While definitely not perfect, Shin Megami Tensei IV is probably one of the most addictive jrpgs I've ever played.

The art style alone made me immerse myself into this bleak world of demons and play the game for about 60 hours. Chracters might not be well developed, but they're unquestionably well-designed. The same can be said about the demons, but on a much bigger scale. Each demon is unique and intriguing enough so you'll never get enough of collecting and fusing them. I've wasted countless hours checking their stats, playing with the fusion network, reading their descriptions. I couldn't get tired of it.

One other thing that kept me glued to the game was the combat. The famous SMT press turn system is incredible. Finding enemies' weaknesses feels rewarding as hell and making sure that your character and demons are well-protected and well-prepared doesn't feel at all like a chore, it's actually entertaining. Part of why the battles work so well is likely due to how fast-paced, fun and challenging they are. As for the story, well... It's good. Its semi-minimalistic approach does handle well the ending for each route. It's just not AMAZING. But it does carry an intense and dense atmosphere, touching on some interesting themes and expanding the post-apocalyptic world more and more as it progresses. It's just sad that main and supporting characters are somewhat forgettable.

As for the icing on the cake, it has to be the soundtrack. It's simply nostalgic and astonishing. Completely matching the game's mood, hyping some exciting (or gloomy) moments and providing some bonafide tracks. If Shin Megami Tensei IV were an album only, no game included, I'd still love it.

But SMTIV isn't without its shortcomings. I've encountered BIG issues here.

First and foremost: Every map in this game sucks! Traversing through Tokyo is the worst part in the game. The overworld map is weird, slow confusing and extremely unintuitive. The same goes for the dungeons. They're repetitive, wonky and lazy. Thank god for the art direction, because the environments and directions presented are horrible. The entire game, no matter which route you choose, screams AIMLESS. And that's a huge problem! It's such a huge design flaw that it ended up hindering a chunk of my experience with the story and my progression, in general.

Another extreme nuisance for me was the negotiation system. Again: Aimless! It's purely luck-based and let me tell you that luck isn't at your side at all in this game. One pure example for this is the vastly exaggerated difficulty right at beginning. It's brutal! And yes, it does get easier after you take down the Minotaur, but why the fuck make the TUTORIAL area so unbearable? Makes no sense... The last problem lies in the Challenge Quests. They're just... boring. While some of the challenges actually matter, most of them are useless and unrewarding. And if you're somehow stuck in the neutral route, boy... Good luck getting the 1st place in the hunter board. It's a slog!

All in all, Shin Megami Tensei IV is an underrated gem on the 3DS. An addictive experience, with an interesting story and an amazing battle system.

The game's mistakes are undeniably ruthless and irritating, but if you manage to get through them, you'll find a very good jrpg to play for a long while.

I really liked Persona 5 and Strange Journey, so I had high expectations going into my third title in the Shin Megami Tensei-universe. Unfortunately, this was a huge disappointment for me.

To summarise the game, you are a samurai tasked with battling demons in the medieval-inspired kingdom of Mikado. You do this by commanding demons of your own in a turn based battle system, making Shin Megami Tensei kind of a Pokemon for grown ups in terms of gameplay style. Things change when you discover that the underground of Mikado actually is the location a post apocalyptic Tokyo destroyed by humans and demons. Towards the end of the game, you will have to choose to side with angels, humans or demons (a recurring element in SMT-games), resulting in four different possible endings.

I will start with the positives. I really like the core gameplay loop consisting of battling, recruiting and fusing demons. The main strategic components of battling are to gain extra turns by exploiting enemy weaknesses ("the press turn system", very similar to the battle system in Persona) and to debuff your opponents/buff your allies. You can also recruit demons to your team, and fuse two or more together to create stronger demons with inherited abilities. Compared to Strange Journey the mechanics felt a bit under-utilised (as an example, you fight a boss that changes elemental weaknesses and immunities in that game), but that is a minor complaint. All in all, it is really really fun.

The theming is also unique compared to the classic fantasy JRPG-environments, in particular the underground Tokyo segment that ~75% of the game consists of. This is further enhanced by an atmospheric soundtrack. Most of the music accompany the environments rather than standing out on their own, but the boss theme is a highlight.

Other than these elements, my 50 hours spent with Shin Megami Tensei IV felt like a flawed experience. While the gameplay system is satisfying, the game constructed around this system leaves much to be desired.

