Shin Megami Tensei Series

It stands out to me because Thor is usually much more powerful in the other games.

On the flip side, after being so used to seeing Ogre as basically a Com Mon in the Devil Survivor games I was surprised to see it being somewhere in the 40s in IV.

You think that's weird? Imagine my surprise when Tangata Manu appeared as a mid-level demon in Soul Hackers, since I got used to him being a low-level demon in Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey and Shin Megami Tensei IV.

Mikado was only a bad civilization at the beginning of the game, and ironically due to tokyo's influence. By the end they reverse engineered modern technology, and fundamentally transformed the human consciousness to one that would essentially never have war or serious strife again, and even makes the need for "rulers" obsolete since people can now self moderate. Its much better than the remains of an old society run by insane gangsters and demons for the last few decades.

About time they made a zeus demon though. There are a few figures that are strangely absent, but really should have been there. The roster is too full of obscure things no one's ever heard of, when some things everyone expects are still strangely absent. What makes it worse is that many of the recognizable gods are high-level too, and so someone just playing the game normally will never see them. All the main figures from the most notable pantheons should be present. And its strangely lacking that there's a million buddhas but close to none ever show up in-game despite them being the main figures of one of the most major religions on earth. Hopefully at least maitreya will now show up more often as a standard demon. Virochana should show up again too, they already have art for him.

You know, I am very amused by the fact that even though Demikids/Devil Children is supposedly a kid-friendly spin-off. It has some very non-kid-friendly designs.

Such as the Succubus which is even more raunchier than the one from the mainline series.

Hell back when I first encountered the Demikids Succubus my first though was something along the lines of "...Is that lady...naked...? How the hell did this game get an E rating!?"

edited 23rd Aug '17 3:00:15 PM by dood9780

Wow, Denebola on hard mode is, well... really really hard.

Reverse engineered? That's pretty reaching when they are solely using technology brought from Tokyo or relics they recover on the surface, none of which is reverse engineerd. None of it they built themselves, and the idea they are is laughable when they never suggest they have. What infrastructure they do have was due to what the CDF built all those ages ago, with K's Tavern literally being a relic of that day, and when stuff breaks down he asks for relics to replace it. Even medication to curable diseases is non existant as one quest reveals, and its Tokyo which has the means to deal with said diseases.

Not to mention the Unclean Ones blood was intentionally brought into Mikado's people on purpose. So whatever taint was the angels fault in the first place. And don't get me started on the freaking demonic gene, of which there were hints in the artbook and game before DEMONIC GENE and IVAF were a thing. Which is purposely designed to screw over the people of Mikado if they get smart past a certain point and have no archangels to curb it. So reverse engineering by default is already too smart for them, which is why Hugo is frustrated his fellow monks are too dumb to figure out simple mystic script.

@Demikids: Don't forget Incubus who has a noticeable bulge in his speedo and has a look that says he is turned on. You can't tell jack with SMT Incubus.

edited 23rd Aug '17 3:36:29 PM by OmegaRadiance

Denbola down. Miyako is cute! Yes, very cute! And not as much of an ass as her, errm, "brother."

Her mentality is actually worse to be honest for spoiler reasons.

Dunno why they had to repeat like fifty times in the exposition that, yes, Miyako isn't Yamato and she's never heard of him.

So that people don't take the main character's "Miyako is actually Yamato in drag" theory seriously?

There's no way that would stop anyone.

Hey, no one ever said it was as sureproof plan.

Bunny can bring it up several times.

Err... that they are studying the technology to learn about it is straightforwardly shown in game. There's no speculation needed. The monks are shown studying the tech they brought back, with a lot of it laid out on tables in the monstery. They don't show any engineered technology because its not relevant to the plot and you only even come back to mikado for a short period before the very end of the game. Regardless of hugo's original intentions, when the angels came back they left certain tech there and the monks were set at work studying it. That shows that the technology's presence wasn't merely being "overlooked" either, but them actively incorporating it into the plan. Which is ironically consistent with how in certain time periods monasteries would have been some of the most educated places in a society. Hugo was obviously smart enough to realize what types of things were hidden underground and how to get some of them back, even if he was originally not as well intentioned. So as part of the new society, even though he was stripped of his ability to command people and push them around, he was still left to study the technology.

Sure, they aren't necessarily going to instantly understand all of this and suddenly leap to modern day, but it is going to help technology a bit, and shows forward planning. Also, its meaningless to point out that before the ending they don't have technology. Of course they don't, they are in a middle ages setting, so whatever they have then won't be as advanced as things from tokyo. The ending is a radical shift in terms of what is actually going on. And while they won't have as advanced of tech as modern day right away, its showing the process of them having things that will push it forward faster. Tokyo would have technology issues too for a long time, since what survived is only part of a city center.

The demonic gene artbook referenes have nothing to do with people being stupid either. If you complain about speculation, its out of left field to assume that monks not understanding a computer is part of a secret plot for them to be stupid rather than the fact that they have never seen anything like it before. They just act like people would in a middle ages setting. And its pretty straightforward that they don't inherently turn into demons just from interaction with regular society because on the neutral end they are mixed into the people from tokyo and the game never hints at that being a likely future issue. Which means that whatever the original intention of that demonic element is, its something that lilith knew how to set off, but which in a world without the egoistic impulse from demonic influence as their future world would have been is something that wouldn't have come up as a major problem just by itself. Part of the themes is that the system only works if its perfectly set up, which is what they couldn't complete in the beginning because they were sealed away. The reasoning is ambiguous, but since it shows them studying tech the implication was never them staying inherently stupid forever. Just the mental shift resulting in them not mentally considering egoistic actions as live possibilities, and the mentality shift that would entail. And somehow that involves something that can in a different situation be manipulated to turn them into demons, but which wouldn't come up in the system they are planning. It didn't even come up in old mikado before lilith got in, implying that the effects function something like an invisible mind virus.

