Shin Megami Tensei IV |OT| The Dark Souls of Persona

NeonZ said:
It's just the camera quests.






It's hard to know your situation, since there's nothing keeping track of the points, but there are still quite a bit of law/chaos questions in the story at that point at least.

Have you met the woman who asks if you're a human or a demon in Ikebukuro? You can get 10 chaos points if you answer that you're a demon.
Click to expand...
Yeah I've met her, told her I was a human.

Even going full Chaos after that point, I was still locked to Law.
I know the only way to check what you are is talking to the cynical man at the Hunter Associations, but there's no way to check just how far in you are unfortunately.

I do tend to hate when games try to be all morally ambiguous/grey. Yes it's gritty and realistic, but I'm playing a game, I want to be the hero damnit.
 
Replaying this, going for the chaos ending. The indecisive nonsense you need to go through to get Neutral is really poorly implemented.

Also, it's fun strolling through Tokyo jacked to the max and wiping out everything with one turn and junk demons.
 
I just hate being locked in like this. Until now Law was generally a 'nice guy' option, now all of a sudden it's off to
commit genocide
whether you like it or not.

It's actually making me not want to continue playing..
 
What bothers me with the story of SMTIV's law route is that, unlike 25 years before, they don't bother saving anyone and just destroy all of Tokyo. If there were some quest to save the pure ones among the unclean before blowing up the place I'd be just fine with it. I think this is the only game where they don't even bother with chosen ones and just blow up everything...

Still, if you already got to that point, just finish it. It's just one dungeon after Isabeau if you don't go after the other challenge quests (There's one with Azazel in Mikado and afterwards it opens another one with
Mastema
, both exclusive to the law route).
 
NeonZ said:
What bothers me with the story of SMTIV's law route is that, unlike 25 years before, they don't bother saving anyone and just destroy all of Tokyo. If there were some quest to save the pure ones among the unclean before blowing up the place I'd be just fine with it. I think this is the only game where they don't even bother with chosen ones and just blow up everything...
Click to expand...

They probably figure there are no chosen ones in Tokyo. They're all damned.

The Messians in IV are nuts.
 
Lagamorph said:
I've got a save file
At the B3F of Camp Ichigaya, before activating the reactor for the first time. Is that point too late to change my alignment? Am I able to do Challenge quests to chip my alignment bit by bit towards Chaos? I also made the mistake of going full law choices during the path at Ginza, so I'm worried I'm pretty much unmoveable by now without restarting
Click to expand...

You can also try the suicide ending and enter NG+ with all your resources and levels intact, and some new quests unlocked. The new quests are fun, there's one with
the baker reading a book
that's pretty cool and
a surprise boss inhabiting Pluto Castle
.

That said, if you did check with the man who can tell your alignment right before the Jonathan/Walter split and his response indicated "neutral", making every choice Chaos aligned during the
blasted and infernal trips
should at least thrust you into Neutral.
 
NeonZ said:
What bothers me with the story of SMTIV's law route is that, unlike 25 years before, they don't bother saving anyone and just destroy all of Tokyo. If there were some quest to save the pure ones among the unclean before blowing up the place I'd be just fine with it. I think this is the only game where they don't even bother with chosen ones and just blow up everything...
Click to expand...

It's pretty close to how things shook out in the old game
Shin Megami Tensei II
. Law path there was THE WORST.
Only Satan, you and your mother survive. Greaaaat.
 
JonathanNemo said:
It's pretty close to how things shook out in the old game
Shin Megami Tensei II
. Law path there was THE WORST.
Only Satan, you and your mother survive. Greaaaat.
Click to expand...

Huh, no. SMTII has
chosen ones spared from the destruction
. You can meet them if you walk around in the map part of the ark.
 
NeonZ said:
Huh, no. SMTII has
chosen ones spared from the destruction
. You can meet them if you walk around in the map part of the ark.
Click to expand...

Ahh, this is what happens when I haven't played a game in more than a decade. :) I do not remember that detail. Youtube footage shows that yes,
there are people in the ark
. It's more analogous to the
Cocoon
in IV than I thought.
 
I think with some distance, the Law ending in SMTIV is my favorite, mainly because they didn't make concessions.
Everyone is killed, including you at the end who become a Martyr and you kill Isabeau in the process (this is in the Chaos path as well).
It's disgusting but it's supposed to be like that. The fact that they dared to do it is admirable.
 
Isabeau
pretty much just kills herself. I chose all the dialogue options to try to get her to stop the battle while facing her, and she just refused and then killed herself in the end.

