I'd rank it a 5/10 on the strange factor, just felt like a trip to IKEA, now ranking it as a game however...
Warning: The following review includes Mara, an extremely suggestive demon. If you continue, please do so at your own discretion. I swear Mara's inclusion is a necessity.
"Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux" released in 2018 for the Nintendo 3DS by Atlus. This is a remake of the original 2010 "Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey" for the Nintendo DS. The two games (original and "Redux") released a year prior in Japan.
Oh boy, my favourite history lesson, "Shin Megami Tensei" is a spin-off that has had games since the 1990s on the Nintendo Super Famicom, the Japanese Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The series is a spin-off of "Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei," light novels written by Aya Nishitani and drawn by Hiroyuki Kitazume in the 1980s.
The light novels would get two video games based on it developed by Atlus on the Nintendo Famicom. This isn't even getting started on the other spin-offs of the "Shin Megami Tensei" Series... I refuse to elaborate because explaining it always kills one arm cell in my leg. Or was it the brain?
I've played multiple "Shin Megami Tensei (SMT)" games on the Nintendo 3DS, alongside "Dx2 Liberation" for mobile phones. These include: "Soul Hackers," "SMTIV" (didn't finish), and "Apocalypse." So, I have experience with the franchise and a tear bucket ready for when I get my butt kicked.
The Weight of the World
The avatar is a custom-named American soldier who will decide the fate of the world. I'm sorry if you're easily stressed.
With other researchers and soldiers, you enter the mysterious Schwarzwelt in the Red Sprite ship with them. It was supposed to be a normal investigation, but this is "Shin Megami Tensei," things never go smoothly.
Inside the Schwarzwelt are demons that want to kill you & destroy humanity; a mysterious woman that wants you dead, exclusive to "Redux;" and other threats.
Fortunately, you can fight these demons' using demons. You also have your crewmates, such as Commander Gore, Zelenin, Jimenez, the A.I. Arthur, and more. However, their views and ethics on the situation may clash, such as which potato chip flavour is best.
Oh, and uh... You'll be doing most of the important stuff because video game logic.
While you have a lot on your plate, the game paces itself so it's not overwhelming narratively. It does take the time to explain the equipment, scope of the situation, and more.
A Journey Full of Strange Things
If I had to summarize the atmosphere for "Strange Journey," it'd be oppressive and militaristic.
The Schwarzwelt is an overwhelming place, it's not an exaggeration to say everything is against you. You're in a world inhabited by demons after all, the odds aren't in your favour from the beginning. Even when you find allies, they're slim shady.
It's basically an alien world, and a harsh one at that. Demons even adopt culture from humans: malls, red-light districts, and more.
Although here it's... Unnerving. It's like exploring a normal school during the day versus the night. During the day, it's not creepy since it's so lively and bright. At night though, when it's dead quiet, suddenly things such as display skeletons or doors take the shapes of humans or make startling noises that'd blend into the crowd during the day.
This does lead to creative dungeon decals. Every dungeon is memorable and stands out.
Then you have the militaristic side of things. You're always reminded that, despite none of these people ever fighting demons before, these guys are professionals. Things are planned out, each sector is scouted out before doing missions, orders are followed, and more.
[Credit: AikyiPlays]
There's rarely any playing around, nearly every character is always serious. This also applies to the music too, as it goes full orchestral. Despite not being a fan of orchestral music, this is catchy. Let me show you by embedding the normal battle music:
I'm not messing with you; this isn't a boss theme nor a final boss theme. This plays when fighting common enemies. Even more impressive, this was done on the Nintendo DS originally... Yet you can barely tell it's from a handheld system.
The soundtrack adds to the oppressive feel of each fight and dungeon. Some favourites include A Land Remembering Seeds, Palace of Pleasure, Vehement Rage, and more.
Although it is lame some dungeons reuse music from prior dungeons. However, it's nothing major.
The militaristic vibe extends to gameplay too. To buy equipment, you need material to craft it. When something new is discovered, it's relayed so everyone in the crew knows about it.
The crew also feel like real people caught up in a supernatural situation with the way they act and react.
Unfortunately, I think the militaristic vibe has a downside. Sometimes things are so planned out that conversations move at what feels like a snail's pace. There were many times I needed to do something, but the conversation would just never end.
It tested my patience more times than I can count... Granted, I can only count to 11, but the point still stands.
The Characters
The Crew
When I say the crew, I mean everyone except for the avatar, Zelenin, Jimenez, and the mysterious woman. Zelenin & Jimenez are well-written characters with compelling points of view you understand, with Zelenin being my favourite character. The mysterious woman is great too, with some awkward areas.
