Video Game Review: Persona Q2 New Cinema Labyrinth: It’s Showtime!!!

When you're done read, comment, spread the links, re-tweet and follow me on Twitter @OnDavidsBrain!, support me on Patreon and watch my Twitch Channel Every Saturday at 12:00 ET

 The first Persona Q was a fun little slice of fan service for fans of Persona 3 and 4 seeing our favorite characters interact with each other, deal with bizarre new situations and still deliver a staple Persona gut punch to the heart with a story that manages to blend the themes of the two stories together. Those being the acceptance of Death and facing your darkest truths. So if we add another team of characters, an alternate universe rule 63 version of the Persona 3 lead and tack on the theme of rebelling against an unjust society, do you think that maybe there’s a risk of spoiling the broth? Those are some of my fears going into Persona Q2. Surprisingly not for the Switch but the 3DS again, you’d think that with Nintendo pushing the Switch as their new home/portable console you’d think that Atlus/Sega would take the hint, but no we get it on the 3DS. 

 And just like with SMT Strange Journey Redux I’m guessing that since Atlus is releasing this on a technically last gen device; they don’t feel the need to give these games an English dub and save some coin. But that just begs the question of why not release them on the Switch anyway with an English dub to keep that sec of the fandom happy? I’m not complaining I just think it’s kind of odd that they’re going about it like this. I'm guessing that it has to do with these mechanics working only on the 3DS. But hey at the end of the day we get more SMT goodness on the go without mobile micro transactions (or the ability to take a selfie with Jack Frost or Mara but hey there’s a price for everything I guess) so it’s all good by my books.

 As for the plot from what little I can glean since I’m avoiding spoilers is that the Phantom Thieves (mostly around their school festival due to the presence of Pancake Boy on the team before he stabs them in the back) are taking a page from Veiwtiful Joe and are venturing through the world of movies to undoubtedly solve the problem of some girl that will most likely be Rei 2.0 and be some ghost unable to pass on due to trauma. I mean she basically is Rei only her Zen is an older woman. Anyway these two are stuck in what I’m guessing is the abandoned movie theater near Leblanc, and this is tied into some odd Shadow called Doe that has a doofy looking mask that seems to have some connection to the new girl. As the Phantom Thieves venture through the movie worlds they’ll encounter and recruit the returning Persona characters. First we have the Female Protagonist from Persona 3 PSP in the movie Kamoshidaman where the rapist, child abusing power-mad scumbag is a Superhero. 

 Then we recruit the Persona 4 team in a Jurassic Park parody where apparently Diego Brando is ruining around since we see that some of the Persona 4 team is turning into Dinosaurs. Last we have the rest of the Persona 3 team in a movie where humanity has been replaced with Robots where one of them has developed individuality and their goal is to protect this A.I. But if the last Persona Q game was anything to go by there’s at least two more movie worlds after those but again I won’t be looking around for it any time soon. As for the combat and Personas if you've played the first Q game you should know what you're in for. We will have the Velvet Room but since there's no Social Links the Personas we get are just that, no extra EXP or anything.

 I could talk more about some of the potential features based on the first game but that will just be speculation. From getting new items from salvaging Shadow parts (and yes we're back to traditional Shadow designs instead of the Demons in Mementos, thankfully) to avoiding the F.O.E's that wander the Labyrinths; eventually coming back to beat them and get more items, EXP and potentially strong Personas. Hopefully there's no more of that Streetpass crap, cause I never used the thing and I doubt anyone will since the Switch is a thing now. But all that remains is to get Persona Q2 and see what happens. Now I know I promised that I'd go back to Homura's Revenge after the Month of Mayga man but, something fell into my lap that demands my attention, Heisei Generations Forever, the team up movie of Zi-O and Build, help me.

Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.

Persona Q2 New Cinema Labyrinth is owned by Atlus and Sega.
Spongebob SquarePants is owned by Nickelodeon, Stephen Dillenburg, United Plankton Pictures, and Viacom International Media Networks

Video Game Review: Luigi’s Mansion 3DS: Who you gonna call? Weegee!

