A look back at: Last Bible III

I might as well preface this by saying that yes, it's been quite a while since the last RPG lookback, and it boils down to real-life commitments and SO MANY OTHER THINGS. Not only am I accepting a long-term position which greatly prevents me from really enjoying more game time, but I'm also doing another Pokemon ROM hack walkthrough and doing a ton of planning ahead for two different jobs. My 200th RPG to play is going to take a while perhaps, but I will see if I can muster as much time as possible to getting to it. Be warned, it could be months, maybe by summer I would finish my 200th.

So anyways, Last Bible III is a perfect example of a culmination. It started with two lackluster games on the Game Boy Color, and then moved to the Super Famicom where the graphics are greener and the music is prettier. Oh won't you please take it to the home console?

But the quality-of-life improvements to Last Bible III make it a significantly better experience in gameplay. Finally the monsters you recruit have an emoji and a progress bar showing how you can do negotiations much easier than a guessing game of yes or no. You can even level up the monsters and equip them, allowing for endless possibilities. And there's plenty of characters who join your cause, not just plot-wise, but being able to pick the best characters for the big moments is always a plus. This is despite having a somewhat traditional and linear SNES JRPG progression.

And this game honestly delivers quite well for what it holds. Sure, the translation is going to house the usual curse word cause the translators get goofy sometimes. Sure, there's the ocassional call-back to previous Last Bible games, despite Last Bible III taking place a whopping 20,000 years after the second game. But Last Bible III is effective at hooking the interested JRPG player, something that the previous games could have done better in. You see the introduction, and while it's very reminiscent of FF6's intro in the snowfall and such, it shows the bleakness of what's to come. This is despite green grass and humdrum village life at first. Of course, your parent is a prodigy like DQ5's Papas, you have a brother like countless RPGs, a nerdy kid not unlike Earthbound's Jeff, a girl who has a crush on you like countless RPGs, the usual robot and dragon party member like countless RPGs, and while not necessarily new, the seasoned RPG player will get hooked at their inclusions. And then you have faces you see come and go, some unfortunately die and you feel for them as you have lost such a fantastic character at that point. You see villains that you just want dead cause you know how bad they get. Then they twist you several times. Heck, even THE MAIN CHARACTER DIES! Yes, your actual main character is killed in the game, something that most RPGs that aren't Chrono Trigger wouldn't actually think of doing, no matter how close it could get. Hey, at least he gets to meet his parents who also end up dying prior to him, and even better, his own younger brother resurrects the group, being a child prodigy of his own. Oh, and that guy from the beginning? Actually kind of surprising he became a vengeful son of a gun bent on destroying everything, even when you defeat and kill his main nemesis he decides to have it out on humanity. But killing his undead spirit does bring him around. We actually have a wonderful epilogue at the end of it all too.

I'm telling you all, it's a culmination, and actually worth it despite the translation barrier and all. It culminates in things you know, but can appreciate, and even ties together things from previous titles. Things really worked out well for this game.

A look back at: Last Bible II

Sorry if this one took longer than expected! Or not. I really could care less about this one. Last Bible II thankfully was playable fully with English translation with the occasional swear word, but even discounting all of that what you get is basically Last Bible I (for those who forgot, Revelations: The Demon Slayer) but with newer characters, plot, and music. The gameplay is almost totally the same, the only super duper difference that I could find was the usage of eggs, where you have one get beaten in combat to make a good monster hatch. Otherwise, you're better off figuring out how to recruit and how to fuse monsters, or just get the super ones from bones like the Dragon or Kirin or so. Those still work.

Sequel games are always weird to play. This one is one of those "thousands of years later" sequels, but it still has a weird plot where everyone who is playable is connected in some weird way that almost rivals that of how the characters in FF8 were all familiar with each other. Here, the main ones are basically going "we fought together at one point thousands of years ago but lost and everyone died" and now they're reincarnated somehow in this case. Also the main character himself happens to be the resurrection of a beast king, and appropriately a corrupt human king and his more corrupt advisor try to kill you. Using demons. Which ends up in demons killing them. Because of course evil humans don't know how to control evil demons properly. There was zero character development in the first game, but here, we get a little bit more. Yuri is still a silent protagonist like El, but the other characters are more talkative, the rambunctious Safia has her reasons for being who she is, while the more concerning Krau and Ganzu have their reasons for being who they are, and then there's Esau who's clearly trying to go somewhere important. Gotta love how everyone gets the Force. Okay, not THAT Force, but whatever.

Bottom line is, this wasn't that good of a sequel game. Almost nothing new gameplay wise, it's not gonna appeal to anyone who just wasn't a fan of the previous game, and considering how many of this type of turn-based RPG I've done so far, I can relate to it not being as good.

A look back at: Revelations: The Demon Slayer

My first RPG of 2025! Wonderful how I was supposed to do Devil Summoner, but couldn't find a single English translation that could work. This game, part of the Last Bible series and supposedly a lot easier, ended up replacing it, but yes, I am crowing through this franchise as best as I truly can. This game actually could be a whole lot quicker overall for me, but at the end of the day, it was because I was also simultaneously enjoying other things like Super Monkey Ball rom hacks and what not. Oh, you don't care about that stuff! Let's talk about this game.