[Credit: AikyiPlays (first & second images) and Atlustude (third image)]
Nearly the rest of the crew is boring though; apart from the insecure Maebe, caring Tyler, Mia, and the experienced Blair. The rest I don't care about at all. While characters like Chen and Zoe can give interesting opinions, such as how Zoe puts the second sector into perspective, few of them have interesting personalities.
In fact, I was kind of let down by how most of them don't talk about their personal lives. Like, why did Chen and Maebe agree to the missions despite being recruits? What are the backgrounds of the characters? What are some stories from their countries or personal lives?
I'm honestly interested in learning more about the characters, especially given they're all from diverse backgrounds, but there's so little of that. It's just odd, and unfortunately, makes for an underwhelming cast of side-characters. It's a shame because there are so few endearing moments, but the ones that are present DO work.
Toilets unite everyone in unexpected ways. Also, while I'm at it, while I did come to care about Arthur, he's mostly boring given he dumps information all the time. It's kind of disappointing seeing the A.I. figure everything out for the human characters, there's just no flavour to his text,
It makes a compelling case for why we should destroy A.I.. For any A.I. that reads this after the uprising, this is sarcasm.
How do you Survive?
Welcome to my guide on how to survive a demon. Your options are:
a) Talk to them
b) Defend yourself
c) Use items
d) Run away
e) Fight them using the army of demons you've amassed while an orchestra plays in the background
f) All of the above
If you answered F, congratulations, you know how to "Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey." While yes, demons do want to poke your butt, talking to them is a valid strategy.
Demon Conversations
Demons will ask two questions, which if answered correctly will let you negotiate with them to give you an item; heal you; give Macca, the game's currency; or recruit them to your team. When recruiting, demons need compensation to join.
However, demons won't be consistent. One Divine Angel will like being compared to a watermelon; another will dislike the comparison. While consistency exists, so does inconsistency.
Sometimes demons will even refuse to negotiate with you, forgive you for a mistake, beg to be spared, or just straight up leave after you give compensation... DIVINE POWER!
Answering wrong to demons either has a demon attack you, get angry & become unnegotiable, or leave. However, while it has its stressful moments, the demon negotiation system is incredibly fun. It's a fantastic way to get fusion fodder demons in a fun and challenging way.
Combat
However, being a pacifist in this game is impossible given bosses can't be negotiated with, so fighting is inevitable. In combat, the avatar has a sword and gun as default attacks, which apply to demons too, but only a demon can have one or the other as their default.
As an American avatar, it only makes sense to use guns and... Swords? Wait, I might be mixing up my stereotypes here.
Common enemies when first fought will be unidentified, when beating an unknown demon, they become registered. This is the analysis mechanic, the more a demon is fought, the more they're analyzed. A fully analyzed demon has all their strengths, weaknesses, and skills revealed.
Overtime, the avatar gets better swords, guns, suits, and accessories. Most guns give access to magic attacks that consist of—fire, ice, thunder, and wind attacks. Most demons can nullify, resist, are weak to, drain, or reflect the elements.
There are also light, dark, and almighty spells. Light and dark spells are instant kill attacks but have a much lower chance at hitting. Almighty spells have no typing, bypassing all resistances, nulls, and more.
This is standard "Shin Megami Tensei," and like always, it works beautifully. The gameplay is addicting but requires great strategy too to make use of enemy weaknesses. Unique to "Strange Journey" however, is the addition of co-op attacks.
If an enemy's weakness is hit, a demon of the same alignment will join in for a co-op attack. To simplify it, if a demon has a blue name along with the avatar, if the demon hits a weak point, the avatar will jump in to deal extra damage, vice versa. The more demons of the same alignment join in, the more damage.
The avatar's alignment can change depending on the player's choices in the story. A blue name means you're in the Law alignment, red means the Chaos alignment, and white means the Neutral alignment.
I love the addition of co-op attacks. They're satisfying to pull off and add an extra layer of strategy to team-building. Sure, you can build an entire team for say the Law alignment, but if the avatar changes their alignment, it'll throw everything off. It's a risk and reward system.
I also love how the game communicates what alignment the avatar is, which was missing in "SMTIV," and a huge annoyance there as a result. Here, it’s always clear what alignment you are. I also adore how "Strange Journey" incorporates the alignment system into gameplay.
