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.
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.
something absolutely genius about frankenstein's monster randomly showing up: in the original book it starts with a group of sailors finding frankenstein in like antartica talking about being chased by his monster and taking it there to push it away from civilisation and the rest of the book is his retelling of the story to said sailors. his monster showing up in a frozen over city is actually a really smart callback
There was a huge whiplash for me when this guy who was supposed to be THE rival, whose first act was to murder who was essentially the protagonist's wife, almost immediatly turns into Team Rocket type of villain, currently appearing and becoming more pathetic and then comedic with each appareance. My blood was supposed to boil at the mention of his name! Not awkwardly look at him as his stumbles to an exit going "ill get you next time, you hear?!" after yet another defeat and then all tension just dissapears forever when he reacts to Hiroko in love with him as a child scared that a girl might give him cooties. What a weird loser who somehow almost killed us that one time.
It honestly says how tragic his existence is. Groomed for this sole purpose of believing he was meant to save everyone from a false messiah by puppet masters who raised him wrong on purpose.
I feel like the devs originally had big plans for Daleth, but either the plot changed or they didnt like how his arc was turning out so they did this to get rid of him.
@@erikvaldes4293 Touche, I did in fact play 'SMT If...' after he posted his video on it... bro he was not kidding about wandering around for several full moon cycles to progress the game 💀 But actually it's more fucky than that, I didn't know you have to interact with the NPCs after each full cycle and I ended up having to do this about three times as long because I couldn't figure out what the problem was. I should have just stopped playing the game and I didn't LOL
Another interesting point about Satan, iirc in the Japanese script when Zayin is frozen in stone he explains that he saw a vision or revelation from an even higher power than God or YHVH, that YHVH itself has also corrupted the very essence of what its supposed to be or something, implying that YHVH has been abandoned by what we can now assume was the Greater Will for what he's done, so not only was Satan's judgement on YHVH premeditated, it was an order from even farther on high than YHVH. Also, I believe the implication of Aleph being made and then having a soul being given by God is that you, the player, are also an instrument of the Greater Will, or perhaps implying that you the player are seeing the game from the perspective a God would. Idk, there's a lot of ways to read into things, especially with this translation being kinda biased and the original game being so high-concept in religious themes
Basically, yeah. He comes to the realization that the God that the Messians worship isn't actually YHVH but instead The Great Will. And The Great Will is *everything*, and everything is The Great Will. YHVH is just a "face" of The Great Will, and isn't the one true God he arrogantly claims to be.
Aleph is like the Rock Lee of the mainline messiahs in this game, no magic all hands, and bro's got the best fit of them all to match just how great he is.
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.
As someone who finished SMT 2 last Christmas, my biggest complaint was weirdly: the magnetite. It felt like I was always short on the stuff and that I could never keep my demons around. I eventually found a workaround: there was this place in the Factory that tended to spawn Bodyocians (I think it was called?) which drop a truly absurd amount of magnetite and is accessible extremely early in the game. That said, even after discovering this exploit, the fact that I lose magnetite so quick meant that sometimes I would just have to drop everything and go to the factory to get magnetite which could take a while with bad RNG. What's bizarre is that I basically never had this problem with SMT 1 probably because I could negotiate for Magnetite in that game and the encounter rate was so high.
@@fafaaf61 i never summoned demons in my playtrough besides boss fights Kinda of a shame like aleph and hiroko can deal with everything on their own so thats fine but halfway trough the game i noticed that i was playing an smt game... Without any demons I ended the game with the max amount of mag i just never really had any use because of how good aleph and hiroko was
Clearly Zayin was so caught off guard by catching belphegor on the jon that he was defeated in that moment and definitely didn't want to admit to the MC that he got beat by a demon busy taking a shit.
This game kicks ass. The Law path ending with God himself not being exempt from Judgement for his actions is just such a raw concept, I love it. Sidenote I love whenever Marsh says "check it out," it always makes me sit up in my seat and ready to hear some cool shit.
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.
So fun fact about 1:18:38- Jailbreak Nadja is not required for this section of the game, I never found her, fought Janus (who I had a really tough time with) and brought Hiroko to her senses by forcing her out of her cell and dragging her out.
Now that I’m back from the video, I can confidently say this is one of the best you’ve ever produced. Even ignoring the fact that this behemoth is 3 hours long, you went into such great detail on the meaning of the routes and messages of the game. Like that section with the SMT1 hero’s tears for example. And that elevator joke payed off exactly how I hoped it would lmao Amazing video Marsh, and good work holy shit. I cannot imagine how many hours you sank into this
Gotta appreciate the game throwing the stomach dungeon and Daedalus tower at you right at the end, just when you think you’re safe. Marsh really can’t escape.
Fun fact, you can get to the Yesod bar through the portal you opened with the statues and Lucifer will tell you he's impressed but you effectively used a backdoor and he wants you to enter the Abyss with your own power. Which is weird, there's no real difference between four statues and a circle on the wall vs. six pillars and a gigantic hexagram.
Gotta love Rupert, he’s really undervalued. Gotta love the weirdness of Marsh constantly having to mention that Zayin is also Rupert to avoid the video seeming really weird where it mentions his name.
