Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse Review

[Dio Brando 5,810]

If you know me well you’ll know that I LOOOOOOOOVE Shin Megami Tensei IV on the 3DS.

It was my very first game in the Megami Tensei franchise and ever since I played it in 2013 I became a huge fan of Atlus and was further solidified when I played Persona 4 Golden last year which is another game I adore and love to death.

Fast forward to October of 2015 and Atlus announced the continuation for Shin Megami Tensei IV titled:Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse(Known as SMT4 Final in Japan) which was released on February 10th in Japan and September 20th in North America with a European release in Winter of 2016.Needless to say I was hyped beyond belief for this game ever since it’s announcement and I got it day one and played it non-stop on my 3DS up to the time I’m writing this review in and what do I think of it?Well it’s easy to just tell you my obvious verdict of it but let’s leave that to the end shall we ?

 

 

He's voiced by the Smash Bros announcer by the way,so feel free to write the joke yourself

The story of Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse takes place during the neutral route of the original SMTIV but it’s a branching alternate continuity from what the original ending is supposed to be where a hunter cadet named Nanashi dies an untimely death by the hands of demons working for Lucifer.But before his soul pass through the Yomotsu Hirasaka,he’s met by the Irish god Dagda who offers to revive him in exchange of Nanashi becoming his own Godslayer.Thus Nanashi gets another chance in life,saves his childhood girlfriend Asahi and gets involved in an all-out war between humans,angels and demons............that is until an organization of gods named the Divine Powers enters the seen to interrupt the war between Merkabah and Lucifer(forcing the two to enter a temporary truce)and kidnaps Flynn,the hero of the previous SMTIV,and announce their plan of bringing Salvation to all.......what kind of salvation you may ask?Well you have to play the game to find out cuz that’s all I can spoil of the story

 

While I do love the plot for Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse a lot(except for the endgame of one of the routes),the game though attempts what it has to be the most divisive twist on the alignment system ever since the Reasons from SMTIII Nocturne.Since the game continues from the Neutral route of the original SMTIV,your primary choice of alignments is two variations on the neutral alignment:Peace and Anarchy.Those are the two primary alignments to choose from in the game with two possible Law and Chaos endings on the side that references the other two possible choices from the previous game.While I do love Peace and Anarchy since it brings a new interesting twist on an alignment that was usually portrayed as the go-to choice,it might not set well with other parts of the MegaTen fandom who’re fans of either Law and Chaos so part of your enjoyment of the plot might depend on what do you think of neutrality as an alignment and whether or not you’re willing to accept a game focusing solely on it.My only real big complaint about the plot(and the game so far) is something that I don’t wanna spoil but it’s the reasoning for fighting the final boss for one of the two primary alignment which is an issue that extends to the entire mainline SMT series to be honest but other than that,I really love the game’s story especially the cast of characters that follows you on your journey:

 

From left to right:Nozomi,Hallelujah,Gaston,Asahi,Nanashi and Toki

 

Asahi,Navarre(who returns from SMT4 after he died a very pathetic death),Halellujah,Gaston,Toki,Nozomi(who also returns from SMT4).All of which are very well written and some of them goes through some pretty good character development(which is a rare occurance for mainline SMT titles since they focus more on world building than the individual character)and I love their interactions with each other.Overall regardless of the issues the story might have the characters are more than makes up for it and I really couldn’t be any happier.

 

 

GIVE ME BACK MY MACCA YOU NEKOS

I won’t spend time explaining how gameplay mechanics work in SMTIV Apocalypse since it’s more or less the same as the original SMTIV so I’ll just link my old SMTIV review in case newcomers who might read this and were confused about the game’s mechanics and we’ll move on to the changes:https://www.google.com/url?q=http://kh13.com/forum/topic/93815-metal-snake-reviewsshin-megami-tensei-iv/&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwj3i53G7vDPAhXLXBQKHQKgAT4QFggGMAE&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNEFHXYGsla4oaNnm5UXq0R9c1kYcg

There are a couple of changes that were implemented to the battle system since the original SMTIV.For example smirking has been balanced\nerfed so that it wasn’t as broken as before where it used to give you perfect evasion and double your attack stats.Instead Smirking now only negates the weakness you or your demon has for one turn or until you attack and once you attack you have a guaranteed critical hit but keep in mind that this also applies to your enemies as they can do the same to you.Certain spells like Antichton that used to have overpowered secondary effects now have their effects tied to smirking.Demons now have affinities that determines how good or bad they are at utilizing certain spells.For example if your demon is weak yo the ice spell bufu then them casting an ice spell would be much weaker than that of a demon specialized in ice spells regardless of how high it’s magic stats are.Buffs and debuffs spells works the same way depending on if your demon is good at casting spells like Tarukaja or Rakunda.All that can be seen on the stats screen when you examine the demons.Demon fusion more or so works the same way except that now some demons have their own exclusive skills that only them can learn and they can’t pass it on to another demon through fusion or to you through whispering

Phew,glad that those bastards are easier to negotiate with now

Demon negotiations have actually been improved compared to the last game or well.......the mainline series in general.Should a demon bail on you during negotiation for one reason or another,if you happen to find the same demon later and negotiate with them,the conversation will carry on from where you stopped last time or sometimes they’d recognize you and join you instantly.That’s a change that I welcome with open arms because,while I do like demon negotiation,it was one of the most frustrating aspects about the the Megami Tensei franchise and I’m so glad that it has been updated.

