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Good work on the video. I've heard a lot of terrible things about this game and was really curious. You did a great job of being objective. I'm curious what your list of must-haves and fears for SMT 5 are. Maybe a quick video of just your opinions?
Oh, just to let you know if you didn’t already, in Japan, the Routes are actually supposed to be called Peace and Anarchy, Bonds and Massacre are just weird dub choices that are especially exemplified by the fact that the packages for the physical games included 3 pins(1 has the Clover symbol used for Dagda, 1 has the symbol for Peace(Aka, the one that Hippies usually have on them), and the last one has the symbol for Anarchy), showing that Peace and Anarchy are the original intent in names.
@@rickyrns1059 How easy is it to just go in blind and see how your decisions create your outcome? SMT 3 feels like it went the Mass Effect route where it beats you over the head to let you know exactly what the results of your choices are. Does Apocalypse just let you play, or does it actually call the paths what they are?
@@100Servings It’s basically an end point choice on whether you side with Dagda or your friends. There is still Alignment points that the game keeps track of, but instead of relegating you to a certain path for doing them, they punished you in certain ways depending on the side(If you have mostly Anarchy points and choose your friends, then Dagda steals all your demons, forcing you to repurchase all of them from the compendium upon beating him, and if you have mostly Peace points but choose to side with Dagda, then Navarre steals all of your items beforehand, meaning any really good items you were saving for later are gone just like that). They don’t force you down that certain path, but they do severely punish you for choosing the opposing side of you previously listened to them and agreed with them.
@@rickyrns1059 That sounds a lot more organic than a lot of games. Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Mass Effect 3 both just had a room with a choice for an ending. Having consequences to betraying your ideals makes sense. Thanks for the explanation! 😃👍
Man I really like Apocalypse. I do really agree they could have fleshed out the individual party members views on the world more rather than having them all come together and forget about their motivations. Doesn't ruin the game though and is still one of my favorites in the series. Great video!
Same, I love the game too, the music is so god damn good. But yeah, it could have been fleshed out more, and I actually hate the final dungeon of the game more then I’ve ever hated anything else ever.
I always thought the Mephisto dlc quest works best for the Anarchy route simply because it goes from selling your soul for some stupid trip to selling your soul to enjoy time with your dead friends that you genuinely regret killing and wish to be with them in a time of true peace. It definitely would’ve been amazing if this quest was an Anarchy only secret route and Cleopatra a Peace only secret route instead of both being DLC.
My only issue with apocalypse was asahi surviving in the friends route. It was a perfect setup to have nanashi snap and go straight evil after his only remaining family died,but the devs just straight up said "she's back because reasons lol".
In all honestly, Asahi's death was the my contributing factor for Nanashi picking the Massacre choice, despite him being all Bonds before hand. Even though I still picked Toki as his Goddess *Shrugs*
I feel like this more reflects the issue that Dagda was made too powerful. Guy's pretty much got little to no restrictions on his ability to resurrect people, which he can do in whichever state he likes (brainwashed, Godslayer, just back to life as normal, etc). It'd be weird if they didn't revive Asahi, honestly.
@@Dragon-md4gr Personally i would've made Krishna go "oh so you're screwing up my giant egg? Well ill screw up sometiing important to you too" and then he obliterates asahi's soul or something. Would have given the player all the more reason to bash his skull in and also bypass any plot hole created by dagda not being able to use his powers.
@@funninoriginal6054 Main issue is that while Krishna’s a villain, he (in his eyes) is doing everything out of love, so such a huge act of spite wouldn’t be in character for him. What’s more, the dude in all likelihood can’t actually destroy souls; if he could, then dying against him would be an immediate game over.
@@Dragon-md4gr Yeah. The only way to prevent resurrection proper would be to have Shesha consume the soul, which is impossible after the Cosmic Egg materializes
Despite being a sort of all over the place kind of game I'd still say it's in my top 5 or so games in the series. I think it's just so entertaining and the combat is maybe my favorite in the series, since a lot of the more frustrating elements from IV are ironed out. It's definitely got some story and character issues but I still really enjoy it for being fun and shlocky. Plus Dagda is one of the most unintentionally hilarious characters of all time.
I was kind of surprised to see that many people disliked this game after completion since I enjoyed it. Its a fun ride and the combat is slick. Dagda is definitely the goat :)
From jrpg standpoint it reminds me Xenoblade Chronicles 2 dlc, where it plays quite the same way compare to the original title with some minor balance changes and gameplay mechanics.
The combat isn't even remotely frustrating for numerous reasons mostly because what you can do outside of it. 1. Encounters aren't random and even what you fight is completely under your control. 2. you can just get free smirks by hitting enemies before battle, and enemies have no chance in hell to get smirks. 3. you can have an army of 13 monsters on a back burner, and it's very likely that a lot of them can gain a healing spell, so you can be a walking hospital without the need for items. 4. Status conditions in shin megami tensei 4 and 4 A/F are the most broken of any video game. You can can stack them for one thing and second it kicks the negotiation system in the balls, for example, making a monster horny and pressing negotiation pretty much is the equivalent to tossing a master ball, stunning them gives you their entire account balance with fundraiser. 5. The narrative party members shave the difficulty down considerably in both bosses and random battles.
Idea: Keep Asahi dead in the bonds route, but have Dagda tempt Nanashi with being able to revive her in the massacre route. It provides Nanashi - and hopefully, the player - a much stronger incentive to follow Dagda’s orders, because he knows if he sacrifices the current world, he can get Asahi back. You could still choose that route for other reasons, and Asahi wouldn’t be the only person you have the choice to resurrect, as it currently is, but it would give a better reason for a lot of players to choose that option.
Ironically, if your friends defeated you, they wouldn't have a chance against Vishnu, Satan or YHVH. It seems the "power of friendship" can't overcome everything.
The fact they’re so easy to take down even means they’re only useful because you’re the powerful one taking care of most things. When facing Nanashi, that they fold easier than a Slime says a lot about who the real power is in this situation. Bonds just make things easier for Nanashi, but that’s all it does.
I love the anarchy ending fight against YHVH, it's much harder since you get one support you chose on the route lock, no assist gauge, and the second party get two turns. I love how the second party has Satan helping you after deciding God doesn't deserve his throne along with the race to give YHVH as many weaknesses as possible with Flynn before his team is wiped out
I on the other hand, absolutely love the Peace Ending fight. It was really gruelling considering I was underleveled, but man having Asahi as my partner really saved my ass more than once, and I almost cried when Walter and Johnathan came back for one last time with their friends (the fact that they had Merkabah and Lucifer's movesets was the cherry on top)
Spoiler warning for the neutral endings! I feel like Dagda throughout the game was done dirty as a character. He's always telling Nanashi that friendship and bonds are useless but is never able to put forward an argument as to why that is. I like his ideals about making gods nothing but forces of nature and elevating humans to godhood but I don't see why that's counter to the bonds we make along the way. I feel like if he just thought about it for a little longer he'd think of something better. Plus i really disliked when Danu just pumped out a new Dagda. Maybe a route that convinces Dagda that the bonds make use stronger and he releases Nanashi as his Godslayer and they become partners? That's a little light hearted for SMT but I think it suits the more optimistic side that SMT4 A has over the other games.
I dunno. I feel like that just dispells Dagda's entire character to make him want to be friends with Nanashi. He seemed pretty dead set in his ways no matter what to the point where his mother had to execute him and make another copy. Even when she told him she was going to destroy him, he STILL rebelled and didn't have any remorse. He wanted what he wanted and absolutely nothing, including Danu, was going to stop him. I think it's just a fitting end for his character. Stubborn to the very end.
regarding his argument against bonds, my perspective was that dagda felt that human interdependency led to humans relying too much on each other and growing weaker hence resulting in them turning to the gods hence his existence.
Bonds Danu pumping out a new Dagda was hilarious to me. Seeing him get replaced by a "Better version" throws him off his high horse and it makes him look like a whining brat that didnt get his way.
Another interesting implication of having Asahi stay dead in Bonds route is that the only way to have her rejoin is in Massacre. Only when you bring her back, she's little more than a hollow shell of herself...
Better yet, you can keep another thing that's already present. When brought back as the Goddess on the Massacre route, Asahi doesn't Awaken. If you're doing this on a fresh run and not in NG+ after Bonds, this makes Asahi underpowered for the endgame content, incapable of carrying her own weight as a dedicated healer. This is fitting for her character and Nanashi's choice. A large part of her character drama has to do with her being the weakest member of the party despite having the strongest connection to Nanashi. Choosing to resurrect her over the more powerful allies is a sentimental move that betrays the principles of self-sufficiency and independence that drive Massacre, and your reward is a version of herself that is inferior to her true self in character and to the others in capability. If you couldn't bring her back in Bonds, this would twist the knife further. If you follow the principles of Bonds, you honor her sacrifice. If you follow the principles of Massacre, you detach yourself from her weakness. And if you do decide to have her as your Goddess... well, you better live up to the self-sufficiency part at least, because she'll be no help at all.
@@illusive-mike The Massacre route is one of my favorite routes in terms of sheer horror, strangely enough. And that's one of the reasons I found reviving her so wrong. Massacre route makes me feel so wrong, and I actually love the game for that. 🤣
@@Dinker27 To me, that just somewhat weakens the whole package. Yeah, Massacre on its own is good at not letting you forget what you're actually doing (unlike, say, True Demon, where the world is already too dead for you to notice how much damage you're really doing). But it's also just too damn senseless and exists in the same game as Bonds, the absolutely good route stop looking at Danu's new Dagda like that. It cheapens the game overall for me.
@@illusive-mike True Demon feels very meaningful in contrast, honestly. In the most counter-intuitive way possible, it's the most human of the Nocturne routes. It's the only one of the endings that tries to break the cycle after all. But it really only works because there's an underlying theme of total hopelessness in all the other endings. The setting justifies going to extremes. Massacre really doesn't justify itself, because it is clearly not necessary.
So, I'm late on this, but something I observed in my playthrough is that Gaston is actually Chaos aligned, and Toki is actually law aligned. Both are members of their respective factions who, by their very nature are the antithesis of said factions. Toki's entire life is defined by a clear hierarchy, of which she is on the bottom. Even after joining the party, she still clearly abides by a hierarchical structure, even post-awakening. She refers to Nanashi as "master" by choice post awakening. Gaston is pretty much entirely motivated by self-interest to start, and rebellion in the end. His entire core gameplay mechanic introduces a chaotic factor to fights. His post-rebellion lines are a little unhinged to say the least. Add in the motivation for personal power and greatness, and he is very un-law. While I may be giving the writers too much credit, both characters show the sheer pointlessness of the Law/Chaos divide. Gaston came from the most law-inclined faction possible, and is a personal glory seeking braggart, and Toki came from the most Chaos aligned faction possible and spent her whole life as a slave and a tool. Both factions created their own antithesis.
In the first place, though, "chaos" is only a transitional state. Recall that in Infernal Tokyo, there were still rulers, but it was such that they only stayed a ruler for as long as they could stay alive on the throne.
Those born to chaod long for order to live by, and those born to law long for their own freedom. That's kind of the whole point of Infernal/Blasted Tokyo and the White in the original SMTIV. Neither stance can ever win, the scales simply tip back and forth endlessly and neutrality only prolongs the problem without even attempting an answer.
Surprisingly Gaston turned out to be my favorite side character out of the cast. Probably cause he started off really unlikeable but he really did change slowly over the course of the game to be pretty loyal. Whose yours?
Navarre, but in a very "friendship" game, your other friends don't stop humiliating and belittling him especially Toki, another reason why I don't like her.
Honestly, Navarre and Gaston share this slot. There's a tragedy waiting to wake itself that didn't get developed in the game...and the only solution to rectify this I can think of is..well, fanfiction, I guess. 🤣 Come to think about it, the only one in the main party who I believe came out unscathed is Nozomi. Everyone else either lost someone, something, or doesn't have a home to go back to (like Toki, maybe).
Probably the biggest thing that really bugs me about Apocalypse (I mean, apart from the buck-wild hyper-casual writing undermining all dramatic tension constantly) is how they really leaned into putting little notifications on everything. New quests, new character notes, the "inbox", making you stop and menu to talk to demons and it pops up a notification until you do. This kind of thing drives me absolutely bananacakes (homeslice), and 4 didn't do it at ALL so why they felt like they had to make you stop and menu every 2 seconds to clear out all your notifications is beyond me. I'm probably weird but I find it VERY annoying.
This game makes the representative of Law and Chaos manage to set aside their differences and work together no matter what route you choose and then questions you on the Bonds route being right. Imagine Zelenin and Jimenez suddenly regain their sanity, or Demi-Fiend's friends deciding to not become monsters to their flawed ideals and try to kill you. Or Jonathan and Walter fighting alongside Flynn. This game accomplished just that. The truth is honestly that the Massacre ending is in itself the main trapping of this game. The game mocks the alignments as unnecessary extremes but then all the time they could have spent refining the side characters is spent creating another ending that literally. solves. nothing. as you just become the new YVHV. That has literally no advantage in being chosen. Keep one ending, don't "disney" revive Asahi and make her sacrifice worth it or at least if you want to go resurrecting people from the egg, RESURRECT EVERYONE. No one said you need to have darkness in your ending to be good, especically when the message is clearly not dark at all already. I liked the idea of "YVHV actually fuels the conflict so it's endless until humanity will choose order" but it still felt it could have introduced way better and be a lot more poignant. The last part of Apoc introduces so many concepts that could have revolutionalized the serie but falls flat in giving them any meaning aside a very basic good ending.
My preference is an SMT collection including: SMT 1 and 2 remakes, complete with a more modern fusion compendium, and expanded story bits where necessary, SMT 3, SMT:SJ and both SMT4 games, updating graphics where necessary.
No. Those games took me so long to finish, there's no way I'd start over. But to be fair, I've never bought a game I already own simply to play it on a different system.
Another huge issue with the Massacre route is the ending scene. One of the things that is supposed to prop up this decision to destroy the previous world (starting with its best/most useful part, your own allies) is the promise that this is going to affect lasting change. Where normally Neutral endings are seen as temporary resets that only push the true resolution of the eternal conflict away, Massacre promises the end of gods. Humans will rise again, independent and free, and gods will remain unshaped and unobtrusive. And then the Goddess of Tokyo explicitly goes on a trip across the multiverse to fetch a Messiah to kick Nanashi's ass, proving right away that the grand goal that required these grand sacrifices is not reached, and there are forces waiting in the wings that will aim to make it all meaningless.
True, but at the very least, travelling across dimensions has gotta be more difficult than...not having to. So you at least make the world _more_ permanent than a typical neutral ending
Had the writing been better, both the bonds and Massacre routes could have been the best in the series, instead we’re left with “SMT American sitcom route” and “edge lord route”, which I prefer the edge lord route just because there is some weight and consequence to it
I just want to say that even if the bonds ending seems to be the better ending, if you think about the implications of prior neutral routes in the series, humanity will always go back to looking for the guidance of gods and demons. Sure it looks like a good ending on paper for our cast, but humanity is likely to back to its old ways.
SMT IV: A is one of my favorite entries in the franchise and its really refreshing to hear someone speak very positively about it even while mentioning its flaws
@@1saacbcourt452 it's an entirely new game. it splits off from SMT IV's story during the neutral path, but other than that its a completely new experience.
