Shin Megami Tensei and "Difficulty"

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Posted on: 25 Sep 2024

Shin Megami Tensei

Since my last post, I’ve beaten another pair of Shin Megami Tensei (SMT) games. The ironic part is that while they were both “upgraded” versions of their respective games, one I would call the “definitive edition”, and the other “spoils the pot”. I’ll get into more detail about each one in a bit. If you’ve read my previous posts about Shin Megami Tensei V or Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, you may be familiar with some of the content that will be discussed here. If not, nothing to fear, as I will attempt to summarize the points that matter most for this discussion.

Re: The Description

In case the post description went over your head, there’s a prominent meme video in the SMT/Persona series that you can watch here. I do not know the circumstances that created this video, but if I was to hazard a guess, it was probably a commissioned video using a heated forum discussion post as the script.

Atlus’ Love of Definitive Editions

For those unfamiliar with Atlus’ business practices regarding the Persona and SMT series, it’s somewhat similar to how older Pokemon games would receive a 3rd installment to a generation. Except in Atlus’ case, we’re no longer talking about $30 handheld games meant for children. These are $60 (soon to be permanently $70) games. The new content can vary from title to title, but very rarely would it warrant re-issuing a game as a completely different, fully-priced entry.

If you’re looking to see just how egregious this practice has become, look no further than Persona 3: Reload (P3R). P3R is a modernization of Persona 3, a game that first released back in 2006. While it’s fundamentally still the same story that Persona 3 originally told, it utilizes a lot of modern gaming conveniences and systems that Atlus has refined over the years.

I’ll avoid going into the extraneous details of what sets P3R apart from the original. The point is that while this was a much-desired modernization of P3, it too was subject to the same nickel-and-dime practices that Atlus uses on their fan base. Like Atlus’ previous modern releases (modern being anything post Persona 5), Atlus has included several DLC options for people to purchase. Many of them are simply costumes that reference their other titles, others are music from those previously mentioned games. However, Persona 5 also included several DLC options for in-game resources that offered significant advantages when compared to the strength progression the game originally intended. These offered a simpler way to play the game while still experiencing the story. While most would probably avoid using these game-breaking advantages, it still remained an option for those who wanted it. This is all a long winded way to say that while the DLC offered some bonuses, it wasn’t necessary to experience the complete version of the story that the base game includes. This changed with P3R.

Once again Atlus listed multiple DLC for people to purchase independently, again in the same flavor of costumes, alternative BGMs and Persona recolors. However, they also included an Expansion Pass for the game. If you’ve been around since the PS3/Xbox 360 era, your first assumption would likely be that all the DLC I’ve mentioned previously can be acquired simultaneously through this pass. That is incorrect. In fact, nothing in the expansion pass can be bought individually. Why then would you want to purchase this content that uses the term “expansion pass” so liberally? It’s for Episode Aigis, a 30 hour story expansion that immediately follows the end of P3R.

Episode Aigis was effectively another evolution in a long line of developmental practices that Atlus has chosen get as much return on each product as possible. Having yet to experience this content, I do not have a solid opinion whether not purchasing the DLC is in fact losing out on significant content. It can’t be understated that Atlus’ JRPG titles can easily occupy 60-100+ hours of time when enjoying them at a leisurely pace. If/When I finally get around to playing this game, I’ll be sure to include my thoughts on the complete product.

Regardless of the optics that such business practices garner for Atlus, the primary issue I take with them is the wild variance that their definitive editions provide. Sometimes the extra content is just that, extra content that players can choose whether to engage with. However, these “enhanced” versions often carry with them additional mechanics or even artistic modifications. The worst offender of all might not even be a change that happens within the game, but the cadence at which these releases were so predictable. Persona 5 finally released after years of no new games, and sure enough the enhanced edition rolled out just a couple of years later. Atlus understands this, and have effectively managed to capitalize on FOMO as their primary business model for the better part of two decades.

As gaming shifts even more away from platform exclusives and becomes more comfortable with simultaneous releases, we’ll hopefully see a revision in their business model. Until then, there has only been one game in Atlus’ catalog that I considered worth the price of admission. That game was SMT V: Vengeance.

SMT V and SMT V:V (Now with double the V!)

Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance (SMTV:V) is the latest release for Atlus in their Shin Megami Tensei series. It is an enhanced port of SMT V, which first released in 2021 for the Nintendo Switch. During my playthrough, I could tell that while I absolutely loved the mechanics present, the story felt cobbled together toward the end, and the visuals were “good enough”.

