Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse (Final) REVIEW

This is a review for Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse. There are spoilers. You have been warned.

Dagda and Nanashi

In Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse, the story follows the story of protagonist Nanashi, who has died in battle facing Lucifer's demons. He meets Dagda and makes a deal with him. Revived by Dagda, Nanashi fights against the demon forces using his Demon Summoning Program. He  becomes a Hunter and follows Dagda's orders.

Nanashi, now a servant to Dagda, must carry out his orders to grant Dagda's wish. Or will he? The choice is ours, for we play as Nanashi. Believe in your choice and do what you believe is right. Will you be grateful and return the favor or will you back stab the god that saved you?

Gameplay

The Demon Summoning Program is a program. It allows you to summon demons to fight for you. And it allows you to fuse demons. Fusing demons is a classic feature in the Shin Megami Tensei series. It is also its main sell point. There have been many games that use this "fusing" feature, but Shin Megami Tensei stands above all of them, because it's literally a finger to companies that are too scared to offend the touchy people of this world. This is probably the true reason why all games from the Shin Megami Tensei and Persona series are all rated M (17 years and up).

Apocalypse is an open world game that allows you to freely explore Tokyo. Through out different parts of Tokyo you can find different kinds of demons. Enemies will appear as 3D pixel figures. To fight them, use the attack button to start the battle. If you run straight into them without properly striking them the enemy might have a chance to start first during the battle.

The battle itself is turn-based. Your character and your demons will each get a "token". Using up all these tokens means the end of your turn. You can reuse tokens by hitting a enemy's weakness or by getting a critical hit. Using this function to prolong your turn will quickly turn the sides in battle. However, the enemies can also do the same. Each enemy in the battle will have more tokens that yours, especially bosses. During battle you can also have conversations with your enemies. 

When having conversations, you can either recruit, trade, or "fundraise" with your enemies. Trading and fundraising is exactly like it sounds. The more complicated one is recruiting the demons. To recruit the demon, you must please the demon. They will demand items, money as well as HP and MP. Sometimes they might even demand the lives of your allies.

Basically, the goal is to recruit demons and fuse these recruited demons together to create stronger demons.
Simple, yet addictive.

Personal Thoughts

On my first play-through of Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse, I was a good boy and stuck with Dagda 'til the end. I even killed my allies in the process. Did I regret it? Yes. After completing the game, I felt empty. Is this what I get after becoming the new ruler of the universe? Yeah. It is. It's great.

This lonely ending only want to replay the game again. This time I sided with my friends. Yes, I felt really bad about replacing  rebellious Dagda with obedient Dagda, but it had to be done. At least I got to see the statue of both Flynn and Nanashi standing tall over Mikado. That was glorious.

I really enjoyed this game! I literally spent half of the time in the game, fusing demons the the Cathedral of Shadows. It was really cool fusing demons and getting a Mermaid with certain skills! Its like customizing your Pikachu with certain skills and overwhelming everyone with it. To me that was the best part of the game. 

The worst part was going through YHVH's Universe. It's a giant massive dungeon that makes you go around in circles. There wasn't really much of a challenge beating it. It was more wandering around than actually fighting. The background music didn't really help either. It was this really repetitive chanting that made absolutely no sense at all. If there is something good about it, it would be gathering the two exclusive sets of armor only found in that dungeon as well as fighting YHVH Himself. 

(I'm sorry if this offended you. Especially to those who are heavy believers.)

Shin Megami Tensei has always giving us interesting stories by directly referencing different religions and cultures. By using the backstory of entities like Shesha, the makers of Shin Megami Tensei were able to create a story with a modern setting to the past. The Percy Jackson series is a very similar to Shin Megami Tensei in this aspect. In short, I really, really liked this game!

Thanks for reading!

-MT