Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey

Well, I finally managed to get a chance to start playing this, and wow, it’s pretty addicting. Basically, it’s a dungeon crawler in the vein of the earlier SMT games (SMT 1, 2, If…, and Nocturne). But the whole crawling aspect is done similar to Etrian Odyssey, complete with minimap (except you don’t have fill it by hand). Put in a little over 8 hours so far, and I’m sitting in the middle of some demon palace in the 2nd area. Really liking the music from what I’ve heard. It’s more orchestral than anything, but it fits so well.

But the thing I’m digging so far is the Conversation system. Mainly because of the random shit that just occasionally happens from it. Like I was talking to an Oni, and he started complaining about how none of the demons wanted to gamble with him, and asked if I would. So I said yes, he threw up a coin and lost. So he forced himself into my party. Another demon asked me if I’d give them like ~127k Macca (don’t have that kind of money yet), and I told him “Hell no.”, only for him to reply to me saying it was a joke. But of course, piss them off too much, and they’ll tell you “Go to Hell, asshole.” or flat out attack you.

So yeah, I’m having fun. There’s also a password system that lets you enter passwords to get demons from other people. Also some special passwords that give you demons with abnormal abilities. One example is a Lv.1 Pixie with Megidolaon and Mediarahan, and 99 Luck (of course, you can’t possibly afford to summon it at the start of the game). Also a special one that gives you an enhanced Mara (ha).

The SMT games have always had great conversation systems; it’s one their hallmarks. Too bad it’s only to negotiate with demons, I wish I could talk to human NPCs like that. (Perhaps my favorite example comes from Persona 2 -which is a SMT spinoff- when a detective and a woman pull a " that was the guy who promised to marry me!" hoax on the demons. LOL! :smiley: )

I’ve been debating whether or not I want to get this or Heart Gold. You can see why it’s a bit of a difficult decision.

Made it to the 3rd area. Liking how the boss battles are presented so far. Makes them feel pretty epic. Also, you get the bosses available for fusion after you beat them, which is pretty neat.

A word of advice though: DON’T USE ENEMY SCAN RIGHT AFTER YOU GET IT

Yeah, apparently Enemy Scan is set to where you can fight monsters that are way higher than your normal level range for the area. For instance, in the 2nd area, I kept coming across something during an Enemy Scan, and it’d always kick my ass. Turns out when I finally managed to beat it later, (it took a while…) it was a Lv.27 Demon. And I was just Lv.17 at the time. Fucking insane. For the record, I ended up beating the 2nd area at Lv.19-20.