Playing on: SNES
Year: 1995
Megumi Tensei Digital Devil saga was first released for the original NES, or more accurately, was only released in Japan for the Famicom. It was the original game that began the RPG series focused on convincing demons to fight for your party and battling other various devils and gods of mythology attempting to conquer mankind. It also went on to span various spinoff RPG games such as the widely popular Perona series.
Even though the original Famicom game has been fan translated into English I have elected to play the, also fan-translated, Super Nintendo remake from 1995 that was also only released in Japan. I do consider the Super Nintendo aka Super Famicom version the definitive version as it retains the story and gameplay of the original while updating the visuals but otherwise maintains the spirit and atmosphere of the original game. There is also one major quality of life improvement as it adds an actual save feature whereas the original used a password save system. The Super Famicom remake titled Kyuyaku Megumi Tensei also contains the updated second game from the original Famicom but they are separated into parts I and II on the cart.
The general storyline is both really simple and really original for the time. Instead of taking place in a fantasy setting Megami Tensei takes place in then, modern-day Japan. A programmer creates, for some reason, a demon-summoning computer program that unintentionally released several demons including Lucifer into the world. That’s pretty much the story. Your teamed up with a female friend, dumped outside of an ancient-looking temple, and tasked with defeating the demons.
Character creation is very basic as in you are given two characters and you simply assign a starting amount of points to a few stats and you’re on your way.
The overall look of the game is very simple and it wouldn’t be considered a graphical powerhouse even among its SNES peers. This isn’t too surprising though seeing as it is a remake of an NES game and a dungeon crawler as well, a genre not known for its stunning visuals.
The closest game I can compare Megami Tensei to is the original Phantasy Star, right down to how you go through the 3D dungeon and how the battle system works. Even the initial music from the starting town made me immediately think of Phantasy Star. I’m serious, I’m not sure what it is about that initial music in the town but it triggers strong Phantasy Star vibes in my mind. The dungeon tunes are suitably creepy and ominous.
As I mentioned the battles are very similar to the early Phantasy Star games. They are turned based but you do not see your characters, only attack animations from them. As far as enemies only one type of enemy is encountered at any time through their number varies.
There is also a moon symbol at the top left of the screen. when the moon is full demons are stronger but when the moon is less visible humans are stronger, it seems counter-intuitive and I didn’t find it particularly game-changing, at least not in the early sections of the game.
The first enemy I encountered was this snake monster which very quickly slaughtered me because I completely neglected to buy any weapons or armor before venturing into the dungeon. The starting town, which is also inside the dungeon, has a weapons shop as well as an armor shop, and it’s fairly essential to equip your two party members as best you can. The town also features several rooms with NPCs that give random advice, a town elder that saves your progress, and a sort of magic guild that will fuse demons for you, I’ll get into that in a second.
Other than weapons and armor there are also spells that your second-party member starts with and can learn as she levels up. Unfortunately, this fan translation decided to go with goofy names for the spells so it’s hard to figure out what the spells do without looking it up or trial and error.
Another interesting thing I learned when dying is you actually get a chance to be resurrected if you can pay the ferryman enough. Being this was the very start of the game I did not and thus I was whisked off to the afterlife. The Mode7 ferry trip is kinda cool too.
About that demon fusing guild. Beyond your first two party members, you can only expand your party by recruiting demons encountered in the dungeon. Some demons seem to have no way of communicating, like zombies and the like but many can be pursued through several methods. I find just offering them jewels or money works best. After they join your group they can be summoned into the party and act like any other member though they can’t be equipped with weapons or armor many of them do possess magic abilities.
Demons need to be about your party’s level or lower to join and when out and active they slowly deplete the MAG resource which like currency is obtained by defeating certain demons. This adds a certain strategy to the game about how many demons you need active in your party at any given time.
The magic demon fusing guild I mentioned earlier can fuse two (and maybe more?) demons together to create a stronger demon, or even a weaker one depending, thankfully you get to see the result of a fusion before you consent to it.
The dungeon itself is quite large and consists of several areas. There is some back and forth with using different stairs to access different sections of a floor but thankfully there are shortcuts that can be unlocked such as elevators, teleports, and more useful automap.
At the bottom of the first tower, my party encountered the first boss, a Minotaur. Thankfully I was just leveled up enough to be able to handle it with not too much difficulty though the attacks that caused damage to all party members were a bit troublesome.
Defeating the Minotaur gave an orb that allowed the use of the elevator making access to the starting town quick as opposed to climbing all 8 floors back up the tower.
Journeying further on revealed a second smaller town which allowed me to buy better weapons and armor but lacked a save spot so at least for now saving requires traveling all the way back to the initial town. This second section of the dungeon is in two parts, a floating city, and a lower ground section. After some backtracking to recover a gate guards shield, requiring a battle with a sort of mid-boss, I tried taking the steps down and got obliterated by monsters so instead I went up to the floating city. According to the NPCs, a Medusa rules the city and turned everyone to stone.
At this point, there were two paths to follow, up into the floating city or down into the Corrodore of Valhalla. judging by monster strength and what the NPCs seemed to be hinting at my next destination was up into the floating city.
