Link to Part 1
When we last played Kyūyaku Megami Tensei I had just defeated Loki and moved into the next area, Mazurka. Thankfully there’s a sort of “town area” right at the start of this area with all the shops, save spot, and monster fusion guild close together as well as the initially nonworking elevator. This area is basically a mountain with dungeon levels going up to the top and then down the other side leading to the ominous sounding “sea of fire”.
After upgrading what weapons and armor I could I started exploring the dungeon and making my way upward and that’s when I ran into the first of the dreaded “level drainers”.
Possibly one of the most annoying and morale breaking enemies in an RPG the level drainer enemies drain one or more levels from a character potentially rendering hours of grinding for XP wasted. Fortunately, this ability was either not used very often or failed because, after dozens of encounters with these monsters, I was only level drained twice. Both times It made more sense just to restart my game from my last save.
The art style of some of the NPCs in this game is radically different from the overall artistic style of the game. It’s almost like they had guest artists create some of them.
The general idea of this area is pretty much the same as the previous ones. Find a particular item by meticulously searching every level and then use said item on the boss of the area which will do something like block a particular power that will allow you to defeat the boss. Usually, an initial item must also be found in order to get the main item used to defeat the area boss.
This area seems to be ruled by Hecate who according to Wikipedia was a Greek goddess.
This is also the first part of the game that I found I really needed to manage my MAG supply. What this meant is I couldn’t have my strongest demons deployed all the time when exploring the dungeon as they would eat up too much MAG with every step. I generally had to keep the stronger demons in reserve for if my weaker demons were defeated or if I knew the boss was lurking ahead.
There’s a Indiana Jones type moment near the end of Mazurka where you need to replace one item with another or rocks fall on you taking some HP. I used the Are’s Necklace on my second try and got the item.
Like the previous bosses, with the exception of Medusa, I just kind of unexpectantly stumbled on Hecate unprepared. This time the item enables you to reveal her true form which I assume allows the party to successfully make attacks. Hecate had quite a lot of HP but my group was able to whittle her down and eventually defeat her allowing use of the elevator in this area.
I also came across a shadow person in one of the rooms that asked if I had any weapons. I said yes and it accused me of being a “Cocky B#@^!*d” and attacked.
Many of the floors contain nothing of real value and could be skipped by finding the stars right away or using the elevator and avoiding the level all together but being as I’ve never played the game before I feel compelled to fully search every floor as I have no idea where any items I may need are.
The next area of the game is the Sea of Fire, which has a cool fire effect on the walls that does a good job of spicing up the until now dull dungeon walls. This area does have the annoying trait of zapping a small amount of health away with every step but it’s surprisingly not as detrimental as you would think as the amount drained is fairly low.
There’s also a new level-draining demon on these levels.
This one is much more annoying as they use the level drain ability much more often and with much greater success rates.
There is a “town area” that you do eventually run into but unlike most of the earlier ones the shops are quite separated and monsters will attack anywhere. For example to my annoyance the healer and the Town Elder, who saves your progress, are separated by some distance. what this means is I have to make sure I have some extra HP and magic for when I teleport back to the save point because if I want my health and MP back I need to teleport back to the save point and then make the dangerous journey over to the healer. After healing up I then have to cast teleport again to get back to the save point.
balancing MAG became even harder here as enemies became tougher yet many do not give much MAG when defeated. I was able to fuse and create several powerful demons but due to the MAG cost per movement, I haven’t been really able to deploy them.
After searching around I did eventually come upon the Japanese life/death goddess Izanmi. She had been captured by Lucifer and in order to free her I had to place three orbs in a particular order. Thankfully I had all three orbs though I could not recall where I had previously found them. I was able to decipher the order on my second try through sheer luck.
As a thank you for freeing her Izanami gifted my group with a magical robe which gave off an aura that now prevented my party from taking damage as I explored the Sea of Flames. This was a very welcomed item at this point as although each step didn’t take off much health the HP drain was taking its toll in conjunction with all the random monster encounters as I explored deeper into the more complex dungeon of the Sea of Fire.
Apparently, the demons have Ray Harryhausen crafting monsters for them.
I also came across this strange character in the dungeon halls that offered to sell me MAG which is pretty convenient, I didn’t have a ton of cash so I went with the medium bad which I think was only 500 MAG, not bad but not great. He then said he would be back at the new moon and disappeared.
