16 reviews liked by reggislowgas


Arguing with a fictional version of someone you lost an argument too 5 hours later in the shower: The video game

Mi mama es super normie
Me di cuenta cuando nos llego la noticia de que mi tia Eldita habia tenido un aborto involuntario y yo dije "IS THIS LOSS????" Muy fuerte
Mi mama me miro raro y siguio llorando
Se ve que mi papa es super gamer como yo, por que cuando le dije la misma broma me saco la conchetumare

One of the greatest games of all time, I have literal tears in my eyes.

Thank you Capcom

Actually the best Wii game, every character is hilarious and their fights fun, so much cool hidden tech and you feel like a GOD dodging and countering every move in the game, I haven't had a dopamine rush this good since I accidentally stepped on that needle.

i shot a witch with a thick ass and killed a kkk member but this game still sucks

"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



I wake up. I listen to the opening. I make a prayer to Kageaki Minato, to Muramasa the Crimson tsurugi, to Kanae Otori, to Ayane Ichijou and to Hikaru. I go on with my day. I go to bed and play Fuel my Soul, while tears flow from my eyes. I speak softly “It really was peak fiction” before falling asleep.
I repeat this process every day of my life.

My first SRW game, and the one I hold closest to my heart. Non-existent difficulty made up for the fact that it features like ten gajillion units going pew pew smack zoom whoosh wowee look at all the animations whoaaaaa Valzacard sugoi

Spoilers in the Alignment section, be warned. Rest are fine though.

The first SMT game many people including me played. As an intro game it's decent but if you've played other games in the SMT series there's no reason for you to play IV. Before I rip this game a new one let me talk about the things I did enjoy in it.

What I enjoyed
- OST is very good. Lots of memorable tracks
- The prologue of the game in Mikado is pretty good. Good introduction of characters and set up of the story.
- The side quests flesh out the world really well and the rewards are pretty good too.
- The new White Ending is super based.
- The stuff with the redpills and the perpetual reactor was cool.

What I didn't like

Story
The majority of the story is just stolen from SMT 1 and 2 but mangled up. This isn't a homage type situation where the game is paying respect to what came before, IV literally reuses multiple plot points and a character but somehow it does them worse. Most people playing IV didn't play 1 and 2 so this goes over their heads.

Even on its own merits, the IV story is not good. After the prologue literally nothing of importance happens for like 10 hours. It's like

Prologue -> 10 hours of nothing -> alignment stuff towards the end of the game -> game ends

Alignment
IV has the worst depiction of alignments in the series by far. Every game since SMT 1 has developed the alignments or tried something new in its place.

SMT 1 - first in the series and builds upon the alignments from MT2
SMT 2 - Vastly build on Law and Chaos at the cost of neutral not getting a lot
SMT if - no alignments but the story changes based on your partner.
SMT 3 - no alignments, you get something similar but new in the form of Reasons.
SMT SJ - Brings back alignments but makes the alignment reps except neutral relatable and understandable.

In SMT IV Chaos and Neutral focus on nothing new at all. The chaos ending is the same old "fight to live, live to fight" stuff, and it's a shame because chaos was introduced in IV with an interesting angle of spreading knowledge. Neutral literally took the whole helping Masakado regain his strength thing from SMT 2. Law is inconsistent, the higher ups want Mikado to learn and grow in their absence by making them study technology from Tokyo but they also want to maintain the status quo for some reason.

It's actually baffling to me how badly Isabeau was handled as a neutral rep. She's indecisive and unsure for a good chunk of the game. We could've gotten a good arc about her learning to be confident and stand on her own, it wouldn't even be that hard to insert something like that into the story. It would fit perfectly into the alternate Tokyos section, we could've seen Isabeau's reaction to how Law and Chaos affect the world and what her indecisiveness could lead to. Instead we get a headless chicken. I know IV likes copying SMT 1 but it didn't need to copy the helpless woman as a neutral rep.

Characters
The set up for them in the prologue is nice but after that they turn into generic alignment heroes. Walter starts off as a bro character and stays that way for the whole game except towards the end where he has his "What if rich people... bad?!?!" moment which was a bit stereotypical but hey at least they did something with him. Jonathan starts off as someone you might think is a goody two shoes but it's clear that he doesn't fully agree with the rules and the law and is willing to bend them if necessary. After the prologue he's just a regular nice guy. Isabeau starts off as someone who seems composed and competent but by the end of the game she's reduced to this helpless girl who can't make any decisions on her own and has to rely on the MC. Navarre literally disappears after the prologue and you never see him again unless you do the relevant side quest. Basically everyone sucks after the prologue except Walter who gets a tiny amount of development which is probably why he's a fan favourite. Pretty bad situation especially compared to Strange Journey which had good characters with understandable motives and actions.

Gameplay
Dungeons suck. In fact there are almost no dungeons in this game except for the domains(which are bland and suck ass), the reactor and the final 2 dungeons. Instead of dungeons IV just has these areas that are designed to look like real life locations like parks and buildings. They look nice for a 3DS game and their design does fit the type of place it's supposed to be but ya know, an SMT with almost no dungeons is just weird.

Combat is fun but gets easy after the prologue before ramping up a bit for the final bosses.

Conclusion
Game sucks, has almost no identity of it's own and nearly everything in it has been done better by other games in the SMT series. Listen to the ost and move on