Editor's note: Things take a turn for the contentious as the Club fires up free-to-play MMO Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine. -Demian
The Bitmob Game Club moves along, leaving behind Battlefield Heroes -- which every single one of our contributors enjoyed -- and starting up Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine, which you can download here. Let's just say that not every person likes the game this time.
In fact, two of them REALLY hate it. But in the tradition of Game Club, this only leads to more entertainment for us, as they can write about it however they want. While James DeRosa and Brian Petro-Roy tear the game to bloody shreds, Jasmine Maleficent Rea heaps her fangirl love on the series, and Chris Davidson, well, I think he may be hopped up on morphine.
It's split down the middle, so read on and pick a side in this almost point/counterpoint-style edition of Bitmob Game Club.
Contributor: James DeRosa
James hates Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine. He is currently playing Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine.
I can't believe that Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine has the audacity to have such a long name while being simultaneously so absolutely, epically terrible. I find the very temerity of making me waste this many keystrokes on such a crappy game so irksome that I shall henceforth refer to it only as “Bad Game.”
Bad Game is easily the worst game I've played this year. It is so awful, it actually manages to fuck up its tutorial. After some vague exposition about demons driving the world's population underground, or some other bat-shit crazy, Japanese insanity, the game sends you through a short dungeon on the way to the guy who is supposed to train you. This is one of the stupidest design decisions I've ever seen implemented in a game for two reasons.
First of all, I fumbled my way through the introductory mini-dungeon figuring out everything that the game explains once you reach the trainer. Then, once I got to the trainer and received my first quest, I was forced to spend the better part of an hour “learning” everything I just ferreted out for myself. What the fuck?
Bad Game offers such an unfortunate experience that I'm a bit ashamed to admit that, due to mounting school responsibilities as my semester ends and traveling because of Thanksgiving, I didn't play it very much (about four hours). Nevertheless, that was long enough to discover that the environments turn “being bland” into an art form, the combat is uninspired, and the game's controls make me feel like I'm a blind, mentally-handicapped, illiterate person stuck in a pitch black room with an unplugged keyboard.
On a more positive note, I was able to realize the most effeminate character I've ever been able to make in any game's create-a-character tool. While clothing options are spare -- pay-to-play, folks -- I was able to create a character sure to make bored, 13 year-old, white America otaku girls swoon.
Stay tuned for more Bad Game bashing next week!
Contributor: Chris Davidson
Chris is currently trapped in a hospital, don’t ask how he’s getting this to you. All he can do is play his DS, so he’s playing Devil Survivor to try and keep with the theme of Game Club.
This may very well be the last time you hear from me. I am one of the 50 people a year that gets tetanus. Turns out you should get your shots updated regularly, and also try not to wait until the tetanus restricts your breathing and jaw movements before getting it checked out. Your body doesn’t like that.
Tanuka: You...you saved my life.
Getz: I’m just leveling my healing, don’t worry about it.
Tanuka: Is there anything I can do to repay you sir? That pixie was going to rip me to shreds.
Getz: Not that I can think of.
Tanuka: Alright, I guess I’ll follow you until I can find a way to repay you.
Getz: I guess that’s alright....
If you’ve ever played any of the Shin Megami Tensei games, you’ll at least feel somewhat familiar with what’s going on. All of the enemies and monsters are brought over from the SMT universe, so be prepared to run into a whole bunch of pixies and Jack Frosts.
Tanuka: What in God’s name is that thing?
Getz: It’s a Jack Frost.
Tanuka: Is there a way around it?
Getz: We’re going to have to fight it.
Tanuka: Gah, my attacks aren’t working! This thing is fucking invincible.
Getz: Damn it dude, stop taunting it. Use a rush attack or something.
It took me a little while to get used to basic combat, but Getz showed me the ropes. It’s a pretty sweet combat system. You have magic, basic attacks, rush attacks, blocks, and counters. I found that starting off with an attack combo, countering, blocking, and then attacking again worked great. Enemies can block as well, so if I ever got thrown out of this loop, I’d use a rush attack (rush attacks break through enemy blocks) and re-enter the loop at the block stage. It’s a lot of fun.
Tanuka: I don’t think we should go in here, this place is giving me the creeps.
Getz: Well you have a quest here, don’t you? We both have to collect five soul shards.
Tanuka: Is the quest really worth our lives though? Maybe we should get some reinforcements and come back.
Getz: I’ve soloed this before, we’ll be fine.
I don’t actually remember Getz’s name (I’m writing these based off of memory), but he was a good guy and he helped me out. I’m pretty sure he was only 11, but he had the maturity of a 13-year-old, at least. He’ll be sorely missed.
