Shin Megami Tensei IV: A Japanese RPG Like No Other

If you’re someone that’s been playing videogames for a long time, chances are  you’ve had that moment where you’ve come across a niche Japanese RPG from years past that you’d never heard of before. The kind of game that only a few seemed to care for in its heyday, but you can’t quite figure out why, because in theory, it sounds great. The kind of game that isn’t really discussed by any of the popular websites out there, but if you dig deep enough, you’ll find a number of dedicated fan sites with enough information and analysis to fill an entire encyclopaedia. The kind of game that looks like it requires time and dedication and makes you think, and in return, takes you on a journey that isn’t like anything else you’ve ever seen before.

Granted, this is a rare occurrence nowadays. Japanese RPGs aren’t what they once used to be, and with the exception of a handful of publishers, the genre as a whole has largely abandoned its pride, pandering to the underbelly of today’s otaku audience instead of trying to do what it was once best known for—telling great stories. If you’re over the age of 20, finding a JRPG with a story and characters that treat you like an adult is about as rare as Batman wetting his pants. (Which only happened once, by the way.)

Luckily, the two or three publishers shouldering the burden of keeping JRPGs relevant all by themselves are doing a kickass job of it. One of those publishers is Atlus, and this past year, they decided to revive the very RPG that made them famous in the first place—Shin Megami Tensei.



Shin Megami Tensei IV, released for the Nintendo 3DS earlier this year, is a game that blends an older school of design—one that demands planning and an investment of your time—with more modern conveniences, without losing its identity in the process. If you’ve been playing games for a long time, you’ll  find comfort in the arms of SMTIV. A inkling of hope that, yes, maybe JRPGs haven’t gone to the dogs just yet. This is a game that challenges you to plan ahead and design a well-rounded party of characters if you want to survive. The kind of game where exploration comes first and cutscenes come second. The kind of game that doesn’t pamper you with story advancements without making you work for them, so it actually feels meaningful when you see more and more of the game's mysteries laid bare. The kind of game that you play rather than watch, and if you aren’t playing carefully, you’re liable to get yourself killed.

And yet, despite its enthusiasm for its roots, Shin Megami Tensei IV doesn’t forget that it is a game being released in 2013. SMTIV has a single standout feature that should give you a good idea of everything it represents: the ability to save your game, no matter where you are. Despite offering a challenge, this a game that respects your time and respects the fact that you can’t (or won’t) be bothered to replay large sections of it over and over, just because someone on the design team screwed up.

In a nutshell, Shin Megami Tensei IV is one of the most modern role-playing games that anyone has ever designed, and this is even represented in the game's world and setting.

Every numbered Shin Megami Tensei game takes place in modern-day Tokyo, Japan. That’s a series tradition that has existed right since the very first game in the series, and SMTIV carries on with that tradition. In this game, Tokyo is in ruins, having been invaded by demons that haven’t quite brought on the apocalypse just yet, but are damn close to doing so, and someone’s got to stop them. As it would turn out, there are people taking measures to prevent Tokyo from being turned into hell, but just like in the real world, these people all have very different ideas on how to go about their mission. This is where you and your teammates—let’s not call them “friends” just yet—come in. 

So, who exactly are you?

You’re a Samurai, one of an elite squad of law-keepers from the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado. Mikado, curiously, stuck in the medieval age. It has no electricity, no Internet, no comic books, and certainly no love for Tokyo or the rest of modern civilization. In fact, the people residing in Tokyo are dubbed “Unclean Ones” by those living in Mikado. Nevertheless, Mikado’s government has a job that it takes very seriously—to battle and prevent demons from entering the human realm. As it would happen, the demons have chosen Tokyo to make their entry into the human world, and as much as they want nothing to do with the Unclean Ones, the government of Mikado can’t let demons run rampant. So, they assign you, a recent addition to the ranks of the esteemed Samurai, to travel to Tokyo and investigate.