Its waaaay too edgy. Like seriously edgy. No subtle undertones, but a goofy stupid YHVH that I fail to take seriously, but is defeated by the power of friendship
One item that I especially liked about SMT4A was its criticism of the blatant Japanese nationalism of SMT4 in the sidequests about the human leader of the "Make Japanese be Ruled by Japanese Gods again" movement. A very mild criticism, but pretty bold for a Japanese game.
this exact plot, "returning Japanese rule to the Japanese Gods", is an entire route in SMT5. In Devil Survivor 1, a character has a whole arc about the government harnessing demonic power to improve Japan. In SMT 3, Tokyo is the quite literal center of the Universe. Just like how in Hollywood, alien invasions only ever happen in New York.
I loved Toki in concept and design, but her calling Nanashi "master" after he nominally frees was uncomfy to me (because doesn't that defeat the point??), annnnnd then suddenly possession-by-Innana crashed in with the mindbreak breeder kink stuff and I had to peace out on the whole character. Kiddo's 14.
Hey! Thank you for covering this game! I am glad you gave it a very sound critique. I really like this game. It had really great gameplay in both the fusion and battle system, and it definitely improved some of the criticisms I had about SMTIV's battle system. The extra DLC fights were phenomenal (and I do hope we see something like that in SMTV.) Something that I also liked about SMTIVA regarding its story was the lore build-up of the game. SMTIV had a lot of interesting lore around it, but it certainly had more bias on the Mikado side of things, which makes sense, but we also were left wondering about how the people in Tokyo saw and interpreted things. Apocalypse expanded on the lore mainly from the Tokyo side, but it also filled in the gaps in the timeline between the first opening of the gate to the Expanse and the events of SMTIV/A. I live for that kind of stuff and it was wonderful seeing it all come together. But yeah, I do agree with your critiques about the characters and some story elements about this game. I actually did enjoy most of the characters in Apocalypse. They were pretty endearing and I liked seeing most of their interactions, but there was so much left to be desired for them. Like, maybe if this game was slightly longer or at least gave a bit more time to each character arc in a meaningful manner, we could have seen some satisfying conclusions to their own personal arcs. (I guess now I'll spitball a little about how each arc could have gone if it was written just a bit differently.) Like, with Hallelujah we could have had more time to learn about his demon heritage and how it affected his upbringing as well as how he views the world outside of the Ashura-Kai and Abe/Samyaza's influence. We could have seen Toki explore her surroundings and figure out what she wanted to see in her ideal chaotic world and how she could reconcile that with what she's been taught. We could have had a really great arc with Navarre and Gaston reconciling their relationship and both of them coming to terms with what happened in SMTIV. I'm not sure what to think about Nozomi, since I feel she had a pretty weak arc overall compared to the other characters; I believe it might be because (if you did the Neutral route in SMTIV) we saw how she was during her questlines in the previous game, and it had a pretty good conclusion for a side character in that game. This made her role in Apocalypse kind of strange to me, since she didn't really have a lot of development aside from being the reason for why Danu is able to communicate to use and repeating the importance of interconnectedness with the people of Tokyo. I do wish there was more to her than that, since maybe the game could have expanded a bit of the inferiority she felt when compared to Flynn since we saw a bit of that in the SMTIV challenge quests. Isabeau, as you said, felt more like a guest character more than anything, but it was still neat seeing her interact with the group, especially Asahi since it seems like she found her very endearing. Finally, yeah I feel like Asahi's fate at the Shesha reveal would have been a great way to conclude her arc. I guess I'll go on about Asahi a bit more because I actually really like her and I do feel like the game had a lot of missed potential specifically with her and how she could have affected Nanashi's choice for Bonds and Massacre. I like what you said about Asahi wanting to grow up and not be looked down upon, especially by her father who didn't see her as responsible enough to handle the kind of adult life she would have in Tokyo. I can see why as well, since Asahi as an almost sheltered image of what it means to be an adult, but I also think it was partly because her father wanted to protect her from that life since he probably wanted her to still enjoy her years as a child before thinking about being an adult. His death halfway through the game was an interesting wake-up call to Asahi in realizing the costs of being an adult and it's one of my favorite moments in the game. Her sacrifice in protecting Nanashi from Shesha was an excellent way to wrap her arc up pretty neatly. It makes me sad that the game pretty much immediately minimizes that impact by flat-out saying that she can be brought back, and this is even mentioned BEFORE the Neutral alignment lock in the Cosmic Egg. I do feel like leaving her permanently dead in both the Bonds and Massacre routes would have been better overall, even if I would be sad to not have her on my team ever again. Even though gameplay wise, she could easily be replaced by Isabeau or Flynn in either route, her absence could still feel tangible and almost drive home that whatever route you chose was the right one. This is going to be a weird comparison, but it could have had a *somewhat* similar impact that Aerith's death had in FFVII in the sense that her death precipitated an important change in the story. Also, if the game had actually balanced out the endings so that the Massacre route could still be a viable ending on par with Bonds, maybe Asahi's death could have been set up to be interpreted as either an important sacrifice she made because of her bonds to her friends or the result of the flaws of humanity that Dagda was talking about. There was so much potential with Asahi and I'm sad that it wasn't taken. It's like you said at the end of your video, SMTIV Apocalypse has so many parts that had they been placed together in a different way, it could have been a wonderful game. I couldn't agree more with that. oh geez this was way too long of a reply from me.... TL;DR: Great job! Wonderful video! I really liked SMTIVA and I wished certain parts of this game were executed better than they were but regardless it's still a pretty good game.
Yeah i honestly really thought there was alot of potential in alot of what SMT IV Apocalypse had to offer and Especially in what you mean when you were referring to Asahi as well. Although in my opinion i feel like they could've possibly swapped both of them (as in Asahi remaining dead in Bonds while potentially being talked about her being revived in Massacre) The reason i say this is because that could've been a cool plot to expand on where Nanashi could've been on his last straw after seeing everyone he was close to die (Asahi's dad, the 2 hunters, and Asahi herself) and it could've been a good justification as to why he would've chosen Massacre instead of Bonds (as to "bring her back" or have him more so agree with Dagda's Philosophy on how "Friendship isn't good, etc)
I think the anarchy route was interesting because Dagda raised an interesting point and that's how your relationship to your friends, like real-life, can be fickle. There were moments where Nanashi's peer group were gonna feed him to the wolves cause homunculus abomination. Also the idea of becoming truly independent than striving to rely on others is a more comforting idea. In a fictional setting, Im perfectly fine with this, especially considering how characters like Toki betray you despite saying moments prior she will have your back regardless
Dagda’s point isn’t really valid, though. Nobody in your peer group aside from Gaston really cared that you were a walking corpse, and everybody more or less told Gaston to shut up. While the characters at the hunter association were undeniably aggressive towards you and your party (because of unsealing Krishna, not being a walking corpse(, that’s mainly because Nozomi gave an inaccurate description of what happened and only gave the hunters Krishna’s account of things, which never let you tell your side of the story. You were at no point ordered by Dagda to break the seal; it was Odin who deceived you, and Dagda explicitly spurns the Divine Powers. Nozomi doesn’t make any of this clear, but considering she still defends you, she’s less being fickle and more just being dumb. (Though she also should’ve given you the opportunity to just report Krishna’s unsealing yourself, which would seem less shady than somebody else doing it). In any case, none of your actual friends (as in, not Gaston or unnamed NPC hunters) were actually advocating for feeding you to the wolves at this point in the game, and all Nozomi did was handle reporting you in a dumb way. Hard to really justify Toki, though.
@@kichiroumitsurugi4363 I was more referring to how she says she’ll side with you no matter what you choose, only to side against you if you join Dagda.
@@Dragon-md4gr And this is why. I am surprised it took this long for her to realzie just how fucked up Dagda can be, but I digress. She probably assumed that if she were fed to the Cosmic Egg, she can't pursue inner strength like any sensible Ring of Gaea member would want to
@@Dragon-md4gr actually to correct you i'm pretty sure Dagda forces you to free Krishna since i remember trying to leave when it got to the part of unsealing him and then Dagda told me i had to do it (if i remember correctly)
Brilliant video on the game, sums up pretty much how I feel about it completely. Although I will say, when I realised where the story was going in terms of alignment and characters, I instantly turned on it. Instantly I realised how shoddy the actual writing quality was in comparison to IV. The gameplay was enough to keep me going, but the anarchy route felt for me like just catharsis for getting rid of these characters I grew to hate (except gaston he still rules)
Since I don't really like most of the main party members, I like to roleplay a bit and pretend Nanashi never had control of himself. Just a pawn of Dagda, who always picks the emotionless or cold options in dialogue. I actually really like the darker Massacre ending a lot more, even if the bias for the Bonds ending is obvious. I'm not a fan of "the power of friendship" being the answer to all problems, it's very cliche.
I hated the side kick characters so much, I was praying that the game gave you the choice to go evil and kill them. So when Dagda told me to do exactly that, I didn't even need to debate... Yes sir!
The only party members who didn't annoy me to hell and back were Hallelujah and Isabeau (and Navarre to a certain extent). It was pretty easy to betray my friends at the split 😇
I've been a smt fan for years, but it felt like i was playing any regular rpg with slice of life and anime influence rather then a weird super natural post apocalyptic story and i think it's having a party of super strong dudes as allies that took it away, not to mention the sometimes cheesy voice-lines and predictable plot. It didn't give me the feeling of dread like 3 and 4 gave me whenever you "feel a strong presence from beyond this door" or "Your only friends are assholes". The story is good, i love the gameplay, but i wasn't as immersed as i was with the original. The feeling you get when you first enter Naraku, fight Minotaur and Medusa, observe and discover Tokyo and then enter this war-torn place infested with demons in 4, compared to starting in Tokyo and having the protag die the first few minutes of the game because they "don't know what's happening outside" while the demons had been roaming there for years and Nanashi and Asahi living there their whole life, to me felt like Atlus didn't know where to start the story from where we left off in 4, and instead opted to "copy" the beginning of 3 and using said protag death for just shock value and a power-up. Again, i liked the game, i've finished it 3 times on different routes, but i'd rather pick up 4 then 4A. This is all opinion btw, i know how the fanbase gets when a game gets "bashed" LOL
Apocalypse did gameplay better than 4 in my opinion, but yes you're right the tone of the game is veeeery different than that of 4, the thing that pisses me off is that they took the game in a new direction but didn't have the balls to make it all the way, like how the characters had "enough" writing, but didn't have more to it, smt5 seems to be going the same direction with the "more focus on the narrative" i just hope they go the full way instead of doing "enough" out of fear or lazyness
It's been a while since I've seen the game, but wouldn't it make sense for them not to really know much about what going on outside? After all, it's not like they can just run around outside and play with demons roaming about. Edit: nvm I just looked at the opening of the game again and it seems like they know a lot about what's going on in Tokyo
I really wish they retroactively patched SMT 4 to have the combat system improvements in this game. It's genuinely a top tier RPG in terms of mechanics and the adjustment to smirk was very much welcomed.
Agreed, my first SMT game and its what made me fall in love with the series. Also nothing will top SMT IVs depiction of post apocalyptic tokyo. I loved all the side details about how people survive, how they get food, how they get power, the factions power dynamics. Also the beauty of the environments, even as low res as they are, is better to me than the sandy deserts of SMT V. And nothing tops SMT IVs soundtrack, I wish there was a mod for SMT V that would use all of SMT IVs music instead.
Honestly, I’m a bit mixed on the game, even if I do overall really like it, since it was my first mainline game on an official console (Nocturne Hardtype on emulator being the actual first, and before you ask, yes my first run was on normal, I’m not a masochist). I do like the overall story and its themes, but the way they were executed was not the way I was hoping they’d do it, having a tone and script that was much less dark and philosophical than the tone of Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga(I absolutely loved those games, even if I was only able to enjoy them via walkthroughs and the novels since I don’t have a PS2, so I definitely hope those plus Raidou get remasters, especially for them to be more properly done than Nocturne). For example, in the Anarchy route, you can sacrifice your bonds with your allies and even your loyalty to your home to try and reset the world in a new order that has none of the cruel supernatural, but it actively portrayed it as being the evil route, where Dagda is even shown as being very untrustworthy, so it isn’t like the previous games in picking what you believe in most, and is more so “here’s the ending for Team Dark, Megaten-Style”. If they made him more affable and proper, while still being secretive (one good example of such a villain being Rex Goodwin from Yu-Gi-Oh 5d’s), he’d be much better as a villain in the Peace route (being much more sympathetic as a well-intentioned extremist that you recognize is just as right on the cycle being self-preserving, but it still doesn’t mean it’s ok to permanently kill off everyone you love and then just to start over from scratch since the reason why Nanashi is able to remain worthy of the godhood role is because of his allies’ support acting as a morality chain) and as an ally in the Anarchy route(because trying to attempt a middle ground in getting rid of YHVH and keeping his world alive will just result in him eventually returning via those who still worship him, and in the meantime, it also opens the throne of Creator to any other power hungry being). Then there’s the Peace Route, which was way too much like Fire Emblems Fates Revelation Route, where it was portrayed as a true golden ending where not only will everything apparently always be great, but it’s ridiculously easy to do so, where there’s no struggle towards actually earning that golden ending. If they made it much more of a struggle, it would feel much more deserved. For example, what if Asahi wasn’t brought back to life completely fine in Peace Route? What if she wasn’t brought back properly to life, and instead remained a spirit that would move on to the afterlife long after beating Dagda(who I would personally suggest having Danu replace his role in making Nanashi her own Godslayer and having her be much more sorrowful and disappointed at having to fight and kill her own son, where she’d have a heartfelt final farewell with him as he blissfully reconciles the fact that he’ll at least be able to once again enjoy that feeling of being a non-existent concept of nature as a dead god), where if you wanted to bring her back, you’d need Danu to send you to the afterlife(being the area you first met Dagda) and effectively pull a successful Orpheus trial in bringing her back to life by leading her out of the afterlife, or anything else other than “oh wow she died horribly, want to almost immediately undo what happened and remove all dramatic tension from the story by taking the power-of-friendship Route”? There was so much potential present in the story, not just as ideas (like Sonic 06 which, and I say this as a Sonic fan, is absolutely just as bad, if not worse, than Forces and anyone who claims there was potential that made it better is absolutely reaching pretty damn far in saying that) but as the actual plot itself, where the only issue itself was how the plot was presented(Aka, the overall story and themes were great, but certain moments and the portrayal/development of certain characters were bad enough to affect how the plot as a whole looks). As an idea for the Orpheus-esque quest, basically you’d get Danu to send you to the afterlife, try to look for Asahi, where you’d eventually find and convince her to come back with him (and maybe throw in some fluff-based fanservice in talking about what they mean to each other, since I honestly can’t think of a better reason for Nanashi being unable to move on from her death, so screw it, let’s let a main protagonist actually have a love interest they themselves care about). This would lead to them encountering multiple guards of the afterlife trying to stop them, where you’d only have access to Asahi as your battle partner, eventually culminating in a boss fight with either one or more of the fiends, or Cerberus(possibly with his DDS boss stats/skills buffed up). Also, thank god someone finally called out the bs that is Toki’s characterization! She had an actually interesting arc around trying to break free from her puppet strings and become her own person, yet she then proceeded to become the doormat bodyguard-with-a-crush for Nanashi, not only creating a stupid love triangle (I already dislike those in general, so imagine how I felt about one this badly written), but also getting rid of any of her proper character development by making her look like they used the Anarchy Partner characterization as a placeholder for her normal personality and forgot to change it in the final release. Personally, I always thought it would’ve been cool if she actively was worried and confused by those feelings, having a generally uneasy attitude towards how unnatural it feels, so that upon Inanna awakening, it’s revealed that Inanna was forcibly making her attracted to Nanashi as the only currently existing Godslayer, where upon beating the Goddess, Toki would at that point reject those false feelings for Nanashi and develop genuine admiration and respect for Nanashi as a person instead, ridding herself of the last puppet-strings that anyone could take hold of and finally taking the first step towards finding her own identity. You could then include moments where she shows some signs of actual affection if you want (as long as you at least show her doing so in conjunction to also gaining interests beyond being the bodyguard), but above all else, this is definitely at least a rough draft on what Toki needs in regards to character development.
