#3. Shin Megami Tensei: The Fangame Ideas and Bullshits, Part 1

I was introduced to Shin Megami Tensei franchise at the last year of my high school life. I was a mythology whore when I was in junior high, so not much surprise around here. I mean, who wouldn't love a game where you can go "Gotta Catch'em All" on mythological figures, be it demons, angels, skeletons with attitude, fairies, beasts, gods, and that cute little hee-ho thing? That depressing and yet awesome storyline, that grotesque, metallic and kick-ass design my "Demon Artist" Kaneko Kazuma, and that soundtrack... just dat soundtrack... I loved every single elements of the franchise, and I still am now.

And then ATLUS went bankrupt. What the hell.

Then I had yet another surge of meaningless idea of making a fangame of the franchise. Here are some ideas and bullshits I've written down myself, so if you have some times in your hand, feel free to waste them all reading these stuffs.

- I have a rather twisted sense of perfectism, as in, I get carried away with nothing very special at all. It is why I wanted this fangame to embrace pretty much anything that was introduced in the franchise. I know it's impossible, but still.

- The game would be JRPG, with dungeon crawling elements. Duh.

- Alignment systems will be used. Law stands for rules, justice, oppression and superdickery. Chaos stands for freedom, natural selection, barbarism and jerkassery. Neutral stands for balance, choice, apathy and fuck-you-all. Players have full control on which alignments they lean on. and it will affect demon control and endings.

- Press Turn System will be used in the battle. For starters, it goes like this: At the beginning of your turn, you get one full turn for every members in your party. each action you take will take full turn. If you attack your enemy and it was its weakness, you get a "half turn," which can be used as a full turn. If you attack your enemy and it nullified your attack, you lose a turn in addition to a turn you just used. If your enemy drained or reflected your attack, you lose every single turn you have. The same applies to your enemies.

- I've never played Strange Journey or Digital Devil Saga myself, but I kinda liked what they did there. SJ had Demon Co-Op, and DDS had Skill Link. Demon Co-Op works like this: Since SJ doesn't use Press Turn System, it's like a simplified version of it. If you attack your enemy with its weakness, you give an additional blow on them with your party members that shares your alignment. Skill Link is using higher-tier skill by combining skills with your party members, and use additional turns.

- The first game introduced Law Hero and Chaos Hero, both of whom starts as your partner but oppose you depending on your alignment. I like the idea, it's a cool way to introduce and develop character, so I'd like to have my own version of Law Hero and Chaos Hero in the fangame.

- If... is too old for me, but I kinda liked the idea of choosing gender of the protagonist. Then Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire kicks in - when you choose one, the other becomes the main NPC and becomes your partner or rival, depending on your alignment. This will make a good Neutral Hero, along with Law Hero and Chaos Hero.

- The original SMT, with the exception of Nocturne, has COMP and Demon Summoning Program as key items. Recent games like SJ, Devil Survivor and IV even had app system to enhance COMP in battle. (The "Gauntlet" in IV looked cool, didn't it?) I kinda liked the way Devil Survivor 2 portrayed cell phones as a simplified version of COMP. Now we have smartphones Google Glass, so all we need is STEVEN distributing Devil Summoning Program to random people.

- I am a big fan of history, and was sorta impressed how Fate series came up with idea of summoning historical figures to wage war on another historical figures. Devil Summoner had Rasputin, Persona 2 had Hitler, so it would make sense, don't you think? Of course, this being SMT fangame, I don't want to get carried away with this one. If I have to use this, I want keep it minimum.

Well, that's it for now. End transmission.