Special thanks to: Kid Capes (Thumbnail): ruclips.net/user/KidCapes FilthyBlasphemer (Late-game PSX Footage): www.twitch.tv/filthyblasphemer BuffMaister (Visionary Item & Compendium GBA Footage): ruclips.net/user/BuffMaister Hope you guys enjoy this video, I know it was a very long time in the making. It was at times exceedingly difficult to work through, but inevitably I accomplished everything I wanted to with it and I'm glad to finally be at the end of this long road. Let me know what you want to see next - Giten Megami Tensei and Last Bible are still in the works. Also: if you want to play the Super Famicom version of Shin Megami Tensei in English, it's as easy as searching up a patch - don't forget the Orden fix to make the play experience a little smoother - it allows you to access your map easier. I should have mentioned this in the video but somehow it totally slipped my mind.
Good work, Marsh. You're the king of the retro SMT games. I don't know if you're just exceptionally skilled, or some kind of sick masochist. Probably both.
Oh, and I'd love to see your take on the Raidou Kuzunoha Devil Summoner games. Not a lot of people have done videos on them. Might be nice to play something from the 21st century.
@FRPD Marsh is great. I also recommend Macca if you don't follow him already. Marsh has even been on Macca's show for his SMT If... review. Nyarly and Fither are also really great. Guys like that really build the SMT community here in the US.
SMT 1: Teleport experiment goes wrong demons invade the world Doom: Teleport experiment goes wrong demons invade the world Half life: Teleport experiment goes wrong aliens invade the world Cod Zombies: Teleport experiment goes wrong, Zombies invade the world Moral of the story: Teleports are evil.
I think that, despite many "your parent just died in front of you" speeches in fiction, the "try not to feel too bad" and subsequent "what the hell is wrong with you man?" feels the most realistic ever.
@@ariannadravis3934 Oh, I know that, I was just making a joke because the comment above my first comment said they didn't care because she wasn't like Dojima or Coffee Daddy Sojiro.
mom: Could you buy me some coffee? SMT protagonist: *go ahead and buys a whole bunch of military equipment; bulletproof vest, army boots, survival gear...but doesn't forget the coffee*
Now that I think about it, the fact that pascal can be fused into Cerberus, Wich is WAAAAY higher level than you and still be used at that point is GENIUS. You see, in other smt games, when you try to recruit a demon higher level than you, they don't want to be commanded by someone weaker than them (Wich makes sense) and also they don't know him However, pascal DOES know you already, and also loves you, since he is such a good boy, so it doesn't matter that he's such a high level demon, he wants to follow your command. It's really cool, and now I wish other smt games did something like this
Smt 2 had this as well also smt if but that’s more of a side quest devil summoner sorta did this with kichiyoji fighting for you at the start of the game but that’s all like old smt weird because those games are way harder yet have better tutorials
My personal theory is that demons speak in the language that existed before the tower of babel was built, so they can talk to almost anyone And for Thor having perfect Japanese, I think he was just playing dumb before to keep up appearances
@@Napsta_13 I mean, it could also be that its more realistic to imagine the ambassador, were he not just Thor in a disguise, speaking broken Japanese. After all, they'd have to learn *enough* Japanese to be a proper ambassador to Japan, right?
When Chaos Hero fuses with one of your demons, it's not actually random. It is programmed to select your most powerful Chaos demon (assuming you have one in the party). If you don't have one, then it takes your strongest Neutral demon. If you only have Law demons, it will just take the strongest demon you have. Either way, fuck ATLUS for that.
@@tanyasellars7492 If you have no demons by that point you're playing the game wrong. My guess is it either forces you to recruit a demon or the game softlocks.
@@tanyasellars7492 Perhaps not impossible, but given how it encourages you to fuse Pascal to create Cerberus to get past the Echo Building boss, you would be grinding yourself stupid on the lowest tier enemies to gain enough levels to tank the boss's attacks. And it would only get worse from there.
SMT is frustrating because it already has an official English translation due to the IOS port but that’s been delisted and Atlus hasn’t bothered to release it anywhere else.
@@wildonionchase3934 you’d have thunk they’ed just dump it on the Eshop or something and wash their hands of the whole matter for good. It wouldn’t take much effort
Something I always find funny, is that Naoki/Chaos Hero has an MP5 as his starting equipment. He just walked into a mall ready to blast Ozawa away with a submachine gun in broad daylight, before he got caught up in the plot
Lol so considering any potential collateral damage from the attack, maybe Ozawa is the good guy, with him and his posse preventing a shooting at a mall? 😅
Something that I found in my multiple runs of SMT is that when you talk to the demons that are already on your team there is a small percentage that the demon gives you a weapon. That happened to me when I talked to an ork and he gave me a chainsaw, so the protagonist was walking around Shinjuku with a chainsaw and an MP5 Machine-Gun, what a great game.
First time I played through SMT I, at the very start of the game I bullied a Yakuza thug into giving me his gun. Only problem was he didn't give me any bullets, so I couldn't actually shoot anything with it. Even worse, I had the buggy translation patch that kept the antique shop from selling me anything. Trying to actually get bullets for my gun was like a quest in its own right. Eventually I got bullets, but some time around the nukes, I decided to just start fresh with a correctly-functioning patch so I could "borrow" the Heroine's Sleep Bullets.
I believe they do this is many of the games? In many of the games they'll be happy to see one of their buddies fighting alongside you and either leave you alone or give you an item.
"Maybe Pascal was built different." IIRC in either the PS1 port or the manga*, but Pascal is actually built different. He was a gift to your family by Nakajima* and it's implied that Pascal is at least quarter-demon or has been experimented on, since he understands human language clearly and can still function as Cerberus. EDIT: Manga, probably not a light novel. Nakajima, not Steven. Thanks for the clarifications.
That's cool but I'm pretty sure his loyalty to you has more to do with it than his demon heritage. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the diegetic reason we're given as to why we can't just fuse Satan at level 8 is because if the demon is stronger than us then they just simply won't obey, if not straight up just eat us.
General Goutou is actually based on a real person. That person is Yukio Mishima, famous writer, and also the planner and perpetrator of a nationalist coup that attempted to seize power in Japan in 1970. As for how serious this attempt at a coup was, or how much of it was Mishima acting out his wish to, in his own words, "die a beautiful death", is uncertain. Thorman is also a play on words not only in the obvious sense (Thor-man), but also in the sense that the katakana used to write his name is the exact same katakana that is used to write President Truman's name, who, as most probably know, was the president of the United States who approved the use of nuclear bombs against Japan in 1945.
The Thorman-Truman connection is coincidential, as Ryutaro Ito clarified in an interview. He really is just thor man. Also, the names' pronunciations aren't identical in Japanese, just quite similar (Thorman = tooruman; Truman = toruuman). Source below, although it may take some effort to get the link past RUclips's batshit shadowdeletion.
I kinda love Japan’s copyright law with SMT being an entirely separate franchise from Megami Tensei. Just imagine if a game developer was making some new licensed Star Wars game, and it comes out and all that. Then the devs are like, well, time to make our own game! Then they call it NEW Star Wars, use almost the same mechanics they did for the original game, and write a story extremely similar but not the exact same as the one for the Star Wars game, and publish that.
Tbh It’s more like what MG2 did to MGS where there’s foundation laid upon previous game released in different name but got refined and become super popular in the predecessor in different name
@@kratosgow342 yeah... But the MSX Metal Gear games are still 100% canon to MGS. SMT carried on only some concepts and otherwise more or less rebooted the series. Yeah, Atlus only tangentially connects their games, but there's enough stuff that you can connect most of the RPGs together on one big fustercluck of a timeline.
@@DeisFortuna nah. Any talks about a "timeline" in SMT is bullshit. Every game is its own. The apocalypse happens in every single game in Tokyo. Just Persona has a timeline. People like to connect a bunch of things to it too but it really doesn't matter in the slightest.
@@FredMaverik yeah, but then there's enough hints in the older persona games to have it be impossible for them to *not* take place in the Devil Summoner and SMTif universe as well. (Thanks, Kyouji Kuzunoha and SMTif FeMC.)
Suddenly, after Laozi’s speech ends at the end of the game, the scenery changes. You are surrounded by a hellscape and have no choice to go back down into the Cathedral. For some reason, though, you end up in a town. You're in Micon City on the eighth floor of Daedalus Tower, and your mission is to reach the bottom and kill the Minotaur.
@@MarshSMT after killing the Minotaur, you end up in a mine where students have to dig tunnels as a punishment for their laziness, this area is called the world of sloth
1:23:50 I think the Four Heavenly Kings being pushovers was a flavor decision; a sign that Tokyo is doomed. The fact that four legendary guardians are weak and easily dealt with is foreshadowing for the event that happens next.
@@aovaid Yeah, Bishamonten can literally be autobattled to death with no demons active at level 50. I was really surprised when I actually killed him, when I just set it to autobattle to die quicker.
@@aovaid The fact that they didn’t even give them a boss theme kinda makes me think it was deliberate. The whole game is easy, but the devas crumble way too fast even for smt 1 standards.
Important rule of thumb for SMT 1: If you are ever stuck in a new foreboding dungeon & don't have a clue as to how to progress it, check out the basement. ALWAYS explore the creepy basements!
25:00 this is shown quite well through the sort of zombies you encounter in random fights before the nuclear strike. At first they're just average zombies, then police zombies start to appear, until you find out that even military troops are getting zombified. After the nuke, decades later, the only sort of zombies you encounter are these malformed monstrosities made up of a fusion of like half a dozen zombie bodies which look half-melted, as if the bodies were ice cream left out in the sun.
Marsh: I’ll gladly play agonizing old school JRPGs on ancient hardware with archaic mechanics despite my own suffering Also Marsh: Looking up canon names is too hard lol
Technically he's playing on an emulator and not "ancient hardware". I could never beat smt 1&2 on actual hardware without save states because of how much RNG there is.
@@ProjectTony funny story about this, i actually did play the first one on real hardware before - after i removed the cartridge the console refused to boot up ever again even after taking it apart and cleaning everything
@@MarshSMT This is why emulation is important, for the sake of art preservation. You never know when old hardware will just crap out and leave you stuck.
I ended up playing the PSX version of SMT, and I learned two things: One, you can’t confront Ozawa if you have the Glancing Pot/Gushing Jar in your inventory and cannot start the Roppongi quest, so you have to drop it and it’ll respawn in the chest where you found it Two, if you’ve recruited a human like Gaian Suicide/Kamikaze Unit, *the Chaos Hero can fuse with that guy* “You’ll throw away your humanity” my ass.
Same thing happened to me. Was pretty salty I had to go back through Roppongi to find the Glancing Pot again, since I didn't remember where I found it. Also, which demon Chaos Hero fuses with seems to be predetermined? I had a save state from right before I entered the Heretic, and he picked Apsaras (kind of a funny choice) and then I reloaded and he picked Apsaras again. Tried a third time to confirm and yep, Apsaras again. I'm not sure if it's determined when he says he wants to fuse with a demon, or if he specifically goes for certain stats.