I can't believe that someone is still talking about SMT4 Apocalypse. I am one of those that loved SMT4 Apocalypse to death and I am hoping that I will make time to finish it again. Until then I can't wait anymore for SMT 5.
Great video Nam! Yeah I think SMT4A is the pinnacle of SMT gameplay, but the story is kinda weird. What I mean is I actually adore the lore and worldbuilding, the factions, and the backstory with Akira and Fujiwara, etc, so much, but the character interaction in your party is so awkward and the localization is weird.... For instance, Nozomi actually says "Homeslice just went banana-cakes". That's not to say SMT can't have funny moments, I got a laugh out of the angel's comment "You look like a tarted-up clown", but for every hit the game gets with dialogue it'll get many misses. I'm going to miss having so many demons, there was so much customization in 4A. And the balancing of SMT4A, including the fixed smirk mechanic, is just so much fun, and I replayed the entire game on Apocalypse difficulty (because it came out after the game was released so I replayed it). It was grindy in the beginning, but for the most part Apocalypse difficulty was very fair! Even with the final boss and the Diamond Realm DLC boss they were tough battles, but they were fair and heck even easy once you know their tricks. I liked P5R's new final boss too, but I never liked SJ: Redux's new true ending boss though bleh. The quality of life improvements in SMT4A are just astounding! What are my criticisms of SMT4A? As usual I don't like how the fiends are handled, Nocturne was amazing, please SMT5 make fiends easier to encounter - like put them in regular side quests sheesh, I've played PSX SMT: If, GBA SMT1&2, and 4 and 4A, and the fiends are always so poorly handled even though they're the most popular. The problem with fiends in 4A if you're not familiar is that they're in Twisted Tokyo, terrible randomized dungeons where you need to run through halls hundreds of times to re-fight all the fiends 9 times. Put simply, it's really a missed opportunity. In other games, the fiends are always a 1/256 chance of appearing. Looking at SMT4A, SJ: Redux, and Persona 5: Royal, it looks like the developers have been learning what works and what doesn't, I honestly have a lot of faith in SMT5, I can't wait for it, and I can't wait to watch your views on it as well.
Thankfully in V, they are DLC, with set locations once you accept the quest, and they are always marked on the map and their spawn location is very obvious with a giant pillar
That's Doi for ya. Just like Kaneko, he can kinda just take a stupid concept and make it good (I mean, no one would have thought of making Seth a dragon either, except Kaneko apparently)
Overall I enjoyed my time with Apocalypse. I liked the idea of throwing a new faction in between the whole Law/Chaos, but I feel they missed giving us the opportunity to side with the Polytheist faction. Usually, every sides end up sounding like assholes or psychopaths, so adding one more faction wouldn't be so bad. Overall I like the original IV better, but that doesn't mean IV A is all bad, in fact it's pretty solid, but I get why people didn't like it: it's not as grim and despair inducing as previous title. The Bond Ending does feel like a Persona moment more than a SMT moment.
Something you forgot to mention is that the game actually keeps track of your Light/Dark alignment throughout the game, particularly through decisions made during boss fights if I recall correctly. However, the consequence of this is extremely spiteful. If your decisions are more in line with Dagda's, but you instead side with Danu before the fight against Vishnu-Flynn, Dagda retaliates by deleting all your demons, and you don't get them back, making his fight magnitudes more difficult. The opposite holds true: if you're overall friendly but choose Dagda at the last second, Navarre will steal all your items. It's not AS bad, but if you weren't prepared for it and you're low on MP, you're screwed. I have no idea why they implemented this, and it just comes out as a huge penalty for not committing to your moral compass. It's also so out of reach, very few videos of the consequences being shown exist even though it's been properly documented.
Yeah, I was so surprised when Navarre got rid of all my items when I decided to go Anarchy on my first playthrough. Made the Vishnu-Flynn fight a fucking misery for me lol
i honestly never really liked that myself, but not because of the punishments but because it basically measn all of your choices meant nothing since that one scene dictates how the game will end. you can choose to be a complete asshole the entire game but as long as you side with your friends then your set on the bonds path. honestly it make no sense , especially considering nothing changes afterwards depending on your actions
The only scene that really supports Dagda's ideas is when the Hunters are clamboring for you to be killed for releasing Krishna, where they turn on everyone who doesn't agree that you should die, even Fujiwara. If there were more scenes like this, the game would've been a lot better.
"The game has no argument in favor of the Anarchy route"? Did you listen to your party members talk ? The fact that I can get rid of them and finally have some silence was the best argument for anarchy tbh.
Yeah, the app points in this game are a huge pain. Tying app points to essentials like demon and skill slots feels pointless, and not being able to plan it properly without a guide makes me think: app points should have been used exclusively for niche changes here and there that shape your playstyle instead of massive changes to your options. Sorta like how they were in Strange Journey, but yk, spicier.
My thing with Apocalypse is that I really enjoy playing it, the combat system has been ironed out since 4 (still like 4 overall as a game more though) and the muusic is absolutely god tier. But for the life of me I can't get behind the absolute tonal travesty that's this games plot... I enjoy the divine powers and that's about it plot wise... There's supposed to be aa war between Law, Chaos and Divine Powers, but the tone is the complete opposite to what's actually going on... I don't like how washed out Law and Chaos are, forcing you to go neutral, whilst a good route also has its own issues with Bonds and Anarchy. Bonds being "lol friendship, here have another dagda, this is persona" (no knock on persona, I just want my persona elements in persona... After all that's why it exists) and anarchy is "kill all your friends, but you get to ressurect isabaeu cause she's the best party member"
my main gripe with the choices in this game is how none of your choices really matter in the end, the only thing you have to do is agree or disagree with Dagda in the cosmic egg, it doesn't matter what you where before, this one choice is all that matters in the very end. in literally every other smt games ALL of your choices mattered, imagine if you played an smt game and choose every chaos option but near the end of the game u can make 1 option and get put on the law route the only consequence really is either losing your items or current demons (both of which aren't that big of an issue at that point of the game)
To me, the biggest turning point in the game had no real consequence. Objectively, the “peace” route is so much better because there was no real consequence. You as a player shouldve been absolutely weaker and NEED to rely on your friends if you sided with them. You shouldn’t be an all-powerful Godslayer if the one feeding you power no longer exists. And “new” Dagda was such a cop out, i hated that
For me, two moments that really put on full display the games dreadful writing is Asahi's death and the alignment choice. For the first, it is a blatant case of fridging. She is simply killed for shock value given how the scene drags on the brutality in both visuals and narrative, only to then seemingly forget what just happened with a giant exposition dump and with Shesha behaving like your average mustache twirling villain, giving a big speech about how everything will play out and the like. And of course, Asahi is just brought back later completely nullifying everything anyways, show just how pointless her death was. With the alignment choice it is really shown just how little the games narrative actually cared about everything. In one, Dagda is killed and a brainwashed copy of him is created the is subservient to your views and it is seen as the best thing ever. On the other, everyone gang against you despite saying that they would stand by your side regardless of your choice, and then Flynn is brainwashed and everyone is instead horrified. Soooo, brainwashing is perfectly fine when it is done in the name of Friendship. Then there is of course the dreadful dialogue and flat as cardboard characters that just makes the story insufferable. And this is just the tip of the iceberg of the narrative garbage in this game. And the funny thing is that I found a light novel called "Avesta of Black and White" that has a lot of the same story beats and even has a sort of collectivist vs individualist conflict going on, and yet it feels like it is pretty much telling Apoc to "sit down in that chair right there, let me show you how it is done". Just a far better executed story.
The complete removal of the nuance is definitely the worst part. Satan's brief dialogue near the end was the only glimmer of Law and Chaos being portrayed as they're supposed to be.
@@Fermin-hw5pd I killed Toki as hard as possible just for that, but then revived her after her death dialogue. The writers could've just made her use her ring of gaea beliefs as a driving factor after she joins the party to set up the fight for differing alignment views, but instead we got a complete 180 from "I love you I'll stick by you :3" to "Woah I didn't think you meant THAT, sorry I'll kill you"
this game's writing really annoys me. it has tonal whiplash all over and the strongest moment (a certain death) is invalidated. a lot of its humor comes across as "bad anime", with really lame humor that comes at the expense of characterization and tension. i know my friend really hates the gas scene with toki
Personally, i really did not like it. The characters were either completely forgettable and unimportant or really annoying, and they ruined alignments by basically having 3 bad endings and 1 good one. The gameplay is great, and I'm fine with a bad story if the gameplay is good, but all of the good aspects of the gameplay are taken from base smt 4 (which is my favorite smt) with the only improvement being how smirking works. I also didn't like how dark and light attacks cause damage on top of being able to insta kill, because my strategy just ended up being spam dark and light attacks until I get to a boss with a weakness to a non dark/light element
I mostly agree with you. I didn't think the basic story of Apocalypse was bad, but I HATED the "sassy" teenage characters. Game play was still great although I really can't remember thinking there was enough difference between the two games to favor one over the other. But the light and dark attacks did feel cheap compared to how I used them in past games. But to be honest, I'd say my fun meter taking a dive during Apocalypse was mostly because of how long it took me to finish these games. I bought IV when it first game out and didn't finish it until a week before Apocalypse released. About half way through the second game, I just felt burned out.
Literally obsessed with this game, its been my first megaten and its so good. If this is one of the "worst" to fans then i cant wait to play the others when im finished here
From gameplay perspective: SMT IV Apocalypse is the best game in mainline series. From story perspective: SMT Strange Journey, and SMT IV are best games in mainline series. Best world building: SMT, SMT II, SMT III Nocturne
You absolutely nailed how I felt about the characters and story. Navarre and Gaston were my favorite characters because they were the only ones that seemed like more than mere shells with tropes or stereotypes to go with them. They had their moments and they developed during the course of the game. What I hated the most were the other companions (Besides Isabeau) who were constantly shooting Navarre down and overall proved to be very, very annoying - with Hallelujah being the best of the worst because he kind of manned up and led the Ashura-Kai, another thing that wasn't really expanded upon. Great gameplay, comically inferior story compared to IV.
it honestly kinda feels like that the writers of smt 4a wanted to copy a persona story but make it fit in with smt somehow, hence why theres a huge ailignment bias towards the bonds route. sure smt 4 had its own story flaws (why tf does being nice towards everyone lead to tokyo getting nuked?), and the neutral path being virtually impossible to get without a guide. i wonder if thats why the writers decided to forego the old smt ailngment system and just made apocalypse neutral based instead.
I know this vid is a year old now but this shin megami tensei got me into the series. It was messed up but I felt for all the characters, I was stupid at the end boss fight tho because I didn't really collect the strong gods. Anyways I will always remember this games atmosphere ❤️
Total agreement on how the two main endings are dealt in SMT IVA. That's what defenitly sadens me with this game. I loved Dagda and what he bringed to the plot, but the anarchy ending doesn't really dig into its themes realy just feel like a pointless bad ending compared to the other neutral route.
I feel this is a strong, un-biased look at this game that much of the community has trouble looking at in an unbiased manner. This is the definitive Apocalpyse review on the market; you hit the games strong points and weak points in a very informative but concise manner. I am also glad that you didn't hold back from criticizing smirk in SMT4 and recognizing the improvements made to that system here. Smirk (and map navigation) ruined SMT4 for me, and I was terrified to see the systems inclusion in future titles; would Nocturne be the last great mainline battle system in SMT?? But when I played Apoc, I breathed a sigh of relief. They really understood what made smirk a terrible inclusion in SMT4 and got the system down almost perfectly in Apoc.
I think most people really like Apocalypse. The only people who don't like it are those cringy SMT purists that like to smack talk Persona any chance they get.
My main gripe with this games was that the choices you made were so in your face with which path you were headed. There were no gray areas. You were either with your team till the end or an asshole throughout. And the last dungeon was such a pain in the ass. Other than that I really enjoyed it for the most part.
Honestly, I enjoyed the focus of Neutral. It's really refreshing that the ideological conflict is not one between different ideologies, but an inner conflict through one ideology.
I personally adore the Massacre route. For some reason, most of the characters absolutely rubbed me the wrong way in different ways - in part because they forced themselves into my party. Fake decisions in games tend to turn me against whatever it is that overrides my decision when given the option, so Massacre turned into a bit of a catharsis for me. I tried to see characters differently on NG+, but it just didn't work. By contrast, Dagda always offering advice but never forcing the player's hand made me WANT to side with him and his ideals.
The only bad part about massacre (to me) is having to kill the people of Tokyo, seeing everyone trying to kill you for destroying the only hope they had was really disheartening
I honestly think the quality-of-life changes that Apocalypse brings made it solidly the more satisfying game to "play" over 4 vanilla to me. Not to "experience", but play at least. I just wish it had the same tonal commitment as 4. It brings in dark themes and context, but it doesn't stick to them the same way other Megaten games are willing to. It was a bit too bright, and definitely too one-sided in optimism to make its anarchy ending work. I also don't think humor is entirely a bad idea, but it just felt... out of place. Like, the part where the party is sneaking into Mikado in disguise, and an angel just verbally burns Asahi for her makeup attempt (girl didn't even look bad!) felt like Scoobie-Doo was going to walk onto the scene and shrug his shoulders or something, full-on winking at the camera. Scenes just weren't given the weight they really deserved. But man, that combat was so good. I really hope 5 can follow it up well, whether its a refinement or an innovation. We'd all be in for real treats then. Also I don't know if the most cursed moments are Hallelujah calling his dying Dad "bro" one last time, or Asahi ACTUALLY PRONOUNCING YHVH's name. One had me crack up, the other made me question my party member's humanity. Or the game's fixation on Navarre's ghost butt. I won't knock people for being into it, but it wasn't for me.
I actually really liked SMT4A. It allowed me to play an smt entry with a more broad point of view. When I play smt, I know there is going to be death, gore, bad endings and so on and I try to "mentally prepare" for that. This game is much more laid back with that and since the original SMT4 had already established as a mature story, I welcomed the change of perspective. Also, I love Satan's design and the Stephen fight.