When you're done read, comment, spread the links, re-tweet and follow me on Twitter @OnDavidsBrain!, support me on Patreon and watch my Twitch Channel Every Saturday at 12:00 ET

 Ah Luigi’s Mansion, when I was a kid this was one of my favorite games especially around Halloween and one of the first two games I got for the GameCube. Now that it’s rereleased on the 3DS and I can take it on the go the memories came right on back and after replaying and completing it it still holds up, though not without some flaws. Now for those who haven’t played this 16 year old game (Christ how time flies) the premise is a simple as a Mario game can be. Luigi wins a mansion in a contest he didn’t enter (cue Admiral Ackbar) and he finds the place is haunted. Now normally he’d have run for the hills by now but Mario got there first to scope it out and was captured by King Boo and his army of Ghosts, most of whom have escaped from the collection of Paranormal researcher Professor E. Gadd. 

 Gadd had captured a giant Boo called Boolossus and in retaliation, King Boo freed him along with all of the other Ghosts in his portrait collection. Now King Boo and all of the Professors Portrait Ghosts are hiding out in their newly constructed Mansion with Mario as their prisoner. So now with the Professor’s Poltergust 3000 Luigi has to venture into the Mansion, capture all of the portrait ghosts, defeat King Boo and save Mario, like I said simple. Since this is a remake of a GameCube game there’s more then a few updates that I both like and dislike. Let’s get the one bad thing I have about this remake out of the way, it has motion control. 

 When you’re sucking in or launching an element you have to aim it using the 3DS’ gyroscopic control which gets really old really fast and can make some Ghosts downright unbearable. Though you can easily resolve this issue in one of three ways, either have the 3DS XL with the C Stick and Z buttons or if you have just a New 3DS then the Circle Pad Pro will the job as well. Either way with those and the C Stick the issues that I have will pretty much go away. However if you use the circle pad pro you’ll have it activate it every time you turn the game back on or close the 3DS, annoying but nothing that’s going to break the deal. Also you can turn off the Motion controls by going into the options menu and setting the sensitivity to 0, though again you’ll need the c stick from either of the previously mentioned solutions otherwise this port will be very difficult.

 Other then that one issue this is a fantastic rerelease. As a modern game Luigi’s Mansion 3DS has some achievements to complete such as capture all 50 Boos, get all of the Portrait Ghosts, you get the idea. This also has a new rank for the Ghosts that can only unlock once you get access to the hidden Mansion after you beat the game once, you can actually get them a Platinum Frame if you can suck all 150 of their HP in one shot. A tough order but one that can be done with practice. Though just a heads up, Chauncey, Nana and Sue Pea made my life miserable! 

 Sue Pea in particular caused my control stick to crack slightly from all the pressure I was placing on it to wrangle her in. Though this was ultimately worth it in the end when I was rewarded with the S rank Mansion for getting platinum frames for all of the Ghosts. Though I may have had an easier time if I had assistance from Gooigi, the co-op character introduced for this port from E Gadd in the future during the events of Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon which I haven’t played but will give it a shot if I have the time. As mentioned Gooigi is a protoplasm construct of Luigi that can help you during the game and having his help in the Hidden Mansion and getting platinum frames will be a godsend! After playing Luigi’s Mansion on the GameCube so many times the Hidden Mansion in the 3DS port is the most challenge I’ve ever had from this game since the first time I played it all those years ago. 

 There’s more ghosts in the rooms of the Mansion with more HP, Speedy Spirits are in completely different locations, some keys are in different rooms, Mario’s items for Madam Clarvoya are in different rooms, this mode can really throw veterans off their game. Also the Hidden Mansion changes one of the optional ghosts to mandatory and vice versa. Slim Bankshot is now mandatory while Henry and Orville are optional, other then that the rest are as you remember just with harder pulls, more HP and way more annoying as a result. But seeing that S Mansion was really rewarding after going through all of this BS. So if you have a 3DS make sure you pick up a copy of this remake of a ghoulishly good game, even though Halloween’s over at the time of this article, poop.

Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.

Luigi's Mansion 3Ds is owned by Nintendo, Nintendo EAD (GameCube) Grezzo (3DS)

Video Game Review: Shin Megami Tensei Strange Journey Redux/ Deep Strange Journey: Back into the Black hole!

When you're done read, comment, spread the links, re-tweet and follow me on Twitter @OnDavidsBrain! and support me on Patreon.

