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''.

* {{spoiler|[[Nuke'Em]]}}: This is the Schwarzwelt Joint Project's response to the threat, with the excuse that {{spoiler|it would further destabilize the already unstable particles of the Schwarzwelt and nullify it}}. As you might expect, {{spoiler|it doesn't work... from the outside}}.

* [[Obliviously Evil]]: Many demons don't see anything wrong with killing humans, and some humans see no problem in exploiting the demons. See [[Playing with Syringes]] below for an example.

** Also {{spoiler|Captain Jack and his men, who are so blatant about it that they actually make the ''demons'' look like nice people}}.

*** A note on the demons though, not all of them are complete monsters. Most of the guys you can recruit are just there and while you have the genuinely disgusting folks like Basilisk and Seth who would love nothing else than to tear you apart, you also have folks like Heimdall who is good, just not on your team.

* [[Order Versus Chaos]]: An important part of the basic gameplay: demons are either Lawful, Chaotic or Neutral, and this affects how well they co-operate with you and each other. Order and Chaos have battled in many previous ''[[Mega Ten]]'' games (there's even a [[Shout-Out]] to it in ''[[Digital Devil Saga]] 2'' with the division of the Karma Society), but it's been a long time since it had such an overt impact on the gameplay.

* [[Organ Drops]]: Quite a vast variety of Forma obtained ([[Randomly Drops|randomly]]) from demons consists of body parts, from the mundane ("Oh, a feather!") to the [[squick]]y ("Is that an angel's ''heart''?"). When found in the field, on the other hand, most of the illustrations of Forma appear to be crystals, which possibly lessens the squick factor.

* [[Ouroboros]]: The rather hard boss of Sector E. [[Anthropomorphic Personification|Apparently it represents]] [[Gaia's Vengeance|the will of the planet or something]]. Ouroboros also classically represents infinity itself, as several demons point out to you, so did you ''expect'' an easy fight?

* [[Our Zombies Are Different]]: One hapless teammate named Norris gets turned into a shambling corpse in Bootes. He's "just" a demon-corrupted human who fights like an animal. A much more different zombie is {{spoiler|the Ubergestalt, who's situationally benevolent and not rotten}}.

* [[Path of Most Resistance]]: Story-wise, the Neutral route, where both Heaven and Hell are out for your blood, as per ''Shin Megami Tensei'' tradition. ''[[Gameplay and Story Segregation|Gameplay]]''-wise, however, it's actually ''Law'', as it requires you to fight ''both'' of the [[That One Boss|absolutely brutal]] path-specific bosses. While you don't have to deal with {{spoiler|Zelenin}} like in the other two routes, the Neutral {{spoiler|Commander Gore}} (who has [[Marathon Boss|absurdly high HP]] and spams devastating physical attacks) and the Chaotic {{spoiler|Mem Aleph}} (hello, [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|100% accurate instant kill]]!) make that rather cold comfort.

* [[Petting Zoo People]]: A few of the demons are like this (e.g. Nekomata, Halphas), but it rarely reflects to their personality.

** This gets turned around later when you find out what {{spoiler|Captain Jack and his men}} are ''really'' doing in the Schwarzwelt. {{spoiler|Let's just say that the demons are actually portrayed in a sympathetic light for once even as they [[Humans Are the Real Monsters|curse humans]] for being mutilated, torn apart and put back together. It actually tugs at your heart when you turn off the cultivation tank they're in and put them out of their misery}}.

* [[Powered Armor]]: The Demonica Suit.

* [[Power Limiter]]/[[Power Nullifier]]: {{spoiler|Alilat}}.

* [[Pure Is Not Good]]: As per ''Shin Megami Tensei'' tradition, this is why neither Law nor Chaos classifies as a good guy club. It doesn't help that each faction thinks "pure" and "good" are perfect synonyms.

* {{spoiler|[[Rage Against the Heavens]]: As "Metatron" (actually a shard of God) reveals after you defeat Alilat, this already happened. Humans and God abandoned each other, and the mothers (who had been suppressed by God) decided to take their revenge. Hence why the piece of God who said this wants to be "whole" again (cue Demiurge EX Mission, where you fight another piece of God)}}...

* [[Red Eyes, Take Warning]]: Goes hand in hand with the [[Glowing Eyes of Doom]] for most demons. Most strikingly, however, the viewports in the Demonica's helmet (see illustration above) produce this effect quite effectively.

* [[Redshirt Army]]: Most of the crews of the four ships wind up dying horribly really quickly, though this peters out as time goes on; the toughest (or luckiest) survive until the end in a grim, but rapid example of natural selection. The game is also very vague on exactly how much crew complement you have at any given time, but it's likely that each ship was actually overstaffed with redundant crew just to be safe.

** MA is also the name of the Mem Aleph's most devastating attack.

** A''ma''terasu also comments she was drawn into the Schwarzwelt, with the feeling she was supposed to be one of the mothers.

* [[Running Gag]]: Anthony falling in love with demons. And causing all sound to stop as a result.

* [[Sarcasm Mode]]: The Compendium profile for the Zhu Tun She:

* [[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]].

** Not to mention that many of the game's sprites for the demons come from the ''Devil Summoner'' games.

* [[Stable Time Loop]]: Happens in one particular Extra Mission. {{spoiler|In an earlier battle requested by the Disir, you'd have been killed by Yggdrasil if it weren't for the intervention of someone more powerful: yourself from much later on in the game, sent back by the Norns who used to be the Disir who made the request}}.

* [[Super Prototype]]: {{spoiler|The Lightning, rebuilt with technology (and weaponry) far more advanced than the Red Sprite and its brethren}}.

* [[Suspicious Videogame Generosity]]: Uncharacteristically for a mainline ''[[Shin Megami Tensei|Megaten]]'' game, you'll find Terminals (Save Points that can teleport you back to home base) relatively near Sector bosses, and often with a Fountain of Healing nearby. The Demonica is even generous enough to advise you when you're getting near "a powerful demon", even those that {{spoiler|lay hidden in ambush in Sector F, who are nice enough to camp out right ''after'' Terminals and Fountains}}.

* [[Sword and Gun]]: The Protagonist starts off with a standard-issue combat knife and machine-gun, then goes off from there.

* [[Techno Babble]]: In the form of both [[Reverse Polarity]] and [[Scotch Tape]].

** The Red Sprite, the Lightning, Elve and Blue Jet are all named after atmospheric phenomena.

* [[There Was a Door]]: {{spoiler|The resurrected Tyrants in Sector Fornax}} like to burst into scene by plowing through walls. Which would be quite fearsome and intimidating {{spoiler|if the Demonica hadn't [[Enemy-Detecting Radar|warned you about their presence]] minutes beforehand}}.

* [[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]]