Ishtar, my beloved...

I went into Shin Megami Tensei II immediately after beating the first game, which speaks to both my desire for more and my concern that waiting any longer would cause me to disharmonize with SMT's first-person perspective. The last thing I needed was to run around directionless and disoriented until I puked all over Valhalla. Okamoto doesn't need me to embarrass him like this, he's already on my ass for screwing around in weird VR programs.

Shin Megami Tensei II goes a step beyond being the best of the SNES trilogy-- it might be my favorite JPRG on the console. SMT1 was enjoyable enough for what it was, and I have some pretty mixed feelings about If..., but SMT2 is one of those games I think about several times a week and which I badly want to do a second run through, if only I could justify the level of commitment required against my bloated backlog. If you've been following me on this site, then you may either take that as high praise or a concerning sign of my worsening psychopathy.

LAW: This bit again. It's going to be a long review.

Ok, maybe it won't be that long, because while I do adore Shin Megami Tensei II, it is very mechanically similar to the first game. The most significant change is in the total number of available demons, many of whom have gone on to become franchise staples, like King Frost and (my wife) Ishtar. Mara is also here, if you're into that sorta thing. Are you into that sorta thing? Send me a DM if you're into that sorta thing

Shin Megami Tensei II is a sequel more in terms of scope and production and is otherwise structurally identical to the last game. You still want to spec towards using guns and roll with a team of Zio wielding demons, it remains the most effective path through the game. However, battles are more bombastic, faster paced, and benefit from some exceptional sprite art and imaginative character designs. Few battles from the first game stand out, and they're mostly tied up with major story beats, like the fight against Thorman (he's Thor, man) before the ICBMs launch, and the climatic battles against the Law and Chaos heroes. Conversely, I remember even the minor bosses of SMT2, like Betelgeuse, who is terrorizing a mine located outside a demon pasture full of demon bulls, and the 12 Shinshō who test Aleph's strength in Geburrah's maze. To me, they're just as impactful as the larger story battles against Kuzuryu and Satan.

CHAOS: I convinced Satan to stop running a concentration camp and radicalized him.

Alternate title: Ah shit, I'm lost in the Diamond Realm AGAIN!

Even the simple act of navigating through Shin Megami Tensei II's world remains largely unchanged from the previous game. You're still trapped in a first-person perspective whenever you're not in the overworld, and both dungeons and towns (which might as well be dungeons in their own right) are still fabricated from a small number of similar looking pieces that can make the adventure a bit disorienting at times. Everything I said in my previous review is applicable here, right down to the fact that I can't blame anyone for bouncing off of a game like this. Not only is it easy to get lost, you might do so within the first ten minutes given how much more open everything is. If you stick with it, however, you will acclimate and maybe, just maybe, you'll find yourself having a little bit of fun.

What sets SMT2 apart, however, is how involved some if its dungeons can be. This is going to be a love it or hate it kind of deal, either you're way into exploring caves full of imperceptible pits that must be used to carefully navigate between floors, or you won't. You'll either be screaming at your TV set every time you see yet another patch of poison tiles, or you'll do like I did and start cheering, jumping on your couch, and absolutely destroying everything around you as you're consumed with animalistic glee. I see a teleporter maze and I go absolutely feral with excitement.

Part of why I find this all so engaging isn't in any particular enthusiasm for these sorts of gimmicks on a mechanical level, but rather because Shin Megami Tensei II just sets this mood that makes it so easy to let go of all external factors and just sink in with the game. It's a bit of a hard one to describe, but anyone who has ever driven down the i15 at dusk on the tail end of a long trip probably knows what the general sort of atmosphere of this game is. A barren landscape colored in purples and oranges, brief glimpses of industrialized civilization in the distance, and hanging over you a distinct sense of loneliness, of fatigue, and anticipation. Yeah, it's another "George listened to a lot of Coast to Coast AM" game. Something about SMT2's world just got me thinking of Art Bell's home/studio, nestled out there in the desert East of the Rockies, stories of cryptids, aliens, and government conspiracies being shared under a blanket of stars.

