Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse

Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse, known in Japan as Shin Megami Tensei IV: Final,[lower-alpha 1] is a 2016 role-playing video game developed and published by Atlus for the Nintendo 3DS. It is the sequel to Shin Megami Tensei IV, set in a post-apocalyptic alternative world. The game is part of the Shin Megami Tensei series, the central series of the Megami Tensei franchise. The game features gameplay mechanics from previous Shin Megami Tensei releases, such as the Press Turn battle system, where players and enemies fight and exploit weaknesses, allowing either side to gain additional turns or lose them.

Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse
North American cover art
Developer(s)Atlus
Publisher(s)
Director(s)Satoshi Ōyama
Producer(s)Kazuyuki Yamai
Programmer(s)Yuichi Yoshida
Artist(s)Masayuki Doi
Writer(s)
Composer(s)Ryota Kozuka
SeriesMegami Tensei
Platform(s)Nintendo 3DS
Release
  • JP: February 10, 2016
  • NA: September 20, 2016
  • EU: December 2, 2016
  • AU: December 9, 2016
Genre(s)Role-playing
Mode(s)Single-player

The story follows an alternative timeline to that of Shin Megami Tensei IV, and focuses on the demon hunter Nanashi, a silent protagonist who dies and is resurrected by the demon Dagda. Development began shortly after the release of Shin Megami Tensei IV. The game received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the games' feel and quality of life changes from Shin Megami Tensei IV.

Gameplay
See also: Gameplay of Shin Megami Tensei IV
A battle: enemies are displayed on the top screen, and the player's party and partner on the bottom screen.

In Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse, the player controls the demon hunter Nanashi as they explore locations including a post-apocalyptic Tokyo and the medieval kingdom Mikado. The setting, most demons, and a large number of mechanics are carried over from the game's predecessor Shin Megami Tensei IV.[1][2] Navigation is done from a third-person perspective through local environments and using an overhead worldmap. Battles take place from a first-person perspective, and are triggered either through story sequences or encountering enemy sprites in the environment.[2][3] The party gains experience points and levels up by winning battles and completing quests. As the protagonist gains a level, he is given skill points allotted to five different statistics which alter how he performs in battle.[1][4] When in battle, Nanashi has a party of three demons and a "Partner", one of the supporting cast which has an automated turn and their own unique demon roster, giving them a different set of abilities.[4]

During battle, both player and enemy actions are governed by the turn-based Press Turn System, a battle system carried over from previous entries in the Shin Megami Tensei series. The system revolves around exploiting physical or elemental weaknesses, and landing critical attacks: if a character strikes another character's weak point or deals a critical hit, the party gains an extra turn, while if the attack is absorbed or blocked, they lose their turn. If a party member from either side ambushes the enemy, strikes a weakness or gets a critical hit, they may enter "Smirk" status: Smirking temporarily increases a character's damage, eliminates their elemental weaknesses, and gives them a high probability of dodging attacks. It also grants boosts to certain skills a character possesses.[1][2][4]

In addition to fighting them, demons can be persuaded to join the party through negotiation, this being the only way to gather a playable party. If a demon agrees to join but Nanashi's level is too low, another demon is called in to take the first demon's place. If a demon does not immediately attack, it is open to negotiation and can be persuaded to join. Once part of the party, demons can be talked with, and can grant status buffs and grant new skills to Nanashi. Certain abilities also effect the demon's health, magic and elemental resistances, with certain attack types either inflicting penalties or granting additional status buffs. Two or more demons can be fused into a new form, granting new abilities. During fusion, players can choose which skills are retained and which are discarded.[1][4]

Synopsis

Setting and characters

Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse takes place in 2038 in Japan, within the same setting as Shin Megami Tensei IV.[1] Twenty-five years prior, a devastating war was waged between the angels and the armies of Lucifer. To protect Tokyo from damage, a great rock dome was created. While it protected Tokyo, resources became progressively scarcer over the following years, while angels and demons ruled over humans.

