Again I just so clearly imagine this as the first Jack Frost getting blasted to pieces like the opening of Robocop starring the Stay Puft Marshmellow man and then the second Jack Frost who saw the whole thing walks around the corner like "get a load of this guy-ho".
Jack Frost 2 saw Hero loading their revolver with shotgun shells and decided it was smarter to be behind the hee-homicidal maniac than in front of them.
This is a twist I guess but honestly my initial reaction to it was just "...okay?" Like I didn't get the point of it so I was left wondering in a daze whether the game pulled the flipso-reverso just to prevent you from inevitably cucking Noah.
I liked it mostly for the setup, since in hindsight they gave plenty of suggestion that the Mary that we were looking for and the Mary that everyone thought we were looking for were two different people which is fun. Time will tell if they'll cook or if this is just a bit of a weird switcheroo, though.
That said, I did like the Yuriko reveal. She's been ominously hanging around Hero a bunch, even running into them and urging them forward in the room just before Douman's boss fight, so getting the reveal that she was obviously stalking them as they looked for Mary is neat. She's either a demon in disguise or a demon summoner who can use magic like Adam and Noah, but my money is on her being a demon since actual teleportation seems like a pretty big deal.
It also explains why she was hanging out in the bar where we get the matchbook—she probably suspected there was a connection, but didn't or couldn't figure out the shape of it until Hero and company bumbled their way in and she could just follow behind.
The whole "police getting tense and then a coup and then counter-forces from America as an actual apocalypse breaks out" feels very Akira to me, honestly, especially the manga.
BTW, @Squirtodyle. Are you going to do just the SMT games, or spinoffs too? And if it is just mainline SMT, are you gonna just do the numbered versions, or will you do Strange Journey too?
BTW, @Squirtodyle. Are you going to do just the SMT games, or spinoffs too? And if it is just mainline SMT, are you gonna just do the numbered versions, or will you do Strange Journey too?
At the moment, I'm planning on playing every Shin Megami Tensei game that is available to play, which means I won't be playing NINE or Imagine, but will be playing Strange Journey. I haven't made any solid decisions, but I'm thinking about replacing the two games I can't play with spinoffs—I'm mostly thinking we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
I suggest DemiKids Light Version and Dark Version, the GBA Spinoff For Kids that inexplicably got a US translation back in the days not even mainline games got wide releases
(despite the names mirroring Pokemon, they don't actually follow the same story - the games go into different dungeons and have the protagonist of the other version as a supporting character who only shows up at major plot beats where the two plots overlap)
fond memories of playing 'em back in the days when I hadn't actually ever heard of SMT yet
That said, I did like the Yuriko reveal. She's been ominously hanging around Hero a bunch, even running into them and urging them forward in the room just before Douman's boss fight, so getting the reveal that she was obviously stalking them as they looked for Mary is neat. She's either a demon in disguise or a demon summoner who can use magic like Adam and Noah, but my money is on her being a demon since actual teleportation seems like a pretty big deal.
Also because we've yet to have a sexy demoness who tries to seduce the obligatorily male HERO, and you just know that a game like this is going to try it sooner or later. Even Final Fantasy II tried that one, and that game had a lot less space for this sort of thing.
A woman who pretended to be your ally in the early game is an obvious pick for such a story beat.
(obligatory "I haven't actually played the first SMT game so I have no idea what's actually going on and am only guessing" comment)
It's wild to see how quickly the situation escalated here, but I suppose that's in keeping with mainline SMT's trends when compared to the more urban fantasy vibe of Persona.
Out of curiosity, what made you decide to start with Shin Megami Tensei rather than the original on NES? Because of the SNES remakes of MT1 and MT2?
It's wild to see how quickly the situation escalated here, but I suppose that's in keeping with mainline SMT's trends when compared to the more urban fantasy vibe of Persona.
Out of curiosity, what made you decide to start with Shin Megami Tensei rather than the original on NES? Because of the SNES remakes of MT1 and MT2?
Truthfully initially I chose to start with Shin Megami Tensei because I wanted to start from the first games that Atlus made wholly on their own initiative rather than being adaptations, and because "Let's Play Every Megami Tensei Game In Order" would technically mean either only MT1, 2, and the remake or it'd mean playing every single game in the series and both of those are kind of nuts.
I'm considering Kyukyaku Megami Tensei for one of the slot-ins for a spinoff when I reach NINE and Imagine, but like I said, gonna cross that bridge when I come to it.
Welcome back to Shin Megami Tensei, the game that I definitely didn't put off playing more of for a couple days while I drowned myself in Elden Ring DLC.
To catch everyone up—more than one woman called Mary exists in Tokyo, the cooler Mary has been kidnapped by the in-retrospect-obviously-evil Yuriko, and we're about to kick Ozawa's ass and figure out our next steps from there.
Step -1: Fix those iffy HP totals.
When I say "about to'' in this case, what I mean is that I'm going to zip to the Terminal, take a quick jaunt back to the Heretic Mansion, and fuse up some demons. I haven't even used many, but a lot of the roster like the old Knocker and whatnot are definitely out of date, and it's good practice to keep the crew in tip-top shape in case I need to do some panic summoning mid-battle, or in the unlikely event that I actually manage to prepare properly for a boss fight or something.
Along the way out of the Resistance HQ, we meet two new enemies.
Lemures were spirits of the restless dead in Roman mythology, seeking vengeance for not being given a proper burial.
The pack of Lemures is brutal, casting Zan for 20+ damage each time and taking barely any damage themselves, only going down to a hail of gunfire from Hero and multi-target spells from Adam and Noah. It's immediately followed by…
"Bogle" is a term for a variety of supernatural creatures in northern England and Scotland. Some popular stories talk about Bogles that pretend to be scarecrows to blight crops, or fly on the wind to frighten children.
Bogle isn't that threatening, though it's resistant to physical damage. Moments after I write the previous sentence, Bogle senses my hubris and fires off a Zionga that deals 40+ damage and instantly kills Adam. With my tail firmly between my legs and a delicious slice of humble pie served in front of me, I change my plans from healing up for free at Hero's place and decide to visit the Messian Church within the Shinjuku underground mall to heal up. It works exactly like the one in the Heretic Mansion, only this one seems to be aligned with Law instead of the other being presumably Chaos.
Honestly impressed they got all that space with the stone and marble underground in a mall.
Not much happens on the way to the Mansion, though that might be explained by the fact that I just teleported a 30 minute train ride away and no one else seems to have access to the Terminals. At any rate, there's no rush—we already know exactly where Ozawa is, and for all that the Moon Phase system suggests the passage of time, there's only so much you can do with a 1992 SNES game. As it stands, most of our early demon fusions just result in another Azumi and SMT doesn't allow you to double up on demons, so we're stuck with them for the time being. Despite this, I am able to fuse Goblin and Andras together, resulting in the level 14 Divine Angel.
Angels are the messengers of God in Abrahamic religions, acting as an intermediary between humanity and the divine.