...and basically a whole lack of things that are actually interesting about it. This is a very simple RPG, going for the top-down view instead of the usual first-person dungeon crawler the original series is known for. The talking to monsters (yes, monsters, not demons) is the only true holdover from SMT, along with a primitive usage of fusion and sorting of things. The game's got only two companions, with almost zero character development all across the board. The music would be normally fine but gets kinda boring after a while, since every town uses the same music as does every dungeon. The game's plot is basically a journey to find your missing mentor, who seems to be a conspiracy theorist against who are supposedly good guys, and it turns out your mentor is of course right all along. Gameplay is average on the whole, you have the opportunity to grind at any point for equipment like I did, gaining tons of levels and learning spells as needed. Recruiting monsters is a simple set of four yes or no questions, while fusing monsters is fun for experimentation. Others have said that the latter part of recruiting monsters isn't as necessary, although I think it could be for getting Amon, Kirin, and Dragon, the three best non New Game+ monsters, to their highest potential. The last few bosses have tons of HP, so having them along to take blows is what I aimed to do. It all worked out. No intention of playing through a New Game+ though.

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.

A look back at: Shin Megami Tensei II

I may occasionally suffer from RPG fatigue every now and then, but apparently that does not stop me from doing some more grinding of another game in a franchise. And so I've done it, beaten the second Shin Megami Tensei game which is actually the fourth installment overall. Did it almost everywhere, working two particular jobs but still finding private times to play this game silently, getting more involved in the many things it offers, including its nice story, bass-driven music, and characters.

Oh yeah, there's quality of life everywhere. Characters that are named, even if they are after the Hebrew alphabet for some reason! Branching paths! Recruiting demons! Okay, all this isn't new and quality of life but when you think about it, the stuff that's more of the same is okay in my eyes, even if I have to deal with things like being annoyed with back-to-back squads of enemies, how debilitating status effects can be (goes both ways still), or the extreme annoyance of having demons run away or attack you and you really want them in your party but you can't cause they're pricks who take your stuff or so. No, the real quality of life improvements include things such as a better functioning automap, the addition of front and back rows, demons inheriting skills from fusion, heck, even an indicator for random battles even if it is still somewhat primitive. Impressive for an SNES RPG for that matter, although it won't beat out many favorites of mine. Still, quality of life makes for an impressive sequel.

Impressive, yet I still give it the same grade as Shin Megami Tensei I and Digital Devil Story II. Hah! It does boil down to the obvious difficulty at this point of course, there are always the issues of getting hit with debilitating statuses, having your party members kill themselves with Charm or the usages of Hana and Mudo to ruin my days. And of course final bosses love this. The big game breaker in this game is one I never thought I'd use so darn often, and that's buffing spells! Screw the attacking spells, magic attacks actually sucks against all later bosses, but with buffing of defenses, shielding spells, attacking spells, and the occasional prayer spell which causes divine intervention damage, these things (minus the divine intervention one) turn my main character into a physical powerhouse. A common strategy in many other games, even for speedrunners, but it's one that works out so well! At least, when you're not losing your hero often. Which did happen a lot. The plot of this game did save my frustration from taking over at least, all of the paths DO have you killing the angels and even the true god YHVH. Yeah, they're all back, along with Satan and Lucifer. Choices you make change things around, the Law path has you initially siding with YHVH but Satan sides with you to defeat him. Chaos has you with Lucifer doing that same thing but also killing the denizens of Eden and making things worthwhile for humans and demons. And then of course, the neutral path, the one I took, got the most fun factor.

All things considered, I gotta take a small break from this Megami Tensei stuff. At least for now. I'll return to it some time.

A look back at: Shin Megami Tensei

My birthday tends to often be a day in which I want to deadline my completion of certain things. Okay, today isn't my birthday, but I wanted to finally get through with Shin Megami Tensei before then. And so I did, today, and amusingly enough while on the clock as well. This game honestly should not have taken over a month, but I get extremely busy with other things, plus my return to Freelancer has me playing that a whole lot. Budgeting time ends up being a big hurdle in what I do nowadays, huh.

Anyways, it's a good thing I played Digital Devil Story 2, because this game is actually just that except on the SNES. Annoyingly, the guide I followed for this game was awful, it had barely any recommendations for what demons to recruit, so I just picked the ones that had the best HP values. Making matters worse, well there's a ton of things, but fusing demons didn't get me anywhere truly substantial. And like the other games, you want to keep your human characters healthy as much as possible, meaning grinding to give them better stats and also just plain keeping them out of trouble, since your heroine has the important spells and your hero has the computer.

