Shin Megami Tensei II (1994)

3.80 from 70 ratings

315 members have it in their collection · 13 playing now · 170 backlogged · 152 wish listed

Fifty years have passed since the hero of Shin Megami Tensei followed the neutral path, defeated the leaders of Law and Chaos, and founded a state where followers of both ideologies could live freely. But his reign of freedom doesn't last long. The Messian faith gains power, expanding the Cathedral into a new enclosed environment named Tokyo Millennium. The Gaians rise up, but their rebellion is repressed by the Messians' elite warrior class, the Temple Knights. People flock into the encapsulated city, submitting themselves to the strict hierarchy imposed by the Messian Center, where only the privileged living in the Center district are safe from demonic assaults. A few years later, a retired arena fighter Okamoto rescues a man named Hawk, who was fighting for his life against a demon. He trains him to fight in the arena of the Valhalla district, hoping that he would win the tournament, which will grant them both citizenship in the Center district. When Hawk succeeds, he is brought before a Messian bishop, and learns the shocking truth about his own origins and the role he is supposed to play in the grand scheme of events. A new battle for a better future begins. Shin Megami Tensei II retains all the gameplay features of the previous game. The player is able to summon demons, fuse them to create more powerful ones, make them participate in battles, talk to random enemies and receive information from them, etc. The combat is turn-based, and the player explores the complex, maze-like dungeons from a first-person perspective view. Like in the first game, the Law, Chaos, and Neutral alignments play an important role: during the course of the game, the player will have to make choices that influence the alignment of the protagonist, steering the storyline into different directions. New features include a "magic succession" system, which allows demons to carry over their original magic spells when they are fused into new ones, a few additional spells and abilities, and the possibility to play at the casino and win unique items. Read less

Details

Developers: Atlus
Publishers: Atlus
Genres: Adventure, Role-playing (RPG), Simulator, Turn-based strategy (TBS)
Themes: Fantasy, Science fiction, Thriller, Warfare
Franchises: Megami Tensei, Shin Megami Tensei
Series: Shin Megami Tensei

Release dates

Mar 18, 1994 (Full Release) (Japan) Super Famicom
Sep 07, 2010 (Full Release) (Japan) Wii
Sep 25, 2013 (Full Release) (Japan) Wii U

Also available on

Shin Megami Tensei II (2002) · PS1, PS3, PSP
Shin Megami Tensei II (2003) · ANDR, GBA, iOS

Rating distribution

5 stars

4 stars

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2 stars

1 star

Community All Reviews Statuses

Status Chovus Jun 18, 2019

Beat on Law path. The most of the early/mid game I used m16s with sleep bullets and only summoned demons as needed. Focused on speed and stamina for the human characters. I used a walkthrough to keep tabs on what I had to do; the game is simple enough when exploring new areas but as soon as backtracking needs to happen I would rather save time and find out exactly where to go. I learned about being able to fuse high level demons using humans while reading that, so in late game when level 40 something I fused a level 59 Sariel and Pazuzu and by the time I was approaching level 50 I made a level 67 Cthulu. These demons wrecked everything, especially Pazuzu with his paralysis attack. I paralyzed many bosses in the first round and even Lucifer succumbed to paralysis eventually. None of these demons could do a thing against the final boss though, so it was a grueling and long fight. After beating the game I went to check out the bonus dungeon but did not have high enough stats to unlock any of the treasures. No real point to do so anyway since I beat the game.

This game was much improved from the first though I like the story and setting of the first better. The simple addition of a single button to access the map saved so much time and mental effort; I did not get headaches trying to navigate around this game like I did in the first. Also did not care for the casinos (which I abused the hell out of using save states) and the random nature of human + demon fusion. I was disappointed at the Law end because there was no reason to fight the final boss. God wiped out the majority of life to create a utopia consisting of only the people with desirable traits (which I assume to be law alignment). Sounds good sign me up. I think it would make more sense for Lucifer to be the final boss for law path and make him stronger, or at least allow the player to side with God instead of Satan.

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