Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux (3ds Review + Gift)

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Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux, also know as Shin Megami Tensei: Depp Strange Journey it’s an Role Playing Game published by ATLUS for the Nintendo 3ds system that comes to stores in the 05/15 of 2018 for North America and three days after (05/18/2018) for Europe. This game is an actualized Port of the game: Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey(2010) for Nintendo DS. This game was developed with Shin Megami Tensei V in celebration of the 25th aniversary of the company.
This Port presents new desings for the characters, new animation, voices, demons and a new route. More than 350 demons will now be able to fuse in the game, all of this besides a new character called Alex.
Those who didn’t play the first “Strange Journey” don’t have anything to worry about being unable to understand the story. This “port” contains the same Story, Gamplay, Missions, etc. But also includes all the already mentioned content.

It’s the beginnig of the 21st century, the earth is on the verge of destruction because is slowly being consumed by a sub-space anomaly who appeared on the south pole and its growing continously dismantling our world piece by piece. This anomaly it’s called the Schwarzwelt.

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Schwarzwelt is a term extracted from the Hammerschmidt’s theory. Hammerschmidt’s is a German profesor who explains: “When the human activity exceds the world’s natural capacity and the balance of energy is exceeded a corrective forcé happends”. It’s simplier to think about this like the antibodies of earth attacking humanity.
Thanks to the fact that nobody know nothing about this anomaly the united nations discreetly established a counter-measure for this trouble without causing a global panic but due to the fenomenon’s going futher than human understanding the proyect is unable to act.
With the Schwarzwelt slowly expanding the humanity’s clock’s is begining to run out of time. That is when the united nations approved most extreme methods and send an investigation unit to the inside of this abyss. The Nations of the world set aside their differences and create the Schwarzwelt Investigation Team, this team is filled with only the world’s best Scientist and Soldiers from around the globe, not only that but they’re also trained and equipped with the most advanced tecnology.
The humanity didn’t scant in resources and all the precautions were taken, including ships protected with plasma shields and battle suits know as the Demonica Suits, all of this is just to give mankind an opportunity to fight the Schwarzwelt and whatever is inside him.

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The Demonica suits are battle suit equipped with advanced tecnology, specially desinged to protec the user from the most harsh enviroment conditions, they have their own operative system and Artificial Intelligence, it also boost the physical capacities of its owner automaticaly.

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Main Character:An USMC oficial who underwent an intense combat training while he was on duty, he was transfered to the Schwarzwelt investigation team by petition of the united nations. As a member of the strike team his duties Include off ship missions an providing security for the expedition.

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Zelenin: A russian scientist recognized for he research on the Schawarzwelt. Her posotion as the first lieutenant of the monitor team was one of the first appointments made. Hr chief duty is to research the Schwarzwelt’s true nature along with her crewmates.

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Jimenez: Another member of the expedition with an American military background. Jimenez began his career as an enlisted man and is now a private contractor, attracted to the expedition by the promise of financial gain.

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Gore: The overall commander of the Schwarzwelt investigation Team. He was originally a military officer serving a large country; the leadership abilities he displayed during his srvice earned hi the top position on the team that now holds the fate of mankind.

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Alex: The girl that suddenly assaulted the protagonist during the investigation of the Schwarzwelt. She wields technology that is unknown to man and shows her hostility to the protagonist, trying to kill him.

The New game option will let us start a new game. During the opening, you will need to enter the protagonist’s name via an onscreen keyboard. Press “L” or “R” to move the cursor. Press “A” to select and “B” to delete a character. To finish entering your name, press “Y”.
Afterwards you’ll have to choose a dificulty between Casual, Standard and Expert. The players will find an easyer adventure on the “Casual” setting while in the “Expert” the battles will be more challeging(buscar), the “Standard” dificulty is for those who want to enjoy the adventure with the normal setting on the battles and it’s the one i choose.

You can change the dificulty in any momento of the game and this change will not have reppercussions on the story.