Tanuka: Getz! Get up man! I can’t fight this thing alone man...not by myself....
Getz: It’s alright man, just try not to die.
Tanuka: Alright Garm, this is between you and me now, and this time it’s personal.
Getz: Who the fuck are you talking to? Just wait till I get there, you haven’t even aggroed him yet.
Tanuka: Don’t try to stop me Getz, this is my fight now. I’ll avenge you, friend.
Getz: Holy crap man, you actually killed him.
Tanuka: I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, I’ll always keep you in my memories, Getz.
Getz: Dude, just hold up, I’ll be there in like five seconds.
Well, Getz, there’s a good chance I might be seeing you a little bit sooner than I thought. SMT Imagine is a fun game, even if the interface is horrible. Hopefully I’ll be back on my feet and back at my computer in a few days to play some more of it. If I don’t make it, it was nice knowing you all, even if it was brief. I’m pretty sure I can make it at least another day even if it keeps going at this pace, so I’ll try to write up a remember the mob piece for myself as well. Look forward to it.
Contributor: Brian Petro-Roy
Brian just celebrated his 31st birthday by pulling an all-nighter playing video games and then going to a board game party (not a bad birthday, if I do say so myself). He finally finished his first playthrough of Demon’s Souls, and will be getting back to Brütal Legend next.
As I mentioned in my Meet the Mob post back in August, I’ve been in computer engineering in some way, shape, or form for my entire professional career. I spent the first seven years in custom hardware design, and the last year and a half in software QA. The one constant between both jobs is that we spent a lot of time making sure we were making a good product. I swear I'm going somewhere with this.
The product development process is pretty much the same everywhere -- you start out with a product concept, write your functional specifications, then implement and test the product. And, of course, throughout the entire process, you’re constantly refining features as you hit different snags and obstacles in the design. The development process is long and involved, and usually you’ve got an entire department of people all taking a look at the product in question to make sure it’s as good as it can possibly get.
So with that being said, how in the flying hell did Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine Online make it out the door with a completely idiotic camera system?
Honestly, this thing is a complete and utter mess. There’s plenty of things I don’t like about this game, but the stupid camera makes it nigh-on unplayable for me.
Here’s how it “works” (I use that word very loosely): your character is shown in the 3D environment in third person. You can either click anywhere on the ground to move to that location, or use the WASD keys to go forward/backward and turn your character (not the camera, your character -- this becomes important in a second). At any time, you can right-click and drag your mouse in order to move the camera in that direction.
Sounds pretty standard, right? Well, there are three major problems with the system. First, during combat, when you lock on to an enemy, the camera doesn’t follow the enemy you’re locked on to, which is a fail of such epic proportions I can barely comprehend it. How in the world do you make a 3D game with a lock-on mechanism that doesn’t actually lock the view? Did we go back to 1996 when I wasn’t looking?
Second, there’s no way to immediately snap the camera back around to behind your character. You know, that feature that’s in EVERY SINGLE SOLITARY THIRD-PERSON 3D GAME I’VE EVER PLAYED. What alternate universe were the employees at Cave living in before they developed this game?
Third, the combat system is so incredibly stiff and ponderous that if you ever lose sight of the enemy you’re fighting -- which, through normal movement of the enemies and a baffling amount of pointless swinging around of the camera itself, is all too often -- you end up stuck between a rock and a hard place.
At that point, your only options are to either right-click-drag the mouse (which means that you’re not able to click on anything else -- like, say, your combat abilities) or attempt to use the WASD keys to turn the camera -- which actually turns your character instead, taking you out of “battle” mode into “walking” mode, interrupting any combat actions you had attempted to take.
It’s a constant struggle. I honestly can’t remember the last time I attempted playing a game where I spent more time adjusting the camera just to see what the hell I was doing than I did actually playing the game.
And let’s not blame this on the fact that I’m an MMORPG virgin. I am in no way a stranger to grinding -- hell, I just finished 80 hours’ worth of Demon’s Souls -- and I can usually handle myself when it comes to dealing with complex leveling mechanics.
But when a game is fundamentally broken at its most basic level, I find myself unable to gather the energy to give two shits about figuring out the rest of its inner workings. Stay tuned for my next entry -- will I learn to tolerate the asinine camera and love the rest of SMT: Imagine, or will I spend another thousand words grumbling like a cantankerous old man?
Contributor: Jasmine Maleficent Rea
Jasmine’s Persona is of the Magician arcana. She can’t tell you exactly why that’s important, and her starting summon is relatively useless five levels in. She can cast some sweet fire spells and use cards to cause more Personas to emerge from her soul. Still, no one talks to her at parties. She’s currently destroying zombies in her cheaply procured copy of Left 4 Dead 2, and relating the experience via Twitter (vitiosuslepos).
