Summary
A little face lift for the timeless masterpiece
The Good
In case you haven't noticed, I'm a real Megaten junkie. If I had to choose the greatest RPG franchise of all times, my only other candidate would probably be the immortal
Ultima. If I had to answer the infamous "what game would you take with you to a deserted island?" question, I'd probably have a tough choice between
Ultima IV and this one. How sad it is, indeed, that the vast majority of gamers on the globe are unfamiliar with Megaten, because most of the games that belong to this series (including this one) were never released outside of Japan. Let's hope that the recent North American release of
Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne will change that.
For more information about why this game is so great, read my review for the SNES version (which was the original one and the first one I played). Both in story and gameplay, the first Shin Megami Tensei reaches unseen heights. It's hard to imagine something more majestic than the struggle between God and devil, and something more addictive than creating your party by talking to the enemies you meet (years before Pokemon came out!). I'll be brief in this review and only point out the differences between the original version and this one.
If the original had a weakness, it was (not very untypical for truly great games, by the way) the graphics. The graphics of the SNES version were barely functional - you knew they were there, but you hardly noticed them. If anything, they annoyed you because all the dungeons looked the same - hollow, square, impersonal 3D mazes in different colors.
Already in the excellent Sega CD version the graphics were re-done in a spectacular manner (sorry for taking the opportunity to write a mini-review for the Sega CD version: I didn't want to end up writing
three review for the same game). Instead of empty halls devoid of any detail there were real locations, with different textures for each. It was an amazing step forward. The player actually became interested to visit new dungeons, knowing they won't be yet another geometrical construction that differed from the previous one only by being yellow instead of red. In addition to that, Sega CD version added digitized portraits, close-ups for
every conversation! While the faces look a bit too similar to each other, it was another fantastic enhancement that made the world of the great game less dry and more appealing.
And here comes yet another version of Shin Megami Tensei - the Playstation one. To call it a "remake" would be perhaps an exaggeration. They retained the overall graphical feel of the game, and in fact the Playstation version looks more similar to the original one than the Sega CD one. However, they added lots of seemingly small enhancements, and the result was, quite simply, the best possible. You still get the feel and the look of the original game, yet at the same time everything was upgraded to fit the more advanced standards.
Firstly, you'll notice the details. In the original SNES version, the rooms were pretty much empty. Sometimes you would see crude sketches of what is supposed to be furniture. In Sega CD version, they added more of those, and the rooms began to look more lively, but overall quality was almost the same. Now, in the Playstation version you have
very detailed rooms, which look almost as good as pre-rendered backgrounds of most games of Playstation generation (only smaller). Of course, they are still far from the quality of
Final Fantasy VIII or
Fear Effect. But this is probably as far as they could go in making the rooms more detailed without disturbing the classical "retro" style of the game. The intention was to let modern players experience the classic the way it was made, without changes that would go too far and ruin the style.
The dungeons themselves are actually less detailed than in Sega CD version, but the high-resolution graphics work wonders turning the depressing corridors of the original into nicely looking and immersive locations. The most important change is the movement. In the original version - as well as in the Sega CD one - you couldn't really move freely through the dungeons. When you made a step, you basically "jumped". So if you wanted to run through a passage, you ended up jerking forwards uneasily and getting a headache. In the Playstation version, the movement is much more smooth, you can feel you are really
walking through a dungeon, the way it is done in real 3D games. A great improvement! Honestly, I found it very difficult to play the SNES version after this one.
Everything else is pretty much the same as in the original. Story, dialogues, gameplay - everything was left intact, and that is
good. However, they added a "normal" difficulty level, which is easier than the original one, which was dubbed "hard" in this release. A very good decision, because the original Shin Megami Tensei was a pretty hard game, especially for RPG novices. And anyway, different difficulty levels are something I would like to see in each and every game.
The Bad
It is a bit pity they didn't make the same character close-ups and dungeon textures like in Sega CD version. Basically, the Playstation version is an updated variant of the SNES one, while Sega CD version is graphically more unique. Character graphics suffer most in the Playstation release, because they are the same small sprites like in the SNES version - only in higher resolution.
Also, maybe I demand too much, but a nice introductory FMV wouldn't hurt. Squaresoft ported their SNES Final Fantasies to Playstation without changing the graphics at all, but decorating each game with a wonderful intro. Intros serve to impress the player, to immerse him in the game. A good intro can single-handedly capture the player's interest, same way as a bad one can ruin it. The Playstation version has a good intro, the same as the original, but I wouldn't object to some fancy CG-rendered scene... well, I guess nothing is perfect in this world.
The Bottom Line
Shin Megami Tensei. One of the giants of video gaming. Better graphics, smoother movement, additional difficulty level. Enough to enchant any true fan of the great game and to make him buy this version. Need I say more?
For conclusion: I really hope my reviews of Megaten games will interest someone out there and maybe make him buy one of them. Megaten is the ultimate answer to the opinion of a popular type of gamers - what I call "PC purists" - those who think Japanese games are for kids and who despise console RPGs for being "too shallow". They have probably played a couple of Final Fantasies and think they now know everything about console RPGs. Well, hold your horses before you have touched Megaten, gentlemen. Because this is to show you Japanese RPG can have mature themes, freedom of choice, and depth of gameplay that rival the best examples of Western RPGs out there. Megaten is for consoles what Ultima is for PC - the quintessence of role-playing, the most perfect incarnation of its spirit.