To start with, this game has the most horrendous difficulty curve I have ever encountered. Instead of starting easy and gradually increasing the challenge and complexity of the battles, SMT IV does it reversed. The first 8 hours of the game have you exploring Naraku, an almost absurdly tough dungeon. Even having a deep understanding of the game mechanics from playing two other SMT-games and doing all available side quests, I had to return to the surface regularly to heal just from damage sustained by random encounters. This devilish trial is underpinned by facing off with the first main boss of the game - The minotaur. I had constructed a team specifically around its elemental weakness and attacks, but still barely managed to survive with one of my four party members.

After finish Naraku, the game becomes rather balanced for a while. But around 15 hours in, the previous hardships were exchanged with a difficulty more akin to modern Pokemon-games. Despite me starting to avoid and fleeing from almost all enemy encounters and skipping most side quests around the 25-hour mark and forward, I managed to beat all major battles and dungeons without even making an effort. This aspect was never present in Strange Journey for me, which gradually upped the challenge for each part of the game in a satisfactory manner.

Adding insult to injury, the gameplay taking place outside of battling and combining demons was really underwhelming. I am impressed by the technical prowess of this 3D-RPG running on the 3DS, but it never really adds anything to the game design. Strange Journey was a first person-dungeon crawler, but managed to design the experience around it. It had puzzles and exploration that utilised the game map on the lower screen and first person-perspective to great effects (for the most part). SMT IV on the other hand feels very uncomfortable in a classic 3D-JRPG environment. Movement is clunky, puzzle elements rarely appear and controls are stiff compared to other 3D-JRPGs on the system.

The overworld map of Tokyo is even worse. You have no ability to highlight locations or pause to look at it without risking an enemy rushing into you, making exploration tedious instead of exhilarating. A huge reason I stopped doing side quests was from a reluctance of having to expose myself to finding locations on the overworld. A map that actively discourages the player to experience parts of the game is not a good map.

While I liked the uniqueness of the game's location, less can be said of the actual visual design it provides. The colour scheme feels like something taken out of Call of Duty; brown, grey and black gives the game a muddy, bland feel. I do not necessarily oppose this palette in and of itself, but rather the execution. Killzone 2 is a perfect example of how to use grey and brown to create something interesting and unique. The major gripe I have comes down to the lack of variety - Atlus did a really bad job of distinguishing dungeons and city districts of Tokyo from one another. This to me is missed potential - imagine how they could have accentuated how different districts are known for different things. Shibuya could have been a fallen fashion district, another part of the city could have focused on the banking sector. This would have allowed for more creative and distinct areas without distancing the game from its theming. Once again, Strange Journey succeeded with this by having each level representing a destructive aspect of the human race - war, gluttony, environmental destruction etc.

Having many of the main bosses merely being regular demons from earlier titles without proper in-world connection to the plot further makes SMT IV feel uninspired. They often feel as if they are being thrown in without an afterthought, in result making them less central to the plot. More demons specifically designed around the games narrative would have allowed for higher immersion. Even Pokemon does this better - Trainers in newer games often use old Pokemon from previous generations, but the team composition in total often reflect their personality.

My final complaint is the muddled story. Without spoiling too much, I felt that SMT IV had a hard time of landing. Characters that are introduced in the beginning are quickly forgotten, not to mention that Mikado is almost completely forgotten for a major portion of the game. This is all concluded with a disappointing end-game without thorough build-up. While the world in itself is fascinating, it cannot compensate fully for the bland main characters following you. I would heavily have appreciated a more consistent storytelling, alternatively the embracing of a more surrealistic narrative structure. The end result is a weird mach-up between a classic JRPG-structure and convoluted religious themes à la Neon Genesis Evangelion.

In summary, Shin Megami Tensei IV is a somewhat entertaining JRPG mainly due to its fun core. Digging deeper however, a lack of polish and overall execution prevents it from coming close to other games in the franchise or comparable 3D-JRPGS of the past.

Cuando me propuse escribir una reseña, crítica, análisis “o cualquier cosa” sobre cada uno de los juegos que terminara este año también dije que me obligaría a que estos fueran escritos diferentes. Nada de hablar de “gráficos, jugabilidad y duración”, sino de uno de los temas relevantes al juego. Algo único que me transmitieran y que valiera la pena analizar.

¿Pero a cuál de los aspectos de un juego como Shin Megami Tensei IV referirme?