Completely disagree about the beginning of the game, Apocalypse starts quickly, has you die in a fight and makes things interesting fast. Whereas SMTIV legit starts as a visual novel where jack happens for awhile and takes a bit before you can actually get into a fight and interact with the mechanics
I like the gameplay of 4A because of how it ironed out a lot of the issues of 4. I disliked the story of 4A because it felt like a mixture of SMT and Persona elements in such a way that emphasized the worst parts of both.
Something that's usually missing from Apocalypse plot critique is how cleverly the game leads you to the Anarchy Ending. I think the cast is anecdotal and cliché because it was really meant to be. [SPOILERS WARNING] I've rarely seen a main character being mistreated this much by a cast of protagonists or the game itself. First off, you're Nanashi, litterally the "Nameless Guy", a nobody. The one and only friend you have is your forever loyal Asahi, but soon enough you get killed. Dagda revives you for his own personal goals but we'll get back to him. From this point on, Nanashi's agency is litterally clawed away from him. Any decision you take is either mocked, frowned upon or simply disregarded. Sure, a battle between heaven, hell and the holy powers is taking place, but what I got from the mostly patronizing cast (palm goes to Nozomi) is how unimportant you are meant to feel. It is made very clear that you're not the story's hero, Flynn is. Then Asahi dies in the most gruesome and gratuitous manner. Things get continuously worse... until you get to choose. Dagda is the only one that gives you a deal that feels empowering: getting rid of a cast that has essentially piggybacked on your powers, or, once again, submit to peer pressure. You can even bring back a husk of Asahi would you so choose to. This is when the game reaches its peak. Dagda, who once treated you with a mix of passive-agressive aegis and tough brotherly love becomes more of a friend. Then killing YHVH is the next logical step and makes perfect sense with Nanashi's quest for emancipation, both lore wise and on a symbolic level. The Anarchy Ending felt so... satisfying. At their core, most of SMT games tell the story of human agency in the face cosmic godly horrors and fate. Apocalypse brings this theme to your doorstep. Sure, the story has its flaws, and having dislikable characters is always a double edged choice. But I dare say that so far, SMTIVA was my favorite entry.
I'd say that this is often missing from Apocalypse plot critique because it's not really a credible reading of the game's events. [ALSO SPOILER WARNING] Nanashi isn't really mistreated by the other protagonists. For the most part, Asahi is constantly vigilant and on your side, Hallelujah is kind and understanding to you, calling you 'leader', Gaston is not initially your friend (and when he stops being an asshole he no longer mistreats you), Nozomi's worst decision is reporting you to the hunters (rather, she should have told you to report what happened yourself, which would have reflected better on you), Navarre's arrogant but never outright abusive, and Toki quite literally calls you Master and constantly fawns over you once she's joined the party, often to a ridiculous degree. And while initially Flynn comes across as comparatively more important than you, that's because Flynn had spent a large amount of time fighting for the people of Tokyo. In the end, it's not Flynn who saves the day, but you, by freeing him from Krishna and destroying the heart of the Cosmic Egg. And Dagda's choice may have felt empowering to you, but within the context of the game, it's specifically him stating that he wants you to betray your friends and become the corrupt God of a heartless world that rejects bonds. And while your friends did often rely on you more than vice versa, there are several moments in the narrative, such as the conflict with Azrael where Hallelujah unleashed his powers, or when Gaston helps operate the terminals, where you clearly would have died were it not for their intervention. They often rely on you simply because you're the strongest member of the group. What's more, saying that Dagda treated you with a "mix of passive-aggressive aegis and tough brotherly love" is a very...odd way to describe his actions. He doesn't treat you with any love to speak of, often referring to you as his 'puppet' and quite fittingly seizes control of your body whenever you might act in a way that he wouldn't like. Once all is said and done and you do become the God of the new universe, you're a god who's enslaved the only other two people in existence and refuses the idea of bonding with others (and that's REALLY what you're rejecting; not 'peer pressure' but the idea of peers at all), and you're more or less guilty of the same thing YHVH was. I suppose if you're into the exaggerated sociopathic world that Dagda describes to you, it might feel empowering, but to me and a lot of other people, it simply came across as evil.
For the most part my thoughts exactly. I just found myself catatonic whenever a cutscene came on because I couldn’t get invested whatsoever. I loved the gameplay a ton though and I actually do disagree on the dungeon design thing you said.
Like, I can get why some people don't like 4A as much of the original or other SMT games but it's always baffled me why some people seem to think it's some abhorrent nightmare of a game that is terrible in every way. It's somewhat more lighthearted overall than others but it's story's interesting enough and the actual combat system is an improvement over 4. It's a little more shonen-y than usual but it's not bad just different I guess. It's worth at least one playthrough and the music might help to not bail on finishing it.
Additional note for Apocalypse's story: it takes place in the Neutral Route, yes, but also in an alternate universe where Nanashi actually accepts Dagda's offer to be resurrected by him, meaning Nanashi exists in Base 4, and is killed sometime off screen. It also hints that Nanashi normally just straight up rejects Dagda's offer to be resurrected, and that the Divine Powers SPECIFICALLY needed Nanashi to unseal the Ark(since we hear absolutely nothing about them in 4, Krishna never gets sprung from his Prison, and Odin and Matreiya just dont do anything without their boss
i think the best way I can describe the big issue with SMT4A is it tried to be Persona. Think about it, 'The power of love and friendship leads to the ultimate ending with no consequences' which is how pretty much every Persona game Post P2 (or P3) has been, Their is only 1 ending that's 'objectively good' which isnt the norm for majority of SMT games as its always been 'This is Good BUT' endings based on your ideology and philosophy (And I argue SMT4 did a TERRIBLE job doing alignments, seriously, being good decent human = law = genocide...IM SORRY WHAT?!)
YEP, tell me about it. I hated IV because of that. Went through the game making the most compassive, common sense decisions and then BAM, you're locked onto LAW (read genocide route). It was just retarded, Neutral should have its own decisions like in Strange Journey, instead of being so hard to get you actually need a guide. I'm still triggered seeing Isabeau committing suicide.
Didn't even watch the video, but let me say this; Best SMT gameplay as of right now. Among the worst writing in any SMT game. Clearly, somebody was influenced by the trashy Persona writing, or even was a Persona writer themselves. Great game, with crippling shortcomings. Thankfully, most of the shitty dialogue can be skipped, as is tradition in Atlus games.
He says the diamond realm quest is the beat dlc atlas has made, and while that is definitely true it really isn’t hard when compared to things like the Royal dlc
EYO??? For me this is my favorite SMT game gameplay wise... namely the map clearly labeling where you have to go and what locations are named. I got lost pretty goddamn hard in SMT4 most times lmao
When this game was announced I remember everyone was a little bit disappointed with a sequel of IV and not a brand new title. Yeah, SMT4 didn't have that much out and we were still processing what we got (With time we really learned to appreciate this game more... Specially after Final/Apocalypse). However when we got introduced to the, back then, basics of the story and then the reveal of a new faction: The Divine Powers. We got really freaking hyped, I remember everybody was already thinking in how a new faction and probably a new alignment would spice up things for the SMTverse. We had nothing but hype and hope back then. I feel your review and analysis it's pretty solid, I love how you mentioned that affinity and smirk are systems that are not only refined but are here to stay. I also feel that way about many other things and agree with other points (Twisted Tokyo 10 turns for example) but I gotta say... I feel you really explained and gave your opinion about this game and its theme a little too... Tame. I feel you might have done a little diservice to the folks that have never played this game or those that wanted a second opinion of what they experienced. This game's story is nowhere near good or decent, there's so much wrong with not only that but also the characters, the pacing, the direction and the themes. But mostly the poor writing yes. I also have played this game multiple times and I find it incredibly fun specially trying different challenges or just doing dumb stuff to spice up a run but man if it wasn't for that I wouldn't touch this game in my entire life ever again after I got all the endings. I have come a long way of trying to understand what the heck were they thinking when they shipped this game I have grown up bitter and with SMTV at the horizon I no longer care about this title (Despite SMTV every new trailer scaring me that the story might end up being IV:A tier). That said good stuff man let's be real for a second despite what I wrote and you said Dagda is fucking based.
I am gonna say it I liked apocalypse a bit more than the original I needed a lighter hearted smt. Sure its characters and plot isnt for everyone, but i liked it despite the drawbacks
Me after betraying my ideals killing my friends and a lot of people so humanity will be free from the never ending fight against gods SMT IVA: btw you chose the wrong ending everything is fixed and better in the other one you did all that heartache to yourself for nothing lmao
its funny u say that cuz even in the anarchy ending, demons and gods from other universes will begin invading soon since you betrayed the axiom, likewise the goddess of tokyo will be sending messiahs to kill you forever as well (that and the fact u can end up as another YHVH) bonds isnt that better anyways since the possibility of YHVH coming back is made clear, so really there is no true end
I'm definitely one of those people who couldn't stand the game, I hated the cast, and the story was not really going anywhere. Could not be bothered to finish it, put like 15 hours in.
Didn’t miss much. It basically becomes making yhvm a comically evil villain and nanashi either becomes comically evil and kills all his friends or comically good, and somehow kills yhvh by calling him a stinky doo doo head
smt fans are so reactionary and childish. the moment they see any hint of friend, they call it worst game in the series when they have only played smt3 and 4 but surprisingly every persona game.
Apocalypse is good and I'm tired of pretending it isn't. While the characters could be better I don't find them terrible or anything. I dislike the narrative of "SMT is becoming Persona", that whole thing is stupid and juvenile. And I really like the overall plot with the polytheistic alliance and both ways God can be dealt with. Honestly I think the core SMT fanbase got to a point where no game is able to please them. All games in the series except maybe 2 (and Strange Journey if we're counting that as mainline) have some big flaws in my opinion, with big positives offsetting them, but recent games just get torn apart for not being perfect in all aspects. IV A and V both suffer criticism to an unfair extent, when both games have way more good than bad in them. I remember IV also getting a lot of vitriol back in the day, but I guess it entered the nostalgia zone at some point or the people who make it a passtime to shit on anything past III moved on to newer targets. I'm sure no matter how V Vengeance improves on or changes from V everyone will be shitting on it a few weeks after release.
YWHW'S universe is one of your favorite dungeons?! That dungeon made me want to quit the game. The mind-numbing music, the complete lack of anything interesting to look at, the fact that you can't recruit any demons?! I had to lower the difficulty because I was physically unable to stomach the idea of grinding through that horrendous design-less dungeon any longer than absolutely necessary to get through. Up until that point I loved Apocalypse. That dungeon made me loathe it.
I did the same thing! That dungeon was misery and by that time, I was kind of burned out from playing two SMT's back to back. So after a while, I just decided I wanted it to be over. So I swallowed my pride, switched to easy, and rushed to the end.
also, clearly the bonds ending is encouraged in the gameplay sense, but the anarchy ending is encouraged if you want to say "screw all that friendship/persona series crap, I want to be metal." It's also the route long-time fans would prefer since it's more challenging and balanced, you could say. Akin to how even though the White/Nihilist ending in SMT IV is easier, it's clearly not as enjoyable (mainly by the fact that it holds less content, but also by the fact that the final battle was too easy + the tone of your navi/guide (Burroughs) ).
*glances around* I actually like the game's story just the way it is, "My friends are my power" type of stories are my jam. Also, Asahi is best girl. *runs away*
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Good work on the video. I've heard a lot of terrible things about this game and was really curious. You did a great job of being objective. I'm curious what your list of must-haves and fears for SMT 5 are. Maybe a quick video of just your opinions?
Oh, just to let you know if you didn’t already, in Japan, the Routes are actually supposed to be called Peace and Anarchy, Bonds and Massacre are just weird dub choices that are especially exemplified by the fact that the packages for the physical games included 3 pins(1 has the Clover symbol used for Dagda, 1 has the symbol for Peace(Aka, the one that Hippies usually have on them), and the last one has the symbol for Anarchy), showing that Peace and Anarchy are the original intent in names.
@@rickyrns1059 How easy is it to just go in blind and see how your decisions create your outcome? SMT 3 feels like it went the Mass Effect route where it beats you over the head to let you know exactly what the results of your choices are. Does Apocalypse just let you play, or does it actually call the paths what they are?
@@100Servings It’s basically an end point choice on whether you side with Dagda or your friends. There is still Alignment points that the game keeps track of, but instead of relegating you to a certain path for doing them, they punished you in certain ways depending on the side(If you have mostly Anarchy points and choose your friends, then Dagda steals all your demons, forcing you to repurchase all of them from the compendium upon beating him, and if you have mostly Peace points but choose to side with Dagda, then Navarre steals all of your items beforehand, meaning any really good items you were saving for later are gone just like that). They don’t force you down that certain path, but they do severely punish you for choosing the opposing side of you previously listened to them and agreed with them.
@@rickyrns1059 That sounds a lot more organic than a lot of games. Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Mass Effect 3 both just had a room with a choice for an ending. Having consequences to betraying your ideals makes sense.
Thanks for the explanation!
😃👍
I've still never mentally recovered from Nozomi's "Homeslice went bananacakes" line.
irl psychic damage
🤢
My reaction to this was “Aigis u good?”
Explanation: Nozomi shares a voice actress with Aigis from P3
She's an American woman from the '80s in a future Japanese woman's body.
Yeah I figured by the way she talked and looked (literately the whitest character in the game) that she was Half American
My favorite thing about this game is that there is a character named Gaston who acts like how Gaston from Beauty and Beast would in an SMT game
Gaston from Beauty and the beast is evil and disgusting. So is this Gaston also a garbage human being?
@@basilofgoodwishes4138 Haven't gotten that far in the game myself yet, but I know he's not as evil as the BATB one.
@@basilofgoodwishes4138 Nah, in this game he's the only party member who doesn't worship the protagonist so he's the only likeable one.
@@chavaspada yes because Nozomi threatening to kill Nanashi at the first sign of a problem is a sign of 'worship'.
@@onime122 Asahi, Toki, Navarre and the Hallelujah all worship Nanashi though. Also Nozomi could be argued that she's a tsundere.
Everybody remembers Walter using agi on minotaur but no one remembers Nozomi only having attacks that Ashura is strong to.
Her being bad at fighting is part of her quest line in IV. She even has a quest about getting Bacchus Wine cause it makes one stronger.
idk, her ailments attacks were pretty good against most demons, free crits and they lose turns
@@alex_vh8 they're talking about a sidequest in 4, not 4A. She's actively a liability there.
@@ryco9669 aaah, right... I honestly forgot she was a guest in her challenge quests in IV
you know atlus did it on fucking purpose lmao
Man I really like Apocalypse. I do really agree they could have fleshed out the individual party members views on the world more rather than having them all come together and forget about their motivations. Doesn't ruin the game though and is still one of my favorites in the series. Great video!
Agreed it's still my top favorite Megaten game along with Devil Survivor and P5
Tony 4 you SMT4A review when???🤔
There was annoying dungeon I got stuck and had to check walkthrough, I got overlevelled because of this.
I like it too, is a SMT with a Personish flair. But seems V is going for a mix of original 4 and Nocturne.
Same, I love the game too, the music is so god damn good. But yeah, it could have been fleshed out more, and I actually hate the final dungeon of the game more then I’ve ever hated anything else ever.
