Ladies and gentlemen im going to keep it a buck 50 this might just be the worst game ive ever played

I dont think american developers should try to emulate japanese media and vise versa because this is the result of that.... Whats up with the shitty music its like they want to be shitty dragon quest so bad

Save yourself the money and time just go buy Final Fantasy VII instead

My favorite game i never finished. Not because it's too hard or i'm stuck, but because i'm cursed.

In my first playthrough i got to Sector F, then my mom accidentally broke my DS and the upper screen died. I tried like 5 times with phone emulators. All my saves died for some reason or another.
I buy Redux.
My launch 3DS crashes all the time for random reasons, making progressing miserable. It also has like an hour of battery life disconnected.

It's like i'm not meant to beat this game, but i will someday. The itch for first person dungeon crawlers always comes back, and this one is perfection.

Excelente uso de las alineaciones, fantásticas mazmorras, dos de los mejores líderes de toda la franquicia, increíble uso de la exploración para indagar en el lore y un largo etcétera de virtudes son todo lo que puedo aplaudir a una de las entregas más únicas de todo Megami Tensei.

Ciertamente, una de las mejores experiencias de Horror y Space Opera que tiene la consola para ofrecer, y toda una conmemoración a todo el legado que ha construido la franquicia durante tantos daños, y que en verdad considero difícil que algún otro título le pueda llegar al mismo nivel. PEAK MEGATEN

https://youtu.be/vFOAOckZrfI

Que despedida linda do Kazuma Kaneko

Que jogasso puta que pariu, um rpg incrivel e com uma exploração muito divertida e instigante. Seus designs, seus temas e mensagens, seus personagens, todos são incrivelmente marcantes e deixam um gosto otimo na boca quando você finaliza, e te deixam extremamente azedo quando você precisa tomar decisões cruciais pra historia, eu realmente bati muito a cabeça aqui pra tentar escolher qual caminho seguir

Infelizmente o level design de alguns mundos parece ter sido feito pelo proprio capeta, e a reta final é dificil a nivel de se você não tem o mapinha de fusões da wiki você simplesmente não passa

Enfim, otimo jogo, obrigado Kaneko

...holy shit, this is really good

as a huge fan of the original 2 SMT games, this absolutely feels like a love letter. the alignments feel tight and the characters are incredibly well humanized. the atmosphere is suffocating, and the difficulty generally is challenging in a fun way. i do think the final boss is pretty BS though lol

the fact that this game is trapped on the DS/3DS is a crime, a modern remaster is past due

This game is better than Jesus. I finished this ages ago but I want to leave a positive review on this site for once. The narrative pacing, themes, boisterous music (Shoji Meguro at his best easily though smt3 is still great, I just cant believe he made such a grandiose, good sounding orchestral soundtrack on the goddamn DS especially after the ps2 could barely handle nocturne's guitar riffs that had to be compressed), dungeon design (Eridanus is one of the best dungeons in the series, don't listen to the memes), eerie atmosphere...God, this game is so fucking good, its the ultimate reward for understanding megaten especially after playing smt1-3. Atlus peaked here, 100%, and I say this having loved smt4. My one and only gripe with this game is how extreme law and chaos are, though that actually sits perfectly with Strange Journey's narrative and themes, and this game has my absolute favourite neutral route in the series, fully embodying the indominable human will to keep going, to strive for a better world, and to change for the better. To take the shield, and to raise the spear.

Shelving this for now cause I haven't picked it up again in months.

This one is for the real JRPG masochists. If you're the elitist type that defends grinding and loves combing through every square inch of dungeons, fighting countless battles for rare drops and incremental progress, this is gonna be your jam 100%.

But for me it's a lot like pushing the boulder up the hill. As I progress more into Strange Journey the harder I'm finding it to want to even pick it up again. I adore the writing, characters, and art. The scenario is also really dark and unique and surprisingly complex. But it's all bits and pieces between the bulky, fatty meat of the game, which is hours and hours of wandering, fighting, returning to base, healing, repeat, as you slowly map out these massive, increasingly difficult dungeons.

There's a lot to love here, but I'm also at a point where it's starting to feel like the gameplay loop is engineered to draw out its length and waste your time.

"Visuals Novels is shit. I'll be here fighting angels in the name of chaos while you cling to Chee. Can you even take on the armies of YHVH and fight in the name of Chaos? I bet you dream of holding Chee's hand instead of claiming the world in Lucifer's own glory. Do you even dungeon crawling? Try not to feel too bad, but the objective best waifu in the entire series is actually Louissa Ferre, from Strange Journey, and Chee is but a bakuh and unpure girl compared to her."
-Rog, 2014 (RIP)

Playing SMTV has kinda made me think back to what it is about this game that'll make it always hold that special place for me that is "my favorite RPG." It's pretty far from my favorite one from a gameplay standpoint, or a story standpoint, really my favorite in terms of much except for one thing: A phenomenal sense of atmosphere. Strange Journey is a game that does almost everything in service to making an atmosphere of absolute hostility. The dungeons are sprawling labrynths of hidden doors, poison traps, and random teleporters. Just about every boss is infamous for some kind of bullshit status ailment abuse or overpowered attacks (Asura Roga funny moments). The music, while hardly my favorite in the series, looms over like a constant blanket of dread. The game really goes to efforts to make you feel like the small, powerless grunt in a foreign hellhole that you are. Every challenge, while maybe not the fairest thing in the world, makes you feel like an absolute god once you overcome it.

