Shin Megami Tensei II is an incredible game that feels like it has unlimited depth. I got really into this one, as you can probably tell by the length. Before making this video, SMT II was the mainline game I knew the least about, so in a sense, this was my personal sendoff for mainline - anything untouched lies in the future. Check out the description for credits and timestamps, and use this video how you see fit. Hopefully the three hour runtime doesn't come off as pretentious or anything - I decided to explore plot events and alignment choices in much further depth this time. Thanks for watching this, and be sure to check out the game yourself if you haven't yet.
Thank you mushman, though I am not gonna watch the video entirely as I wish to play SMT 2 and currently on SMT. Your SMT 1 video inspired me to play the more classic megaten games and I use it when I am stuck in SMT 1. Thanks!!!
No worries man, your style explores the full game in a specific way, nothing pretentious about it; the longer it is, the more game has to offer, secrets, alt routes and what have you, it's the nature of the beast when games get more complex and have actual branching paths.
hell YES. I’m unsurprised you enjoyed delving into this entry so deeply considering you already appreciated the mysterious semi-cyberpunk atmosphere of SMT1. SMT2 takes that to a whole new level and it’s joy to even just think about.
The whole game is "I REALLY LIKE SMT I AND II AND Y'ALL GOTTA GET IN THIS" on top of the Touhou (which is amusingly appropriate) for absolute purified fan game essence.
Fun fact, In smt 4 apocalypse there's a dlc where you fight alongside the protagonists from the first four smt games, the first protagonist is only called the hero and has a physical moveset including a move called light speed slash where it creates a weakness in reference to when he has the spell that helped him escape the nuke casted on him making him faster than light for a brief second, Aleph only has gun skills and his gun has a skill that allows him to create a new weakness, Demi fiend has a mixed set with no magic, except for magma axis which is a physical skill, and all his terrifying moves from his appearance in DDS, and Flynn has a mostly magic set since he was the first mainline smt protagonist where magic was not only good but usable. Their move sets are based on what was broken/meta in their game but also serve as references for their own games.
@@kichiroumitsurugi4363 I would bet it still runs off Demi's Strength stat because all physical skills in 4/4A only cost MP, not HP. Or at least melee skills, Gun uses Dex.
Some fun extra context about the names: Zayin's name is interesting and humorous for several reasons. The interesting part is that he is the 7th letter even though all other characters are named sequentially from the 1st to 4th letter. The reason behind this is that saying god's name is a sin in Judaism, and the 5th and 6th letters are slipped for being a part of it (5th being H, 6th being V). The funny part is that Zayin is both a letter and the word for d*ck. Considering Satan, I can't help but think this was somewhat intentional.
And Rupert still gets me, for my current play it’s reversed, everyone but Zayin has a weird name, Aleph is Alfred, Beth is Dr. Pepper, Daleth is Danny, and so on, I literally revaluations persona’d it for fun 😂😂
What a series. Michael Jackson cameo. Hiriuko being ur mom. An for the first and still latest time. The law side is based. So based that Satan judges his master for going WAY too far and have a furious dance against him like no other (and I'm not talking about actually dancin.) Well done Marsh for covering this. Very much worth the wait.
I've only read the story of SMT II in an anthology book going from Megami Tensei to SMT IV Apocalypse and damn SMT II is some serious worldbuilding piece of work and I think my favorite story in the whole series. Once again thanks for the video, Marsh.
The quality of your videos is amazing! And 3 hours is of no matter, if anything it’s a plus! That’s like 3 round trip to work that I can listen to this! Keep up with the good work, and thank you! I’ve gotten into the series thanks to your OG Soul Hackers video. That’s still a favorite.
Zayin being called the "strong one" totally made him seem like he'd just be some boss later on that you fight while Daleth or Gimmel played a much bigger role, but no, Zayin was absolutely one of the coolest characters even when I did play on neutral route. I honestly got shivers from the "Punish god for the sin of genocide" line too, it's just so raw and I still got the impression Satan was planning on punishing god some time. After all, with Noah's flood and the flood of smt 1, this isn't even God's first genocide.
