Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey: Difference between revisions

 

{{quote|''Even so... mankind, desperate for salvation, clung to hope. A brave few begin their mission... To the enigmatic Land of Ruin. Little realizing this harsh '''Journey''' will decide man's fate...''|''Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey'' opening.}}

 

The DS incarnation of the ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]'' series. It was released for the [[Nintendo DS|DS]] in Japan on October 8, 2009 and March 22, 2010 for the United States.

Cut off from the real world, all you can hope to do is push further into the Schwarzwelt... for some answers, and for a way out.

 

 

 

{{tropelist}}

* [[100% Completion]]:

* [[Faceless Goons]]: What most members of the Strike Team are reduced to, thanks to their Demonica helmets. You may know their names, and they may sometimes have individual field sprites and battle stances, but you'll only see the faces of a select few. It seems to work against them, as many [[Red Shirt|Strike Team members end up getting killed rather quickly]].

* [[The Fair Folk]]: There's a recurring series of side-missions where you help a Fairy Pixie build a Fairy village. These ones are generally pretty nice to you since you recruited them; enemy fairies, on the other hand, can be very mischevous and cruel.

* [[Five-Man Band]]:

** [[The Hero]]: Protagonist.

* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]: {{spoiler|In the Neutral path's ending, and is referred to as such by the surviving crew}}.

* [[Holier Than Thou]]: Even mentioned by Jimenez.

* [[Horny Devils]]:

** A side-quest sequence has a crew member who's got a severe crush on one female demon after another; granted, some of the more humanoid ones ''are'' very pretty, and the dialogue with them can sometimes get very flirty.

** Lampshaded by the game itself as {{spoiler|each and every time the crew member reveals a new crush, even the music stops to show the Protagonist's mute horror}}. [[It Got Worse|It gets worse]] for the crewmate when he tries to invoke tropes such as [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old]] and [[Defrosting Ice Queen]], much to his intended's disgust.

* [[Hot Scientist]]: Zelenin is the team brain and is considered extremely attractive, and in fact, it's implied she worries her male colleagues see her as ''just'' "the eye candy".

* [[Humans Are the Real Monsters]]: Many demons will be quick to point this out, and the Schwartzwelt itself is essentially a hell on Earth, with half of it being a mockery of modern human society and the other half being a tribute to the power of the demons. The more wild/bloodthirsty demons clearly state how awed they are by the bloodshed and destruction humans produce with a grudging respect/obvious distaste, though, of course, demons are just as big as hypocrites as humans are. It's still possible to convince some demons that mankind isn't so bad though. {{spoiler|Jack's Squad plays this trope straight; Negotiation with them in battle will only earn you insults, even though you're a human just like them, and they experiment on demons for profit and personal gain, not to mention how they kidnap and successfully fuse Jimenez with Bugaboo}}.

* [[Humans Are Warriors]]: Quite a few demons will end up being impressed by the strength the humans hold, particularly yours, as the main character. Also, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKhE56vOidI Morale] is a song mostly attributed to the humans, and it's a triumphant military theme.

* [[Humans Through Alien Eyes]]: And like the above, this is particularly evident in the Negotiation sequences.

* [[I'm a Humanitarian]]: It's pretty much a given that a fair number of the demons wandering around can't see humans as much more than tasty treats. Hariti ''used'' to be this way, but renounced it quite some time ago (although she ''does'' need human-flavored underworld pomegranates to temper withdrawal every now and again).

** Hariti's story in the game actually parallels her story in Buddhist mythology.

* [[Incredibly Lame Pun]]:

** There's a [[Mascot Mook|Jack Frost]] in a Demonica suit as a special-password demon. Its name? ''Demonee-Ho''.

* [[Serial Romeo]]: Anthony.

* [[Seven Deadly Sins]]: It's not immediately obvious or pointed out, but the different areas of the Schwarzwelt follow this theme (it should click by the time you get the demonic shopping mall though).

** Crewmen Blair and Norris are references to ''[[The Thing (film)|The Thing]]'', as is one of the EX Missions where you have to weed out which of the fellow crewmen are "normal". Dent possibly refers to [[Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy|the other Arthur]].

** Among the guns available to you is the [[Persona 3|Reaper Colt]].

* [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon]]: {{spoiler|Sector Horologium, the center of the Schwarzwelt. Not only does the area resemble primordial earth, as one character notes, but it's also where Mem Aleph, the [[Big Bad]] behind the Schwarzwelt, lives. This is also where the SMT games' traditional alignment-locking event happens}}.

* [[Villainous Breakdown]]: Mitra when you confront him in his palace, and {{spoiler|Mastema}} in the Chaos path.

* [[We Cannot Go on Without You]]: In the same vein as recent ''[[Mega Ten]]'' games. Protagonist dies, Schwarzwelt swallows Earth, game over. He is the only thing that is tying those demons down, and once he kicks it, there is nothing stopping the demons from calling it quits right then and there and just ditching your dead body to the enemy, even if they are on the lawful side of the spectrum.

** While demons can be revived as often as needed with revival beads, resurrecting dead humans seems to be impossible {{spoiler|by conventional means}}, as quite a lot of human characters bite it over the course of the story.

* [[Weird Moon]]: As another ''[[Shin Megami Tensei|MegaTen]]'' tradition, during a Full Moon, demons are too deranged to negotiate with you. However, this time, you can install a Sub Application in the Demonica that allows successful negotiations during Full Moons, even with otherwise unrecruitable Dark demons. Unfortunately, they're still drunk on [[Incredibly Lame Pun|moonshine]], so whether or not they like what you have to say is pretty much a coin flip.

** Also, the Moon [[In-Universe Game Clock|changes phases pretty darn fast]] while you're in the Schwarzwelt.

* [[Wham! Episode]]: In the final sector, {{spoiler|Gore, having been reborn as an Ubergestalt, reunites with the Red Sprite, where the most alignment-important scene in the game takes place. If you are devoutly Law or Chaos, or answer Gore's questions in a non-Neutral manner, Gore deems you irredeemable and [[Climax Boss|fights you to the death]]. Following his death, the Command Room is shown to be in shambles, Arthur suffers a terminal error in his personality matrix that [[Driven to Suicide|forces him to self-terminate]], and whichever sidekick you're aligned with invades the Red Sprite and brainwashes everyone into worshippers of God or beastly-minded savages}}.

* [[The Wild Hunt]]: It's a demon of the Night race here.

* [[World-Wrecking Wave]]: The result of the Schwarzwelt swelling up unchecked, as the wall of plasma races across the surface of the world, annihilating everything and everyone on it.

** Also spoken in so many words by {{spoiler|Yggdrasill}} the first time it hits you with it's time-bending powers.

{{quote|Something nearly imperceptible happened to [[Hello, Insert Name Here]]!}}

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Atlus]]

[[Category:Eastern RPG]]

[[Category:Horror Video Games]]

[[Category:Nintendo DS]]

[[Category:Video Game]]

[[Category:Shin Megami Tensei]]