I always thought the Mephisto dlc quest works best for the Anarchy route simply because it goes from selling your soul for some stupid trip to selling your soul to enjoy time with your dead friends that you genuinely regret killing and wish to be with them in a time of true peace. It definitely would’ve been amazing if this quest was an Anarchy only secret route and Cleopatra a Peace only secret route instead of both being DLC.
True, they could've been like mini versions of the 8th day postgames in Devil Survivor Overclocked. Oh well.
That would make sense, but now I feel bad
It can still work despite being DLC. Epidemic in mikado is DLC but explicitly takes place on Anarchy.
That actually makes sense.
Would have been great but nope money’s the reason..
My only issue with apocalypse was asahi surviving in the friends route.
It was a perfect setup to have nanashi snap and go straight evil after his only remaining family died,but the devs just straight up said "she's back because reasons lol".
In all honestly, Asahi's death was the my contributing factor for Nanashi picking the Massacre choice, despite him being all Bonds before hand. Even though I still picked Toki as his Goddess *Shrugs*
I feel like this more reflects the issue that Dagda was made too powerful. Guy's pretty much got little to no restrictions on his ability to resurrect people, which he can do in whichever state he likes (brainwashed, Godslayer, just back to life as normal, etc). It'd be weird if they didn't revive Asahi, honestly.
@@Dragon-md4gr
Personally i would've made Krishna go "oh so you're screwing up my giant egg? Well ill screw up sometiing important to you too" and then he obliterates asahi's soul or something. Would have given the player all the more reason to bash his skull in and also bypass any plot hole created by dagda not being able to use his powers.
@@funninoriginal6054 Main issue is that while Krishna’s a villain, he (in his eyes) is doing everything out of love, so such a huge act of spite wouldn’t be in character for him. What’s more, the dude in all likelihood can’t actually destroy souls; if he could, then dying against him would be an immediate game over.
@@Dragon-md4gr Yeah. The only way to prevent resurrection proper would be to have Shesha consume the soul, which is impossible after the Cosmic Egg materializes
Despite being a sort of all over the place kind of game I'd still say it's in my top 5 or so games in the series. I think it's just so entertaining and the combat is maybe my favorite in the series, since a lot of the more frustrating elements from IV are ironed out. It's definitely got some story and character issues but I still really enjoy it for being fun and shlocky. Plus Dagda is one of the most unintentionally hilarious characters of all time.
I was kind of surprised to see that many people disliked this game after completion since I enjoyed it. Its a fun ride and the combat is slick. Dagda is definitely the goat :)
From jrpg standpoint it reminds me Xenoblade Chronicles 2 dlc, where it plays quite the same way compare to the original title with some minor balance changes and gameplay mechanics.
The combat isn't even remotely frustrating for numerous reasons mostly because what you can do outside of it.
1. Encounters aren't random and even what you fight is completely under your control.
2. you can just get free smirks by hitting enemies before battle, and enemies have no chance in hell to get smirks.
3. you can have an army of 13 monsters on a back burner, and it's very likely that a lot of them can gain a healing spell, so you can be a walking hospital without the need for items.
4. Status conditions in shin megami tensei 4 and 4 A/F are the most broken of any video game. You can can stack them for one thing and second it kicks the negotiation system in the balls, for example, making a monster horny and pressing negotiation pretty much is the equivalent to tossing a master ball, stunning them gives you their entire account balance with fundraiser.
5. The narrative party members shave the difficulty down considerably in both bosses and random battles.
Dagda suddenly being woke in the Anarchy Route once its time for you to choose your Mother Goddess is the funniest moment in the entire franchise.
i kinda loved the smirk mechanic in 4 than in 4A since you can also exploit it
Idea: Keep Asahi dead in the bonds route, but have Dagda tempt Nanashi with being able to revive her in the massacre route. It provides Nanashi - and hopefully, the player - a much stronger incentive to follow Dagda’s orders, because he knows if he sacrifices the current world, he can get Asahi back. You could still choose that route for other reasons, and Asahi wouldn’t be the only person you have the choice to resurrect, as it currently is, but it would give a better reason for a lot of players to choose that option.
Ironically, if your friends defeated you, they wouldn't have a chance against Vishnu, Satan or YHVH. It seems the "power of friendship" can't overcome everything.
It's Danu fault. She and Dagda essentially the same coin but on the different sides.
The fact they’re so easy to take down even means they’re only useful because you’re the powerful one taking care of most things. When facing Nanashi, that they fold easier than a Slime says a lot about who the real power is in this situation.
Bonds just make things easier for Nanashi, but that’s all it does.
@@BlackfangDragon but because of the power of observation it ensures god will be revived
Power of friendship? More like 99% Nanashi's power, 1% friendship.
Huh I forgot about that, guess thats why people were complaining about persona bleeding into smt
I love the anarchy ending fight against YHVH, it's much harder since you get one support you chose on the route lock, no assist gauge, and the second party get two turns. I love how the second party has Satan helping you after deciding God doesn't deserve his throne along with the race to give YHVH as many weaknesses as possible with Flynn before his team is wiped out
I on the other hand, absolutely love the Peace Ending fight. It was really gruelling considering I was underleveled, but man having Asahi as my partner really saved my ass more than once, and I almost cried when Walter and Johnathan came back for one last time with their friends (the fact that they had Merkabah and Lucifer's movesets was the cherry on top)
Spoiler warning for the neutral endings!
I feel like Dagda throughout the game was done dirty as a character. He's always telling Nanashi that friendship and bonds are useless but is never able to put forward an argument as to why that is. I like his ideals about making gods nothing but forces of nature and elevating humans to godhood but I don't see why that's counter to the bonds we make along the way. I feel like if he just thought about it for a little longer he'd think of something better. Plus i really disliked when Danu just pumped out a new Dagda. Maybe a route that convinces Dagda that the bonds make use stronger and he releases Nanashi as his Godslayer and they become partners? That's a little light hearted for SMT but I think it suits the more optimistic side that SMT4 A has over the other games.
I dunno. I feel like that just dispells Dagda's entire character to make him want to be friends with Nanashi. He seemed pretty dead set in his ways no matter what to the point where his mother had to execute him and make another copy. Even when she told him she was going to destroy him, he STILL rebelled and didn't have any remorse. He wanted what he wanted and absolutely nothing, including Danu, was going to stop him. I think it's just a fitting end for his character. Stubborn to the very end.
regarding his argument against bonds, my perspective was that dagda felt that human interdependency led to humans relying too much on each other and growing weaker hence resulting in them turning to the gods hence his existence.
Bonds Danu pumping out a new Dagda was hilarious to me. Seeing him get replaced by a "Better version" throws him off his high horse and it makes him look like a whining brat that didnt get his way.
The way I understood it : Dadga wants ultimate freedom. And relationships tie you down.
Another interesting implication of having Asahi stay dead in Bonds route is that the only way to have her rejoin is in Massacre. Only when you bring her back, she's little more than a hollow shell of herself...
Better yet, you can keep another thing that's already present. When brought back as the Goddess on the Massacre route, Asahi doesn't Awaken. If you're doing this on a fresh run and not in NG+ after Bonds, this makes Asahi underpowered for the endgame content, incapable of carrying her own weight as a dedicated healer. This is fitting for her character and Nanashi's choice. A large part of her character drama has to do with her being the weakest member of the party despite having the strongest connection to Nanashi. Choosing to resurrect her over the more powerful allies is a sentimental move that betrays the principles of self-sufficiency and independence that drive Massacre, and your reward is a version of herself that is inferior to her true self in character and to the others in capability.
If you couldn't bring her back in Bonds, this would twist the knife further. If you follow the principles of Bonds, you honor her sacrifice. If you follow the principles of Massacre, you detach yourself from her weakness. And if you do decide to have her as your Goddess... well, you better live up to the self-sufficiency part at least, because she'll be no help at all.
@@illusive-mike The Massacre route is one of my favorite routes in terms of sheer horror, strangely enough. And that's one of the reasons I found reviving her so wrong.
Massacre route makes me feel so wrong, and I actually love the game for that. 🤣
@@Dinker27 To me, that just somewhat weakens the whole package. Yeah, Massacre on its own is good at not letting you forget what you're actually doing (unlike, say, True Demon, where the world is already too dead for you to notice how much damage you're really doing). But it's also just too damn senseless and exists in the same game as Bonds, the absolutely good route stop looking at Danu's new Dagda like that. It cheapens the game overall for me.
@@illusive-mike I can agree with that.
@@illusive-mike True Demon feels very meaningful in contrast, honestly. In the most counter-intuitive way possible, it's the most human of the Nocturne routes. It's the only one of the endings that tries to break the cycle after all. But it really only works because there's an underlying theme of total hopelessness in all the other endings. The setting justifies going to extremes. Massacre really doesn't justify itself, because it is clearly not necessary.
So, I'm late on this, but something I observed in my playthrough is that Gaston is actually Chaos aligned, and Toki is actually law aligned. Both are members of their respective factions who, by their very nature are the antithesis of said factions.
Toki's entire life is defined by a clear hierarchy, of which she is on the bottom. Even after joining the party, she still clearly abides by a hierarchical structure, even post-awakening. She refers to Nanashi as "master" by choice post awakening.
Gaston is pretty much entirely motivated by self-interest to start, and rebellion in the end. His entire core gameplay mechanic introduces a chaotic factor to fights. His post-rebellion lines are a little unhinged to say the least. Add in the motivation for personal power and greatness, and he is very un-law.
While I may be giving the writers too much credit, both characters show the sheer pointlessness of the Law/Chaos divide. Gaston came from the most law-inclined faction possible, and is a personal glory seeking braggart, and Toki came from the most Chaos aligned faction possible and spent her whole life as a slave and a tool. Both factions created their own antithesis.
In the first place, though, "chaos" is only a transitional state. Recall that in Infernal Tokyo, there were still rulers, but it was such that they only stayed a ruler for as long as they could stay alive on the throne.
@@seg162 are you trying to add something to this convo or detract from it? Honestly can’t tell cause your point seems kinda irrelevant to me.
Holy shit that's a great observation. Even if it's not as well rooted in the text as it could be, I think that at least should've been
Those born to chaod long for order to live by, and those born to law long for their own freedom. That's kind of the whole point of Infernal/Blasted Tokyo and the White in the original SMTIV. Neither stance can ever win, the scales simply tip back and forth endlessly and neutrality only prolongs the problem without even attempting an answer.
this completely ignores Toki's desire for greater strength.
(and Nanashi's di-)
Surprisingly Gaston turned out to be my favorite side character out of the cast.
Probably cause he started off really unlikeable but he really did change slowly over the course of the game to be pretty loyal.
Whose yours?
Navarro.
The green gumball was my favorite because of the comic relief he provided and how often he had me laughing
Navarre, but in a very "friendship" game, your other friends don't stop humiliating and belittling him especially Toki, another reason why I don't like her.
Gaston is without a doubt the best in the main cast.
Honestly, Navarre and Gaston share this slot. There's a tragedy waiting to wake itself that didn't get developed in the game...and the only solution to rectify this I can think of is..well, fanfiction, I guess. 🤣
Come to think about it, the only one in the main party who I believe came out unscathed is Nozomi. Everyone else either lost someone, something, or doesn't have a home to go back to (like Toki, maybe).
@@Dinker27
Fuck Nozomi, all my homies hate Nozomi.
Probably the biggest thing that really bugs me about Apocalypse (I mean, apart from the buck-wild hyper-casual writing undermining all dramatic tension constantly) is how they really leaned into putting little notifications on everything. New quests, new character notes, the "inbox", making you stop and menu to talk to demons and it pops up a notification until you do. This kind of thing drives me absolutely bananacakes (homeslice), and 4 didn't do it at ALL so why they felt like they had to make you stop and menu every 2 seconds to clear out all your notifications is beyond me. I'm probably weird but I find it VERY annoying.
This game makes the representative of Law and Chaos manage to set aside their differences and work together no matter what route you choose and then questions you on the Bonds route being right.
Imagine Zelenin and Jimenez suddenly regain their sanity, or Demi-Fiend's friends deciding to not become monsters to their flawed ideals and try to kill you. Or Jonathan and Walter fighting alongside Flynn.
This game accomplished just that. The truth is honestly that the Massacre ending is in itself the main trapping of this game. The game mocks the alignments as unnecessary extremes but then all the time they could have spent refining the side characters is spent creating another ending that literally. solves. nothing. as you just become the new YVHV. That has literally no advantage in being chosen.
Keep one ending, don't "disney" revive Asahi and make her sacrifice worth it or at least if you want to go resurrecting people from the egg, RESURRECT EVERYONE. No one said you need to have darkness in your ending to be good, especically when the message is clearly not dark at all already.
I liked the idea of "YVHV actually fuels the conflict so it's endless until humanity will choose order" but it still felt it could have introduced way better and be a lot more poignant. The last part of Apoc introduces so many concepts that could have revolutionalized the serie but falls flat in giving them any meaning aside a very basic good ending.
Like a good SMT edgelord fan, I can only accept depressing and nihilistic endings where my friends die by my hands and the future is uncertain
Based and alignment-pilled
Does anyone else wanna see a definitive combo pack for SMT4/A with all the DLC for both games come out on the Switch?
I'd be okay with just IV getting an expanded re-release with the updated gameplay, partner system, and Lucifer and Merkabah artwork of Apocalypse.
My preference is an SMT collection including: SMT 1 and 2 remakes, complete with a more modern fusion compendium, and expanded story bits where necessary, SMT 3, SMT:SJ and both SMT4 games, updating graphics where necessary.
I hope they just remake SMTIV
No. Those games took me so long to finish, there's no way I'd start over. But to be fair, I've never bought a game I already own simply to play it on a different system.
@@ressljs You're no fun. :/
Another huge issue with the Massacre route is the ending scene. One of the things that is supposed to prop up this decision to destroy the previous world (starting with its best/most useful part, your own allies) is the promise that this is going to affect lasting change. Where normally Neutral endings are seen as temporary resets that only push the true resolution of the eternal conflict away, Massacre promises the end of gods. Humans will rise again, independent and free, and gods will remain unshaped and unobtrusive.
And then the Goddess of Tokyo explicitly goes on a trip across the multiverse to fetch a Messiah to kick Nanashi's ass, proving right away that the grand goal that required these grand sacrifices is not reached, and there are forces waiting in the wings that will aim to make it all meaningless.
True, but at the very least, travelling across dimensions has gotta be more difficult than...not having to. So you at least make the world _more_ permanent than a typical neutral ending
Had the writing been better, both the bonds and Massacre routes could have been the best in the series, instead we’re left with “SMT American sitcom route” and “edge lord route”, which I prefer the edge lord route just because there is some weight and consequence to it
or as some other Megaten fans have put it.
Bonds route = "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic"
Massacre Route = Glorified Edgelord Fantasy
I just want to say that even if the bonds ending seems to be the better ending, if you think about the implications of prior neutral routes in the series, humanity will always go back to looking for the guidance of gods and demons. Sure it looks like a good ending on paper for our cast, but humanity is likely to back to its old ways.
SMT IV: A is one of my favorite entries in the franchise and its really refreshing to hear someone speak very positively about it even while mentioning its flaws
Is it an enterally new game or is it smt 4 with extra content?