The Load Game option will let us continue on our last save.
And the option DLC wii let un connect out 3DS system on the internet to adquire additional content.
Inside The Game pressing the “Y” button will take us to the menú of the game, there we will find:
On the upper screen the game will show our current mission, something really usefull when we lost track of the game.
On the lower screen we’ll see how is conformed our team and also the options:
Skill: See or use the habilities of our team, is not necessary for a demon to be in our team in order to use their support skills.
Item: here you can see the “ítems”, “formas”, “key ítems” and “demon sources”, also from here you can use all of your healing ítems to recover your party’s energy and recover from any harmfull status
Team: Select the members that will conform your party and delete the ones you don’t need.
Equip: In this option you can check and change the equipment of your main character besides turn on and off the app’s you’re using.
Fusion: Here you can create new demons from the ones you already own, you can also check the Demon Compendium. The DC is a record of all the demons you have obtained and from here you can summon those demons for a Price based on their levels, stats and skills.
Mission: Check your current mission’s and the documments you have obtained until now and read the all the times you want besides the demon information that can also be found here.
System: this option will show you the settings, from here you can save and load you game too.

(Out of battles/ Events/ Conversations)
In the game you can make use of the stylus to select and confirm. You can also do the same using the Cross pad and the A button to confirm.
(Map)
On the map we will use the Cross pad or the Joystick to move our character and if you press B while you’re moving you’ll run instead. The L and R buttons are for taking steps “Left” and “Right” respectively. Pressing the button Y while in the map will take you to the Menu.
(Combat)
In the combat we’ll use the Cross pad to move the pointer, use the button “A” to confirm the actions and if you want to skip the combat animation leave the button “A” pressed. Use the button “B” to cancel, the button “X” to check the conditions of the battle members, the button “y” to analyze and the button “R” to toggle the autocombat On/Off.

The destiny of mankind rests on your shoulders…
The game begins moments before entering the Schawarzwelt, while the units are making preparations the characters tell a Little bit of the history and the role that everyone has in the investigation team, like is commonly know in the RPG there are lots of dialogue scenes, but these are really interesting and usefull if you want to begin your adventure the right way.
They will explain a Little about your companions and also about tell you about the tecnology they are using to fulfill this mission, all this information will be passed to you by tutorials that will also explain the functions of the Demonica Suit and another basic concepts, dont worry if you skip a dialogue, you will be able to see this and all the relevant information anytime you want in Menu>Mission>Document.
The real problem begins when after trying to get inside the Schwarzwelt the cre is attacked by something unknow, this (provoca) a general failure on the ship making it fall in the anomaly dooming the character and all the crew members to an undefined stay inside the Schwarzwelt.
Strange things begins to happend and the crew is attacked by a enemy they can’t see until some misterious app pops up on the “Demonica Suit”, this aplicaction is called Demon Summoning Program this app allows the characters to see what they’re fighting, giving them the chance to counter attack. Due to your liking to stay alive this battle is just the beginning of your crusade against the demons on the anomaly. But it’s not only about fighting against them, on the contrary if you want to survive you should make use of the app to communícate with the demons and ask for their help so you can take on the dangers that stalk this misterious place.
The demons you recluit by communication will join your team permanently until you decide to delete them or better, fuse them with another demons to make a stronger ally, you’ll need to repeat this process to créate a team able to face the horrors that dwell in the anomaly since these will become stronger as you progress the game.

Like in other titles of the Shin Megami Tensei saga, the battles are turn-based, each team will select the actions they are going to take in this turn and then they will execute all of them acting in first place the character with the most “Agility”, then the next, until the slowest one.
You should try to attack the enemy’s weaknesses to make most damage to them and give the chance to another member of your team with the same alingment to deal more damage with an extra attack.
The battle will end when all members of any team are defeated, in case of victory you and your team will gain experience and when the necessary amount of exp is reached you or you demons will level up, receiving a random permanent stat boost.