The other stuff is good too! While SMT as a series isn't really known for its stories, this one's about as rock solid as the franchise gets. Plot's cool and got some neat twists and turns, Zelenin and Jimenez are objectively the best alignment reps in the franchise, and the BBEG being someone other than YHVH or Lucifer is certainly a nice change of pace. Also, it's cool how this is like the only game that doesn't fully incentivise going down the neutral path to get all the content in the game, since each ending has it's own unique shit to do. Rare neutral L is appreciated. Combat's good. It's an SMT game, the combat's generally gonna be good. The lack of press turn is maybe a little unfortunate, but giving alignment an actual gameplay purpose was a cool addition to it.

Shin Megami Tensei peaked as a franchise when the stupid bucket head man went into the earth bussy and we need to free ourselves from the shackles that Cuckturne and Peesona 5 set upon us. Reject press tvrn, retvrn to massive fvcking teleporter mazes. It's fun, i swear

Jogo de filho da puta. É um dos jogos mais injustos que eu já joguei, com um level design feito provavelmente por algum corno que acabou de tomar chifre da mulher pra ter tanto ódio acumulado no coração. Eu perdi as contas de quantos buracos no chão eu caí e tive que refazer um trajeto enorme só pra acabar caindo em outro buraco perto do que eu tinha acabado de cair.

Mas ainda sim Strange Journey é um tipo de experiência muito específica que eu aprecio, é frustante de propósito pra emular o desespero de andar em um mundo habitado por demônios. Na maioria dos Shin Megami Tensei, o apocalipse acontece na frente do jogador, ele presencia a destruição de todas as coisas, do universo inteiro, pela tela que o distancia do real e do irreal. Strange Journey não tem um apocalipse, porque a própria humanidade é o apocalipse. Ele utiliza de uma roupagem muito ocidental pra ludibriar o jogador a achar que esse vai ser um jogo de ideais e de promessas, mas na verdade o que ele realmente é, é provavelmente uma das histórias mais anti humanidade que eu já presenciei.

Eu venho registrando algumas coisas em formato de breves comentários enquanto eu estou fazendo a minha odisseia pela série, e uma das coisas que eu já falei é o quão cada jogo é único em temas e discussões mesmo se valendo de uma base universal em sua criação. Pra criar uma história anti humanidade, SJ brinca com essas características compartilhadas pela série pra criar essa narrativa agressiva. Eu normalmente sou um forte seguidor do Neutral porque eu e meus casas somos totalmente fechados com a humanidade. E como de costume, eu segui o Neutral aqui. Só que esse final é uma MERDA. O jogo constantemente mostra que os humanos não valem nem o pão que o diabo amassou, e até eu que sou fechado com a humanidade tive minhas dúvidas na metade pra frente se realmente valia a pena continuar no Neutral. E o final é muito insatisfatório, você se alia com os humanos que trouxeram a própria destruição pro planeta, e o jogo deixa bem claro que a destruição é inevitável e uma hora ou outra vai acontecer de novo. A todo momento ele martela na tecla que não vale a pena fazer isso, que o mundo precisa de novas leis ou uma libertação dos antigos costumes, porque do jeito que tá indo, a humanidade vai ser engolida pelo próprio planeta mais uma vez.

"The Schwarzwelt, born in the Antarctic and threatening to cover the Earth, has vanished. At the moment of its withdrawal, all demons on Earth vanished with it. And so, mankind, in the depths of their despair, reclaimed hope. The Schwarzwelt Investigative Team's incredible report was met with shock the world over. However, it is unknown whether the people understood its full repercussions..."

É um dos jogos com a ludonarrativa mais bem trabalhada que eu já joguei, toda escolha criativa na verdade é uma escolha artística pra fazer esse jogo funcionar do jeito que ele funciona como um pacote completo. A trilha sonora apesar de não ser a minha favorita, é muito marcante, porque ela realmente te faz passar a sensação de perigo e um senso de sobrevivência. Vencer um chefe é lindo, porque todos tem algum tipo de bullshit proposital pra eles realmente parecerem um desafio, mas mesmo assim ele ainda é um SMT, tudo depende de como você se aproxima das mecânicas de combate dele porque você tem todas as ferramentas necessárias pra vencer um chefe.