 Of all the SMT games that deserve a remake and rerelease for modern consoles this one is a personal delight. I wasn't always a fan of the Megami Tensei games, hell I never really heard of them till my brother got a used copy of Persona 4 for the PS2. So I decided "eh why not", gave it a try and the rest as they say is that. Now while I learned more about Persona I learned inevitably about the franchise that Persona spun off from, the Megami Tensei series. But this was before SMT 3 and the other PS2 games were on the PSN store so I decided to go with a rather obscure spin off that surprisingly didn't get a sequel.

 So I went to my local Gamestop I think, picked up a used copy and thus Strange Journey became my very first non Persona SMT game and BOY was it a different breed compared to Persona 4. From the setting to the story and the Pokemon esc demon recruiting mechanic, bone grinding difficulty, morally system and multiple endings Strange Journey was a breath of fresh air in the same way Persona 4 was when I first played it. But enough of my reminiscing I'll give a general recap of the game but for this rerelease you really should go in cold. Unlike the Persona series past Eternal Punishment were we play as anime trope #245, the transfer student; we're playing as a United Nations special ops solder who has been assigned to a strike team that has been sent to investigate a mysterious space which has materialized in the South Pole that threatens to swallow the entire world. Once they get inside they find that there's no way to contact the outside world and they can't get out the same way they came in.

 So for this game we've been essentially banished to the Black hole.

 They penetrate the blag ole called the Schwarzwelt and being an SMT game there's demons all over the place and they want to escape and rip every humans face off. Though personally I can't tell which is worse the demons or being trolled to death by the Gatekeeper. Before they find out for themselves the crews of all the strike teams ships all receive a vision from an unknown source, and with it the Demon Summoning Program is uploaded to their special combat suits called Demonicas that allow them to communicate with and control demons. So with their new demons our protagonist and the crew of the Red Sprite must venture into the heart of the Schwarzwelt and destroy it to save Earth. However there are several factions who want to use the Schwarzwelt for their own purposes, including the Three Wise Men, a mysterious blond girl, a black haired, black winged angel named Mastema, the Mothers of the Schwarzwelt and now for the 3DS remake; a mysterious woman called Alex as well as Zeus and Demeter, maybe.

 Regarding the characters I won't go into too much detail as usual. Even though this is a remake of a 9 year old game I really want you to experience it for yourselves and avoid spoilers, so only names and basic characterization will be detailed here.

First is our protagoinist. There's nothing about him when you start. The only unique thing about him is his nationality depending on which version you're playing. If you're playing the English release he's from the US and the Japanese version he's from Japan. He really is nothing more then a player avatar.

Next is the Captain of the Red Sprite Commander Gore.  He dies within the first hour of the game. That's all I can say for now. Also yes he is clearly named after Al Gore. But he is important to the story I'm being super duper cereal.

Now we have the AI of the Red Sprite, Arthur. After Commander Gore dies Arthur is made the new commander of the Red Sprite. Though Arthur the Crew of the Red Sprite receives the Demon Summoning Program.

Following up is Jimenez, the Chaos partner of our story. A private contractor from the US he's the only member of the Blue Jet to survive the crash and subsequent attack by the resident demons. He's not afraid to speak his mind though is rather pessimistic and confrontational, though he is on friendly terms with his personal Demon Bugaboo and the Protagonist. 

On to our law aligned partner Zelenin. She's a scientist from Russia and is a survivor from the third ship, the Elve. And after she survived her time in Sector Bootes, let's just say she's not all that willing to use the DSP anytime soon. That is until she encounters Mastema.

Mastema, also known as Mansemat, is an angel of persecution and hostility as cited from the literature of Israel's Second Temple Period. In this regard, he is also similar to Satan, who held more or less the same portfolio in other books of the period. Mastema is said to be the angel that unleashed the ten plagues of Egypt and attempted to kill Moses. In this game he's an angel supposedly sent by God to investigate the Schwarzwelt but seems to be following his own agenda. While he claims to be following the orders of God Jiminez correctly doesn't trust the guy as far as he can throw him. Though he does help the crew of the Red Sprite they do keep this angel at arms length.

Last and the newest character in this remake is Alex. All I know about her is that she has her own AI George and she wants to kill me badly for some reason.

 Gameplay wise you'll be navigating the various dungeons, referred to as sectors in this game by a first person perspective with a map on the bottom screen that fills out as you progress through the level. Basically if you've played Etrian Odyssey or Persona Q Shadow of the Labyrinth you'll be familiar with how it all works. But unless you get to recruiting demons and getting new and better equipment you'll be stomped on rather quickly. You'll get new weapons by bringing back Forma that you collect from Demons (though negotiation, defeating them or as a reward for leveling up.) Some forma can only be found in specific sectors or as rewards for side-quests, again much like Persona Q.