@@1saacbcourt452 this is a separate game that reuses a fair amount of the locations and assets of 4 that functions as a side story.
@@1saacbcourt452 it's an entirely new game. it splits off from SMT IV's story during the neutral path, but other than that its a completely new experience.
Its waaaay too edgy.
Like seriously edgy.
No subtle undertones, but a goofy stupid YHVH that I fail to take seriously, but is defeated by the power of friendship
I never really thought this game was "divisive", I just assumed people liked the gameplay but hated the story mode?
That's what I always heard
Essentially my feelings about this game, Gameplay was a massive improvement but the story was lacking.
@@espio329 Also my feelings with SMT V, I hope that changes with Vengeance this june.
Nozomi was also from SMT4, although you encounter her as a hunter. So I'm quite stoked to know she was a returning character
I really liked this game. But it's because of Xander Mobus's outstanding job in voicing Dagda.
I agree. He sounded so badass as dagda.
I agree xd, if Dagda somehow appears in V, they need to get Xander to voice him again
One item that I especially liked about SMT4A was its criticism of the blatant Japanese nationalism of SMT4 in the sidequests about the human leader of the "Make Japanese be Ruled by Japanese Gods again" movement. A very mild criticism, but pretty bold for a Japanese game.
this exact plot, "returning Japanese rule to the Japanese Gods", is an entire route in SMT5. In Devil Survivor 1, a character has a whole arc about the government harnessing demonic power to improve Japan. In SMT 3, Tokyo is the quite literal center of the Universe. Just like how in Hollywood, alien invasions only ever happen in New York.
Yeah. I actually read the friends' smacktalk battle with YHVH as a veiled critique of Japan's old bushido worldview.
I loved Toki in concept and design, but her calling Nanashi "master" after he nominally frees was uncomfy to me (because doesn't that defeat the point??), annnnnd then suddenly possession-by-Innana crashed in with the mindbreak breeder kink stuff and I had to peace out on the whole character. Kiddo's 14.
Hey! Thank you for covering this game! I am glad you gave it a very sound critique.
I really like this game. It had really great gameplay in both the fusion and battle system, and it definitely improved some of the criticisms I had about SMTIV's battle system. The extra DLC fights were phenomenal (and I do hope we see something like that in SMTV.) Something that I also liked about SMTIVA regarding its story was the lore build-up of the game. SMTIV had a lot of interesting lore around it, but it certainly had more bias on the Mikado side of things, which makes sense, but we also were left wondering about how the people in Tokyo saw and interpreted things. Apocalypse expanded on the lore mainly from the Tokyo side, but it also filled in the gaps in the timeline between the first opening of the gate to the Expanse and the events of SMTIV/A. I live for that kind of stuff and it was wonderful seeing it all come together.
But yeah, I do agree with your critiques about the characters and some story elements about this game. I actually did enjoy most of the characters in Apocalypse. They were pretty endearing and I liked seeing most of their interactions, but there was so much left to be desired for them. Like, maybe if this game was slightly longer or at least gave a bit more time to each character arc in a meaningful manner, we could have seen some satisfying conclusions to their own personal arcs. (I guess now I'll spitball a little about how each arc could have gone if it was written just a bit differently.)
Like, with Hallelujah we could have had more time to learn about his demon heritage and how it affected his upbringing as well as how he views the world outside of the Ashura-Kai and Abe/Samyaza's influence. We could have seen Toki explore her surroundings and figure out what she wanted to see in her ideal chaotic world and how she could reconcile that with what she's been taught. We could have had a really great arc with Navarre and Gaston reconciling their relationship and both of them coming to terms with what happened in SMTIV. I'm not sure what to think about Nozomi, since I feel she had a pretty weak arc overall compared to the other characters; I believe it might be because (if you did the Neutral route in SMTIV) we saw how she was during her questlines in the previous game, and it had a pretty good conclusion for a side character in that game. This made her role in Apocalypse kind of strange to me, since she didn't really have a lot of development aside from being the reason for why Danu is able to communicate to use and repeating the importance of interconnectedness with the people of Tokyo. I do wish there was more to her than that, since maybe the game could have expanded a bit of the inferiority she felt when compared to Flynn since we saw a bit of that in the SMTIV challenge quests. Isabeau, as you said, felt more like a guest character more than anything, but it was still neat seeing her interact with the group, especially Asahi since it seems like she found her very endearing. Finally, yeah I feel like Asahi's fate at the Shesha reveal would have been a great way to conclude her arc.
I guess I'll go on about Asahi a bit more because I actually really like her and I do feel like the game had a lot of missed potential specifically with her and how she could have affected Nanashi's choice for Bonds and Massacre. I like what you said about Asahi wanting to grow up and not be looked down upon, especially by her father who didn't see her as responsible enough to handle the kind of adult life she would have in Tokyo. I can see why as well, since Asahi as an almost sheltered image of what it means to be an adult, but I also think it was partly because her father wanted to protect her from that life since he probably wanted her to still enjoy her years as a child before thinking about being an adult. His death halfway through the game was an interesting wake-up call to Asahi in realizing the costs of being an adult and it's one of my favorite moments in the game. Her sacrifice in protecting Nanashi from Shesha was an excellent way to wrap her arc up pretty neatly. It makes me sad that the game pretty much immediately minimizes that impact by flat-out saying that she can be brought back, and this is even mentioned BEFORE the Neutral alignment lock in the Cosmic Egg. I do feel like leaving her permanently dead in both the Bonds and Massacre routes would have been better overall, even if I would be sad to not have her on my team ever again. Even though gameplay wise, she could easily be replaced by Isabeau or Flynn in either route, her absence could still feel tangible and almost drive home that whatever route you chose was the right one.
This is going to be a weird comparison, but it could have had a *somewhat* similar impact that Aerith's death had in FFVII in the sense that her death precipitated an important change in the story. Also, if the game had actually balanced out the endings so that the Massacre route could still be a viable ending on par with Bonds, maybe Asahi's death could have been set up to be interpreted as either an important sacrifice she made because of her bonds to her friends or the result of the flaws of humanity that Dagda was talking about. There was so much potential with Asahi and I'm sad that it wasn't taken.
It's like you said at the end of your video, SMTIV Apocalypse has so many parts that had they been placed together in a different way, it could have been a wonderful game. I couldn't agree more with that.
oh geez this was way too long of a reply from me....
TL;DR: Great job! Wonderful video! I really liked SMTIVA and I wished certain parts of this game were executed better than they were but regardless it's still a pretty good game.
Yeah i honestly really thought there was alot of potential in alot of what SMT IV Apocalypse had to offer and Especially in what you mean when you were referring to Asahi as well.
Although in my opinion i feel like they could've possibly swapped both of them (as in Asahi remaining dead in Bonds while potentially being talked about her being revived in Massacre) The reason i say this is because that could've been a cool plot to expand on where Nanashi could've been on his last straw after seeing everyone he was close to die (Asahi's dad, the 2 hunters, and Asahi herself) and it could've been a good justification as to why he would've chosen Massacre instead of Bonds (as to "bring her back" or have him more so agree with Dagda's Philosophy on how "Friendship isn't good, etc)
Yet again, best girl of all SMT4 - Navarro.
I think the anarchy route was interesting because Dagda raised an interesting point and that's how your relationship to your friends, like real-life, can be fickle. There were moments where Nanashi's peer group were gonna feed him to the wolves cause homunculus abomination.
Also the idea of becoming truly independent than striving to rely on others is a more comforting idea. In a fictional setting, Im perfectly fine with this, especially considering how characters like Toki betray you despite saying moments prior she will have your back regardless
Dagda’s point isn’t really valid, though. Nobody in your peer group aside from Gaston really cared that you were a walking corpse, and everybody more or less told Gaston to shut up.
While the characters at the hunter association were undeniably aggressive towards you and your party (because of unsealing Krishna, not being a walking corpse(, that’s mainly because Nozomi gave an inaccurate description of what happened and only gave the hunters Krishna’s account of things, which never let you tell your side of the story. You were at no point ordered by Dagda to break the seal; it was Odin who deceived you, and Dagda explicitly spurns the Divine Powers. Nozomi doesn’t make any of this clear, but considering she still defends you, she’s less being fickle and more just being dumb. (Though she also should’ve given you the opportunity to just report Krishna’s unsealing yourself, which would seem less shady than somebody else doing it).
In any case, none of your actual friends (as in, not Gaston or unnamed NPC hunters) were actually advocating for feeding you to the wolves at this point in the game, and all Nozomi did was handle reporting you in a dumb way.
Hard to really justify Toki, though.
@@Dragon-md4gr Probably because considering Dagda, she'd lose what makes her strong, and ultimately considered that a hard no
@@kichiroumitsurugi4363 I was more referring to how she says she’ll side with you no matter what you choose, only to side against you if you join Dagda.
@@Dragon-md4gr And this is why. I am surprised it took this long for her to realzie just how fucked up Dagda can be, but I digress. She probably assumed that if she were fed to the Cosmic Egg, she can't pursue inner strength like any sensible Ring of Gaea member would want to
@@Dragon-md4gr actually to correct you i'm pretty sure Dagda forces you to free Krishna since i remember trying to leave when it got to the part of unsealing him and then Dagda told me i had to do it (if i remember correctly)
Brilliant video on the game, sums up pretty much how I feel about it completely. Although I will say, when I realised where the story was going in terms of alignment and characters, I instantly turned on it. Instantly I realised how shoddy the actual writing quality was in comparison to IV. The gameplay was enough to keep me going, but the anarchy route felt for me like just catharsis for getting rid of these characters I grew to hate (except gaston he still rules)
Since I don't really like most of the main party members, I like to roleplay a bit and pretend Nanashi never had control of himself. Just a pawn of Dagda, who always picks the emotionless or cold options in dialogue. I actually really like the darker Massacre ending a lot more, even if the bias for the Bonds ending is obvious. I'm not a fan of "the power of friendship" being the answer to all problems, it's very cliche.
Wasn't it the case that the power of friendship basically messed this game up for the megaten fanbase?
I hated the side kick characters so much, I was praying that the game gave you the choice to go evil and kill them. So when Dagda told me to do exactly that, I didn't even need to debate... Yes sir!
The only party members who didn't annoy me to hell and back were Hallelujah and Isabeau (and Navarre to a certain extent). It was pretty easy to betray my friends at the split 😇
I've been a smt fan for years, but it felt like i was playing any regular rpg with slice of life and anime influence rather then a weird super natural post apocalyptic story and i think it's having a party of super strong dudes as allies that took it away, not to mention the sometimes cheesy voice-lines and predictable plot. It didn't give me the feeling of dread like 3 and 4 gave me whenever you "feel a strong presence from beyond this door" or "Your only friends are assholes". The story is good, i love the gameplay, but i wasn't as immersed as i was with the original. The feeling you get when you first enter Naraku, fight Minotaur and Medusa, observe and discover Tokyo and then enter this war-torn place infested with demons in 4, compared to starting in Tokyo and having the protag die the first few minutes of the game because they "don't know what's happening outside" while the demons had been roaming there for years and Nanashi and Asahi living there their whole life, to me felt like Atlus didn't know where to start the story from where we left off in 4, and instead opted to "copy" the beginning of 3 and using said protag death for just shock value and a power-up. Again, i liked the game, i've finished it 3 times on different routes, but i'd rather pick up 4 then 4A. This is all opinion btw, i know how the fanbase gets when a game gets "bashed" LOL
Apocalypse did gameplay better than 4 in my opinion, but yes you're right the tone of the game is veeeery different than that of 4, the thing that pisses me off is that they took the game in a new direction but didn't have the balls to make it all the way, like how the characters had "enough" writing, but didn't have more to it, smt5 seems to be going the same direction with the "more focus on the narrative" i just hope they go the full way instead of doing "enough" out of fear or lazyness
It's been a while since I've seen the game, but wouldn't it make sense for them not to really know much about what going on outside? After all, it's not like they can just run around outside and play with demons roaming about.
Edit: nvm I just looked at the opening of the game again and it seems like they know a lot about what's going on in Tokyo
I really wish they retroactively patched SMT 4 to have the combat system improvements in this game. It's genuinely a top tier RPG in terms of mechanics and the adjustment to smirk was very much welcomed.
The reveal of Tokyo at the beginning of SMTIV is one of my top 5 gaming moments of ALL TIME
Agreed, my first SMT game and its what made me fall in love with the series. Also nothing will top SMT IVs depiction of post apocalyptic tokyo. I loved all the side details about how people survive, how they get food, how they get power, the factions power dynamics. Also the beauty of the environments, even as low res as they are, is better to me than the sandy deserts of SMT V. And nothing tops SMT IVs soundtrack, I wish there was a mod for SMT V that would use all of SMT IVs music instead.
Honestly, I’m a bit mixed on the game, even if I do overall really like it, since it was my first mainline game on an official console (Nocturne Hardtype on emulator being the actual first, and before you ask, yes my first run was on normal, I’m not a masochist). I do like the overall story and its themes, but the way they were executed was not the way I was hoping they’d do it, having a tone and script that was much less dark and philosophical than the tone of Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga(I absolutely loved those games, even if I was only able to enjoy them via walkthroughs and the novels since I don’t have a PS2, so I definitely hope those plus Raidou get remasters, especially for them to be more properly done than Nocturne).
For example, in the Anarchy route, you can sacrifice your bonds with your allies and even your loyalty to your home to try and reset the world in a new order that has none of the cruel supernatural, but it actively portrayed it as being the evil route, where Dagda is even shown as being very untrustworthy, so it isn’t like the previous games in picking what you believe in most, and is more so “here’s the ending for Team Dark, Megaten-Style”. If they made him more affable and proper, while still being secretive (one good example of such a villain being Rex Goodwin from Yu-Gi-Oh 5d’s), he’d be much better as a villain in the Peace route (being much more sympathetic as a well-intentioned extremist that you recognize is just as right on the cycle being self-preserving, but it still doesn’t mean it’s ok to permanently kill off everyone you love and then just to start over from scratch since the reason why Nanashi is able to remain worthy of the godhood role is because of his allies’ support acting as a morality chain) and as an ally in the Anarchy route(because trying to attempt a middle ground in getting rid of YHVH and keeping his world alive will just result in him eventually returning via those who still worship him, and in the meantime, it also opens the throne of Creator to any other power hungry being).
Then there’s the Peace Route, which was way too much like Fire Emblems Fates Revelation Route, where it was portrayed as a true golden ending where not only will everything apparently always be great, but it’s ridiculously easy to do so, where there’s no struggle towards actually earning that golden ending. If they made it much more of a struggle, it would feel much more deserved. For example, what if Asahi wasn’t brought back to life completely fine in Peace Route? What if she wasn’t brought back properly to life, and instead remained a spirit that would move on to the afterlife long after beating Dagda(who I would personally suggest having Danu replace his role in making Nanashi her own Godslayer and having her be much more sorrowful and disappointed at having to fight and kill her own son, where she’d have a heartfelt final farewell with him as he blissfully reconciles the fact that he’ll at least be able to once again enjoy that feeling of being a non-existent concept of nature as a dead god), where if you wanted to bring her back, you’d need Danu to send you to the afterlife(being the area you first met Dagda) and effectively pull a successful Orpheus trial in bringing her back to life by leading her out of the afterlife, or anything else other than “oh wow she died horribly, want to almost immediately undo what happened and remove all dramatic tension from the story by taking the power-of-friendship Route”?
