Games I Played in 2025 - Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse
Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse is turn-based monster-taming RPG with a focus on recruiting and fusing demons, heavy character customisation, strategic gameplay, and a story with alignment choices. Developed by Atlus, Apocalypse is a follow-up to Shin Megami Tensei IV. IV is one of my favorite games ever after having a bit of a rocky relationship with it, so I was ecstatic to finally get to play its odd pseudo-sequel. The marketing for Apocalypse was always confusing to me; is it a sequel? An expansion? An unrelated game with the same mechanics? I think that's why a lot of people didn't really look at it much alongside being 3DS exclusive, along with Shin Megami Tensei not being a big household name compared to Persona. Nevertheless, just like IV, I wound up loving Apocalypse to bits.
ANOTHER FUTURE THAT CONTINUES FROM THE PRESENT
As the game consistantly reminds you during its start-up screen, Apocalypse is an alternate universe sequel to Shin Megami Tensei IV. Taking place during IV's Neutral Route, right before the final dungeons are started, Apocalypse follows the story of Nanashi, a rookie Hunter alongside his best friend Asahi as the protagonist of IV, Flynn, is doing the rounds to help people against Merkabah and Lucifer, the leaders of the Angels (representing Law) and the Demons (representing Chaos) respectively. The game's premise and core dilemma is shown as soon as the tutorial: Nanashi dies against one of Lucifer's lieutenant and is brought back to life by the god Dagda, under the condition that Nanashi become his "Godslayer." From there, Apocalypse presents the player with two alignment choices: Peace, or Anarchy.
Over the rest of the game, choices given to the player during the story will raise or lower their hidden alignment rating, going either towards Peace or Anarchy. It's very easy to figure out: being nice to your friends leans towards Peace, and being individualistic leans towards Anarchy. Unlike IV, these choices aren't as important to the ending you get, as you get a very obvious, definitive choice near the end of the game and you can select it no matter what, though choosing the Peace ending while you were making Anarchy choices and vice-versa will make the ensuing battle far more difficult. While I love IV's approach to its alignments, it was very difficult to get the Neutral ending (which, as mentioned, this game takes place in) without a guide or knowing it even existed. This is one of multiple improvements Apocalypse makes over its predecessor.
Shin Megami Tensei IV, though it had party members, had a pretty no-nonsense story, all things considered, and its moments of levity, though present, were kind of few and far inbetween. Apocalypse further develops the party members during the story, and each character gets substantial growth in a satisfying, natural way. All the party members this time around are from different walks of life, with different ambitions and goals, so the moments of friction make sense, as do the bonding moments where there's some bantering. A returning character from IV, Navarre, is now a ghost and mostly serves as the comic relief character, but even he gets some growth and some nice character moments. He does feel a little out of character compared what he was like in IV, to the point that he has a different voice actor, but I think it's fine and it becomes its own thing, it was just a little strange at first.
In Apocalypse, some party members also rotate in and out a fair bit to suit the story, but their level always catches up to where you're at once they return. I'd say that while both IV and Apocalypse have good stories, Apocalypse's ends up being better overall, despite having a slower start. And I fully attribute that to the amount of party members that actively take part in the story as well as the clear threats throughout the entire game. The ending in particular (especially during the Peace route, which is the one I did) was particularly cathartic for me, and feels like an appropriate end not just to Apocalypse, but IV as well. The final boss is one of the best I've fought in a JRPG, appropriately hard and overwhelming while still feeling fair and possible to beat, with solid story beats around it.
The world of Apocalypse is the same as IV, with the same underground districts, world map and areas, with some differences to still make it feel new enough. The most notable difference is how the game handles its dungeons compared to its predecessor. IV had a lot of "Domains" as dungeons, especially in sidequests, which are smallish, odd mazes with no visible map, making them confusing to navigate. While IV had some actual dungeons, they weren't very interesting for the most part, with a lot of them being very simple and some even just being completely linear. Apocalypse has far more dungeons, with multiple floors and teleporters, and though they can be a bit much especially at the end of the game, they really scratch the more old-school RPG itch for me. The Domain-style of dungeon is used lightly, pretty surprisingly, even in sidequests. There's also a massive, Domain-style dungeon meant for sickos in endgame or New Game+. I didn't do it, but I plan to when I replay this game one day.
There are some gameplay changes to the dungeons, and I unfortunately find them a bit vapid in nature. The first change are traps, which will randomly stop Nanashi in his tracks while running around and must be broken out of by mashing the attack button (typically used to start battles with a pre-emptive strike). If the player fails, then the result will differ depending on the location: in the normal locations of the game, Nanashi will be put back where he started, while he will be teleported in a random area if in a dungeon. These are so easy to break out of that they don't really add anything, and just feel like they slow down the gameplay. Realistically, you'll never fail to break out of them.
