Digital Devil Story Revisited 

Hope you guys like this one, I'm still working on SMT 1 and Giten and ended up finishing this video first. It's a little different than normal I think, but it was fun going back to the start of the franchise again. Huge thanks to Rasen Bran for letting me use some Megami Tensei 2 footage, check out his channel here ru-vid.com/show-UCtjGi3eV0MdSlfC-79Tot2Q

"We're in Mikan city, on the 8th floor of Daedalus Tower and our first task is to get to the bottom and kill The Minotaur" Every time I hear that line I get hype.

Marsh: the professional SMT player. He went Pro in 2020 and never looked back

Imagine Marsh plays through SMT 4 for the hell of it, names Flynn Nakajima, gets to Minotaur and goes "MOTHERFUCKER I FORGOT."

"We're on Micon City on the eight floor of Dedalus Tower," here we go again...for the last time

Shin Megami Tensei NINE is a psychological horror game about a guy who gets attacked by a giant angry scrotum at a Taylor Swift concert, and then spends several months facing horrific hallucinations from the resulting PTSD. There are no rules in this game. In the first five minutes you shatter the boundaries of space and time when you try to leave this flower shop only to realise that you're trapped as this lady and her lesbian furry lover crawl on two planes of existence at once as she seemingly goes down the wall and towards the screen at the same time. The only way out is through this table down here and then you're back on the street where this guy yells at you, as if you just did all that shit on purpose. Sometimes when you walk down the street you literally walk down into it. I mean this looks like some kind of surrealist painting. Trying to imagine the perspective on this destroys the human mind so just don't think about it too much. Almost every building is empty and plays mildly disturbing music, except for this one where Jack Frost says welcome and promptly shows you a series of menus with no text. The whole game feels like you aren't welcome in its presence. It almost feels like the software is sentient and it's watching, trying to figure out why you're playing a Japanese Xbox game. I truly do believe that if demons can manifest themselves in lines of code, there's almost certainly one hiding in here somewhere. Oh yeah, and the battle system you can't really do anything it's like a movie. You can smack that ballsack all you want, but it's just not gonna go away. Overall, I have to say it's about as good as Persona 5 so check it out when you get the chance. See ya

There hasn't been a single video you've done I haven't enjoyed. It's not just the subject matter either, you make interesting observations. Keep it up. Or don't. This is a youtube comment, not a devil contract.

"It's actually a pretty neat place" says Marsh while burning his skin off in the literal fires of Hell

At this point, Marsh has likely played more DDS Megami Tensei than any living or sane person.

I'm pretty sure Marsh has a full Blown citizenship for Mikan city at this point

As someone who the past year REALLY started to get into SMT, basically making the jump from Pokémon as a HUGE history/mythology junkie SMT made a massive appeal to me, I can’t thank you enough for these videos, they are entertaining, precise in information, and really just covers content of the megaten franchise that has been neglected outside Japan, you’re really doing huge work for the entire fandom and yet again I can’t thank you enough for these videos

Marsh is the reason I branched out of Persona and into SMT. Onw of the best things to happen to me this year.

I’d be interested in a video on Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei 2 personally, but if you don’t wanna play through it again, don’t force yourself because people want it. No matter what videos you make, I’m sure they’ll be great!

the level design is the kabbalistic tree of life and the dark version is the qliphoth, its cool how atlus always worked knowledge of the occult into the games

Cant wait to have grand kids on a mars colony in in 2095 and Marshes Deep Fake AI Conscious will make another review of Digital Devil Story Megami Tensei on the PS4 Collection

“Nakajima’s orbs have not yet regained their luster”

Alright, it’s Monday night. I have no school, one liter of pink lemonade, and a new Marsh video. Let’s rock.

Nue appearing in Lucifers palace is pretty cool of you know your mythology. Iirc in Nue appeared before the death of an emperor. Given how its right before the final boss it's pretty cool foreshadowing and a cool way of cheering the player on.

"Back at it again at the 8th floor of Dedalus Tower" *backflips into minotaur*

Ah yes, the game that make people need to be specific on what they meant by DDS

Without explanation you are tossed into a dungeon and left to fend for yourself. So they nailed the public school experience before Persona.

Marsh during “the SMTIV experience”: here we are in Mikado village right above the 8th floor of Naraku Tower. Why am I having deja vu?