My friend's been playing through the Megaten games and it's been so interesting, because it's not a series I ever gave the time of day. Megaten II and SMT II are the highlights for me so far! This video does such a fantastic job covering all the bases! My friend's been doing Neutral endings, so seeing the law and chaos endings explored was so fascinating! Thanks for putting out such an amazing video!
marsh dropping banger after banger video game analysis. classic marsh. your videos inspire me to try out smt1 and 2 and ive been putting those aside for a while but you do a great job on selling them to me to make me start them now
It's so funny when a creator thanks the audience for watching the video. Like bro.. my guy.. you made this whole amazing thing, YOU put in the work.. im just. I'm just friggin.. sittin here No but for real, great video as always. I've come away from it with even more appreciation for SMT and an intense desire to draw a fanart of um. (already forgot its name) a certain phallic shaped demon;)
nearly a year since you mentioned you were working on this video, and finally its out. three hours of smt good stuff that i know i'll be rewatching randomly for years just like much of your other videos. good job marsh
WHOA that's a load of content! Great stuff. As someone who only has dabbed in Persona games starting with 4, i find every "old" SMT review on this channel extremely interesting. It would be amazing to see you get thu everything over time
I appreciate you making these. Always was interested in SMT2 but it felt like a daunting game to try and get into. Watching the video made me want to actually give it a go!
I just finished watching, fantastic video. I played SMTII for the first time last year, and I agree, it's definitely pretty high up there. I think some things put it probably A or high B tier for me, such as the bugs, balance, annoying dungeons (the slip n slide bullshit ones come to mind), and big backtracking quests (pillars and Masakado pieces). I have always wondered if the PlayStation version addresses the bugs at all. I'd love to play it if it ever gets a translation patch some day. I'll also have to give that video of the visions from the GBA version a watch, that sounds really interesting. This is a small criticism, I wish they had something like the overworld map in Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei I that shows how all the dungeons are connected to each other, but for Tokyo Millennium. The shots you see of it in the title loop, artwork from the manual, and some other points are cool, but it does get hard to feel a sense of place here sometimes. The Center is obviously the enclosed pyramid, with the big tower in the middle going up to the tip of the pyramid that blasts off and becomes Eden, but the other ones I've always wondered about. The opening makes it look like the four districts are just clustered around the Center below it a bit, but then there's this art from the manual that suggests they're kind of close together in front of the Center: static.wikia.nocookie.net/megamitensei/images/2/2b/Smt2tokyomillenniummanual.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20130527034550 Then that makes me ask other questions like "Does Arcadia have it's entire own dome?" When you get to the "real" part of it after you deal with Gimmel, it seems kind of small. I guess based on the picture from the manual, you could assume the tiniest dome there is Arcadia. You can kind of infer based on which exit you take from the Center, which direction each district is relative to the Center, but then that instruction manual art is still inconsistent with that. The explanation for that could be that the art in the manual was just drawn earlier in development or something. I know this rant was about some dumb small detail, but it would have been cool to see. After my playthrough, I felt it was weird that two districts had the names "Arcadia" and "Valhalla", both being pretty obvious why they had those names, while the other two had generic boring-sounding names of "Factory" and "Holytown". Holytown especially I had looked up and saw that there's a town in Scotland named Holytown. The real life Holytown has zero parallels with SMTII's Holytown though. I asked some friends about it and there was an interview somewhere that supposedly stated that the Scottish town and SMTII district names were a coincidence, but the SMTII district was given that name because it was supposed to be boring and this was the district made just so people could go to church. Factory I think was justified with that name, but I also found it weird when it was really 50% factory and 50% farm at the end of the day. I personally ended up consulting a guide on some of the things like the pillars or dungeons with the slip n slide bullshit. I actually did enjoy the one-way wall gimmick though, I kind of wish we would see that in the franchise again some day. I also used save states pretty liberally, not necessarily to "save scum", but really just in case I got cursed by a bug somewhere. I had the issue with my stats going too high and being reduced to nothing on Satan happen (I went Chaos) and it was just a bullshit technicality it felt bad to lose on, so I reloaded a save state. I had made a save state shortly before encountering Alice. I summoned some demons and then her sprite was Naragiri when I got out of that menu. It always said "Alice did x" the entire fight, but then after I beat her it said "Naragiri lost", so I loaded up the save state and did it with no demons summoned so everything would be normal. Like I mentioned in my other comment, I'd really love to see a picture of that paper insert warning of bugs in the game. I have always heard