The second change is a new type of destructible wall, which can be destroyed with the Jade Dagger. Introduced early on, Jade Dagger walls require the Jade Dagger item to be powered up at set locations. Once powered up, a gauge will quite rapidly deplete by itself, requiring the player to run to the walls and use it before it runs out of power. The gauge depletes a bit too quickly, and demons might get in the way, so a lot of the time, it can feel like you're cutting it a bit too close, not to mention it's not very fun. I prefer the Jade Dagger chests, which are placed on walls in areas you can reach while the Jade Dagger is powered, and they give worthwhile rewards, though they can be annoying to reach nonetheless. At times, Jade Dagger walls block the way to progress, requiring the player to backtrack and come back in a rush which, like the traps, just slows down gameplay rather than enhancing it.
Something that both games do well is the NPC dialogue, and I felt like Apocalypse went even further with it than IV, though this might just be because I played IV a few years ago and my memory is fuzzy. Nevertheless, the nameless NPCs throughout the game's multiple underground shelters have a pretty shocking amount of dialogue, changing very frequently as the story advances, even when you'd have to go way out of your way to go to their location. The map even shows you who does and doesn't have new dialogue. While what they say is never particularly useful, the frequency of their changes and the sheer amount of NPCs really helps make the world of Apocalypse feel alive. The NPCs respond to story beats in an appropriate way, some in one way, some in the opposite way. There's micro-stories everywhere, and you can see these nameless characters evolve throughout the story. Only a handful of them, namely those outside of rooms, disappointingly have pretty static dialogue that rarely, if ever, changes. Either way, I was often motivated to go out of my way to talk to NPCs, even if I gained nothing from it. Their lack of uniformity and shockingly defined views even makes a few of them oddly memorable.
However, something else that Apocalypse (understandably) retains from IV is almost the entirety of its graphics, from demon designs (which, to my understanding, are also used in earlier games in the series back to at least the PS1) to areas to sprites, almost everything that isn't blatantly new is recycled in Apocalypse. The sprites, especially for NPCs, are low-detail and kind of ugly, and demons also look a bit difficult to parse visually when they are smaller ones. The environments are nothing special, mostly being destroyed cityscapes, buildings and tunnels. Overall, the game is far from being a looker, and the smaller screen of a handheld system does it no favors. Combat being against static sprites without seeing your own characters (comparable to earlier Dragon Quest games or Earthbound, for example) also turned me off initially. In fact, IV's graphics made me dismiss it entirely early on, and it's only when I tried it again a year or so later that I managed to get hooked.
TAMING THE APOCALYPSE
Similarly to its world, Apocalypse takes a lot from IV's gameplay, and without looking deeper at it, one could even feel like the battle systems were copy-pasted to an extent. However, upon taking a closer look, Apocalypse makes a few key changes from IV and, in my opinion, improves the gameplay quite a bit on top of making it just that much easier for someone to get into. The core system is the same, though: Apocalypse uses the same Press Turn battle system as IV. Essentially, every character in your party (Nanashi and three demons) has a press turn icon that represents a turn. Landing a critical hit or hitting an enemy with a weakness will make the turn icon glow, granting you a second use of it. Hitting an enemy with something they nullify will remove two icons, and hitting an enemy with something they absorb will flat out end your turn.
Demons' resistances and weaknesses are unknown at first, and will only be revealed after you recruit or defeat one and end the battle. As a result, boss battles are especially tense since they will always be unknown, though you can use context clues and mythological knowledge to figure them out more often than not. Is an enemy on fire? Then it's probably weak to ice. Damage is handled with the following elements: physical, gun, fire, ice, force (wind), electric, light, and dark. Demons can resist, be weak to, or be neutral to any combination of these, which makes them all feel pretty unique. To me at least, this naturally forces the player to build a party of jack-of-all-trades with access to a bit of everything to adapt to every situation. A huge difference in Apocalypse is how light and dark skills are handled. Instead of merely being instant kill skills, they are now treated as normal elemental skills, but with an extra feature: the Smirk status grants them their usual instant kill chance.
The Smirk status is a key mechanic in both games in the duology, being powerful in IV and buffed substantially in Apocalypse. When a character (enemy or ally) has the Smirk status, multiple things happen until it's removed: all weaknesses cannot be exploited and the next attack that lands will be a guaranteed critical hit. Once the character either lands an attack, two turns pass, or is hit by the skill Magaon, Smirk is removed. Plus, quite a few skills have extra effects when Smirking, unlike in IV, which just adds to the strategic layers of the battle system. Smirk is able to be attained in multiple ways: getting hit by an element you nullify or absorb guarantees it, landing a critical hit or hitting a weakness has a chance to activate it, and starting with a pre-emptive strike also has a chance of activating it.