I felt a lot of annoyance with this game's encounter rate, so much more than Digital Devil Story 2. Almost every step was an encounter, and you get back-to-back encounters very, very frequently. I ended up overloaded on both makka and magnetite as a result, so those weren't really worrisome (though those last few shops have the best equipment in the hundreds of thousands of makka, my god). Figuring out which branching path, law, chaos, or neutral, was tough at first, but I eventually settled for neutral since it seems to cover the most baggage, plus it kills everyone! How fun. But of course, all that damn grinding, it takes a toll on me. And heck, the alignment screws up how I would even recruit some demons. There were ones I absolutely wanted, but the way my alignment leaned prevented me from doing so. And even then, the demons get super stingy and want all sorts of stuff. And others, of course, they'll just leave. Bastards.

And with it comes my traditional RPG fatigue. I really wanted to get it over with at that point, so I used the PAR codes to remove encounters from the last stretch. This helped me explore things without fuss, though there's still the tough bosses. And honestly, should mention that there are bosses that are either immune or have innate reflection of certain skills, so its makes you feel awful for hitting yourself with a mass shock spell effect. This game had a good stride early on, setting the examples for the hero, the law hero, the chaos hero, and the heroine, and to me, it just sort of falls flat once Tokyo gets nuked. Oh, you couldn't avoid that, but you get a cool dream sequence, then have to work your way back through. And things happen, and your alignment makes things go one way or the other. Sometimes you even get locked in at your alignment until you can progress further. This game really does tell you how hard it gets.

A look back at: Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II

Stupid work made me take an entire month on an NES game! Oh well, I had a number of other major projects going on, and even then this game could have taken at the very least two and a half weeks overall. And yeah, it's gonna be a Megami Tensei marathon until my 200th game, mostly, and now I'm on the second game of the series. While keeping the major hallmarks of what made the first game what it is, this one essentially crosses over the mythological demons of lore with a setting that predates the Fallout franchise. Yep, nuclear apocalypse, in Japan though. Humans live in bomb shelters or if they're lucky enough, ailing cities. And then there's the demons where the recruiting process has improved somewhat. Not only can you have six members in your party, but can store up to about ten or so demons, and can remove them from the computer as you wish! QoL changes are usually the ones I like. Still a bit of a hassle to heal up party members by doing so individually for each one using the girl's spells.

Oh speaking of, the game's got a male and female lead once again, but this time there's no canon names. There's also this random best friend of yours who, surprise, turns traitor but dies a good guy. Yeah, one of those. And then there's the whole "our demons are different" thing, almost to the point where it looks like every demon is against one another. No wonder certain good-aligned demons consider your party a party of "saviors" and could join. Of course, joining means stopping the malice you inflict and bribing them with goods. Still super annoying when they take your stuff and run. The new overworld mechanics are nice too, but the encounter rate makes going to a simple rest stop a pain to the point where I can easily have up to TEN encounters before even making it there!

You of course want to rely on your demons and keep them in good shape. Being able to use teleportation spells and healing springs and fusion temples much easier is a big QoL change that I enjoy, as is the actual save feature (original game had to have the clunky password system). Having multiple endings could have been nice, but I actually found both endings kinda boring, with the good ending only slightly better. It was definitely an interesting follow-up to the first game and grew the beard for the franchise well. Anyways, I will probably take a few days break before checking out Shin Megami Tensei next.

A look back at: Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei

Alright, it's time. We're gonna try to go through the Megami Tensei franchise at a relatively steady pace as best as I possibly can. And we're gonna start from the beginning, from when the series was perhaps the most toughest.

Every first-person dungeon crawler I've had the chance of playing really does not mess around, and this game isn't an exception. Like in M&M and Wizardry, you get to choose the stats to start out with, and Strength and Wisdom are the main two I'd invest in to keep the main character HP and spells up. And trust me, these characters start out weak. The battles in the early part will take a while just to get rid of some enemies, sometimes I had to run. With a few levels, they can get better equipment and thus better survivability. And from then, the devil convincing and the devil summoning would then work, but I gotta be rationing them properly. Because nobody likes too many demons, so fusing the good ones to make even better ones is important. And then there's level requirements! More grinding! Ugh.

That's not even getting to the fact that statuses on your main characters can be very debilitating, yet for the demons themselves it's not as big a deal. Anything that prevents your movement is bad enough, but if Nakajima's hit with one he cannot summon or return any demons, and if it's Yumiko, you're not gonna be able to heal. Having only one place to restore statuses or resurrect fallen allies in the game is a huge problem, especially since you will get far from the beginning that you would LOVE seeing those warps to head back (at least until Yumiko gets Staruto spell). And then you have the ones who just simply hit hard and take lots of hits. Sure you only battle one species of enemy at a time in this game, but you could easily get more just immediately after them. No rest sometimes! Oh and the MAG currency is one I wanted to safeguard since it prevents demons from losing HP when walking through these maze-y corridors.

Ah yes, this being a dungeon crawler of course we've got to deal with mazes. What did you expect? Gotta have a guide handy to see where you need to go, look out for the traps and holes, find where the shops are (honestly these shops are so random), figure out hidden doorways, how to go through areas you can't see through, dealing with fixed encounters, tiles that disorient you. It's all here. Impressive amount of mechanics for a game on the Famicom, but it's like the others, HARD.