Marsh will scour the internet for a version of the first megami tensei that he heard about somewhere he can't remember that probably doesn't exist before he plays a Megaten game people care about

This man has ungodly endurance going through literally every grindy and cryptic-ass old SMT game for us, rock on Marsh.

The ability to see these old games, and not only experience them but also get them in a honest "friend-to-friend" explanation makes a new Marsh video a highlight of the day.

Closest thing I found to a guide was a Japanese blog of someone playing Telenet's Digital Devil Story which was quite rough.

Ah yes, the Telenet DDS, quite the classic game, even has a similar layout to its predecesor, Hydlide and the Dragon Slayer series of Falcom. The memories. It's why I love the channel, not afraid to tackle these old games and the roots of a lot of modern juggernauts of gaming. And the additional research to how they connect with the side-media is also very appreciated, it's nice to get a memory refreshing every once in a while. As for "Be Found" it's ne of the evry first "Engrish" phrases from back then as it probably came from having to abridge the phrase "You've Been Found" to "Be Found". Back then, the limitation of space in sentences, especially in japanese due to how the Kanji work, it often had them far more limited than the western games when it came to programming text boxes, so it's highly probable that's what happened. It also doesn't help that back in the 80s, the average japanese developer / programmer didn't have as tight of a grasp in english grammar as people have these days. Telenet's DDS also has a weird story since Atlus, during the XBOX days, wanted to recreate the action feeling of the first story, by having the payer take control of Cerberus only and wonder around the various Sephirot-styled dungeons but the game was unfortunately cancelled. These days though Atlus has quite the good relation with action devs so I'd like to see them tackle a more "classic" Megami Tensei styled title, with the action-dungeon crawler gameplay they envisioned for that cancelled game, since I have no doubt it'd be a different experience than Raidou Kuzunoha or the P5Scramble game. While Telenet doesn't exist anymore, at least not in its original form, it'd be quite the thing to have a dev studio like either Falcom or the Tales devs from Bandai Namco, considering they have history and some, now retired, programmers from Telenet, some of them having already worked on DDS before leaving to form the then legendary "Wolf Team" of Tales of Phantasia reputation and current tri-Ace reputation. And hey, Namco, at least back in the day as "Namcot" did help Atlus publish DDS so they more than have a connection regarding this series. The topless scene in the PC-88 should have been expected. It was a staple for the machine back then, even non-erotic games had quite the assortment of pixelated nudes. You'd be surprised how common that was. All in all, quite nice that you chose to retackle the OG DDS and hey, SMT always required a little insanity to be appreciated so don't worry, you're still fine, relatively speaking. Now, for Kyuyaku : you aren't wrong with the charm being lost from the NES game since by Megami Tensei II, a lot of the original staff got replaced by the people we know now as the more iconic Atlus team, like Kaneko as the artist instead of whoever did the art for MT1. That lead to Opera House, the porting devs that made Kyuyaku into incorporating all these changes in mind, like trying to copy Kaneko's artstyle and colour palette at the time to fit with MTII. So a part of the original was indeed lost and the screen / hud being lost was a bit of a downer but by the time of the SNES, such "primitive" graphics were considered anathema on such strong gaming systems like the 16 bit consoles, as they were thought of as unecessary since they crunched a but of the tv's space and it wasn't as good looking compared to a PC screen. For the music, given they didn't have Tsukasa Masuko on board, they failed to recpature that kind of magic he brought on for MTII. A shame but for an early enhanced port, this must have been quite the undertaking and quite the feat of technology back then. A neat piece of history. That being said, I like the few small changes Opera House made with the updated graphics. "Kaiju Bug"? "Foul A Baoa Qu"? And the captain mysteriously looking like Captain Okita? I'm onto you OH, the updates to these references from Atlus aren't going over my head. As for the preferences, it's tough. Talking in consideration the wonders of emulation, both the original NES incarnation and the SNES are quite cool on their own merits and are equally fine choices in my eyes but if we were talking about actually owning the consoles and the cartridges in perfect condition and choosing which one to play, Kyuyaku all the way. All that goofy charm of the original doesn't hold up to the shitheap of lag from the NES, the lack of saves and on top of that, having to draw the map. That's cool when you have a game that can save your data and isn't running like ass while your console is wheezing in agony. Finaly, I can't wait for the expansion of this : "How Shin Megami Tensei V honours Digital Devil Story by taking place in Da'at or Daath as it was in the Telenet version" series of tweets.

