Now that we’ve reached Tokyo the real Shin Megami Tensei IV begins. This is the point where the game opens up massively in terms of demon selection, places to visit, world building, everything. We will be making regular trips back to Mikado throughout the story but Mikado is positively tiny in comparison to what Tokyo brings.
First sign of this expansion? While travel through Mikado was menu-based, Tokyo has a proper world map (go look it up on Youtube, like the boss battle theme it’s mandatory listening). I assume it’s pretty faithful to the real thing necessary liberties aside, though Tokyo has obviously been through an apocalypse or two of its own since while a lot of roads and buildings appear intact there are just as many that are destroyed or blocked off. Flynn’s represented as a little blue icon at the base of the Tokyo Skytree. For simplicity’s sake IV’s Tokyo is split up into about seven different regions - for example the area we’re in is referred to collectively as the Ueno Region even though in actuality we’d be in the Sumida ward with Ueno proper being just to the west in the neighboring Taito ward. As you move around you’ll see different neighborhood names flash by on the UI and the immediate area around the Skytree is apparently the Angel Hazard Zone. Locations that you can visit or enter are marked by a glowing AR square icon, as are points where relics can be collected. Demon apparitions appear on the map, but unlike in the field they’ll remain stationary until Flynn gets too close. The demons here aren’t all that remarkable since they’re low-level, but there is a unique human enemy here known as Gaea Man, a warrior monk dressed in red. They’re buff enough to shrug off gunfire and they specialize in Physical attacks, chiefly Oni Kagura.
There’s not much to do in the Ueno overworld. The area to the north of the Skytree is nothing but razed wasteland, and while there is a place where we can cross the Sumida River an armored man called a “Hunter” with an incredibly snide voice says that there aren’t any ferries available. To the southwest the famous commercial district of Akihabara is nothing but a set of craters courtesy of a military strike by the “Ashura-kai” according to a map icon representing a man. There’s another river crossing near here too, but it’s blocked off by a bunch of Kelpie demons who are busy raging at being driven out of Ueno by a demon called Peallaidh. The only location available to properly enter for now is Ueno Station, and once Flynn enters the outside of the station the animation of him scanning the area with his Gauntlet plays out and Burroughs says that she detects a Terminal below ground. Jonathan quips that it’s odd that the Unclean Ones build their cities underground, and I’ll let that line pass without comment.
The area in front of the station entrance does have some points of interest before we head underground though there are some wormwood roadblocks. Like for example one of the wormwood bunches that we can cut through leads to a chest with a Luck Incense, and we’re introduced to the mechanic of gathering relics not just from stray piles of crystal or scrap metal but from stuff like shop facades, shutters, cars, etc. Any surface with a green icon set on it can be examined to harvest the stuff, and since we’re now in Tokyo the selection of relics expands greatly. In addition to jewelry we’ll now find medicine, electronics, articles of clothing, food, and much, much more. Make sure to read the relics descriptions too when you turn them in to shops as they’re quite entertaining due to the Samurais’ unfamiliarity with the modern world. Skateboards are dangerous stepladders, music CDs are now hand mirrors (illustrated by the soundtrack’s ingenious cover), yen coins are brooches of superb craftsmanship, makeup is colored mud (you’d think that they’d be able to identify at least that since Isabeau is clearly wearing eyeliner…though I guess Flynn is from a peasant background and a guy on top of it), and so forth. The funniest though is the “Woman’s Toy” which is just met with a silent string of ellipses no doubt due to being unmistakable regardless of what era you’re from. This means that Shin Megami Tensei IV and its sequel are the only games I know of where you can sell dildos for cash. What a distinction.
Finally demons since the selection here is different. Threat No. 1 is Oni because they really like using Critical Wave and I got ambushed and came within a hair’s breadth of being annihilated with only one demon survivor and a 57% chance of successfully fleeing. Another interesting enemy of note is the counterpart to the Gaea Man, the Ashura Man, who looks like one of those bald gangsters from the Devil Survivor games, shorn head and white suit and all, with an entire armory’s worth of assault rifles strapped to their backs. As such their unique skill is Barrage which deals Gun damage to the whole party. Enemies from the Ashura family are the closest the game has to having proper Money Spiders as they’re the only ones to drop macca at the end of battle, though the Ashura Man only gives out one-hundred a pop. Still, every little bit helps.
