Video Game Review: Shin Megami Tensei 4: My 3DS is now a COMP.

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 Yep SMT 4 Apocalypse/Final is on its way to the US at the time of this article's release and I personally can't wait. While I would love to see an SMT game on a main console Persona 5 will do quite nicely, and besides I have SMT 3 to occupy me. Which means an eventual lets play for all of you; so yeah something to look forward to. Back to this, SMT 4 along with Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance were the main reasons I got a 3DS in the first place and now that I heard that those who unlock all four endings will get bonus' for SMT 4 Apocalypse/ Final it's time for me to dive back into the country of the Unclean ones and kick some demon ass. Though speaking of Demons some of the new ones in this game were designed by several Kamen Rider illustrators including the recently deceased Yasushi Hirasawa (February 5th 2016) who worked on designs for the Undead from Blade, the Worms from Kabuto and the Imagin from Den-O and some of the Horrors from Garo. others include Yoshihiro Nishimura; Keita Amemiya; Tamotsu Shinohara and Kyouma Aki, see if you can guess which ones!

 Now this isn't going to be a full review of the game because I really, really want you all to play this for yourselves especially since it's down to 20 dollars on the Nintendo store so now you have no excuse! Though I will give a basic rundown of the game and characters but I will be avoiding spoilers as much as I can. So let's get started; unlike most heroes of the Megami Tensei franchise our hero does have an established name in the upcoming sequel so we'll be using that name.

Our main hero is Flynn; a prentice Samurai from the world known as the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado

Isabeau, the only female of the new Samurai and voice of reason among the quartet.

Johnathan, the noble soft spoken Samurai who is clearly the Law aligned character.

Last but not least is Walter the Chaos character; a brash hotblooded Samurai who like Flynn was a Casualry before he was deemed worthy of becoming a Samurai.

 Right I forgot to mention that Mikado has a very clear class system; the aforementioned Casualries who are the working class and completely under the thumbs of the Luxurors who are the upper class that run the kingdom and regard the Casualries as low class dumb dirt. The only way for a Casualry to become a Luxuror is to become a Samurai. Now Samurai aren't just chosen all willy nilly; when children of the Kingdom regardless of social class become 18 they all gather to Mikado Castle to participate in the Gauntlet Rite to see if they're worthy of becoming a Samurai. As noted only five were chosen from this year's potentials. Now the last one Navarre isn't worth mentioning as he's a useless pampered Luxuror toad who goes crazy after getting stuck in a demons domain and begs his family to bribe his way into getting an honorable discharge by making a large donation to the monastery.

 All over the kingdom there have been reports of people becoming Demons and a Samurai in odd black armor not too far behind. After an incident in a village; orders from the monastery have come down that the Black Samurai has retreated to Tokyo which is a world below Naraku; a noted nest of demons and Tokyo is home to those referred to as "the unclean ones". So our four Samurai must travel into uncharted territory, battle and recruit demons and bring the Black Samurai to justice.

 Though the road may be long, arduous and morally dubious Flynn won't be alone since the gauntlet he has is equipped with an AI named Burroughs.

Though something about her does sound very familiar. Where have I heard her voice before?

 Though ironically Burroughs displays far more depth and personality then Lightning ever does NYOHOHO!!! No seriously with Burroughs' help you can access the Cathedral of Shadows app; that's right unlike Nocturne you can fuse demons anytime, anywhere. Though for the tradeoff, you don't earn money from killing demons. But that doesn't mean you can't get money at all; no for that you have to earn money from quests, selling relics AKA junk to vendors and from using the fundraise app that you can purchase from Burroughs with enough app points.

 That's right like a good smartphone Burroughs has apps. But these aren't like Youtube, Twitter or Angry Birds or anything like that no these apps include increasing your stock of Demons, expanding your skill slots, raising you demon's stats upon leveling up and much more. Though be forewarned you can't get everyone in the game so choose wisely. Speaking of choices that brings us to the branching paths; like any SMT game you can get multiple endings depending on choices that you made during the game. This one in particular has 4 which I won't be discussing but I will tell you the path I took my first time through.

 Here are the original choices I made during my first play thorough of the game which resulted in the best ending; the Neutral ending.

0

Extended Arm +1

Possibly... -1

Introduced myself +1

It comes naturally to me -5

Yes he is +1

-3

Finished off Issachar -5

We should +5

-3

-5 Kiled Minotaur

I'm not so certain -1

-9

The Surface +1

Finish her off -1

Kill it +1

I'm Human +10

+2

I could manage it +1

Arrest her +0

Win the quest +10

+13

Left on all 3 -11

+2

Show Matchbook +1

I see no reason why not -1

I'll reform it -1

I do indeed -1

0

Go with Walter -10

Kill the two NDD -2

Press the button -5

Yes I have -1

-18

Let's wait and see +6

Show him +5

Accept the quest +1

Beat Pluto -5

Press the button -5

-16

Tokyo +5

Accept it -1

-12

I'm comfortable here -1

It's not strange at all +1

Press the button +5

-7

Quest choices.

Beasts to be slain +1

Spare my opponents +4

-2

Let them go +1

-1

Try to talk some more +1

Spare my opponents +4

+4

Destroy the order of things -10

-6 Neutral

 And that's as far as I'll go so like I said at the beginning if you haven't picked up SMT VI pick it up and enjoy the fun. If you already did, great go through it again for the memories and to catch up on what you may have forgotten. Till then I'll be going through till the end and beyond to see the conclusion to the saga of the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado and the Unclean Ones and all the variations there of.

Shin Megami Tensei IV is owned by Atlus, Sega and Kazuyuki Yamai
Lightning Returns Final Fantasy XIII is owned by Square Enix, Tri-Ace, Motomu Toriyama and Yoshinori Kitase (and they can keep it, pretentious schmucks)