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Let's Play Whuzzah Whatta What What?
Shin Megami Tensei, translated literally as 'True Goddess Reincarnation' or sometimes as 'The Reincarnation of the True Goddess' is a long-legged console RPG series from Japan. The series began as a spin off from a series of light novels titled 'Digital Devil Story', a set of nine light novels, though the original game only borrows (spuriously) from content from the first two or three. The first game Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei for the NES was named after the title of the first novel of the series, though the story in it more or less merely condenses some elements from the first three novels. Megami Tensei II would break almost entirely from the novels and begin to move into its own beast. The first game of the series when it moved on to the Super NES, Shin Megami Tensei, would cement the series even more as its own creature, easily overwhelming the novel series that spawned it in popularity.
The game plays like many older RPGs, specifically dungeon crawlers like Wizardry: most exploration occurs in a first person view, with a party you need to outfit and attempt to have a working balance and chemistry for. The main draw of the Megami Tensei series, and the main element that has endured even since the first game on the NES, is that your party build is far different from most dungeon crawlers. While most games of this genre have you creating your party, assigning them a beginning fantasy race and class, in Shin Megami Tensei you build your party by talking with and recruiting the demons you're fighting. While your main protagonist is himself human, and you'll have fellow human party members, these members won't stay with you forever, and you'll find yourself having to rely on your ability to talk and relate to the monsters your fighting to recruit them to your side. Alongside this, while your protagonist and human party members will level up just like in a regular RPG, your demons (at least in the older installments of the series) will not. Instead, you have to 'fuse' the demons you've gathered to your cause together in a ritual, causing them to become newer, stronger demons.
While the game has roots almost as old as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, and trails just a bit behind them in Japan in terms of popularity, the series had a hard time setting foot outside its native country. Only a few games made it to America, initial under the title 'Revelations', such as Revelations: The Demon Slayer on Game Boy Color and, more notably, Revelations: Persona and Persona 2: Eternal Punishment on the Playstation. The series wouldn't start receiving much mainstream attention among western fans until Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne was released on the Playstation 2 in 2004 in American and 2005 in Europe. There are several reasons that could be attributed to these games not reaching Western shores sooner, simply financial reasons being one of them, but the fact that you recruited and fought alongside 'demons' wouldn't have set well with many good Christian mothers, at the very least.
Though, in truth, there are parts of the game that would have stirred far more ire than just that, as we'll see as we go on.
The first game was unreleased Stateside for years, though an English translation was made available in 2002 by translation group Aeon Genesis. However, considering the growing popularity of the series in the states, an official translation was produced and released by Atlus in 2014, only a mere 22 years after the game was first released.
So it's the horrible demon worshipping and fighting game our moms always thought Pokemon was? Cool.
Well, kind of sort of. "Demonic Pokemon" is a comparison that's often used for the Shin Megami Tensei series , and it doesn't help that series tried to bank on that comparison itself a few times. Exploiting elemental weaknesses and paying attention to your own elemental defenses in battle is an important point of ensuring success in Shin Megami Tensei. It's a core factor.
Or at least it is in later installments, starting primarily in the Persona series and being solidified in Nocturne. The earlier games, especially Shin Megami Tensei I and II, play far more like more standard dungeon crawler games. There are spells of differing elements, sure, but most of them are important because different elemental spells can cause status effects alongside sheer damage. The original releases of 1 had no elemental weakness/defense system that I am aware of; later releases of 1 did add some elemental weakness/defense mechanics, but they're still nowhere near as important as they are in later games. We're mostly interested in slugging it out in damage races and praying we don't get hit by status effects than we are in planning strategies around elemental factors.
That being said, there are still quite a few mechanics than just 'hit that/shoot that/set it on fire' that go on to the game, such as Alignment and different story paths that we'll get to in turn.
So you sound pretty familiar with this game. You've played it a lot?
Well. Kind of sort of. If I had to call this LP anything, it sure wouldn't be professional. We'll be calling this a half-blind run.
The hell does that even mean?
I mean I've played the game a lot, mostly on emulator...until about the halfway point, at which I've always had something come up that's kept me from finishing the game. With the official release of the game, I want to try and make a go at finishing the game in full, and hoping this project will help motivate me to do so.
So which version is the official one?
Throughout it's life span, Shin Megami Tensei has been released on several platforms: SNES, Sega CD, Playstation, and Game Boy Advance. The version that was released to America was a translation of the iOS port of the game, which itself appears to be a port of the Game Boy Advance version. It includes quite a few updates from the original, which I'll point out where I can.
So you talked about Alignments and different endings. What's that all about?