 

Finally,partners that aren't useless and are very helpful in battle

Another change to the battle system is how the partner system works.In the original SMTIV the partners you had a really bad AI and they ends up screwing you over in battle then be of any help,not only that but the game picks one of them at random each battle.But Thankfully that isn’t the case in Apocalypse.You can select any partner you want and each of them specializes in a certain aspect of battle.Asahi is a healer,Navarre specializes in buffs and debuffs(He’s by far the best partner in the game ironically ),Nozomi specializes in Gun attacks and inflecting Status ailments,Gaston and Toki specializes in physical attacks.....etc.And unlike the original SMTIV your partners have actual competent AI and each of them are useful in their own way depending on how you approaches your battles(Except Gaston though cuz he literally steals your turns for himself)

The mapper has been significantly improved from the last game.I have to admit that for as much as I love the original SMTIV the map in that game was so bad and later in postgame it was more confusing than helpful.Now in Apocalypse the map looks clearer and not only it displays the name of each location in Tokyo on the map.It also puts a flag mark telling you where to go next to progress the story so that you can explore at your own leisure and pace without the fear of getting lost and confused.Going through the different regions of Tokyo was also improved as the Hunter Association opens shortcut bridges between each region as you progress through the game so you don’t have to always rely on terminals advance to the next area or the next sidequest.

 

What I love the most about all the changes in SMT Apoclaypse however is it’s accessibility when it comes to difficulty spikes.It’s the most welcoming entry in the mainline series for newcomers to get into and while that might be a turn off for veterans of the series it helps bring more new fans as the difficulty scales properly instead of having an absurdly hard first boss that can cause a newbie to ragequit in anger(Looking at you Matador and Minotaur).It’s still a hard game to beat don’t get me wrong it’s still has the challenge you expect from a Shin Megami Tensei game but it opens the door for the fandom to grow in numbers when something as accessible as Apocalypse exist

 

I don’t really need to say much about the graphics as the game uses the exact same engine as the original SMTIV and the different locales of Tokyo are still the same as they were in the original game with some new locations added and some changes to old ones.

 

The soundtrack is once again composed by Ryota Kozuka who composed the soundtrack for the original SMTIV.While there are a lot of amazing new tracks the game still contain and uses the entirety of the soundtrack from the original game so if you loved Ryota’s composition in the original you’re gonna feel right at home here as the soundtrack is still as magnificent as ever with mixes between techno,metal and sometimes some orchestral beats makes this soundtrack an absolute joy to listen to.I have the soundtrack of the original SMTIV and I can’t wait to buy the one for Apocalypse whenever I get to purchase it.

The localization and voice acting for the game is superb as expected from the localization team at Atlus and stellar performances for most actors especially Xander Mobus as Dagda cuz he’s by far my favorite voice actor in the entire game

 

 

I’m sorry if I sounded a bit fanboyish and biased but I really love this game I really do.It’s fine if you don’t agree with my opinion on it that’s completely fine but the amount of joy I had with this game is something not even this review would be enough to describe.It’s not a perfect game by any means and let’s be honest no game is perfect and not all of them need to reach the perfection status in order to capture one’s heart.The issues I had with the game never hindered my experience in a big way and I’m still having a ton of fun playing it even at the time of writing of this review I’ve put over 80 hours into the game,got all the endings and currently beating the DLC bosses and extra dungeons.As for recommending this game to people...............that’s a bit tricky.If you care about the story then you need to play the original Shin Megami Tensei IV before tackling Apocalypse,sure the game does have a brief summary of some previous events but a lot of stuff in the plot hinges on your understanding of what happened in the original.the original SMTIV goes on around $15.99 on the Nintendo e-shop so I’d suggest you give the original a shot then come back to Apocalypse if you liked what you’ve played.You’ll still be having a lot of fun in Apocalypse should you decide to jump right in regardless of the story as it has the most refined gameplay and battle system of any of the mainline entry of the series to date.

The opinion of veterans might split on this game and that’s fine.But on my end I think Atlus has done it yet again.I legitmately think they’ve made the best RPG on the Nintendo 3DS by far.I love it as much as the original SMTIV and I can’t wait to see what Atlus has in store for upcoming MegaTen games like Persona 5 which I’m hyped for beyond belief and whatever they’re planning for the future of the mainline series.

Edited October 23, 2016 by Smash Mega Koopa

[FlyingEggplant 116]

Still waiting for a Europen release but in the mean time i need to finish SMT IV

[Dio Brando 5,810]

Still waiting for a Europen release but in the mean time i need to finish SMT IV

I think they said the European release is sometime in December ........december 3rd I think

[FlyingEggplant 116]

I think they said the European release is sometime in December ........december 3rd I think

well then i got a bit more the a month to finish IV, i think i'm 50% done with it so i should be able to finish it

[Dio Brando 5,810]

well then i got a bit more the a month to finish IV, i think i'm 50% done with it so i should be able to finish it

Good luck..........trust me you need it on the final boss of the neutral route and the Law route

[Joker 1,560]

I got SMT IV A a few days ago and I love it