Digital Satan Story: Megami Tensei (デジタル・デビル物語 女神転生), launched 9/11/1987, developed by Atlus, revealed by Namco
That is in fact the primary recreation within the long-running Megami Tensei franchise that also lives on right this moment (primarily via Persona, though they appear to launch a brand new SMT recreation about each 10 years.) I performed this recreation fairly some time in the past within the SNES remake (Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei), though once I performed it then I used on-line maps to make issues simpler. This time I needed to strive making my very own maps to see extra what the sport would have been like when you performed it “as supposed.”
When this recreation got here out, there weren’t an entire lot of blobber first individual exploration RPGs. For consoles there was solely Deep Dungeon and DD2, very primitive video games that simply have one character and a reasonably small dungeon. On computer systems there have been the primary 4 Wizardry video games, May and Magic 1, Bard’s Story 1 and a couple of, and the primary 4 Ultima video games (which all had some first-person dungeons in them). All of those video games share the final design the place there isn’t really that a lot it’s a must to do to win the sport, and there isn’t an excellent deal to search out within the dungeons. The vast majority of the sport is discovering your means via the mazes (and making maps since I don’t consider any of these video games have an automap), and constructing the degrees of your characters to the mandatory level to win the sport.
Megami Tensei can be principally like this, nevertheless it additionally has the demon recruiting and fusing recreation system. MT does pale compared to fashionable video games and even to most of the later blobber video games that had been coming within the late 80s and early 90s. Nonetheless, I really feel that it compares fairly nicely to what was out there on the time. By the point you attain the Shin Megami Tensei video games I feel the collection is falling behind video games just like the Gold Field D&D video games, the later May and Magics, and the DW Bradley Wizardry video games, with far too little growth from the primary recreation. However right here every thing feels recent, and even the interface is just not that dangerous.
As you would possibly count on, the weakest half is the storyline. I don’t know if it was supposed to slot in with the novels, however the instruction booklet provides the again story — Nakajima (a reincarnation of Izanagi) made a pc program to summon demons however that brought about a bunch of demons to return into the world. With the assistance of a switch scholar Yumiko (Izanami), they defeat Loki and Set, however later Lucifer comes again and creates an enormous labyrinth. Nakajima and Yumiko need to go in there and defeat Lucifer.
That is principally the entire story — there’s a little bit of plot growth in the course of the recreation however not a lot. Nonetheless, for 1987 that’s not surprising.
As typical you start by assigning stats. One oddity on this recreation is that Yumiko’s spell studying is predicated on Nakajima’s intelligence and stage + Yumiko’s intelligence and stage. So this makes it much more worthwhile to spice up nakajima’s intelligence (which I feel helps him recruit monsters). I put most of my factors into Energy, Pace, and Intelligence.
One of many themes I’ve been taking a look at in these early recreation posts is how “pleasant” the start of the sport is. Right here you start on a flooring with no enemies, and you will get launched to the interface in addition to discover the store, therapeutic space, and a few hints. The enemies on the primary few flooring will not be very troublesome, and when you die you return to the city with half your gold however every thing else saved. I feel this ranks on the “pleasant” aspect of 1987 RPGs.
After shopping for some gear for the duo, I headed right down to the opposite flooring of the Daedalus tower. There are 8 flooring — 8F is the city, 7F-2F are 8×8 flooring, and the underside 1F flooring is triple measurement. I made maps as I went, aided by the “mapler” spell.
It was fairly nostalgic to be making the maps myself. I had enjoyable doing it, though I don’t know if I may have saved up that curiosity for the entire recreation — there are about 30 completely different flooring, lots of that are a lot bigger than 8×8.
Nonetheless, as you may see there’s not a lot to search out on every flooring — the primary two flooring have one treasure chests and a few hints.
One factor I didn’t write down is that some rooms have assured encounters with one recruitable monster. You should use this to get Dryads and different helpful allies which you could mix on the Jakyo place on the town. That is fairly an revolutionary recreation ingredient and I feel the sport deserves plenty of credit score for implementing this technique in 1987, at a time when most RPGs weren’t attempting to do a lot past the fundamentals.
The recruitment system is principally the identical as the subsequent few video games — the primary distinction right here is which you could solely recruit a demon if there may be solely a single demon there. On this recreation you solely ever struggle one kind at a time, however there may be 5 enemies and in that case you’ll have to kill 4 of them earlier than you attempt to recruit.
The dialogues listed below are acquainted from Shin Megami Tensei — the monster will typically need you to place down your weapons, or will likely be scared. They could run away, assault, or find yourself asking for Magnetite or cash. Ultimately they might be a part of or could not. I’ve by no means seen any behind-the-scenes data on what really determines whether or not this succeeds or not. I think about it’s a mixture of your decisions and luck, and I wouldn’t be stunned if at the very least within the authentic recreation there’s no method to know what you need to be doing (primarily based on the enemy kind, or no matter).
Anyway, I mapped my means via 7F-2F. Alongside the best way I picked up a Cerberus which was a really useful ally. I used to be additionally in a position to mix two different monsters right into a Baku, which might forged a full heal spell that’s fairly useful as nicely. By the point I reached 1F, Nakajima and Yumiko had been stage 9, and I had all the very best buyable gear from the store.
There have been two chests with cash, and plenty of individuals who gave hints. From these, I realized that the elevator would activate once I obtained a Shizutama (gem), and that there was a Minotaur boss on 1F. Different hints had been about gameplay (which you could solely recruit sure varieties of monsters, that there needs to be only one monster, and that monsters are stronger in sure moon phases).
1F is thrice the scale of the remainder of the dungeon. Right here you discover the Minotaur, the primary boss.
He has 700 hp which is sort of excessive, and I didn’t even come near beating him. You do must beat the Minotaur ultimately to win the sport, however you don’t must do it straight away. You may as a substitute transfer on to the Valhalla Hall.
There are stronger monsters to recruit and a store right here with stronger gear, so it’s doable to do some extra coaching right here earlier than you tackle the Minotaur for actual.
That is the place I finished enjoying. I stated earlier that that is fairly a powerful recreation for the time it got here out — I’m wondering what I might have considered it, if I had performed it as a child. I began moving into these sort of maze exploration video games within the early 90s (I used to be enjoying older ones since we had dangerous computer systems that couldn’t run newer video games). I consider that if I had performed this recreation again then, I might have preferred it. Compared to Deep Dungeon, there may be simply extra of every thing, together with the entire recruitment and fusion system.
I ought to be again with a brand new submit this coming weekend though it’s doable I received’t have one till the 18th.