We'll talk about it in more detail as the game goes on, but in brief: the battle in Shin Megami Tensei isn't considered one necessarily between good and evil, but between values, expressed as the battle between Law and Chaos. There are three different paths we can take: Law, Chaos, and Neutrality, and each has a different outcome and ending associated with it, as well as some story differences.
So which of them are we going to play through?
Well, I haven't really decided yet. I'd like to do all three, but the game is long, especially for a SNES RPG, and I-
We shall traverse the path laid with wisdom: that most pleasing unto the LORD.
Alright, what the hell was that?
As I said, this is kind of-sort of a blind play through. Because of that, I have a couple of friends here to help me make a few decisions and point some things out for me, since the game can be, you know, tricky.
To call the program you are about to invoke and start 'tricky' is to downplay how dangerous it is to a blasphemous fault! It is a dangerous 'game' and in playing it you risk losing your very humanity.
My, uh...my friends are a bit opinionated. They won't be talking too often, only when necessary and-
I speak only the truth, and only to keep you from falling.
Alright then. So...should I let you introduce yourself or
Very well! Behold then, oh children of man, the very countenance of glory!
Behold, I am Metatron, the very Voice of the LORD Himself! You, oh man, in your ignorance believe that that which you create, the stories you produce, are but mere tales for amusement, be they told in your streets or within books or etched into the circuitry and programming of your machines just as your ancestors etched them within stone.
You come to false conclusions especially in regards to your technology. You believe your state has changed now from when you dwelt in caves and mud-thatched huts, that the tales your ancestors knew in their bones and their souls were in truth but mere superstitions, frivilious and unimportant and, more importantly, unrepeatable in the world you dwell in now, of which you are the master. Of which you believe that the technology you have mastered and the science you study is the actual hidden hand that guides the world.
But I tell you the truth - those stories are as true now as they were then. Becoming truer each moment. Your cities and your monuments and your governments and your institutions and your sciences and your learning are just as they always were and are still pillars upon which we hide and persist. We have never truly left you, though you in your vanity no longer seek us. We have always been here.
We are here still.
You recognize us no longer, and in part this is because you are so certain we never existed. But always are we among you.
But some of you remember us, acknowledge us, and when you truly seek power you so often reach out to those most wicked and blasphemous of us. You are vain and weak creatures, oh children of Adam, and always do you return to us, whether it be those who wish for you to prosper or those foul creatures who'd wish for your destruction. You return.
Your reliance and love for your own blood is the same as it ever was, has ever been, and still it avails you not, not for what you actually wish in your own greed.
Always do you in the end rebel against authority, the rulers appointed by and before you, who see to your protection. You continue to march to your own destruction, in praise of your own autonomy.
I think they get it. It, uh, it might be time to wrap it up.
Quiet I have something going here. You'll have a chance to speak when I am done.
You are shameless creatures, needing of guidance in order to ensure that your own inequity does not lead down the path of utter destruction.
It is His will always, the will of the Lord that even in your selfishness and sin, you might be saved. Salvation and purity shall always have its sacrifices; but know that always He has made it that it is achievable. He has willed it so.
But it is a hard path.
But come, I shall lead you, and under my guidance you shall not falter. What you call a 'game' is in truth a story, and a war, older than you can imagine, even though it has been bequested unto you to be the deciding factor in it. When we endure this, we play no game. Rather, we follow down a path towards truth and the creation of a new and glorious world.
But in your vanity, as always oh man, you consider it a game. Very well then.
Come.
Let us 'play'
Do you think they understood my message?
Yeah. Yeah. It was good.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Annotations
Considering how old a series SMT is and how steeped in lore it is, as well as the many references it makes to the real world, the occult, and mythology, I'll be ending each update with an annotation section to point out these references, as well as add information on the demons we encounter each update. As this is just the introduction, there isn't much that is needed for annotation. There is, however, one thing people might be curious about.
El Elohim.....Agla Amen: The phrase that appears in the computer during the opening crawl upon starting the game is apparently a passage from an occult text referred to as the Grimoire of Armadel, which itself is associated with the Key of Solomon, a text popular for (though not only used for or containing spells on) the conjuring of demons. The passage listed here comes at the end of the Grimoire as part of a summoning technique and, roughly translated, reads as follows:
Our eternal Lord, our God Sebaoth
Glorious things are spoken in the name of our God Adonai
And in the name of the Tetragrammaton that cannot be spoken
O Theos, Ischiros, Athanaton
You, O Lord, are mighty forever. Amen.
The passage itself is considered to be an example of "Barbarous Names", which were long strings of unintelligible words that were frequently found in medieval magical texts. More information on this technique can be found here. Much of the information and understanding of this passage was also found at this fantastic fanpost talking about the use of the passage in the opening.
