Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey/Headscratchers
- Is it just me, or is Mastema's role as an antagonist in the Neutral and Chaos routes inconsistent? I mean, in the Neutral route he does the classic We Will Meet Again line and buggers off, but in the Chaos route he flies into a shrieking, ranting rage and tries to butcher you. What the heck?
- My guess is that in the Chaos route, you're basically siding with Lucifer, the enemy of God. The Neutral route has you saying 'screw you' to both sides, but at least you weren't siding with Lucifer.
- Also, in the Neutral path, you're trying to stop the Schwarzwelt's eternal recurrence by killing Mem Aleph. Mastema and the Three Angels don't believe you have the slightest chance, so they're willing to wait for you to die in the battle, let the Schwarzwelt wash over Earth, and wait for another cycle to pass before reenacting their plan... and finding another crew of gullible saps to manipulate.
- And if you do win that battle by some chance then they're down one more enemy. They have very little to lose by just letting you be in the Neutral path.
- Is it really fair to say Arthur died in the Neutral ending? Since he's an AI, shouldn't it be possible to install a new personality into him? Of course, this also begs the question as to why No one thought to make back ups of him in case he ever has to pull off a Heroic Sacrifice or is otherwise irreparably damaged.
- There's probably Arthur-style A Is back home, but they won't have the personality or arcane knowledge gleaned by the Arthur who went on the mission.
- Also, a crewman say they should just make a backup, but Arthur himself says that he can't --and shouldn't-- return to Earth with all the knowledge he's gained (heavily implying that, like Gore, he has gained insight into mankind's future) because humanity would rely on him and abuse that knowledge. And he can't just delete it either because he needs it in order to successfully collapse the Schwarzwelt with the bomb and the Cosmic Eggs. The only "safe" backup they could bring back would be one without any knowledge of the Schwarzwelt... which would just be a pre-mission blank-slate, and pointless to collect.
- Just how did Captain Jack and his men get their hands on the Demon Summoning Program? Their having more-advanced technology is understandable, given that it's all Super Prototypes, but everyone else in the Schwartzwelt either got it A) directly from the Three Wise Men, like the crew of the Red Sprite, or B) downloaded it from a crew member of the Red Sprite. No one in Jack Squad had an opportunity to contact anyone from the expedition before their first meeting in Carina, which rules that possibility out. Even more confusing since, if this troper recalls correctly, no one seemed to bat an eye at the fact that a bunch of cold-blooded mercenaries with no (known) affiliation to the Joint Project managed to obtain such an unearthly program.
- It's possible that their advanced Demonicas just allow them to actually see the demons. Didn't Jack say that they learned about the demons (and, one concludes, about them being invisible) from the transmissions between the Red Sprite and the Joint Project? If they can see them, they can fight them. If they can fight them, they can capture them, torture them, and enslave them, all done at gunpoint instead of using the program. Once they have their demon slaves, they have no need for demon fusion, demon summoning, or even negotiation at all. After all, they still have to use cultivation tanks to (try to) fuse demons together, and even THAT is beyond their capabilities until the protagonist comes along and hooks up his Demonica to their equipment.
- Jack's Squad gets the Demon Summoning Program from the PC. Since they have much nastier weapons than the Red Sprite, they probably just fired in all directions when unseen weirdos started attacking. Alternately, somebody hacked together a "see demons" filter back on Earth and they got by until they obtained superior equipment in the Schwartzwelt.
- However, it DOESN'T seem like they have the program. The demons that Jack's Squad use and fight with are ones that according to their source mythos, are artificially constructed, and since they are doing Mitra style experiments, it makes sense that they found a way to make demons in a crude, rudimentary sort of way, so it's Nightmare Fuel meets Fridge Brilliance that all of their demons are mythological constructs, and since you wind up having to fight them not long after you meet them, either they didn't get the Demon Summoning Program and are still using their construct version of making demons, or they did get it after meeting the PC and have yet to utilize it.
- It's possible that their advanced Demonicas just allow them to actually see the demons. Didn't Jack say that they learned about the demons (and, one concludes, about them being invisible) from the transmissions between the Red Sprite and the Joint Project? If they can see them, they can fight them. If they can fight them, they can capture them, torture them, and enslave them, all done at gunpoint instead of using the program. Once they have their demon slaves, they have no need for demon fusion, demon summoning, or even negotiation at all. After all, they still have to use cultivation tanks to (try to) fuse demons together, and even THAT is beyond their capabilities until the protagonist comes along and hooks up his Demonica to their equipment.
- A personal What Happened to the Mouse? that bugs me: the Schwarzwelt is filled with friendly, or at least sympathetic, demons, like the Fairy Village, Thoth, the Dwarf Blacksmith, and others. But at least two of the endings have you destroying the Schwarzwelt or using it to transfigure Earth into a Law-only club. Even the Chaos route doesn't guarantee their survival. Did you end up nuking that grateful and happy little Fairy Village by going Neutral?
- I get the feeling that the Schwarzwelt is only a portal to another dimension, so you'd simply be sealing it up again.
- It is a portal. In the starting dialogue (which is fairly long so no blame there for missing it), it is mentioned that the Schwarzwelt more or less allows access to alternate dimensions/allows them to intersect with Earth.
- I get the feeling that the Schwarzwelt is only a portal to another dimension, so you'd simply be sealing it up again.
- It Just Bugs Me that the game goes out of it's way to make clear the Schwarzwelt exploration team is a joint operation from everyone in the world, and yet, you can't pick your own nationality, having to set for being an american. It'd be a nice detail, and not uncommon considering other SMT games add small stuff like this all the time.
- To be fair, it is possible to be Japanese. Of course, it has to be the Japanese version of the game, though.
- Which makes sense, actually. 'YOU' are American if you bought the American copy of the game, after all.
- What about those of us from Canada?
- Well...you're still NORTH American.
- And if you imported it because it wasn't released in Europe? (seriously, wtf)
- That means you shouldn't have imported it from America.
- To be fair, it is possible to be Japanese. Of course, it has to be the Japanese version of the game, though.
- Exactly how long did the team spend in the Schwartzwelt?
 |
 |