Angel comes equipped with Me Patra, which cures minor ailments for the whole party, Media, which lightly heals the whole party, and Hama, which if it works anything like later games is Light elemental instant death with a low chance of hitting unless the enemy is weak to it. Might be useful, might not, but at least we have the option now. We move back towards Ozawa, which doesn't take too long, and when we get there we find him standing alone.
He definitely remembers Adam, anyway.
As you can see from the screenshot, I'm anticipating a boss here, and I've brought out the big guns to counteract it. The two Jack brothers cover fire and ice between them, and Angel should hold her own on healing duty, freeing up the humans to take care of business on the damage side of things. It might be overkill or it might be good sense, we'll flip that coin shortly.
Adam and Noah both yell at Ozawa, Adam insistent that he'll pay Ozawa back for the beating he received and Noah desperately asking what he's done with Noah's Mary. Ozawa, for his part, laughs both of them off. He explains that he doesn't really give a shit about Mary, or Gotou for that matter. This isn't about ideology for him, it's about power, and Gotou has plenty of it—both political and military. Ozawa doesn't care about creating a utopia through demons, he just wants a slice of the pie, and a big one at that. He recently gained the ability to summon demons himself, and with that, he plans on overthrowing Gotou and installing himself as ruler of Japan.
With one final parting jab about our abilities, Gotou summons his demon and the boss fight begins.
Baykok, or bakaak in the Ojibwe language and pakàk in Algonquin, is a malevolent spirit from Ojibwe mythology. It attacks warriors exclusively, hunting them with invisible arrows and beating them with great clubs.
Baykok opens with Shibaboo, binding the entire set of humans on the party and instantly vindicating my decision to take three demons along with me—since Baykok moves first, had I not taken the demons, that would have been the entire turn wasted, with the potential for Bind to lock out anywhere between one to three of my human party members next turn too. Instead, both Jack Frost and Pyro Jack are set to pummel it for some respectable damage, and Angel is ordered to use Hama to test it out. I don't expect that it'll do much, if anything at all, but being a Haunt race and clearly undead it's a shoe-in for being weak to Light, so—
Huh. So Hama does damage in this game. A lot of damage.
Huh.
Um, that's the boss fight. I can't tell if Baykok only had about 150 HP or so or if the instant death on Hama actually triggered, but either way, Baykok is down. Something of an anti-climax, but then again was there ever any real hope of Ozawa of all people providing us with a real challenge when the game has expanded to the point of involving the SDF and associated demons and the American army as our main antagonists? Baykok gives us about 300 EXP each and 100 yen, which is nowhere near a boss level of reward so I guess it was basically just an "elite" enemy for the moment. Explains why Hama worked, anyway. I can't remember the CP costs for all the demons I have out but I'm going to keep them out for the time being, with nearly 2000 magnetite I should be able to hold them for a good while.
The more pressing issue is that Ozawa just disappears, so I'm left with absolutely no idea where to go or what to do next. Yuriko said she was going to him, but either she was lying, or she and Ozawa already did their thing long before it was possible for me to arrive. Either way, the only possible lead I could have is the mall, so…I guess back there we go? I checked the hideout on the way out and there was nothing and no one, so the only place I can think of that might have extra info is the bartender from before—I'd imagine the Resistance members might use that to coordinate after their headquarters was compromised, especially if all of them are running around trying to find Mary.
To give you an idea of how big the Shinjuku mall is, all the running around I've done over the last two updates has filled out this much of the map. Not pictured, the other half that I have to scroll down to see.
Fortunately for my sanity and my magnetite, the bartender in the Resistance bar does have updated dialogue.
Well hey if you want to take the blame I sure don't mind.
Unfortunately for my sanity and my magnetite, that's the sum total of dialogue change. No further updates on where anyone is or could be.
Anyway, I take a couple steps back and am immediately accosted with information about where Mary is or could be, along with a less cheerful update.
No, no, for really bad public executions you want her son—
Gotou's forces are going to publicly execute Mary in front of the Tokyo Government Office.
Before progressing with the story, I did want to highlight a major frustration with the game. As I said before, and as you've probably seen in the screenshots, the dungeons do not have anything visually in them that isn't a hallway or a door unless you right walk up to the place where someone with dialogue happens to be. If I hadn't happened to bump my head into the wall in this specific spot, I could have wandered around for a long, long time without making any progress. There's no indication of where people are on the minimap either, so it's really just a case of either randomly stumbling onto people or trying to remember the exact tile the NPC is on and hope they can progress the story.
I've managed to go through this blind so far with the exception of hints about party member specialties as I brought up in the first update, but if things continue to be obtuse I might need to dip into a guide now and then just to avoid wasting time.
Anyway, government office. First off, I check the building with the big screen between the two entrances to the underground, but no luck there. As I explore, however, I start to suspect I may have found exactly where I need to go.
This is a weird looking double-skyscraper, but it's also the most unique looking building on the map that I can actually enter.
We enter into a spiral shaped hallway that leads deeper into the building, and as soon as we pass through the first door we hit the jackpot.
I know you're probably televising it, but having a "public" execution in the middle of a government office still seems weird.
As it happens, the first building turns out to just be some kind of entrance hall. The plaza that it leads to is a wide open space, with plenty of room for crowds.
Bit on the nose to have her on a crucifix, innit?
Noah wants to leap to Mary's help immediately, urging Hero to join him, but Adam stops them both. He points out that if they run into the plaza now they'll be shot dead before they get anywhere close, and they need to bide their time, which reminds me that this is basically just a repeat of the dream where Hero, Noah, and Adam saved Mary in the first place. That dream was explicitly prophetic, so I imagine that it was a fun way of representing this exact situation—a dark ritual sacrifice to summon a demon is very easy to reinterpret as a public execution of a dissenter intended to solidify a dictator's power, and that sort of fusion of mystical and modern is what Shin Megami Tensei does best.
The argument between Noah and Adam is interrupted by a speech from Yuriko, where she gloats about how Gotou's forces have managed to capture Mary. She informs the crowd that their great leader Gotou, a kind and merciful man, has forgiven Mary for her many acts of sabotage and terrorism that she organised against their great country of Japan—or, at least, Gotou's attempted military government.
Yuriko then explains that while Gotou has forgiven Mary, it doesn't erase the crime of having opposed him in the first place, therefore she's being sentenced to death regardless. Fascist military governments, not even once.
Without missing a beat, she immediately notices Hero's party and calls them up to the stage, explaining that she's arranged special, front-row seats just for them. Hero, presumably cursing literally every moment spent around her where she told them that they were super special and totally the coolest ever, marches up to her, which triggers a familiar scene from the opening, this time with context.
I really wonder what's going on with the guard outfits behind her, because those look like, uh, interesting uniforms.
Yuriko tsk-tsks at Hero, explaining that this is all their fault—if they had simply chosen her in the first place, this wouldn't have had to happen to Mary at all. I can see a possibility of truth here, in that if we assume Yuriko really is obsessed with Hero then the fact that they went off to find another woman could have gotten to her, but frankly at this point it seems more likely to be another manipulation. She's giving off demon vibes and I don't trust her.