Okamoto, Hawks/Aleph's, trainer and gladiator patron, is actually an Akita no Joe (Rocky Joe in the west) reference being basically a 1:1 rendition of the same homonymous character present in the manga/anime: a black bald man wearing an eye patch. The same Easter egg involving Okamoto's character was also present in Pokemon's early builds but was later removed in the final release. As always Marsh spectacular job on this one, you are a precious gem for the Megaten community.
Ashita no Joe references are a rabbit hole you enter and never leave. I was waching Digimon these days and there was an Ashita no Joe reference on it (it was a dream scene with a guy with eyepatch managing a boxer rendered on old anime style)
As a wise knuclehead once said "I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS" Great video Marsh, I really hope this game gets remade someday because it's one of the most unique direct sequels to a game I've ever played.
Zayin is probably the most badass being in the entire Megami Tensei franchise. He could bully Akemi Nakajima and Akemi Nakajima would say sorry to him.
@@MarshSMT but the real question is who wins, Zayin or Akira Miyamoto? I mean two half demon badasses who end up partially ruling over a giant tower/monolith, and both can kick major demon Janus, so who would win
Honestly despite going for chaos or neutral in all games i played i found zayin to be my favorite aligment rep in the entire franchise Also the law ending in smt 2 is probably my favorite ending after neutral in smt 4 Well its kinda unfair since this game doesnt really have chaos or neutral representatives but i honestly kinda wished more smt games did that because they built zayin so freaking well
1:25:52 I love Zain for this scene alone too! One of the rare examples of a scenario like this playing out is in Trails to Azure, where the game's major antagonist (I will not mention them for spoiler reasons) naturally starts explaining tjeir plan and reasining for all the questionable deeds they did. But after that, once Lloyd (the main protagonist of the game) explains his point of view and details his argument as to why they shouldn't go through with their plan, the antagonist... agrees and gives up, letting Lloyd go without a fight! It's really cool1 But it shows just how cool Shin Megami Tensei II was for doing a similar scenario more than a decade earlier
The fact this has never officially been released in English is a tragedy. Such a good game with amazing atmosphere. My route ended up as Chaos and fighting alongside Lucifer was awesome.
I played SMT2 in anticipation of this video, since I discovered this channel through the video on SMT1, and wanted to play this game without relying on this. And I'm really glad I did. I went through every route, got the Hinokagutsuchi (which you can get regardless of alignment, but it's kinda hell) and was thrilled and shocked by every crazy plot twist. My jaw dropped at multiple moments. And despite having such a valuable experience by myself, I still learned a lot from this video, with quite a few things I didn't know or consider. Amazing work as usual!
Same here, I played SMT 2 to prepare for the video, but only played the Neutral route and at midgame the buff dmg bug kinda killed the mood. The story is amazing however.
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.
@@NEETKitten honestly i wished they found some way to implement the dance moves in the mainline games Maybe they could make it some demon unique skill?
@@valletas Imagine if they brought Bodyconian or Maneater back. The elemental dances would be perfect for them, AND give them a use besides "early game fodder demon"
I was obsessed with this game as a pre-teen/teenager. I'm delighted and surprised that it garnered so much attention outside of Asia/Japan. I still listen to the soundtrack and even use a song for my alarm ringtone.
@@ianleather5699So many things... The idea of demon fusions, the fact that the demons were based on historical or mythical figures, summoning demons from a wrist computer, the ability to befriend demons rather than just kill them... If I had to narrow it down it would be the overall theme (god, Satan, Lucifer, Law, Chaos, Neutral), and the music. I still listen to the soundtrack (and other SMT game tracks) regularly.
1:13:55 I'm sorry but all I could imagine with this scene was when the Statue of Liberty cries in every single one of those satirical political comics made by that guy at The Onion.
Your interpretation of the crying statue was honestly kind of beautiful. As a teenager playing the game years ago, I went with the much more basic "He's crying because effectively his children are fighting each other, pitted by this dystopian society to be against one another."
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 😂😂
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.
i played smt2 many years ago when i was first getting into jrpgs, and there was NO ONE talking about this game, it's insane. i got lost a lot lmfao. but man is it worth it, smt 2 is my favourite mainline. such a different game than the others.. i love that it lets you explore tokyo millenium and slowly uncover the massive conspiracy behind it, the parts of the game in makai/abyss, also the way this game handles allignments, and this whole spin on law which REALLY makes you doubt you made the right choices (it's ending route on this game is absolutely insane). just an amazing RPG, and i think a real step up in quality from atlus, smt1 was great but this game is on another level. i really hope atlus releases a remastered collection of the snes SMT games, but mostly because of this one. i feel that with some minor quality of life additions a lot of people could experience this amazing game
This is one of your best videos so far. Next to Last Bible Special, this is one of my favorites. I really like you went the extra mile with your analysis. This is probably minor to some, but I liked the inclusion of The Hero’s statue crying. Growing up in a Southern Pentecostal family, I was always hearing about the strange “signs and wonders” that supposedly proceeded the Second Coming, such as weeping or bleeding religious statues. That instance called to mind my own experiences and emotions with The End Times. This game does not pull the punches on it’s atmosphere, or it’s themes or ideas. Once Vengeance is done and dusted and the time comes for SMT VI, I hope we see a return to this style of oppressive atmosphere and borderline horror. Playing as a half demon or a Demi God is fun, but I feel it’s time for a return to the poor soul caught at the wrong place at the wrong time, caught up in a ideological war with only a Comp, demon summoning program and a resolve to survive.
