Shin Megami Tensei IV *SPOILERS ABOUND*

On the other hand, while the player might side more with Walter there, given the whole Isachar thing Flynn arguably has more of a case for siding with Jonathan.

Point.

The way I looked at it, it's not so much that siding with Jonathan is canon, it's just that in that particular universe, Flynn went with Jonathan.

Yeah. He still journeyed with an alternate Walter in Blasted/Infernal where another Flynn sided with him.

edited 6th Mar '17 5:17:56 PM by OmegaRadiance

So I ran across a thread on r/megaten about how, since Apoc's story is so divisive, what could be done to improve it. There number one most common response surprised me:

Divine Powers route.

Thoughts?

I mean, I'm all for additional options and that'd probably be a more interesting finale than the Law and Chaos endings we got.

After what Shesha ended up doing (and had the gall to be unrecruitable)? No.

(Remember, "interesting" does not necessarily imply "good")

The argument seems to be that since Law and Chaos are bad endings and the Divine Poiwers you can't side with at all, all the demon factions are essentially Straw Characters.

Watch as they implement a Divine Powers route that ends with you getting eaten by Shesha; your reward for helping to bring salvation is to earn salvation for your soul.

Actually, you know what they should've done? In the Law ending, have it end with Nanashi and Merkabah being eaten by Shesha. In the Chaos ending, have it end with Nanashi and Lucifer being eaten by Shesha. Have a Divine Powers ending where Nanashi gets eaten by Shesha. Seeing those three endings unlocks Shesha for fusion, because he's happy that the player has taken the time and effort to feed him so many times.

edited 9th Mar '17 3:41:28 PM by dragonfire5000

That pretty much happened with Vanilla's Law.

edited 9th Mar '17 3:41:03 PM by Cross

I'd seen people suggest Chaos can at least go beyond beating Merkabah and potentially face the Powers, unlike Law where you Nuke Tokyo but the Black Hole doesn't go beyond the giant hole in the dome for some reason.

And yeah the Powers ending you'd just end up being treated less like a person and more like a thing, because Krishna himself states he can't trust humans as Vishnuflynn. It would be neat to see if Krishna has a breakdown because the egg didn't hatch as well.

edited 9th Mar '17 3:56:03 PM by OmegaRadiance

I wish that we could side with the Divine Powers, though. I'm not exactly crazy about their plan, but it seems a lot better, say, Law and Chaos (in this game). Hell, maybe Krishna makes you his Godslayer, replacing Dagda if you die and bringing you back.

Maybe something along the lines of "Ah...I see that you have fallen. But I will not abandon you. Let us go, Kalki, and grant humanity the salvation that they so desperately need," or something along those lines. It'd definitely be something that I'd be interested in; though they'd have to be somewhat less antagonistic, it seems just as viable as all the other endings.

Also, it'd a pretty cool aesthetic change if, when you start a NG+ from a Massacre route, Nanashi's race changed to Godly. It's those little things that really make me like a series.

edited 9th Mar '17 8:28:25 PM by PastryPerson

Krishna can't revive the dead. That's why he freaks out when he sees Flynn's dead. Plus while knowledgeable he doesn't know as much as he thinks, as he keeps insisting his egg will hatch on the full moon, and several days past after you beat him on both routes.

Ah, good point. I'm sure Inanna could help in that regard, though, reincarnating your soul into a new body for you.

I'd have to wonder when this would happen in game, though; there'd have to be some in-game options to help them out before the Cosmic Egg, or at least some pro-Divine Powers dialogue, so the route doesn't come out of nowhere.

Also, how, exactly, your partners would react to this would be a potential issue. Unless you can convince them somehow, I'm thinking that Divine Powers members would probably replace your partners.

edited 9th Mar '17 8:38:11 PM by PastryPerson

So... in the second phase of the final battle, shouldn't YHVH's race have changed to Vile? Since that's where demonized major gods go.

No because he's still a Godly.

Demiurge was a Godly even as a Vile in IV as Lucifer tells you afterwards.

So I wonder who the original National Defense Divinities were? Apoc reveals that the current group were created by Defense Minister Tamagami fusing human bodies and demon souls, but in Vanilla, Mikazuchi recalls serving alongside a set of NDDs in what was implied to be World War II, but the Allies' demons defeated them - which, of course, in turns begs the question of who they were.

Isn't it the same demons just their forms were changed ?

Yeah they were the same demons their forms was just altered to fit the experiments. Their talk of limitless energy when talking about the NDD also makes it clear their creation was part of the Yamato Perpetual Reactor.

I'd really like to play that game, actually. WWII WITH DEMONS.

Assuming they could keep the Imperial Japan apologism to a minimum; that's sadly a pretty big problem over there.

edited 5th May '17 8:26:00 PM by HamburgerTime

I mean, given Atlus had the rise of violent imperialism as part of the motive for one of the antagonists in Raidou Vs. The Soulless Army, to the point where the final boss was a giant warship-cum-transforming mecha fueled by souls, I'd not be too worried.

It probably could be avoided by just having the lead be a member of the Allied forces in the German front, too. Maybe a member of the 442nd Infantry Regiment!

edited 5th May '17 9:13:44 PM by Pulse

It would be interesting to see if the Norse gods would've sided with the Nazis - did you know that several prominent Nazis, up to and including The Dragon himself, Heinrich Himmler, wanted to restore belief in the Germanic gods as the Reich's official religion? Himmler felt Jesus' message of equal salvation for all meant he was a total pansy-ass, y'see.

edited 5th May '17 9:14:24 PM by HamburgerTime

It'd be kinda interesting if they did an American Gods thing and had Odin with the Allies and Wotan with the Nazis.

The Imperialism was just a front for the Curse of the Kunitsu to possess Sukuna-Hikona who was trying to get back at the Amatsu for siding with the Hebraic Gods and persecuting them.

They tried the same thing again by possessing Okuninushi in Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon. This time with Zombie Apocalypse.

edited 8th May '17 12:09:17 PM by OmegaRadiance