All of the above takes a while to happen, though. Shin Megami Tensei IV is more than happy to take its time building up its plot, and it spends the first few hours getting you settled into your role as a Samurai first. The introduction—which lasts anywhere between 5 to 6 hours—will have you perform a variety of odd jobs for the Mikado Monastery. Right away, it’s established that you aren’t some kind of free-wheeling superhero or vigilante. You’re a soldier; an errand boy that caters to the whims and fancies of his superiors. Samurai are held in high esteem for being the chosen few trusted with upholding the law, but at the end of the day, the job is as much about being the government’s lapdog as it is about thrills. While your character is the silent type and tends to keep his thoughts to himself, your teammates—again, let’s not call them “friends” just yet—all have differing opinions on just how far a Samurai’s duty should extend.

This is one of the areas Shin Megami Tensei IV shines. Your character might be the typical silent protagonist, but he's no pushover, and more than capable of making decisions when the need arises. This is where you come in. Every so often, you’ll be required to make a choice. Someone will ask your opinion on something, and you’ll need to select your response from a list of choices. Some choices are (seemingly) inconsequential, while others play a more immediate role in how the game’s story will play out. Ultimately, all of your choices will add up to to something, and while most games shower you with choices that you wouldn’t realistically make, Shin Megami Tensei IV has its head screwed on nice and tight. Choices that you can make range from passionate to pragmatic to cold, creating a scenario where just about anyone playing the game can be more or less true to themselves and have the story play out accordingly. 

Your teammates, meanwhile, have their own ideas, as well as their own expectations of you as their de facto team leader. Walter is the outspoken-but-well-meaning rebellious sort who hails from an underprivileged background, and expects that you’ll see things his way, being the decent human being that you are. Meanwhile, Jonathan, who comes from an aristocratic background and has an unwavering sense of responsibility, respects your ability to make pragmatic choices and assumes that you take your job as a Samurai as seriously as he does. Finally, there’s Isabeau, the only female member of your unit. Like you, she’s more level-headed, but unlike your character, Isabeau is indecisive and often unable to settle upon a course of action that she’s entirely sure of herself. While there is a sense of comradery and trust between the four of you as teammates, you never truly feel like you can call the three of them “friends” because there’s always some friction under the surface when it comes to your ideals.

Shin Megami Tensei IV isn’t one of those RPGs about trust and friendship—it’s about your quest to save Tokyo, and how you become strong and influencial enough to do that. You won’t spend a whole lot of time making idle chit-chat with your  team and going on picnics. You, Jonathan, Walter and Isabeau have each other’s backs, but it’s more because you’re a team of youngsters in the same mess. You’re together because you have to be, and you’re making the most of it. While there is a mutual respect and caring among your party, when the time comes for decisions to be made, each member of your unit will have their own idea of what’s best, and your decisions will ultimately push you closer to either Walter (who represents utter chaos, but with compassion) or Jonathan (who represents law and order, but with all the flexibility of an iron rod). Alternatively, your ideals could end up making you side with neither of the two, and embarking on your own path. Fittingly, this makes the game even more challenging than it otherwise is.

Despite the fate of the world resting your hands, though, SMTIV isn’t a game that goes out of its way to make you feel like you’re the centre of the universe. While its more character-driven counterpart Persona makes you feel like you have the answer to everyone's problems, in Shin Megami Tensei IV you’ll find yourself unable to save everyone you might want to. The game doesn’t spend minutes at a time telling you how special you are and how fate has a special destiny in store just for you because you were born special. Anything you do in Shin Megami Tensei IV is by virtue of the fact that you are a badass, and no one has the power to stop you. (Even the music makes you feel like one.) And that’s a good thing. You want to be a badass.

That’s because Shin Megami Tensei IV can be a hard game. Even on easy mode—which you can switch to after your party gets wiped out twice—the demons that you fight will often have devious skill setups and resistances, which you’ll need to overcome by increasing the strength of your own party of four. Your party won’t consist of you and your fellow Samurai, however. It’ll consist largely of you and three demons of your own, with either Walter, Jonathan or Isabeau filling up a fifth slot that you have no control over. And while your Samurai teammates are always handy to have in the fifth slot for that one extra hit during battles, it is you and your demons that will be dishing out the majority of the damage. This is where Demon Fusion comes in.