@@MegidolErin if you have no chaos demons, it will choose the strongest neutral demon. if you dont have any neutral demons, it will choose the strongest law demon.
@@StinkoBrownTV Do you know how it qualifies strongest? Because he picked Apsaras over Kushinada who is a higher level and has higher stats in everything except STR, and Unicorn who has higher STR
I love how Cerberus is one of the most iconic demon companion in older megaten series. It's always great to have such a high physical demon early on the game.
I really wish Atlus would rerelease these old SMT/Persona games in a collection or even seperately. They're quite an experience. I've played ROMs of this but I'd love to have a cartridge I could own officially.
I don't like to make assumptions, but to me it feels like Atlus USA is ashamed of the Super Famicom Megaten games, for some reason. Theoretically, they could be translated and released in the west RIGHT NOW, because they're on the Nintendo Online thingy in Japan.
take what they did with SMT1 and 2 on the GBA, translate both, and slap it on the Switch. No reason not to, and i think it’d sell decently. If they wanted to go crazy with it, redevelop SMT1/2 in the same engine 4A used, and put that on the Switch.
To be honest, this series has been growing into almost a Mainstream sized series by now. I mean, a 2 hours video of the most inaccessible entries gets 20.k views within a day. And with the explosion of a success that is SMT 5 we are almost for sure getting more ports/remakes soon.
Something that is almost universally left out for this game: In a few areas, the Echo building where you fight Doman just before losing Cerberus being one of them, you can find a fixed fight in a room. It is always a lone demon. In this case, it's in a dead-end hallway with three rooms in it, if memory serves. What you may not realize, is that there is a small chance that in that room, your fixed fight will be with...a Fiend. In the Echo building, I've only ever found one of the three: David, the neutral Fiend. It's tough, but David only uses status effect spells, so with Cerberus and a fodder demon or two with buffs (Goblin is excellent here) you can in fact slog through and kill him, netting your MC an insane early boost. There's even an equally rare chance for him to drop the single strongest Neutral weapon in the game. Same applies to the other two Fiends. Also, the fixed encounter fight rooms can be reset by saving and reloading the game normally. The fight's encounter chance is randomized per step, so anyone with an emulator can save state and test this to verify.
In the basement of shinjuku mall near where you meet the heroine/find the psychic there's another guaranteed encounter spot where you find pale rider, the fiend of law who can drop the angel trumpet, strongest law weapon in the game. I don't think you should try to farm any of those weapons because 1, they make the game too easy and 2, it's something like a 1/128 chance on a demon you only have a 1/128 chance of encountering. Can't say I know where the chaos fiend is, knowing the fixed encounter tiles it's probably pre-nuke like the other fiends.
iirc there are random Fiend battles in SMT1, 2, and If. I'm not sure about 1 or 2 but If has them at set tiles with a 1/256 chance of spawning each time you load your save. I remember panicing so badly when all of a sudden Gotou showed up at almost double my level and rekt my shit.
@@venomoussocks1017 I got suspicious of it being different from everything, and ran tests. There's a chance of getting a...how to put this. There's 3 different results you can get. The lone fodder Demon, we will call the Normal result. You can also get a Demon that doesn't really seem to show up anywhere else (Bigfoot is one of them. Yes, really) and we'll call that Rare. Then you have the Fiend roll, which is Unique. Just the fact that I did indeed get anything besides the Normal Demon prompted me to continue this for honestly longer than I should have, netting the result of finding David.
@@bonnie1020a You are correct. They're set locations with random chances, though if memory serves, there's a special dungeon in 2 where you can find them more regularly, though by then its more of a novelty than any real challenge.
19:08 Apparently the original text says something closer to the effect of "It's not your fault" or "There was nothing that you could have done". The SMT1 translation patch is infamously idiosyncratic. Some would say, though, that the awkward wording in such an unexpected and emotionally charged situation is quite realistic. I know I would be at a loss for words in Law Hero's situation.
So uhhhh I played SMT 2 but I don't remember where the game tells you that SMT 1 hero dies in a cave in. How did you know this in-game? Was it from a bar?
35:36 I noticed that Thorman's map would have America at the center if we could see the whole thing, since Japan puts itself in the center in their own maps, the background artist probably assumed that other counites put themselves in the middle as well. Also If we could see the rest, Asia would be split in half.
A note from the future, since I didn't see anyone else mention it: The PSX version got a full fan translation in late 2022 and is probably now the best way to play SMT1 in English, assuming you don't somehow have access to the iOS port.
@@paperluigi6132This is true, both the GBA and PSX ports are great and the translations are great too. The GBA port gets away with having the better translation since the script is... Well, the official deal. But the PSX has the better visuals and music
That timer before the nuke drops is honesty my favorite moment in any Megaten ever. It just made the world seemed much more bleak and hopeless and honestly I was pretty shocked at it the first time I played
There's something extremely unique about this game. It really is so different in style and mood to the current installments in the series. It's this gritty blend of 90s futurism, dystopian, and japanese folklore. It almost feels closer to something like Akira than the more recent games. It's great to see people making videos about it still :)
The opressive atmosphere from this game is something I've not seen replicated on any other Megaten game up to this day. It is one of the reasons why I love this game so much despite the large amount of negative/archaic aspects that surround it.
@@jjdilla9848 Yes. It might be a product of that game being a reimagining of SMT 1. I do love SMT 4 a lot, might as well call it my favorite game of the whole franchise, but despite all that I still stand by my original take on the original SMT being unmatched on the atmosphere and setting. Such a unique game imo
Not only that, but you're a school boy with a computer strapped to your wrist. You are this freaking nerd, and can threaten the Yakuza into giving up their guns.
@@KnightGamer724 I mean, if some nerd rolled up to me with a squad of unholy creatures not meant to be perceived by humans, I'd probably give him whatever he wants too.
"I'd like to see you get forced into an acid trip and see just how effective you are at demon combat." Oh no, I'm not falling for that one a third time.
This would be an interesting game for Atlus to put out on switch like how Nintendo did with Fire Emblem, or how Square has been releasing Dragon Quest games, or how Konami/capcom did the Castlevania/Megaman collections. Especially with SMTV coming out
SMT1, SMT2, and SMTif are on Switch via Japan's NSO Super Famicom app, but localizations would be nice Megami Tensei 1 is also available as a purchasable add on for a Namco collection since Namco were actually the original publishers. Again this is only in Japan though
I would prefer the Sega option tbh. $2 for any of their super old-school games on Steam and a variety of other platforms. $7 for Dreamcast and Sega Saturn games. Roms included for fans to take out and do with as they will (I have Chinese retro handhelds that would be able to play them and it would be cool to have legit Rom files.) Though for a collection I would want some insane quality of life features across a variety of games. Stuff like save states included in, ability to turn up or down certain modifiers (like Macca, Exp, or even encounter rate,) and even fast forward options. Include that with Megami Tensei 1&2, SMT 1&2, SMT If, + maybe Devil Children and I think that would be worth $30 despite being hundreds of hours worth of game time. That sh"t would make bank on Steam sales. That would probably be the best way to preserve them in a timeless way, makes them very playable even to more modern audiences and if it is on Windows it will always be playable with backwards compatability. It also essentially outdoes any emulator since most of those don't have options outside of things like "unlock max level" which isn't as enjoyable as 2x Exp to cut down grinding. I am not even likely to emulate these games currently because of stuff like the grind and encounter rate, but if you give me toggles then I would be way more interested.
fun fact since the game in the beginning takes place in 199X and the world gets flooded 30 years later that would put the date at about 2020. congrats we all survived the great flood.
The ending is exactly why I always choose Neutral endings. The others alignments are so extreme and so cartoon-ishly that is impossible to even consider them. That is honestly my problem with so many SMT games. The only game I think I found a Law/Chaos choice that at least had me pondering was Devil Survivor.
yeah, law is always the most insane over the top NWO conspiracy bullshit and chaos is literally objective shithole earth villain ideology, so the whole point is to just choose neutral. I guess in the original game it's trying to be commentary on the dual evils of Japanese nationalism and American imperialism, but in most of the other games the lack of meaningful choice is much less justifiable. it's especially bad in SJ, where law and chaos are each the worst versions of those alignments, and neutral just has you doing nothing and letting humanity wipe itself out eventually.
Yeah, the game kinda forces you to go out of your way to recruit/fuse more demons instead of letting you comfortably rely on the same ones for most of the game, it's pretty cool.
They didn't level up in any of the earlier games. I actually liked this system better, but that's just my opinion ofc. The more the game encourages you to actively fuse demons, the better IMO.
Thank you for this Shin Megami Tensei 1 review Marsh, I’m actually almost done with the game and am really hyped to watch this video to entirety once I finish!
@@rvfiasco I finished literally the day after this video is posted. Ngl I felt so sad in neutral route because I actually grew attached to the law and chaos heros and the ending was phenomenal for this old of a game.
Hey. Just wanted to thank you for making this video. It's one of my "comfort videos." I have horrible anxiety but even just the thought of watching this video helps me feel better. I hope you're well.
This game was unlike any other RPG for its time in the darkest way possible and still has a strong influence today... Instead of being a chosen hero destined to save the world medieval fashioned, in this game. you're just a simple high school kid whose life was led into a very dark path and was forced to decide what to align with; demons started invading Tokyo and have to survive alongside two other boys who he saved and becoming close friends with, ended up losing his mother to demons, had to fuse his loyal dog with a demon to gain an edge, involved in a conflict between two emerging cults, failed to prevent his home from being nuked to ruins, witnessing the remnants of humanity fighting each other in a ruined world and worst of all, in the Neutral route, was forced to kill both of his two close friends who fought alongside him since the beginning and made enemies with the two cults for the rest of his life, all alone with just his partner Yuka and his small team of demons standing ontop of the corpses of those they had to kill to achieve a world of Balance between Law and Chaos...
It's not serious but I kinda don't like how final fantasy 6 gets all the praise for being the game where you fail to save the world and have to deal woth the aftermath when this is literally right there
No marketing compared to rich Squaresoft, their games overshadowed basically every JRPG in 90's, especially in NES/SNES era. Atlus was very small company in 90's, well still is, and SMT still did not recaived a good advertising in West, except maybe SMT V (and that was only because of Nintendo money, because Sega sucks).
@@VentrexTheXVthSeries? I don't think there is a direct sequel of FF 6 or even games set in the same world. Magic was pretty much lost even at the start of the game with just a few people having the ability to use it.
The encounter with the beggar after the nuke drop is easily the best part of the game for me. Smt1 is pretty smt2 but not as good, but that moment always felt really cool to me
@@kichiroumitsurugi4363 umm isnt there a soul in tokyo that tells yuo that he dreamed the world was round and in the conception theres a soul that says the world actually became inside out round and youre a demon now?¿
yes, i will watch a 2 hour youtube video of a nearly 30 year old game i've already played instead of spending my time doing literally anything else. thanks for the good content as always
Just updating you. This is probably the multi hundredth time I’ve watched this. This OST paired with your voice and such a nut job plot is too good to not keep coming back to.