The game's silent protagonist is the demon hunter cadet Nanashi. He is killed while on a demon hunt and he is contacted in the afterlife by the god Dagda, who offers to restore the protagonist to life in exchange for becoming his "godslayer".[5] When returned to life, he is manipulated by Dagda and Odin into freeing Krishna from a prison made by YHVH, who forms an alliance of various polytheistic deities called the Divine Powers, for the claimed purpose of saving humanity and opposing Merkabah and Lucifer.[6] The storyline takes an alternate turn from the beginning of the previous game's neutral route: protagonist Flynn and his companion Isabeau have chosen to ally with the people of Tokyo, while Flynn's former companions Jonathan and Walter have respectively become the hosts for Merkabah, leader of God's angelic forces, and Lucifer, ruler of the demon hordes.[6] The story does not follow the previous game's three-tiered moral alignment system. There are multiple endings, but both of the primary endings are neutral; the game's law and chaos endings serve as abridged conclusions to the story.[7]

Plot

In post-apocalyptic Tokyo, Nanashi is killed by demons along with Nikkari and Manabu. In the afterlife, a demon named Dagda offers to resurrect him in exchange for his service as Godslayer. Shortly afterward, the revived Nanashi and Asahi are manipulated into unsealing Krishna, a malevolent deity who intends to destroy the universe and recreate it in his own image. Krishna takes Asahi hostage in order to force Flynn to surrender to him, intending to force Flynn to become his own Godslayer in order to make his dream a reality. He also unleashes the monstrous serpent Shesha to begin harvesting human souls for his plans. Nanashi and Asahi set out to defeat Krishna and Shesha and fix their mistake. Nanashi and his companions defeat Shesha, infiltrate Krishna's base in Tsukiji Konganji, defeat Krishna, and rescue Flynn. The party then sets out to defeat Merkabah and his angels and Lucifer and his demons. Nanashi has the option of siding with Merkabah; in which case Tokyo is destroyed and a kingdom of God is established in Mikado or with Lucifer; where Mikado is burned to the ground and the world descends into anarchy. If Nanashi remains on humanity's side, a massive three-way battle ensues, Lucifer and Merkabah are killed, and humanity emerges victorious.

During the celebration afterwards, Flynn murders the surviving Demon Hunters. He reveals himself to be Shesha, reincarnated in Flynn's form, and explains that Krishna faked his own defeat and used Shesha to manipulate the Hunters into getting rid of the angels and demons; the real Flynn remains in Krishna's clutches. Shesha murders Asahi and transforms into the Cosmic Egg, a giant object that will hatch into Krishna's new universe when the full moon rises. The party storms the Cosmic Egg to defeat Krishna and his Divine Powers once and for all. Inside the Egg, Dagda reveals his plan to hijack it and create his own universe where all humans are completely independent from one another, and demands Nanashi's aid in his plan. Danu opposes him, and wants Nanashi to destroy the Egg. If Nanashi rebels against Dagda, Danu revives Dagda in line with their ideals, and Nanashi kills Dagda's dark side. The true Dagda then resurrects all of Shesha's victims, including Asahi. If Nanashi sides with Dagda, his friends turn against him, and he is forced to kill them all. In either case, Nanashi then makes his way to the heart of the egg, where Krishna and Flynn are. Krishna forcibly fuses with Flynn to become Vishnu-Flynn and battles Nanashi, but he defeats him and separates the two.

If Nanashi sided with his friends, Flynn finishes Krishna off. Nanashi then destroys the heart of the egg, ending Krishna's plans for good. As the group begins to celebrate, Stephen appears and reveals that there is one more enemy standing between humanity and true freedom: YHVH, the creator god. Stephen opens a portal to YHVH's universe, and Nanashi and Flynn invade his realm. They undergo a trial from YHVH's second-in-command Satan, and are deemed worthy to confront YHVH. Satan temporarily resurrects Flynn's old friends Walter and Jonathan to aid them, and the group battles and destroys YHVH once and for all. Afterwards, humanity is finally freed from the gods and a new peace is forged by Tokyo, Mikado, and the demons.

If Nanashi sided with Dagda, Flynn is killed in the battle and Nanashi executes Krishna. The Cosmic Egg hatches into Dagda's new universe, and he appoints Nanashi as its new Creator. Afterwards, Stephen appears and explains that the new universe cannot fully come to fruition until YHVH is killed and the old universe destroyed. Dagda resurrects Flynn and a companion of Nanashi's choice to be brainwashed into serving as his Godslayer and Goddess, respectively. After wiping out the remaining Hunters, Nanashi invades YHVH's universe and kills Him. The old universe dies and is reborn as a new universe where humans are free from all outside influence, and Dagda fades away, leaving Nanashi to rule his new creation.