Thanks for this comment! The southern pentecostal perspective is great to hear, I was not aware of the crying statues being a sign of the second coming
@@MarshSMT well, not officially. To the Pentecostal denomination, everything is a sign of the Second Coming. I remember a rare earthquake struck not far from my house and my preacher uncle about had a religious fit over it. Sorry if I worded my OP in a way that sounded like crying statues was an officially recognized sign.
Note: Aleph is usually indicative of the sound /a/, and Beth is just a differently spelled letter B. It isn’t short for Elizabeth. Classical Hebrew also uses letters for numbers, so Aleph is 1, Beth is 2, and Gimel, the third Hebrew letter, is 3.
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;)
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.
I genuinely dont think I've ever looked forward to a TH-cam video more than this one. There is so little great content about this game out there, so I'm extremely grateful for this.
I was just rewatching the GU-L video and thinking it had been a bit since you uploaded, only for you to drop a feature length video on one of my favorite mainline games. Awesome, can't wait to binge it instead of sleeping tonight.
these are the kind of games that i can't stand playing but i find absolutely intoxicating to engage with, and your content is perfect for that good videos man 👍
its finally here! I have legit remembered and checked back to see if you've posted this video a few times. Is bound to become THE SMT II video , since the game has almost zero coverage
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!
This is a fantastic video. I fell asleep listening to the middle half of this and had the most epic, bizarre dreams of fighting through a giant tower. I went back through the video after I woke up. I played this game so long ago that when I picked it back up the other day, I had completely forgotten about the fortune teller and had no idea where I was supposed to go next. I would love to see this game remade. The lore and characters are just fantastic and there are few games that can take on cosmic themes like Shin Megami Tensei titles. Thanks for uploading, you’ve got a new subscriber 😊
Hey Marsh while I am still a very new Megaten/Persona fan just wanted to say I truly appreciate these videos its great to get the full story and mechanics of each of the early Megaten outings. Keep up the fantastic work and I am always looking forward to your next video. SMT II was a wild ride thank you so much for sharing it
If you ever want a unique marathon of SMT, play SMT I, Nine, then II. I honestly feel that Nine’s story becomes so much cooler when you realize that part of it was setting up the events of SMT II.
Crazy that this vid came out today, I literally started binging some of your vids yesterday after over a year of having forgot about this channel. What perfect timing.
Ok, let's get this thing on the road, this is a blind spot beyond like half the story. So let's go. It's very fascinating to see how the old team chose to approach the gameplay and the mechanics of the game, now wonder it took them so long between SMT2 and 3 afterwards; SMT2 seems and feels like the apex of everything that Atlus had learned up to that point, mechanics-wise, with all the returning mechanics receiving major updates and some new ones being things the enemy could do but not the player, like "human"-demon fusion, opening up the doors for many possibilities. And as a weird coincidence, Breath of Fire 2 seems to have used a similar system with the Shaman Fusion, both SMT2 and BoF2 coming out barely months apart. I wouldn't be surprised if Capcom at the time did see that and hastily threw the Shaman system at the last minute together however but I doubt it due to how well implemented it was, still, a fun coincidence. And then you got the guns, a staple of imbalance in early SMTs and the source of many old memes. Nice. The story and narrative seem to be on maximum turbo output this time, as if this is the proper first game that "broke away" from classic MT completely and found its own identity in the mainline, a rebelious expression by the old Atlus studio. And it only leas to more interesting avenues of storytelling and worldbuilding. Almost to a proto immersive sim kind of way, more similar to the Wizardry games did it, which is pretty huge for a SNES game from Japan. The story's pretty well told as well, really good stuff. I certainly didn't see some of the twists that happened, even if I vaguely knew some stuff, like Aleph's vague origins. For GU-L to be inspired by SMT2, that must have been quite something. As for the entire Law route, it's one of the few amicable ones indeed, so much that Strange Journey Redux basically almost copied for the new endings. It's also somewhat more poetic in a sense, as if the game takes "yeah, take that Old Testament" approach, slightly implying that Alep is basically not just any Saviour but Cyberpunk Jesus himself, and the new leader of humanity in a paradise-like society as seen in the New Testament etc etc. Which is a very interesting way to approach a Law ending. The way the post game is presented is also interesting, as if to say that SMT2 is the end of a really long journey and that it's the end of a Saga, starting from MT2. And no wonder, given the direction SMT3 takes and how much more in common it has with the side games of DDS and Raidou(and more accurately the attitude of the Devil Summoner games) instead of other mainline games, which could possibly imply that Atlus saw this as the "end" of old Atlus and the beginning of the then-new Atlus, the transitionary period that game us Devil Summoner series, the more urban setting, the more wild and rebelious main characters with amazingly gaudy yet endearing fashion sense and bizarre plots that veered beyond the battle of good and evil. Shame that Atlus went back to that with SMT4 and beyond. Said it before but it needs repeating, the , MTII and SMT1 osts and their various arrangements are just so cool and their 8-bit / 16-bit original sounds are just so cozy for this type of dungeon crawling. Always nice to hear them in the background. I like how your humour has naturally morphed to be more SMT-like over the many videos, dunno if you put it conciously in your scripts or not but the kind of amicably corny jokes and observations remind me of those old forum days. Nice. From the puns, to the worldplay and finally to the many Mara jokes. Oh and remember, Mara's female. As always, great video Marsh, really enjoyable and nice coverage, especially of a game that's still somewhat niche. Ps : Neutral all the way, btw.