One feature the SegaCD version introduced that I really wanted to try out is the reworked Pascal. Not only he gets a unique design, Pascal gets way stronger when you find him guarding the bridge to make him end-game viable.
I've had Shin Megami Tensei (GB version) on my phone for years. I play an hour every night before I fall asleep and when I finish a playthrough, I just start another. The megaten games have brought me tons of joy and frustration. Great channel, subbed!
1:27:30 It's too bad you didn't do it, the endgame sidequest with Masakados was very fun, he gives you a bit of extra lore on the world and his dungeon was tricky, and you get his sword and you can go around the world to collect all his armor pieces. It's fun to see because Masakados used to be an important lore NPC in many of the old games, like in MT2, Nocturne, and SMT4.... EDIT: I always see players do the Neutral route because it's the one with the most content, but now I'm genuinely curious on how the plot points differ on Law and Chaos routes, like route exclusive demons like Lucifer you mentioned. EDIT2: Yep, this game will be easy after playing SMT: If, it's people who had the same response you did back then that made the developers make SMT: If much harder. SMT: If ended up being so hard that people complained, then when they made Devil Summoner on the Saturn they wanted to make it more easy and approachable to newcomers.
Chaos route lets you get Beelzebub, who is the best demon in the game. A number of boss demons'll join the team if you go law or chaos and you basically don't need to use fusion at all later on in the game. ...that's probably the reason why the sega cd port calls you a scrub if you don't go neutral
I love these cozy sort of guided tours through video games, instead of being a straight up playthough, just a highly edited highlight reel showing the story and explaining how the game plays while also providing tips for those who want to play the game themselves. This vid got randomly recommended to me a few months ago and started me down the ATLUS rabbithole that has led me to playing persona 3 reload with plans to play as many more of their games that i can get my hands on. Ive already watched this video 3 times waiting for your vid on SMT2, and will probably watch it another 50 times at least before i get bored of it. Absolutely phenomenal video man.
This video does not disappoint. I love this game, played it about 3 times! Fun fact: Bufu and Zio have a 95% chance of doing what they do (freeze or shock) in this game. this is broken ofc ,and in smt 2 this was changed to 5% , in spinoffs & onward, 0%. Good advice about auto and encounters for readers: Try to beat every new demon you see legit once. In every new area there will be at least one demon in a random encounter that WILL beat your ass or leave you with one hell of a mark. Always loved the Lilith side plot and the god alias. Imagine being there when Thor and Lucifer are coming up with the names just lmao. As for Lilith, her side plot is basically being get you to notice her and love her. Which is hilarious, in fact iirc she doesn't die at the final fight, she just goes and cries. When I first played it I expected that bit to go somewhere but lol
Shock/Freeze chance was still present in P3, as well as Nocturne, missed out on the 2D SMT titles bar SH remake, missed out on P4, and came back in P5 with 25% odds
01:29:42 The cool aspect about this is how it is related to Hindu mythology. Vishnu's avatar Raam had fought against demon king Ravan (pronounced Raa-one) and his son Meghnad, also known as Indrajit in the epic Ramayana. Using this to set the dynamic between Law and Chaos conflict at this juncture in the game shows the research game makers did in mythologies besides Abrahamic one.
The more i learn about the first megami tensei games, i feel like a new game with the old school style (the old computers and tech, with the big cables and makeshift computer armor)
Oh man, the first "proper" game in this series even though the MTII dna is still very strong in this entry until they went back to it after the Devil Summoner series and enriched the gameplay and Kaneko introduced his legendary style. But I'm still a sucker for the old Kaneko, the cyberpunk cool guy vibe, the 80s rebel that used to animate for Saint Seiya and wanted to make art and games about the game versions of 80's underground manly manga. It's just so perfect and so colourful that it perfectly transitioned to his 90s era of nightlife punk aesthetic seen in Devil Summoner, without losing a beat. As a final note of his art before moving on, this style is what I really made me love the old SMT games. They bring out so much personality from the humans and show such expressive style even when clad in 5 tonnes of clunky iron, while his distinct style is perfect for demons, for showing them for what they are instead of wearing on their sleeve their obvious mecha and tokusatsu roots that Kaneko winks at, compared to the more ope and enthusiastic Doi. In my perfect SMT game, every human would look like the MTII and SMT1 characters but the demons(and Demi-Fiend, can't leave him out) would look likeir most recognizable Kaneko art from the SMT remakes and SMT3, and beyond. If you ever find the manual for the SNES version of SMTI or the pre-PSX versions, check them out, the armour design shown in the manual and how they look on the main character are fantastic and give you great context for the inspirations of the game, with a very cheeky nod to Dragon Quest of all things, and how the music synergizes with these nods and the visuals(or at least the manual's artwork given the power of the SNES versus what Atlus wanted to show at the time) and why its atmosphere is still unmatched when it comes to technodemonic apocalypse scenarios. As you mentioned previously, if MTI and II are the roots then SMTI is the trunk and that trunk definitely takes more hints from MTII, which makes sense given it was Atlus' baby and not entirely beholden to the books. In fact, going in, SMTI often feels like a remake of MTII, winking its eye at every turn, reminding you of similar tropes and characters throughout the way, as if the creators are directly telling the player that the series has been reborn, reincarnated...a new reincarnation of the series. Better yet, a "true series reincarnation" if you feel cheeky. I gotta admire you for your restraint about no jokes regarding Micon City being the first thing we see, Nakajima wouldn't be proud. But I guess Charlie from MT will have to do in this case, ready to betray you like in MTII. As for naming the Chaos Hero "Naoki", either it's deliberate or a slip, giving that dude the Demi-Fiend's "canon" name. Either way, it's gonna make for a hilarious journey ahead, as you explore the game with what are eseentially proto-Jonathan and proto-Walter while flirting with proto-Isabeau, in the ever-lasting quest to kill the current president of the USA in order to vote for Obama's third term as per SMTIV tradition. The funny thing is, unlike any other SMT game, SMT1 is the only game to have definitive, very specific names of all the characters and their personalities in the manual actually, which is interesting. There names as well, "Kazuya", "Yuka", "Takeshi" for law and "Yuji" for chaos almost seem comical given who they reference, as if Atlus is winking at the kids out there to find out about "their dad's tv shows" except without the net or demons. Now regarding Stephen, who can forget that. The very first an internet savvy protagonist is born in videogames...by receiveing spam mail from famous phycisist Stephen Hawking, trolling him about demons. Seems Legit : gcdn.pbrd.co/images/hKuNgnz6VRDi.jpg?o=1 And the first battle theme is still banging to this day, Tsukasa Masuko ust slays it with his compositions and rocking tunes. His MTII and SMTI osts are easily the highlights of his Atlus tenure but given that we've now entered the 90s, his composition has reached the peak of the bit-sized system, experimenting with all inds of ways to make those sounds be interesting and evoke a sense of adrenaline in the user which was rare at the time and only rivaled by the SEGA system's greatest music hits in that time period, with the Technosoft developed ThunderForce series on the Genesis / Mega Drive. It's as if at the time, Masuko tried to outdo Thunderforce III with his SMTI tracks before being reigned in by his superiors to keep in line with the game's themes. It's too bad the ports never reached the levels of the SNES version, especially when the PSX changed composers and thus changed parts of the OST. Going back to the story, the hero's mother being eaten and having the player first experiencing such a thing must have been gut wrenching back then. Back then it wasn't common for that kind of thing to happen in stories but one mainstream manga at the time that dared to go there was, surpisingly, a shounen series about an alien invasion that turned people into human eating demons for lack of a better word, that was influenced greatly by Devilman. And in that manga, the protagonist's mother actually is eaten in a gruesome way and goes to kill the protagonist, prompting his "transformation" to the hero of the story. I assume that Atlus were not only aware of it but also fans of that manga. For your information, it was Kiseijuu / Parasyte and as luck would have it, the author of Kiseijuu would later do actually write a story in a Devilman anthology. For the Douma boss, it's interesting how he's based on Ahiya Douman but there's no Abe no Seimei in this game and AFAIK he wouldn't exist in the series before Persona 2. Yet other famous samurai do make their appearance in this famous game, Masakado for one and I think Yoshitsune as well? So it's kinda weird how Seimei is left out, especially considering how easily Atlus could have spun their tale as "Chaos Douman vs Law Seimei" or something. Then again, considering how the Law Hero ends up, maybe the game would have felt a bit bloated with two Seimei figures and the talkitive of the two also doubling as a Pope Jesus kind of figure. "I know I said the encounter rate was high before but here it really feels ridiculous, like the guy who was setting the percentage fell asleep on his keyboard and added a few extra zeros" **laughs in Cozy Okada** Of all the crazy things in this game, Alice's sidequest is the weirdest thing of all : you have Alice of Alice in WOnderland, being looked after by the Red Ribbon Army's Commander Red and Commander Black and Commander Black is secretely fucking Mumm-ra. I know it's not the craziest thing in the series, considering Spawn is the deity Zaou-Gongen and En-no-Ozuno cosplays as Jesus Christ in SMT I and IV Apocalypse but this was completely out of left field. Then again, this game throws you into a Robocop gauntlet and has you speedrun the Terminator gauntlet while Kaneko later designed evil Bumblebee as a demon, so there's that. 1:14:00 What? Marsh, how can you say that? How can you accuse Robert DeNiro practising his 1987 movie role, Louis Cyphre from Angel Heart, of being a demon? You're gonna hurt his feelings. 1:26:00 I was waiting for you to talk about the Sword Fusion system an the track you chose is not only rocking, it's fitting for such a metal system for the series, perfect for the magic-less male characters that act as warriors to the female characters wizard / priest archetype and it's a shame it wasn't in more games beyon the SMT I, II, the Devil Summoners and just Raidou Kuzunoha's. If we could get the game to ever be remade with a way to view the equipment you equip, the swords and armour designs would be sick, especially if the swords created in Sword fusion are as cool as they seem in the manual. Lastly, thank you for this behemoth of a review for this certified classic. It's nice to see people outside of the japanese dungeon crawler community revisiting these old games and having formatted like an experience with this semi-walkthrough tone of this video. Keep up the good work like always Marsh.
@@fervcorsica3358 You're right, Yuji's law and Takeshi's chaos in the manual. I must have mixed them up, considering Law Hero's other names are "Toshiki" and "Yoshio".
8:37 Apparently this segment played differently in JP version: the man transformed into the demon monkey then escaped .. and the police arrested you because you witnessed it as well as the law hero. Actually that’s the police objective: arrest whoever encountered or witnessed a demon. Maybe I severely misunderstood the script though.
Quick tip for people playing: recruiting law or chaos demons will tilt your alignment by a point to their respective side, same goes for using law and chaos shops and healing facilities.
Finished my chaos playthrough of the gba port and while there’s a couple neat things added and changed there is nothing that’ll top how one of the first vision quest items reveals that Pascal was given to the hero by their next door neighbor NAKAJIMA. The goat lives on.
I always liked how insane technology logic was in the first 2 SMTs, like: Yeah, you can summon demons from your computer or how it was just some programmer who hacked demons into the world.