Demons are recruited through talking to them and answering their questions correctly, lest they get mad and attack, or simply leave. The demon dialogue is personality-based, and demons with the same personality set will have the same dialogue. However, the success of answers will always be randomised in my experience; if a demon declares that humans are untrustworthy for example, then agreeing, disagreeing, or deflecting can yield similar results depending on the demon. It makes recruiting demons an actual risk, as failure can lead to complications within the battle. Thankfully, you can often just try again the next turn, though the same answer will lead to the same behavior for that individual demon. It's a little frustrating, but also oddly gives every demon, even within the same species, a bit of individuality.
Further deepening the battle system is the App mechanic, which, like in IV, lets you add passives to you and your demons, or add skill slots and talk features, like begging demons for money. You get 10 App Points every time you level up and can get a handful more each time you report Hunter bodies as you explore, which is another new feature in Apocalypse. This lets every player's playthrough to be personalised to an extent.
What further adds personalisation to the gameplay is the Demon Whisper feature that was also present in IV. Demons are all at a set level, and will learn skills as they level up. Once they have learned every skill they can, Demon Whisper will start and they can give Nanashi their skills freely. This gives the player complete freedom over Nanashi's gameplay, and duplicate skill aren't wasted as they will instead power up, either up to +5 to lower MP cost for support skills or +9 to boost damage and efficiency for offensive skills. On top of that, whenever Nanashi levels up, the player freely decides how to allocate 5 stat points every time, which opens up a ton of personalisation and player expression.
What's interesting is that unlike other RPGs like this (at least that I've played), demons are all a set level, whether they are encountered in the wild or fused. For example, a Kelpie will always be level 31 until it starts leveling up in your party. While this would be quite strange in other RPGs in my opinion, this game makes it work by making the level not as important as the skills used in battle. Even at level 80, you won't always be killing level 20-30 demons in one hit (though definitely in one turn) unless you hit their weakness. This emphasis on strategy makes the game feel quite unique, and it removes the potential need for grinding since good strategy will typically trump having lower stats to an extent.
A big change from IV is how party members (not your demons) work. The party members in Apocalypse, as mentioned when talking about the story, are greatly emphasised and are now a key part of gameplay. As opposed to many other RPGs, you only select one party member to be active during gameplay. Each party member has a particular skillset that makes each one feel suited for different playstyles and/or situations, which is quite nice. Coupled with this is the new Assist Gauge, which fills up by one every time the party's turn ends, and once filled (which takes 8 turns), the enemy's turn will be skipped, party members with support skills will all use them, and then each one will attack the enemy once with a non-elemental attacks. The Assist Gauge's status persists between battles, and will also go up or down depending on your responses to boss questions and situations when in a boss battle.
The Shin Megami Tensei series is often cited as being brutally difficult and unfriendly to beginners, and I think that applies to both games in the duology, but Apocalypse a bit less so. With the power of Smirking being heightened and the party system and Assist Gauge being so useful, the game feels like it's a bit less difficult than its predecessor. But make no mistake, it's still quite difficult at the default difficulty level (which is what I played), and even a single mistake or two can make a simple encounter very taxing. The biggest difficulty comes from MP management, as MP recovery items are not purchasable anywhere for a majority of the game. However, overall, if you're a bit careful/frugal when needed and strategically sound, Apocalypse's difficulty will feel just right on the default difficulty, being hard enough to give a sense of urgency and desperation, but easy enough to make it possible to beat without needing to bend over and grind or require very specific strategies. Even judgment mistakes with Demon Whisper and Demon Fusion aren't the end of the world as long as they're not constant. You can also save anywhere, and boss battles are basically never sprung up on you without warning. Plus, there are new healing areas where you can spend macca, the in-game currency, to fully heal. It overall just feels even better than IV in multiple aspects.
While in IV death could be circumvented by paying with macca (or putting yourself in debt) or with the 3DS play coins, which would return you to just before the fight where you died, Apocalypse further streamlines this and just makes it a choice between reviving before the battle or having to reload a save. This makes the game pretty light on punishment for death, which I think is more than okay for more difficult games. While cutscenes can't be skipped, there's a fast-forward button that does the job very well, making long cutscenes last no more than 20 seconds. However, sometimes I found myself accidentally skipping dialogue by touching the d-pad without meaning to.
SOUNDS OF THE END OF THE WORLD
Some of the additions in Apocalypse do replace some IV tracks, with quite a few new battle themes that are used more regularly. The fantastic overworld theme "Tokyo" from IV is replaced by the equally great "Large Map" that gives the game a completely different feeling, befitting the different perspective of its protagonists. There's also a different theme for the taverns you frequent for healing and delivering quest items, with IV's "The Hunter Association" being replaced by an identically named track that feels less oppressive and grimy, and more like a safe space, again befitting the change in perspective.