It is somewhat defeating to overhear (meaning read the tweets of) other Game Club contributors hate all over Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine. Of course, I did force this on them, so they might as well hate me in turn. It’s not my fault they can’t see that Imagine is the secret best free MMO out there today.
I love the MegaTen series. MegaTen is the preferred shortening of Shin Megami Tensei, which means New Resurrection of the Goddess. The Digital Devil Saga off-shoot of the brand led a few people to assume that that was what MegaTen meant. Since there’s really nothing in any of the games to specifically tell you that, it is an easy assumption to make if that’s your only encounter with the series.
Though I don’t harbor any hard feelings towards MegaTen: Imagine, I do wish the series took more care with 'the cannon.' COMPs, Macca, and the various spell names and characters transition in and out of the series at will. For people coming from Persona 3 and 4, the mechanics of the MMO are completely boggling, and for people coming out of Digital Devil Saga, this game is based in vaguely the same world, but that's about it. And I stress vaguely.
Imagine takes many of its mechanics from Persona 1 and 2, Devil Summoner, and the branch that Nocturne is a part of. Perhaps the most off-putting element of the game, besides the drab art direction, is that absolutely every term will be foreign to a player who hasn’t slogged through previous console titles or done their homework. You shouldn’t have to research the history of a series before picking up a game that is only loosely connected to any of its predecessors.
You could argue that someone coming into a Final Fantasy MMO without previous experience with the series would have the same trouble. That’s true, but who would really go into a Final Fantasy pay-to-play game without a small drop of FF experience?
I don’t recommend this game to anyone who hasn’t picked up a Shin Megami Tensei title, or those who have only played the PS2 Persona installments. If you find that summoning monsters through a wrist-mounted computer in a post-apocalyptic Tokyo is just the gaming fix you’re looking for, then go for it. Just be warned that the game can be frightfully dull to the uninitiated. Man, I'm really selling it here, aren't I?
Comments (17)
@Chris How did you manage to get tetanus? Get well soon.
@Jasmine I started Devil Survivor over the weekend. I like it so far, and it's my first strategy RPG, even though it's only half strategy.
I'm looking forward to the new DS game. It follows the original Japanese-only release story arc, and is a vague follow-up to Nocturne.
The combat is sluggish and overcomplicated, the tutorials are convoluted and hard to understand, and moving around is so slow it looks like you're part Running Man and part Moonwalker. And the camera is pretty bad too.
Sometimes I hate it when games copy World of Warcraft, but this is an exception to that. I hate it that it doesn't use the responsive and reliable camera of WoW and hate how it doesn't give you helpful hints on the fly. I hate how it doesn't use a simplistic-on-the-outside-deep-on-the-inside kind of combat system that WoW uses. Bad Game is bad.
@James - I am kind of attracted to your character, and it is disturbing me.
It also broke one of my commandments involving Japanese RPGs. "Though shalt not make a grindy strategy RPG!" I can't stand it, unfortunately. I mean, I am not completely against games that require some build up (I am a Dragon Quest fanatic, okay?), but Devil Survivor was pretty ridiculous.
Even though it is considered tougher than most RPG's, I think a gamer wanting to get into the Shin Megami Tensei series should play Nocturne for the PS2, assuming they can find a copy. It's tough, but it is dripping with atmosphere and has an interesting story considering how sparse it is.
What really turned me off of that game wasn't the story as much as the gameplay, like I said. Strategy RPG battles take far too long as it is to make me want to go back and replay them so that my characters level up. That is what temporarily killed Devil Survivor for me. I may go back one day, but I assure you I have far too many video games in my collection to guarantee that promise.
If you want a game to break your spirit more than the battles in Devil Survivor, pick up Rondo of Swords -- another Atlus title that's widely considered the hardest Strategy RPG ever made. The first battle is so long and grueling if you try to beat it that it can take up to three hours to complete.
If you were really into the whole demon collecting and fusing aspect of persona 4 it's really similar, except it has a bit more customization, since you get to pick half the abilities your fused demon inherits from the parents.
I don't typically like strategy RPGs, and I think there's enough standard turn based stuff to make me familiar with it. If anything I might start playing more strategy RPGs when I'm done with this.
Some of the top games in that genre for me are Shining Force I and II. They didn't make you backtrack and replay battles anywhere near the amount that Devil Survivor does.
I don't think it is a bad game, because I LOVE the Shin Megami Tensei series. I just didn't find it was my cup of tea due to that one little issue.
I stopped after a super long grind to get to the next phase of the story. It seemed to be setting me up for more of that, so I lost interest, like most MMORPG's I try playing.
