TLoU before it, your character succumbs usually to an insta-death if they are discovered, so there’s little room for error. Nevertheless, the inconsistent enemy AI and general liberal timeframe before the little bubble above their head fills to full red status means that you can cheese most encounters if you need to.
It’s unfortunate because the combat really starts coming into its own at the end and I think the true open nature of how one can take down enemies is most apparent after you have all your upgrades. However, certain skills and tools are superfluous and besides the introductory tutorial you really don’t ever have a need for them again. Still, the last chapter really shows the breadth of options to get through a given set-piece full of enemies in a variety of ways, and you finally get to experiment with some of the items that weren’t really needed earlier on. Its an unfortunate design flaw that as soon as you’re given the full array of offensive and defensive abilities the game is over and you’re left wanting a little more. Hopefully this bodes well for the sequel to expand on how this game ended regarding the combat and stealth.
The gameplay strikes a decent balance of ‘gameyness’ at the expense of realism, but the controls are not always as intuitive as I would have liked. On one hand aiming is easy and Alicia is a crack shot with the stone and sling to rival David slaying Goliath, and yet there were times when I was fumbling with the controls of the other skills and couldn’t get the timing down before I was one-hit killed.
Like TLoU and other “survival horror” games (although I wouldn’t place this game in that category) there is an emphasis on resource management. Again, the balance is decent here too, unless you’re going for the platinum (which is fairly easy, all things considered) in which case you’ll really need to search every nook and cranny to ensure you’ve got enough of all resource items to carefully ration in order to make all your upgrades. But if you’re more of a “fly by the seat of your pants / screw all that inventory accounting”, Asobo has ensured that each encounter has some items in place to provide you with the bare minimum to make it through to the next set-piece.
LOOKING FORWARD and THE FUTURE OF THE IP
Both from a narrative and a gameplay perspective there is a lot to be excited about as far as the forthcoming A Plague Tale: Requiem. Asobo has shown some real talent with a few fresh ideas and some high quality execution. It’s a saturated genre, to be sure, but the unique setting and protagonists make for something a little different from other 3rd person action-stealth story-driven games. I think there’s a place at the table for more of the series, so long as the sequel irons out the hamstrung combat, some mediocre dialogue, a few wonky animations, and subpar AI.
OVERALL RECOMMENDATION
Definitely recommend the game to anyone interested in the 3rd person stealth genre. Or anyone who likes historical fiction. Or if you just like to experience AA production as a fresh alternative to all the big budget fare.
@RogerRoger I saw you were playing through these over the last month and even though I have absolutely no knowledge of Naruto, I am a little intrigued. The only thing that puts me off a little, is I tried playing Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot with no knowledge of that and was left thinking WTF!
Seems like this one hit a lot of the right notes for you though, glad you enjoyed it.
@Th3solution yeah having played this fairly recently it’s quite fresh in the mind… and I agree with the vast majority of your thoughts. Having also played The Last of Us: Remastered within the last month, I can definitely see the similarities… A Plague Tale: Innocence is the lesser product but considering the budget, Asobo worked miracles getting it to be spoken in the same breath to be fair.
@Th3solution I'm just on the final chapter of A Plague Tale now and I'd totally agree with your thoughts, it's a spot on review. I am finding in certain situations the controls are getting a fit frustrating, like I had to play one single scene through 5 - 6 times before I sussed exactly what I was doing wrong. Even so the story has kept me engaged and the world that they've built is interesting.
Personally I think Hugo comes across as a bit creepy, and reminds me of the sort of child you'd find in various terrible horror films over the years 😂
@colonelkilgore Thanks, and I’m glad to see my memory isn’t too far gone because it has been a few years since I played TLoU. I have no idea if the developers consciously were inspired by Naughty Dog’s magnum opus, but in my mind it kept coming back as the closest comparison. But yes, Ellie and Joel’s adventure is a much better game in every category. I would place it as a 9/10 and maybe 9.5. Still, APT is it’s own thing. The magical and mystical aspects definitely make the game less gritty and less credible. I sort of wish the story didn’t veer off into the fantastic but yet without that I’m not sure how they would have gotten in the gameplay elements they were clearly shooting for. In the end, it comes across a mild bit awkward to have such a grounded setting and plight for the characters, yet have the paranormal aspects too. I just checked my logic at the door and it worked for me.
@render There is definitely some trial and error for many of the encounters. It also didn’t help that I was going for the platinum so did a lot of checkpoints over so as to try to get through an area using as few resources as possible. It added a layer of challenge that way, but made it a tad repetitive as the game wore on. Then finally at the end I had plenty of supplies so I could go full Rambo on things. 😄
Edit: and I agree on Hugo. Expected him to start chanting “Redrum” any minute. 😂
@Th3solution Nice to see that you enjoyed the game! I played through it earlier this month and I absolutely loved it. It was such an immersive and memorable game, it really resonated a lot with me. So much so that I actually contemplated for a while about moving to France. I and @ralphdibny were actually talking about that a while ago and he wouldn't mind living there as well. Don't know if you felt the same way after playing the game, but France really seems like a wonderful place to live in.
@LtSarge I definitely enjoyed seeing a traditional French setting. I didn’t quite reach the point where moving to France crossed my mind, but there is indeed something romantic and alluring about the culture. The streets ridden with dead bodies may have been a slight deterrent though 😜
But seriously, I think there is a shortage of French inspired settings. For some reason French developers have made games set in other cultures. I guess Ubisoft did finally make an Assassin’s Creed game which takes place in the French Revolution, but unfortunately it stumbled out of the gate compared to all their other AC output so many of us didn’t experience it.
The only other games I’ve played that come to mind with French development that either take place in France or have significant French characters are The Council, Remember Me, …and I guess any of the WWI and WWII based games. And I would say Remember Me is the only game of those that embraced the French setting wholeheartedly to the point of making it part of the game’s identity. Instead we have developers like Quantic Dream making games that all take place in the U.S. Not saying these games and others made by Ubisoft or Dontnod or Arkane aren’t fantastic in their own right, regardless of setting, but it’s just curious that we don’t have more set in France.
@Th3solution I honestly think there's a shortage of games that have any kind of settings besides the U.S. People may not realise this, but considering that Europe, North Africa as well as Asia have a long history, there would be more potential to use them as settings. Just look at Ghost of Tsushima as an example. I would personally love to see more games that take place in Germany, France, Spain, Russia, China, Korea, India and many other countries. It's probably hard as foreigners to make a game about a completely different country than your own, so that's most likely why we don't see many games with varied settings. But I hope that more nations will take up game development and start using their own countries as settings in video games.
On a side note, I recently played through a game that takes place in India and was made by an Indian developer (interesting fact: this guy had to sell his own apartment in order to finance this game) called Raji: An Ancient Epic. While it wasn't the most ambitious game, it was still a fun top-down "Prince of Persia" experience that revolves around Hindu mythology. Just that alone made me interested in playing this game. I had so much fun learning more about India and Hindu mythology that I enjoyed my time with it overall, even if the combat got a bit repetitive. We just don't see many games like this today.
@LtSarge I tend to agree with you. As a resident of the U.S. I do think it’s fun to swing through the streets of Manhattan, roam around in the 1800’s Wild West, or connect isolated cities as I deliver packages across the desolate post-apocalyptic U.S., but I do think seeing more games in other cultures like for example Africa, India, or Polynesia would be really interesting.
Of course, a large portion of games take place in completely make-believe locations which I feel are inspired by various real world places and cultures, so I guess we do have those; like I feel a lot of RPGs have towns based on classical European settings.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
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