On to more specialised commentary : 00:05:47 - Ah, our good old pal, Cyber Danpei- I mean Janitor Okamoto- I mean regular, future Tokyo Milenium Okamoto; nice to meet him again and see he hasn't changed his goal to make Yabuki Joe- I mean, Akira Miyamoto- I mean, Hawk, into a boxer. Some things never change. 00:05:058 - "Let's just say Okamoto's not the best with money" you're telling me buddy, poor guy had to code Black Tiger, a flight action game on some dinky pc and had to help on coding SF2 while being underpaid by Capcom, before being able to make his dream game of Final Fight at the time. What? Oh sorry, you meant this Okamoto, not Yoshiki Okamoto, my bad. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) 00:23:44 - Shoulda went for the Bible names for the memes Marshal ( ͡• ͜ʖ ͡• ) 00:24:45 - Nice. 00:38:20 - Hey now Marsh, it might not seem like much but a japanese game having a buttler named "Alfred" is a huge innovation; it is almost mandated by law that every buttler EVER, is to be named "Sebastian" or "Sebas". Atlus were true trailblazers back in the day. 01:04:16 - Yup, now starts the awesomeness, with the urban myths, tv horror and horrori-fication of big action stars and symbols, still have a blast when looking at these goobers in artbooks. 01:12:00 - Marsh, come on, stop being suspicious of big method actor Robert DeNero, practicing his biggest role yet for the premier of the 1987 film Angel Heart. Just have a drink with the fine fellow, what could possible go wrong? (¬‿¬ ) 01:14:25 - The silent tears can mean something else, which may be on the nose given the early games still had themes of re-incarnation before SMT3 tried to curb it and then went back to them in DDS and SMT4; The Hero is the re-incarnation of Adam, the firstborn, so he's sad to see that his children still fight and are dogmatic and what's worse, that his creator and the angel that used to hang around the big guy, still bicker with each other and use the poor humans as toys for their petty conflict. It doesn't help that Aleph in a way, is a modern cyberpunk messiah, an artificial human, not one from dirt and mud but from a lab tank this time, and he has to repeat all the shit the Hero went through to keep the peace a little longer. It's as if the spirit of Adam, through the first SMT Hero is now going into Aleph(and the player), since Aleph wasn't a reincarnation but a creation, thus he's the Hero's spiritual successor, as the new "Adam" of a new age and a new humanity in a new millenium. Since the Hero never gives into despair but still feels sadness for others due to his empathy(insert something about the Hero being so empathic and this is why he saved the Law Hero and the Charlie Hero in his dreams. Yes, I know what I wrote). And it may be a coincidence but Cerberus saying at 01:28:33 "Hey it's me. Remember me? your old friend, Cerberus." reads less likely as a dog being playful but Cerberus now seeing you as the Hero, his previous owner, while he was still Pascal. 01:36:50 - Canon Ending of Neutral Allignment, the Hero ends up with a Pixie, just as Kaneko and Okada always intended. Amazing, no wonder this kind of masterpiece of a thematic story was repeated with SMT3 ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) 01:51:25 - The dance scene will be available as a QTE minigame in Shin Megami Ga Gotoku II, where Aleph will disco dance so hard, he'll actively learn the Essence of Demons and proceed to win the entire game, coming in 2034 by Sega. 01:56:47 - I want to make clear the irony of naming the place "Arcadia" as if to namedrop the greek kingdom but at the same time, a very famous magazine called "Arcadia" was going around, about Arcades and Fighting games in Japan, with artists that already dabbled or would later dabble in these kinds of dystopian societies. And the whole Arcadia here is almost set up like the dingy arcades in downtown Tokyo. 90s alternative scene Japan was quite the trip, I swear. 02:07:10 - Based Parasyte / Kiseiju enjoyer. Also a product of the 90s, I swear, something was going on in downtown Tokyo. 02:12:45 - Funny you say that because two games almost kinda had the kind of fate you describe for their themes a bit earlier and were closer to the Dungeon Crawling genre than the Doom games of the 90s; I'm refering to Ultima 8 Pagan and Ultima Underworld I and II, despite the games having you face the equivalents of Satan and you being basically a crusader of Protestan Christianity. Pagan in question was the target of many angry mobs. 02:32:32 - Insert DMC3 reference due to Kaneko, but it's actually a SMT2 reference, but it's actually a Bio Senshi Dan reference but it's actually a Contra reference. Yes, I went there. 02:43:55 - Could be but I think it goes like this : [Wisdom = Knowledge + Time(age, memories)] so it's not that they'll take away their memories, the people will lose their ability to think critically and be reduced to dumb, pacified "sheeple", only existing for food, sunlight and maybe the ocassional procreation. Basically, what they are doing is wanting to go back to how things were when Adam and Eve were around, as ignorant and blissful existences, with the minds of simpletons. In this case, [Knowledge] is one of the crucial parts of humanity in the series, the "evil" in human's soul that balances the "good/law", to reach a perfect balance. Since YHVH and the Archangels want an Eden, well...humans must be "cleansed of evil" thus Knowledge, since it was gained thanks to Lucifer's help and due to breaking the Law of their creator. In short, nowhere near as bad as what the Elders did, for sure, but not that great either. Also insert some part of social commentary about lazyness and confort and how it corrupts people to simpletons etc etc, yada yada, japanese 90s social issues, and something about Schools getting more lax and ineffective etc. and somehow lead to Persona etc. etc. 02:49:03 - I don't know the original JP script but if it is what I think it is, the way it's