I will say, the new tracks from Apocalypse do have a slightly different feel to them; I don't know if it's because I've listened to the IV soundtrack so much that they stand out more or if there's actually a difference, but it's not a negative thing. Kozuka's more subdued, ambient works shine in tracks like "Kanda Shrine," "Dagda's Theme," and "Yomotsu Hirasaka." He brings back the more industrial cyberpunk vibes with "Kinshicho - Kinshi Park," and the aforementioned "Large Map" track as well as "Kinshicho Underground District" have a great adventurous feel with catchy melodies. And for battles, "Battle f3" and "Battle f5" are unconventional ambient pieces that truly feel unsettling and overwhelming in battle, while "Battle f4" and "Battle f6" feel appropriately exciting and dangerous. "Battle f7" and "Battle f8," the themes for the final encouters in the game, are excellent and some of my favorites in the genre. I just can't heap enough praise onto Kozuka's work for both games in the duology. It's some of my favorite video game music ever.
PROS AND CONS
PROS
• Great story with likable characters that grow in substantial, yet natural ways.
• Interesting alignment choices that feel like they matter.
• Some of the best turn-based gameplay in the genre, with a satisfying emphasis on strategy.
• Boss battles that range from good to great on average, with the last few being some of the best I've ever seen.
• Sneakily deep gameplay mechanics like Demon Whisper and Demon Fusion allow the player to customise their playstyle freely.
• Pretty perfect difficulty curve, being difficult without being overbearingly so.
• Shockingly large amounts of NPC dialogue across the entire map that changes frequently as the story advances.
• Incredible soundtrack that, though mostly recycled from Shin Megami Tensei IV, does add a lot to the game.
• Sidequests are almost all pretty fun, generally having unique bosses and stories.
• Dungeons are overall fun and far better than the ones in IV.
• Gameplay additions from IV like the party members, the assist gauge, rebalanced light and dark spells, and the buffed Smirk status make the game especially fun.
CONS
• Some additions from IV, such as the Jade Dagger and the traps, add nothing but tedium to the game.
• Dungeons rely a little too much on teleporter mazes to the point that it can get tiring.
• Towards the end of the game especially, some bosses end up feeling like filler rather than meaningful battles.
• Pretty lackluster in terms of presentation, with low-resolution, small sprites in battle and nothing special in terms of environment for the most part.
• Though not necessarily an issue, a lot is recycled 1:1 from IV which can make the game feel a bit too close to it and more like an expansion than a sequel.
• While most of the game stands up as a standalone game, someone who hasn't played IV would start getting lost a little by the end.
• Some of the voice acting can be a bit wooden/dry at times, which is more due to direction than talent. The demon voices are also all distorted in the same way, which can get annoying and hard to hear in battle.
• Though good, the story takes a while to truly get started.
WORTH PLAYING?
For me, both Shin Megami Tensei IV and Apocalypse are some of the best JRPG experiences I've ever had, and they're both absolutely worth playing. Apocalypse is a bit easier to recommend due to being a little easier, but it also, to me, feels like it hits way harder as a sequel rather than a standalone game. The battle system is fantastic, the story is good with memorable characters, the soundtrack is great, and the gameplay systems in place on top of everything just make it a joy to play.
However, I don't think it's exactly for everyone, as the difficulty is quite a bit higher than other JRPGs, it's not the best-looking game out there which can turn off people, and its story, though good, is a bit more minimalistic than other JRPGs. The dungeons, though I loved them, can be pretty overbearing and will definitely not appeal to everyone, and the game in general feels like a blend of old-school and modern JRPGs, rather than strictly being a modern JRPG.
Still, if you play the game on its own terms and accept it for what it is, I don't think there's many other JRPGs on 3DS that can match its quality. There's also three difficulties, so one can play on the lower difficulty if the game's too hard. It can even be changed in gameplay whenever outside of battle with no limitations.
All I can do is hope that the duology is remade on modern consoles at some point, as right now it's stuck on the 3DS with no way to buy it or its DLC legitimately, which is a massive shame. Both games will forever be special to me, and while I can't guarantee you'll love them as much as I do, I can only assume that someone who likes JRPGs will find something to like in there.
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As a note, all pictures used in this review are from this full playthrough of the game by Chaiypobza. Unfortunately, this video is either taken from an emulator with a pretty bad upscaling filter, or the video was upscaled after being recorded. Either way, this results in some odd distortion (especially in the text) and a blurrier picture with more afterimages than the actual game.
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