Why I Don't Want to Leave Shin Megami Tensei IV's World

I thought I was done writing about Shin Megami Tensei IV, but I suppose one is never done when it involves a game this good. Just yesterday, I found myself in the mood to take a break from DmC Devil May Cry and A Link Between Worlds, and decided to return to Shin Megami Tensei IV instead.

The last time I was playing Shin Megami Tensei IV, I stopped because the final portion of the game requires you to complete number of sidequests in order to proceed any further. One of these quests required that you find a certain kind of demon in Shinjuku... five of them, actually. The catch was that in order for any of them to show up on your map, you’d need to come across the first one so that your Navigation AI, Burroughs, could identify it and then track down the rest.

Needless to see, as with any quest of this sort, I spent a couple of hours wandering around Shinjuku without anything to show for it, and eventually, put the game down and moved on. I’d played through most of Shin Megami Tensei IV without a FAQ, and I didn’t really want to start using one now. I figured I’d take a break and come back to it later.

Last night, when I resumed my game, I was reminded that there was also another reason I didn’t keep playing SMTIV—it was because I didn’t want the game to end.

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.