It's kind of pathetic.
 
NeonZ said:
Isabeau
pretty much just kills herself. I chose all the dialogue options to try to get her to stop the battle while facing her, and she just refused and then killed herself in the end.

It's kind of pathetic.
Click to expand...

Same thing just happened.
I'm almost at the end now.

I was going to move on to getting around to re-starting P4G (and finishing it this time) after this, but I think I'll start up a New Game+ (Resurrection) so I can blaze through it over the weekend, skipping dialogue up to the route skip etc, with a Neutral walkthrough and get the supposedly 'best' ending.

Honestly can't see why this is called the 'Law' ending. Seems to be anything but lawful.
 
Lagamorph said:
Honestly can't see why this is called the 'Law' ending. Seems to be anything but lawful.
Click to expand...

Law in megaten is either follow blindly a dictator or be a dictator yourself.
Everything is allowed to reach that goal and prohibit people from getting knowledge and wisdom so that they don't question whatever the dictator decides to do.
 
They should have just dropped the pretense and put BAD END on the screen when it comes to SMT4's Law Ending, it's the most actively contemptuous of any Megaten I've played, doubly so because they make you play everything out for several hours after and it's the easiest to accidentally fall into when going for neutral.

Any impact they were going for gets totally lost when the events are more ridiculous than the wrong part of a choose your own adventure book, all because you told a grieving woman you're not a demon.
 
randomkid said:
They should have just dropped the pretense and put BAD END on the screen when it comes to SMT4's Law Ending, it's the most actively contemptuous of any Megaten I've played, doubly so because they make you play everything out for several hours after and it's the easiest to accidentally fall into when going for neutral.

Any impact they were going for gets totally lost when the events are more ridiculous than the wrong part of a choose your own adventure book, all because you told a grieving woman you're not a demon.
Click to expand...

I don't know, I think Strange Journey's gives it a run for its money depending on perspective. It depends whether you think (SMTIV)
physically slaughtering everyone who disagrees with you
or (SJ)
turning the entire species into mindless drones, the spiritual equivalent
is worse.
 
Finished the law route.
Christ what a mess.

Going to try and blast through the game over this weekend. Managed to sneak a level 80 demon through on DDS, so combined with my PC being at 78 I should be able to just blast through by skipping pretty much all dialogue until the route lock.
Time to go neutral since making a world overrun with demons is pretty much as bad as wiping out all but a select few.
 
Lagamorph said:
Finished the law route.
Christ what a mess.

Going to try and blast through the game over this weekend. Managed to sneak a level 80 demon through on DDS, so combined with my PC being at 78 I should be able to just blast through by skipping pretty much all dialogue until the route lock.
Time to go neutral since making a world overrun with demons is pretty much as bad as wiping out all but a select few.
Click to expand...

Chaos route has some exclusive NG+ and very interesting side quests. Probably the best ones if you ask me.
But the route itself is almost as messy as the Law one.
 
I think Law route, savage as it is, does a good job of showcasing a certain brand of wartime thinking regarding
the use of the bomb, or similar weapons of mass casualty
. The metaphor is far less subtle in the first few mainline games.

Was thinking about this as I was reading Jimmy Maher's editorial of Trinity, the Infocom text adventure game, and its portrayal of the bomb used over Nagasaki. Trying to understand what sort of mental position you have to be in to to justify
mass casualties and genocide
, that's foreign and fascinating to me.

And I wonder if SMT IV does it better than past games, in showing that
the savage, wartime goals of Law and Chaos lead to similar, horrifying ends, while Neutral's peace leads to a world of continued despair without resolution
.

There's a commentary on war that I think SMT I and SMT IV handle well, but SMT II doesn't. I believe SMT II spends perhaps a bit too much time covering the horrors of the Law side, making the Chaos side and its epilogue seem like a utopia by comparison.

Maybe that's intentional. SMT II does take place in a Law-biased world for the majority of the game. Any dramatic alternative to the current state of affairs can seem like a paradise, if only as a change from the norm. SMT IV touched on this as well with
the potential leaders of the Blasted and Infernal worlds adopting a different set of ideals
.

Somewhat related: DDS MT's author Aya Nishitani's thoughts on the Law side;

Many people assume that the lawful hero route is, in a nutshell, just like any other RPG, but I don’t agree. Law is not about doing what is right but believing in an absolute ruler and accepting the fate you’re given. The conduct of a typical benevolent hero like the one in Ultima is not what you would call lawful virtue in theological theory. That is nothing more than a relativistic law. In fact Shin Megami Tensei is the only RPG that contains a lawful standpoint in the true sense of the word.
Click to expand...