worded here; Lucifer probably means that "wiping the Earth clean" = "Restore the Planet to a clean and technology-free world once more" rather than human genocide, basiclaly the whole planet Earth will be Eden and how was Eden? Dumb naked people running around happy and frolicking with other animals, free under the Angels and God's watchful eye. The "inventions" of manking come from "knowledge", therefore they are "evil" like Lucifer, so they must be wiped. I think that's what they mean and it's probably re-inforced by the endings as well. 02:51:46 - Yup, called it. 02:53:44 - Wow, thanks Satan! Guess SMTIV Apocalypse was more SMT than people ever gave it credit for. Or it was one of the laziest rehashes of previous SMT plots to prop up the new stuff that would handle future Atlus from that point on. You be the judge. (¬‿¬ ) 02:55:26 - Thank you for bringing this up, I value as much authenticity as possible in translations so that's a something to have in the back of my mind, as I'm sadly not as good with japanese, yet. Also, that makes it even similar to SMTIV A than I realised, damn. SMTIV A being a pseudo neutral version of SMT2 while SMTV being "look we're SMT3" just starts to make me wonder if SMT4 would have been SMT1 all over again had it not for quite a few of Kaneko's original script notes making it in the script to at least attempt to alter the obviously SMT1-lifted plot threads and points. 03:17:18 - THANK YOU!
When I was playing, I had no idea about the magic stat check needed at the full moon dance club, so I had to come up with a crafty solution where I downed a drink that gives you 4 extra magic until the next moon cycle, and had to path a way to the club before the full moon ended. It was kinda nuts but I really appreciated the bars for exactly this
Fun fact, the drinks at the bar give a boost that scales off of the stat it's raising, meaning the more you invest in a stat the more you'll get out of drinks. There's multiple possible starting stat spreads for Aleph, Hiroko and Beth that the game assigns at random at the start of the game. I'm pretty sure one of those stat spreads has Aleph start with like 2 Magic, which means a drink isn't going to get you over that threshold on its own.
Marsh, you're one of the few TH-camrs I have notifications enabled and will drop everything immediately once you upload (regardless whether it's MegaTen content or not). Another great video my man, keep em coming.
I find it weird that for how much Moloch gets hyped up in the Abyss arc you never get to fight or talk to him. Hes just off in the distance watching you fuck up the abyss. Amazing video. Hinokagatsuchi is dead, long live Hinokagatsuchi
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.
SMT II is my favorite RPG of all time. Words can't express how happy I am you finally got to this game and gave it the painstaking attention it deserves.
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
I honestly feel I’ll always appreciate your SMT1 and SMT2 video for showing how unique mainline is, because it kinda shows me as to why these games were seen as being so great in the first place. It makes me want to give more of atlus games outside of persona a shot, lol
I love the SMT Series, I started with Devil Survivors and got addicted to it since. This channel is such a trip and one of my all times favorites, the long video essays on the more underappreciated games is honestly a genuinely delight to find on my feed.
Great job on the video Marsh, love to see you making more peak. This is the first time I played a game before watching your vid on it and I'm glad you loved it as much as I did, especially when it came to the characters, story, and choices. Also happy I was able to contribute to this one in some small way
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
it is so nice to see you cover this game and that you liked it. while i struggled with navigating (and backtracking) at times, the story and world building really is something special, and it is lovely to revisit it like this. i picked the chaos ending partly because i worried that the law one would ultimately side with YHVH, but watching this was a great reminder of what an interesting character zayin is in the game and in SMT in general. thank you for your effort, it really shines through.
I absolutely love your content, Marsh. You’re a great narrator and put a lot of effort into framing the whole story of these games that really comes through when you’re watching. It’s thanks to you that I have such a deep love for this series when I was only familiar with the persona series. Your channel is criminally underrated and I look forward to your next work! Here’s hoping for a 5 hour vid of this format on strange journey redux lol.
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.
Thanks for your work Documenting the least known games.
knew you were gonna deliver. Was looking forward to SMT II finally getting covered in your channel
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.
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.
I never thought about Aleph's gun skills in 4A that's really funny. They knew it was busted
In IVA, Gaea Rage is a magic move, as is Freikugel.
@@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.
@@UltimaKeyMaster Demi-Fiend's magic stat is also higher than his Strength btw. Gaea Rage was also not St-based in IV
Cant wait to play that, shit sounds sick
something absolutely genius about frankenstein's monster randomly showing up: in the original book it starts with a group of sailors finding frankenstein in like antartica talking about being chased by his monster and taking it there to push it away from civilisation and the rest of the book is his retelling of the story to said sailors. his monster showing up in a frozen over city is actually a really smart callback
The concept of someone being named Zayin but everyone deciding that Rupert is a sensible nickname for him is really amusing to me.