 But you won't be able to survive on new equipment alone, every good solder does need trustworthy squad-mates after all, and luckily for you these demons will always work for you, provided you know what their price is. A major factor in recruiting demons in this game is dependent on your moral alignment. By default you'll be neutral-neutral, but as you answer certain dialogue routes you'll sway between the Chaos and Law alignment. If you're lawful then Chaos demons will be harder to negotiate with and the opposite is true too so if you're looking to draft a new demon you better be on the same page ya hear? However there's three conditions where you cannot recruit demons, if the demon is an Unknown, the moons phase is full (unless you have a certain sub-app equipped) and if the demons' secondary alignment is Dark so you'll have to fuse those particular demons or get really lucky and run into them during the full moon with the aforementioned sub-app.

 Or you could just summon a demon by imputing a password, you can find the Passwords for all demons by checking out the SMT Wiki. The music is a radical departure from most of the Megaten series. Once again Shouji Meguro was the composer for this game so surprise, surprise despite the tone it fits this game like a glove. While most of the games I've played that he worked on have gone for a rock, synth and pop style depending on which game it is Strange Journey is much more serious and dire. Apparently he was told to compose it like if it were a movie so he went for a military orchestration with Gregorian chanting, drums and violins.

 Which makes sense for a joint military operation to save the world, the clock is ticking closer to doomsday so it's all business and it really stresses the dire and serious tone of the setting. So all in all when Strange Journey Redux comes out be sure to pick it up. If you're only familiar with the Megaten franchise through Persona this may be what gets you to check out the other areas of the franchise like I did. They're all still great games, made by the same company so equip your Demonica and get out into the field to kick some demon ass! Rip and tear, rip and tear, rip and tear their guts!

Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.

Shin Megami Tensei Strange Journey Redux/Deep Strange Journey is owned by Atlus, Sega and Lancarse.
Atmosfear is owned by J.W. Spear & Sons, Mattel and Flying Bark Productions.

Video Game Review: Pokémon Sun and Moon: Me and my fire kitty.

Please be sure to read, comment, spread the links, re-tweet and follow me on Twitter @OnDavidsBrain! and support me on Patreon.

 Honestly folks I've been looking forward to this game for a long time, not as long as Persona 5 or Kingdom Hearts 3 but eh close enough. A whole new region, new variations of classic Pokémon (proving that Natural Selection exists in Pokémon) and a brand new story telling potential since the new region Alola doesn't have a Pokémon league but 4 Kahunas. Meaning that the game can focus less on beating the eight gym leaders and eventually Elite 4 but now just the 4 Kahunas and the mysteries of the Aether foundation and Team Skull. Even how you get your starter Pokémon has notable differences that I really do like, instead of just picking one and leaving it at that the context has that only once both Pokémon and trainer have chosen each other can't they be called partners, which shows a cut scene where your chosen starter gradually walks over to you, you pick it up and thus you are now partners. And because I chose Litten the cute little fire kitty this image immediately sprang to mind.

No joke I just wanted to present my Litten like he was Simba I was even hearing "Circle of Life" in my head when I was holding him.

 So with the assistance of the new Professor Kukui, his assistant Lillie and her mysterious Pokémon Cosmog I begin my quest to explore these new island, challenge the Kahunas and their islands totem Pokémon and stop Team Skull from doing, SOMETHING I HAVEN'T RUN INTO THEM YET!!! So at this point I'll just go over the features I've encountered so far. First our new Pokédex which is possessed by a Rotom. While it may not do much as far as I can tell he can talk to you, display the map at the bottom of the screen and even show you where you're supposed to go in case you get lost.
It may show new capabilities as the game goes on but that remains to be seen.

 There's an update to the Pokémon-Amie called Pokémon Refresh which while it removes Super Training will allow you to switch between the Pokémon you groom and will also let you removes Status effects at the end of battles such as Sleep, Poison and Paralysis. We also are introduced to the Festival Plaza which for those of you who've played Black and White 2 will be familiar with as it shares functions with the Join Avenue where you help point people in the direction of attractions they want to go to and get upgrades and items from the shops there.