Immediately after this, she orders her crew to kill us first, and we're put up against Japan's finest.
Three awful words that go even worse together. No demon information for this one, you know what cops are.
The Zombie Cops are intimidating, but their bark is significantly worse than their bite. A single Maragi from Pyro Jack and Mazan from Noah blasts them all to pieces without breaking a sweat, and we pick up a solid 2000 yen for our troubles. As soon as we do, however, we're attacked by another wave, this time made up of eight Zombie Soldiers. They go down the same way—Zombies in this game seem to be extremely weak to fire attacks, as Maragi is doing 60+ damage a pop. The Zombie Cops didn't give much EXP, but the Zombie Soldiers do, giving us all 320 EXP each and tipping over another level or two for the humans. We also get a tidy sum of 1300 yen, followed by—
Oh shit.
Well, uh, turns out that my speculation about the game not being able to render two different kinds of demon on screen at once was off! The Zombie Soldiers aren't a threat really, but the Lemures are a different story, as they pack a heavy punch with their Zan spells. Fortunately I'm able to choose which group I want to attack between the four Zombie Soldiers and the four Lemures, so with Pyro Jack dropping a single Maragi to take out the Soldiers I concentrate all fire on the Lemures to avoid going down to their magic. In the process, I also get a little more look at what Hama does—it targets two demons in the group, deals damage, and then seems to just instantly kill them. It hasn't ever failed to kill a demon that it's hit, only ever been dodged or avoided, so it's a powerful tool in the arsenal. Time will tell if it gets less so once I start fighting things that aren't Undead or Spirit race, but for the moment I'm happy to fire it off every turn, as it only costs 5 MP and Angel's got a ton to work with.
Wave 3 nets us 356 EXP each, which levels up Adam, 808 yen, which is nice but not as nice as prior waves, and 96 Magnetite, which completely obviates the cost of keeping out Angel and the Jack Brothers to this point. Very nice, but we're not done yet. The final wave consists of another group of Lemures, this time accompanied by a new demon.
Ghouls, the name coming from the Arabic word "ghul", are a creature in Arabic folklore. They were believed to be shapeshifting spirits of demons who would dwell in cemeteries and graveyards and devour the dead.
The strategy stays the same, unload with multi-target attacks of Fire and Light elements, and it proves to be a winning one. The Ghouls go down even easier than the Lemures thanks to Angel's Hama spell, so keeping them for last proved to be a bit of a bad move With them out of the way, everyone else is able to focus-fire on the Lemures, who waste turns casting Sukunda instead of trying to kill us. We take out this wave without much trouble, and as luck would have it that's all Yuriko has in store for us.
Fittingly for how easy it was, that wave has the worst rewards—292 EXP isn't bad, but 300 yen and 88 magnetite is pretty miserly.
Maybe next time send something that isn't weak to almost everything I've got.
Yuriko steps aside and allows the crew to rescue Mary, who expresses immense gratitude towards Hero for having saved her just like in the dream. None of the crowd seem willing or able to stop them, which on one hand is kind of funny given Adam's reticence but also makes sense when you've just watched them gun down thirty demons and zombies without breaking a sweat. No one wants to be the first to roll the dice, I guess.
Mary informs us that we should meet up at the bar, since we can't use the old hideout, and I fall to my knees out of sheer gratitude for having a clear, easy to follow instruction before remembering that I got one of those with Ozawa and that turned out to be a bust. Nevertheless, I choose to live in hope and skedaddle out of the government building back towards the mall.
.
Along the way, I recruit an Imp and fill out a little of the roster that I hadn't had before, and then immediately get attacked by three Dryads who cast Marin Karin on Hero and Adam, both of whom I had set to use guns. The issue is that Marin Karin inflicts Charm, which means that the target of the attack is set to our own party. Adam and Hero both use multi-target guns, and so I'm forced to watch as they mercilessly gun down all three demons because a pretty girl told them to. The humans survive the battle, but it means another visit to the Messian Church before I can actually get to the bar.
These guys are expensive too, eesh.
I shell out a bunch of cash to revive, heal, and resummon the squad, and then make my way back to the bar. The man from before thanks us profusely for saving their leader, and Mary calls out to ask if we've arrived, before stepping out and thanking Hero, Noah, and Adam herself for saving her. It's a sweet moment, but then Mary says something that makes my eyebrows shoot up.
Is this in a "The Resistance Can Now Defeat Gotou And The Americans" way or in a "I May Be A Very Important Plot Character For Reasons Yet Unknown" way?
To properly thank us, Mary explains everything she's learned. Firstly, she informs Noah that the Mary he's searching for is in Ichigaya, where the coup forces have been bringing everyone named Mary. Their headquarters is located there, and they've turned it into a prison for any woman who may have been the leader. Despite having actually found her, it doesn't seem like they're in any hurry to release the others.
After that, she tells Adam that Ozawa and his gang have resurfaced, and the Resistance is currently in the middle of drawing up a plan of attack that'll allow them to storm his base of operations and capture him once and for all. We don't hear Adam's reaction to this immediately, because Noah steps up to inform us of his choice first.
It was nice while it lasted.
Noah explains that he has to go to Ichigaya immediately to rescue Mary, which I can't really blame him for. He doesn't know what they'll do to her, and every moment she's spent imprisoned is another moment she could be in danger. He leaves the party without another word, and we're down our main magic user, but the Fellowship has another parting to come.
See you, buddy.
Adam can't stand to let Ozawa get away with what he's doing, so he resolves to join the Resistance—not necessarily to oppose Gotou, but to make Ozawa pay. It's understandable too, and he dips out of the party as well, meaning we lose our best AOE fighter.
It's not all doom and gloom though—Mary offers to travel with Hero instead, explaining that she needs Hero's help. The small scale plans that the other two are focusing on are all well and good, but Mary is thinking bigger, and beyond what the Resistance as an organisation can really handle.
I don't know how much a compromise is reasonable here.
Her plan is to meet with Gotou and Ambassador Thorman and try to talk them into settling things peacefully. It's…well, optimistic would be a kind word for it, but there's no reason not to try. She informs us that the headquarters for the coup forces is east of Shinjuku in Ichigaya, and the embassy is in Roppongi. With the public transportation throughout Tokyo down, the best chance we have of getting there is to head into the underground tunnels towards the south in Yotsuya. She's readied a fake ID card that'll get you through the doors to both buildings, so it's up to us which one we want to go after first.
First things first, we'll check Mary's stats out. Adam joined at level 1, but Mary is a full level 16, and she's pretty decked out.
Same AOE machine gun as Hero, Nerve Bullets that have 15 power and a chance to inflict Sleep, and a Metal Crown and Sky Heels that provide +1 INT and +1 AGI respectively. Very good.
She's clearly focused on magic, as we knew, and comes equipped with a selection of nice spells—Diarama, Me Patra, and Posumudi for healing, minor status restoration, and poison restoration, Dormina for inflicting sleep, and Mazio for multi-target lightning damage. She also has Mapper, but that sucks so we're ignoring it. Gotou's headquarters seemed like the closer of the two options on paper, so we're going to head there first after a quick trip to the Terminal to save. On the way east, we're interrupted by some soldiers.