Let’s head underground. So these underground districts are mainly shopping centers and subway stations in real life and before whatever happened to put Tokyo into its current state in-game but now they serve as shelters where people live and hide out away from the demons that roam the streets. It’s through speaking to the people both walking around and staying inside side rooms that you’ll get the bulk of the game’s world building so it’s always worth checking to see if the dialogue’s updated after story events. Through NPC chatter here we learn some pretty important information, namely the fact that the “ceiling” has only been in place for twenty-five years. This despite the fact that according to Mikado’s calendar the year is 1492. It would be natural to assume the discrepancy’s due to some massive conspiracy on the part of the kingdom’s rulers, and while that would be a cool angle that’s not so. The game never says it outright but there’s actually some time dilation going on here and it’s Tokyo that’s moving more slowly. Do the math and you get around sixty years in the outside world for every one of Tokyo’s. You’d think that this would be something important enough for the actual narrative to take into account, but again that’s not so. Even when Flynn and his friends return to Mikado as part of the plot no one acts like they’ve been gone for months at a minimum. You have to MST3K Mantra that stuff, unfortunately.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, in the twenty-five years since the demon outbreak the surviving Tokyoites have taken refuge in the old underground centers and an organization called the Ashura-kai has taken over and they keep the streets and districts as safe as they can be…sort of. The Ashura-kai is more of a yakuza organization than anything else (hence the suffix which means “association”) and many Tokyoites hate them for exactly that reason though since they do control Tokyo’s electricity and other remaining infrastructure there’s not much anyone can do about them. The Ashura-kai do do some good though in a gameplay sense in that they run both an “Ashura-kai Authorized Shop” that sells healing consumables as well as a black market for weapons and armor in each underground district. Run by a cigar-chomping, condescending man who memetically snarks and snaps at you throughout your perusing (“Make sure you bring more macca next time!”) it’s always worth checking out what the black markets have. The Ueno one sells Yasha/Mogura/Murasame Soldier sets which are basically just samurai armor worn over modern combat fatigues and three colors of the Sneak set which are fatigues + combat vest and bandanna muffler. As far as weapons go this sells the Ready Bazooka, the first bazooka-type gun (random multi-hitter), as well as the Flaemis/Aquans/Erthys/Aeros Rounds. If you are going for a physical Flynn you’ll want one of those elemental bullets (and there will be upgrades available throughout the game) since that’ll be your only way for Flynn to hit elemental weaknesses.
Finally we can head to the Hunter Association, marked by a distinctive door that’s been tagged with graffiti. Each underground district has one of them, and they’re basically the local Adventure Guild with more than a bit of seediness on the side. When we step inside the bartender mistakes the apprentices for rookie Hunters and gives them the lowdown - basically the Hunters are independent demon summoners who do all sorts of jobs all over Tokyo. Demon-slaying, courier service, salvaging, you name it, they do it. Above the bar is a set of monitors that display Hunter rankings and open job requests, just like the blackboard at K’s tavern, Isabeau declares. Walter makes the fitting comparison of the Hunters being just like the Unclean Ones’ version of Samurai. Gameplay-wise, yeah, it works the same. You can talk to people hanging around and examine the board for any available challenge quests. One thing the Associations have over the tavern though is that for 100 macca you can order an ersatz food or drink concoction that everyone regards dubiously but nonetheless consumes for a full heal.
One last function of the underground before we move on with the story. Over near the initial entrance to the underground is a Terminal, just like Burroughs said, though when we’re about to enter it she’ll say that she detects a strong demon beyond. Sure enough there’s a Domain on the other side but thankfully it’s not one that we have to navigate. Instead we’re greeted with, “Yo, yo, yo! Hold it right there, young man!” and we’re approached by a drawling “Earthy man” who calls himself the Ashura-kai’s Terminal Guardian. This guy right here is one of the more entertaining NPCs in the game and you’ll see why as we progress further. For now though, he says we best be fixin’ to die and become fertilizer for the region’s cherry trees.
Karasu Tengu
HP
- 368
- Weak to Ice and Elec; Reflects Fire; Nulls Light
- Mazan - Deals Force damage to all enemies.
- Sukukaja - Raises teams’ Speed.
- Koppa Tengu x2
Both Karasu Tengu and his two helpers know Mazan so as long as you’re not a dumb-dumb and bring in a team with Force weaknesses (or have Flynn equip the Force-weak armor he just bought like a certain someone on his first attempt XP) you should be fine. All three share a weakness to Elec and while I don’t have anyone with Mazio I do have a small stockpile of Mazio Stones so you can imagine how the rest of this fight went. Once all three tengu have been electrocuted the Terminal Guardian insists that next time will be different and runs off like the recurring one-man Goldfish Poop Gang he is.