1:00 "or you just found out about these games yesterday" That, exactly that, I watched Good Vibes Gaming describe all 50+ games by Atlus yesterday before this beautiful video. Though I've played Persona now, this is like opening up a whole familiar new world.
Congratulations for uploading this video, SMT 1 is a game that always interested me and perhaps it's time to give it a try after finishing Devil Summoner and Giten
Marsh, I just want to say thank you. I’ve binged all of your long form SMT content and it’s been great to help me fall asleep, and I love all of your insight into these old/obscure games that I would probably never play myself. It’s so cool to see how this series has developed over time and your work is huge in preservation of these titles. So here I am again, back at the SMT video where I started. Good night.
This has been stated before on many video game factoid accounts, but Tokyo Destinyland originally contained two unused sprites that were basically demonic versions of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. They would then be replaced with different sprites called Zombie Mouse and Demon Duck in the PC-Engine release, and would show up wherever disembodied voices would be heard throughout Tokyo Destinyland in the Super Famicom version previously. (Really detailed fact, I know. I just really like the SMT series).
SMT was my first Megaten game, and I loved it. It all came down to the atmosphere. However, I have a hard time going back to it now. The random encounter rate is very high, which makes the flow of the game too slow, imo. That said, I recommend everyone new to the SMT series to start with SMT. Seeing the series evolve is fascinating, and I believe it's easier to work your way forward than backward. The PSX version added an Expert mode. I die more frequently due to the enemies greater damage output. It makes dungeons more tense, and sometimes it can feel like a real struggle for survival. Check it out. Lastly, the chaos ending is the best one. Great video, Marsh. Thank you for your perspective.
I just thought of something. In Shin Megami Tensei I, a teleportation experiment goes wrong, and demons invade the world. The majority of the game takes place in a first-person perspective, with a map screen that is from a bird's-eye perpective. In Doom, a teleportation experiment goes wrong, and demons invade the world. Most of the game takes place in a first-person perspective, with a map screen that is from a bird's-eye perspective. SMT I is just JRPG Doom, or rather, Doom is just American FPS SMT I.
Holy hell, The first MegaTen. I thought you would focus on only the more obscure titles of the series, but, I'm excited to see you cover this. The game, despite kicking off a franchise that I've only recently gotten into, seems pretty unapproachable, hence my excitement. Your videos are always a joy to watch, so, thank you!
During my first playthrough of SMT 1 I apparently "confused" the game for a bit since when I got to the Cathedral the game kinda didn't know whether I was neutral or law (and the 4 guardians but I'll get to that) apparently and the text started being a weird mix of Neutral and Law text. Apparently when I was heading towards the cathedral I was law aligned and on the way to that place I killed a few demons which actually does gives a very very slight boost to the chaos alignment and it was enough to put me in between Neutral and Law. It was kinda funny. I also managed to kind of skip some of the 4 guardians quest. I did half of it unconsciously before reaching the cathedral. Tokyo flooded even though 2 of them were still alive and the game didn't let me enter Masakado's mansion to get his sword or somethin but the game still let me get the neutral ending which was strange. Fantastic video btw!
@@Noelis Estoma can be gotten fairly early, surprisingly. The Chaos Hero learns it as one of his later spells, so just dump all of his points into Magic and you'll get it ASAP.
Love this game, it was a real treasure moving through that first half. It's exactly like you said, the atmosphere is just so good! The only thing I had to say was that I was eager to see the reaction to the intro, but I can understand why you'd jump right into the game. Just love the way it set up the atmosphere of not just the game, but the series in general. That mix of unsettling and mysterious, and the way it really shows the mix of technology and spiritualism just sparks something for me.
I gotta say, I love how far you've come as a SMT enthusiast, you really have gone in-depth with these vids and I absolutely adore your deep dives into the less known/focuses on SMT titles. Inspiring you came from such humble origins as silly lil SMT4 and SMTA meme vids....
I've never played any mainline SMT games, heck I don't even know anything about the franchise beyond that they exist and deal with gods and demons. Probably just finished Persona 4 when I was younger. But still, the story and atmosphere of these games combined with your absolutely perfect narration made this video one hell of an experience. I can't even imagine the sheer amount of effort that went into this video, which was outshone by your love for this franchise. Thank you. The past four nights of watching this and falling asleep, then dialing back the video a bit till I remembered and continuing the next night was a lot of fun.
You've quickly become a channel I binge and even sleep to at night when I sleep! I've been a smt fan since playing nocturne years ago and absolutely loving it. It's a shame how little coverage and videos there are on a lot of the pre nocturne megaten games. I'm glad that there's fan translations coming out for these games and allows me a chance to play these games without needing to learn a whole new language. And your videos only make me more interested in trying them!
ive seen hours and hours of long critiques of games and I just wanna say you killed it man, some of the best around and i mean it, dedications and passion just flow and you did an amazing job.
![BabyChiefDoit - Too Slow (feat. STAR BANDZ) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/zayaxws7RPg/mqdefault.jpg)
Special thanks to:
Kid Capes (Thumbnail): ruclips.net/user/KidCapes
FilthyBlasphemer (Late-game PSX Footage): www.twitch.tv/filthyblasphemer
BuffMaister (Visionary Item & Compendium GBA Footage): ruclips.net/user/BuffMaister
Hope you guys enjoy this video, I know it was a very long time in the making. It was at times exceedingly difficult to work through, but inevitably I accomplished everything I wanted to with it and I'm glad to finally be at the end of this long road. Let me know what you want to see next - Giten Megami Tensei and Last Bible are still in the works.
Also: if you want to play the Super Famicom version of Shin Megami Tensei in English, it's as easy as searching up a patch - don't forget the Orden fix to make the play experience a little smoother - it allows you to access your map easier. I should have mentioned this in the video but somehow it totally slipped my mind.
Majin Tensei has little to no info out there. It would be cool to see. Or that one adult PC Megami Tensei game.
Good work, Marsh. You're the king of the retro SMT games. I don't know if you're just exceptionally skilled, or some kind of sick masochist. Probably both.
Oh, and I'd love to see your take on the Raidou Kuzunoha Devil Summoner games. Not a lot of people have done videos on them. Might be nice to play something from the 21st century.
@Marsh, out of curiocity can you provide an ost list for the video? Thanks man.
@FRPD Marsh is great. I also recommend Macca if you don't follow him already. Marsh has even been on Macca's show for his SMT If... review. Nyarly and Fither are also really great. Guys like that really build the SMT community here in the US.
SMT 1: Teleport experiment goes wrong demons invade the world
Doom: Teleport experiment goes wrong demons invade the world
Half life: Teleport experiment goes wrong aliens invade the world
Cod Zombies: Teleport experiment goes wrong, Zombies invade the world
Moral of the story: Teleports are evil.
Didn't The Fly teach us ANYTHING?!?!
...
*Teleports*
Team fortress 2 : bread invades the world
What about portals though?! 😅
@@MrBroken030 if anything, they’re worse.
I think that, despite many "your parent just died in front of you" speeches in fiction, the "try not to feel too bad" and subsequent "what the hell is wrong with you man?" feels the most realistic ever.
I didnt feel shit for her
Then again she wasnt dojima or sojiro:)
@@Mr3DLC Bruh, that's YOUR mom. You have to feel at least some ounce of grief for her.
true
@@lane3398 We didn't get enough time to know her, also she's the mc's mum, not your real mum, so y'know..not really? More of a:
"Damn..anyway" moment
@@ariannadravis3934 Oh, I know that, I was just making a joke because the comment above my first comment said they didn't care because she wasn't like Dojima or Coffee Daddy Sojiro.
mom: Could you buy me some coffee?
SMT protagonist: *go ahead and buys a whole bunch of military equipment; bulletproof vest, army boots, survival gear...but doesn't forget the coffee*
Sounds like a typical Starbucks run to me
That's murican stuff not Japanese
For some reason I really like the idea of 3 teenage delinquents buying a bunch of guns and then roaming the neighborhood with them.
*SMT protag with a whole bunch of military equipment, guns, sword bulletproof vest and the coffee*
Mother: whatcha got there?
SMT protag: a coffee
@@GoodLosertjo I desperately need someone to make this comment into the genuine Spencer with an ostrich meme
Now that I think about it, the fact that pascal can be fused into Cerberus, Wich is WAAAAY higher level than you and still be used at that point is GENIUS.
You see, in other smt games, when you try to recruit a demon higher level than you, they don't want to be commanded by someone weaker than them (Wich makes sense) and also they don't know him
However, pascal DOES know you already, and also loves you, since he is such a good boy, so it doesn't matter that he's such a high level demon, he wants to follow your command.
It's really cool, and now I wish other smt games did something like this
I agree, but there would be complaints from animal lovers.
.
Cough, PETA, cough.
.
.
@@KLegyyn
"PETA"
"Animal Lover"
Pick one
@@spademagna2672 True, PETA are some of the cruelest people out there when it comes to animals
Smt 2 had this as well also smt if but that’s more of a side quest devil summoner sorta did this with kichiyoji fighting for you at the start of the game but that’s all like old smt weird because those games are way harder yet have better tutorials
Fun fact in some rereleases Pascal was a gift from Nakajima to the protagonists family.
I love how somehow the American Ambassador to Japan speaks broken Japanese, but when he is revealed as Norse Deity Thor, his Japanese is perfect.
My personal theory is that demons speak in the language that existed before the tower of babel was built, so they can talk to almost anyone
And for Thor having perfect Japanese, I think he was just playing dumb before to keep up appearances
@@Napsta_13
I mean, it could also be that its more realistic to imagine the ambassador, were he not just Thor in a disguise, speaking broken Japanese. After all, they'd have to learn *enough* Japanese to be a proper ambassador to Japan, right?
@@ramenbomberdeluxe4958 you'd be surprised
@@ramenbomberdeluxe4958hahaahahah 😅
Maybe it's that he starts speaking "demon" and the COMP translates for you?
When Chaos Hero fuses with one of your demons, it's not actually random. It is programmed to select your most powerful Chaos demon (assuming you have one in the party). If you don't have one, then it takes your strongest Neutral demon. If you only have Law demons, it will just take the strongest demon you have. Either way, fuck ATLUS for that.
It can be hilarious if he fuses with a fairy type demon because then you can make meta bitchboi jokes at his expense.
What happens if you have no demons?
@@tanyasellars7492 If you have no demons by that point you're playing the game wrong. My guess is it either forces you to recruit a demon or the game softlocks.
@@Anomaly188 so would that make a demonless run of smt 1 impossible?
@@tanyasellars7492 Perhaps not impossible, but given how it encourages you to fuse Pascal to create Cerberus to get past the Echo Building boss, you would be grinding yourself stupid on the lowest tier enemies to gain enough levels to tank the boss's attacks. And it would only get worse from there.
marsh in the studio be like: “yea this is a movie-length analysis on an obscure japanese exclusive game, drop it.”
SMT is frustrating because it already has an official English translation due to the IOS port but that’s been delisted and Atlus hasn’t bothered to release it anywhere else.
