Shin Megami Tensei (1992)

Shin Megami Tensei lays the foundations for a phenomenal series. Post-apocalyptic story and flair mixed with an incredibly deep and addictive fusion system where you're only as good as what you put into it, and an alignment system that ditches the good/evil for a slightly more complex law/chaos system with a neutral sweet spot. Why 4/5 stars?

This game is one of my favorites, but its flaws sure show. Hardcore nature aside, Shin Megami Tensei has sprawling dungeons that look almost the exact same; it's difficult to get lost and while the automap system is helpful, it's peculiar why the helpful minimap requires a spell and dissipates over time. Luckily enough, the music is fantastic and I could listen to it all day, so the dungeons aren't too much of a bore.

As for the pace of battles, well...they are a slog. The fact that they make up most of the game doesn't help either as you slowly chip away at a group of enemies on screen only to be replaced with another set of enemies replaced by another set of enemies and so on and so forth. The randomized nature of encounters also ensures you forget where you are as soon as you're done with a string of six battles. Status effects are nefarious and enemies hit like a truck, but with enough leveling and wise fusion, even auto-battling is a fair enough option through most of it.

As for demon fusion, there are a wide array of skills and stats to choose from, and demons can be readily picked up (if your alignment matches) for fun experimentation. It's a bummer that the demons tend to cap out early instead of balance across Levels 1-99 so you can have a good army to fight the end bosses, but the end battles aren't too horrendously difficult (unlike the YHVH and Lucifer of SMT II), so there's a bit of flexibility there.

Gripes aside, Shin Megami Tensei is an appetizing concept with an alright execution. The story is unique and follows some interestingly different paths with its Law/Chaos dichotomy, including different ultra-powerful demons and weapons assigned to each. If you have the patience for slogging battles and confusing dungeon layouts, this might just be the classic for you.

I got a bit obsessed playing this game and it was aptly expressed through the metaphor of the game's underlying lore, it very much is the equivalent of being possesed by the SNES... It grew from a historical curiosity, to enjoying a chaotic first person crawler with unique and random mechanics, to diving deeper into everything from creating spreadsheets (built from the wiki) to glance at while playing to scouring for the fan translations of the origial novels which megami tensei was based on. These books originally wrere more or less bbs/internet creepypastas which also seems on point. I really got into this game a lot more than I expected to (or should have) However, I honestly do not have the patience for it the second half or so of it. This game is nothing short of amazing, quite beautiful in several ways but it's not standard fare or everyone's cup of tea, those who play it and enjoy it will know pretty quick if it's for them or not. Sane people don't play SMT at all, much less the whole thing (especially not these days). Yet, I found it to be one of the better crawler's i've yet to come across in that it has enough variation and chaos to not feel like an endless slog or mind numbing activity despite the fact it requires ENDLESS grinding, yet every little progression make it new, and you can do so much in this game. It's got some seriously good style and some interesting context considering it takes place in a 199X japan rather than some outright fantastical setting. and builds monsters and whatnot based around various deities from religions. Truly an outstanding SNES title that goes above and beyond

However, this game has a very dark and sinister side.... First, there are mechanics that aren't flawed or dated, they are just ruthless. For instance there are arbitrary quest progress/story plot progression routes that are very well hidden. There's a lot of clunky player unfriendly stuff that just seems not right maybe outright deliberate. a lot of bits of the game just feel like a programmer trying to sadistically grief you. Second this game is maddeningly long. While much of this game actually is not 'hard' in the traditional sense of most games, it just requires lots of time and patience... A very unholy amount of dedication. Between the reading, playiang, research mapping, etc... I think it might be the longest game I've ever played. Has to be up there. It seems most don't have as much troulbe as me, but I put in 80 hours and eventually saw it was just getting tougher and more grindy and i was crawlng even slower, so i threw in the towel and watched a lets play. I was a bit horrified to see how more grindy and worse it would get... I know I would have put 200+ hours into this had I actually trawled through it. I wasn't even halfway done and it was the easier un-half. I actually picked this up believing the 40-60 hours on how long to beat. Unless you are some super dungeon crawling super saiyan that's a lie! I have no idea how that could be possible. The problem with this game and it's length is taht by the time you put 60+ hours in it, it gets very tiring. It seems longer than it needs to be, and simultaneously the flaws in it become increasingly irritating.

stuff i like about this game
-Depictions of good and evil and player choice and consequences. Definitely never played a game like this. IT would be nice to see more games have real ethic connundrums and choices and consequences, you rarely see it. If you like a game that makes you wonder if you chose right or wrong as you progress through it this is comparable to Deus Ex! Also Real Multiple endings, and you can back and forth a bit if you wish to change your paths.
-Demon negotiation. This is probably the highlight of the game, and what it would be most well known. It's both a fun little premise but serves as a really incredible example of a SNES game with in depth dialogue trees.
-autobattle mechanic. it's really quite good here. Not perfect but good enough for it's day.
-monster collecting, evolution. its kind of cool and it is a progressive thing. monsters dont gain xp (so there is no grinding) you just combine them to breed a higher level demon. this also makes them somewhat disposable.
-subtle narrative twists. nothing major but it's better than you usually get from a game like this.

stuff i dont like
-really requires a lot of looking up stuff, maps, charts, tables, faqs, its a lot. i think i must of spent more time doing reasearch than any other game. (which wasnt bad, but i dont like the fact i really HAD to)
-The monster evolution 'rules'... i dont quite get it. I think this is also a mechanic that continues throughotu the series... I like the experimentation but Even after reading several things on it i still can't wrap my head around it-_-
-item maangement. it's awful. Really awful in so many ways. Between the fact going to a shop and buying gear is a time consuming affair, it's easy to make mistakes, and the fact you can't even read more than 12 letters of text on some screens and even less on other causes problems and feels lame. Your space is always limited so this can make casual affairs (like regearing at a shop, upgrading armor, etc) a major time consuming chore. theres also a lot of worthless items you pick up or might keep. also there are good items that you dont really know what they do unless you look at a wiki to see how they work (since stats are hidden)
-banal story and some goofiness.
-some balance of the monster collection and utilization is arguably needed imo. in a way it almost feels optional, which isn't outright bad, but it feels like a bit more use out of the demons could be implemented.
-Sometimes battle evnets make you forget where you are going. fog. pitfalls. etc.

despite the flaws it's good bits really shine and i'd say it beats the pants off Dungeon Master, Wizardry and all else i've seen because the game isn't static in many ways. from demon upgrading to demon negotiation to player choices and consequences, a great deal of this feels very chaotic and emergent rather than a cookie cutter crawler where you do the same thing over and over. However, after 40-60 hours or so, it loses its luster. Still, as you progress it really moves nicely with the player. I enjoyed the music and the way it paces. I can't imagine playing this when it came out it must have been very intense both in the theme and subject matter, and without wikipedia, emulators or gamefaqs it seems like it would be impossible to ever complete this game without a guide. This is my first Atlus game and I've tried to not spoil too much but have done a little reading since I picked this up. So very glad I did and will probably even play the old series (megami tensei) a bit as well as read a translation of digital devil story. The game has aged somewhat badly but it's still a very interesting game and worth putting a few hours into if you like this universe/mythos. SMT is probably the very definition of a 'hardcore japanese game' that a general (american?) audience could never be ready for, due to themes and just sheer tedium of playing it. I do look forward to exploring the rest of Atlus stuff (especially Persona)