All that is irrelevant though. Their path in IV is consistent with I and II. The backstory elements are rather beside the point since context already exists for what the purpose and nature of the conclusion is going to be. The details are just backstory specifics.

The monks have had technology laid out in the Cathedral since the very beginning of the game and relic collecting has been going on for ages, doesn't mean they've reversed engineered it or even figured how to do it. Even the vault with Ares has numerous tech within and K's been using a fridge and the 1500 year old Board along with the Gauntlets.

In fact it's weird just how long this stuff has lasted.

Something as simple as reverse engineered tech would be mentioned by the monks regardless of its importance, because they've been stated to be fascinated with relics. If they had it would be stated. Your assuming your headcanon is fact.

The monks not being bright is just that: most monks aren't that bright and Hugo is frustrated by their lack of intellect. There is nothing more to it. It's to contrast the surprising intelligence of the Casualries, who I might add, learn mystic script in months when it took Luxurors like the monks years of study. A fact one Luxuror even mentions.

EDIT:The Demonic Gene confirmed the factors for easy activation, and its stated Archangel presence suppresses it. Lack of Archangels is a factor, and there were less cases ingame after the Four Archangels as a whole took control. That's why fumi-e is an easy means of snuffing out her followers that aren't turning into demons.

The Unclean Ones blood is also a factor, though exactly how it works on Mikado Citizens is unknown excluding being able to use Gauntlets.

edited 23rd Aug '17 5:03:19 PM by OmegaRadiance

How long had Ares been squatting in that Gauntlet, anyway?

A long time. That's all we know.

edited 23rd Aug '17 5:04:04 PM by OmegaRadiance

Weirdly, my biggest problem with Zeus' design is his right foot. He looks like he's wearing a modern-day shoe and it's very distracting.

Zeus wears what Zeus wants. Mere mortals would do well not to question his questionable fashion sense, lest they be met with a shocking display of displeasure.

I also want to make him answer for making me touch his loincloth in PQ. Yuck.

Well he was just inside Elizabeth and it left her invigorated.

Miyako thing: I like that, since everyone in DS 2 has a different Zodiac sign, hers, and therefore Yamato's, is Gemini.

You're looking for an issue where there's not one. The point isn't -when- they might learn from the technology. Its that the new tech is left there under the implication that they are now going to do so. And is relevant enough to the plot that it specifically highlights that there is now more technology in the new mikado being studied. Which was shown for a reason. Asking for them to have mentioned reverse engineering things already makes no sense when the implication is that it is something that will happen after the ending rather than before. There's no real controversy behind the fact that they have more new tech from tokyo, and are now implied to be seriously studying it rather than just considering it magic like they did when they only had a few scraps they were scared to play with. Its something the ending itself highlights.

Its just showing that they have more in the way of advanced tech now, and that they are going to be learning from it, to let you know that mikado as it exists now is heavily shifting away from the middle ages situation it started as, due to better tech beginning to come in, and replacing the monarchy with magical communism that actually works, mainly due to the radical transformation of the minds of the people there. The fact that it didn't happen previously with the gauntlets and few scraps they had is just standard fantasy trope fare. People think scrap of advanced tech is magic, etc. But they showed in game that that dynamic shifted and they are beginning to understand it for real. The point is that there is a large contrast between what happened before, and what the actual goal is, and what is shifting in the process. You can't really dismiss that its showing their knowledge of tech growing based on what is brought back. If you want to talk about headcanon, trying to reason out that something different happens than what the game is implying is going to happen is what headcanon is, not recounting it the way it is shown.

And demonic gene the comic isn't actually canon to ivs world, considering that it implies flynn is secretly the villain and has a totally different concept of the black samurai. Even by its own logic its an alternate world with different things going on. You're talking about headcanon, but headcanon is trying to use different later tenuously related works to imply problems that aren't implied in the game itself to reason out what you think should happen instead of just believing what the game says happens. The omniscient narrator at the end points out that the plan does indeed work without issues, and lasts indefinitely. The angels kill themself in purpose in IV partially as a symbolic depiction of the fact that they are no longer needed. Which they clearly aren't doing for the purpose of suddenly leaving mikado without anyone to protect them from turning to demons. Trying to find ways to undermine what the game says happen makes even less sense due to the fact that the rules of how everything works are deliberately surreal to show how alien the creatures and forces being dealt with are. If you try to override direct content with vague reasoning based on what you think -should- happen nothing is going to make sense on any level. Like if time travel casually exists, why does any figure deal with anything in the present instead of going to the time it would be most efficient, etc. You have to take the story how its presented. You were never supposed to try to uncover secret problems with the plan based on taking parts of an alternate universe comic out of context. (Unless your point wasn't that any of this would effect the plan to begin with, in which case none of it even matters).

In the actual game the implication is the opposite. The drawback of the plan is that once this new world is established it will very likely last indefinitely into the future, without much happening to disrupt it for at the very least an extremely long time. So the irreversibly of it is meant to make people hesitate to consider it due to the fact that after the fact they will no longer be able to as easily. There's no random common occurrence of people turning into demons.

edited 23rd Aug '17 7:22:51 PM by beadman

The Demonic Gene actually does show up in Apocalypse if you play the Explosive Epidemic in Mikado DLC. There's a reason why, in that DLC, you end up having to kill everyone in Mikado: the angels are assholes and their Demonic Gene turned everyone into psychotic "celestial beings."

edited 23rd Aug '17 8:42:22 PM by dragonfire5000

I could picture the Mikadoites singing this, I really could. "Blame Tokyo" even fits the meter.