Winning earns us a Bead and two Revival Beads.
With the Terminal Guardian driven off the Domain is lifted at the Terminal returns to normal allowing Burroughs to update the quest and run the activation program so that we can add Ueno to our burgeoning Terminal network. Now then, in order to advance the plot we have to head back to the Hunter’s Association and speak with one of the Hunters who’s hanging out here as our rookie-ness has caught his eye. He helpfully tells us that the Counter-Demon Force base we’re supposed to be looking for is in Kasumigaseki to the west. Problem is that requires crossing a river, and the Ashura-kai have destroyed almost all of Tokyo’s bridges. However, if we take on the quest Pealliadh Extermination we may be able to get the Kelpie we encountered before to help us out. According to the description Pealliadh has set up shop in nearby Shinobazu Pond and started fouling it up so looks like we have a goal here in Ueno, finally.
We’ll take care of that next time. I wanna touch on the DLC a bit before we close out. As I said earlier there are a handful of DLC challenge quests for the game that can be purchased, and the three I’m going to mention are the three grinding ones - Experience of the Afterlife, Macca Makes the Underworld Go Round, and Death Has Its Applications - because they give out exclusive special fusion demons to fuse. All three work the same way with the two oni who flank Charon’s desk during the game over sequence whisking Flynn off to an area in a parallel universe Tokyo, Shinjuku in fact (plus the music\'s a rearrangement of the hospital theme from Nocturne), where everything is dead and on fire much like in those dreams Flynn was having earlier in the game.
Demons will be roaming the area as usual, but since they all give out a pitiful amount of EXP you’re not grinding solely off of them, but rather off of the items they drop. In Experience of the Afterlife they drop Light and Heavy Grimoires, in Macca Makes the Underworld Go Round they drop Gold Jets, Gold Bulldozers, and Gold Death Masks which are all items to be sold for hefty profit, and in Death Has Its Applications they drop 10-Point and 20-Point Cards which can be “used” on Flynn for free App Points. The demons themselves are mostly early bird stuff with some nasty attacks like Maragion, Mabufula, Mamudo, and Megido but given the nature of the battle system if you’re on top of your weakness-hitting you can take them out first. Also among the regular demons are the four Mitama demons - Saki Mitama, Kushi Mitama, Ara Mitama, and Nigi Mitama - who only appear in the DLC. They’re basically the local Metal Slime this time around having very low HP, high defenses, and a high chance of dropping the best Vendor Trash for the corresponding map.
Getting your demon involves just entering a door on one of the buildings where there’s a weird humanoid demon wearing a trench coat and fedora who’ll ask for ten of one of the farmable items in exchange for the demon’s fusion data. Do so and that’s that. The demons are:
- Oread (Lv. 13 Fairy; Napaea + Pele + Aeros; Napaea palette swap) - The most basic of the group. Meant to be a Force specialist I think since she learns Zanma and Force Pleroma and can get Mazan from Aeros.
- Asterius (Lv. 26 Beast; Morax + Halphas + Raiju; Minotaur palette swap) - Physical specialist similar to the Minotaur complete with Charge and Physical Pleroma. I used it for a particularly intense battle over on my NG+ run.
- Plasma (Lv. 28 Fiend; Flaemis + Mothman + Gremlin; XXXXXXXXX palette swap) - Plasma actually has two wholly unique moves. The first is Plasma Discharge which is a random Elec multi-hitter similar to the move Shock but with many more potential hits, and the second is Megidoplasma. Megidoplasma is in between Megidola and Megidolaon in terms of power and cheaper to cast at 41 MP versus 60 MP so it’s actually worth whispering it off to Flynn though you won’t be able to enhance it short of repeatedly resummoning Plasma from the compendium.
Compendium
- Katakirauwa
- These demons are black, porcine yokai spirits who are one-eyed, one-eared, and shadowless. They have the ability to steal people\'s souls by darting through one\'s legs so it\'s recommended to keep them crossed when these black pigs are around.
- Onmoraki
- Onmoraki are bird demons formed from the hatred of souls who died without being given proper purification rites and they often show up to frighten neglectful priests. Traditionally they\'re said to look like a black crane, but thanks to 18th century artist Sekien Toriyama it\'s not uncommon for them to be depicted as something closer to demonic fried chicken...as shown in-game.
