For the most part, the dungeons are pretty well-designed, with tricks and mechanics you’ll need to figure out in order to progress. The difficulty ramps up quite a bit near the start of the game, and you’ll need to think critically about the demons you’re recruiting and fusing along the way.ĭungeons are explored through a first-person lens, and random enemy encounters will trigger after you’ve taken a certain number of steps. While the regular difficulty of the 3DS port has been toned down from the original release, this is still a very grueling JRPG to get through. Speaking of being careful, it’s definitely worth noting that Strange Journey Redux isn’t for the faint of heart. Combat plays out in a turn-based affair, as you might expect, and the key here is to exploit enemy weaknesses while also protecting your own. It’s not quite as elegant as the newly introduced Smirk system in SMT IV, but it does force players to think more carefully about the kinds of demons they want to have in their party. Simply put, if you manage to hit an enemy’s weakness, other party members who share the same alignment will follow up with an additional attack. In combat, Strange Journey Redux also ditches the Press Turn system in favor of an alignment co-op attack. If you’re complete opposites, they might be a bit more abrasive, or they might not even want to talk to you at all. If your alignment matches that of the demon’s, they’ll be more amiable to your demands. Strange Journey Redux continues the SMT tradition of allowing the main character to recruit demons to the party by negotiating with them. The ending isn’t the only thing your alignment will affect, however it also plays an integral role in how your party functions in battle. Either way, your character will have to make decisions that affect your alignment, which will decide what ending you get. It’s par for the course, yes, but that doesn’t mean it’s engaging storytelling.
STRANGE JOURNEY REDUX SERIES
While this is more or less a staple of the SMT series at this point, it’s still disappointing to see the Law and Chaos options portrayed as extremist ideals in the game, and this makes Zelenin and Jiminez seem even flatter as characters. Don’t go in expecting significant development or growth from either of these characters they’re more philosophical ideals than anything else. On the flip side, your fellow soldier Jiminez is the embodiment of Chaos, and he flaunts it in his reckless bravado in everything he does. The Russian scientist Zelenin is the embodiment of Law, as seen from her reluctance to associate with demons during the mission. Strange Journey Redux features three different endings (with alterations, if you choose to pursue the new content) that are dependent on your character’s alignment: Law, Chaos, and Neutral. Like other SMT games, the characters you meet on your journey are usually pretty flat and two-dimensional. You can turn the voices off if they’re too distracting, but this will also disable demon sounds. Unfortunately, Redux only supports Japanese voice acting, which is a damn shame. In turn, this also makes the absence of English voice acting even more noticeable.
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Players take control of an American soldier onboard the Red Sprite, one of four ships that have been sent to Antarctica. The international strike team is made up of people from different countries and various walks of life, which is rare in SMT games. There’s some commentary on the humans ruining the environment with pollution, consumerism, capitalism. After spending a while in this demon world, you start to get the sense that the demons themselves are aping the way humans treat Earth. One dungeon looks like a red light district, while another looks like a shopping mall.
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While Strange Journey doesn’t take place in Tokyo itself, the dungeons in the Schwarzwelt are designed to look like various places and districts we’d see in real life. To save the Earth, the United Nations have put together a strike force to enter the Schwarzwelt and find a way to destroy it. The world is in turmoil, a mysterious plane called the Schwarzwelt has opened up in Antarctica, and demons are starting run wild. Unlike other games in the series, Strange Journey Redux doesn’t take place in some futuristic or dystopian version of Tokyo. Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux is an HD port of the original 2010 DS release, and if you missed it the first time, now you can play it on your 3DS instead.
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Atlus’ MegaTen games have a tendency to make you feel awful for being part of the human race, and no other game in the series does it quite as well as Strange Journey.