 While there are some features that some people disagree with, mostly the move effectiveness designator that shows whether a move you're using will be effective against a Pokémon or not. I personally don't mind it since like in the most likely case with brand new players they don't want to have their computer or a guide open to check whether a move will work against a Pokémon or not. While I can understand why Nintendo decided to include it some people are not happy. Maybe in further installments the developers could give players an option to turn that feature on or off. However there is one feature that I greatly approve of, the removal of HMs.

 Since there's no Badges there's no HMs that activate when you acquire them. So they mediate this issue by giving players Pokémon that you can ride on to overcome obstacles. So now you don't need to give your Pokémon sometimes unnecessary moves like Cut, Flash or Rock Punch. The best moves are now TMs so no you can give these moves to your Pokémon and remove them with absolutely no problems. Also aside from the Pokémon differences between the two games as usual both are on different time Axes.

 Sun is on normal time displayed on you 3ds while Moon is 12 hours ahead. So if you were playing Moon during the day it would be night in game. There's also some Pokémon that evolve differently in each version as well as version exclusives but I'll leave you all to figure those out for yourselves. As for me, my Litten and my team are off to conquer the Alola Islands as their grand champion. PRAISE THE SUN!!!

Pokémon is owned by Nintendo, Game Freak, Ken Sugumori, and Satoshi Tajiri.
Kamen Rider is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai.

Video Game Review: Shin Megami Tensei 4 Apocalypse/Final (WHATEVER!!!): First impressions

Please be sure to read, comment, spread the links, re-tweet and follow me on Twitter @OnDavidsBrain! and support me on Patreon.

Here we are folks another SMT game and I'm here to preach its value to all of you. Now I haven't had a chance to play the whole game in the time I'm writing this I'm not The Completionist for Christ's sake but I'll just give you all what I can and go from there. Now be forewarned this game not only spoils SMT 4 but also takes place in an alternate timeline so before you play this game or read this review make sure that you at least play the first game. So this is your official spoiler warning.

 We open with our new hero Nanashi, and in a very rare occurrence with these games the characters do address him by the name Nanashi, so how can the player create their own name? By creating a hunter nickname of course. Moving on Nanashi and his childhood friend Asahi are trainee hunters and are out with their two mentors when the four are attacked by the demon Adramelech and his men. The two older hunters are killed by Adramelech as well as Nanashi. However as he dies he's visited by the forgotten god Dagda who offers Nanashi a deal, Dagda'll bring him back to life and in exchange he'll serve Dagda as his personal "Godslayer". With no other choice Nanashi takes the faustian deal and manages to repel Adramelech and save Asahi.

 And from the outset Dagda is dead set on getting Nanashi to do what he wants and doesn't give the slightest amount of a crap about his life and loved ones, just so long as he has his godslayer. Dagda honestly reminds me a lot of Ankh from Kamen Rider OOO, both are demons possessing someone for their own benefit, care little for others and are mostly just rude jerks at best and major league assholes at worst. After a few quests we learn that Flynn and Isabeau are on the move and are about to release Masakado from his stone in Ginza. However Asahi wants to do more to help the two in their fight against Merkabah and Lucifer. So she hears of a job from an old man who turns out to be Odin, Odin tells the two of a powerful demon sealed in a shrine who can help Flynn destroy the two and save humanity. So after venturing inside the shrine they find the demon and surprise surprise Odin turned out to be playing them.

The sealed Demon was Krishna who along with Odin and Maitreya make up the leadership of a brand new faction in this war. The Divine Powers (or Polytheistic Alliance again whatever works for you.)

 These new assholes then kidnap Flynn before he can reawaken Masakado and in the neutral ending last game set out to kill Merkabah and Lucifer. They then demonstrate their power by summoning Krishna's pet dragon Shesha to punch a hole in the ceiling covering Tokyo which I may remind you was powerful enough to block several ICBMs! This facilitates a war conference with Merkabah, Lucifer, Skins and Fujiwara where Lucifer proposes a ceasefire to deal with the threat that the Divine Powers present, because along with Shesha and Flynn they also have a large army of demons as well as a splinter faction of the Ring of Gaea under their command. Merkabah agrees and sends down his elite Samurai to Tokyo and Lucifer declares that he'll lead the humans of Tokyo by proxy.