Development

Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse was born out of discussions about what Team Maniacs, the makers of Shin Megami Tensei IV, could do that was characteristic of their team. Ultimately, they decided that they wanted to make a completely new title as opposed to an upgraded re-release: as they wanted the game to "make everything clear", they added the word "Final" to the title. Production on the title began after development ended for Shin Megami Tensei IV in 2013.[6][8] As part of their development, the team looked at player feedback for the game to improve and refine some aspects while keeping others. Their goal was to make "the number one RPG on the 3DS".[6] Multiple staff from the original game returned, including producer Kazuyuki Yamai and character designer Masayuki Doi. Satoshi Ohyama, who had worked on Shin Megami Tensei IV as main programmer, was assigned as director.[8][9] The story's main themes are making or breaking bonds with others, and the advent of "inevitable reality", with a key word in the story being "deicide".[6] An element of the story was the idea of deities from polytheistic deity factions fighting back against being subsumed by the monotheistic Abrahamic deities.[8] The game's world and basic scenario were created by Kazuma Kaneko, while the script was written by Yusuke Miyata.[9][10]

Demon designs from the previous game were refined, including the characters Medusa, Merkabah and Lucifer. Doi designed the deity figures based on the traditions surrounding them in their native mythologies. The coloration of polytheistic deities was likewise influenced by beliefs surrounding colors from their native lands. The human forms of Merkabah and Lucifer were based around the idea of the monotheistic factions drawing power from human faith.[6][9][11] The game's main protagonist was originally designed to be much older, with his adult design carrying over into one of the game's non-playable characters. Instead, the protagonist was made into a teenager so as to better relate the game's themes.[8][11] Tying into the game's themes is the fact that the main protagonist comes from a far lower-class, less elite force than the protagonist of Shin Megami Tensei IV.[11] The music was handled by composer Ryota Kozuka, who had previously worked as composer for Shin Megami Tensei IV. He worked on Apocalypse alongside his work arranging tracks for Persona 4: Dancing All Night.[8] At the time of the game's announcement in October 2015, development was approximately 90% complete.[6]

Promotion and release

The game was first teased through the main website for Shin Megami Tensei IV: when a specific hashtag had been forwarded through Twitter 15,000 times, a rocky surface hiding the title would break and reveal its secret.[12] The game was eventually revealed on October 5, 2015.[9] The game was released for the Nintendo 3DS in Japan on February 10, 2016,[5] and in North America on September 20, 2016.[13] It was also released in the PAL region by Deep Silver,[14] on December 2, 2016 in Europe and on December 9 in Australia.[15] North American pre-orders and launch day copies included a set of three metal emblem pins in the forms of a peace symbol, an anarchy symbol, and Dagda's mark.[16]

For its Western release, the subtitle was changed from "Final" to "Apocalypse". The localization team's main task in this respect, once they had Atlus' permission to make necessary alterations, was to create a name that would give the same implications as the Japanese title while being easier for Western players to understand. Among the titles that needed to be turned down were "End War" due to copyright issues and "Holy War" due to potential backlash. As an "A" symbol was incorporated into the logo, they decided on a word beginning with A. The title "Apocalypse" was reached after much discussion. For about two weeks during this process, the team considered dropping the game's numeral as had been done with Nocturne.[17]

Reception

Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse was generally well received by critics, according to the review aggregator website Metacritic.[18] Reviewers were impressed with the games visuals, with Heidi Kemp writing for GameSpot stating Apocalypse had a "amazing sense of visual design".[4] USGamer's Jeremy Parish praised the game's quality of life changes over those found in IV, and called it one of the most "uniquely realistic games on 3DS".[23] Luca Forte writing for Eurogamer Italy called them "detailed and pleasant" and a definite improvement from IV.[19] However, Chris Carter writing for Destructoid stated the graphics were "drab", but suggested it was more due to the limitations of the 3DS.[3]

The game received a lot of comments on its quality of life upgrades from those found in the previous title. Parish praised the modifications to gameplay, whilst Forte commented on the large improvements on the in-game map being a positive.[19][23] Kemp for GameSpot praised the game for its "host of improvements to its core gameplay that immensely improves the experience of demon hunting and exploration".[4]

Apocalypse was critiqued in places for the in-game universe being the same as that in IV. Toshi Nakamura for Kotaku was somewhat expecting Apocalypse to be an update to the game, or a DLC rather than a brand new game.[5] Daniel Tack in a Game Informer piece commented that "other than the story, not a whole lot is new" with Apocalypse.[21] Morgan Sleeper, however, for Nintendo Life described it as a "sequel-of-sorts" whilst Forte highlighted in his article that Apocalypse was "not a sequel or even a DLC, but a masterpiece".[19][22]

It was the highest selling game in Japan during its debut week, with an estimated 96,300 copies sold. These sales figures were approximately half of the debut sales for Shin Megami Tensei IV, and were noted by Siliconera as a good performance for a Shin Megami Tensei game outside of new, numbered entries.[24]

