Shin Megami Tensei

"Good game marred by a couple of flaws."

If you've played either Persona then you should be a little familiar with Megami Tensei- this is one of Japan's most popular RPG series and for good reason. This dungeon crawl has a unique and interesting plot that keeps you hooked through it- well, until the inevitable point where you're meandering around waiting for something to happen. I'll get to that in a second.

-Graphics:
Most of the game is spent either travelling through dungeons in a first person view or travelling through Tokyo in a top-down view with a top-thing representing your party...both of which are a bit bland. In the dungeon's case, there are no unique graphical features in the dungeons at all, so all you usually see are doors and walls (all of which look the same), unless the room has an event inside it. To add to that- some dungeons use the same tileset as a previous one and palette-swap it. The overworld isn't nearly as bland- but you're bound to get a deja-vu feeling every so often since the town areas look so similar. The game balances this, however, with well-drawn 2D sprites or scenes that come up in battle or during cutscenes. The graphics could have been much worse for an SNES game, anyway.

-Sound:
The music isn't bad, not by any means...but there certainly isn't enough of it. The same generic Battle Theme and Boss Theme carries you throughout the game- even in the final battle. There are only about five or six total dungeon themes reused through a whole lot of dungeons- and it's just too bad because all of this music is really good, especially the later overworld music.

-Gameplay:
It's a dungeon-crawl, so you're usually tromping through mazes and fighting demons. The battle system is a bit generic, but not without it's interesting qualities. You see, you can choose to talk to the demons and try to earn their trust so you can get money from them or even have them join your party. You take these demons and either use them to fight or fuse even more powerful demons with them. It's not a complex system, but it certainly is pretty fun- some demons may have differen't responses to your questions- they may be wary of you, hit on you or fall over themselves trying to gain your approval so there's definetely variety to be had. The problem here lies in that it has the most annoying encounter rate this side of Tales of Destiny >_<. Literally, there were times when I hit a fight nearly every step. It's exasperating and really tends to suck the fun out of exploring a dungeon after a while.

-Story:
This is where the game really shines. Without spoiling anything- things start out innocently, but eventually you are sucked into a major conflict and get to choose which side you want to join (or neither side!). Unfortunately there are some points where the game simply does not clue you in on where you have to go and why you have to go there- so it ends up seeming like you're going to random places and suddenly happening upon the plot during those points.

So overall- this is a good game with a very interesting plot marred by some rather irritating flaws. If you can stand the encounter rate (or find a workaround ;)), then I suggest giving this game a whirl. You might like it- especially if you're into dungeon crawls.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/26/02, Updated 07/26/02