Not to worry, I have a permit.
The soldiers commit about seventy OPSEC violations by waving in the two weirdos who just fought in public in the government office because they have one single fake ID card, and we're allowed to head up into the headquarters of the coup's forces. While exploring the first floor, we're attacked by a group of enemies that I can honestly say I wasn't expecting.
Killing the Justice League didn't work out for you, huh?
"Gaian" in this case seems to refer to the organisation they belong to, which makes sense since Gotou's rhetoric mentioned the corruption and damage humanity had caused to their great planet Gaia. Given that his whole deal is based on summoning and making use of older gods as demons, it makes sense that he and his organisation would push the iconography and name of an ancient goddess of the world itself. Regardless, they're pushovers—Hero and Mary light them up and they go down without ever getting an attack off. Right ahead of them is an elevator, so after a quick check to make sure I didn't miss anything we head up to the second floor.
This is also a relatively small floor, but it has more than the first floor does—firstly, a treasure chest with a hefty 8000 yen inside, and secondly, a Luck Incense that immediately goes to Hero. The stairs are close by, but the elevator actually showed a basement floor, so we're going to backtrack there and check it out instead, seeing as how the third floor is the highest level and Gotou's almost certain to be there. There are a lot of Lemures here, but Mary and Hero's SMGs are able to take care of them pretty handily. Along the way, however, we meet a new face.
Forneus is a Grand Marquis of Hell in the Ars Goetia, noted for giving men good reputations and making them beloved by their friends and foes alike. He's often depicted as a sea monster, so this is accurate enough.
Two failed attempts at recruiting it, coupled with a double Mazio that kills Pyro Jack, and I'm pushed to the point that I have to just kill the damn thing. It's difficult enough, having enough HP to survive multiple rounds of Hero and Mary shooting at the group, but eventually they go down and I'm able to lick my wounds and summon a replacement to Pyro Jack with Azumi. We get 444 EXP and 666 yen for our troubles, which feels appropriate.
The basement is a dark and dank place, with rows and rows of cells lining the walls. Most are empty, but inside a few we find some unlucky victims of Gotou's hunt for Mary. We're given the choice to free each woman, and of course we do. They all vanish right after, so presumably they fled somewhere outside the compound—the checkpoint might catch them on the way out, but it's possible they might be able to go through the trees that surround the place since they aren't bound by the necessity to walk on roads for gameplay purposes like we are.
What we don't find, or rather who we don't find, is Mary From Next Door.
I think Noah might be a bit too late.
Or just too lame, actually.
As it turns out, Noah got here before us and tried storming the place alone, which worked out awfully for him. Really makes me wonder why he didn't just ask us for help, especially since we ended up going here in the first place, but Noah's pretty consistently been characterised as the headstrong, impulsive one—he will always advocate immediate action and jumping in regardless of consequence, while Adam is more cautious and prefers a planned approach. Given that we know Noah is the hero aligned with Law and Adam is the hero aligned with Chaos, it's a bit of a fun twist on the personalities you'd expect.
We free one more Mary, this one a literal child, and find an empty treasure box that Noah might have got to before us. There's nothing else in the basement, so I make my way back to the lift for the third floor. Along the way, I fight off a bunch of Suicide Squads and Zombie Soldiers, as well as one new enemy.
Gamigin is a Grand Marquis of Hell in the Ars Goetia, who gives accounts of men who died in sin or drowned at sea. He's typically depicted as a horse, but can take the form of a man on request.
Unfortunately for him, Gamigin is faced with the frankly absurd power of Hero and Mary breaking all airsoft conventions and using full auto in the building, and he only gets off a single Zan before getting blown away. There's nothing on the third floor except for a door that asks us if we want to go in as we approach, so that's probably where we'll find Gotou. I make one last run through just to make sure I didn't miss anything important, killing a bunch of Suicide Squads and picking up their Unnamed Katana weapons along the way, before heading inside. Hopefully Gotou will be amenable to calm discussion even after we've killed about sixty of his men.
Wasn't expecting that outfit.
Gotou, presumably realising just how many of his men we killed on the way to get here, decides to play it calm. He apologises for the Mary situation, but asks that we give him some time to explain himself so we can see where he's coming from—and furthermore, he explains that while he wanted his subordinates to keep the Resistance out of his hair, he never wanted Mary executed, that was something they decided on their own!
This is complete bullshit, I'm certain of it.
Gotou supports his bullshit by insisting that he's been more busy with important matters and hasn't paid much attention to what his own forces are doing—instead, he's been focused on a secret plan, known only to a handful of people, to create the "Thousand Year Kingdom" in the name of God. He explains that a lot of "their" religious texts talk about it, but decides to break it down for us—it refers to a kingdom of eternal peace and tranquility, a paradise on Earth for God's chosen people. Gotou compares it to an exclusive club where only those who worship God can enter, and those who don't, well…
My lawyers have advised me not to make a pithy comment here.
Oh sweet Jesus—
Gotou explains that, had they been able to, the American army would have already nuked Tokyo for the sake of their plan. The only thing stopping them is a force field that the ancient gods, Gotou's summoned demons, have put up to protect them. This isn't going to hold out forever, though, so Gotou makes Hero and Mary an offer. They could be his ace in the hole, able to resist the American army somehow. Credit where it's due, he admits that it's a big decision and he won't force them to make it now, instead offering them a chance to think it over.
This is, uh, a lot. If Gotou is being even slightly truthful, then he's got a valid reason for wanting to rely on external power like the demons to try and even the playing field. That said, he's also explicitly seizing power and going to extreme means to hold onto it—the nonsense he spun about not knowing about the execution was extremely obvious lies told to people he's realised he can't kill, and can make better use of as his allies than as his enemies. He also left out why the plan requires the destruction of Tokyo specifically, as well as portrayed himself as effectively an innocent and enlightened victim who's just here to save Japan in its hour of need, which is a framing that does not square with the fact that he's a dictator pulling a coup.
We'll need to check out the embassy first before we can progress anyway, so let's get…let's get Thorman's side of the story, god.
On the way out, I kill another fifteen or so of Gotou's men in the form of his Suicide Squads. Reaaaally shoulda told them we were good, buddy.
The underground tunnels are basically directly to the south of where we emerge from Gotou's HQ, and after a long and meandering wander through them, we end up at the Embassy. The fake ID card works wonders, which really does make me wonder how it could get us past both Gotou's crew and the American army, but I'll chalk it up to Mary being a really good counterfeiter.
We also meet a new demon!
The fachan is a Scottish monster that was described as having a single leg, a single arm, and a single eye.
As you might be able to guess from the fact that it's a full moon and therefore talking isn't on the table, we solve this the same way we've solved most of our issues this update. I assume at some point that the MPS Machinegun will fall by the wayside as more powerful weapons are given to us, but for the moment Hero and Mary doing their best action hero impression are cruising through the game.
