Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux– Revival of the Fittest

 

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey is one of my favorite DS games. When Redux was announced as an enhanced port for the 3DS with voice acting, improved visuals, new characters, dungeons, and demons, I was excited. My initial impressions of the game were mostly positive when I wrote about it last June, but they’ve become slightly more negative since finishing the main game. I would be neglecting my due diligence if I didn’t address the issues Redux brings to Strange Journey.

 

First, Atlus has brought fantastic upgrades to the overall quality of life in this port. The improved visuals and voice acting provide a deeper sense of immersion to the adventure, in addition to bringing the characters to life in both battle and in cut-scenes. (Although it is a shame the game didn’t include an English dub for an SMT title set outside of Japan.) Instead of purely static images, cut-scenes are now partially animated with voice acting. The opening movie is fully animated and looks great. All characters now have character portraits, instead of being literally faceless crew members. Unfortunately, the new character designs are a little more generic compared Kazuma Kaneko’s original designs.

Gameplay is another area that received welcome improvements. Same aligned demon co-op attacks are still the main feature, which aren’t as useful as the “Press Turn” attacks such as “One More!” in modern Persona or “Smirk” in SMTIV. That said, I loved the addition of Commander Skills. These allow the protagonist to take special actions each turn such as party-wide buffing, prevention of negative status effects for three turns, or instant KO protection. These skills do have a cool down period of several turns so they can’t be spammed too many times. Another improvement is the ability to directly choose the skills a demon will inherit during fusion, instead of them being randomly decided. As an adult who works full-time, I appreciate the option to save at any time in a dungeon. Losing time and progress is no longer an issue with a game over. Other smaller changes include more difficultly modes, the removal of limits on equipped sub-apps, free healing in the Red Sprite’s sickbay, and the removal of an instant game over if the MC falls in battle. For purists who want an experience closer to the DS game, many of these options can be turned off.

Overall, Atlus learned a lot from Persona 5 and Shin Megami Tensei IV and smartly applied it to Redux.

 

Redux received new music for its new content which covers scenes, dungeons, characters, and bosses. ‎Despite the nine year difference between the original game and the remake, Shoji Meguro‎ has composed amazing new tracks that fit perfectly with Strange Journey. I found myself very fond of Alex and Shekinah’s themes. Geoff has written extensively on the overall soundtrack for Recommended Soundtracks.

Not all of Redux’s changes were positive. I absolutely hated the removal of the original game’s password demons. Passwords were a way to share any demon with anyone playing the game. The only restrictions were that a game’s protagonist had to be at the same or a higher level than the demon being summoned, and players had to have enough money for the summoning cost. Given how difficult Strange Journey could be at times, password demons were a godsend. Someone at Atlus must have considered the original system to be broken given how only demons created in Redux can be used. Thankfully, the creators of online fusion charts updated their website to work with this port, but the range of skills demons can inherit are now limited.

 

The biggest areas of disappointment were the story changes and the Womb of Grief dungeon. While the Womb of Grief allowed players to obtain new demons, and more importantly, new sub-apps that make the game easier, the dungeon itself was a slog. The floors felt uninspired at best, and at worst were more sadistic than anything the main game threw at me. I needed a variety of walkthroughs and hints to navigate some of these floors. There were times when I set the game down for days or weeks because I didn’t want to deal with the new dungeon. Fortunately, those who want to play the game in its original form can largely ignore this area. Those who want to see the new endings will have to trek through the Womb of Grief. The enemy levels on each floor largely correspond to the main game, so most random enemy encounters aren’t too difficult.

As for the story changes, Alex was largely unneeded as a new character and the new endings contradict the messages of the original endings. **Spoilers ahead**

Strange Journey was originally a game about mankind’s attempt to save itself from demons invading Earth through a phenomenon known as the Schwarzwelt. The UN sends elite teams of soldiers into the Schwarzwelt to investigate and stop the invasion. Only the crew of a ship named the Red Sprite survives and it is here that certain characters on the crew (namely the MC who is neutral by default, Jimenez who will become the hero of the chaos route, and Zelenin the destined hero of the law route) can shape the future of humanity. A neutral choice means siding with humanity, warts and all. Chaos means allowing demons to rule the earth. Law means following God and allowing angels to shape a humanity sapped of free will.  Neutral was the only route where humans had a direct choice in their future without angels or demons, and where the game’s original mission can be truly completed.

 

However, Redux rewrites these choices so that humanity doomed in every route. This causes the last surviving human, Alex, to travel from the future with her own AI assistant and demonica to kill the MC. (How she traveled back and got her hands on this technology if humanity has been wiped out is never explained.) She almost succeeds, but is stopped by Demeter who is actually working on behalf of the angels. Once Alex discovers she ultimately can’t defeat the MC, she pleads with him to change the future. This is where the retcons and contradictions begin.

The retcon takes place in the new neutral and law paths. In these scenarios after Strange Journey’s original final boss Mem Aleph, is defeated, Demeter steals the MacGuffins the MC and Alex had in their possession. Using these items, Demeter takes them back to the three Wise Men who merge and create Redux’s final boss, Shekinah. The reason for her existence is the check on her power has been removed with the death of Mem Aleph. By this logic the law god should have been in the original game because in both the neutral and law scenarios MA is killed. Instead Shekinah is just placed as a flimsy reason for why the Womb of Grief needs to be visited and items collected from new boss demons within the dungeon. Her entire reason for existing makes little sense given the game’s larger story.

All three Redux endings contradict the messages of the original endings. Fans might have complained that the law and chaos endings were too insane compared to how reasonable neutral seemed. Still, the point was the MC could either accept humanity with all of its potential and flaws, or choose a new path by entrusting Earth and the surviving humans to demons, or angels. In the new neutral ending the MC literally becomes a god with a human heart entrusted protect humanity from the Schwarzwelt, thus leaving humanity to repeat all of their mistakes without fear of consequences. In the other two routes Jimenez and Zelenin become the protectors of humanity instead of having humans subjugated. Specifically, free will is restored to humans where they co-exist peacefully with demons (chaos) or humans exist with all aggression and hostility removed at the cost of technological progress (law). The point is humans escape relatively unscathed despite their actions causing the Schwarzwelt to appear in the first place. It really removes the underlying message of the original story, i.e., humanity causing its own downfall, for the sake of adding new characters. (I also had this issue with Persona 4 Golden, but that deserves an entirely different article.)

 

All and all, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux is a solid enhanced port. The new story feels shoehorned in, but the upgraded visuals, new music, and much needed quality of life changes are worth the price of admission. If you’re the type of person who values story over gameplay, you may or may not have a good time here. My complaints of Redux’s story might not matter to you. I do recommend SJR for fans of the original, and those who want a mainline Shin Megami Tensei experience.

 

Some images courtesy of RPGSite.