So help me, I really like how mainline SMT handles its politics.
 
Finished the neutral route and, whilst it's much better than the law route, I still feel ultimately disappointed.

Coming from the Persona series I had high hopes for the storytelling, but in the end the whole game feels like the plot was just kind of sprinkled on. In some games that's fine, but in a game like this it feels like there should be more. The PC being an utterly blank slate doesn't help either. Again, this is fine in say something like Persona, where you can actually define the character over the course of the game, but here the PC starts and ends as just a generic hero.

So I've finished the game twice now and it still feels like there should have been so much more explained. So many times the dialogue seemed to vaguely refer to previous events that I assume happened in other games, but never went into any detail. How about a bloody recap or something so I'm not missing most of the picture?
In the neutral route, so
I've removed the dome covering Tokyo. Yay. Then what? Does humanity go on to an age of peace and prosperity? Do the demons that were infesting Tokyo just Vanish? Do the people of Tokyo and Mikado love together peacefully? What happens? I'd like just a bit of finality, you can do that and still leave room for a sequel. At least in the law ending I got a bloody statue, even if I did have to murder my friends for it. In the neutral route, nothing. Dome is gone. K thanks bye.
So I have absolutely no incentive/desire to go for the Chaos ending. It'll need me to play the whole thing through again just to go through boss fights I've already beaten and get a slightly different ending that still leaves me none the wiser.

I complain, but I got 67 hours out of it and for the £12 price of entry I've definitely got my money's worth. And overall I did enjoy playing. But I just feel like, story wise, it could have been so much more.
 
I'm with you in that I don't like open ended ends, but imo that's all the point of the neutral ending in SMT games: humanity is freed of demons and angels control, and the future isn't written, but up to humankind.
It's therefor fitting that the end is not written, but left open.
 
SMTIV leaves a lot of backstory information to minor dialogue from random npcs spread through the game. The dialogue of npcs around the world often changes after some event related to their area happens in the main story. That said, it doesn't help the end game much - which also suffers from their decision to only show story events related to the path you've taken.

Anyway, SMTIV's neutral ending manages to be even more open than usual for the series. I guess they didn't want to actually show everything going on smoothly afterwards because it'd seem to make all the hesitation regarding that patch meaningless. On the other hand, they didn't want to show things going badly too because it'd go against the whole theme of hope that the neutral route pushes forward.

humanity is freed of demons and angels control, and the future isn't written, but up to humankind.
Click to expand...

Except SMTIV goes with a bizarre,
"We won't live under demons or god's control! Well, except for you goddess Tokyo and king Masakado!"
. It's even more uncertain than the usual neutral endings.
 
I think that I am stuck... I finished rescuing people in that Karikigigi forest, or whatever... now I am suppose to go even deeper into Naraku, but when I come to the end of the 3rd bottom floor, some samurais standing there won't let me through... I've spoken with everyone at the castle/city, and there are no active main quests in my quest list, so I have no idea what to do next... can anyone help, please?
 
KaneU said:
I think that I am stuck... I finished rescuing people in that Karikigigi forest, or whatever... now I am suppose to go even deeper into Naraku, but when I come to the end of the 3rd bottom floor, some samurais standing there won't let me through... I've spoken with everyone at the castle/city, and there are no active main quests in my quest list, so I have no idea what to do next... can anyone help, please?
Click to expand...

Did you face a certain boss in the forest?
Issachar?
 
KaneU said:
I think that I am stuck... I finished rescuing people in that Karikigigi forest, or whatever... now I am suppose to go even deeper into Naraku, but when I come to the end of the 3rd bottom floor, some samurais standing there won't let me through... I've spoken with everyone at the castle/city, and there are no active main quests in my quest list, so I have no idea what to do next... can anyone help, please?
Click to expand...

IIRC there is a quest you have to accept in the tavern.
 
Argh, goddamnit, seems like I got so good at staying neutral throughout the game that
when I choose either jonathan or walter my alignment goes straight to them.

Is there anyway I can rectify this? I don't really like the sound of either of their routes.
 
Antiwhippy said:
Is there anyway I can rectify this? I don't really like the sound of either of their routes.
Click to expand...

Where's your last save? Right before pressing the button again? If so I don't think there's anything you can do. Even if you haven't done the challenge quests there, I don't think there's any that changes your alignment.
 