The Embassy's first floor has a couple of goodies for Hero and Mary, most notably a Luck Incense for the former and a Magic Incense for the latter—there's really no point in giving Magic to Hero since while it would ultimately help a tiny bit with defenses, it'll be more useful on a pure caster like Mary. We also find some Medicine, which is okay, and 960 magnetite, which is a very generous amount. As I'm preparing to make my way to the second floor, we run into another new demon, and this one is downright adorable.
Cú sith, or Cú sídhe, are mystical hounds from Scottish and Irish folklore. They were said to have shaggy green coats and be as big as a cow, and would only ever bark thrice at a time. Those who couldn't find shelter by the sound of the third bark would be overcome with terror and die on the spot.
When I tell you I worked my ass off to try and recruit this guy, I mean it. When I tell you that it laughed at me and left when I tried singing to it, I do so with tears in my eyes. The Orcs that attack afterward bear the brunt of my despair, and I'm left to carry on sithless, immediately into another new enemy encounter.
The spartoi are the famous dragon's teeth soldiers of Greek mythology, appearing in the stories of both Cadmus and Jason. Sowing the teeth of a dragon like seeds would create an army of warriors, but throwing a stone in the middle of their group would confuse them to the point that they would kill each other to the last man.
This failed recruitment actually results in the Spartoi calling an ally, which is a problem because they're all tough enough to survive Hero and Mary's opening barrage. Fortunately, all of them fall asleep thanks to Mary's Nerve Bullets, and we can mop them up next turn.
The second floor contains a treasure chest with a tidy 6720 yen, another one with an emerald that I haven't figured out how to use, and nothing else except for Ambassador Thorman's office. Vastly more important than this, however, is the fact that I run into another Cu Sith and this one actually wants to hear me out. It costs me two Life Stones, about 2000 yen, and about 400 magnetite, but the little fuzzy ball of evil finally agrees to become my partner and I am left a happy, happy man. He's no Pascal, but I think Hero appreciates having a Good Dog with them anyway.
We enter the door, and we're met with another familiar scene from the opening of the game.
All the Americans in this game speak in broken "English" with italicised lettering, since they're meant to be speaking poor Japanese I guess?
Thorman confirms his guess a moment later and apologises for his poor Japanese, and starts to explain why he's arrived. The American army aren't here to destroy, they're here to save people from demons, but unfortunately they're not strong enough to do so yet. He reveals that Gotou's solution is to summon Lucifer himself to Tokyo, which would also free an enormous amount of imprisoned demons and set them loose in Japan. They're not built for that kind of fight, he argues.
Whatever you say, Thor Man.
Thorman promises that there can be no peace if Lucifer is summoned, and if we agree to kill Gotou then he will ensure the return of the former era of peace. Unlike Gotou, Thorman demands an answer immediately, asking if we need to hear his story again before we make our choice.
On the baseline, this pitch fucking sucks. Gotou wanting to free Lucifer tracks with his existing characterisation, but Thorman doesn't say a word about the plan to nuke Japan, and his entire argument is based on the idea that the American army is far too weak to do anything about things without a pair of Demon Summoners killing Gotou for him. Either he's being totally upfront and honest, meaning that Gotou jumped the gun and started summoning demons as the trigger for America's army invading, or he's lying his ass off and Gotou really is reacting in self-defense.
The major thing is that Thorman never mentions the nukes at all, which is suspicious enough that I'm not inclined to trust him. Gotou mentions that the plan is extremely secret, and the Ambassador has no reason to share the details with two young Japanese adults, so why wouldn't he just keep that on the down low? It might mean no nukes exist, or it might mean Thorman gets to take a thorn out of his side without risking his men on an assault on Gotou's compound.
I don't trust Gotou, and I don't trust Thorman. But, when it comes down to it, I trust Thorman even less than I trust Gotou.
Not a chance, Thor Man.
Upon refusing, he asks if we think it's alright to let Gotou continue what he's doing, and Hero denies that too. It's obviously putting us on the Neutral path, but ultimately I'm doing my best to go for what makes sense in the moment for Hero, and right now what makes sense is not listening to either of these crazy assholes.
Thorman's Japanese improves as he coldly tells us that we'll come to realise that he's right if we just think about it rationally, and he shows us the door.
We'll end it there for this update—there's a lot to think about. Things have reached what I feel is the first proper climax of the game. We're making our first alignment choices, we're getting to hear a little of the background, and most of all we're being put on a collision course with Gotou and Thorman, both of which I expect will have plenty up their sleeves.
Just as a heads up, the next few updates may be a bit slower—between Shadow of the Erdtree, Dawntrail, and attempting to furnish a house, things are a bit hectic right now, but definitely should have the next update up by this time next week!
Honestly, I feel like Gotou may have been telling the truth about not planning the execution. He doesn't strike me as having total control over his subordinates.
Welcome back to Shin Megami Tensei, the game that I definitely did put off playing more while I drowned myself in Final Fantasy XIV expansions.
When we last left off, we'd been asked by Commander Gotou of the SDF to assassinate Ambassador Thorman of the American army, and we'd been asked by Ambassador Thorman of the American army to assassinate Commander Gotou of the SDF. Along the way, we learned about how the Americans are potentially aiming to nuke Japan as part of a plan to create a thousand-year kingdom of God, and we learned that the SDF are potentially aiming to summon Lucifer himself to allow Japan to remain free and fight back.
Sometimes I think about how, like, a week or two ago, Hero was just worried about getting some coffee for their mom.
Pictured: Fat stacks thanks to all the killing I've been doing.
Between the raw yen that enemies have been dropping and the extra weapons, guns, and items that they've given me, Hero and Mary are loaded, and that means that we're going to need a new loadout. Given that we're almost certainly on the Neutral Path due to refusing to support either Gotou or Thorman in the previous conversation, we'll likely have to face both a Chaos aligned and Law aligned boss fight in the near future. Things have been fairly easy thus far with both Hero and Mary packing the MPS Machinegun, but the last time I went into a boss overconfident of my chances, Douman wiped the floor with me.
To that end, we're headed back to Shinjuku, where I'm going to pick up the best items I can for Hero. I don't seem to be able to swap gear around between the main characters, and Mary comes with better stuff regardless, so I'm only going to focus on them for the moment. In the best possible world, there's a gun shop in Shinjuku that sells Nerve Bullets, but even if not we're rocking a powerful sword from the Orc drop that happens to outstat the Unnamed Katana that's in the shop, so we're already doing well for the melee side of things. There's not much left for us in the embassy save for continuing to shoot up the place when demons slow us down, so we're gonna speed past that and find our way back to the mall.
On the way back, I run into a Dryad, which casts Marin Karin. Things go poorly.
Not pictured: The three demons that got killed when Mary shot them in the back.
In an extremely unfortunate turn of events, the Charm lasted multiple turns on Mary, who was both a brutal danger to my own team and no help at all battling the Spartoi that attacked immediately after. The end result was the absolute slaughter pictured above, necessitating a massive amount of wound-licking and ego-rebuilding, only mildly stymied by the fact that the Spartoi dropped a Gladius, which offers me a 15 point reduction in Accuracy in exchange for a 17 point increase in damage. This would be a bad trade, if it wasn't for the fact that the Gladius also hits either once or twice just like the sword the Orc dropped.