33:00 actually in the early games the escape rate relies heavily on the Luck stat. You probably weren't investing enough points in Luck.

"I'll never have to see these blue walls of hell again until kyuyaku"- mega ten 2 The prophecy has come true.

I know the series long moved past DDS, but it would be cool to see Nakajima and Yumiko again with their stories expanded

As an aficionado for SMT, I take your reviews/discussions as a sort of digital documentary series (a DDS, if you will), preserving these games on RU-vid and a critical opinion of them. Now, I don’t have access to them and thus would never play them, but I think the way you handle your reviews is excellent and just in-depth enough to satisfy one’s curiosity for these entries. If you wanna do the second game, I’m all for it. If you need a break (understandable), it’s all good. Great video as usual, hope to see the next one!

I sorta hope Telenet MT has some kind of resurgence within fans after this video.

As a complete stranger I gotta say Marsh, you’re a hella cool dude. Upon stumbling on your SMT vids the way you cover everything in the reviews you do are pretty solid. Idk what kind of jazz you’ve had to deal with these past years lately but, I encourage you to keep up everything you do my guy. The interest in SMT I’ve had has peaked hella hard these past months and I’m genuinely wanting to play some of the older titles. Seeing you cover the stuff Altus hasn’t bothered to bring over to the West via fan translations has caught my attention big time. Like you mentioned earlier in this video, I’m definitely sure there are many others being influenced to play this stuff because of you. Keep it up man. If I could grab a beer with ya one day, that’d be one hell of a moment.

I was just checking the channel hoping for new content and BAM. Brings a tear to my eyes. Edit: Holy shit Marsh, this is rapidly coming the greatest channel ever for nIche SMT franchise lore.

Something that I caught that wasn't brought up is that the dungeon design and names for the Telenet's version of _DDS_ is the Sefiroth. They're named differently, but hey, that's Engrish for ya. Also I believe that the 'curved jewels' that the manual mentioned are actually meant to be magatama. Dunno why they didn't name it as such, but what can ya do. Great video. I've been a fan for a while now, and I eagerly await whatever new content you pump out.

"Let me know if you guys want a video on-" bro don't even ask, we're all gonna want to feed your addiction. Maybe after Giten tho.

Once again, the Metroidvania adage holds true: when the game starts, go left first. Edit: 23:00 I suspect the unknown boss that pursues you may be a hallucination(?) of Izanami, in her undead form. Remember in the movie where Nakajima had visions of a decaying Izanami chasing him? This boss fight might be that.

I'm playing SMT 3 Remaster and Digital Devil Saga right now to get ready for SMT 5. SO EXCITED!!!!! Good work, Marsh. Keep it up bro. 😃👍

Congratulations, Marsh! You officially never have to say "We're in Micon City on the 8th floor of Daedalus Tower, and our first task is to get to the bottom and kill the Minotaur" ever again! I'm interested to see what's next for us now that this nightmare has finally been put to rest. And I'd love to see a video of Kyuuyaku 2 (even if it's just straight comparison of the two,) but I'd definitely recommend doing that awhile down the road if you do. The last thing I'd want is for my favorite Megaten content creator burning himself out by playing the same game over and over back-to-back.

It may not be as long as the Nine review featured length movie, but I still got snacks and the video casted at the livingroom tv for the full Marsh experience.

Marsh back at it again with the Megaten hell uploads

I still can't get over the fact that Nakajima listens to Whitesnake

I thought you re-played the original, i almost had a heart attack.