As long as you have a save just before the Jonathan/Walter choice, you have plenty of room to readjust. The alignment lock doesn't happen until some time later... trouble is, you won't have many opportunities to check your alignment as you get closer to the lock. Worse problem is that the alignment guides I've found don't tell you exactly how many points you get adjusted towards Law when choosing the Jonathan route, so I had to speculate a bit to get where I wanted to go.

I ended up going with Jonathan, and being on the edge of law/neutral before making that choice. Every choice after that was chaos, chaos, chaos, and that led me to neutral by alignment lock.

EDIT: Another thing. One of the most critical choices you have to make just before the lock WILL throw you 10 points in either Law or Chaos, no middle ground. You do not want to be "too neutral", you will end up screwing yourself over because of this choice.
 
Ah alright. Guess I'll keep a save before the jonathan/walter choice in any case.

I think I'll go with walter though, because fuck jonathan.
 
I'm locked into neutral, apparently, as I woke up
with Isabeau after the White Forest
. Here's my question. I didn't do some of the Tokyo sidequests, like the Hunter Tournament Finals, and I'm wondering how to approach that one without fucking with the neutral path.
 
Secret Fawful said:
I'm locked into neutral, apparently, as I woke up
with Isabeau after the White Forest
. Here's my question. I didn't do some of the Tokyo sidequests, like the Hunter Tournament Finals, and I'm wondering how to approach that one without fucking with the neutral path.
Click to expand...

After the route lock, you don't need to worry about alignment points anymore. Do whatever you feel like doing.
 
Y'know, while the neutral route reflects on my own philosophies better, to get there you have to make your character seem like a crazy schizophrenic. Neutral shouldn't mean that you do something and then do something else that contradicts what you did earlier.

Also brings me to my other complaint, which is that the alignment characters are kinda flat. Jonathan just seemed like a dogmatic asshole, Walter is a bit more fleshed out and likable but his whole
strong devouring the weak
thing seemed like it didn't fit his more measured approach early on, and isabeau just seemed like an indecisive nitwit whose only outstanding character quirk is that she likes manga. Like, really?
 
Antiwhippy said:
Y'know, while the neutral route reflects on my own philosophies better, to get there you have to make your character seem like a crazy schizophrenic. Neutral shouldn't mean that you do something and then do something else that contradicts what you did earlier.
Click to expand...

The main issue with neutral in SMTIV is that it's treated as a special route, rather than just another alignment choice alongside law and chaos. So, often there aren't neutral responses. For comparison, in SMT I, there's a moment where you need to choose between helping the Chaos faction or the Law faction, like the Jonathan/Walter split here, but there you could also just turn against both, rather than being forced to take sides.

Also brings me to my other complaint, which is that the alignment characters are kinda flat. Jonathan just seemed like a dogmatic asshole, Walter is a bit more fleshed out and likable but his whole
strong devouring the weak
thing seemed like it didn't fit his more measured approach early on, and isabeau just seemed like an indecisive nitwit whose only outstanding character quirk is that she likes manga. Like, really?
Click to expand...

I disagree on Jonathan. I mean, asshole, really? He bows down to authority easily, but usually tries to help others and maintain his composure as much as he can. The only time he's an asshole is in a neutral route scene, but
that's not really Jonathan. He was going to pretty much die after helping form Merkabah, and Merkabah uses Gabby as its human form in the law route, not Jonathan. So, the "Jonathan" talking with the player in neutral is just Merkabah taking his form.
When he ends up helping the angels in the law route, he does it because he believes there's no other choice, differently from Walter who pretty much dives all in the chaos ideals after meeting Lilith. Isabeau is bland though.
 
I haven't seen the lawful route seeing that I fell into neutral and
picked walter
, but jonathan seemed
way too eager to throw the people of tokyo under the bus just because god deemed it so. Also walter at least tries to understand lilith's motives when it comes to fighting against tayama instead of blindly accepting that she is bad just because the church deemed it so.
 
Antiwhippy said:
I haven't seen the lawful route seeing that I fell into neutral and
picked walter
, but jonathan seemed
way too eager to throw the people of tokyo under the bus just because god deemed it so.
Click to expand...

Like I said, Jonathan bows down to authority, and
"God" is a pretty big one. He still is willing to warn the cafe's crew about how the angels would just kill them if they go to surface though if you go back there.

Also walter at least tries to understand lilith's motives when it comes to fighting against tayama instead of blindly accepting that she is bad just because the church deemed it so.[/SPOILER]
Click to expand...