Hero is already landing basically all of their hits, so this is a no brainer. I have Mary heal both the survivors up to full or nearly full health, and then rocket off to the Shinjuku mall so I can heal my demons and ensure I don't lose any before actually getting to the bosses that I might need them for. The upshot? I'm not spending any magnetite keeping them around. It's all about the silver linings.
The trip to the mall is, on the whole, incredibly dangerous. We run into a pack of Angels along the way, which in addition to being the first time we see them as enemies is also the first time we're on the other side of Hama, a spell which can potentially instantly kill us. I don't even bother trying to fight, I just book it. Another close encounter with some Spartoi ends with a modestly expensive recruitment, which puts another heavy hitter squarely in our hands—it'll work as a good replacement for one of the Jack Brothers. Fortunately things calm down once we make it out of the tunnel to the embassy, and the trip to the mall is one that we're making through the much less dangerous Shinjuku overworld map. It's not entirely safe, but it's generally easy enough to keep Hero and Mary blasting their way through the mobs rather than having to genuinely worry if we'll die.
By the time we make it to the Survival shop and start selling our excess, we are rolling in it.
LODSAMONEY
It's more than enough to kit Hero out, and while Shinjuku unfortunately doesn't have a gun shop which means no Nerve Bullets for them, the boost to Hero's survivability is enough that I'm pretty confident it won't matter. With Angel, Spartoi, and Cu Sith on my side, I'm also confident that I've got some jacked demons to work with, so all that's left is a quick save at the Terminal and I can make my way back to Gotou to let him know that I won't be helping him out.
I anticipate that he'll be reasonable and calm about this.
As I leave, I notice something a little strange, which is hard to show visually since all I can post are screenshots, but I'll endeavor to give a little view anyway.
Phineas facing the camera type beat.
Our little blue icon, from the start of the game, has been rotating back and forth as we move—that is to say, since this is a SNES game, it's been flicking back between a left diagonal view, a centered flat view, and a right diagonal view the entire time. Leaving Shinjuku mall, I notice that my icon is now rotating fully clockwise instead.
This might seem small, but it does have a purpose—at least, I can guess it from later games. The rotation of this icon signifies what path you're currently aligned with. Clockwise rotation means you're leaning towards Law, and counter-clockwise rotation means you're leaning towards Chaos. The back and forth motion that we started off with signifies neutrality, which means that I've done something to push myself towards Law.
My main guess is that it was me using the Messian Church for healing—part of me wonders if there was a Chaos aligned (Gaian?) Church in the mall that I could have used instead, but it doesn't really matter much. I don't think I'll be forced to side with Thorman here given that I already refused, so I put it out of my mind and head towards Gotou again.
I have a feeling that this guy might do something drastic when his coup doesn't work out.
Hero and Mary refuse, and Gotou is not particularly pleased. He informs them that, if they're not willing to work for him, then they've left him with absolutely no choice but to kill them both. Immediately after this, he calls on his demons.
Pisaca are evil spirits in Hinduism and Buddhism that dwell in cemeteries and feed on human life energy. They'll also on occasion possess humans and control their actions, afflicting them with madness in the process. Nue are a type of yokai in Japanese mythology, a chimera made of a combination of a monkey, tiger, tanuki, and snake. It appears in the Heike Monogatari as the perpetrator behind a curse on the emperor.
This battle isn't too tough. Pisaca made the unfortunate mistake of being an undead type enemy in the range of Angel's Hama, so it goes down in one cast. Nue in turn goes down to a single round of basic attacks from Hero, Mary, Spartoi, and Cu Sith, though it does manage to use a claw attack that hits Mary and Spartoi both in one shot. Fortunately for Gotou, that wasn't all he had in store.
A shade is a type of spirit or ghost that dwells in the underworld, usually in an afterlife characterised by darkness. Also, I appreciate that not only did Gotou have multiple powerful demons on hand compared to Ozawa, one of them was literally Ozawa's big demon.
That being said, it's the same song and dance. Shade and Baykok are both undead, meaning that the only difficulty for this wave is the fact that I can't target both with Hama at once—and even that isn't very difficult, because Shade proves to be so incredibly weak that one single attack from Hero's sword is enough to kill it.
You said it, not me.
Gotou, to his credit, accepts the loss with dignity. His demons were too weak, and we were too strong. Then, he says something that makes me smile real hard.
YES
HELL YES
Gotou makes my day by standing up and actually fighting us himself, kicking off the real boss music and proving to me that I was being a wuss by having Hero kit themself out in armor. All the savior of Japan needs is a katana, a fundoshi, some glowing eyes, and a can-do attitude.
Gotou outspeeds all of my team, hitting Hero for a solid 26 damage with a basic attack—impressive, given I've jacked up Hero's defenses both with their statline and with the new duds. He only acts once, but he takes scratch damage from Hero's gun and only slightly more from Mary's Nerve Bullets, which deal only 20 damage. The rest of my demons don't do much better, with Spartoi equalling Mary's attack and Angel and Cu Sith barely breaking 10. If nothing else, Gotou is tanky.
He also surprises me next turn by showing off a critical attack that deals 34 damage to Hero—again, seemingly mild, but in actual fact very impressive as Hero has the best defenses of any of my team. It's likely that if Gotou targeted anyone else, he'd put them in the danger zone in one attack, or in the case of Spartoi probably wipe them out in one shot. Fortunately for me, he seems laser focused on Hero—another critical attack puts them well below half HP, but it also gives the rest of the team time to unload, and a lucky sleep proc from Mary's Nerve Bullets buys me another free turn. It's not something Gotou can pull back from, and the turn after that Hero scores a double hit with the Gladius that seals the deal.
I think that fight came down to pure luck, frankly. If I'd prepared less defense for Hero, Gotou would have rolled them, and if Gotou had targeted other party members, he probably could have taken them out without much trouble and thus reduced my damage per turn until he could whittle Hero down. All in all I think he made a good boss, just one that I happened to have an easy time with because of RNG.
In a fairly shocking twist, given what happened to Gotou's inspiration, he doesn't actually kill himself. From the look of it, Hero and Mary actually do, in fact, murk the guy. Granted, self-defense, but it's kind of wild to have it be an explicit story moment that the heroic pair straight up killed another human with zero ambiguity. Gotou laments that his death will have consequences they can't imagine, and we fade to black and end up outside the room. Hero and Mary both leveled up, so there's no reason for me to waste any time. We're going after Thorman next.
Along the way, the checkpoint that had been preventing access to the SDF base appears abandoned. Gotou's death seems to have broken the SDF in a way that Thorman's probably won't break the army, so it's likely that whatever happens next is not going to be good for Japan, nukes or not. That said, the actual Japanese government seems to be fine with what's happening—Gotou had to try a coup for a reason. It might be that they're uninformed, it might be that they're unwilling to resist, or it might be that they're in the pocket of the Americans and their plan for the kingdom of God. At this stage it's impossible to say.
