{"id":126381,"date":"2013-05-28T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-28T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jbsgame.com\/devilish-delight-shin-megami-tensei-iv-hands-on\/"},"modified":"2013-05-28T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-05-28T12:00:00","slug":"devilish-delight-shin-megami-tensei-iv-hands-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jbsgame.com\/devilish-delight-shin-megami-tensei-iv-hands-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Devilish delight: Shin Megami Tensei IV hands-on"},"content":{"rendered":"
This game makes me grin<\/h2>
In a room full of peers I embarrassed myself. A few weeks back, I found myself in a meeting room along with folks that head up a lot of the other gaming websites and magazines in America. After a brief presentation, Atlus started to ask the group for a few volunteers to be the first to play Shin Megami Tensei IV<\/em>. Before their sentence finished I found my peers laughing at me. They were laughing at a grunt that came forth from my mouth, almost involuntarily. I found myself frantically waving my hands in the air, insisting to be among the first to play.<\/p>
Needless to say, I’m pretty excited about Shin Megami Tensei IV<\/em>. <\/p>
Why so excited? It’s enough that the game is coming from my favorite company, and is also a key title in my favorite franchise. But Shin Megami Tensei IV<\/em> is also the follow-up to one of my favorite games of all time, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne<\/em>. And it’s portable. And it’s funny. And it’s lovely.<\/p>
The duty of protecting the realm of Mikado isn’t one you choose — it chooses you. This duty falls on those chosen during a sacred ceremony. All that reach age eighteen must participate in this ceremony to determine whether they become Samurai or not. Being chosen to perform this duty sounds like it should be an honor, but at the point I jumped into SMT IV<\/em>, it seemed that not all of the protagonist’s friends were thrilled about it. Being one of the chosen involves slaying demons, but it seems that there are darker secrets in store for new recruits. Beyond this, new samurai don’t have a choice in the matter — this will be their calling, like it or not.<\/p>
My playthrough seemed to be from early in the game as it felt like the demo had me working through a training dungeon. The battle system’s options were open to be fully explored, so I immediately jumped into demon negotiation, one of the franchise hallmarks. I liked that the presentation of demon negotiation has seen a bit of an upgrade. Demon faces now take up the entire top screen, making negotiation more of a face-to-face affair than before. Choices show up on the bottom screen, while conversation takes place in a word bubble on the top screen. From what I saw, demons in SMT IV<\/em> have a lot to say, making negotiation even more enjoyable. Expect lots of gibberish and crazy talk.<\/p>