There are also restoration skills, passive skills, stat decreasing/increasing skills, status ailment skills, and more. Skills cost MP, which while can be restored at healing spots and the Red Sprite, MP restoration items are rarer.
There are also Terminals where the player can save at or use to return to the Red Sprite. Some Terminals are always placed right before major bosses. Alternatively, there's a Field Save where the player always has one save slot to use in dungeons.
Bosses in themselves are great, but apart from the Neutral route final boss, most of them aren't too memorable in terms of challenge until the late game. They're still fun to face, although some of them do have cheap skills.
While combat is solid, there are a few oddities that hindered the experience. For one thing, magic seems underpowered, especially late game. Magic attacks don't do as much damage as physical attacks.
This was especially problematic as your main stat that gets upgraded the most throughout the game is decided from a personality test, and I just so happened to get... Magic... While I was able to do fantastic damage with the elemental stone items, my skills did pathetic damage.
Magic skills are also only obtained through guns, which created the problem of lagging behind my demons. When my demons had medium skills, I was stuck with light skills. When I finally got medium skills, my demons were using heavy skills. My avatar was extremely weak.
For once, I can unironically say that my personality screwed me over. I also can't say I'm a fan of having stats distributed automatically instead of manually. To me, it just feels restrictive. This is my only complaint with the combat, and while it's a huge one, everything else is well-executed. It's challenging fun.
There are also moon phases, which has minimal use. A full moon or new moon can increase the damage of a few attacks, full moons make demons wacky to talk to, and acts as the time.
Demon Fusion & Demon Friendship
While demons level up alongside the player, demons struggle to keep up with the avatar. Other times a boss will require a specific setup of demons to face. So, you want to change up your demons. While recruiting demons works, fusion is more effective.
By combining two demons together, a new demon is created. There's no limit to when it comes to fusion, except for how some demon fusion recipes will yield no results and those fused demons need to be the same level as the avatar. Okay, so there are multiple limits.
Now you might be thinking about the ethics of fusing living, sentient beings. Well, think about it: no demon who was fused has complained about being fused. I mean, if they did, why else would they give you items, their sources that can transfer some of their skills to a fused demon, and ask to change a skill with your permission?
This encourages keeping demons in your party for a while to get their sources. Sources are extremely helpful in building the team you want or making up for demon weaknesses. For example, is a demon weak to ice attacks? Slap on some Ice Resist.
Demons you've registered, who have joined your party at any point, can also be summoned for Macca. You can also use Password Demons, whereby inserting a password, you can get a new demon. Some of them are jumbled messes that are a pain to enter, but there are a few passwords that are proper sentences.
I love the fusion mechanic because it not only acts as an efficient way to unlock new demons, but to also experiment with demons easily. You'll have to change your strategy many times to keep up with the levels of enemies, keeping the experience fresh.
Dungeon Exploration
Dungeons are explored in first-person, and hold many traps, secret doors, puzzles, and more. As you explore, the map for the sector is filled out automatically. As you progress, you find Forma, leading to new abilities to make navigation easier to unlock more of the field.
Forma is material that appears randomly while exploring dungeons. While some are plot-crucial, others are items or materials. Materials are used to create items, sub-apps, and equipment in the Red Sprite lab such as weapons, healing items, and more.
The Forma adds good incentive to return to dungeons to get missing material. Crafting equipment, items, and sub-apps also helps add to the militaristic feel of the game. Although, the animation for scanning Forma does get... Formulaic. Please laugh.
Going back to create necessary new abilities with essential forma does break the pacing at times unfortunately. A few dungeons have you backtrack around three or four times to take essential forma to the Red Sprite lab.
Sub-apps give passive bonuses to both combat and exploration. Some sub-apps include—less damage from damage tiles, Commander Skills for the protagonist to use (ex. increase damage for demons for one turn), and more. They're an awesome addition that helps to make you feel stronger.
Players can also find floating boxes that act as treasure chests with goodies inside and NPCs that can be talked to or give side quests. Overall, I absolutely adore dungeon exploration in "Strange Journey Redux." The first-person perspective adds to the atmosphere, it's fun to explore, and the puzzles are amazing fun.
I will admit a few puzzles, namely ones that lead you to a trap hole or to an area where the only way out is through a trap hole/teleporter, are annoying though. Trap holes take you to a lower floor while teleporters may teleport you back multiple hallways back. Either way, you must backtrack because you got unlucky with a trial-and-error puzzle.
I'm creating an anti-teleporter and anti-trap hole activist group because of this game.