As romantic as I'm trying to make this all sound, it mostly meant I was slipping around on greased up floors while trying to navigate a maze of invisible walls while Art, exacerbated, reminds everyone that he only wants calls tonight from time travelers. Lot of semi-truck drivers are time travelers; in case you didn't know. What an interesting profession.

Look, my brain is like, a single unopened slice of Kraft singles American cheese, I may be assigning a very specific Rocky Mountain-Far West vibe to this that doesn't necessarily apply (and almost certainly wasn't in the mind of the Japanese staff at Atlus who worked on the game), but it makes sense to me! And it's something I find vastly appealing and extremely Weatherby-core. Shin Megami Tensei II may not share the same atmosphere as Nocturne, but in terms of how deeply it resonates with me, it's pretty damn close, and that's saying a lot.

The larger cast of demons you can recruit also offers a lot more in terms of how you can alter your party's composition, and it helps both the Jakyou Manor/fusion and negotiation systems feel like they have more depth despite not changing fundamentally. You can also recruit human characters that appear in random battles, and I love their designs. I could pour over the concept art for the first two Shin Megami Tensei games all day, and in fact they're a huge point of motivation for me to get into coloring my own drawings, for which I began using (digital) copic markers due to their use in SMT's artwork. I'm not trying to plug my crap-ass illustrations, so much as I am trying to make a point that being inspired to improve creatively because you like a peice of media so much speaks to the sort of strength and staying power it has with you on a personal level, and boy is that true of me and Shin Megami Tensei II.

NEUTRALITY: Whoops! Your artificial messiah killed the creator god.

Shin Megami Tensei II's story is a lot more complex and involved than the first game, which itself was pretty threadbare but enjoyable despite its lack of substance. Set in the same universe as that game and following its Neutral Route ending, Shin Megami Tensei II takes place in Tokyo Millenium, the last known human settlement after the nuclear apocalypse that kicked off half-way through the last game. The former protagonist, known as "Hero," has been assassinated and his kingdom co-opted by YHVH and his four archangels, which have pretty much turned the whole place into a fascist state. YHVH wishes to pass his judgment upon mankind but first requires The Messiah. Growing impatient, three of the four archangels disobey YHVH's orders and create an artificial Messiah, Aleph, SMT2's silent protagonist. Instrumental though you may be, like in any Shin Megami Tensei game your fate is up to you. Maybe you do want to team up with your best friend Satan and ascend to space, fire a death beam from above and reign over what's left. Or perhaps you just think that god fella deserves a good punch to the nose instead. Uh, the choice is up to you or something.

There's a lot of really great beats that play out along your journey, like your rival, Daleth, getting zonked on a love potion and agreeing never to fight you again because he's happily married now and doesn't have time for that shit. A particular favorite of mine is discovering that Arcadia - a paradise that at a glance is too good to be true - is really just a simulation, and its inhabitants brainwashed husks jacked into VR. Shutting that shit down probably isn't good for them, but I did it anyway.

Tokyo Millenium feels like such a believable and unique place that it's a large part of why I want to go back and experience this game all over again. I just wanna spend some more time there, hit up a few bars, talk to some mutant babes, and who knows, maybe Luis Cypher will show up for a couple of drinks. Truly this is a place where everybody knows your name... They also want to kill you and take all your magnetite, but they have character and that's really what's important.

Unfortunately, I live in the boring old pre-apocalypse. Ugh. The last time I tried to make friends with a Jack Frost IRL, I got stuck inside a Dairy Queen walk-in freezer. Apparently Jack Frost isn't real, which is bullshit, and I wasn't allowed back there. Garbage.

But maybe if I get through my whole backlog then I can fire up Shin Megami Tensei II again and just... fade into its world. That sounds nice. I only have uh, 260 more games to play first.

I'm going back to the Dairy Queen and this time I'm bringing the Megido Fire.