about that thing but never seen it. A lot of the previous champions in the museum before the colosseum actually had some cute reference in their name. For instance Thomas Tank was a reference to Thomas the Tank Engine. Yes, they actually put a reference to Thomas the Tank Engine in a MegaTen game of all things. To me, the Hiroko reveal just came as an absolute shock. By the time that hit, I had forgotten about the baby Hiroko was originally looking for and didn't think anything of that. Even back when she said that she was looking for that baby, I assumed she was just doing so for someone else. You see this game discussed some in MegaTen circles, and usually you see the most common things as far as spoilers go: big yellow boi is the final boss, you go to the Expanse (or Abyss as they called it in this patch), etc. But I NEVER saw Hiroko being Aleph's surrogate mother discussed and it hit me that much harder as a result. I had not really read up or watched on what the Law or Neutral endings were in this game, as my playthrough was Chaos. I had assumed Law would be kind of shitty and just staying on Eden rather than heading back to Earth, but I was wrong about that. I sort of ended up Chaos by accident, as I thought I had to accept Lucifer's mission and did, but I didn't really regret it. I liked the Chaos ending in this game. To finish out this George R.R. Martin book (except actually published) of a comment, I just wanted to say I really appreciate you doing these videos. Whether it's a game I have played before or one I have no interest in playing (Majin Tensei), it's always interesting to see your videos about them, as much as you have to suffer games like Majin Tensei.
I appreciate it! This was a great comment to read through. Can't believe I didn't make the Thomas the Tank Engine connection, he's pretty big in Japan for some reason too. A funny story about the PSX release that I regrettably forgot to include is that it was actually very buggy on release. They printed an updated version, so technically there are two releases. I would think most people would be emulating it if they play today, and from what I've seen at least, the fixed version is more prevalent online
Went comic con in London I was in the que getting my ticket and explaining SMT to my friend and some guy in front of us heard it and dapped me up ended up talking about Marsh glad your getting the recognition you deserve
Another great SMT experience video. With SMT II done it means the SMT III Experience will be soon, and Nocturne is my favourite of the Mainline SMT games.
I've been waiting on this video a long time and It was worth every minute spent. I need to thank you Marsh since it was because of you that i played the OG SMT games and loved them all, especially SMT II, so thanks for showing me this world and i hope you can play more classic SMT games and show us how good or bad they were.
Wow, what a ride. Been waiting for this ever since you began posting about it on twitter and I've got to say, its been well worth the wait! The fact that you manage to keep a casual vibe when explaining some of the story beats feels like you're on the couch hanging with a buddy on summer vacation. I think the entire 3+ hrs were well spent, seeing as SMT 2 is probably the most unique in my opinion. The fact that the law route--the very route that people view as being "God's bitch" ends with you fighting YHWH is chefs kiss. Kinda like a creamy chicken alfredo garnished with herbs. The continuity from SMT 1, the references and call backs with Gouto, (not sure if I spelled it right, thinking about Raidou right now...) and the scenic storytelling with the hero's statue crying and what was left of tokyo after SMT 1 was beautiful. Matter of fact, the premise of the three archangels bastardizing God's vision to the point where he forsakes them gives this game a unique identity that can't be matched by current SMT titles, imo. The fact that Satan carries out God's will up until the point where he unleashes the big "fuck off" laser on earth only to judge/turn on God is a beautiful final battle. It really makes the law ending worth it. Honestly, it makes you view "law" in a different light and makes you wish this kind of writing was in the newer games. Anyway, enough rambling. Time to like the video.
Fantastic video as always Marsh thank you for delivering some of the best videos on this site about megaten truly you are one of a kind as someone who got stuck 100 times throughout smt 2 Im so happy to be able to just watch a 3 hour video that breaks it down in a far more digestible medium
One way to look at the surprise demon appearance in the Discotheque is that the very nature of dancing itself is a form of universal expression; to abandon all sense of duty and station, put your worries aside and just *do* as your body wants to. Though language might be a nigh-impenetrable barrier in SMT2, dance remains the one universal constant. We are all equal on the dance floor, after all.
these videos are so insanely good, i don't know anything about SMT and don't even have that much interest in it yet i've watched your 3 latest videos all in their entirety. just super comfy and fun vids, thank you marsh
SMT II, i love this game and i cant wait to watch your review :D Thanks to your reviews of the other oldschool smt games i was made aware of them and started to play through them While i liked smt I and had a lot of fun with it, II is when i truly fell in love with the franchise thanks to its unique vibe, atmosphere and how good the story is Ive been somewhat obsessed with this franchise ever since beating this game and i never would have played it if it hadnt been for your videos so, thanks for all the hard work Marsh!