A única coisa que realmente eu não gostei é a falta do press turn aqui. O press turn é substituído por um all-out-attack de Alagoas. Ao acertar uma fraqueza e se seus demônios forem do mesmo alinhamento que o seu, eles vão dar um dano extra no inimigo. E apesar de entender que isso é uma tentativa pra voltar pro design antigo da série, eu ainda acho muito triste a falta do press turn. Tirando isso? Jogo foda. Kamige.

Stop me if you've heard this part before: The whole world is in a state of chaos. Crime and war runs rampant, resources are dwindling rapidly, and the planet is becoming increasingly more uninhabitable. Still with me? Okay, there's this tiny blip that appeared on the south pole with black hole-esque properties, and it's slowly but surely expanding, threatening to swallow the planet whole. Government officials from across the globe band together and decide that their best course of action is to send their best military and scientific minds into this vortex, dubbed "the Schwarzwelt". As you might assume, everything goes horribly wrong, and our intrepid heroes find themselves on a very strange journey as a result.

The Schwarzwelt is full of unknowns. Areas that seem to reflect the sins of humanity, materials unfamiliar to man, and in typical Shin Megami Tensei fashion, demons. None of this operation would be possible without your handy-dandy Demonica suits, allowing the users to breathe in this foreign atmosphere, and making the invisible become visible. Even new demons show up as visual noise until you defeat them at least once. They also let you equip sub-apps, which give you a variety of benefits in the field. Some apps heal you every few steps, others tell the random encounter rate to calm down. Each app has a point value equivalent to how useful the ability is, and since you only have 10 app points, you really have to think about which ones you need for any given situation.

Strange Journey uses the DS's hardware to present your perspective in a creative way. It's a first-person dungeon crawler, but you're always wearing your Demonica suit, and the UI reflects that with a stylized HUD in the corners of the top screen, and detailed information on the bottom screen, like you're looking at your wrist computer. Also, I am enamored with this game's soundtrack. It's loud and bombastic, like government officials with self-importance on a death march, and the sounds of the Schwarzwelt are these overbearing chants, as if the areas themselves are alive and antagonistic. It's thematically appropriate, but it's definitely much harder to listen to for extended periods of time. Other SMT games lean harder into grungy rock music, and it's music that I listen to outside of the games frequently. Strange Journey's soundtrack starts to make me feel insane after a certain amount of exposure.

Post-Nocturne SMT combat is pretty recognizable, so leave it to Strange Journey to throw me some curveballs in that department. The "press turn" system is absent, and we have "demon co-op" in its place. Whenever someone exploits an enemy's weakness, other party members of the same alignment perform a bonus attack, with more party members equaling more damage. Yep, the law-neutral-chaos alignments play more than just a plot-related role in this game. Along with your own alignment, every demon you encounter falls somewhere on this spectrum, to the point that some will outright refuse to talk to you (just like real life). It adds an interesting twist to the usual team building and weakness exploitation of SMT, even if it's really only an extra step to consider.

After much deliberation, despite being pretty fond of first-person dungeon crawlers, I may lowkey hate this game. Out of all the SMT games I've played, I think the labyrinth gimmicks are the most obnoxious they've ever been in this game. I can turn a blind eye to funny nonsense like pitfall traps or floor that damages you. Where I draw the line is when the game asks me to navigate chunks of areas in complete darkness, leaving the map unmarked the whole way. Then you demand I navigate conveyor belt mazes under complete darkness. Then you finally give me an upgrade that lets me see in these dark areas, and immediately invalidate it with a different type of darkness in the next area! Followed by a gigantic unmarked teleporter maze! Etrian Odyssey came out two years before Strange Journey, and that game's whole gimmick is drawing your own map so you know where everything is! Why does the ATLUS game where you wear hi-tech future armor not let you manually edit the map?!? Strange Journey has all these cool mechanics that are wasted on navigation that feels tailor-made to annoy you.

All Shin Megami Tensei games center around a clashing of ideals, "law vs. chaos", that sort of thing. I think it's truly poetic that for one of the stronger, more character-driven plots in an SMT game, they contrasted it with some of my least favorite gameplay to grace the franchise. How's that for law vs. chaos?

An absolutely amazing game, right up there with Nocturne for being one of the best SMT games
Atmosphere is one of the best in the series
Story and characters, amazing
While it doesn't have press turn, the paired alignment mechanic was really interesting and I did enjoy it a lot.
The game also made me think much more about party arrangement and using as many demons
As I had to get their sources rather than just recruit, never touch and fuse like I normally do.
Atmosphere is what I consistently come back to
It's thick, it's raw, it's always present no matter what.
Music while not being the normal Megaten style is a very welcome change, having a more orchestral soundtrack fits for this game.
Each sector having it's own theme that fits the absolute disgust and waste apparent in each one
Also anyone who has an issue with Sector Es teleport puzzle
Skill issue, learn how to navigate a maze