Shin Megami Tensei Series

Found this to be a good read as I've seen similar ideas before on SMTG and even thought Flynn seemed to exist as a puppet for Akira.

The only thing they got wrong was Flynn dying by poison in Infernal. He died taking a hit for Kenji.

Well, he also got wrong the idea that on the regular neutral ending your world is secretly doomed. Masakado never said that neutral was a fake ending that was only going to lead back to intense suffering. The implication was just that the future marches on, and so solving the problem there doesn't mean no issues are going to come up in the future.

Even though this is one of the slightly more sane things he has written, you always have to factor in that jarinjove writes most of anything he writes about iv and iva under his weird insistence that massacre is the only good path, and that this was atlus' actual goal all along, somehow including before they even came up with iva. He doesn't really grasp that dagda's ending is about making humans individualists who use observation in a personal way, and thinks that the plot is meant to imply that yhvh's universe is too shit to save, and that dagda's ending is about "extra" getting rid of yhvh because he doesn't understand how observation works. And that it also makes all humans superpowered. If you look in the comments you see it veering into weird nonsense about how even the regular IV was foreshadowing massacre as the only true ending.

You know, looking closer at the multi-faced thing from SJR, it actually looks female to me. Maybe it's an even higher form of Zelenin or something?

Oh I missed the Neutral bit when I was reading it. He's still not entirely wrong as Masakado does speak about how the battle of Law vs Chaos will inevitably begin again, and Mastema does as well. With SMT you never know when that's a single persons lifetime away or hundreds to thousands of years because The World Is Always Doomed.

The Law world looks honestly kind of fluffy in that trailer. There's a big ol' rainbow and it confirms the ground still exists and the buildings at least have windows (if not stairs).

Plus, nice trees. Meaning that nature is still alive in a "natural" way.

Well nothing is said that all nature suddenly dies in the ending. Only that nothing new is born.

That still just sounded like a metaphor to me.

Considering how adamant Mem Aleph is that nothing new is born when you go Law I doubt it. With Louisa it does sound like a snide comment because Louisa is a master of talking smack. Like those burns she gives Mastema in his final moments on Chaos.

Or it could even be a mix both metaphor and literal.

edited 25th Sep '17 7:44:28 PM by OmegaRadiance

x5 Hey, you know what else has a rainbow? Totto Land! It even talks! Seems like a nice place to be as well!

edited 25th Sep '17 7:59:19 PM by dragonfire5000

That nothing is born or dies is definitely literal. At least nothing human, or probably animal. (does grass count?) Louissa ferre when criticizing it is definitely doing so under the assumption of literalism. And in the same game you have mastema talk about how those from the kingdom of light live for eternity, which is why on neutral he just leaves, saying he can wait until humans inevitably run into the same problem. And when they talk about zelenin living forever, its definitely literal. This is actually a revisiting of SMTII where a few residents in arcadia talk about how even though the system seems ideal they have no way to overcome death. And you see one person saying its not a big deal and they are fine as they are, and you see another person saying that they want to live forever.

Now, this brings up an interesting question though. Even if your body lives forever, is it coherent to say your mind does? Across an unlimited span of time, as your mental content goes through enough iterations, eventually you may be a totally different person to begin with. Like how some games talk about how even if your soul reincarnates, the new person isn't quite identical to the old one. games like iva and desu for example offering you the choice to accept or reject continuation with your old identity in various endings. So as your mental content changes, its not clear that the bodies remaining the same would even be all that different from what bodies live on earth changing. Albeit happening in a process that is more seamless, and so doesn't involve the violence of death. Presumably it would take longer than a normal lifespan to count as "different," and even if you did, you'd be different from your "long time ago" self rather than your "immediate past" self anyways.

Demons sometimes refer to fusion as "death" even though in any story fusion the new entity clearly retains part of the mind of the old ones. That implies that mental shifts, even of a non-absolute nature are seen as in some sense a new entity. Since your souls are your same essence from a former life anyways, reincarnations are in a sense literally the same essence with different mental content also. If eternal life versus death was an all or nothing difference, you'd probably find more people of other alignments demanding eternal life be worked into their own paths. In IV, some of merkabah's reponses to your questions imply seeing the world as essentially like a system, and different people and bodies are just states of it. So whether they retain the same bodies versus undergo metempsychosis may be less distinct than it seems at first glance.

Metempsychosis is mentioned by Margot as well and can talk about it I believe in DDS 2 as well. Or at least I remember her bringing it up.

The whole point being Serph Shieffeld, AI Serph, and Protag Serph are their own people. Even Schrodinger says they are their own people. Ones Prtag Serph must overcme to prove himself as his own person

Now in cases like IVA it does lean more towards the souls of Messiahs being "unique" and that they can end up being just like their past selves instead of their own person, but due to infinite universes there are always versions that end up different due to different choices.

edited 26th Sep '17 1:13:59 AM by OmegaRadiance

All 345 demons in Strange Journey Redux New demons that wasn't revealed in Famitsu are Armaiti, Cybele, Sandalphon, Shaytan, Jack the Ripper, Tsuchigumo, Forneus and Mad Gasser.

I noticed in that list that it also has 2 greek gods that have not showed up too much outside of Persona and they are Thanatos and Hypnos.

I kind of wish some IV(A) generic demons (like Napaea) were added just to show that they are here to stay.

I still can't find IVA anywhere (at least not a cartridge version). I'm thinking I may just have to break down and download it as well. I already have Project X Zone 2 on my current 3DS. I think I could fit another game (especially if I toss out some old stuff I'm not even using—I still have Swap Note on there, even though it's long since been discontinued, and I don't actually play a lot of the demos that I've been given as gifts), but I'm still kinda worried about having two downloaded games on there.

That's why I'd prefer to get a physical version.

It's annoying to track down physical copies of a game isn't it? Unfortunately or fortunately, some games like Senran Kagura: Burst are download-only.

So if that's the full demon roster for SJR, that implies that either the Three-Faced Thing is not an obtainable demon, or its identity is such a spoiler they're withholding it from the site.

VA sample for Ishtar in Strange Journey Redux

Ascended Extra much? She was an extra demon we had to input the password for just to have in the original?

Ishtar's voice actress is Mie Sonozaki.

edited 28th Sep '17 10:08:21 PM by dragonfire5000

VA sample for Tiamat in Strange Journey Redux

edited 30th Sep '17 5:01:02 PM by NBTT35

The main mothers have much softer voices than expected.

A better look at the multi-faced thing◊.

edited 30th Sep '17 12:32:25 PM by HamburgerTime

Final boss of the new route?