Zayin? that reminds me, I should google some words, thanks m8
@@eat00002 LOBOTOMY CORPORATION?!
@@shaggyrogers8869 I'll never see these words the same ever again.
Zayin means weapon too. I find it very funny that the "weapon" means rupert
Japanese speakers be like "Rupert-o very mysterious western name, very cool probable means something deep"
There was a huge whiplash for me when this guy who was supposed to be THE rival, whose first act was to murder who was essentially the protagonist's wife, almost immediatly turns into Team Rocket type of villain, currently appearing and becoming more pathetic and then comedic with each appareance. My blood was supposed to boil at the mention of his name! Not awkwardly look at him as his stumbles to an exit going "ill get you next time, you hear?!" after yet another defeat and then all tension just dissapears forever when he reacts to Hiroko in love with him as a child scared that a girl might give him cooties. What a weird loser who somehow almost killed us that one time.
I like to imagine him as extremely unlucky, like we never really got to see him at full strength. If only the sap incident never happened
It honestly says how tragic his existence is. Groomed for this sole purpose of believing he was meant to save everyone from a false messiah by puppet masters who raised him wrong on purpose.
I loved that he was bumbling comic relief.
He didn't even kill her on purpose. The man was born to be a failure, and he succeeded beyond with flying colors
I feel like the devs originally had big plans for Daleth, but either the plot changed or they didnt like how his arc was turning out so they did this to get rid of him.
SMT II truly understands the manly desire to have a tradwife with an M16 who will shoot anything that dares to even think of hurting you.
And said wife also happens to be your surrogate mother
@@nathan7031We are all Char now
bro that’s your mom 💀
@@nathan7031 I think he's referring to Beth.
@@Colddirectorit's Beth
What an animal, dropping this BEHEMOTH of a video the moment Summer Games Fest ended for the day.
Not like theres much going on that anyway 😂😂😂
This is the true Summer Game Fest experience. Love this game.
The real and more entertaining Summer Fest
Destroyed the entire “festival”
😂
Ever since Hinokagetsuchi died in that tragic car accident the very fabric of the universe went off the rails.
2:47:20
@@LJCG777 Lmao exactly
Certified Chiaotsu moment
Truly a powerful event 🤘
Holy shit. Hi-no-Kagutsuchi suffered permadeath via Kamikaze? =(
Sane people: who wants a 3 hour smtII video?
Me: OH BOY! A 3 hour smtII video from Marsh!
Sanity is overrated.
Nah bro, the insane people actually PLAY these games, Marsh videos are just how sane people get the story without going crazy in the dungeons
We're here waiting on the 16 hour set 3 vid.
Marsh is built different.
@@erikvaldes4293 Touche, I did in fact play 'SMT If...' after he posted his video on it... bro he was not kidding about wandering around for several full moon cycles to progress the game 💀 But actually it's more fucky than that, I didn't know you have to interact with the NPCs after each full cycle and I ended up having to do this about three times as long because I couldn't figure out what the problem was. I should have just stopped playing the game and I didn't LOL
Another interesting point about Satan, iirc in the Japanese script when Zayin is frozen in stone he explains that he saw a vision or revelation from an even higher power than God or YHVH, that YHVH itself has also corrupted the very essence of what its supposed to be or something, implying that YHVH has been abandoned by what we can now assume was the Greater Will for what he's done, so not only was Satan's judgement on YHVH premeditated, it was an order from even farther on high than YHVH.
Also, I believe the implication of Aleph being made and then having a soul being given by God is that you, the player, are also an instrument of the Greater Will, or perhaps implying that you the player are seeing the game from the perspective a God would.
Idk, there's a lot of ways to read into things, especially with this translation being kinda biased and the original game being so high-concept in religious themes
Basically, yeah. He comes to the realization that the God that the Messians worship isn't actually YHVH but instead The Great Will. And The Great Will is *everything*, and everything is The Great Will. YHVH is just a "face" of The Great Will, and isn't the one true God he arrogantly claims to be.
basic gnosticism.
Observation. Humans assign an answer and it takes shape, however when something becomes tangible, it becomes fallible.
Aleph is like the Rock Lee of the mainline messiahs in this game, no magic all hands, and bro's got the best fit of them all to match just how great he is.
Agreed, Hijiri in 3 is one of Aleph's reincarnations and no one can change my mind
he need magic for his crazy dance moves
@@Sandal-z5b in my head, the magic stat in aleph is just his shoes burning
"You want to talk about an Artificial Dream In Arcadia."
.......................................
*THAT FUCKING TITLE IS ONE BIG SMT 2 REFERENCE???*
I mean, IIRC, you go to Kether Palace in Mystic Square.
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.
@@jariu9612 and tbh, classic Megaten is verh Sumicore anyway
@@jouheikisaragi6075 It really just works, it got even funnier with the latest CoLA.
It even foreshadows the ending of that game, if you think about it: People stuck in an addictive dream world, slowly withering away...
As someone who finished SMT 2 last Christmas, my biggest complaint was weirdly: the magnetite. It felt like I was always short on the stuff and that I could never keep my demons around. I eventually found a workaround: there was this place in the Factory that tended to spawn Bodyocians (I think it was called?) which drop a truly absurd amount of magnetite and is accessible extremely early in the game. That said, even after discovering this exploit, the fact that I lose magnetite so quick meant that sometimes I would just have to drop everything and go to the factory to get magnetite which could take a while with bad RNG. What's bizarre is that I basically never had this problem with SMT 1 probably because I could negotiate for Magnetite in that game and the encounter rate was so high.
