History VideoGame / ShinMegamiTenseiIVApocalypse

* AdultFear: At the beginning of the game, the underage Nanashi is killed less than fifty feet away from the gates of his hometown.

* {{Hypocrite}}: The game will recognize if you have been this with your dialogue and alignment choices when it comes time for the alignment lock, and punish you accorrdingly. [[spoiler:If you generally choose [[NiceGuy nice]] answers throughout the game, but you snub your allies at the last minute to opt for the Massacre route, Navarre takes all your items away. If you generally chuse [[{{Jerkass}} rude]] answers, then you side with your friends and go with Bonds, Dagda deletes all of your demons.]]

* JerkassGods: The Divine Powers eventually prove themselves to be little better than Law or Chaos. [[spoiler:Then there's YHVH, who happens to be even worse and even more despised than He was in ''II'']].

** MP recovery items heal much less than they used to in ''IV'' - your best MP restoration item only refills a static 150 MP instead of all MP.

** For the majority of the game, Dagda is this with the other main characters, mainly Nozomi and Danu. Dagda's ideology regarding human independence and plans to recreate the universe often place him at odds with the main party, who each emphasis the importance of working together and wish not to meddle with the recreation of the universe. Yet, they continue to work together to deal with the Divine Powers along with Merkabah's angels and Lucifer's demons. This eventually comes to head in [[spoiler: the Cosmic Egg, where Dagda's desire to use the egg and its many souls to recreate the universe proves to be so extreme that it serves as the main branching point in the story: siding with Dagda (Massacre route) or siding with the other main characters (Bonds route)]].

** For the majority of the game, Dagda is this with the other main characters, mainly Nozomi and Danu. Dagda's ideology regarding human independence and plans to recreate the universe often place him at odds with the party, who each emphasis the importance of working together and wish not to meddle with the recreation of the universe. This eventually comes to head in [[spoiler: the Cosmic Egg, where Dagda's desire to use the egg and its many souls to recreate the universe proves to be so extreme that it serves as the main branching point in the story: siding with Dagda (Anarchy route) or siding with the other main characters (Bonds route)]].

* EnemyMine: The forces of Law and Chaos have made a temporary truce in order to fight against the polytheistic gods.

** Light and Dark skills now do normal damage, rather than simply being OneHitKill spells with low accuracy; the user has to be Smirking to do the instant kill. The only other games where a Light-elemental skill does non-lethal damage are the ''VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga'' duology, and even then Light skills do [[PercentDamageAttack percent damage]] with the same low-accuracy property as Dark skills.

Lead programmer of ''VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga'', ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'' and ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'', Satoshi Oyama serves as director, with Masayuki Doi again working as the character designer. The game was released in Japan on February 10, 2016, and on September 20, 2016 in North America. The European release is set for December 2, 2016.

* SignatureMove: Various skills associated with certain demons (for example, Odin's Gungnir or Alice's Die for Me) can never be passed on through fusion or taught to Nanashi via Demon Whisper. These skills are also completely exempt from skill mutation. Your partners' exclusive moves are also largely inaccessible to you, although you can fuse Chironnupu to use Hallelujah's support skills on command.

** The game does not indicate in any way the factors that influence the chance of a fusion accident.[[note]]Have Nanashi or any fusion components be sick or dead; Foul demons as the components also double the chance. Several demons can only be obtained via fusion accident.[[/note]]

** Negative skill affinities encourage players to tailor the skill sets towards a demon's favored role, rather than [[ComplacentGamingSyndrome just slapping the same set of skills onto every demon they fuse.]] Not that it's stopped some from trying, anyway.

** Naturally, refusing Dadga's offer at the beginning enough times results in this.

* SignatureMove: Various skills associated with certain demons (for example, Odin's Gungnir or Alice's Die for Me) can never be passed on through fusion or taught to Nanashi via Demon Whisper. These skills are also completely exempt from skill mutation. This also applies to your partners' exclusive moves. However, you can fuse Hallelujah's signature demon.

** No one who can see Navarre [[spoiler: is entirely normal. Nanashi is essentially a zombie, Noizomi is a Fairy Queen, Hallelujah is half demon, Abe is a fallen angel, and the Flynn who notices him is actually Shesha. It's ambiguous whether Toki could see Navarre naturally before she became Innana's host.]]

* InformedAbility: Asahi and Hallelujah are the only party members that summon demons to fight in battle. Isabeau, Noizomi, and Gaston are said to be able to do the same [[spoiler: and make note of the fact that they could not when the Tokugawa Mandala is in place]], but never do. [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools Luckily, this means that ]] [[BadassNormal the latter trio's combat abilities are not hampered in the slightest]] [[spoiler: when the Mandala is in place.]]

* InterfaceSpoiler: It's possible to surmise the fact that [[spoiler: you're not done with the Divine Powers after Tsukiji Honganji if you notice [[DefeatMeansFriendship you haven't unlocked them for fusion yet]]. And of course, there's the fact Krishna simply vanished when defeated instead of cracking and shattering as bosses usually do.]]

* SignatureMove: Various skills associated with certain demons (for example, Odin's Gungnir or Alice's Die for Me) can never be passed on through fusion or taught to Nanashi via Demon Whisper. These skills are also completely exempt from skill mutation.
** This also applies to your partners' exclusive moves. However, you can fuse Hallelujah's signature demon.

You play as the 15 year-old "[[HunterOfMonsters Hunter]]" in Tokyo named Nanashi, who soon after the game starts is killed by a demon. Lost in the abyss between this world and the next, Nanashi is approached by a fallen deity named Dagda, who offers to return the young hunter to the land of the living. In return, Nanashi becomes Dagda's "[[KillTheGod Godslayer]]", a {{living weapon}} with the ability to summon and control other demons. Nanashi must now destroy the forces of [[NobleDemon Lucifer]], [[TheEvilsOfFreeWill Merkabah]], and the newly arrived cabal of OldGods led by [[GodInHumanForm Krishna]], before their three-way war obliterates what remains of mankind.

->''"No longer human. Not angel, not demon. He is... my puppet."''
-->-- '''Dagda'''

You play as the 15 year-old "[[HunterOfMonsters Hunter]]" in Tokyo named Nanashi, who soon after the game starts is killed by a demon. Lost in the abyss between this world and the next, Nanashi is approached by a fallen deity named Dagda, who offers to return the young hunter to the land of the living. In return, Nanashi becomes Dagda's "[[KillTheGod Godslayer]]", a {{living weapon}} with the ability to summon and control other demons. Nanashi must now destroy the forces of [[NobleDemon Lucifer]], [[TheEvilsOfFreeWill Merkabah]], and the newly arrived cabal of OldGods led by [[GodInHumanForm Krishna]], before their three-way war decimates what remains of mankind.

*** [[VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne The Demi-fiend]] is aligned with Chaos and has been killed by Lucifer, the TrueFinalBoss of the True Demon Ending.

* NonStandardGameOver: Naturally, refusing Dadga's offer at the beginning enough times results in this.

** Due to the changes of the Smirk mechanic, many of the [[PowerfulButInaccurate "high crit, low hit"]] skills become this. Due to Smirk now allowing the next attack to have a 100% hit and crit rate, there is very little reason to dedicate a skill slot to such an attack when any other attack -- especially skills of their tier without the drawback -- has roughly the same effect.

* ContractualBossImmunity: Downplayed in that bosses are no longer immune to Light or Dark spells by default, but this is because they now do regular damage alongside the other seven attack elements. Bosses are still immune to the OneHitKill effects of a Smirk-empowered Light or Dark spell, however.