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'Shin Megami Tensei - Strange Journey' is an RPG set in the not-too-distant future. You are a part of a military expedition sent to explore a spatial anomaly in the South Pole. Delving into its bowels, you find yourself trapped and forced on an expedition to make your way back to your own dimension. This, naturally, requires that you search through mazes for artifacts, lost crew members and to complete whatever missions your commanding officer…who is a robot...gives you. You have the ability to fight, converse or flee from your foes, all of whom are comprised of a seemingly endless array of demons. Why demons, you ask? Who knows? Just accept it. The game genre is blurred between science fiction and fantasy adventure. After gaining some experience and engaging in some clever conversation, you can convince these demons to join forces with you and support your on-going battles. Once you have assembled a team of two or more demons, you can meld a couple of them together and to form one enhanced, stronger demonic ally to aid in your adventure. The currency, called "macca", is easy to come by. As you win battles, persuade or cajole demons or sell your found items, you will quickly build a healthy purse of funds. An interesting twist to the traditional merchant exchange concept is not only must you possess the currency needed to purchase items but have the various building materials in order to manufacture the things you desire. Bring your loot back to the laboratory on your ship to tinker with things and maybe you can assemble some fun trinkets to equip yourself with. If you're big into acquiring cool devices, this game will leave you wanting. Despite your best efforts, there won't be a great deal of gadgetry or special items to purchase. There is a surprising amount of depth to the gameplay in this turn-based RPG. Your band of buddies is an assorted collection of demons you convince to hang out with you and fight your battles. The party maxes out at twelve, while you choose three to fight with you. Only the demons that fight with you earn experience but you can call on the talents of the other demons in your party during non-battle sequences. They can heal the team or cure diseases. The game starts very slowly as you click through movie sequences and a vast amount of text-based storyline. At first, I felt like I was playing an old-fashioned text adventure. Once you get past all the backstory though, the game really picks up. Before long, I had a full party and started mashing demons together to create new, more powerful creatures. Fight sequences are classic turn-based battles. For fans of this type of fighting (Like me!), it's highly entertaining. Each demon has unique spells to cast and playing each character's strengths off each other makes for some interesting combat moves. If one of your demon buddies dies, you are able to select another replacement, resurrect the demon (with potions or spells) to join the battle. The traditional experience point allocation for each party member is eliminated. In its place is the fun demon metamorphosis you continually find yourself doing in order to develop your party. I found myself trying to weed out inferior skills and proliferate those helpful skills in all my demon pals. The game does suffer from a few weaknesses. Happily morphing demons and wandering through mazes gets a little tired after a few solid hours of gameplay. The clever premise of the plot is poorly developed and one is left with shallow dialog as the story unfolds. In an apparent effort to keep the interactions fresh, the conversations are peppered with awkward and unnecessary swearing which doesn't make the dialogue any more interesting or entertaining. Frankly, it seemed forced, needless, and often repetitive. The accompanying soundtrack is like something fresh out of a cheesy 1970's sci-fi flick and when you're exploring the same area for any period of time, it gets stale pretty fast. Graphically, there was much that could have been improved. Mazes are classic 2D wall construction taken right out of the first generation screen savers and the map is a simple pixel-box grid. All that being said, it was still an appropriate musical and graphical experience for the DS system. Overall game flow was fun and still challenging. You cannot save just anywhere but must find saving stations that will permit you to do so. Finding a place to save was frequent without being overly easy, and battles were difficult while not being impossible. In the final analysis, I have to say that the game was a pleasant surprise and exceeded my expectations.   'Shin Megami Tensei - Strange Journey' Format: Nintendo DS Publisher: Atlus Developer: Atlus ESRB Rating: M for mature Official Site: http://www.atlus.com/strangejourney/ Rating: 7 / 10

 

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