Walter doesn't
"try to understand her". He pretty much blindly jumps into her ideals and is the one responsible for opening the portal to the expanse which further spreads demons in Tokyo.

Jonathan wanted to prioritize killing
Lilith (who was a threat killing people, doesn't matter any pretty words she spouts), but that doesn't mean they wouldn't deal with Tayama's group afterwards
. He pretty clearly express disgust at him too. There's an optional event where
Jonathan frees one of the kids taken by Tayama
and a law route challenge quest where
you go back there to kill Mastema
.
 
NeonZ said:
Walter doesn't
"try to understand her". He pretty much blindly jumps into her ideals and is the one responsible for opening the portal to the expanse which further spreads demons in Tokyo.
Click to expand...

I agree with this, and I've said it when I talked about how that approach seemed really sudden especially compared to his more measured approach early on. Plus I do think it is a measured response to want to understand what tayama was up to instead of wanting to immediately off her, like walter.

Don't get me wrong, I also don't think that what walter did was right at all from what I've stated, I just severely dislike walter's progression from what I've seen. Yes, he was willing to help people, but
he had absolutely no qualms about abandoning those people once god states that they are to be abandoned, with absolutely no question to the morals of it all. The disconnect really makes it seem like his helpfulness is a construction of the dogma he follows, seeing that from the spoilers I've read he has absolutely no problem causing genocide just because god deemed it so.
That blind devotion is just something I severely dislike. At least walter has a progression of following the same laws but becomes disillusioned by it, even if it did involve him blindly
falling in with lilith.

edit:
thinking back on it, he blindly followed lilith because he wants to break away from blindly following what is deemed "right". Quite ironic really.
 
Can anyone list, or link me to the sidequests/challenge quests which do NOT affect alighment and can be done freely.

Im trying to do a neutral run.
 
I need to get back on this game. I feel like I'm going to be kind of lost though.

All I remember is that I just got onto the neutral path

Spoilers for Mid to end game

I went through the two parallel apocalypses, one being a desert wasteland resulting from a nuclear calamity. The survivors were hunted by robotic LAW forces. The other apocalypse was one in which the forces of CHAOS won. I got through both of them and ended up in that forest where you fight the 4 (?) ghosts. I think I was at the part where you end back up in the normal world and have to do quests in order to get to the top of the leader board?

I haven't played the game in a year.
 
Just do every sidequest.

Some of them like the
photo
ones need you to find a number of NPCs, which is really annoying.
 
I just booted up the game finally after a year+, Apparently I unlocked the airship. I don't remember the importance of skills all that much either.

I just got an Anat that leveled up and wants to learn Ally Retaliate, she currently has

Mortal Jihad
Mana Surge
Luster Candy
Debiliate
Draconic Reaction
Hades Blast
Null Fire
Null Dark

Are any of those worth getting rid of for Ally Retaliate?
 
Something fascinating from the IV OST, translated by Pepsiman:

Cafe Florida

The idea behind this song is that it’s supposed to be playing in the background off of an old record, so in the game proper, there are other ambient elements mixed into the audio that are designed to play that up.
In the latter half of the song, you can hear phrases from K’s Taven, albeit broken apart. It’s supposed to subtly imply that music that would once play in Tokyo in the past made it through to Mikado…somehow or other.
Click to expand...
 
Trojita said:
I just booted up the game finally after a year+, Apparently I unlocked the airship. I don't remember the importance of skills all that much either.

I just got an Anat that leveled up and wants to learn Ally Retaliate, she currently has

Mortal Jihad
Mana Surge
Luster Candy
Debiliate
Draconic Reaction
Hades Blast
Null Fire
Null Dark

Are any of those worth getting rid of for Ally Retaliate?
Click to expand...

There's an acquirable airship??
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Like The Witcher games? Join me in my quest to create a "readthrough" of the books GAF
4
1K
mindfreak191 replied
FireWall Zero Hour |OT| VR Group Sex With Optional Toys Required
22
4K
Bullet Club replied
  • Locked
The |OT| |OT|: Index & Volunteer & Coordinate & Collaborate [Read OP!]
2 3 4
188
75K
EviLore replied
Persona 5 |OT3| Ryuji Did Nothing Wr- [DELETED BY ADMIN]
2 3
147
28K
Narroo replied
Dark Souls III |OT+2| Why Can't We Poise the Game?
218 219 220 221 222
11K
825K
CrankyJay™ replied
Top Bottom