Shin Megami Tensei Series

I thought he just had to witness the Conceptions, or only the major battles between Law and Chaos, forced to watch his precious humanity destroyed over and over again without being able to do anything to help.

After all, he isn't immortal. The only conceivable way for him to watch everything would be for him to be reincarnated as literally everyone who has ever existed and will ever exist.

...

Everyone is Hijiri in Purgatory.

edited 24th Apr '14 12:47:02 PM by Frishman

That's the point. He can't witness everything which is why it's impossible. It's his curse to bear for all eternity.

But if he doesn't know...

How is it a curse again? Sounds to me like he just keeps getting shit luck for all of eternity. He's like Peter Parker at that point.

Heck, he probably was Peter Parker at some point. I can totally see Mephisto actually being YHVH just dicking with him.

At least the Demi-fiend's maybe-curse of Eternal War requires him to remain the Demi-fiend and die for the rest of existence. You know, hopefully, otherwise he gets to wait until the universe he's currently in goes through the Conception again.

edited 24th Apr '14 12:56:43 PM by Frishman

I've only said this briefly before, but I prefer to think Hijiri is not Aleph. He's not explicitly identified as such and it would turn basically the entirety of II into a Shoot the Shaggy Dog Story. He certainly resembles Aleph, but I think it was intended to be ambiguous, as God cursed a lot of people. He could be a Canaanite leader, or one of the people responsible for crucifying Jesus, for all we know.

edited 24th Apr '14 12:59:27 PM by HamburgerTime

It doesn't matter if he doesn't remember, it's part of his curse. Unable to take part in events and to be a bystander who ends up dying again and again and again for all time with no way to escape it. That's his punishment.

While that is true, we haven't seen any of those guys in an SMT game, and Atlus is fond of Call Backs.

Still, unless his soul gets to review everything he did with his last life with full knowledge of all previous lives, it seems more like YHVH just being a dick...

Yeah, that just clicked for me, nevermind, Aleph's curse makes perfect sense.

edited 24th Apr '14 1:07:58 PM by Frishman

Thinking about it some more, I've decided I quite like the idea of Hijiri being Judas, or someone else involved in the betrayal of Jesus. There are apocryphal legends about assorted antagonists of Jesus being subjected to basically the same curse Hijiri is, and in SMT, All Myths Are True. As well, Hijiri's curse is basically being a reverse Messiah, witnessing all the evil in the world but being totally unable to help, which would be a fitting punishment for such a person.

edited 24th Apr '14 1:34:16 PM by HamburgerTime

So who had it worse, Hijiri or Naoya?

well considering naoya's kind of a dick and his crime was that he killed his brother, rather than an insane megalomaniacal and genocidal deity, id say hijiri suffered more just on account of it being kind of more unfair that he be punished.

of course, this is on the assumption hijiri is aleph.

To be fair, Cain was set up as the first murderer by YHVH on purpose according to Overclocked, so you can kind of see why Naoya would be plenty pissed., but still definitely Hiriji.

I still don't know why they added that part in.

I actually think it worked better when Naoya didn't have any possible justification for his hate.

wasnt it already implied the situation was a set up in the first place?

he's still responsible for taking action, even if he was set up. the only way he had a possible justification for this was if he was literally mind controlled- which i havent seen any indication of.

gotta say, i figured naoya's route would bring up the whole cain and abel thing more

I recall hearing a theory that Sanat in SMTIV is apparently the Demi-Fiend.

He isn't. At most, his moveset is a homage to the Demi-fiend's moveset in Digital Devil Saga.

Speaking of which, Nocturne Update: I reached the Diet Building! On a whim, I recruited a Cerberus and started leveling up my High Pixie, which actually worked out.

My current party consists of a "A-team" of Skeleton Monk, Amaterasu, and Parvati, and a "B-team" of Queen Mab, Cerberus, and Cu Chulainn. I am currently grinding up the B-team.

edited 25th Apr '14 3:53:51 PM by Otherarrow

Sounds like you're doing pretty well for yourself!

Of the four bosses coming up, the only really tough one is Mot- Make sure someone can use an Electricity skill before you get to him.

The Demi-Fiend, Ammy, and Pixie-Mab all have Electric spells of some type, though Pixie-Mab is the lowly Mazio she inherited from her lower forms.

I've heard about Mot. He spams Beast Eye and then spams Megidos.

He's an asshole, but you can take some of the sting out with buffs and debuffs to make him favor Dekunda and Dekaja over Beast Eye. You'll probably want Dekaja around, too, since he likes Makaja quite a bit.

I don't think I have anyone but the Demi-fiend who can get Dekaja, but I have no room in the Demi-fiend's moveset.

Anyway, I am not going to worry about it, since I am not going to take on the Diet Building today.

Sure, sure, it's not as important as Electricity skills for extra Press Turns and Buffs and Debuffs.

Update: I am too lazy to grind up the B team. Damn it, I really don't like how I got a solid enough team that I am just complacent with them and don't want to fuse them away or use anyone else.

But, paradoxically, I also want to use these three other guys. But they still have most of their movesets to learn, and as of now are only OK I guess.

I think, at most, I might bring them with me into the Diet Building next time and have them get EXP from the new demons there, swapping them out with members of the A-Team as needed (the A-Team don't need grinding, as they've maxed out their movesets. It's basically a bonus for them)

Who's the boss at the end of the Diet Building? Samael, right? Unless you take Hikawa's Reason.

You also fight Surt, Mada, Mot and Mithra along the way.

That is a lot of dudes to beat up.

As a sidenote, Mada is among the freakiest things I've ever read about in mythology. The Hindu Gods are among the most powerful deities, probably second only to the Abrahamic God in how they're portrayed in their legends, and this thing could have them for supper and the entire universe while he's at it!

For some reason I can't explain, Master Therion freaks me the f*ck out.