Shin Megami Tensei IV

Shin Megami Tensei IV is an RPG with great narrative ambitions, trying to discuss relevant themes – such as the purpose of religions and the problems surrounding the forms society is usually structured and organized – while presenting a complex – albeit very unbalanced – battle system. Its narrative, however, is very erratic – there is a good chunk of time when nothing relevant happens – and sometimes it also falters by putting its focus on its least interesting elements.

The game’s protagonist, initially called Flynn, works as an avatar for the player, who can change his name. Flynn is a commoner that lives in the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado, a medieval society based on a rigid caste system: there are the nobles called Luxorors and the commoners called Casualries. There is only one way for a casualry to rise in life and that is to become a samurai and serve their nation. The selection process works in an apparently arbitrary fashion, however, with the candidates being chosen by a very advanced technological apparatus, which even contains a digital display. One day the machine chooses four candidates besides the protagonist: the luxorors Navarre, Jonathan and Isabeau, and the casualry Walter. After a terrorist attack in Flynn’s village, they all receive the same mission: to hunt down and capture the mysterious Black Samurai.

The first hours of Shin Megami Tensei IV are fascinating. The player is introduced to a society where commoners are instilled with a twisted concept of equality: “Luxorors and Casualries… We may be of different classes, but we’re all equals inside,” Flynn’s childhood friend defends, although soon afterward he explains that his dream of becoming a samurai is based on the consequent improvement of his quality of life. Casualries are individuals who accept their eternal social condition because they believe it’s the natural order of things: it has always been so, so it must be right. Moreover, Mikado’s monastery reinforces this idea, preaching that the caste people are born into is decided by God and, because of that, whoever tries to be someone different is going against His will.

The Black Samurai is trying to shake this belief, distributing novels, comics, and manga to the casualries. Literature is presented as a great tool to foment revolt, for it helps to develop critical thinking, which leads people to finally question their way of life. A baker who offers a novel to Flynn shows to be much more enlightened than the protagonist’s friend, for example: “Everyone talks about equality, but it is a ruse we have been submitted to,” he says. After reading the books, however, some commoners start turning into demons and attacking people. Therefore, Flynn and the other samurai, with the support of the king and the monastery, do not hesitate to pursue the Black Samurai.

The player’s initial mission is to investigate the catacombs of Naraku: an underground maze infested with demons, whose existence remains a secret to the people of Mikado due to the actions of the samurai. The samurai, however, have always fulfilled their duty to control the advance of the creatures with the help of the monsters themselves. As is typical of the franchise, in Shin Megami Tensei IV it’s possible to talk, cheat, bribe, and even flirt with demons to make them join your cause and fight those of their own kind. It is also worth mentioning that, in the game, “demon” is the term used to denominate any mystical entity of a religion – thus, Shiva, the archangel Gabriel, Anubis, Amaterasu and the Aztec god of life Quetzalcóatl are all classified as demons and can be used by the player in battle. In the narrative, the term demon doesn’t necessarily have a negative connotation, making reference not only to monsters, but also to gods and benevolent entities.

In Shin Megami Tensei IV, demons are exterior manifestations of people’s vices, virtues, and repressed desires. This way, each human being has a demon within them and is consequently capable of becoming one. It becomes fascinating, then, to realize how the inhabitants of Mikado, having suppressed generations of social injustice, became demons as soon as they realize the reality: their suppressed anger is so huge that they cannot deal with the situation in any other way than with violence and hatred. On the other hand, when Flynn visits a chaotic anarchist society, all the individuals he meets are also demons: because there is no sort of state controlling the people, their most striking features come easily to light, transforming them.

The player’s main decision falls precisely on this question: is it better to make a world where everyone is free, but where only the strong are successful, or one governed by order, where direct control over the people is considered fundamental for human coexistence?  Each side is represented by a character: Walter, who was oppressed and dragged down by Mikado all his life, defends a meritocratic society; Jonathan, a luxoror, the maintenance of order; and Isabeau, in turn, sits on the fence, representing a neutral path – whatever that means.

The main problem regarding this division is that the developers fail to link the choices that lead to each ending with the themes behind them. They assume, for example, that someone who desires order is necessarily benevolent, while anarchists are invariably ruthless and cruel. In other words, they judge both sides with a binary worldview. The consequence is that decisions that consider how kind the player is influence the final outcome and may end up taking them to an ending that they don’t necessarily agree: because the choices don’t reflect their position on anarchism, meritocracy, control, and order, but only judge the kindness of their in-game actions, they make the ending thematically disconnected from them.

In addition, once the samurai discover the city at the end of Naraku’s catacombs, the narrative simply comes to a shrieking halt. Flynn just walks around the city killing demons without making any progress. Very few new characters are introduced and the chase for the Black Samurai is set aside for hours, resulting in a long dramatic vacuum.

Even worse is the fact that it is this city and not the kingdom of Mikado the main location impacted by the player’s final choice.  In this city, Flynn meets the local faction leaders and learns how they want to deal with their problems, but never gets to know the city’s inhabitants in depth. Consequently, there is no strong emotional connection between the player and the city, as there would be with Mikado since it’s the place where all the main characters are from. This makes the decision purely theoretical: the player may choose between chaos, order, and neutrality by what pleases him philosophically, caring little for the people that will be affected – remembering that there’s still the risk of the player’s position on the subject being invalidated due to previous choices that have nothing to do with the issue at hand.

