Shin Megami Tensei IV - Why I'm excited

Shin Megami Tensei IV is an upcoming RPG for the 3DS, made by our friends over at Atlus, the creative minds behind such great titles like Persona 4, Catherine, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2 and Trauma Center. Atlus have been driving the hype train behind this game for good reason - its looking incredible, and, they are actually bringing to to Europe. If you own a 3DS, maybe you should pick up Shin Megami Tensei IV, and I want to help you come to that decision. Without further ado, lets dive in.

So, what is Shin Megami Tensei IV? It is vaguely like Pokemon and Dragon Quest, in the sense that you collect creatures which fight for you. There aren't any pokeballs though - you have to negotiate with the demons. This is something I liked about the original Persona (its on PSP) - each type of demon has its own unique personality, and its fun speaking to them. You have to try to get these demons on your side, but you have to keep in mind their personality traits when attempting to recruit them. Some demons might not want anything, while others might want a bribe. Once you recruit the demon, they can fight for you during combat. I just made SMTIV sound like some demon negotiation sim, but that's only a small part of the experience. The game is a dungeon crawler, and the majority of the time you will be slaying these demons instead of trying to chat them up.

One of the "dungeons" the game has to offer.

Not to mention, the dungeons in this game look fantastic.  These are all fully explorable 3-D environments, and they are some of the best the 3DS can offer. You control the protagonist in third person. The battle screens also look great as well, with the sprites of the demons being the highlight here. As we are on the topic of the battle sequences, something that annoyed me about Persona was that the game had so many bloody random encounters, and this is not present in SMTIV. Unlike in Persona, each demon encounter appears as a pixelated figure while dungeon crawling, and you can initiate attacks by running up to them and slashing them, or that happening the opposite way around. Also, remember how I said every monster was unique? This only gets better when you can combine the demons you have captured to create better demons. There was a feature similar to this in Persona which I enjoyed quite a bit, so I'm really excited to make all sorts of crazy combinations.

A battle scene in game.

I also want to mention how high the production values are for a 3DS game - I've heard that the main story lasts for 60+ hours, which is quite impressive. Not only this - every single lines of dialogue is voiced in English, which is also quite an impressive feat for a handheld game, but I'm personally hoping for the option to keep the Japanese voices. Like I mentioned before, its boasts PS2 quality graphics during its exploration segments and cut-scenes. The cherry on top of the cake is Ryota Kozuka's dark, almost scary soundtrack.

Each demon has their own unique personality.

How about the story then? The game is set in Mikado, a place that seems like medieval Europe, complete with castles. Its fantasy, alright. Our protagonist, Flynn, has just enrolled to become a Samurai. Samurais are given strangely advanced equipment which lets them summon and control demons they encounter, and the story moves on from there. I haven't played the game yet, so I don't know the details, but a lot of the stuff that has been said is quite positive, and the developers have come out and said that the game has a very mature and dark plot, so I'm excited for that.

Give the gauntlet a real good touch while you're at it.

Shin Megami Tensei IV releases in America in a few days, but the European release date has yet to be announced. The reviews have already come out, and there are positive scores across the board. This game looks to be one of the greatest handheld RPGs in recent years, and I am too excited to play it. I hope you can support it too, so Atlus bring more games like this to the west.

Yeah, and that's a nice beard.