There was so much potential present in the story, not just as ideas (like Sonic 06 which, and I say this as a Sonic fan, is absolutely just as bad, if not worse, than Forces and anyone who claims there was potential that made it better is absolutely reaching pretty damn far in saying that) but as the actual plot itself, where the only issue itself was how the plot was presented(Aka, the overall story and themes were great, but certain moments and the portrayal/development of certain characters were bad enough to affect how the plot as a whole looks).
As an idea for the Orpheus-esque quest, basically you’d get Danu to send you to the afterlife, try to look for Asahi, where you’d eventually find and convince her to come back with him (and maybe throw in some fluff-based fanservice in talking about what they mean to each other, since I honestly can’t think of a better reason for Nanashi being unable to move on from her death, so screw it, let’s let a main protagonist actually have a love interest they themselves care about). This would lead to them encountering multiple guards of the afterlife trying to stop them, where you’d only have access to Asahi as your battle partner, eventually culminating in a boss fight with either one or more of the fiends, or Cerberus(possibly with his DDS boss stats/skills buffed up).
Also, thank god someone finally called out the bs that is Toki’s characterization! She had an actually interesting arc around trying to break free from her puppet strings and become her own person, yet she then proceeded to become the doormat bodyguard-with-a-crush for Nanashi, not only creating a stupid love triangle (I already dislike those in general, so imagine how I felt about one this badly written), but also getting rid of any of her proper character development by making her look like they used the Anarchy Partner characterization as a placeholder for her normal personality and forgot to change it in the final release. Personally, I always thought it would’ve been cool if she actively was worried and confused by those feelings, having a generally uneasy attitude towards how unnatural it feels, so that upon Inanna awakening, it’s revealed that Inanna was forcibly making her attracted to Nanashi as the only currently existing Godslayer, where upon beating the Goddess, Toki would at that point reject those false feelings for Nanashi and develop genuine admiration and respect for Nanashi as a person instead, ridding herself of the last puppet-strings that anyone could take hold of and finally taking the first step towards finding her own identity. You could then include moments where she shows some signs of actual affection if you want (as long as you at least show her doing so in conjunction to also gaining interests beyond being the bodyguard), but above all else, this is definitely at least a rough draft on what Toki needs in regards to character development.
Great ideas across the board here! Let's hope 5 isn't a mixed bag.
I can't believe that someone is still talking about SMT4 Apocalypse. I am one of those that loved SMT4 Apocalypse to death and I am hoping that I will make time to finish it again. Until then I can't wait anymore for SMT 5.
how was SMT V?
Great video Nam! Yeah I think SMT4A is the pinnacle of SMT gameplay, but the story is kinda weird. What I mean is I actually adore the lore and worldbuilding, the factions, and the backstory with Akira and Fujiwara, etc, so much, but the character interaction in your party is so awkward and the localization is weird....
For instance, Nozomi actually says "Homeslice just went banana-cakes". That's not to say SMT can't have funny moments, I got a laugh out of the angel's comment "You look like a tarted-up clown", but for every hit the game gets with dialogue it'll get many misses.
I'm going to miss having so many demons, there was so much customization in 4A. And the balancing of SMT4A, including the fixed smirk mechanic, is just so much fun, and I replayed the entire game on Apocalypse difficulty (because it came out after the game was released so I replayed it).
It was grindy in the beginning, but for the most part Apocalypse difficulty was very fair! Even with the final boss and the Diamond Realm DLC boss they were tough battles, but they were fair and heck even easy once you know their tricks. I liked P5R's new final boss too, but I never liked SJ: Redux's new true ending boss though bleh.
The quality of life improvements in SMT4A are just astounding!
What are my criticisms of SMT4A? As usual I don't like how the fiends are handled, Nocturne was amazing, please SMT5 make fiends easier to encounter - like put them in regular side quests sheesh, I've played PSX SMT: If, GBA SMT1&2, and 4 and 4A, and the fiends are always so poorly handled even though they're the most popular. The problem with fiends in 4A if you're not familiar is that they're in Twisted Tokyo, terrible randomized dungeons where you need to run through halls hundreds of times to re-fight all the fiends 9 times. Put simply, it's really a missed opportunity. In other games, the fiends are always a 1/256 chance of appearing.
Looking at SMT4A, SJ: Redux, and Persona 5: Royal, it looks like the developers have been learning what works and what doesn't, I honestly have a lot of faith in SMT5, I can't wait for it, and I can't wait to watch your views on it as well.
I think the fiends are popular because of Nocturne though xd
Thankfully in V, they are DLC, with set locations once you accept the quest, and they are always marked on the map and their spawn location is very obvious with a giant pillar
Wow that Odin design, it's the perfect nexus of really dumb and super kickass
That's Doi for ya. Just like Kaneko, he can kinda just take a stupid concept and make it good (I mean, no one would have thought of making Seth a dragon either, except Kaneko apparently)
Overall I enjoyed my time with Apocalypse. I liked the idea of throwing a new faction in between the whole Law/Chaos, but I feel they missed giving us the opportunity to side with the Polytheist faction. Usually, every sides end up sounding like assholes or psychopaths, so adding one more faction wouldn't be so bad.
Overall I like the original IV better, but that doesn't mean IV A is all bad, in fact it's pretty solid, but I get why people didn't like it: it's not as grim and despair inducing as previous title. The Bond Ending does feel like a Persona moment more than a SMT moment.
Something you forgot to mention is that the game actually keeps track of your Light/Dark alignment throughout the game, particularly through decisions made during boss fights if I recall correctly. However, the consequence of this is extremely spiteful. If your decisions are more in line with Dagda's, but you instead side with Danu before the fight against Vishnu-Flynn, Dagda retaliates by deleting all your demons, and you don't get them back, making his fight magnitudes more difficult. The opposite holds true: if you're overall friendly but choose Dagda at the last second, Navarre will steal all your items. It's not AS bad, but if you weren't prepared for it and you're low on MP, you're screwed.
I have no idea why they implemented this, and it just comes out as a huge penalty for not committing to your moral compass. It's also so out of reach, very few videos of the consequences being shown exist even though it's been properly documented.
Yeah, I was so surprised when Navarre got rid of all my items when I decided to go Anarchy on my first playthrough. Made the Vishnu-Flynn fight a fucking misery for me lol
i honestly never really liked that myself, but not because of the punishments but because it basically measn all of your choices meant nothing since that one scene dictates how the game will end. you can choose to be a complete asshole the entire game but as long as you side with your friends then your set on the bonds path. honestly it make no sense , especially considering nothing changes afterwards depending on your actions
The only scene that really supports Dagda's ideas is when the Hunters are clamboring for you to be killed for releasing Krishna, where they turn on everyone who doesn't agree that you should die, even Fujiwara. If there were more scenes like this, the game would've been a lot better.
"The game has no argument in favor of the Anarchy route"? Did you listen to your party members talk ? The fact that I can get rid of them and finally have some silence was the best argument for anarchy tbh.
The best ending would be saving Nozomi and the girl with futaba Voice while killing everyone else with dagda
Not only you to shut them up, you only have Dagda talking xd, and that's good because I really like his voice
Yeah, the app points in this game are a huge pain. Tying app points to essentials like demon and skill slots feels pointless, and not being able to plan it properly without a guide makes me think: app points should have been used exclusively for niche changes here and there that shape your playstyle instead of massive changes to your options. Sorta like how they were in Strange Journey, but yk, spicier.
I literately bought the DLC because of how annoying and tediuous it is to grind skill points and Macca
@@dantemustdie00 that is the way the only DLC that I actually bought
My thing with Apocalypse is that I really enjoy playing it, the combat system has been ironed out since 4 (still like 4 overall as a game more though) and the muusic is absolutely god tier.
But for the life of me I can't get behind the absolute tonal travesty that's this games plot... I enjoy the divine powers and that's about it plot wise... There's supposed to be aa war between Law, Chaos and Divine Powers, but the tone is the complete opposite to what's actually going on...
I don't like how washed out Law and Chaos are, forcing you to go neutral, whilst a good route also has its own issues with Bonds and Anarchy. Bonds being "lol friendship, here have another dagda, this is persona" (no knock on persona, I just want my persona elements in persona... After all that's why it exists) and anarchy is "kill all your friends, but you get to ressurect isabaeu cause she's the best party member"
Isabeau best girl.
@@ltb1345 Nah
my main gripe with the choices in this game is how none of your choices really matter in the end, the only thing you have to do is agree or disagree with Dagda in the cosmic egg, it doesn't matter what you where before, this one choice is all that matters in the very end. in literally every other smt games ALL of your choices mattered, imagine if you played an smt game and choose every chaos option but near the end of the game u can make 1 option and get put on the law route
the only consequence really is either losing your items or current demons (both of which aren't that big of an issue at that point of the game)
To me, the biggest turning point in the game had no real consequence. Objectively, the “peace” route is so much better because there was no real consequence. You as a player shouldve been absolutely weaker and NEED to rely on your friends if you sided with them. You shouldn’t be an all-powerful Godslayer if the one feeding you power no longer exists. And “new” Dagda was such a cop out, i hated that
For me, two moments that really put on full display the games dreadful writing is Asahi's death and the alignment choice.
For the first, it is a blatant case of fridging. She is simply killed for shock value given how the scene drags on the brutality in both visuals and narrative, only to then seemingly forget what just happened with a giant exposition dump and with Shesha behaving like your average mustache twirling villain, giving a big speech about how everything will play out and the like. And of course, Asahi is just brought back later completely nullifying everything anyways, show just how pointless her death was.
With the alignment choice it is really shown just how little the games narrative actually cared about everything. In one, Dagda is killed and a brainwashed copy of him is created the is subservient to your views and it is seen as the best thing ever. On the other, everyone gang against you despite saying that they would stand by your side regardless of your choice, and then Flynn is brainwashed and everyone is instead horrified. Soooo, brainwashing is perfectly fine when it is done in the name of Friendship.
Then there is of course the dreadful dialogue and flat as cardboard characters that just makes the story insufferable.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg of the narrative garbage in this game.
And the funny thing is that I found a light novel called "Avesta of Black and White" that has a lot of the same story beats and even has a sort of collectivist vs individualist conflict going on, and yet it feels like it is pretty much telling Apoc to "sit down in that chair right there, let me show you how it is done". Just a far better executed story.
The complete removal of the nuance is definitely the worst part. Satan's brief dialogue near the end was the only glimmer of Law and Chaos being portrayed as they're supposed to be.
I also found funny how your partners instantly get against you if you side with Dagda, like, you choose and a few lines after you are already fighting
@@Fermin-hw5pd Yea, and that despite the fact that, like I said, they stated that they would stand by your decision no matter what.
@@matteste "It doesn't matter what you choose to do, I'll stay by your side until the end"
Toki, "lying idiot" - 2038
@@Fermin-hw5pd
I killed Toki as hard as possible just for that, but then revived her after her death dialogue. The writers could've just made her use her ring of gaea beliefs as a driving factor after she joins the party to set up the fight for differing alignment views, but instead we got a complete 180 from "I love you I'll stick by you :3" to "Woah I didn't think you meant THAT, sorry I'll kill you"
this game's writing really annoys me. it has tonal whiplash all over and the strongest moment (a certain death) is invalidated. a lot of its humor comes across as "bad anime", with really lame humor that comes at the expense of characterization and tension. i know my friend really hates the gas scene with toki
Personally, i really did not like it. The characters were either completely forgettable and unimportant or really annoying, and they ruined alignments by basically having 3 bad endings and 1 good one. The gameplay is great, and I'm fine with a bad story if the gameplay is good, but all of the good aspects of the gameplay are taken from base smt 4 (which is my favorite smt) with the only improvement being how smirking works. I also didn't like how dark and light attacks cause damage on top of being able to insta kill, because my strategy just ended up being spam dark and light attacks until I get to a boss with a weakness to a non dark/light element
I mostly agree with you. I didn't think the basic story of Apocalypse was bad, but I HATED the "sassy" teenage characters. Game play was still great although I really can't remember thinking there was enough difference between the two games to favor one over the other. But the light and dark attacks did feel cheap compared to how I used them in past games. But to be honest, I'd say my fun meter taking a dive during Apocalypse was mostly because of how long it took me to finish these games. I bought IV when it first game out and didn't finish it until a week before Apocalypse released. About half way through the second game, I just felt burned out.
the change to dark and light skills in this game are great lol, they were nearly useless in previous games.
Literally obsessed with this game, its been my first megaten and its so good. If this is one of the "worst" to fans then i cant wait to play the others when im finished here
From gameplay perspective: SMT IV Apocalypse is the best game in mainline series.
From story perspective: SMT Strange Journey, and SMT IV are best games in mainline series.
Best world building: SMT, SMT II, SMT III Nocturne
@@nr2676 Thanks man! Still havent finished apocalypse yet! But the SMT IV ost is all bangers too so i'll be doing that next!
You absolutely nailed how I felt about the characters and story. Navarre and Gaston were my favorite characters because they were the only ones that seemed like more than mere shells with tropes or stereotypes to go with them. They had their moments and they developed during the course of the game.
What I hated the most were the other companions (Besides Isabeau) who were constantly shooting Navarre down and overall proved to be very, very annoying - with Hallelujah being the best of the worst because he kind of manned up and led the Ashura-Kai, another thing that wasn't really expanded upon.
Great gameplay, comically inferior story compared to IV.
it honestly kinda feels like that the writers of smt 4a wanted to copy a persona story but make it fit in with smt somehow, hence why theres a huge ailignment bias towards the bonds route. sure smt 4 had its own story flaws (why tf does being nice towards everyone lead to tokyo getting nuked?), and the neutral path being virtually impossible to get without a guide. i wonder if thats why the writers decided to forego the old smt ailngment system and just made apocalypse neutral based instead.
I know this vid is a year old now but this shin megami tensei got me into the series. It was messed up but I felt for all the characters, I was stupid at the end boss fight tho because I didn't really collect the strong gods. Anyways I will always remember this games atmosphere ❤️
Total agreement on how the two main endings are dealt in SMT IVA. That's what defenitly sadens me with this game. I loved Dagda and what he bringed to the plot, but the anarchy ending doesn't really dig into its themes realy just feel like a pointless bad ending compared to the other neutral route.
I feel this is a strong, un-biased look at this game that much of the community has trouble looking at in an unbiased manner. This is the definitive Apocalpyse review on the market; you hit the games strong points and weak points in a very informative but concise manner. I am also glad that you didn't hold back from criticizing smirk in SMT4 and recognizing the improvements made to that system here. Smirk (and map navigation) ruined SMT4 for me, and I was terrified to see the systems inclusion in future titles; would Nocturne be the last great mainline battle system in SMT?? But when I played Apoc, I breathed a sigh of relief. They really understood what made smirk a terrible inclusion in SMT4 and got the system down almost perfectly in Apoc.
I think most people really like Apocalypse. The only people who don't like it are those cringy SMT purists that like to smack talk Persona any chance they get.
My main gripe with this games was that the choices you made were so in your face with which path you were headed. There were no gray areas. You were either with your team till the end or an asshole throughout. And the last dungeon was such a pain in the ass. Other than that I really enjoyed it for the most part.