I had never been exposed to Shin Megami Tensei before this video, as the only thing that I knew about it was that the games had some form of monster collecting system that predated Pokemon, but after watching this video I have to say I am intrigued, and I am glad that by chance RU-vid auto played this video for me, as I would not have willingly watched it had I been given the choice, since I'm not really into JRPGs and the only ones I've dabbled a bit with are Final Fantasy and maybe Dragon Quest, and for those games I haven't even cleared them, but the way you are given so many choices in Shin Megami Tensei II, and the way that all those choices affect the overall plot for the game, is just super interesting since the RPGs I've played even if you are given a choice, its just really to give you a fake option since no matter what you choose it won't change the plot, but truth be told I am a little bothered with the way that the game reuses lore from real life, in regards to the pantheon of Japan's gods or the Viking things and even Hebrew stuff, I kinda wish that they did their own thing and made their own lore from scratch, as that would have actually allowed for the game to be brought to the US and other countries that are religious, but I do have to admit that the story is still very entertaining with what they did, and its sort of funny that even beings from the Law alignment, are called demons even though the most known definition of that word, depicts that a being called as such needs to be malicious, yet in this series it categorizes beings such as Seraphs or goddesses and even the Divine as such.
On daleth getting charmed, I'd say this is a sort of "just desserts" thing. This whole thing is started because he was gonna do this to Aleph. So perhaps Aleph doesn't necessarily feel inclined to help him.
Great video! I got really invested into the story during the video too :). There were some cool, unexpected callbacks in the game, definitely helped it to feel connected overall.
Yeah, ngl, it feels pretty nice to see this video finally finished, even if I played SMT 2 before this came out, in no large part due to your own videos making me interested in going through KMT 1, then KMT 2, and SMT 1 and 2 (and If... sadly) right after watching them lol; but yeah, like you said, this game (honestly all the other SMT games I played so far as well, but especially this one) was definitely a very cool experience to go through, and I'd highly urge others to go play it as well, it's honestly an amazing game for it's time despite some of it's flaws, especially when compared to the other SNES RPGs of the time like FF6, CT and all that, this one is a really great contrast to those and very groundbreaking in it's own unique ways haha (also even though the postgame part was fairly brief to the point where it wasn't even necessary to use my save file, it's still pretty wild to be able to contribute something to this at all, so yeah, thanks so much for that!!!!!!!)
Great video, old Megaten games are always so fascinating. Since I heard Imagine music during the video I wonder if you've ever played it. From what I know it should take place between SMT 1 and 2, so it might be interesting from a lore point of view. But it being an MMO makes it really time consuming to go through so I understand if it's too much for you.
Also, I did this on Neutral route as I tend to go that way in all the games due to it being the longest route, but holy crap I am blown away by the Lawful route in II. I genuinely had no idea it was so good, I think since I did SMTIV first and that Law route was a letdown I expected the same here but it is actually amazing. Also, love the use of the theme for the Isabeau fight here, it's such a great fight theme for the scale of this battle.
Another great video. I really like how much detail you go into in your videos, I feel like I get a good grasp of the games you cover. Keep up the good work!
Absolutely wonderful work here. I've been so hyped for this video for so long, and I enjoyed it immensely. I've since decided to give the older games a proper try thanks to your videos (and god help me with MT1), and this video just makes me look forward to playing this game even more. I've already played at least the first hour or so before, so I was at least aware of its quality compared to its predecessors, but I was impressed with this game's story as a whole! It looks like a fantastic entry in the series, and I'm excited to play it one day!
1:51:31 The scene that says the MC dances furiously across the dance floor during the dance contest just made me think, "He's a maniac, a maniac on the floor! And dances like he's never done before!"
Christ I’ve been anticipating this for a while! SMT 2 is probably the mainline game I’m not the most familiar with, along with probably 3. But seeing you sing this game’s praise on Twitter made me wanna take a look at it myself.