You will choose to be a Soldier of the law, an agent of chaos or…
The chooses you make in the course of you mission will determine you alignment, this will be an important factor in many aspects of the game.
The three alignments you will find on the game are: Law, Chaos, and Neutral.
Both you and the demons you find have one, the main character will begin with a “Neutral” alignment until the moment comes to choose what path you’re taking.
The alignment of the demons are extremely important because they have two, The primary: Affects conversations and the Secondary: affects the affinity with the main character.

The exploration conforms an extremely important part of the game since precisely the story develops as we visit the places of the Schwarzwelt.
Also is there where we will pick up materials or Forma to power up our suits, weapons, consumables and even applications.

Inside the game are various types of fusions, between them are “Basic fusion” and “Special Fusion”, the Basic Fusion is one of the elements you will made more use of, and the most usefull tool when it comes to dispose the demons you’re not using, combining one of them with another low level demon or with one you’re not using you can make them a priceless ally (Until the moment you have to dispatch him too).

In the other hand, the Special Fusion will give you an specific Demon whose stats and habilities surpass the ones obtained by basic fusión, to obtain these powerfull allies you just need to fuse all the demons showed in the recipe.

1.-When choosing a team it is important that they have the same alignment, that way when they are attacking the enemy’s weaknesess all team members will deal extra damage.
2.-When you are exploring make sure to discover everything on the map since the “Forma” appears in a random manner and appears again in another random place when you re-enter the map.
3.-The first app i recommend to acquire is the one to get you more ítems, since when you get them you can recycle them for macca making it easyer to get other apps, equipment and demons.
4.-The first thing you need to do when you start fighting is obtaining a team that has 4 characters (Main Character and 3 demons) since this is the max allowed for the player’s team. This will let you take more actions in a turn.
5.-If you need money you can always sell the materials(Forma) you don’t need, that is why you should never ignore a “forma” notification when it pops-up.
6.-Always try to keep spare demons with healing abilities, you can make use of these skills to heal your team without using your resources.
7.-Take as many demons as you can to analysis level 3(Max), since in doing it they will give you their demon source, you can use this to add extra skills to the demon result of a demon fusión.
8.-Complete all the side missions you find, most of them are easy and the rewards are worth it.
9.-If you lack of a demon for completing the “Special Fusion” and don’t know where to find him you can check their profile, the “Alignment” selection will show you where is located and where was the last place you saw it.
10.-If you need to analyze a demon quickly, the best way of doing it is putting him on you team, when te battle is over they will gain extra points in their analysis level.
11.-You can also gain analysis points for the demons you don’t have fighting against them.
12.-If posible have some elemental attacks in AOE, that way you will hit various enemy’s at the same time making it easier to spot their weaknesses.

1.-I consider that this versión represents a total improvement in comparison to the one presented in Nintendo DS, they take everything that was good and made it better.
2.- Many of the voices we will hear in the characters are from famous dubbing actors, for example: the voice of commander Gore is the same as Joseph Joestar(Jojo`s Bizarre Adventure) and the proffesor Oak(Pokémon).
3.-I really suggest to not skip any dialogue and check the documents frecuently, there are many interesting things in this game, that is for sure.

This has been all for this post i hope you all enjoyed reading it and as always i hope you find the information somewhat helpful. this game and the saga it belongs to is one of my favorites and i hope you have as much fun as i had playing it.
If you liked the post do not forget to vote and to follow me.
If you have any suggestions or want to contact me you can do it throught Discord: "TimBucktwo#5058"
This post is a translation of the one i made in spanish for non-spanish speakers to read, i made the translation myself so sorry if you find some mistaken words across the post, i will work hard to overcome these little mistakes
The Gift i mentioned in the tittle is a "Lvl 1. Pixie with the skills: Megidolaon and Mediarahan" this Pixie also have 99 of "LU" and it's obtained throught an Email that Atlus send to the ones registered in the official page.
If you want to obtain her go to "menu>fusion>Rewrite" and input in an empty slot: "Stay Faithful"
I hope to see you in the next post.