It's not too much trouble to get back to Thorman, and when we do get back, he's impressed.
He's so impressed, in fact, that he decides to dispense with the disguises and reveal his true form.
Thor is an old Norse god most often associated with lightning, thunder, and strength. He wields the great hammer Mjolnir, which was so powerful that when it was stolen from Thor and hidden away, the aesir feared that the jotnar would invade their home of Asgard solely because Mjolnir was missing.
Ambassador Thorman drops the phony broken Japanese and reveals to us that he is in fact Thor, man. He also reveals that he is working directly for God Himself, capitals and all, which almost makes sense when you consider that his race is Deity. Previously, we've seen that the only demon associated with divinity at all is the Divine Angel, so you can draw a sort of line between the divine and the deific as servants of God if you squint. More importantly, it puts a different kind of spin on Gotou's argument for demons as a supportive force, because that was focused on the nature of "demons" as being ancient gods of myth and legend. Thor here is proving that even if Gotou's argument that they weren't all demonic in nature was factually true, it doesn't actually mean much when some of those ancient gods are on God's side anyway.
It also puts a lot of legitimacy onto Gotou's warnings, because the guy in charge of the American army turned out to be a literal god himself, working for God Himself, who lied outright about their inability to defeat the demonic threat and need to rely on Demon Summoners like Hero. This means the nukes are probably real, and very probably pointed at Tokyo right now.
Thor offers us praise and thanks for the good deed of killing Gotou, and immediately puts us on the spot by asking if we're going to continue to fight in God's name. It's a pretty bold strategy from him, because we didn't actually go to Gotou with the intent of fighting—we just rejected an alliance, which lead to having to kill him in self-defense. By bullrushing us with the knowledge of who he is and forcefully declaring our deed something worthy of praise and an act that's been committed in God's name regardless of reasoning, he's doing a lot to sway two random young adults who have been caught in a terrifying situation.
That said, it's not enough. Hero and Mary refuse, and Thor doesn't like that one bit.
You were quick to drop the friendly vibe, huh?
As punishment for our defiance, he declares, the great Deity Thor shall take our lives. Cue boss music.
Thor opens with Mazio, which deals pitiful damage to Hero, Mary, and Angel, and ruinous damage to Spartoi to the tune of 50 damage total, almost Spartoi's entire HP total. Worse, it inflicts Shock on all attacked, meaning that their turns are wasted. This is a brutal first shot, one which means Mary is tied up healing Spartoi while the others scramble to deal more damage. Thor also knows Zionga, which can deal 44 damage to a strong magic user like Angel, which puts him up there as the hardest hitting boss we've faced thus far. Zionga also seems like a near-guaranteed Shock, which means Angel doesn't get to act this turn either, especially worrying because she's my mass-healer.
The good news? Mary also knows Mazio. It's a bit of a waste, technically, because I'm using a multi-hit spell against a single target, but Mary doesn't know Zio and it's the best I've got. Mary and Thor seem to trade who goes first, and Mazio can reliably cause Shock even to the mighty Thor, which means that if Mary goes first and is using Mazio that I can reliably get a full turn off to deal damage. Given that all my units are stuck dealing between 13 and 20 damage each attack, this is very welcome—I don't want to risk losing a turn on Hama when there's no chance it'll actually work, which means Angel is stuck as a physical attacker and healer, and neither Spartoi nor Cu Sith have any powerful attack spells to work with. Spartoi does have Tarukaja, so I commit to giving up on 20 damage for a turn to boost our attack and see if it has any effect.
Well, technically.
It's a slight, slight boost, so I give up on spamming Tarukaja and just attack with Spartoi instead. 1~2 damage extra on everyone's attacks still comes out as less than I'd get if Spartoi just beat Thor's face in, so I continue with the Shock strategy and hope to God that Thor doesn't outspeed me on another Mazio.
Well, would you look at that.
Thor was another good boss fight, albeit one that very much reminded me of how swingy SMT fights can be. It seems like it was easy enough for me once I found a strategy that worked, but the main problem was that it relied heavily on outspeeding Thor, something that he'd already proven was unreliable with his very first turn. Either he was going to be in Shock for the turn and I was free to beat him up, or I was going to have my entire turn wasted and my next turn focusing on healing up people so they wouldn't die. Two Mazios in a row would have ruined me by killing Spartoi for good and leaving the others free for Thor to pick off, while two Ziongas in a row would have killed any member of my team stone dead.
All that to say—Thor feels easy in hindsight, but slipping up at any point would have ruined me. It's the kind of vibe that I like for an early SMT boss fight, though I do hope that they get more brutal as time goes on. Anyway—Hero and Mary level up, Mary learns a new spell, and all is well with the world!
Ominous!
Or not.
Thor helpfully informs us that he has already brought down his hammer. No, not the one he's holding in his hand—he's talking metaphorically here. What he means is…
Thor pushed the button the moment we walked in. Whether or not we agreed to fight in God's name with him didn't matter. The nukes were real, they were ready, and as of a few minutes ago, they're racing through the skies towards Tokyo. With a final word offering glory to God and His thousand year kingdom, Thor dies, and the countdown begins.
The entire screen is covered by the red numbers, ticking down inexorably, and despite our best efforts we can do nothing. The countdown continues during decision text boxes, inside our menu, even in transition scenes between one floor and the next. Hero and Mary race downstairs, struggling to enter the embassy tunnels in time, but it's no use. They're hopelessly lost, and as they fumble for the right door, the countdown hits zero.
Everything goes white.
Then—Mary appears.
She laments that both of them are going to die if she does nothing, so she decides to do something about it. At the very least, she says, she can get Hero out of there somehow. There's no time for protest or argument—only a final farewell.
Well, she did learn a new spell.
Everything fades to white, then back to black, and then a yellow spiral starts to fill the screen, getting closer and closer to Hero—or perhaps Hero is falling closer to it. As we're consumed by the spiral, everything goes blank one final time—
And then Hero wakes up.
The man in front of them introduces himself as En-no-Ozuno, and immediately informs Hero that besides them, two others have found their way here as well…wherever "here" is. No prizes for guessing that it's Noah and Adam, though that leaves an unpleasant lingering question of what happened to Mary in the meantime. The other two escaped somehow, but she spent her last moment teleporting Hero away, so the odds of her survival…well.
They're not great.
En-no-Ozuno implores Hero to find Noah and Adam, offering to explain everything when the three of them have been reunited. If we're injured or need support, his minions Zenki and Goki can support us.
We're in a strange, strange place.
I'll cut it here for today, because while this is a little shorter than usual, it's also an excellent stopping place before we explore wherever we've found ourselves. Before I end, however, there's one last little history lesson to go.