It’s always a good day when Marsh uploads

I finally beat this game on the PC88. Definitely a fun and interesting experience and I'd like to post some tips and things to help people get started. On the PC88, I used the numpad to move and attack, Z and X for the item menu and to fire respectively. I found several items that I still dont know what they do or what they were for. You also level up in this game killing enemies, and I finished the game at level 18 after some extensive exploring and some odd farming. I barely noticed how much more damage I was doing to enemies or if I was taking less damage. - Cat's Eyes are used to reveal invisible enemies until a New Moon. Wait until the next moon phase to grab one or it'll wear off because it's still a new moon. The only invisible enemies are these Zehlers who aren't very aggressive; most of the damage you take comes from you wandering into one so blindly shooting isn't a bad idea. Don't ever buy one at a shop unless you know you're in a Sphere with them. - Remora's Staff + Magatamas petrify enemies, and switching to your sword can kill them if they're petrified. Fairly strong, I liked it over using Salamander because you don't need to spend too much ammo to petrify an enemy and Salamander explosions take forever to go away in the PC88 version, which makes that strat of stunning enemies better but I often couldn't slip past them because of all the different terrain features. - Several unique enemies are found throughout the Sphere floors that only appear once. Sometimes they're behind locked doors, sometimes they aren't in their locked rooms. They can only be killed with Solomon Stars or Magatama later on, and they drop an Izanami Potion which fully heals you and gives you max HP. Obviously they don't respawn, so if you run into one, make a note of where it is and come back later. - Abuse those corners! Most enemies, especially aggressive ones can be taken out by being at the edge of a corridor and making them get stuck adjacent to you. It's not guaranteed but you can kill some of the more annoying enemies taking less damage that way. Otherwise use Cerberus if you get swarmed, especially on Tiphereth. The Z button accessing your item menu makes him a great panic button. - Speaking of Cerberus, remember to switch out of Cerberus by scrolling to his icon again in the item menu. This can save you some uses in some tough floors. - As for keys, I found a place to farm them on Yesod. To be safe, take about 10-15 of them to unlock all the doors you need. That's really about it. I hope someone uses the info here to fill out and make a guide. I never found out what most of the items I found did. A few tough enemies dropped a Silver Talisman and an Enochian Tablet. I found a Lapis killing Reiko on my way to go kill Loki in Dark Netzach or Yesod. I even spent 300 on a Chronos item and it didnt take up my inventory, nor did it seem to do anything different. Maybe it made enemies slower? Also I didn't have to fight Yomotsu Shikome. There's a bar that fills up on the bottom right every time you go to an Izanami Shrine you haven't explored, and as you progressed she looked less and less decayed, so maybe this Information bar being full is what caused me to go straight to the ending after walking into regular Kether 1 past the sealed door with the Lapis? I also never used the Lamps or Bells I picked up as I didn't really notice enemies behaving differently with them, though they make good barriers as enemies cant walk past items or shoot through them, but neither can you. Anyway, I had fun with this game, I would recommend it. The Megaten factor is that this game tends to kill you through attrition, handling aggressive enemies in awkward positions and you going the wrong way onto more enemies which makes it not worth it to explore and clear rooms. I think with a proper guide, a speedrunner can beat Telenet Megaten in less than an hour, judging by the one video on RU-vid that longplayed it for 2.75 hours.

An entire hour of history by a truly dedicated fan

Basing the connections of the dungeons on the connections between the namesake sephirah in the tree of life is actually genius level game design.

I really like how Kyuuyaki Megami Tensei connected the two Megami Tensei games. And really love that Nakajima made a game based on his journey. I think it's cute and a clever way to tie the two games together.

Your patience to go through the original games is amazing. The effort you put into these videos is just fenomenal man, because it’s something you are genuinely interested in, and it makes me glad. You’re a damn legend Marsh, never change man.

Marsh has played MT1 more times than any other SMT fan.

0:49 the face haunts me, the sigma male enters class.

The design of the telenet game is really fascinating. I feel like you could take that template and with some polishing up of the mechanics, maybe some varied optional objectives or randomization, it could make for a really interesting and replayable dungeon crawling game. The world is so vast, I'm picturing a game where you have the option to complete one of multiple objectives (maybe 9, in reference to the alignments) with each run through of the game, each exploring a different set of dungeon levels

Beautiful. Always lovely to hear your voice, friend.

I wish you'd revisit your home Marshall we all really miss you...

EXP scaling from defeating way higher leveled opponents, Minimap, Multiple Save Points and Fusion spots in KMT1! and Better UI with descriptions is honestly enough improvements to play it over NES games. Even if Music has less of an ommph.

11:43 So, wait Nakajima is He-Man? Wow, Kevin Smith really did go off the rails.

I've started looking more forward to new Marsh videos coming out than most other media. Actual top-tier content.

If you enjoyed those little interactions in Dungeons as well as liked drawing maps, I think you'd love the Etrian Odyssey series, it's basically just that. Also, great video as usual, nice to get a Marsh viceo after a long while, can't wait for SMT 1 and Giten!