It was at this point I did notice a small increase in overall difficulty which really prompted me to do both a bit of level grinding but also experiment more with demon fusing.
Using the demon fusing guild back in the starting city I was able to experiment and fuse a few of the demons I had convinced to join me, creating more capable demons. There are two things to consider when doing this, first, you can only have demons in your party that are equal to or less than your two main character’s levels (which are always the same). Next is that more powerful demons consume more of the MAG resource so you have to watch how you balance things.
I found the floating city of Biel to be a little less straightforward than the initial dungeon and slightly more “maze-like” but nothing too bad, especially thanks to the automap feature. At one point I even found the ruler of the area, Medusa, after enting a door labeled “no entry” on the top floor. She defeated my party fairly easily. I did know from talking to NPCs in various locations that I had to recover an item known as Tabasa’s statue which should nullify Medusa’s petrifying powers, Though interestingly she didn’t seem to use this ability even once in my fight with her.
I also discovered a cockpit of sorts for the floating city though the captain has been turned to stone, again, a heavy phantasy star vibe. On the lower floors, I discovered an old man who provided a key to me that opened a locked door on one of the upper levels thus granting Tabasa’s statue to me. With this statue and a few new levels and more powerful demon allies, I was finally able to defeat Medusa and free the floating city.
After Medusa’s defeat, I received another key which opened up a new town in the floating city providing a much-needed closer save spot as well as games of chance and more powerful weapons and armor. Interestingly enough The town elder also gave me a pass which allowed me to return to the cockpit room and instruct the now unpetrified captain to move the city to later areas of the game. This somewhat confused me at first and I was wondering if this was some kind of cheat or warp. I believe the purpose may be to give the player a sort of mobile base with a save point when adventuring into these later areas.
Another great benefit that I received after leveling up after Medusa’s defeat was the ability to cast the Trastart spell which warps the party back to the last save spot. This is a huge convenience as it allows me to take many more chances when exploring the dungeon.
My next task is to take the downward stairs and traverse the Corradore of Valhalla. Enemies are noticeably more powerful here and according to NPCs Loki, the Norse god, awaits me at the end of these halls.
I know this is based on the original Famicom (NES) game but I really wish they had gone a little further with the theming in accordance with each demon. It would have been nice if the “Corrdores of Valhalla” had at least a hint of Norse culture or perhaps if the boss of the first two sections were of Greek mythology maybe some Greek-style pillars or something. Even some enemies themed to the area boss would have been nice. I’m not complaining about the enemies though, they straddle a fine line between being original and weird but not being too out there….for the most part.
I wouldn’t say the corridors were maze but there was a lot of going up and down stairs as they were in two levels. Basically just going through the room to room methodically worked best for me. I also came across two rooms with an amethyst in it. These are used to purchase items in “Rag’s Shop” which I learned about through an NPC. I also learned through NPC text that I needed to purchase Ares Bracelet at the shop. I also found a prisoner that gave me a ring once I freed him as well as an NPC that asks me if I want to enter “the entrance to hell”. if you say no he just disappears but if you say yes you are warped to this strange location that’s very maze-like and is filled with areas that do automatic damage and teleport you around. The enemies here arn’t too tough though there is a Laughing Skull enemy that is pretty powerful. I can’t really find a point to this place though I did stumble upon a chest with some money. the automap doesn’t work here and the only way I can find to escape is using my teleport back to the save spot magic. I wonder if there is a key item hidden in this area but thus far I’ve been unable to find one, I keep this place in mind.
Other than this I continued to level grind as I proceeded as well as recruit and fuse more powerful demons as I went along.
Interestingly I found the exit from the corridors to the next section of the game. This rather surprised me as I would have thought the exit would either be guarded by Loki himself or locked and require a key from a defeated Loki. There may indeed have been some kind of progress barrier eventually but I turned around and returned to the corridors before venturing too far into the new section.
Loki was indeed located in a room not too far away. and This leads me to another slight issue I have with the game. Sometimes, like with Loki, there is no warning that a boss battle is through the next entrance. At least with Medusa, there was a warning sign at the entrance but Loki is just kind of there, in a random room, without warning. If your party is unprepared and not expecting a boss you may be in trouble.
Loki just kind of looks like a werewolf in this game. I’m sure many people these days would be expecting something closer to the Marvel version but remember, this game came out in the early 90s. Loki in mythology is a shape-shifter so I don’t think this depiction is all that bad. A nice Norse Viking background probably would have been more appropriate than what appears to be a stained glass Christian cathedral look but who am I to judge Loki’s interior decoration tastes?
This was the first battle I’ve had so far in the game that I found attacking with spells was a bit of a must as physical attacks just did too little damage and Loki had too many HP. After a tense battle, I was able to defeat Loki thus scoring me a victory over the first of the game’s main baddies.
I think I’ll end things here and save the rest of the game for part II since I feel I’m about at the game’s mid-way point. Looking at the map there seem to be two major areas left and I still have Set, who I believe is an Egyptian god and of course, Lucifer left to face.
Random Battles: my life long level grind 