A look back at: Shin Megami Tensei If...

 

What if Shin Megami Tensei and Shin Megami Tensei II never occurred? What if we got ourselves a side story that somehow ends up being the chassis for not one, but TWO spinoffs to SMT? Welcome to Shin Megami Tensei If... A game highly centered around a Japanese high school that just so happens to be involved in the turmoil of what could be a demonic invasion. And it's all because of one bullied kid.

This game will of course have the mechanics of its predecessors, coupled with the strange audacity of not getting a game over when you die but try to offer you a crutch in new guardians to boost or lose stats. Strange, and that's exactly how it would be described. That and the fact that this game had me looking up guide after guide like no other. Of course I had to get into the demon fusions again, but also the guardians you get upon dying do depend on stats or who dies first, you or your partner, among other things. There's somehow a lot to take in. And with that all said SMT If... isn't even that big of a game in hindsight. You have the seven deadly sins representing domains, but can only explore five since Lust isn't even shown and two of them (Wrath and Envy) are mutually exclusive due to whoever is your partner. And amazingly, the game decides to differentiate your experience based on who's your partner. The best mileage comes from Reiko, who happens to be the one who has the most overall connection to Ideo Kazama, the main bad guy. There's of course the mishmash of the demons, both fusion and lore-wise, and the crazy science teacher for some reason won't stop bothering you throughout the game either. He's a kook, but a funny one, that.

They did quite a good job in representing the deadly sins as domains, maybe too much so. I'm looking at you, Sloth domain. Oh yeah, it's gonna involve waiting. Who the hell likes that crap? Waiting for idiotic NPCs to get through a total moon cycle or so, involving walking back and forth, and so on. The Greed domain is a cool mechanic, make the boss of this domain a lot harder by getting more chests, you can minimize or maximize your run here, though maximizing makes a boss that's probably harder than the overall final boss in that regard. And in Gluttony, yeah, it involves a fat monster eating you, but only after you use shrinking goo (called Micro Plasma, but whatever). So hey, they will take things in a sense that will make you remember them. But that Sloth domain, never again. Waiting isn't fun.

Anyways, I only went the route of Reiko and didn't bother with the new game plus route of Akira. Reiko's route is a lot like Yumi's but with extra backstory scenes, while Charlie does have some interesting scenes but ultimately not enough fluff. This game will ease me into another spinoff series that I will eventually play, and it is an interesting experience for sure.