@@wildonionchase3934 you’d have thunk they’ed just dump it on the Eshop or something and wash their hands of the whole matter for good. It wouldn’t take much effort
Yea, that's why we here 🙏
hahahaha
@DB-Kaz Yeah it’s my preferred version to play at this point
"Getting attached to your party because of the names you give them." Ah yes, my deep connections to Twink, the law hero and Sexman, the chaos chad.
Especially after naming myself Bestsexman
I named mine Sonic and Shadow since Megaten is just a poor man's "Shadow the hedgehog" (2005)
I named them Aniki and Bitchboi.
@@alexcruzvillagran311 Get out, heretic.
oh so its just like iv
Something I always find funny, is that Naoki/Chaos Hero has an MP5 as his starting equipment. He just walked into a mall ready to blast Ozawa away with a submachine gun in broad daylight, before he got caught up in the plot
Lol so considering any potential collateral damage from the attack, maybe Ozawa is the good guy, with him and his posse preventing a shooting at a mall? 😅
Man showed up with a gun to knife fight and still got his ass beat.
@@shawnlee7739 He does look like he's gonna tell you not to come to school tomorrow, so probably
Wait a minute this game doesn't take place in america
@@johnfrancis89 Even more ironic considering that said gun is for crowd clearing.
Something that I found in my multiple runs of SMT is that when you talk to the demons that are already on your team there is a small percentage that the demon gives you a weapon. That happened to me when I talked to an ork and he gave me a chainsaw, so the protagonist was walking around Shinjuku with a chainsaw and an MP5 Machine-Gun, what a great game.
You sure that Ork wasn’t from Warhammer 40,000?
First time I played through SMT I, at the very start of the game I bullied a Yakuza thug into giving me his gun. Only problem was he didn't give me any bullets, so I couldn't actually shoot anything with it. Even worse, I had the buggy translation patch that kept the antique shop from selling me anything. Trying to actually get bullets for my gun was like a quest in its own right. Eventually I got bullets, but some time around the nukes, I decided to just start fresh with a correctly-functioning patch so I could "borrow" the Heroine's Sleep Bullets.
Groovy.
I believe they do this is many of the games? In many of the games they'll be happy to see one of their buddies fighting alongside you and either leave you alone or give you an item.
@@robinmattheussen2395Yep that's correct, but usually they don't give out weapons, but money or healing items.
Fantastic work as always. Looking forward to the Last Bible video.
The best Slum Marlboro Tabernacle game
I heard a vine boom when I read this comment
I thought you was talking about black bible lol
@@proxyzero2485 that would be a very different video
It’s Chargeman Ken everyone!
"Maybe Pascal was built different."
IIRC in either the PS1 port or the manga*, but Pascal is actually built different. He was a gift to your family by Nakajima* and it's implied that Pascal is at least quarter-demon or has been experimented on, since he understands human language clearly and can still function as Cerberus.
EDIT: Manga, probably not a light novel.
Nakajima, not Steven. Thanks for the clarifications.
It's implied in the manga as well.
in the GBA Visionary Quest it was a gift from Mr.Nakajima, which might be Akemi Nakajima
@@marcvano6335 That sexy bastard Akemi Nakajima has done it again.
Damn I wish I could get gifted a demon dog by a guy that produces demon summoning software
That's cool but I'm pretty sure his loyalty to you has more to do with it than his demon heritage. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the diegetic reason we're given as to why we can't just fuse Satan at level 8 is because if the demon is stronger than us then they just simply won't obey, if not straight up just eat us.
General Goutou is actually based on a real person. That person is Yukio Mishima, famous writer, and also the planner and perpetrator of a nationalist coup that attempted to seize power in Japan in 1970. As for how serious this attempt at a coup was, or how much of it was Mishima acting out his wish to, in his own words, "die a beautiful death", is uncertain.
Thorman is also a play on words not only in the obvious sense (Thor-man), but also in the sense that the katakana used to write his name is the exact same katakana that is used to write President Truman's name, who, as most probably know, was the president of the United States who approved the use of nuclear bombs against Japan in 1945.
The Thorman-Truman connection is coincidential, as Ryutaro Ito clarified in an interview. He really is just thor man. Also, the names' pronunciations aren't identical in Japanese, just quite similar (Thorman = tooruman; Truman = toruuman).
Source below, although it may take some effort to get the link past RUclips's batshit shadowdeletion.
Fuck it, nevermind. There's an r/megaten post explaining this, those who're curious can look it up. Thanks, Susan.
@@notbaldfrost I was not aware of the interview. Thank you for clarifying that. I will take a look at the post one of these days.
@@notbaldfrost Yeah I was gonna say I don’t see how トルっマン was supposed to represent “Thorman”
nice little cultural reference right there
"can't we just agree things are way passed fucked and get some coffee or something?" Marsh, the true neutral rep.
nice pfp
I kinda love Japan’s copyright law with SMT being an entirely separate franchise from Megami Tensei.
Just imagine if a game developer was making some new licensed Star Wars game, and it comes out and all that. Then the devs are like, well, time to make our own game! Then they call it NEW Star Wars, use almost the same mechanics they did for the original game, and write a story extremely similar but not the exact same as the one for the Star Wars game, and publish that.
Tbh It’s more like what MG2 did to MGS where there’s foundation laid upon previous game released in different name but got refined and become super popular in the predecessor in different name
@@kratosgow342 yeah... But the MSX Metal Gear games are still 100% canon to MGS. SMT carried on only some concepts and otherwise more or less rebooted the series.
Yeah, Atlus only tangentially connects their games, but there's enough stuff that you can connect most of the RPGs together on one big fustercluck of a timeline.
Mass Effect
@@DeisFortuna nah. Any talks about a "timeline" in SMT is bullshit. Every game is its own. The apocalypse happens in every single game in Tokyo. Just Persona has a timeline. People like to connect a bunch of things to it too but it really doesn't matter in the slightest.
@@FredMaverik yeah, but then there's enough hints in the older persona games to have it be impossible for them to *not* take place in the Devil Summoner and SMTif universe as well. (Thanks, Kyouji Kuzunoha and SMTif FeMC.)
Suddenly, after Laozi’s speech ends at the end of the game, the scenery changes. You are surrounded by a hellscape and have no choice to go back down into the Cathedral. For some reason, though, you end up in a town.
You're in Micon City on the eighth floor of Daedalus Tower, and your mission is to reach the bottom and kill the Minotaur.
i wish
@@MarshSMT stockholm syndrome has fully set in i see
"Aw shit. Here we go again..."
kyuuyaku apologists assemble
@@MarshSMT after killing the Minotaur, you end up in a mine where students have to dig tunnels as a punishment for their laziness, this area is called the world of sloth
1:23:50 I think the Four Heavenly Kings being pushovers was a flavor decision; a sign that Tokyo is doomed. The fact that four legendary guardians are weak and easily dealt with is foreshadowing for the event that happens next.
Nah, it's just shitty balancing. Everything is a pushover in this game.
@@aovaid Yeah, Bishamonten can literally be autobattled to death with no demons active at level 50. I was really surprised when I actually killed him, when I just set it to autobattle to die quicker.
@@aovaid The fact that they didn’t even give them a boss theme kinda makes me think it was deliberate. The whole game is easy, but the devas crumble way too fast even for smt 1 standards.
The mental image of the player character tearing through post-nuclear Tokyo with an full-sized .50-cal machinegun is glorious.
Pretty sure folks call that the American education system.
Gunning down prekas and pixies left and right while mounted on the back of cerberus
sort of like "The Buster" from Siren 1
Pretty sure game refered to BAR LMG and not the Heavy machinegun mounted on armored cars and shit
@@logicaloverdrive8197cool it on the anti fae remarks
Important rule of thumb for SMT 1: If you are ever stuck in a new foreboding dungeon & don't have a clue as to how to progress it, check out the basement. ALWAYS explore the creepy basements!
What a great thing to watch in lead up to SMT5 later today. Great timing
Yeah I’m watching this while waiting for smtv to download
Kenny AND Hiding-kun wow, it’s like my hobbies and taste in content are in correlation some how?!?
25:00 this is shown quite well through the sort of zombies you encounter in random fights before the nuclear strike. At first they're just average zombies, then police zombies start to appear, until you find out that even military troops are getting zombified.
After the nuke, decades later, the only sort of zombies you encounter are these malformed monstrosities made up of a fusion of like half a dozen zombie bodies which look half-melted, as if the bodies were ice cream left out in the sun.
Marsh: I’ll gladly play agonizing old school JRPGs on ancient hardware with archaic mechanics despite my own suffering
Also Marsh: Looking up canon names is too hard lol
it's old but it's still really fun and enjoyable aside from one or two dungeons
Technically he's playing on an emulator and not "ancient hardware". I could never beat smt 1&2 on actual hardware without save states because of how much RNG there is.
@@ProjectTony funny story about this, i actually did play the first one on real hardware before - after i removed the cartridge the console refused to boot up ever again even after taking it apart and cleaning everything
@@MarshSMT now thats insane, its almost like the game had a spirit of its own who wanted to fuck with you...must be all the nut grabbing you do
@@MarshSMT This is why emulation is important, for the sake of art preservation. You never know when old hardware will just crap out and leave you stuck.
So it's already that time of the day when Marsh breaks in your house with a strange laptop and firearms to convince you to fuse your dog with a Pixie
I ended up playing the PSX version of SMT, and I learned two things:
One, you can’t confront Ozawa if you have the Glancing Pot/Gushing Jar in your inventory and cannot start the Roppongi quest, so you have to drop it and it’ll respawn in the chest where you found it
Two, if you’ve recruited a human like Gaian Suicide/Kamikaze Unit, *the Chaos Hero can fuse with that guy*
“You’ll throw away your humanity” my ass.
Same thing happened to me. Was pretty salty I had to go back through Roppongi to find the Glancing Pot again, since I didn't remember where I found it.
Also, which demon Chaos Hero fuses with seems to be predetermined? I had a save state from right before I entered the Heretic, and he picked Apsaras (kind of a funny choice) and then I reloaded and he picked Apsaras again. Tried a third time to confirm and yep, Apsaras again. I'm not sure if it's determined when he says he wants to fuse with a demon, or if he specifically goes for certain stats.
@@MegidolErin He always picks the highest leveled chaos aligned demon in your party.
@@StinkoBrownTV I only had law demons
@@MegidolErin if you have no chaos demons, it will choose the strongest neutral demon. if you dont have any neutral demons, it will choose the strongest law demon.
@@StinkoBrownTV Do you know how it qualifies strongest? Because he picked Apsaras over Kushinada who is a higher level and has higher stats in everything except STR, and Unicorn who has higher STR
I love how Cerberus is one of the most iconic demon companion in older megaten series. It's always great to have such a high physical demon early on the game.
"PASCAL THE DOG IS HERE"
Truly a masterpiece
BOW BOW
Every video game is made automatically better by the presence of a Good Boy.
Time stamp?
@@lugatina 6:31
Best boi ever.