When the time finally comes to confront the Black Samurai, the player is also faced with a frustrating anticlimax: the story’s main antagonist is quickly discarded in favor of more than ten hours of exposition on the possible consequences of the final decision – a very serious narrative mistake since the developers discard an important and formidably developed character in exchange for an exhaustive repetition of ideas.

And the Black Samurai truly is a fascinating character. There’s a specific scene, for example, when they to crucify the samurai, that draws a parallel with the figure of Christ, reinforcing the role religions and their symbols play in forming people’s opinions, while subverting the analogy by placing the character speaking against the word of God. Therefore, to unceremoniously discard the Black Samurai is a huge narrative mistake.

When it comes to gameplay, Shin Megami Tensei IV also has its fair share of ups and downs. As in most games in the series, here the player’s main drive is to merge two demons into a new more powerful one. With more than 450 demons available – each one with a brief explanation of their origin in their respective mythology – demon fusion is an addictive mechanic that gives the player a goal very similar to Pokémon: to capture them all. As for this comparison, it’s fun to realize that Flynn’s relationship with his demons is much healthier than the one present in the Nintendo game, since here the monsters enter his team willingly and without being – well – brainwashed.

The battles also work in a similar way to Nintendo’s franchise, but with four characters (Flynn and three demons) fighting at the same time instead of just one. On the 3DS’ top screen there’s only the 2D image of the enemies and on the bottom there’s information about your group and attack options. After selecting an action for all characters, they act in order (the fastest first), and then it’s the opponent’s turn to perform their attacks. When the nature of the blow (fire or ice, for example) corresponds to the weakness of the enemy, it causes more damage, the character that made the attack becomes temporarily invulnerable, and their respective team still gains one more action. If a second character also hits an enemy weakness, the same things happen, making it possible to have all members of your team invulnerable and still act more than seven times in a single turn. Battles, therefore, start as a game of trial and error to discover the enemy’s weakness and end in a massacre the moment it’s discovered. However, if it’s the enemy that hit the weakness of some of your party members, or if your attack gets blocked by them, it becomes the player’s turn to suddenly meet the “game over” screen.

Shin Megami Tensei IV‘s combat system is all about finding and hitting the other weaknesses to basically win the match. On the other hand, it also means that in just one turn it’s possible to lose all your team members even to weak enemies, and since missing attacks also result in losing up to two actions, there is even an element of luck involved that will invariably cause frustration: in Pokémon attacks also have a chance to miss, but here, besides the percentages not being informed, the consequences of missing are much more serious.

Another problem is that some side characters, like Walter and Jonathan, act on certain occasions as support in battles, also attacking the enemy, but they are much more of a curse than a blessing, as they use attacks that can be blocked by enemies, leaving them invulnerable to your attacks and also stronger – and there is absolutely nothing the player can do to prevent this result. There’s a secondary mission, for instance, whose goal is to kill the demon Azura, where this is a particularly notable problem since the support character – a hunter named Nozomi – constantly uses attacks that can be blocked by that demon. In the next turn, made much stronger, Azura will kill the hunter, and the player can only watch everything dumbfounded, reload a save and try their luck again. With similar battles, the director, Kazuyuki Yamai, takes the result of the battles out of the player’s hands and, consequently, any challenge and fun from them.

At the end of the game, however, the situation is slightly different, as some of the final bosses have no weaknesses. These are the most interesting battles, as they become more balanced, although they still require specific strategies and skills to be beaten. Defeating Beelzebub without status-changing attacks, for example, requires a lot of luck, as he can act three times in a row and use his strongest attack – with the only non-blockable element – every time to wipe out your entire team in a single, unlucky turn.

There are very few battles of attrition in Shin Megami Tensei IV. They are very fast fights, quickly ending after a weakness is exploited. If, on the one hand, this approach fits the purpose of a handheld, on the other, it can result in frustrating battles due to its unbalanced system.

Another important issue is the complete uselessness of the city map found after Naraku. The city you find is a huge place, full of important locales, and the map simply doesn’t show their names. It would be interesting if the names only remained hidden until the player discovered the places, but they never at any time appear on the map. The result is a constant disorientation due to an unnecessary memory exercise.

Finally, it’s worth commenting a bit about the NPCs. Although most of them don’t have the slightest personality, they serve as important instruments for the narrative. Important events are only explained and discussed by conversations with random people, making the act of talking to them fundamental for the full understanding of the story. However, there’s a visible lack of care regarding them. In the game, NPCs usually have suggestive names such as “Shy Samurai”, “Concerned Woman”, and “Stunned Commoner”, but their titles don’t always correspond to their personality. A “Shy Samurai” found in Naraku, for instance, readily volunteers to explain aspects of that universe, revealing to be much more chatty and gossipy than anything else. Likewise, the short sound clips with sentences played before the dialogues sometimes come into conflict with dialogues themselves. An indignant “How could this be?!” uttered by a nobleman, for example, is followed by a dialogue that reveals his approval of a political decision: “I hear the Casualries will be permitted to view the execution. In view of the Casualries’ recent misunderstandings regarding the Luxoros… I think this was a wise decision of the Monastery’s part. It will clear the air between us.”

Shin Megami Tensei IV is as ambitious as it is flawed. The scenario presented is fascinating, but the story is padded unnecessarily and eventually finishes with a disjointed ending. The result is a game with wasted potential: it impresses at first, but disappoints in the end.

May 22, 2020.

Review originally published in Portuguese on September 22, 2016.