En-no-Ozuno is a real historical figure, albeit one whose historical information has been inextricably linked with myth and legend. He was a Japanese mystic in the 6th century AD, who reportedly possessed strange powers that ultimately had the Imperial Court banish him to the island of Izu Ōshima, an island off the coast of the Izu peninsula. He is also credited as the founder of Shugendō, a religion drawn from an amalgamation of Buddhist, Shinto, Taoist, and traditional Japanese shamanist beliefs. Practitioners believed that there existed two realms, one mundane and one magical, and that the mountains were a sacred realm that existed between the two, a place where they could meet in reality, and thus a place where the practitioners could develop their capabilities to their fullest. By training in the mountains, practitioners would develop magical powers such as prophecy, exorcism, and the ability to cast various spells and incantations.
Zenki and Goki, meanwhile, were a married pair of oni who terrorised the Nara region in the 6th century AD. En-no-Ozuno managed to defeat them by stealing away five of their children and sealing them in a metal pot, making them believe that he had cooked and eaten them. This made them realise how evil their own actions of killing and eating children had been, leading them to renounce evil and swear to change. En-no-Ozuno released their children, and Zenki and Goki became his loyal attendants.
The story does lead to some speculation—primarily around where we've found ourselves. It's no accident that the first person we meet on awakening after being teleported away from a nuclear strike is the founder of an ancient religion focused on training within a sacred space between two realms, especially with the contrast and connection between the mundane and the mythical is such a major focus of Shin Megami Tensei's aesthetic and world. We're not in Tokyo and we're not in the Abyss, but it's possible that Mary managed to teleport us to some kind of "in-between" realm, one where the trio can grow their strength and attempt to…well, do something to fix things. I don't really know what can be done if a nuclear strike really has wiped away Tokyo, but evidently the game does, because things continue.
Next time—a long overdue reunion, and hopefully some answers.
Thor opens with Mazio, which deals pitiful damage to Hero, Mary, and Angel, and ruinous damage to Spartoi to the tune of 50 damage total, almost Spartoi's entire HP total. Worse, it inflicts Shock on all attacked, meaning that their turns are wasted. This is a brutal first shot, one which means Mary is tied up healing Spartoi while the others scramble to deal more damage. Thor also knows Zionga, which can deal 44 damage to a strong magic user like Angel, which puts him up there as the hardest hitting boss we've faced thus far. Zionga also seems like a near-guaranteed Shock, which means Angel doesn't get to act this turn either, especially worrying because she's my mass-healer.
The good news? Mary also knows Mazio. It's a bit of a waste, technically, because I'm using a multi-hit spell against a single target, but Mary doesn't know Zio and it's the best I've got. Mary and Thor seem to trade who goes first, and Mazio can reliably cause Shock even to the mighty Thor, which means that if Mary goes first and is using Mazio that I can reliably get a full turn off to deal damage. Given that all my units are stuck dealing between 13 and 20 damage each attack, this is very welcome—I don't want to risk losing a turn on Hama when there's no chance it'll actually work, which means Angel is stuck as a physical attacker and healer, and neither Spartoi nor Cu Sith have any powerful attack spells to work with. Spartoi does have Tarukaja, so I commit to giving up on 20 damage for a turn to boost our attack and see if it has any effect.
I see you have discovered the hilarious game-breaking power of lightning. Because status ailments actually work on bosses in this game, ailments like shock, freeze or especially charm (since it lasts multiple turns) are brutally effective against enemies. Heroine is incredibly strong due to her innate access to Zio, and pumping her speed as hard as possible so she can go first is an excellent strategy, and demons with Bufu and Marin Karin are all exceptionally valuable to have around.
Thor pushed the button the moment we walked in. Whether or not we agreed to fight in God's name with him didn't matter. The nukes were real, they were ready, and as of a few minutes ago, they're racing through the skies towards Tokyo. With a final word offering glory to God and His thousand year kingdom, Thor dies, and the countdown begins.
The entire screen is covered by the red numbers, ticking down inexorably, and despite our best efforts we can do nothing. The countdown continues during decision text boxes, inside our menu, even in transition scenes between one floor and the next. Hero and Mary race downstairs, struggling to enter the embassy tunnels in time, but it's no use. They're hopelessly lost, and as they fumble for the right door, the countdown hits zero.
I'm always a sucker for games that put you in a hopeless situation like that. Like 30 seconds isn't enough to do anything, just enough to flail around and realize, oh, you're all fucked.
I'm always a sucker for games that put you in a hopeless situation like that. Like 30 seconds isn't enough to do anything, just enough to flail around and realize, oh, you're all fucked.
Pretty much everyone who plays this desperately scrambles back through the dungeon, desperate to escape, but never thinking...escape to where?! Because the panic's set in and thought has been shoved aside in favor of fight or flight.
Gotou makes my day by standing up and actually fighting us himself, kicking off the real boss music and proving to me that I was being a wuss by having Hero kit themself out in armor. All the savior of Japan needs is a katana, a fundoshi, some glowing eyes, and a can-do attitude.
The villain deciding that they don't need no fancy fancy supernatural gas to kick ass is one of those cliches that we get nowhere near enough of.
Lordgenome going "I should've known better than to trust a mecha to do a man's job" was the single hypest moment of Gurren Lagann, and that is a show that consists of 91% sheer hype.
I also love that this one guy in a fundoshi is like... on par, for whatever reason, with Thor? Or like, at least near enough. Is it the devil pacts? Is it just his determination? Is it the Swag?
I also love that this one guy in a fundoshi is like... on par, for whatever reason, with Thor? Or like, at least near enough. Is it the devil pacts? Is it just his determination? Is it the Swag?
For what it's worth, the game so far has been pretty clear that humans can in fact fight on par with or even surpass Demons. Just look at Mary moving down three of them just to impress some Dryad she just found.
This is in stark contrast to the old TV-show where the kindly old man Thorsen turns out to secretly be an enemy of God and working towards removing Christianity from the timeline.
... Okay, that might be too obscure a reference, but come on, I don't get chances like this often!
Gotou, to his credit, accepts the loss with dignity. His demons were too weak, and we were too strong. Then, he says something that makes me smile real hard.
YES
HELL YES
Gotou makes my day by standing up and actually fighting us himself, kicking off the real boss music and proving to me that I was being a wuss by having Hero kit themself out in armor. All the savior of Japan needs is a katana, a fundoshi, some glowing eyes, and a can-do attitude.
The good news? Mary also knows Mazio. It's a bit of a waste, technically, because I'm using a multi-hit spell against a single target, but Mary doesn't know Zio and it's the best I've got. Mary and Thor seem to trade who goes first, and Mazio can reliably cause Shock even to the mighty Thor, which means that if Mary goes first and is using Mazio that I can reliably get a full turn off to deal damage.
This is an absolutely ridiculous mental image. Here's Thor himself god of thunder and lightning belting out Thunder-Bringer from the latest smash-hit saga of Epic the Musical and then Mary jabs him with a taser and he bellows "augh, bitch." and doubles over.
@Squirtodyle sup nerd. I'm still reading through, but I'm having a blast finding out what SMT1 has been like. I've only played the ones that got ported to Steam and like everyone who already said this, it's neat to see what changed or didn't. Gotta love Pixie and the slow collapse of society.