UPDATES:
Update One | Update One Annotations
Shin Megami Tensei, translated literally as 'True Goddess Reincarnation' or sometimes as 'The Reincarnation of the True Goddess' is a long-legged console RPG series from Japan. The series began as a spin off from a series of light novels titled 'Digital Devil Story', a set of nine light novels, though the original game only borrows (spuriously) from content from the first two or three. The first game Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei for the NES was named after the title of the first novel of the series, though the story in it more or less merely condenses some elements from the first three novels. Megami Tensei II would break almost entirely from the novels and begin to move into its own beast. The first game of the series when it moved on to the Super NES, Shin Megami Tensei, would cement the series even more as its own creature, easily overwhelming the novel series that spawned it in popularity.
The game plays like many older RPGs, specifically dungeon crawlers like Wizardry: most exploration occurs in a first person view, with a party you need to outfit and attempt to have a working balance and chemistry for. The main draw of the Megami Tensei series, and the main element that has endured even since the first game on the NES, is that your party build is far different from most dungeon crawlers. While most games of this genre have you creating your party, assigning them a beginning fantasy race and class, in Shin Megami Tensei you build your party by talking with and recruiting the demons you're fighting. While your main protagonist is himself human, and you'll have fellow human party members, these members won't stay with you forever, and you'll find yourself having to rely on your ability to talk and relate to the monsters your fighting to recruit them to your side. Alongside this, while your protagonist and human party members will level up just like in a regular RPG, your demons (at least in the older installments of the series) will not. Instead, you have to 'fuse' the demons you've gathered to your cause together in a ritual, causing them to become newer, stronger demons.
While the game has roots almost as old as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, and trails just a bit behind them in Japan in terms of popularity, the series had a hard time setting foot outside its native country. Only a few games made it to America, initial under the title 'Revelations', such as Revelations: The Demon Slayer on Game Boy Color and, more notably, Revelations: Persona and Persona 2: Eternal Punishment on the Playstation. The series wouldn't start receiving much mainstream attention among western fans until Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne was released on the Playstation 2 in 2004 in American and 2005 in Europe. There are several reasons that could be attributed to these games not reaching Western shores sooner, simply financial reasons being one of them, but the fact that you recruited and fought alongside 'demons' wouldn't have set well with many good Christian mothers, at the very least.
Though, in truth, there are parts of the game that would have stirred far more ire than just that, as we'll see as we go on.
The first game was unreleased Stateside for years, though an English translation was made available in 2002 by translation group Aeon Genesis. However, considering the growing popularity of the series in the states, an official translation was produced and released by Atlus in 2014, only a mere 22 years after the game was first released.
So it's the horrible demon worshipping and fighting game our moms always thought Pokemon was? Cool.
Well, kind of sort of. "Demonic Pokemon" is a comparison that's often used for the Shin Megami Tensei series , and it doesn't help that series tried to bank on that comparison itself a few times. Exploiting elemental weaknesses and paying attention to your own elemental defenses in battle is an important point of ensuring success in Shin Megami Tensei. It's a core factor.
Or at least it is in later installments, starting primarily in the Persona series and being solidified in Nocturne. The earlier games, especially Shin Megami Tensei I and II, play far more like more standard dungeon crawler games. There are spells of differing elements, sure, but most of them are important because different elemental spells can cause status effects alongside sheer damage. The original releases of 1 had no elemental weakness/defense system that I am aware of; later releases of 1 did add some elemental weakness/defense mechanics, but they're still nowhere near as important as they are in later games. We're mostly interested in slugging it out in damage races and praying we don't get hit by status effects than we are in planning strategies around elemental factors.
That being said, there are still quite a few mechanics than just 'hit that/shoot that/set it on fire' that go on to the game, such as Alignment and different story paths that we'll get to in turn.
So you sound pretty familiar with this game. You've played it a lot?
Well. Kind of sort of. If I had to call this LP anything, it sure wouldn't be professional. We'll be calling this a half-blind run.
The hell does that even mean?
I mean I've played the game a lot, mostly on emulator...until about the halfway point, at which I've always had something come up that's kept me from finishing the game. With the official release of the game, I want to try and make a go at finishing the game in full, and hoping this project will help motivate me to do so.
So which version is the official one?
Throughout it's life span, Shin Megami Tensei has been released on several platforms: SNES, Sega CD, Playstation, and Game Boy Advance. The version that was released to America was a translation of the iOS port of the game, which itself appears to be a port of the Game Boy Advance version. It includes quite a few updates from the original, which I'll point out where I can.
So you talked about Alignments and different endings. What's that all about?