My biggest reason for being excited for SMTV:V was the new story teased during the initial reveal. If it could refine the bits I took issue with and explore some of the concepts that were left out due to crunch, I thought it could elevate the game to heights that would rival Nocturne. While the new story was interesting, it only felt like a marginal improvement to the narrative that the base game offered. Rather than expand upon the previous story, SMTV:V decided to instead explore a parallel story that uses much of the same cast. This story challenges more of the characters perspectives, and slightly alters the situations they encounter.

While this means that overall the amount of new story is larger, it also meant that the original story is left entirely as it was, rough edges and all. The new story also takes a good while before it fully diverges from the original, likely in an attempt to reuse as many assets as possible to save time. An added benefit of splitting the stories like so means that a player can effectively play the game twice and experience two unique stories. Design choices seemed to take this into account, as some items received during the game seemed unique to their respective storylines. I have yet to play the original story in my copy of SMTV:V, but I hope that the mechanics added are still present there.

SMT V was another title to use Atlus’ much loved Press-Turn System, which awarded experimentation with enemy weakness and planning around them for maximum rewards. SMT V added onto this by including a system similar to limit breaks from the Final Fantasy series. By simply participating in combat, you would slowly accumulate a resource that could be spent to perform a variety of actions, depending on the demons you had present. This allowed combat to have a kind of “momentum” to it, where you might need to adjust strategies for enemies that are about to use theirs, or prepping your party for when yours fully charges in a couple turns. Unfortunately, the initial skill you start out with is incredibly versatile, and I wouldn’t be surprised if most people just stuck with that their entire playthrough (I know I did).

To combat this, SMTV:V adjusts the overall potency of this ability to be not as game-defining as it once was. I began experimenting more with the types available to me and it added another facet of planning to my team composition throughout my journey. The most interesting aspect of them was the few unique abilities that could only be activated if prerequisites were met. This usually meant having either demons of the same family or demons related through their lore present simultaneously before activation. While this might seem like a headache initially, the abilities more than make up for it, as they usually grant massive benefits for the investment required. To further deepen the synergy that demon families possessed, SMTV:V also added an innate skill to every demon.

If you’ve ever experienced a Pokemon game from Gen 3 onward, you can compare the innate skills of demons to the abilities that Pokemon have. For no additional cost to you, demons can confer many types of passive bonuses simply for planning around their presence. While they’re no doubt beneficial, it’s not something one should sacrifice other parts of their team composition to utilize. For example, the demons referred to as the Four Heavenly Kings all have an innate skill aptly named “Four Heavenly Kings”. By having one or more present on the battlefield and summoning another from your stock, each one that was already in battle gains massive buffs from the action. As another example, you might want assistance with conversing with demons. By simply having a Pixie or a Succubus present, they can either guarantee a desired outcome or reset the conversation so you can continue the conversation towards your goal. It’s always good to examine what innate skills demons possess to determine if you’re able to apply them to your current situation.

Overall, SMTV:V provides a great experience to both newcomers and veterans of the series. For the price of admission, you effectively get two 60-100 hour storylines. While I still wished the stories themselves were a bit more focused or explored other concepts, they’re a great way to experience what Shin Megami Tensei has to offer without asking you to climb a mountain from the very beginning. For that type of experience, look no further than the other SMT game I’ve finished so far this year, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux.

Strange Journey vs. Redux

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey (SMT:SJ) first released in North America on March 23rd, 2010. It was one of only a handful of games to receive an M rating on the Nintendo DS. The protagonist in this story is a hired soldier who is assigned to assist an investigation team attempting to reach the center of a phenomenon that appeared in Antarctica dubbed the “Schwarzwelt”. Once inside, they realize that they are surrounded by demons and cut off from the rest of the world. Now, they must fight for their lives as they try to solve the mystery and save humanity. On the hole, Strange Journey puts a whole new spin on the SMT formula, from the more science-fiction aesthetic to the usage of an entirely adult cast.

Without a doubt, it’s the darkest SMT game that I’ve experienced so far. The cast is also significantly larger than any other SMT game I’ve played so far, as you frequently hear from over half a dozen characters regarding the developments as they occur in the game.

Before I started playing games in the SMT series, I was very confused about what exactly people meant by a “real Shin Megami Tensei game”. Now that I’ve experienced quite a few of them, I think I have a rough idea of what they mean, and will be exploring that below.