I really wish Atlus would rerelease these old SMT/Persona games in a collection or even seperately. They're quite an experience. I've played ROMs of this but I'd love to have a cartridge I could own officially.
I don't like to make assumptions, but to me it feels like Atlus USA is ashamed of the Super Famicom Megaten games, for some reason. Theoretically, they could be translated and released in the west RIGHT NOW, because they're on the Nintendo Online thingy in Japan.
take what they did with SMT1 and 2 on the GBA, translate both, and slap it on the Switch.
No reason not to, and i think it’d sell decently.
If they wanted to go crazy with it, redevelop SMT1/2 in the same engine 4A used, and put that on the Switch.
To be honest, this series has been growing into almost a Mainstream sized series by now. I mean, a 2 hours video of the most inaccessible entries gets 20.k views within a day.
And with the explosion of a success that is SMT 5 we are almost for sure getting more ports/remakes soon.
@@cactus-mcjacktus SMT1/2 are so, so hard to get into. Even for more die-hard fans. Would love to see a 4A style remake of these.
@@konkavstylisten we already have movesets and character portraits thanks to the 4A DLC
Thor the God of lightning, thunder, and storms!
His weakness? Lightning, thunder, and storms.
By record scratch, he really IS the God of Hammers 🤔
His strength? Nuclear bombing.
@@chu_Bo Nuclear skills.
Update: THE PS1 VERSION IS NOW AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH
Something that is almost universally left out for this game:
In a few areas, the Echo building where you fight Doman just before losing Cerberus being one of them, you can find a fixed fight in a room. It is always a lone demon. In this case, it's in a dead-end hallway with three rooms in it, if memory serves.
What you may not realize, is that there is a small chance that in that room, your fixed fight will be with...a Fiend. In the Echo building, I've only ever found one of the three: David, the neutral Fiend.
It's tough, but David only uses status effect spells, so with Cerberus and a fodder demon or two with buffs (Goblin is excellent here) you can in fact slog through and kill him, netting your MC an insane early boost. There's even an equally rare chance for him to drop the single strongest Neutral weapon in the game. Same applies to the other two Fiends. Also, the fixed encounter fight rooms can be reset by saving and reloading the game normally.
The fight's encounter chance is randomized per step, so anyone with an emulator can save state and test this to verify.
How'd you hear about this?
In the basement of shinjuku mall near where you meet the heroine/find the psychic there's another guaranteed encounter spot where you find pale rider, the fiend of law who can drop the angel trumpet, strongest law weapon in the game. I don't think you should try to farm any of those weapons because 1, they make the game too easy and 2, it's something like a 1/128 chance on a demon you only have a 1/128 chance of encountering. Can't say I know where the chaos fiend is, knowing the fixed encounter tiles it's probably pre-nuke like the other fiends.
iirc there are random Fiend battles in SMT1, 2, and If. I'm not sure about 1 or 2 but If has them at set tiles with a 1/256 chance of spawning each time you load your save. I remember panicing so badly when all of a sudden Gotou showed up at almost double my level and rekt my shit.
@@venomoussocks1017 I got suspicious of it being different from everything, and ran tests. There's a chance of getting a...how to put this. There's 3 different results you can get. The lone fodder Demon, we will call the Normal result. You can also get a Demon that doesn't really seem to show up anywhere else (Bigfoot is one of them. Yes, really) and we'll call that Rare. Then you have the Fiend roll, which is Unique. Just the fact that I did indeed get anything besides the Normal Demon prompted me to continue this for honestly longer than I should have, netting the result of finding David.
@@bonnie1020a You are correct. They're set locations with random chances, though if memory serves, there's a special dungeon in 2 where you can find them more regularly, though by then its more of a novelty than any real challenge.
19:08 Apparently the original text says something closer to the effect of "It's not your fault" or "There was nothing that you could have done". The SMT1 translation patch is infamously idiosyncratic.
Some would say, though, that the awkward wording in such an unexpected and emotionally charged situation is quite realistic. I know I would be at a loss for words in Law Hero's situation.
"Try not to feel bad" is quite close to the original line. To be even more literal, "Don't let it get you down" might be closer.
@@jensvide777 Or alternatively 'please...stay strong'
"Vishnu is fighting Ravana at the government office in Shinjuku" - sounds like it's another typical Tuesday in Tokyo
I'm a firm believer that Marsh has exposed more people to SMT than persona stans
But has he exposed more people to homosexuality? Checkmate
@@tylerlackey1175 🗿
@@prinnygaming9371 🚶♂️
@@tylerlackey1175 🤣
Um what...?
-Gets incredibly powerful by the end of the conflict;
-Dies by a simple cave in the next game.
To be fair, it was more like an assassination that was disguised as a cave in.
all in all; Hero's still a human. even if he's Adam.
At least he got a statue, better than being cursed for all eternity like aleph.
So uhhhh I played SMT 2 but I don't remember where the game tells you that SMT 1 hero dies in a cave in. How did you know this in-game? Was it from a bar?
@@iwannaseehowlongyoucanmakethis IIRC it's on the extra cutscenes of the GBA version of SMT1
I love Shin Megami Tensei. It was there for us when hurricane Katrina hit...unlike Kingdom Hearts 2. That scumbag.
Kingdom Hearts 2 has screwed us again!
Really, thank you Shin Megami Tensei
35:36 I noticed that Thorman's map would have America at the center if we could see the whole thing, since Japan puts itself in the center in their own maps, the background artist probably assumed that other counites put themselves in the middle as well. Also If we could see the rest, Asia would be split in half.
A note from the future, since I didn't see anyone else mention it: The PSX version got a full fan translation in late 2022 and is probably now the best way to play SMT1 in English, assuming you don't somehow have access to the iOS port.
what about the GBA version?
Wait it’s on the app store? I can’t find it.
@@WindermedI think someone backported the iOS script to the GBA version, due to the iOS version essentially being a port of the GBA version.
@@thomasffrench3639it was delisted a few years ago. Even if you have it, it doesn’t work for newer versions of iOS.
@@paperluigi6132This is true, both the GBA and PSX ports are great and the translations are great too. The GBA port gets away with having the better translation since the script is... Well, the official deal. But the PSX has the better visuals and music
You forgot Shin Megami tensei VX, the RPG Maker port some super fan made.
I think he was more focused ob official ports
Wait that exists?
That timer before the nuke drops is honesty my favorite moment in any Megaten ever. It just made the world seemed much more bleak and hopeless and honestly I was pretty shocked at it the first time I played
There's something extremely unique about this game. It really is so different in style and mood to the current installments in the series. It's this gritty blend of 90s futurism, dystopian, and japanese folklore. It almost feels closer to something like Akira than the more recent games. It's great to see people making videos about it still :)
The opressive atmosphere from this game is something I've not seen replicated on any other Megaten game up to this day. It is one of the reasons why I love this game so much despite the large amount of negative/archaic aspects that surround it.
Isn’t smt4 like that?
@@jjdilla9848 Yes. It might be a product of that game being a reimagining of SMT 1. I do love SMT 4 a lot, might as well call it my favorite game of the whole franchise, but despite all that I still stand by my original take on the original SMT being unmatched on the atmosphere and setting. Such a unique game imo
Not Megami Tensei but check out Ultima V. It has a full fan remake in the Dungeon Siege engine as well called Lazarus.
And then as Jesus said to the Romans: “Hold on- I have to watch the new Marsh video.”
They took him off the cross so they could all watch together
*the romans pulling out their phones* o shit really?
Remember that one time when the Romans missed a Marsh video, Nero burned down the Library?
These responses have me snort way too loud, YHVH would be proud
Nice Fret
Looking forward to watching this one 4 times in a row
Same.
I always love that in the early parts of the game, you could actually threaten a Yakuza to give you his gun.
Not only that, but you're a school boy with a computer strapped to your wrist. You are this freaking nerd, and can threaten the Yakuza into giving up their guns.
@@KnightGamer724 I mean, if some nerd rolled up to me with a squad of unholy creatures not meant to be perceived by humans, I'd probably give him whatever he wants too.
"I'd like to see you get forced into an acid trip and see just how effective you are at demon combat."
Oh no, I'm not falling for that one a third time.
This would be an interesting game for Atlus to put out on switch like how Nintendo did with Fire Emblem, or how Square has been releasing Dragon Quest games, or how Konami/capcom did the Castlevania/Megaman collections.
Especially with SMTV coming out
SMT1, SMT2, and SMTif are on Switch via Japan's NSO Super Famicom app, but localizations would be nice
Megami Tensei 1 is also available as a purchasable add on for a Namco collection since Namco were actually the original publishers. Again this is only in Japan though
I would prefer the Sega option tbh. $2 for any of their super old-school games on Steam and a variety of other platforms. $7 for Dreamcast and Sega Saturn games. Roms included for fans to take out and do with as they will (I have Chinese retro handhelds that would be able to play them and it would be cool to have legit Rom files.)
Though for a collection I would want some insane quality of life features across a variety of games. Stuff like save states included in, ability to turn up or down certain modifiers (like Macca, Exp, or even encounter rate,) and even fast forward options. Include that with Megami Tensei 1&2, SMT 1&2, SMT If, + maybe Devil Children and I think that would be worth $30 despite being hundreds of hours worth of game time. That sh"t would make bank on Steam sales.
That would probably be the best way to preserve them in a timeless way, makes them very playable even to more modern audiences and if it is on Windows it will always be playable with backwards compatability. It also essentially outdoes any emulator since most of those don't have options outside of things like "unlock max level" which isn't as enjoyable as 2x Exp to cut down grinding. I am not even likely to emulate these games currently because of stuff like the grind and encounter rate, but if you give me toggles then I would be way more interested.
Just in time for SMT5 release!
Speaking of that! I hope we get an “experience” video for that
Give that about two three years
He said on Twitter that he's not going to do an "experience" video but he is going to do a review.
@@Lutyrannus cool can't wait.
@@Lutyrannus fair enough!
fun fact since the game in the beginning takes place in 199X and the world gets flooded 30 years later
that would put the date at about 2020.
congrats we all survived the great flood.
The ending is exactly why I always choose Neutral endings. The others alignments are so extreme and so cartoon-ishly that is impossible to even consider them.
That is honestly my problem with so many SMT games. The only game I think I found a Law/Chaos choice that at least had me pondering was Devil Survivor.
Yeah, doesn't it defeat the whole point of having this dichotomy between order and anarchy to have an objectively best option?
Out of all the smt games i've played smt 2 is where the neutral ending is bad imo since it simply delays the innevitable with not much benefit
Law in SMT 1 is basically God overcompensating for those that died on that flood used to try and level the playing field vs the Gaeans lol
yeah, law is always the most insane over the top NWO conspiracy bullshit and chaos is literally objective shithole earth villain ideology, so the whole point is to just choose neutral. I guess in the original game it's trying to be commentary on the dual evils of Japanese nationalism and American imperialism, but in most of the other games the lack of meaningful choice is much less justifiable. it's especially bad in SJ, where law and chaos are each the worst versions of those alignments, and neutral just has you doing nothing and letting humanity wipe itself out eventually.
