Neutral route clear. My final save read 66 hours and 59 minutes. In my humble opinion, only 30 of those hours actually needed to be in the game. Okay, so the extra 10 hours I spent doing sidequests were kind of my fault. Kind of not my fault either though, because it turns out I had to do almost every quest in Tokyo to finish the neutral route. I just got a headstart, is all.

The 10 hours I spent getting lost in Tokyo and the Hall of Eternity were totally Atlus’s fault, as were the 16 hours spent dragging out the game and explaining things that didn’t need explanation while glossing over issues that could have used more attention.

Dragging the story out also meant I forgot the explanation given (where available) for a lot of things like why the earth was rained with nukes 25/1452 years ago and who the young man who saved Tokyo was, what was up with the Counter-Demon Force, how did their gauntlets make it to Mikado, why do they only select certain people, why do Gabby & Yuriko look alike, etc etc. I don’t really care to know the answers to these questions, but it would have been nice if Shin Megami Tensei IV had been written in a such a way that I wouldn’t even have such questions left over to begin with.

Maybe plotting had been tighter and the pacing had been better I wouldn’t be feeling so bleh now that the game is over. Right now I’m just glad to be done. I’m not an expert writer or anything, but maybe it would have helped if the game had gone straight into route lock after the events at Camp Ichigaya the first time, i.e. skip all the time spent in Blasted/Infernal Tokyo and go straight to the white forest. Also cut out the Great Spirit of Hope arc so as to keep the Challenge Quests optional the way they were meant to be. White Forest -> Purgatorium -> Lucifer’s Palace -> Ending. Then maybe I’d still want more once the game was over.

Likes

• Fusion. Surprisingly addictive, and the new fusion search function was really useful.
• Recruiting was less annoying than in other Persona/SMT games. I said no to most requests except for Life Stone and Medicine and ended talks early, which worked about 80% of the time.
• Learning and powering up skills through Demon Whisper was a great addition. It gives added meaning to fusions, plus it keeps you upbeat even when bosses are walloping you, ‘cos you know those great skills will be yours soon enough.
• 

  Eek, a roach! Quick, where’s my slipper?

  Full control of the skills fused demons have. This makes it easy to get rid of crappy skills like Lullaby and Pandemic Bomb and stack the deck with something useful instead. The game gets much easier once you have a few bad boys packing Blight and Needle Shot on your team. And then once you get Judgment Light… *smirks*

• Lots of sidequests that gave lots and lots of EXP.
• Quick, frequent level ups.
• Easy mode takes the frustration out of the early game. And the rest of the game, for that matter.
• Starts out boring, but gets a lot more interesting when you hit Tokyo. I got the clear feeling that the writers had absolutely no idea how to go about setting an SMT game in a medieval environment, so they fled to the safety of the familiar as soon as they could. No shame in admitting when you’re wrong, I suppose.

Dislikes

• The supply of new demons dropped off severely towards the end of the game. I wanted to fuse more and recruit more!
• Estoma Sword was useful on the world map, but the game needed an equally easy to way eliminate enemies in cities and dungeon. At least make it so weak enemies run from you. I probably had a bigger problem with this than most players since my malfunctioning 3DS circle pad made it hard to move around very well.
• The soundtrack reminded me of Bucky O’Hare (NES). I doubt that’s the effect they were going for.
• Please Atlus, can we have a world map that’s actually useful next time?
• The story kind of sucked. I still don’t really know what they were trying to say. Angels suck, demons suck, all we can rely on is humans, but humans suck too. Then somehow some switch just kind of went off in someone’s head like “If only we could get the roof off Tokyo then everything would be perfect and everyone will get along all happy happy” and whaddya know, it actually works. What, really?
• The ending is rather vague. I haven’t been to Tokyo before, so I don’t know how welcoming they would be in real terms of thousands of immigrants just dropping out of the sky. Sounds like a bureaucratic and sociological nightmare to me, but the game says it will work and everyone will be totally cool with it so, welp, who am I to argue? I saw the kelpies in the ending sequence too, does that mean demons are still around? What are they going to eat from now on? What kind of state is the rest of Japan in? Who is going to govern the place? You know you’re old when questions like that trouble you more than “Aww, look at the pretty sun” moments please you. That said, I still don’t care to know the answers so, whatever.
• I thought for sure the Neutral Route was going for the usual “Mankind needs no gods” affair, but then it turns out the route is all about saving some Tokyo goddess…? So Western gods won’t do, but Japanese ones are fine? Or is it that gods are bad but goddesses are good? That’s discrimination, Atlus!
• IMO the routes diverged too late. There’s little incentive to replay since 80% of the game is the same regardless of which route you end up on.
• On that note, there really should be a way to know which route you’re going to end up on before you get there. Or at least a clear choice like “I’m going to with these guys” instead of being a nice guy and ending up with the brain-suckers as your reward.
• Character motivations were vague till the end. Isabeau was just kind of there, Jonathan was just kind of there, Walter, I don’t know even know what that guy’s problem was. Hope was kind of there, Navarre, what was Navarre even doing in the game? Abbot Hugo was kind of there, Stephen was kind of there, even Gabby and Yuriko were just kind of there. Like, what are you guys even doing in my game if you’re not going to matter?
• 99% my fault for playing on Easy, but the endgame was rather anti-climatic. I hit Merkabah a few times with Desperate Hit/Antichthon and he died, I did the same to Lucifer and he died and then… I was expecting a super-duper-cheating final boss like Mem Aleph from SMT Strange Journey, but no, that was that. Hnnn… better than a boss so hard I can’t finish the game a la SJ I guess, but still, hnn…

Ah well, I finished it and that’s that. Shin Megami Tensei IV had its good moments, but it spent so long on unnecessary things that it quickly exhausted what little goodwill I’d felt towards it at the start. I advise new players to use a FAQ so they don’t waste as much time as I did chasing shadows and running into dead ends. Then maybe they’ll have a better time than I did.

After this exhausting trial I don’t feel like touching the 3DS for a while so I’ve returned it. Especially since it turns out Stella Glow is coming out in November instead of October like I’d thought. It’s a good time to give it a break, maybe send it for repairs or something. In the meantime I’ll play Izuna 2 then clear up a few loose ends on the PSP while thinking about whether I really want to play Summon Night 5 or not. I feel kind of obliged to buy it since Working Designs went through all the trouble of localizing it, but somehow I’m not excited at all. It’s safe to say I’ll definitely play it, just not right away. First things first, Izuna 2!

Related posts:

Shin Megami Tensei – Strange Journey Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne Playing Shin Megami Tensei IV Shin Megami Tensei IV – Neutral Route! (spoilers)