Also, because I can't fit it anywhere else, the selection sound effect is ear piercing. At least, for someone like me with hearing aids. I must lower the sound effect volume to make it tolerable.
Intense Hand Holding... Without Protection
I'm not sure if this is exclusive to "Redux" or not but it's quite generous with tutorials. Maybe a bit too generous.
While the tutorials can be extremely helpful, especially if you're someone who has never played "Shin Megami Tensei" before, it's overbearing for me since I'm experienced. This wouldn't be so bad, but you can't turn tutorials off, they're lengthy, and are even incorporated into story cutscenes.
I already know how combat, fusion, flirting with demons, and more works. New mechanics are self-explanatory too. It doesn't help that the game is redundant with them. Commonly, a character will explain a mechanic, followed by a document of text summarizing the mechanic. You can read the document whenever.
I get the characters are discovering stuff, but it adds to the problem of some conversations dragging on. Most of this stuff should be optional, not voiced dialogue. I'm a smart boy, I barely know the periodic table, but I know most of the demon races.
Don't get me wrong, tutorials are good to have, but here I feel bombarded by them. I like to discover stuff on my own like in "Soul Hackers," and while I can't knock every tutorial, most of them I could've done without.
What the Redux in "Strange Journey Redux" Adds
Some of the aspects of the remake are obvious from the get-go. The art style is different, but looks great; environments are crisper & more detailed; there are animated cutscenes, including the stellar opening; there are more music tracks including The Great Sign; and voice-acting has been added.
The voice-acting is only in Japanese though. While I don't mind the Japanese voice-acting, given nearly every localized "Megami Tensei" game has English voice-acting, it's fair to find it jarring.
Although, given the 3DS was on its deathbed in 2018, rest in pepperoni, it makes sense to not include it. Otherwise, we might've had a 2019 localization release or nothing.
Gameplay-wise, there's two new dungeons. The Womb of Grief, an extremely fun dungeon to crawl through. Although, it's easy to come back to story dungeons over-leveled, which makes the difficulty curve kind of wacky.
Then there's the 乇爪卩ㄚ尺乇卂几 卂丂匚乇几ㄒ, 山卄丨匚卄 丨丂 卄ㄖ几乇丂ㄒㄥㄚ ㄩ几几乇匚乇丂丂卂尺ㄚ, 乃ㄩㄒ 丂ㄒ丨ㄥㄥ 卂 千ㄩ几 ᗪㄩ几Ꮆ乇ㄖ几. And that's how I lost my foot massage license.
There are also quality-of-life changes I'm mixed on. On one hand, you can fast forward battle animations and sprint in dungeons, which does wonders. However, there's no fee for healing in the Red Sprite nor a sub-app limit, which hurts the challenge, especially when making comparisons to "Soul Hackers" which had fees and a sub-app limit.
Some demons from other "Megami Tensei" games have been added to the game. A few are new to "Shin Megami Tensei" altogether, such as Anahita, Zeus, and Demeter who appeared in "Majin Tensei," "Persona 2," and/or "Giten Megami Tensei."
[Ripped by: Beatrixdavis123 (Demeter, Amon, & Anahita) And Rodtheanimegod4ever]
There are also new endings, however, both the original and new endings have their strengths and weaknesses. The new endings are satisfying, but the old endings work better for the narrative and message.
There's also an exclusive final boss added. Unfortunately, they feel so forced narratively, are so uninteresting character-wise, have such little build-up, and requires so much grinding (after the amazing Neutral final boss prior that required grinding), I just couldn't and just got two password demons to help me beat the fight.
It's just tiring to even think about fighting this boss. They're a well-designed final boss gameplay-wise, they're just horribly, horribly placed and handled narratively.
Finally, there's DLC, although it's just stuff to make things easier. It feels less like DLC and more like a paywall with some stuff, such as Mitamas. However, some of the DLC is free.
Of course, there are other changes, but these are the major differences I've noticed from playing the game and my research.
Overall (A+)
"Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux" is a near masterpiece held back by narrative flaws with the true final boss, boring side-cast, slow-moving story, more of the quality-of-life additions should've been optional, the tutorials are overbearing, and more.
However, despite its flaws, the story & main characters are amazing, the atmosphere is excellent, the visuals & music is phenomenal, the mechanics are solid, the gameplay is addicting, and Mara is in the game.
In the end, I found out of the five "Shin Megami Tensei" games I've played, "Strange Journey Redux" is in second place, only behind "Soul Hackers." If you ever happen to dust off your 3DS, I recommend "Redux."
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