I soon came across and defeated Bojack Horseman who seemed to be a boss though I killed him without much trouble.
I also found an urn that I couldn’t retrieve the magical item inside and a small bottle with some sort of demon trapped inside.
Finally, after pushing on a little more I entered the blue halls just prior to the final area of the game. There were no weapon or armor shops in sight but thankfully the healer and save area were located very close to the entrance of this new area.
Enemies in this area also seem to be a little more liberal with MAG drops after battle making this area a perfect stop for some level, money and MAG grinding.
Speaking of enemies, At this point in the game have both been encountering particularly powerful enemies in combat as well as being able to create a few powerful demon allies. The enemy encounters tend to come in small numbers so they haven’t been much of a problem. The more powerful demons I have been able to fuse and control on the other hand are just too costly to deploy at the moment.
The final areas of this game engage in a bit too much of the worst of dungeon design and by that I mean teleporters and pits. Until now these sorts of annoying dungeon traps have been rare but in the final areas of the dungeon, they become all too common. There are also many “spinners” which when stepped on spin your party around stopping in a random direction. The automap feature makes this trap almost completely ineffective though. Considering this I’m not sure why they even bothered with them.
The final climb through Infini is brutal as several enemies can level drain as well as cast instant death attacks.
Finally after a bit of grinding and clearing the levels below I made it to the top level. The room preceding Lucifer is covered in pit traps that drop you to the level below but after several attempts, I finally found a safe path across the room, confronted the lord of hell, and was completely defeated in short order.
It was at this point something felt off and I knew I had missed one or more things. Previous NPCs talked about weapons I never came across and there was still the matter of the magical pot I encountered earlier.
The dungeons behind me were vast and although I remembered encountering suspicious rooms prior I failed to mark down where they were so I did something I really try to avoid, I consulted a walkthrough To see what I had missed. I had apparently missed a lot, including the most powerful sword and shield in the game, an entire boss battle, and an item that is required to defeat Lucifer which was in the pot from earlier.
The sword was located all the back in the flying city and could be found by using the demon in a bottle I found earlier to reveal a secret door and then falling down some specific pits. The boss I missed, Set, was located in the Sea of Fire and also required entering a specific room after I received the bottle to reveal a secret passage. I’m not sure why the game allows you to progress and completely skip bosses like that. In some ways, it’s a refreshing deviation from the usual RPG formula but on the other hand, I’m so used to the formula itself, especially in older games, that when they deviate I become confused.
Set was probably the most difficult boss up until this point but seeing as I was over-leveled upon encountering him It wasn’t too difficult. I did lose a level to him though as he does have that annoying power though he seemed to at least use it sparingly on me. I could also now access the magical pot since apparently, I had talked to a certain NPC within Infini though for the life of me, I do not remember them.
With all the loose ends tied up and now with the orb from the pot I once again made the trek up the final tower to once again face Lucifer.
This time around I summoned my most powerful demons and charged into the fight. Lucifer is no pushover and he generally attacked with a blast that did 150+ points of damage a round. I couldn’t fully keep up healing even with two party members on full-time heal duty but I did have a small cache of jewels which when used as an item fully heal one character. I lost several demons during the battle but finally, I did come out victorious.
And that was that. The game ends with Lucifer needing to “rest” and warning that “he” is coming. this is followed by a simple “The End” screen and then the game loads straight into the sequel which was quite confusing for me.
I briefly want to talk about the original Famicom (NES) version of this game as I’ve read several articles and watched videos on it. As I said in part 1 the Super Famicom remake adds many quality-of-life improvements such as a save system and a teleport ability to return to these save spots. while keeping most of the core game intact. I did notice however that despite being on weaker hardware I felt the 8-bit pixel art of the original was superior to the uninspired art of the remake.
Overall I felt Kyūyaku Megami Tensei was okay but it just felt a little bland. The concept of convincing monsters to join and then fusing them to make stronger monsters was fun and surely innovative in the late 80s and early 90s but I wish they would have ran with the idea of using ancient gods as enemies a little better. I wanted more themed dungeons and enemies that matched the theme but instead, I just got a lot of boring stock bad guys and dungeons.
Grade: C-
Random Battles: my life long level grind 