You would think a game called Last Christmas would be more generous
This killed me
@@fafaaf61 i never summoned demons in my playtrough besides boss fights
Kinda of a shame like aleph and hiroko can deal with everything on their own so thats fine but halfway trough the game i noticed that i was playing an smt game... Without any demons
I ended the game with the max amount of mag i just never really had any use because of how good aleph and hiroko was
@@newironsidelmaooo
Watching Frankie actually survive any attack after any later point makes me smile.
Even if the video cuts and there’s a mysterious empty slot…
I am 100% sure Marsh dropped this high quality feature length video for me specifically.
i did
he did lets goo
Clearly Zayin was so caught off guard by catching belphegor on the jon that he was defeated in that moment and definitely didn't want to admit to the MC that he got beat by a demon busy taking a shit.
This game kicks ass. The Law path ending with God himself not being exempt from Judgement for his actions is just such a raw concept, I love it.
Sidenote I love whenever Marsh says "check it out," it always makes me sit up in my seat and ready to hear some cool shit.
The quote: "Head to you I give. Thank you" is officially goated
OH BOY
SMT II BROS, WE WON
WE DID YEAAAAAAAH
Un saludo desde el grupo Shin Megami Tensei Latinoamérica
don't call this a comeback!
🤟
@@j.2512 Marsh has been here for years.
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.
So fun fact about
1:18:38- Jailbreak
Nadja is not required for this section of the game, I never found her, fought Janus (who I had a really tough time with) and brought Hiroko to her senses by forcing her out of her cell and dragging her out.
I wondered why people kept making art of aleph and nadja only to realize that i entirely skipped that portion of the game
Now that I’m back from the video, I can confidently say this is one of the best you’ve ever produced. Even ignoring the fact that this behemoth is 3 hours long, you went into such great detail on the meaning of the routes and messages of the game. Like that section with the SMT1 hero’s tears for example.
And that elevator joke payed off exactly how I hoped it would lmao
Amazing video Marsh, and good work holy shit. I cannot imagine how many hours you sank into this
appreciate it - glad you liked the elevator bit, I really wanted to drag that part out and show how long it was
Gotta appreciate the game throwing the stomach dungeon and Daedalus tower at you right at the end, just when you think you’re safe. Marsh really can’t escape.
Such is the life of Marsh Mello, slayer of Minotaurs and arch-nemesis of Rag.
Fun fact, you can get to the Yesod bar through the portal you opened with the statues and Lucifer will tell you he's impressed but you effectively used a backdoor and he wants you to enter the Abyss with your own power. Which is weird, there's no real difference between four statues and a circle on the wall vs. six pillars and a gigantic hexagram.
Gotta love Rupert, he’s really undervalued. Gotta love the weirdness of Marsh constantly having to mention that Zayin is also Rupert to avoid the video seeming really weird where it mentions his name.
It threw me off doubly since if you say his name out loud it sounds like it should be spelled "Zion."
@@Vmac1394it’s not Ziyan like he pronounced it either tho, it’s ZAY-in lmao
Okamoto, Hawks/Aleph's, trainer and gladiator patron, is actually an Akita no Joe (Rocky Joe in the west) reference being basically a 1:1 rendition of the same homonymous character present in the manga/anime: a black bald man wearing an eye patch.
The same Easter egg involving Okamoto's character was also present in Pokemon's early builds but was later removed in the final release.
As always Marsh spectacular job on this one, you are a precious gem for the Megaten community.
I figured Okamoto was meant to be a reference to Taro Okamoto
It's funny because I recognized Joe's mentor through Megalobox and definitely thought Okamoto resembled Joe's mentor
Ashita no Joe references are a rabbit hole you enter and never leave. I was waching Digimon these days and there was an Ashita no Joe reference on it (it was a dream scene with a guy with eyepatch managing a boxer rendered on old anime style)
marsh appearing out of nowhere and dropping a 3 hour video is in fact, a marsh moment
The bit about Aleph's name is a plot point in Strange Journey too. With Mem Aleph being the head honcho of the Schwarzwelt.
Marsh is back with a 3 hour classic and I love it. Thanks again for the vod.
SMT II the only game that mom-zones you at the very end of the game.
The neutral route dialogue makes me concerned that someone might pull the “surrogate means they technically aren’t related” card
As a wise knuclehead once said "I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS" Great video Marsh, I really hope this game gets remade someday because it's one of the most unique direct sequels to a game I've ever played.
Zayin is probably the most badass being in the entire Megami Tensei franchise.
He could bully Akemi Nakajima and Akemi Nakajima would say sorry to him.
absolutely agree
If him and the last bible protagonist teamed up they could probably bully the great will without any resistance
@@MarshSMT but the real question is who wins, Zayin or Akira Miyamoto? I mean two half demon badasses who end up partially ruling over a giant tower/monolith, and both can kick major demon Janus, so who would win
Honestly despite going for chaos or neutral in all games i played i found zayin to be my favorite aligment rep in the entire franchise
Also the law ending in smt 2 is probably my favorite ending after neutral in smt 4
Well its kinda unfair since this game doesnt really have chaos or neutral representatives but i honestly kinda wished more smt games did that because they built zayin so freaking well
I audibly gasped at this notif
Saaaaame
same !! omg
Same here
That's the mark of a true nerd 🤓
Same! This game stayed with me all these years.