Easily the best game from smt or persona or perhaps any game I've ever played and I've beaten all smts and personas and many rpgs
I think it was mostly the story. A lot of people where saying it was way to Persona like.
Honestly, I enjoyed the focus of Neutral. It's really refreshing that the ideological conflict is not one between different ideologies, but an inner conflict through one ideology.
I personally adore the Massacre route. For some reason, most of the characters absolutely rubbed me the wrong way in different ways - in part because they forced themselves into my party. Fake decisions in games tend to turn me against whatever it is that overrides my decision when given the option, so Massacre turned into a bit of a catharsis for me. I tried to see characters differently on NG+, but it just didn't work. By contrast, Dagda always offering advice but never forcing the player's hand made me WANT to side with him and his ideals.
The only bad part about massacre (to me) is having to kill the people of Tokyo, seeing everyone trying to kill you for destroying the only hope they had was really disheartening
I honestly think the quality-of-life changes that Apocalypse brings made it solidly the more satisfying game to "play" over 4 vanilla to me. Not to "experience", but play at least.
I just wish it had the same tonal commitment as 4. It brings in dark themes and context, but it doesn't stick to them the same way other Megaten games are willing to. It was a bit too bright, and definitely too one-sided in optimism to make its anarchy ending work. I also don't think humor is entirely a bad idea, but it just felt... out of place. Like, the part where the party is sneaking into Mikado in disguise, and an angel just verbally burns Asahi for her makeup attempt (girl didn't even look bad!) felt like Scoobie-Doo was going to walk onto the scene and shrug his shoulders or something, full-on winking at the camera. Scenes just weren't given the weight they really deserved.
But man, that combat was so good. I really hope 5 can follow it up well, whether its a refinement or an innovation. We'd all be in for real treats then.
Also I don't know if the most cursed moments are Hallelujah calling his dying Dad "bro" one last time, or Asahi ACTUALLY PRONOUNCING YHVH's name. One had me crack up, the other made me question my party member's humanity.
Or the game's fixation on Navarre's ghost butt. I won't knock people for being into it, but it wasn't for me.
I really love SMT4A . I had so much fun with it that it ended as my fav SMT game from the series.
S M I R K
I actually really liked SMT4A. It allowed me to play an smt entry with a more broad point of view. When I play smt, I know there is going to be death, gore, bad endings and so on and I try to "mentally prepare" for that. This game is much more laid back with that and since the original SMT4 had already established as a mature story, I welcomed the change of perspective. Also, I love Satan's design and the Stephen fight.
I personally liked SMT IV a lot more Flynn was a chad
Nam, have you played the Devil Survivor games? Would love to hear your thoughts
My biggest complaint always was that I wish we'd gotten a route where we side with Krishna and the other gods just to see what could've been.
Completely disagree about the beginning of the game, Apocalypse starts quickly, has you die in a fight and makes things interesting fast. Whereas SMTIV legit starts as a visual novel where jack happens for awhile and takes a bit before you can actually get into a fight and interact with the mechanics
I like the gameplay of 4A because of how it ironed out a lot of the issues of 4. I disliked the story of 4A because it felt like a mixture of SMT and Persona elements in such a way that emphasized the worst parts of both.
Something that's usually missing from Apocalypse plot critique is how cleverly the game leads you to the Anarchy Ending. I think the cast is anecdotal and cliché because it was really meant to be.
[SPOILERS WARNING]
I've rarely seen a main character being mistreated this much by a cast of protagonists or the game itself. First off, you're Nanashi, litterally the "Nameless Guy", a nobody. The one and only friend you have is your forever loyal Asahi, but soon enough you get killed. Dagda revives you for his own personal goals but we'll get back to him. From this point on, Nanashi's agency is litterally clawed away from him. Any decision you take is either mocked, frowned upon or simply disregarded. Sure, a battle between heaven, hell and the holy powers is taking place, but what I got from the mostly patronizing cast (palm goes to Nozomi) is how unimportant you are meant to feel. It is made very clear that you're not the story's hero, Flynn is. Then Asahi dies in the most gruesome and gratuitous manner.
Things get continuously worse... until you get to choose. Dagda is the only one that gives you a deal that feels empowering: getting rid of a cast that has essentially piggybacked on your powers, or, once again, submit to peer pressure. You can even bring back a husk of Asahi would you so choose to. This is when the game reaches its peak. Dagda, who once treated you with a mix of passive-agressive aegis and tough brotherly love becomes more of a friend. Then killing YHVH is the next logical step and makes perfect sense with Nanashi's quest for emancipation, both lore wise and on a symbolic level. The Anarchy Ending felt so... satisfying.
At their core, most of SMT games tell the story of human agency in the face cosmic godly horrors and fate. Apocalypse brings this theme to your doorstep. Sure, the story has its flaws, and having dislikable characters is always a double edged choice. But I dare say that so far, SMTIVA was my favorite entry.
I'd say that this is often missing from Apocalypse plot critique because it's not really a credible reading of the game's events.
[ALSO SPOILER WARNING]
Nanashi isn't really mistreated by the other protagonists. For the most part, Asahi is constantly vigilant and on your side, Hallelujah is kind and understanding to you, calling you 'leader', Gaston is not initially your friend (and when he stops being an asshole he no longer mistreats you), Nozomi's worst decision is reporting you to the hunters (rather, she should have told you to report what happened yourself, which would have reflected better on you), Navarre's arrogant but never outright abusive, and Toki quite literally calls you Master and constantly fawns over you once she's joined the party, often to a ridiculous degree. And while initially Flynn comes across as comparatively more important than you, that's because Flynn had spent a large amount of time fighting for the people of Tokyo. In the end, it's not Flynn who saves the day, but you, by freeing him from Krishna and destroying the heart of the Cosmic Egg.
And Dagda's choice may have felt empowering to you, but within the context of the game, it's specifically him stating that he wants you to betray your friends and become the corrupt God of a heartless world that rejects bonds. And while your friends did often rely on you more than vice versa, there are several moments in the narrative, such as the conflict with Azrael where Hallelujah unleashed his powers, or when Gaston helps operate the terminals, where you clearly would have died were it not for their intervention. They often rely on you simply because you're the strongest member of the group. What's more, saying that Dagda treated you with a "mix of passive-aggressive aegis and tough brotherly love" is a very...odd way to describe his actions. He doesn't treat you with any love to speak of, often referring to you as his 'puppet' and quite fittingly seizes control of your body whenever you might act in a way that he wouldn't like. Once all is said and done and you do become the God of the new universe, you're a god who's enslaved the only other two people in existence and refuses the idea of bonding with others (and that's REALLY what you're rejecting; not 'peer pressure' but the idea of peers at all), and you're more or less guilty of the same thing YHVH was. I suppose if you're into the exaggerated sociopathic world that Dagda describes to you, it might feel empowering, but to me and a lot of other people, it simply came across as evil.
For the most part my thoughts exactly. I just found myself catatonic whenever a cutscene came on because I couldn’t get invested whatsoever. I loved the gameplay a ton though and I actually do disagree on the dungeon design thing you said.
Like, I can get why some people don't like 4A as much of the original or other SMT games but it's always baffled me why some people seem to think it's some abhorrent nightmare of a game that is terrible in every way. It's somewhat more lighthearted overall than others but it's story's interesting enough and the actual combat system is an improvement over 4. It's a little more shonen-y than usual but it's not bad just different I guess. It's worth at least one playthrough and the music might help to not bail on finishing it.
Additional note for Apocalypse's story: it takes place in the Neutral Route, yes, but also in an alternate universe where Nanashi actually accepts Dagda's offer to be resurrected by him, meaning Nanashi exists in Base 4, and is killed sometime off screen.
It also hints that Nanashi normally just straight up rejects Dagda's offer to be resurrected, and that the Divine Powers SPECIFICALLY needed Nanashi to unseal the Ark(since we hear absolutely nothing about them in 4, Krishna never gets sprung from his Prison, and Odin and Matreiya just dont do anything without their boss
Nam is so hot 🥵
"if you don't want to come back spoiled, finish the games before you watch this video"
Aight time to come back to this video in a month
i think the best way I can describe the big issue with SMT4A is it tried to be Persona.
Think about it, 'The power of love and friendship leads to the ultimate ending with no consequences' which is how pretty much every Persona game Post P2 (or P3) has been, Their is only 1 ending that's 'objectively good' which isnt the norm for majority of SMT games as its always been 'This is Good BUT' endings based on your ideology and philosophy (And I argue SMT4 did a TERRIBLE job doing alignments, seriously, being good decent human = law = genocide...IM SORRY WHAT?!)
YEP, tell me about it. I hated IV because of that. Went through the game making the most compassive, common sense decisions and then BAM, you're locked onto LAW (read genocide route). It was just retarded, Neutral should have its own decisions like in Strange Journey, instead of being so hard to get you actually need a guide. I'm still triggered seeing Isabeau committing suicide.
Smt is the only series where people will be upset about there being a happy ending lol gotta love it
Didn't even watch the video, but let me say this;
Best SMT gameplay as of right now.
Among the worst writing in any SMT game. Clearly, somebody was influenced by the trashy Persona writing, or even was a Persona writer themselves.
Great game, with crippling shortcomings. Thankfully, most of the shitty dialogue can be skipped, as is tradition in Atlus games.
Gotta make a new universe for daddy Dagda.
Dagdy
"kill your friends kiddo"
He says the diamond realm quest is the beat dlc atlas has made, and while that is definitely true it really isn’t hard when compared to things like the Royal dlc
What difficult Royal had? I don't remember
EYO??? For me this is my favorite SMT game gameplay wise... namely the map clearly labeling where you have to go and what locations are named. I got lost pretty goddamn hard in SMT4 most times lmao
SMT IV but I know where I am
@@wumbojet SMTIV but if I get lost on the map the video ends
It feels like someone forgot they were writing a Shin Megami Tensei mainline game and not a modern Persona game after hearing about the bonds route.
When this game was announced I remember everyone was a little bit disappointed with a sequel of IV and not a brand new title. Yeah, SMT4 didn't have that much out and we were still processing what we got (With time we really learned to appreciate this game more... Specially after Final/Apocalypse).
However when we got introduced to the, back then, basics of the story and then the reveal of a new faction: The Divine Powers. We got really freaking hyped, I remember everybody was already thinking in how a new faction and probably a new alignment would spice up things for the SMTverse. We had nothing but hype and hope back then.
I feel your review and analysis it's pretty solid, I love how you mentioned that affinity and smirk are systems that are not only refined but are here to stay. I also feel that way about many other things and agree with other points (Twisted Tokyo 10 turns for example) but I gotta say... I feel you really explained and gave your opinion about this game and its theme a little too... Tame. I feel you might have done a little diservice to the folks that have never played this game or those that wanted a second opinion of what they experienced.
This game's story is nowhere near good or decent, there's so much wrong with not only that but also the characters, the pacing, the direction and the themes. But mostly the poor writing yes.
I also have played this game multiple times and I find it incredibly fun specially trying different challenges or just doing dumb stuff to spice up a run but man if it wasn't for that I wouldn't touch this game in my entire life ever again after I got all the endings.
I have come a long way of trying to understand what the heck were they thinking when they shipped this game I have grown up bitter and with SMTV at the horizon I no longer care about this title (Despite SMTV every new trailer scaring me that the story might end up being IV:A tier).
That said good stuff man let's be real for a second despite what I wrote and you said Dagda is fucking based.
Considering that Ronde exists, Idk why people complain,
Man, I just forgot about Ronde. Guess I'll listen to the banger OST while I recall my disappointment
I am gonna say it
I liked apocalypse a bit more than the original
I needed a lighter hearted smt. Sure its characters and plot isnt for everyone, but i liked it despite the drawbacks
Me after betraying my ideals killing my friends and a lot of people so humanity will be free from the never ending fight against gods
SMT IVA: btw you chose the wrong ending everything is fixed and better in the other one you did all that heartache to yourself for nothing lmao
its funny u say that cuz even in the anarchy ending, demons and gods from other universes will begin invading soon since you betrayed the axiom, likewise the goddess of tokyo will be sending messiahs to kill you forever as well (that and the fact u can end up as another YHVH)
bonds isnt that better anyways since the possibility of YHVH coming back is made clear, so really there is no true end
SMT meets Persona, Bad mix if you ask me...
Souls Hackers 2 basically
I'm definitely one of those people who couldn't stand the game, I hated the cast, and the story was not really going anywhere. Could not be bothered to finish it, put like 15 hours in.
Didn’t miss much. It basically becomes making yhvm a comically evil villain and nanashi either becomes comically evil and kills all his friends or comically good, and somehow kills yhvh by calling him a stinky doo doo head
smt fans are so reactionary and childish. the moment they see any hint of friend, they call it worst game in the series when they have only played smt3 and 4 but surprisingly every persona game.
It might sound weird but I actually prefered the massacre ending because the other one looked way too positive and naive
Finaly a good critique of the game that doesn't devolve to "hur dur it is like persona so not my smt hur dur".
Apocalypse is good and I'm tired of pretending it isn't.
While the characters could be better I don't find them terrible or anything. I dislike the narrative of "SMT is becoming Persona", that whole thing is stupid and juvenile.
And I really like the overall plot with the polytheistic alliance and both ways God can be dealt with.
Honestly I think the core SMT fanbase got to a point where no game is able to please them. All games in the series except maybe 2 (and Strange Journey if we're counting that as mainline) have some big flaws in my opinion, with big positives offsetting them, but recent games just get torn apart for not being perfect in all aspects. IV A and V both suffer criticism to an unfair extent, when both games have way more good than bad in them. I remember IV also getting a lot of vitriol back in the day, but I guess it entered the nostalgia zone at some point or the people who make it a passtime to shit on anything past III moved on to newer targets.
I'm sure no matter how V Vengeance improves on or changes from V everyone will be shitting on it a few weeks after release.
YWHW'S universe is one of your favorite dungeons?! That dungeon made me want to quit the game. The mind-numbing music, the complete lack of anything interesting to look at, the fact that you can't recruit any demons?!
I had to lower the difficulty because I was physically unable to stomach the idea of grinding through that horrendous design-less dungeon any longer than absolutely necessary to get through.
Up until that point I loved Apocalypse. That dungeon made me loathe it.
I did the same thing! That dungeon was misery and by that time, I was kind of burned out from playing two SMT's back to back. So after a while, I just decided I wanted it to be over. So I swallowed my pride, switched to easy, and rushed to the end.
Anyone else who wanted a Divine Powers route?
also, clearly the bonds ending is encouraged in the gameplay sense, but the anarchy ending is encouraged if you want to say "screw all that friendship/persona series crap, I want to be metal." It's also the route long-time fans would prefer since it's more challenging and balanced, you could say. Akin to how even though the White/Nihilist ending in SMT IV is easier, it's clearly not as enjoyable (mainly by the fact that it holds less content, but also by the fact that the final battle was too easy + the tone of your navi/guide (Burroughs) ).
*glances around* I actually like the game's story just the way it is, "My friends are my power" type of stories are my jam. Also, Asahi is best girl.
*runs away*
I LOVE SMT 4 APOCALYPSE