Like every other game in the series, Shin Megami Tensei IV not only lets you recruit any demon that you run into, it also lets you fuse demons together to create new ones. When you fuse demons together, the resulting demon inherits skills from both of its parents, giving it a wider range of abilities and elemental skills that it can use in battle. While that sounds simple enough in theory, the trick is to try and fuse demons that not only inherit the best skills from both their parents, but are also higher-leveled and better in terms of resistances and stats. In a nice gesture to make the game a little more approachable for newcomers, Shin Megami Tensei IV periodically offers “recommended fusions” that you can refer to if you don’t feel like using your brain, but as you get deeper into the game and more comfortable with the Fusion system, you’ll begin to see that you can create far more versatile and devious demons with a little experimentation of your own—and entirely without having to refer to some sort of guide or FAQ to do it. 

Additionally, every now and then, your demons can pass their skills on to your character when they level up. This is how you acquire most of your skills—by learning them from various demons you've recruited. For this reason, you usually want the very best demons you can have in your party, and so, just like your teammates, you shouldn’t get too attached to any one demon in your compendium, despite the fact that every demon type has its own personality, which helps make them interesting. The game makes it very clear that the demons are tools, meant to be used to further your own cause. The fact that most demons in the game are assholes really helps drill this idea into your head, too. 

Battles are just part of Shin Megami Tensei IV, though. While the game has one of the most quick and responsive battle systems in years, battles are just one half of the experience that makes this game what it is. The other half is exploration, and without it, the game wouldn't feel half as great as it does.

Shin Megami Tensei IV has, hands down, some of the best designed dungeons of any role-playing game to date. And that’s because most of the dungeons in the game aren’t actually “dungeons” in the literal sense of the word. Since the game takes place in modern day Tokyo, most of the areas you'll be exploring are the districts of the city, each one with its own personality. Or perhaps you'll find yourself inside an office building. Or some sort of other modern urban environment. You can expect to see all sorts of places. Some dungeons are sprawling and open, full of ups and downs and nooks and crannies, while others are more straightforward A-to-B affairs. The one thing they all have in common, though, is that none of them are boring (save for maybe the very first dungeon in the game, which isn't situated in Tokyo, but in Mikado). The attention to detail in these dungeons is striking, too, as the game’s designers went out of their way to model them semi-realistically after real-life Tokyo locales. In fact, if you’re stuck on Shin Megami Tensei IV’s world map, you can refer to Google Maps to get your bearings and figure out what’s where.

As you run around in dungeons—accompanied by badass tunes like this one—you’ll see odd pixelated shapes hovering about. These are groups of demons, and running into one of these shapes will trigger a battle with them. Depending on the kind of shapes you encounter, you can learn to identify which demons you'll be fighting, too, which is a nice touch. And if you manage to strike at one of these hovering enemy shapes with your sword before they touch you, you’ll get to make the first move in battle. These conveniences and attention to detail—the excellent music, great dungeon design, ability to save anywhere you are, and the visible but frequent enemy encounters—make exploration one of the funnest parts of Shin Megami Tensei IV, which is greatly appreciated in a day and age where most games either have too little exploration, or have it in abundance but make it feel like a chore.

Ultimately, all the things that are great about Shin Megami Tensei IV add up to more than the sum of their parts. My journey with the game was a reminder of the harsh realities of the world, in more ways than one. SMTIV is a reminder that sometimes, bad things happen, and all you can do is man up to face them as best as you can. Bad people will be bad, friends you relied on will leave due to your differences, and not everyone will be grateful for what you’ve done for them. None of that matters, though, because you can take satisfaction in the fact that you were true to yourself. That, and you’re a badass.

Are there problems with Shin Megami Tensei IV? Absolutely. The game takes a few hours to get going, and you might find yourself putting it down before it’s even gotten started. The armour system in the game is terrible and mostly inconsequential (although, all of the armour looks incredibly cool—especially late in the game when you unlock high-level armour). Certain demon designs look inconsistent alongside others, too, which is a result of multiple designers, all from a sentai design background, having provided designs for this game. At the end of the day, though, these are minor complaints that don’t take away from one of the best, most thoughtful, and deep RPGs in years. Shin Megami Tensei IV's only real fault is that it only gets better the more you play it, which means that the strongest portions aren't at the very beginning, and ideally, you want a strong opening to hook the player right away.