Going back to a game's origins is always kind of fascinating. Figuring out what worked and what didn't in a franchise. Following the path of SMT 1 and 2, followed by SMT if, is kind of an interesting one. The series leans toward teen protagonists already, but the proper SMT games are less interested in the school environments and more in the apocalyptic nightmare survival zone. Centering the cast deeper in reality is somewhat fresh for the franchise at this point. As a result, there's a lot of fascinating little quirks in how the setting is built. The demon infested world exists on our layer of reality, essentially invading Tokyo and trapping the survivors in a terror dome. There's no time to ponder school dates or prepare for tests: the demons are here and at the door. Every civilian can see the chaos around them and its all a matter of survival.
For such intense stakes, much of the character work leaves a lot to be desired. I wouldn't call them cookie-cutter and I appreciate how much the artstyle and dialogue works to make much of the cast shifty and unpleasant. They squabble, they snipe, they can be downright rude and unsympathetic to the plight of others. But they have soft spots for their teammates and they'll dial back their unpleasant traits when they think its appropriate. Still, its hard not to feel like the characters are missing something to really make them shine. My stand-out fave, Yukino, is written as a reformed delinquent, but there's not much insight into what that past entailed. Any specific gang activity or troublemaking falls into vague sort of brush strokes. Its a sort of broad problem with how most of the girls are written, which just isn't interested in them as more than potential love interests for the protagonist. Out of the boys, the wealthy Kei Nanjo has the most consistent arc of the cast. Snobby elitist gradually recognizing that all his planning can't account for the complexities of the human condition. Otherwise, they all kind of fade away from my mind once the game shuts off.
The main exception being Maki, who gets a lot of inner strife to unravel. Her complex relationship to her bedridden state, her adoration of her friends, her jealousy of all the things that can do without her, her self-hatred, her escapism, her ups and downs. There's a lot to untangle through it all.
But its hard to want to pursue that plot when the gameplay can be such a slog. I'm a big proponent of cheating, especially with older games. There's only so much time in the world! I gotta pick and choose what kind of games I want to experience a challenge with or what games I just want to vibe in. But even if you fiddle around in files and boost your squad to max levels, the dungeon crawling itself is a path of exhausting repetition. The puzzles and labyrinths mush together, no one location standing out as interesting or unique despite all the gimmicks they might throw at you. Its not a balanced experience, its a gameplay time extender. And without more meat on the bone, the motivation to finish both routes falls apart quick.
Still. Its always good to see where things start. What works, what doesn't, and all the ways it can evolve from there. What a franchise keeps and abandons from entry to entry is worth interrogating. From the 20 minutes I just dipped into P2, I think that question is gonna be really interesting to examine.
For such intense stakes, much of the character work leaves a lot to be desired. I wouldn't call them cookie-cutter and I appreciate how much the artstyle and dialogue works to make much of the cast shifty and unpleasant. They squabble, they snipe, they can be downright rude and unsympathetic to the plight of others. But they have soft spots for their teammates and they'll dial back their unpleasant traits when they think its appropriate. Still, its hard not to feel like the characters are missing something to really make them shine. My stand-out fave, Yukino, is written as a reformed delinquent, but there's not much insight into what that past entailed. Any specific gang activity or troublemaking falls into vague sort of brush strokes. Its a sort of broad problem with how most of the girls are written, which just isn't interested in them as more than potential love interests for the protagonist. Out of the boys, the wealthy Kei Nanjo has the most consistent arc of the cast. Snobby elitist gradually recognizing that all his planning can't account for the complexities of the human condition. Otherwise, they all kind of fade away from my mind once the game shuts off.
The main exception being Maki, who gets a lot of inner strife to unravel. Her complex relationship to her bedridden state, her adoration of her friends, her jealousy of all the things that can do without her, her self-hatred, her escapism, her ups and downs. There's a lot to untangle through it all.
But its hard to want to pursue that plot when the gameplay can be such a slog. I'm a big proponent of cheating, especially with older games. There's only so much time in the world! I gotta pick and choose what kind of games I want to experience a challenge with or what games I just want to vibe in. But even if you fiddle around in files and boost your squad to max levels, the dungeon crawling itself is a path of exhausting repetition. The puzzles and labyrinths mush together, no one location standing out as interesting or unique despite all the gimmicks they might throw at you. Its not a balanced experience, its a gameplay time extender. And without more meat on the bone, the motivation to finish both routes falls apart quick.
Still. Its always good to see where things start. What works, what doesn't, and all the ways it can evolve from there. What a franchise keeps and abandons from entry to entry is worth interrogating. From the 20 minutes I just dipped into P2, I think that question is gonna be really interesting to examine.