Also the New Law/Chaos endings in the Strange Journey rerelease
Important note: Demons do not level up in SMT1
for some reason i really like it this way tbh, forces you to fuse them often
Yeah, the game kinda forces you to go out of your way to recruit/fuse more demons instead of letting you comfortably rely on the same ones for most of the game, it's pretty cool.
They didn't level up in any of the earlier games. I actually liked this system better, but that's just my opinion ofc. The more the game encourages you to actively fuse demons, the better IMO.
SMT1 still has the best ost in the series and I will die on this hill
I’ll never stop jamming to its battle theme
Megami Tensei 2 would like to have a word with you
It's ... Pretty fricken bangin
@@yieschu let it talk. I simply won't listen
Cant argue with that although SMT 3 is up there as well.
Thank you for this Shin Megami Tensei 1 review Marsh, I’m actually almost done with the game and am really hyped to watch this video to entirety once I finish!
I'm not even to the wasteland world yet. Lol
@@rvfiasco I finished literally the day after this video is posted. Ngl I felt so sad in neutral route because I actually grew attached to the law and chaos heros and the ending was phenomenal for this old of a game.
Hey. Just wanted to thank you for making this video. It's one of my "comfort videos." I have horrible anxiety but even just the thought of watching this video helps me feel better. I hope you're well.
This game was unlike any other RPG for its time in the darkest way possible and still has a strong influence today...
Instead of being a chosen hero destined to save the world medieval fashioned, in this game. you're just a simple high school kid whose life was led into a very dark path and was forced to decide what to align with; demons started invading Tokyo and have to survive alongside two other boys who he saved and becoming close friends with, ended up losing his mother to demons, had to fuse his loyal dog with a demon to gain an edge, involved in a conflict between two emerging cults, failed to prevent his home from being nuked to ruins, witnessing the remnants of humanity fighting each other in a ruined world and worst of all, in the Neutral route, was forced to kill both of his two close friends who fought alongside him since the beginning and made enemies with the two cults for the rest of his life, all alone with just his partner Yuka and his small team of demons standing ontop of the corpses of those they had to kill to achieve a world of Balance between Law and Chaos...
And you know what’s the worst of all?? Just take a look at the SMT2 intro.
I actually laughed out loud but at the same time felt sad for the dude.
It's not serious but I kinda don't like how final fantasy 6 gets all the praise for being the game where you fail to save the world and have to deal woth the aftermath when this is literally right there
No marketing compared to rich Squaresoft, their games overshadowed basically every JRPG in 90's, especially in NES/SNES era. Atlus was very small company in 90's, well still is, and SMT still did not recaived a good advertising in West, except maybe SMT V (and that was only because of Nintendo money, because Sega sucks).
a lot of people fail to mention that the destruction of the world in FF6 is almost completely undone when you kill kefka
@@donaldtrump2728 That is the opposite of what I heard with Kefka's actions resulting in a loss of magic through the series
@@VentrexTheXVthSeries? I don't think there is a direct sequel of FF 6 or even games set in the same world. Magic was pretty much lost even at the start of the game with just a few people having the ability to use it.
@@brotbrotsen1100 the Final Fantasy series as a whole.
The encounter with the beggar after the nuke drop is easily the best part of the game for me. Smt1 is pretty smt2 but not as good, but that moment always felt really cool to me
Didnt they do that same character on nocturne
@@daniellatorre2490 Not really, the beggar isn't present in Nocturne
@@kichiroumitsurugi4363 umm isnt there a soul in tokyo that tells yuo that he dreamed the world was round and in the conception theres a soul that says the world actually became inside out round and youre a demon now?¿
@@daniellatorre2490 I sadly cannot remember
yes, i will watch a 2 hour youtube video of a nearly 30 year old game i've already played instead of spending my time doing literally anything else. thanks for the good content as always
Marsh danced crazy!
(That just popped in my head, don't ask why)
Just updating you. This is probably the multi hundredth time I’ve watched this. This OST paired with your voice and such a nut job plot is too good to not keep coming back to.
One feature the SegaCD version introduced that I really wanted to try out is the reworked Pascal.
Not only he gets a unique design, Pascal gets way stronger when you find him guarding the bridge to make him end-game viable.
LONG HAVE I WAITED
MY PRAYERS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED
PRAISE YHWH, GLORY BE HIS NAME
BIG tip for the Ozama sidequest: bring an Angel. Hanma spells will instantly kill undead demons like the one Ozawa summons
I've had Shin Megami Tensei (GB version) on my phone for years. I play an hour every night before I fall asleep and when I finish a playthrough, I just start another. The megaten games have brought me tons of joy and frustration. Great channel, subbed!
1:27:30 It's too bad you didn't do it, the endgame sidequest with Masakados was very fun, he gives you a bit of extra lore on the world and his dungeon was tricky, and you get his sword and you can go around the world to collect all his armor pieces. It's fun to see because Masakados used to be an important lore NPC in many of the old games, like in MT2, Nocturne, and SMT4....
EDIT: I always see players do the Neutral route because it's the one with the most content, but now I'm genuinely curious on how the plot points differ on Law and Chaos routes, like route exclusive demons like Lucifer you mentioned.
EDIT2: Yep, this game will be easy after playing SMT: If, it's people who had the same response you did back then that made the developers make SMT: If much harder. SMT: If ended up being so hard that people complained, then when they made Devil Summoner on the Saturn they wanted to make it more easy and approachable to newcomers.
Chaos route lets you get Beelzebub, who is the best demon in the game. A number of boss demons'll join the team if you go law or chaos and you basically don't need to use fusion at all later on in the game.
...that's probably the reason why the sega cd port calls you a scrub if you don't go neutral
I love these cozy sort of guided tours through video games, instead of being a straight up playthough, just a highly edited highlight reel showing the story and explaining how the game plays while also providing tips for those who want to play the game themselves. This vid got randomly recommended to me a few months ago and started me down the ATLUS rabbithole that has led me to playing persona 3 reload with plans to play as many more of their games that i can get my hands on. Ive already watched this video 3 times waiting for your vid on SMT2, and will probably watch it another 50 times at least before i get bored of it. Absolutely phenomenal video man.
It's very reminiscent of the original "let's play" posts you'd see back in the day, love this type of stuff
This video does not disappoint. I love this game, played it about 3 times!
Fun fact: Bufu and Zio have a 95% chance of doing what they do (freeze or shock) in this game. this is broken ofc ,and in smt 2 this was changed to 5% , in spinoffs & onward, 0%.
Good advice about auto and encounters for readers: Try to beat every new demon you see legit once. In every new area there will be at least one demon in a random encounter that WILL beat your ass or leave you with one hell of a mark.
Always loved the Lilith side plot and the god alias. Imagine being there when Thor and Lucifer are coming up with the names just lmao.
As for Lilith, her side plot is basically being get you to notice her and love her. Which is hilarious, in fact iirc she doesn't die at the final fight, she just goes and cries. When I first played it I expected that bit to go somewhere but lol
Shock/Freeze chance was still present in P3, as well as Nocturne, missed out on the 2D SMT titles bar SH remake, missed out on P4, and came back in P5 with 25% odds
Thank you, Marsh, Kid Capes, FilthyBlasphemer, BuffMaister for this epic video. Despite being more of a niche series you never skip on quality.
Its been a year in the making the piece we've been waiting for.
01:29:42 The cool aspect about this is how it is related to Hindu mythology. Vishnu's avatar Raam had fought against demon king Ravan (pronounced Raa-one) and his son Meghnad, also known as Indrajit in the epic Ramayana. Using this to set the dynamic between Law and Chaos conflict at this juncture in the game shows the research game makers did in mythologies besides Abrahamic one.
The more i learn about the first megami tensei games, i feel like a new game with the old school style (the old computers and tech, with the big cables and makeshift computer armor)
Always tore my heart that the IOS version wasn’t updated to play in the newer 64-bit OS. I’ll never delete it from the game list!
Luckily, the GBA version has been English patched with the iOS script by some fans.
@@SpiritSnake1 but the music is still sound like shit though
@@kratosgow342 there was a guy patching the epic ps1 music to the gba port but i think bro quit lol
Oh man, the first "proper" game in this series even though the MTII dna is still very strong in this entry until they went back to it after the Devil Summoner series and enriched the gameplay and Kaneko introduced his legendary style. But I'm still a sucker for the old Kaneko, the cyberpunk cool guy vibe, the 80s rebel that used to animate for Saint Seiya and wanted to make art and games about the game versions of 80's underground manly manga. It's just so perfect and so colourful that it perfectly transitioned to his 90s era of nightlife punk aesthetic seen in Devil Summoner, without losing a beat. As a final note of his art before moving on, this style is what I really made me love the old SMT games. They bring out so much personality from the humans and show such expressive style even when clad in 5 tonnes of clunky iron, while his distinct style is perfect for demons, for showing them for what they are instead of wearing on their sleeve their obvious mecha and tokusatsu roots that Kaneko winks at, compared to the more ope and enthusiastic Doi. In my perfect SMT game, every human would look like the MTII and SMT1 characters but the demons(and Demi-Fiend, can't leave him out) would look likeir most recognizable Kaneko art from the SMT remakes and SMT3, and beyond. If you ever find the manual for the SNES version of SMTI or the pre-PSX versions, check them out, the armour design shown in the manual and how they look on the main character are fantastic and give you great context for the inspirations of the game, with a very cheeky nod to Dragon Quest of all things, and how the music synergizes with these nods and the visuals(or at least the manual's artwork given the power of the SNES versus what Atlus wanted to show at the time) and why its atmosphere is still unmatched when it comes to technodemonic apocalypse scenarios.
As you mentioned previously, if MTI and II are the roots then SMTI is the trunk and that trunk definitely takes more hints from MTII, which makes sense given it was Atlus' baby and not entirely beholden to the books. In fact, going in, SMTI often feels like a remake of MTII, winking its eye at every turn, reminding you of similar tropes and characters throughout the way, as if the creators are directly telling the player that the series has been reborn, reincarnated...a new reincarnation of the series. Better yet, a "true series reincarnation" if you feel cheeky.
I gotta admire you for your restraint about no jokes regarding Micon City being the first thing we see, Nakajima wouldn't be proud. But I guess Charlie from MT will have to do in this case, ready to betray you like in MTII. As for naming the Chaos Hero "Naoki", either it's deliberate or a slip, giving that dude the Demi-Fiend's "canon" name. Either way, it's gonna make for a hilarious journey ahead, as you explore the game with what are eseentially proto-Jonathan and proto-Walter while flirting with proto-Isabeau, in the ever-lasting quest to kill the current president of the USA in order to vote for Obama's third term as per SMTIV tradition. The funny thing is, unlike any other SMT game, SMT1 is the only game to have definitive, very specific names of all the characters and their personalities in the manual actually, which is interesting. There names as well, "Kazuya", "Yuka", "Takeshi" for law and "Yuji" for chaos almost seem comical given who they reference, as if Atlus is winking at the kids out there to find out about "their dad's tv shows" except without the net or demons.