Notes
  1. Shin Megami Tensei IV: Final (Japanese: 真・女神転生IV FINAL, "True Goddess Reincarnation IV: Final")

References
  1. Carter, Chris (September 20, 2016). "Shin Megami Tensei 4: Apocalypse beginner's guide". Polygon. Archived from the original on October 26, 2016. Retrieved October 31, 2017.
  2. Megan (September 21, 2016). "Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse Review". Polygon. Retrieved October 31, 2017.
  3. "Review: Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse". Destructoid.
  4. Kemps, Heidi (September 15, 2016). "Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse". GameSpot. Archived from the original on September 18, 2016. Retrieved September 17, 2016.
  5. Nakamura, Toshi (October 6, 2015). "Shin Megami Tensei IV Final Isn't an Update, But an Entirely New Game". Kotaku. Archived from the original on October 7, 2015. Retrieved October 8, 2015.
  6. 『真・女神転生IV FINAL』プロデューサー・山井一千氏へのインタビューを全文掲載！【週刊ファミ通2015年10月8日発売号より】 (in Japanese). Famitsu. November 12, 2015. Archived from the original on April 8, 2016. Retrieved April 16, 2016.
  7. Sato (October 11, 2015). "Shin Megami Tensei IV: Final Will Follow A Neutral Route With Multiple Endings". Siliconera. Archived from the original on October 11, 2015. Retrieved October 11, 2015.
  8. いまだから言える『真・女神転生IV FINAL』の深層に迫る、ネタバレ"あり"の開発者インタビュー完全版！ (in Japanese). Famitsu. April 13, 2016. Archived from the original on April 16, 2016. Retrieved April 16, 2016.
  9. Romano, Sal (October 5, 2015). "Shin Megami Tensei IV: Final announced for 3DS". Gematsu. Archived from the original on October 7, 2015. Retrieved October 8, 2015.
  10. 『真・女神転生IV FINAL』を遊びつくすための攻略本が発売!!【ファミ通の攻略本】 (in Japanese). Famitsu. March 10, 2016. Archived from the original on March 9, 2016. Retrieved March 9, 2016.
  11. 『真・女神転生IV FINAL』ネタバレ"あり"の開発者インタビューを読む前に！ ネタバレ"なし"のイイ話を全文掲載【週刊ファミ通2016年2月10日発売号より】 (in Japanese). Famitsu. March 10, 2016. Archived from the original on March 11, 2016. Retrieved April 16, 2016.
  12. Romano, Sal (October 5, 2015). "Shin Megami Tensei IV official website: 'In 15,000 tweets, a disaster will begin'". Gematsu. Archived from the original on October 5, 2015. Retrieved October 8, 2015.
  13. Romano, Sal (July 6, 2016). "Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse launches September 20 in the Americas". Gematsu. Archived from the original on July 6, 2016. Retrieved July 6, 2016.
  14. Yin-Poole, Wesley (July 6, 2016). "Persona 5 coming to Europe - courtesy of Deep Silver". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on July 6, 2016. Retrieved July 6, 2016.
  15. Jenni (November 29, 2016). "7th Dragon III Code: VFD And Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse Delayed In Australia". Siliconera. Archived from the original on November 30, 2016. Retrieved November 30, 2016.
  16. Romano, Sal (April 28, 2016). "Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse launch edition includes metal emblem set". Gematsu. Archived from the original on April 28, 2016. Retrieved April 28, 2016.
  17. "What's In a Name – SMTIV: Final and Localizing a Name". Atlus. April 14, 2016. Archived from the original on April 16, 2016. Retrieved April 14, 2016.
  18. "Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse for 3DS Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved February 8, 2017.
  19. Forte, Luca. "Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse - recensione". Eurogamer.it (in Italian). Retrieved December 23, 2020.
  20. Romano, Sal (February 16, 2016). "Famitsu Review Scores: Issue 1418". Gematsu. Archived from the original on April 16, 2016. Retrieved August 18, 2016.
  21. Tack, Daniel. "Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse Review – Weird And Wonderful". Game Informer. Retrieved December 23, 2020.
  22. Sleeper, Morgan. "Review: Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse (3DS)". Nintendo Life. Retrieved December 23, 2020.
  23. Parish, Jeremy. "Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse 3DS Review — End of Days". USgamer.net. Retrieved January 3, 2021.
  24. Sato (February 17, 2016). "This Week In Sales: Shin Megami Tensei IV: Final Gets Summoned". Siliconera. Archived from the original on February 17, 2016. Retrieved February 17, 2016.
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