Essentially, SMT games focus on three aspects that appear across every game in the franchise. These include:

  1. Combat
  2. Exploration
  3. Choice

Until the Press-Turn system was created, combat in SMT games followed the same type of turn-based design that other JRPGs follow. Turn order is determined by speed, and status affects can require adaptations during the fight.

C-C-C-Combat

Combat in Strange Journey is somewhat similar to other SMT titles, but the Press-Turn system is intentionally not present in this entry. Instead, exploiting an enemy’s weakness rewards the player with follow-up attacks from other members of your party. The major caveat to this system is that the follow-up attacks can only occur from teammates that share your alignment, whether that’s Law, Chaos or Neutral. In general, Strange Journey seems to put a lot more focus on your alignment based on your actions, which can be determined at all times by the color of your character’s name throughout the game.

As you recruit demons and fight them in combat, you’ll accumulate a resource called “analysis” for them. This represents your understanding of that creature, and it also confers benefits to you mechanically. Demons with an analysis level of 1 can be identified visually, something you will not have the first time you encounter a brand new demon. Level 2 allows you to identify what the enemy is weak to, and can now plan for how to best handle them. Level 3 is the final tier, in which all information is now available for viewing. If you happen to possess a demon that reached level 3, they’ll also grant you a consumable resource known as a “Source”.

Sources are essentially a “copy” of the demon’s data, where that data is several skills that are always present for that demon’s source, in addition to potentially containing a skill they learned throughout their life. The purpose of these sources is to guarantee certain skills are passed on to other demon’s as you fuse them to either create new demons or a stronger version of the current one. While you can technically re-earn sources from demons, it’s honestly not worth the effort, as you will have to do tons of grinding just to earn it again. The better option would be to either fuse new demons that also possess those skills, or go exploring and attempt to recruit a new demon. Speaking of places to explore, let’s talk about the absolute units that are the dungeons in this game.

We Gotta Go Bigger

Before we delve into the dungeons of SMT:SJ and SMT:SJR, let’s first talk a little bit about where SMT dungeons got their start, and how they evolved and changed to become the dungeons that can be encountered in these games. Exploration in SMT games got their humble beginnings as first person dungeon crawlers. These dungeons typically have a central theme, with different types of enemies present between them. However, calling these areas “dungeon” might be underselling their complexity a bit. For comparison, let’s look at the biggest underground area that you can explore in “The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim” called Blackreach.

Map of Blackreach

If you’ve never experienced the complexity of this area, it can be hard to describe just through words. Typically a player would end up here after navigating a previous underground section that just so happens to connect to it. Thinking back to my last playthrough of Skyrim, this area is easily the biggest underground cavern I can recall, and navigating it can be somewhat of a pain, as you can only see small sections of it at a time through your map. The image above has made its best attempt to stitch each section together into one cohesive image.

Now here’s an image of the 1st floor of the 5th dungeon in Strange Journey, Eridanus.

Map of Eridanus 1F

The legend on the right-hand side describes the various symbols present on the map. This labyrinth is 4 floors of winding hallways, one-way doors and hordes of enemies seeking to ruin your dungeon-crawling adventure. Before the PS2 era, all SMT games featured convoluted dungeons to navigate. By designing dungeons this way, it ensured players would not be able to complete each game faster than they could create the next one. This began changing in Nocturne and Persona 3, as their 3rd person perspective meant that dungeons had to be easier to navigate without causing players to become lost. Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey (SMT:SJ) and the Redux 3DS port (SMT:SJR) revisit this first-person perspective with more modern takes on mechanics.

There are over half a dozen dungeons to explore in Strange Journey and Redux, each of which build off the mechanics taught by the previous ones, in addition to adding another facet to the challenges you’ll face for subsequent ones. The second image I presented above, Eridanus, is the poster child for the types of dungeons you’ll encounter throughout Strange Journey. Like the preceding dungeons, it asks you to recall mechanics you’ve interacted with thus far, such as one-way doors and river tiles. On top of this, it presents several sections where great care must be taken to recall where you’ve already visited, lest you be trapped wandering through a warp puzzle for quite some time.

If you plan on mindlessly navigating the dungeon in hopes that you’ll eventually stumble forward, I’d highly recommend against that. In fact, taking the time to plan out your moves or even tracking them on paper is much more rewarding. There aren’t many games anymore where making a physical map on graph paper is a thing, put it certainly helps in epic dungeon crawlers like this and earlier SMT titles.