Now regarding Stephen, who can forget that. The very first an internet savvy protagonist is born in videogames...by receiveing spam mail from famous phycisist Stephen Hawking, trolling him about demons. Seems Legit :
gcdn.pbrd.co/images/hKuNgnz6VRDi.jpg?o=1
And the first battle theme is still banging to this day, Tsukasa Masuko ust slays it with his compositions and rocking tunes. His MTII and SMTI osts are easily the highlights of his Atlus tenure but given that we've now entered the 90s, his composition has reached the peak of the bit-sized system, experimenting with all inds of ways to make those sounds be interesting and evoke a sense of adrenaline in the user which was rare at the time and only rivaled by the SEGA system's greatest music hits in that time period, with the Technosoft developed ThunderForce series on the Genesis / Mega Drive. It's as if at the time, Masuko tried to outdo Thunderforce III with his SMTI tracks before being reigned in by his superiors to keep in line with the game's themes. It's too bad the ports never reached the levels of the SNES version, especially when the PSX changed composers and thus changed parts of the OST.
Going back to the story, the hero's mother being eaten and having the player first experiencing such a thing must have been gut wrenching back then. Back then it wasn't common for that kind of thing to happen in stories but one mainstream manga at the time that dared to go there was, surpisingly, a shounen series about an alien invasion that turned people into human eating demons for lack of a better word, that was influenced greatly by Devilman. And in that manga, the protagonist's mother actually is eaten in a gruesome way and goes to kill the protagonist, prompting his "transformation" to the hero of the story. I assume that Atlus were not only aware of it but also fans of that manga. For your information, it was Kiseijuu / Parasyte and as luck would have it, the author of Kiseijuu would later do actually write a story in a Devilman anthology.
For the Douma boss, it's interesting how he's based on Ahiya Douman but there's no Abe no Seimei in this game and AFAIK he wouldn't exist in the series before Persona 2. Yet other famous samurai do make their appearance in this famous game, Masakado for one and I think Yoshitsune as well? So it's kinda weird how Seimei is left out, especially considering how easily Atlus could have spun their tale as "Chaos Douman vs Law Seimei" or something. Then again, considering how the Law Hero ends up, maybe the game would have felt a bit bloated with two Seimei figures and the talkitive of the two also doubling as a Pope Jesus kind of figure.
"I know I said the encounter rate was high before but here it really feels ridiculous, like the guy who was setting the percentage fell asleep on his keyboard and added a few extra zeros" **laughs in Cozy Okada**
Of all the crazy things in this game, Alice's sidequest is the weirdest thing of all : you have Alice of Alice in WOnderland, being looked after by the Red Ribbon Army's Commander Red and Commander Black and Commander Black is secretely fucking Mumm-ra. I know it's not the craziest thing in the series, considering Spawn is the deity Zaou-Gongen and En-no-Ozuno cosplays as Jesus Christ in SMT I and IV Apocalypse but this was completely out of left field. Then again, this game throws you into a Robocop gauntlet and has you speedrun the Terminator gauntlet while Kaneko later designed evil Bumblebee as a demon, so there's that.
1:14:00 What? Marsh, how can you say that? How can you accuse Robert DeNiro practising his 1987 movie role, Louis Cyphre from Angel Heart, of being a demon? You're gonna hurt his feelings.
1:26:00 I was waiting for you to talk about the Sword Fusion system an the track you chose is not only rocking, it's fitting for such a metal system for the series, perfect for the magic-less male characters that act as warriors to the female characters wizard / priest archetype and it's a shame it wasn't in more games beyon the SMT I, II, the Devil Summoners and just Raidou Kuzunoha's. If we could get the game to ever be remade with a way to view the equipment you equip, the swords and armour designs would be sick, especially if the swords created in Sword fusion are as cool as they seem in the manual.
Lastly, thank you for this behemoth of a review for this certified classic. It's nice to see people outside of the japanese dungeon crawler community revisiting these old games and having formatted like an experience with this semi-walkthrough tone of this video. Keep up the good work like always Marsh.
Your comment is such an amazing insight, thank you!
Wait. Yuki is the chaos hero and Takeshi is law? I thought it was the other way around
@@fervcorsica3358 You're right, Yuji's law and Takeshi's chaos in the manual. I must have mixed them up, considering Law Hero's other names are "Toshiki" and "Yoshio".
8:37
Apparently this segment played differently in JP version: the man transformed into the demon monkey then escaped .. and the police arrested you because you witnessed it as well as the law hero. Actually that’s the police objective: arrest whoever encountered or witnessed a demon.
Maybe I severely misunderstood the script though.
Quick tip for people playing: recruiting law or chaos demons will tilt your alignment by a point to their respective side, same goes for using law and chaos shops and healing facilities.
Finished my chaos playthrough of the gba port and while there’s a couple neat things added and changed there is nothing that’ll top how one of the first vision quest items reveals that Pascal was given to the hero by their next door neighbor NAKAJIMA.
The goat lives on.
I always liked how insane technology logic was in the first 2 SMTs, like: Yeah, you can summon demons from your computer or how it was just some programmer who hacked demons into the world.
1:00 "or you just found out about these games yesterday"
That, exactly that, I watched Good Vibes Gaming describe all 50+ games by Atlus yesterday before this beautiful video. Though I've played Persona now, this is like opening up a whole familiar new world.
Congratulations for uploading this video, SMT 1 is a game that always interested me and perhaps it's time to give it a try after finishing Devil Summoner and Giten
My man hee ho in the comment section
Do it. Its worth it just for the music and atmosphere alone.
@@gil2279 sorry, I don't remember you 😓
But Maaaarrrss
To whom it may concern: PS1 port has gotten a fantranslation as of yesterday.
*just got to the Nukes* yeah
Thanks for the heads up! :D
Marsh, I just want to say thank you. I’ve binged all of your long form SMT content and it’s been great to help me fall asleep, and I love all of your insight into these old/obscure games that I would probably never play myself. It’s so cool to see how this series has developed over time and your work is huge in preservation of these titles. So here I am again, back at the SMT video where I started. Good night.
YESS!! and V tomorrow!! Thank you, Sir. I will sit back and enjoy heartily.
This has been stated before on many video game factoid accounts, but Tokyo Destinyland originally contained two unused sprites that were basically demonic versions of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. They would then be replaced with different sprites called Zombie Mouse and Demon Duck in the PC-Engine release, and would show up wherever disembodied voices would be heard throughout Tokyo Destinyland in the Super Famicom version previously. (Really detailed fact, I know. I just really like the SMT series).
SMT was my first Megaten game, and I loved it. It all came down to the atmosphere. However, I have a hard time going back to it now. The random encounter rate is very high, which makes the flow of the game too slow, imo. That said, I recommend everyone new to the SMT series to start with SMT. Seeing the series evolve is fascinating, and I believe it's easier to work your way forward than backward.
The PSX version added an Expert mode. I die more frequently due to the enemies greater damage output. It makes dungeons more tense, and sometimes it can feel like a real struggle for survival. Check it out.
Lastly, the chaos ending is the best one.
Great video, Marsh. Thank you for your perspective.
1 smtillion views congrats Marshall
I just thought of something.
In Shin Megami Tensei I, a teleportation experiment goes wrong, and demons invade the world. The majority of the game takes place in a first-person perspective, with a map screen that is from a bird's-eye perpective.
In Doom, a teleportation experiment goes wrong, and demons invade the world. Most of the game takes place in a first-person perspective, with a map screen that is from a bird's-eye perspective.
SMT I is just JRPG Doom, or rather, Doom is just American FPS SMT I.
I was so hyped for this video, that I went and finished the entire game in preparation for it. And god damn did you deliver, Marsh!
Holy hell, The first MegaTen. I thought you would focus on only the more obscure titles of the series, but, I'm excited to see you cover this. The game, despite kicking off a franchise that I've only recently gotten into, seems pretty unapproachable, hence my excitement. Your videos are always a joy to watch, so, thank you!
During my first playthrough of SMT 1 I apparently "confused" the game for a bit since when I got to the Cathedral the game kinda didn't know whether I was neutral or law (and the 4 guardians but I'll get to that) apparently and the text started being a weird mix of Neutral and Law text. Apparently when I was heading towards the cathedral I was law aligned and on the way to that place I killed a few demons which actually does gives a very very slight boost to the chaos alignment and it was enough to put me in between Neutral and Law. It was kinda funny.
I also managed to kind of skip some of the 4 guardians quest. I did half of it unconsciously before reaching the cathedral. Tokyo flooded even though 2 of them were still alive and the game didn't let me enter Masakado's mansion to get his sword or somethin but the game still let me get the neutral ending which was strange.
Fantastic video btw!
I like that Roppongi has places on the map where it looks like shops would be, but there's just nothing there. It's downright eerie.
This game is actually pretty fun if you take out the random encounters
Estoma ftw, of course that happens late game
@@Noelis Estoma can be gotten fairly early, surprisingly. The Chaos Hero learns it as one of his later spells, so just dump all of his points into Magic and you'll get it ASAP.
I think way too frequently about the line "It's just me and Charlie, grabbing our nuts in post-apocalyptic Tokyo." at 49:09
Theres MUCH lower hanging fruit in this series and you continue to inform me of the obscure.
I can't help but respect that.
Love this game, it was a real treasure moving through that first half. It's exactly like you said, the atmosphere is just so good!
The only thing I had to say was that I was eager to see the reaction to the intro, but I can understand why you'd jump right into the game. Just love the way it set up the atmosphere of not just the game, but the series in general. That mix of unsettling and mysterious, and the way it really shows the mix of technology and spiritualism just sparks something for me.
"Ginza is a large area with a couple of floors and a lot of things to do"
And the music, don't forget the absolute banger of a song that plays there.
Congrats on finally getting it out there Marsh! Will watch it all in one go right now. Thank you for the entertainment in advance. Love your channel.
🏍️🔊
I gotta say, I love how far you've come as a SMT enthusiast, you really have gone in-depth with these vids and I absolutely adore your deep dives into the less known/focuses on SMT titles. Inspiring you came from such humble origins as silly lil SMT4 and SMTA meme vids....
I've never played any mainline SMT games, heck I don't even know anything about the franchise beyond that they exist and deal with gods and demons. Probably just finished Persona 4 when I was younger. But still, the story and atmosphere of these games combined with your absolutely perfect narration made this video one hell of an experience. I can't even imagine the sheer amount of effort that went into this video, which was outshone by your love for this franchise. Thank you. The past four nights of watching this and falling asleep, then dialing back the video a bit till I remembered and continuing the next night was a lot of fun.
You've quickly become a channel I binge and even sleep to at night when I sleep! I've been a smt fan since playing nocturne years ago and absolutely loving it. It's a shame how little coverage and videos there are on a lot of the pre nocturne megaten games. I'm glad that there's fan translations coming out for these games and allows me a chance to play these games without needing to learn a whole new language. And your videos only make me more interested in trying them!
ive seen hours and hours of long critiques of games and I just wanna say you killed it man, some of the best around and i mean it, dedications and passion just flow and you did an amazing job.