Megaten

People who know me, and who keep up with games will know that I an a huge fan of the Megaten series. I have mainly been keeping up with the Shin Megami Tensei (真女神転生) series, having played all three episodes. I'm not going to bother writing an introduction here. If you want to know more, click on the Megaten link, or the title of this entry. This link is the official site.

Back in the early 90s, when the Super Famicon was all the rage, pretty much all the mainstream RPG games were based on medieval or fantastic settings. I played Zelda, Y's, Final Fantasy, Fire Emblem, Breath of Fire, Phantasy Star, etc. They were all decent, but they were all quite similar. Some took place in the future, and some took place in a fantasy land of the past. Most of course take place in a world that never existed. Naturally, there was always a bad guy, monsters, and evil at work. None however stood out to be anything different or spectacular in my opinion. Final Fantasy Six was the game at that time, and for good reason too: FFVI was just spectacular. While everyone was happily playing (and salivating over) FFVI, I was into something different.

I stumbled onto SMT by accident. I had no clue what the name meant. "Goddess Reincarnation" didn't ring a bell. The game started off with a computer screen and really scary music! Someone was using a computer and inputting some info into a "Digital Devil Story Net". In between all this, we could see glimpses of images like a figure hanging on a cross, a dude in a lab coat standing in front of a creepy device, scary dudes in front of an altar. Just dark, creepiness all around. My first thought was, "Wow! My kind of game!"... but what was it about?

So the game begins with a dream sequence with mysterious music and more religious symbolism. See this description from wikipedia:

Shin Megami Tensei begins with the player dreaming. In his dream, he encounters a stone slab that asks his name, a boy on a crucifix (a possible reason for this game never being released in western territories) and another boy being tormented by a demon. After this, he wakes up and receives an e-mail informing him that demons wander the earth once again. To allow him combat to the demons, a Devil Summoning Program is attached to the e-mail.

After these odd events, the Hero's mother tells him about a murder that occurred last night. He receives his allowance and hangs out at the mall. At the mall, he is attacked by a demon, after it eats a crazy man with a knife. After this, he goes home and goes back to sleep again. Then, he has another dream, this time, a girl is being sacrificed to summon a great demon. The Hero invokes her name, and she is set free from the summoners' control.

Wow! A game that took place in modern times! The theme was overwhelmingly dark. I could be that guy! As I played more, I discovered that the locations in the game were real places in Tokyo: Shinjuku, Kichijoji, Shibuya, Asakusa, etc. All the monsters in the game were demons from real folklore and from multiple backgrounds. It was a good mix of Christian angels, satanic demons, Hindu gods, western spirits, Celtic legends, etc. It wasn't just limited to a "blob", or "skeleton". The people who made this game actually did a lot of research before coming up with the massive enemy list. They took it a step further by introducing "Demon Fusion".

Demon Fusion and Summoning were the main draws of the game. Besides killing demons, you could befriend them and invite them to join you by offering them money, coercing them, or simply threatening them. It didn't always work of course, but when it did, you could immediately have them fight alongside you. Then comes the option of fusing two or three demons together to create a new, more powerful demon. The game was extremely complicated, but really interesting. There were more ways to becoming a powerful force than just leveling up and buying weapons.

I could go on and on about my fascination with all the types of demons and creepy religious storyline, but instead I think I'll leave you with a few thoughts:

• SMT's first and second episodes didn't make it to the US probably because they were deemed religiously inappropriate (i.e. the Christian god wasn't necessarily the good guy).
• The soundtrack was excellent. The music suited the game's mood perfectly.
• The story was very open: you could choose among many different paths or combination of paths (Law, Neutral, Chaos, Light, Dark, etc.) .

...to be continued...