I’ve heard of slow starts, but Shin Megami Tensei V was ridiculous. 10+ hours wandering in a boring wasteland with a bad map before you’re finally given some semblance of a story is just too much. The setting is that you’re an ordinary (you’re never ordinary but let’s not go there) high school student in a Tokyo where weird things are happening. One day you wander into a tunnel which collapses, and then you find yourself in another world. You merge with a strange creature being attacked by demons (or was it you being attacked, and was it angels or demons, I forget) and gain new powers to fight against your foes.

…And that’s all the story you get for the next 10 hours while you trudge to the Tokyo Diet Building, ostensibly to save a kidnapped acquaintance but more for lack of anything better to do. Eventually, after much tedium and some tribulation, you arrive, fight a boss you could totally have beaten but the game won’t let you, and then you FINALLY, FINALLY make it back to Tokyo.

Once you do, it is only then that someone pops out of the woodwork to deign to explain things to you. Apparently our “Tokyo” is not the real Tokyo. Rather the Netherworld we just came from is. Ours is a replacement created by “the god of law” after Netherworld Tokyo was destroyed in a war 18 years ago. And now demons want to takeover the simulated Tokyo as well but never fear, Bethel Japan (the organization I’m going to end up rebelling against before long) is here to save the day. And the main character is ready to fight too. All right! Time to get into action! Our first course of order is… going back to school?!

…Wait, what?

After all I’ve gone through, the battles I’ve fought, the experiences I’ve (not really) had, and the things you’ve told me, you want me to go back to a classroom?! But they were serious, so back to school I went. Hmm, do I have any parents at all in this scenario? Any family members or friends? Who pays my school fees? 🤔 I think that’s what the main character was thinking as he stared blankly into space on his first day back in school.

Luckily, these days of tedium were not to last. All hell happily broke loose the next day, and I’m totally here for it. In most of the Shin Megami Tensei games I’ve played, there’s a formula where there are three routes called Law (represented by angels), Chaos (demons), and Neutral (human). The angels are usually presented as pompous, bullying jerks while the demons are stubborn and senseless brutes. Usually the human route is presented as the most sensible one, and also the most difficult one to get.

And so, being a sensible person, I would normally go through all kinds of hoops and check various FAQs to make sure I was on the right track to getting the Neutral end. Not this time, though. This time I want to see everything burn. The world is already mostly destroyed, humanity is overrated, and I feel zero attachment to my classmates and so-called “friends” with their whiny stories and shady agendas. Destroy it all! Burn it all to the ground! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!

So yeah, if you don’t hear from me for a while, I’m busy destroying the planet one wrong decision at a time. Catch ya later!