While navigating each labyrinth, you may encounter situations where the character is asked to make a decision based on the current predicament. This is where the final design pillar of SMT comes to life, moral choices.

Many Moral Dilemmas

Overall, I’d say that Strange Journey’s main appeal is the cast you interact with, combined with the characters that serve as the “representative” of their respective beliefs. Since every character is an adult in this situation, each one vehemently sticks to their beliefs, and you can tell that their previous experiences in life drive those decisions.

Aside from the complex dungeons and the myriad of characters, the last major aspect of Strange Journey in my opinion is the difficulty. For newcomers to the series, Strange Journey is absolutely not an easy entry. Creating demons that can effectively deal with situations can take a lot of preparation, money can be scarce for a good portion of the game, preventing easy stockpiling of support items and healing, and the later bosses can easily require full team rebuilds to overcome them.

What Does “Redux” Mean?

“Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux” is a 3DS port of the original game that released in North America on May 15, 2018. This version included Japanese voice acting, a portrait for every crew member outside the main cast, a whole new dungeon, and three new endings to the game. On the whole it seems like upgrades all around. However, while some may consider these “enhancements”, players who liked the first game may see them as “downgrades”. We’ll be exploring a few of the changes and how much they affect the experience overall.

The Pictures Are Talking

One of the more prominent changes made to SMT:SJR is the inclusion of voice acting for the entire game. The only drawback, if you can call it one, is that the only language option available is Japanese. If you have issues with reading the text versus hearing it spoken in another language, you can always lower the voice volume to counteract it. I’ll always be curious as to the decision behind only having one type of language present. Was it to conserve space? Did they feel like an English voice cast was unnecessary? Either way, the changes go beyond just the sounds you hear throughout the game, each voiced cast member gets their own full-sized portrait with a unique design.

“Enhance Image”

Alongside the added voice acting, the revamped visuals will also stand out to you, assuming you’ve played the original game or have seen images of what characters were like back then. For comparison’s sake, I’ve included both versions of Commander Gore’s full body portrait. He’s one of the first characters you’ll encounter in either version, and he serves as a great A/B comparison of just how much the visuals were changed for the newer edition.

Image of Commander Gore Image of Commander Gore (SJR)

If I were to try and summarize the changes in a succinct way, it’s like comparing matte to glossy paint. No doubt this was to modernize the art style to bring it closer to art they’ve used in other projects at the time. At first I didn’t really have much of an opinion on the newer art, but over time it’s slowly become more of an issue for me. The easiest way to explain my issue is with the suit that is shown in both images, which in-game is referred to as a “Demonica”. It’s a cutting edge suit designed to protect against extreme environments and hazards. In the original, the suit’s texture appears to be similar to kevlar. That could just be the general art style playing into that, but when looking at the modern suit it just looks like spandex. The colors are almost flat, with only shadows to really make a distinction in the pattern. These changes are prevalent anywhere a full portrait is shown on screen. Due to the original design of the game, it largely relies on sprite-based art and imagery, so the fully waxed style is only present if you’re in an active conversation. Shifting topics to focus on something more closely related to the core aspects that make an SMT game, let’s look at the newest dungeon added as part of SMT:SJR.

We Have Labyrinth of Amala at Home

For anyone familiar with SMT Nocturne, you may recall a dungeon that you popped into for a short while early on in the story called the “Labyrinth of Amala”. This dungeon was not present in the first release of Nocturne, but was present in the North American release. This dungeon is structured in such a way that progress is only possible up until the next locked door. To unlock said door, a certain amount of progress is required in the main story. Otherwise, you may be able to get access to incredibly powerful items and demons before you’re expected to have them.

By structuring it to stay in lock-step with the main plot, you’re incentivized to revisit it at your leisure and progress until you’re ready to resume the main plot. It’s a decent strategy by developers to ensure that even if you’ve played the base game before, there’s always a driving motivator to continue progression in order to see more of the new content. Since there aren’t a lot of navigational skills granted to you during the campaign, progression is locked behind increasingly difficult bosses known as Fiends.

SJR follows this exact same formula, except this time the additional dungeon is dubbed as “The Womb of Grief”. Once again, you’re introduced to its existence very early on in the story, which is where you’ll learn of its purpose and how its depths will gradually become available as you continue to progress in the main story. Unlike Nocturne, SJR contains numerous navigational skills, each of which is slowly granted to you as you progress through the game’s original dungeons. This means that as you obtain new ones, you can decide at whatever pace you’re comfortable with how you wish to tackle the Womb of Grief.