Podría hablar de cómo es disimuladamente una enciclopedia mitológica, con cientos de “demonios” que en realidad son entidades pertenecientes a los mitos y leyendas de una docena de mitologías. Toda clase de dioses, monstruos y criaturas de los mitos griegos, la cultura china, las leyendas japonesas, historias nativoamericanas, literatura fantástica, y hasta de los textos sagrados judeocristianos, se dan cita en este juego para ser nuestros enemigos y aliados. Cada uno de ellos está descrito por un breve texto que detalla su origen y comportamiento.

Los mitos de cada cultura son una ventana hacia sus creencias, idiosincrasia y particularidades. Gracias a Shin Megami Tensei IV he podido conocer muchas historias y criaturas que me han picado de nuevo la curiosidad y despertado las ganas de aprender más sobre las mitologías de todo el mundo. ¿Cómo es posible que apenas ahora vengo a conocer La Goetia?

También podría referirme a la forma como este juego toma las mecánicas más básicas de los JRPG por turnos, como el sistema de debilidades elementales (ya saben: fuego, electricidad, hielo...), y lo convierte en un sistema increíblemente estratégico llamado “press turn” en que las debilidades y fortalezas de los enemigos (y las nuestras) se pueden convertir en turnos extra en nuestro favor y en nuestra contra. Esto llena a Shin Megami Tensei IV de combates en los que nuestro nivel y armamento no importa tanto como la forma en que somos capaces de crear una estrategia en torno a los turnos extra.

O podría dar una mirada al curioso apocalipsis que nos presenta: un mundo destruido por la guerra y por la invasión de “demonios” que la siguió. Hablar sobre la forma en que usa los clichés de la ficción post-apocalíptica para criticar la cobardía y debilidad humana, la forma en que reaccionan ante este nuevo mundo para poder sobrevivir y cómo acogen la mentalidad de culto o la servidumbre ante una figura de autoridad moralmente corrupta si esto asegura un refugio.

Tal vez lo más adecuado sea escribir sobre su moralidad. Los tres personajes secundarios que acompañan al protagonista son representaciones de diferentes perspectivas ante la vida. Pero no se trata de seguir simplemente “el camino del bien o del mal”, “el del rebelde o el del juicioso”. Aquí hay dilemas morales interesantes sobre el valor de una vida sobre otra, sobre seguir las reglas aunque otros sufran confiando en que al final las cosas salgan bien. Lo que resulta sorprendente es que esta historia, a diferencia de tantas otras en videojuegos que ofrecen un sistema de moralidad, si nos juzga. Si seguimos el camino del “caos” o el de “la ley” las cosas no acaban bien para todos.

¿Qué hacer entonces? Hay un tercer camino, uno que busca el bien común. No es una ruta fácil de seguir y representa el doble de esfuerzo y dificultad que las otras dos. ¿Pero acaso hacer lo correcto no es siempre lo más difícil?

Cualquiera de estos temas merece ser abordado a profundidad, pero de momento me conformaré con decirles que estos están ahí, mezclados en este increíble juego que, tal vez no sea perfecto, pero es una arriesgada fusión de historias y mecánicas que no había llegado a ver nunca, y solo por eso vale la pena adentrarse en él.

Lástima que el mapa de Tokio sea tan terrible de navegar.

Okay, yes, I'm a little late on this. Yes, SMT V is out already. It's on the to do list! Anyways, SMT IV has a killer vibe. You play a sick group of cyber samurai! Plenty of games try this, but few are as creepy, freaky, and badass as this. The often alarming, yet kickass soundtrack adds a lot. A game's vibe is important!

The moment to moment gameplay is greatly improved over 3, though I do prefer 3's dungeons and overworld. Getting around is kind of a chore, which is too bad given how cool the maps and existing assets are. It would have helped a lot if there was more dungeon variety.

Having said that, other smart quality of life choices make running around notably more pleasant. Fusing demons whenever you'd like plus the demon whisper system encourage you to blaze through little jerks. You're constantly getting new pocket monsters, which makes even normal fights pretty addicting. Demon negotiation is better than ever, I maybe saw three repeated lines over ~40 hours of negotiating. And that dialogue is great! Much of the fun in SMT is witnessing the many ways demons will be assholes to you. Good stuff.

The plot is generally pretty alright, but I recommend staying away from the law path. The other two paths, especially neutral, are much better realized. And idk, law just felt extra icky. The game kinda ends abruptly depending on your path, so choose wisely!

Overall a great game. Definitely recommended! Though consider playing 3 first.