We'll talk about it in more detail as the game goes on, but in brief: the battle in Shin Megami Tensei isn't considered one necessarily between good and evil, but between values, expressed as the battle between Law and Chaos. There are three different paths we can take: Law, Chaos, and Neutrality, and each has a different outcome and ending associated with it, as well as some story differences.
So which of them are we going to play through?
Well, I haven't really decided yet. I'd like to do all three, but the game is long, especially for a SNES RPG, and I-
We shall traverse the path laid with wisdom: that most pleasing unto the LORD.
Alright, what the hell was that?
As I said, this is kind of-sort of a blind play through. Because of that, I have a couple of friends here to help me make a few decisions and point some things out for me, since the game can be, you know, tricky.
To call the program you are about to invoke and start 'tricky' is to downplay how dangerous it is to a blasphemous fault! It is a dangerous 'game' and in playing it you risk losing your very humanity.
My, uh...my friends are a bit opinionated. They won't be talking too often, only when necessary and-
I speak only the truth, and only to keep you from falling.
Alright then. So...should I let you introduce yourself or
Very well! Behold then, oh children of man, the very countenance of glory!
Behold, I am Metatron, the very Voice of the LORD Himself! You, oh man, in your ignorance believe that that which you create, the stories you produce, are but mere tales for amusement, be they told in your streets or within books or etched into the circuitry and programming of your machines just as your ancestors etched them within stone.
You come to false conclusions especially in regards to your technology. You believe your state has changed now from when you dwelt in caves and mud-thatched huts, that the tales your ancestors knew in their bones and their souls were in truth but mere superstitions, frivilious and unimportant and, more importantly, unrepeatable in the world you dwell in now, of which you are the master. Of which you believe that the technology you have mastered and the science you study is the actual hidden hand that guides the world.
But I tell you the truth - those stories are as true now as they were then. Becoming truer each moment. Your cities and your monuments and your governments and your institutions and your sciences and your learning are just as they always were and are still pillars upon which we hide and persist. We have never truly left you, though you in your vanity no longer seek us. We have always been here.
We are here still.
You recognize us no longer, and in part this is because you are so certain we never existed. But always are we among you.
But some of you remember us, acknowledge us, and when you truly seek power you so often reach out to those most wicked and blasphemous of us. You are vain and weak creatures, oh children of Adam, and always do you return to us, whether it be those who wish for you to prosper or those foul creatures who'd wish for your destruction. You return.
Your reliance and love for your own blood is the same as it ever was, has ever been, and still it avails you not, not for what you actually wish in your own greed.
Always do you in the end rebel against authority, the rulers appointed by and before you, who see to your protection. You continue to march to your own destruction, in praise of your own autonomy.
I think they get it. It, uh, it might be time to wrap it up.
Quiet I have something going here. You'll have a chance to speak when I am done.
You are shameless creatures, needing of guidance in order to ensure that your own inequity does not lead down the path of utter destruction.
It is His will always, the will of the Lord that even in your selfishness and sin, you might be saved. Salvation and purity shall always have its sacrifices; but know that always He has made it that it is achievable. He has willed it so.
But it is a hard path.
But come, I shall lead you, and under my guidance you shall not falter. What you call a 'game' is in truth a story, and a war, older than you can imagine, even though it has been bequested unto you to be the deciding factor in it. When we endure this, we play no game. Rather, we follow down a path towards truth and the creation of a new and glorious world.
But in your vanity, as always oh man, you consider it a game. Very well then.
Come.
Let us 'play'
Do you think they understood my message?
Yeah. Yeah. It was good.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Annotations
Considering how old a series SMT is and how steeped in lore it is, as well as the many references it makes to the real world, the occult, and mythology, I'll be ending each update with an annotation section to point out these references, as well as add information on the demons we encounter each update. As this is just the introduction, there isn't much that is needed for annotation. There is, however, one thing people might be curious about.
El Elohim.....Agla Amen: The phrase that appears in the computer during the opening crawl upon starting the game is apparently a passage from an occult text referred to as the Grimoire of Armadel, which itself is associated with the Key of Solomon, a text popular for (though not only used for or containing spells on) the conjuring of demons. The passage listed here comes at the end of the Grimoire as part of a summoning technique and, roughly translated, reads as follows:
Our eternal Lord, our God Sebaoth
Glorious things are spoken in the name of our God Adonai
And in the name of the Tetragrammaton that cannot be spoken
O Theos, Ischiros, Athanaton
You, O Lord, are mighty forever. Amen.
The passage itself is considered to be an example of "Barbarous Names", which were long strings of unintelligible words that were frequently found in medieval magical texts. More information on this technique can be found here. Much of the information and understanding of this passage was also found at this fantastic fanpost talking about the use of the passage in the opening.
UPDATES:
Update One | Update One Annotations