For my playthrough, I tended to wait until two or more progression items were granted to me before trying to progress, but it might be more beneficial to revisit it as you obtain each one. Navigating the Womb of Grief can be quite a difficult task, and can also take a fair bit of time to do so. Like Nocturne, each level requires you to defeat a boss in order to progress, only this time the bosses are localized to each layer of the Womb of Grief.

The Last Straw

This section will get around to the elephant in the room, and is usually the number one gripe that a lot of players have with Redux over the original release. In this particular instance, the elephant’s name is Alex.

Another new addition to Redux alongside the Womb of Grief is a brand new character named Alex, who shows up at the beginning of the second dungeon to completely waste you with zero effort. This serves as both her character introduction in addition to introducing the Womb of Grief to the player. Obviously the meeting doesn’t permanently kill you, but it does quite a bit to set up initial impressions of her to the player. This initial interaction is not optional, and that point alone is why a lot of people feel that Redux detracts from the setting of the original.

By continuing to introduce new characters to the player, SMT:SJR begins detracting from the original feelings caused by the setting. This is of course the oppressive loneliness that permeates the crew as they attempt to navigate this unknown world without outside help for a good portion of the game. While it shares many similarities with the Labyrinth of Amala, the execution of it feels incredibly forced upon the player. Especially unlike Nocturne’s additions of the Fiends and the Labyrinth, ignoring the additions past their initial introduction is not the last time you’ll hear of either.

If you chose to ignore the Womb of Grief, you can largely have the same experience that a player of the original Strange Journey would. That is, right up until you think you’ve finished the game. It’s at this point that Alex forces her way back into the plot, and also grants you the honor of a surprise boss fight. This fight comes right on the heels of the original final boss, meaning that you’re also likely limping back to the ship and entirely out of resources. This continued forcing of the new character and story onto the player is by and large the biggest culprit of why people will continue to say that Redux is not the best way to experience the story or setting of Strange Journey.

On top of that shit sundae, another problem begins to emerge if you decided that you want to play Redux over the original, the pacing. For the most part, you can get through the game by simply focusing on the main story and side quests available to you. However, it might begin to become apparent that as you progress through the primary dungeons that enemies begin to absolutely floor you unless you get the most basic of encounters. From a game design perspective, this is usually a big signal to the player that they’re attempting to progress too quickly, and may have missed things to do along the way that would ensure they are ready to take on the newest area.

If you haven’t put it together by now, these points are when the game expects you to return to the Womb of Grief and complete the newest sections available to you. These sections include demon encounters not typically available to you in the game, in addition to bosses (and their experience points). Lastly, there’s another wrinkle to adding all this additional content that at the very least isn’t as prominent as the aforementioned area or character, brand new endings.

If you decide to completely finish the Womb of Grief prior to beating the final boss, you’re rewarded with an entirely new ending, which again will depend on your final alignment. If you’re a fan of doing additional content but still wanted to see one of the original endings, I’m sorry to say that unless you kept a backup save prior to finishing the Womb, you’re either doomed to replay the game in its entirety or watching your desired ending online. In my playthrough I avoided this fate, but I figured it was important enough to warrant mentioning.

At the end of the day, I’m still glad that I played Strange Journey, even if it was technically in the flawed form that a lot of people dislike. Hopefully my warnings can help you decide whether you want to play the original as intended or the “enhanced” version. Regardless of which you play, I’d still recommend experiencing the story in some way, shape or form. It’s quite a standout from the rest of the SMT titles even today. Unfortunately, regardless of the way that you choose to play this title, obtaining an official copy is now incredibly difficult due to the discontinuation of the 3DS eShop.

Leaving Money on the Table

Even with all of the massive Atlus titles becoming even more available on modern platforms, such as P3R, P4G, P5R and SMT5, there is still an incredible amount of games in Atlus’ catalog that are simply just lost media at this point. For some people this might not be a concern, but for people like me that prefer to experience the old and the new, it certainly throws a wrench into things. I’ve compiled a short list below of every game Atlus has effectively abandoned. It includes the last platform they were widely available on, and when that was. My hopes is that Atlus sees potential in doing a anthology collection much like Capcom and other companies have seen success in.

Entries are ordered from oldest abandoned title to most recent