Finally I got some quality notification from RU-vid.

It's late on my side so I'll watch this in the morning but I just want to say that your hard work is appreciated!

Couple years later and I have to say. Yes. A video on Kyu MT2 would be very much appreciated. Thank you for your service Marsh 🫡

the amount of work you put into playing and showcasing these early obscure games in the series is incredible. fantastic video!

These videos are always a treat

Loved the video! Always so fun watching you go through old megaten titles

Thank you marsh for your megaten 1&2 reviews, those videos got me into the SMT series

Do Kyuuyaku 2! I even double checked how to spell it that is how serious I am.

I'm just a no name youtube viewer but I just wanna thank you Marsh for truly getting me into this franchise. You really saved me from boredom

I really do appreciate you putting over an hour worth of content to cover each of these games. And I say that as someone who has been on the fence about playing these games for a long time. You make em entertaining to listen about

this is the first new video since i have been following. ty for all the awesome smt vids

Awesome video as always. Also lmao @ the sudden nuke, 10/10 ending

Your videos are so easy to watch, everything is put so well together and they instantly grab my attention

Your videos are part of the reason that i got into SMT and i just have to say thank you. I've been enjoying evey single one ive tried so far and think they would have passed me by if i hadn't stumbled into your channel. Keep up the great vids :)

Awesome video and I am looking forward to the future SMT1 and Giten videos. I would love a Kyuuyaku 2 video in the future as well!

Nice one. Glad to see you back.

The increase of quality we can see with each successive video is beyond impressive. I've been following you since the If videos and everytime I finish I can't wait for the next upload. Keep up the good work!

Nice to know your still doing good marsh

This channel is great i cant wait to see you cover stuff like devil children or even the og personas(1 and 2)

Your videos actually made me try out reading/playing DDS and I ended up genuinely enjoying it all. Old Megaten is so different and bizzare that I just can't help but love it lol

I just had a huge smile on my face when you got into Micon City for what could be the last time! Always love seeing your videos, and it honestly makes me wanna try the SNES version of Megami Tensei 2!

I know nothing about this series, but these videos are always so fascinating. Always enjoy seeing a new one come out.

AWESOME MARSH IS BACK! I love listening / watching these about my favorite series while doing homework.

thank u marsh! these videos are so relaxing :)

You sure have come far, it's been fascinating to see your growth since last year. Thank you for fixing the audio and volume too, love your content man You're great

Whoa. This might be the first video I sorta sat down and watched as I was grinding away in a game. Great video

So, I don't think we say this enough, but thabk you Marsh for putting yourself through all of these games so we can experience them through your videos. Keep making such awesome content, man. Thanks!

He has done it again folks, putting himself through it just for us makes Marsh a special kind of masochist

Man this is a really thorough investigation, so impressive man keep it up I really like and appreciate this content. Att. Your fan Nicaragua

OH BOY, HERE WE GO

Your dedication blows my mind, thank you for the video.

Time to join Nakajima and Yumiko for like, what? The 7th time? Eh whatever, lets goooooo!!

Thank you for your hard work Marsh! Much appreciated on your quality work

I literally enjoy every video you post and I make sure to not miss one. Your personality fits these topics well. I love diving into this obscure side of Megaten that most people haven't played or know about without it being in a pretentious way. It's very informative and I enjoy it a lot

Never thought we're going back to this side of the franchise

Oh man I'm ready It's always a delight to see you un my sub feed

Yeah I would love a video on Kyuuyaku version of MT2. And yeah, I assume the "be found" was a poor translation of 見つかる.

I love hearing about old or obscure (at least in English) games, so everything you’ve been doing to document SMT’s history is really cool

The charisma of this guy! I go back to the SMT If... video sometimes multiple times a day just of how much it makes me laugh, great work man, I started getting into the Megami Tensei series about half a year ago and your videos really make me want to keep enjoying these games. Keep it up Marsh!!

These videos are excellent, I really enjoy the deep dives into the older SMT games. I came to the series through Persona so seeing these older games examined gives me an insight into the history. I appreciate the effort and how well made the videos are.

Awesome as always King. I seriously can't wait for your SMT I video!

As one who loves learning about video game lore and history, you do great work with your trips back into the less trod portions of MT. Thank you very much for your work.