(Sorry for the long comment) Absolutely love the chaos ending of the game- Although I didn’t know about the translation for it, kinda a shame. Louis Cyphre is my fav megaten character, the writers just really nailed it. It’s so fucking interesting that Abyss residents aren’t like just demons- even the demons have shops and live in communities which give a lot of humanity to their lives in the Abyss- but like real people(?) mixed in it makes Lucifer’s job as their ruler significantly more than just “ruling over demons to oppose God’s rule” like in something like the SMTIV universe and more a ruler of lost people banished to the underworld and demons that need an amount of protections (organizing currency which demons seem to use because they ask for it and the shops use it) and **some hard not survival of the fittest rules** because of some bad apples (like Lucifer’s rules against Crowley are directly against a “no control” philosophy) Having Lucifer’s chaos *not* be “letting demons rule wild” but help real Abyss residents, demons, and Mutants exist well puts a lot of weight on his actions and has a subtlety that is just completely gone from future versions of Lucifer that are either way too “hands off” (strange journey) or just an evil guy (SMTIV).
1. From what you've said, sounds like you've got your lineup for the rest of the year pretty much set in stone, but are there any plans to cover SMT3 in the future? 2. On that note, you brought up the "Aleph = Hijiri" theory, and I'm wondering what your personal thoughts are on that.
Great video Marsh. I was honestly never that fond of Zayin's character arc, but your video helped me see it in a new, better light. One bit of additional info: I believe the Sealed Shrine dungeon where you save the Amatsukami is completely optional, but opening it is mandatory. This means you can go through the trouble of exploring the entire Underground and reclaiming Masakado's remains... just to move a rock five feet and leave, rendering an entire third of the game feeling pointless and just stalling until Zayin starts the revolution. It always felt weird to me.
SMT 2 is basically the 40k of the SMT franchise, deeply dark but things are so over exaggerated that it's still fun. It's a shame that, how the series has been going nowdays, a Dystopic/Post apocalyptic but still occult Megaten game won't be happening. Also I think near the end with the cave-in thing, I think it was implied that it was the doing of angels that The Hero beat in the first game. Amazing video nonetheless !
Finally sat down to watch through this one cuz I've always been interested in SMT II but didn't really have much motivation to play it since the 1st person SMT games are kinda disorienting for me to play and by god Marsh you did not disappoint! This video is great! On the note of the story, it does feel nice to have an SMT game where your basically working ON the law path no matter what you do but I can't really get behind the law ending. It's cool as hell for Satan to turn around and tell his boss off but having to wipe out the entire planet to make that happen just rubs me the wrong way. Zayin is cool and all but I'd rather not have to do that if I can avoid it.
Weird enough, I remember Ghost Q and the Sage of Time from their appearances in Devil Survivor 2 of all things. Why they would choose them as bonus bosses- one of which (the Sage of Time) is exclusive to NG+ is an enigma.
Alright marsh, thank you for this master piece....genuinely its quite nice to see my Favorite mainline entry in this series get done justice by you man. Its criminal people just call this the Law game and leave it at that. This game stands up so well right up there with Nocturne and SMT 4 Original imo as one of the greatest journeys in the entire series.
I too got the Law ending on my playthrough, but that was a deliberate choice because I thought it was the canon ending. Then I sat down and watched someone's playthrough of Messiahs in the Diamond Realm and immediately started kicking myself. Aleph's dialogue states that he was killed by the Megiddo Ark, indicating either Neutral or Chaos as canon......still the best Law ending in the series.
I mean, it is given the demon mob Aleph fights are Law aligned so it confirns he would be the Law messiah of the four. They probably thought they had to pick him dying that way since there's little to no way for him to die in Law route except for maybe fighting God, i guess. Or they just forgot some plot cause the game is old lol
Fantastic video, It both captures the games content well, and is entertaining. Overall, time well spent. I would be interested on what you think of Giten tensei, but that video might not fly on youtube.
I like to think that the deal with YHVH debuffing you makes your attacks so infinitesimally ineffective that they can only damage atoms.... And this giving you a nuclear punch
In SMT2 the gems serve another purpose, if you have a single gem type maxed out (9 is the cap for each gem) you get various stat buffs depending on the gem that last until you lose the gems, this allows you to get 10 mag for the moon pillar even easier and also get just alot of free levels technically
"You step out into a dark hallway...You're in Mikon city, on the 8th Floor of Daudelus Tower, and your first task is to slay the Minotaur at the bottom of the tower."