 Skins and Fujiwara clearly object but according to Lucifer only humans have to power to kill gods and demons, specifically those who they chose to become Godslayers. Thus Krishna's goal is to make Flynn his godslayer so that he may kill YHVH who for anyone who's played the previous games where he's appeared is always the most evil being in existence due to him seeing anything that does not submit to his will as evil and will kill any and all who chose to follow their own path or seek freedom from his control.

 Thus we have our setting Tokyo is split between the three factions. Lucifer's set up shop in Camp Ichigaya (thus controls the Yamato Reactor/gate to the expanse) Shinjuku and Shibuya. Merkabah's base is the Sky Tower and controls Ueno, Kinshicho and Ikebukuro; while the Divine Powers have Ginza and Tsukiji Konganji as their HQ. So as Dagdas Godslayer Nanashi has to defeat the Divine Powers, save Flynn and kill Merkabah and Lucifer to save Tokyo, sounds easy! Now this game does have some major improvements over the last game, one of which is that now you can swap out the partners you bring into battle, first is Asahi who's the white mage, Navarre (yes the elitist prick from last game who only showed up a few times is now a full party member.)

And he's also a Ghost, long story short he died off screen and now possesses Nanashi who is one of few people who can see and hear him. I honestly like him this way, as not only did he mature over the 7 years since Flynn smuggled him to Tokyo to survive the Angel's culling of the Luxurors but he's also extremely helpful in and out of battle due to not only his buffing skills but also being able to carry the Jade Dagger which can cut through special barriers. Plus he's just great comic relief even if he does come off like the fusion of Slimer, The Great Gazoo and Ghost Nappa.

 There's others as well that were leaked which I haven't gotten to in full detail including Nozomi. She's the hunter that Flynn helped last game to become the new Lady Danu and leader of the Fairy tribe who joins the group after the Divine Powers destroyed the Fairy's home to a degree that no amount of clapping will fix. The last three are revolving around the factions; which reminds me that the main three aren't the only factions in Tokyo. Remember the ring of Gaea? Well Maitreya took control and while half followed him due to their "might makes right" philosophy the other half are sticking to the teachings of Lilith and refuse to follow Maitreya, the Lilith faction sends out their strongest warrior to aid the Godslayer, named Toki.

NOES, NOTS THATS TOKI YOUSE DILDOS!!!

  Then there's the Asura Kai who are now organizing under a new leader Abe. Whose representative is Abe's #2 man Hallelujah.

Not sure what his deal is but if I had to guess he's the Simon to Abe's Kamina or the Mikazuki to his Orga, whichever you prefer. But much like how Simon started out the guy has no self confidence and is a bit of a whiner.

 Lastly is one of Merkabahs elite Samurai; Gaston who happens to be Navarre's brother and surprise isn't all proud of his older brother whining to their parents and them bribing the monastery to give him an honorable discharge, imagine that. But just like his brother is an incredibly prideful prick with a superiority complex as well as a chip on his shoulder the size of Serpenterra.

NO ONE FIGHTS LIKE GASTON, SERVES THE LORD LIKE GASTON; GOES AND MOCKS UNCLEAN ONES LIKE GASTON!!!

 Now on to the new additions of the game. Whenever you find corpses in the field instead of simply getting an item you'll instead get AP points. Speaking of apps they remove the Demonlngual, Mapper and Cathedral of Shadows app, those skills either are automatic or are unneeded. You also get new side quests as you progress through the game automatically instead of constantly having to check hunters associations or by asking demons, which helps to make things progress faster and streamlines quests. You also don't have to fight against guards to access terminals now. But my personal favorite new addition is that now when you enter an area you can see if there's new conversations to be had with people instead of constantly reading the same dialogue over and over again.

 As for the demons you'll be fighting there's four new Demon groups you can recruit in the field, Genma, Dragon and Holy. Also most of the evolutions from the last game carry over to this game. However the order of the demons change as well so take that in mind when remembering which demons evolve into what. So with my little spiel over and done with get out there, get some demons and save Tokyo.


Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse/Final is owned by Atlus, Sega and Kazuyuki Yamai
Metalocalypse is owned by Brendon Small, Tommy Blancha, Titmouse, Inc and Williams Street

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

Please be sure to read, comment, spread the links, re-tweet and follow me on Twitter @OnDavidsBrain! and support me on Patreon.

 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)