- Kelpie
- Kelpies are water spirits from Scottish mythology. In their natural state they resemble black horses but they can also shapeshift into human forms. Regardless of form, Kelpie can and do prey on humans, pouncing and crushing them when on land and drowning and disemboweling them when in water. Like werewolves they can be killed by silver bullets.
- Jack the Ripper
- A serial killer who terrorized London during the late 1880s, possibly killing up to eleven victims. The \"canonical five\" victims in particular were brutally disemboweled and the killer even claimed to have consumed some of their organs in taunting letters sent to the London police. The \"Jack the Ripper\" epithet came from one such letter, one of the few determined to be genuine, and since the culprit was never caught or positively identified Jack the Ripper is sometimes depicted in popular culture as a malevolent inhuman or otherwise supernatural force.
- Oni
- Oni are essentially Japanese ogres. Oni are classically depicted as hulking, horned brutes who wear animal skins and wield massive metal clubs. Most of the time they have red skin but blue or green is not unheard of.
- Poltergeist
- German for \"noisy spirit\", Poltergeists are ghosts that make their presence known by making loud noises and moving around furniture in the households they haunt, sometimes violently. Their motives for doing so range from mischievousness to outright malevolence.
- Dzelarhons
- A frog princess appearing in the mythology of the Haida Native American tribe from the Pacific Northwest and figured in their migration across the Aleutian Islands. She\'s considered to be the ancestor of the Haida\'s Eagle Clan after saving its progenitor from a fire.
- Mou-Ryo
- Mou-Ryo are spirits that failed to enter Heaven and are now stuck spending their days haunting mountains and graveyards where they consume the corpses of the dead. According to some stories they can assume human forms and black storm clouds follow them around when they intend to eat the dead.
- Legion
- The demon Legion comes from a story in the New Testament where Jesus encountered a man who was possessed by so many demons they spoke as one \"my name is Legion, for we are many.\" Jesus dealt with them by casting them out of the man and into a herd of nearby pigs, all of whom promptly drowned themselves.
- Shan Xiao
- A xiao is a type of ape from Chinese mythology with Shan Xiao in particular living in the mountains of western China. Shan Xiao are one-legged but this does not stop them from being very powerful and very dangerous; they can skillfully maneuver around their environments and crush prey, human and otherwise, in their powerful grips.
- Hooligan
- The words hooligan and hooliganism were popularized in the late 19th century by the London press in reference to gang activity at the time. Hooligans are those who are disruptive, loud, young, and violent. Today hooliganism is often associated with unruly sport fans as football matches are very Serious Business in the British Isles and elsewhere worldwide.
- Karasu Tengu
- A type of crow-like tengu spirit that lacks the long nose that others of its ilk have. Karasu Tengu tend to serve as underlings for the greater daitengu and can be rather malevolent in nature as they try to corrupt humans by whispering in their crow-like voices.
- Koppa Tengu
- A type of lesser kotengu who are small in size to reflect their weak spiritual power. Their role is to serve greater tengu and about the only thing they have going for them in comparison to others of their race is that they have the ability to fly.
- Saki Mitama, Kushi Mitama, Ara Mitama, Nigi Mitama
- The embodiments of the four elements of the human soul according to Shinto teachings. They represent joy, wonderment, fluster, and peace respectively.
- Raiju
- Literally \"thunder beast\", Raiju are wolf-like creatures made of lightning that grow agitated during storms and seek out people\'s navels where it goes to sleep. As the thunder god Raijin would then fire an arrow at the Raiju to wake it superstitious people sleep on their stomachs during bad weather. The creature is thought to have been inspired by the phenomena of ball lightning.
- Halphas
- The thirty-eighth demon of the Goetia. Halphas is a raspy-voiced stock dove whose job is to build giant towers and keep them stocked with weapons and ammunition.
- Oread
- An Oread was a type of Greek river and mountain nymph and they were known for having rather aggressive personalities. They were most often associated with the goddess Artemis as she tended to spend a fair amount of time hunting in such environments.
- Asterius
- Asterius is sometimes said to be the proper name of the Minotaur that was imprisoned in the Cretan labyrinth. He would\'ve actually been the second Cretan Asterius; the first Asterius was his grand-stepfather the king prior to King Minos. The name is derived from the Greek asterion, which means \"starry\", and the name Asterion was assigned to one of the stars of the Canes Venatici constellation.
- Plasma
- Plasma is a state of matter where gases are heated to the point where they become electrically-charged. It is one of the most common states of matter in the universe and it has a wide swath of potential research applications. Expect \"plasma weapons\" to show up quite a bit in works of science-fiction.
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