Betelgeuse in the game is the version of Beetlejuice at the end who presents himself as a snake like creature. They have the same face and body.
1:25:52 I love Zain for this scene alone too!
One of the rare examples of a scenario like this playing out is in Trails to Azure, where the game's major antagonist (I will not mention them for spoiler reasons) naturally starts explaining tjeir plan and reasining for all the questionable deeds they did. But after that, once Lloyd (the main protagonist of the game) explains his point of view and details his argument as to why they shouldn't go through with their plan, the antagonist... agrees and gives up, letting Lloyd go without a fight! It's really cool1
But it shows just how cool Shin Megami Tensei II was for doing a similar scenario more than a decade earlier
“That’s a huge Janus” Marsh 2024
3 hours?
Well, it's not like I intended to work the rest of this shift anyway.
Leggo
Jokes on you, I just finished the whole first hour while working
I think I'm gonna skip movie night today, lol
@@smtmonkeme too, just did it today
The fact this has never officially been released in English is a tragedy. Such a good game with amazing atmosphere. My route ended up as Chaos and fighting alongside Lucifer was awesome.
I played SMT2 in anticipation of this video, since I discovered this channel through the video on SMT1, and wanted to play this game without relying on this. And I'm really glad I did. I went through every route, got the Hinokagutsuchi (which you can get regardless of alignment, but it's kinda hell) and was thrilled and shocked by every crazy plot twist. My jaw dropped at multiple moments. And despite having such a valuable experience by myself, I still learned a lot from this video, with quite a few things I didn't know or consider. Amazing work as usual!
Same here, I played SMT 2 to prepare for the video, but only played the Neutral route and at midgame the buff dmg bug kinda killed the mood. The story is amazing however.
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.
Mr. Thriller being covered in this walkthrough feels like a punch in the gut for those who loved his namesake and his timeless music. =‘(
If you want to actually furiously dance against god i recommend doing the chaos route in devil survivor while investing into magic
@@valletas Yeah Holy Dance really just turns off the difficulty, huh?
@@NEETKitten honestly i wished they found some way to implement the dance moves in the mainline games
Maybe they could make it some demon unique skill?
@@valletas Imagine if they brought Bodyconian or Maneater back. The elemental dances would be perfect for them, AND give them a use besides "early game fodder demon"
I was obsessed with this game as a pre-teen/teenager. I'm delighted and surprised that it garnered so much attention outside of Asia/Japan. I still listen to the soundtrack and even use a song for my alarm ringtone.
What did you love most about it? I played it when I was a teen as well
@@ianleather5699So many things... The idea of demon fusions, the fact that the demons were based on historical or mythical figures, summoning demons from a wrist computer, the ability to befriend demons rather than just kill them...
If I had to narrow it down it would be the overall theme (god, Satan, Lucifer, Law, Chaos, Neutral), and the music. I still listen to the soundtrack (and other SMT game tracks) regularly.
It's Disco right?
It's gotta be Disco
1:13:55 I'm sorry but all I could imagine with this scene was when the Statue of Liberty cries in every single one of those satirical political comics made by that guy at The Onion.
To be fair, tear-stained statues are often a recurring aesthetic.
Your interpretation of the crying statue was honestly kind of beautiful. As a teenager playing the game years ago, I went with the much more basic "He's crying because effectively his children are fighting each other, pitted by this dystopian society to be against one another."
I love this story about Aleph, Hiroko, Beth, Gimmel, Daleth, and Rupert
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 😂😂
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 artificial dream in Arcadia joke was perfection.
Great video!
you're the only person i'm subbed to that causes me to audibly gasp when a new video appears
Genuinely wild jump in audio quality for this vid. No idea what you did different but it sounds great.
After many years of waiting Marsh has dropped the video we’ve all been waiting for, praise Nakajima!
Praise Nakajima, the True God Reborn!
Guy who only ever read Dune: This is giving me major Dune vibes...
Both are anti-religious, so yeah.
Unexpected Setsu!
Anti-religious is an absurd reduction@@onetruesavior69
It's a great day when Marsh uploads. We appreciate all your hard work. 🙏
i played smt2 many years ago when i was first getting into jrpgs, and there was NO ONE talking about this game, it's insane. i got lost a lot lmfao. but man is it worth it, smt 2 is my favourite mainline. such a different game than the others..
i love that it lets you explore tokyo millenium and slowly uncover the massive conspiracy behind it, the parts of the game in makai/abyss, also the way this game handles allignments, and this whole spin on law which REALLY makes you doubt you made the right choices (it's ending route on this game is absolutely insane). just an amazing RPG, and i think a real step up in quality from atlus, smt1 was great but this game is on another level.
i really hope atlus releases a remastered collection of the snes SMT games, but mostly because of this one. i feel that with some minor quality of life additions a lot of people could experience this amazing game
Shin Megami Tensei Experience was posted right before SMTV, and now we get SMTII before SMTVV. Truly an era has concluded.
This is one of your best videos so far. Next to Last Bible Special, this is one of my favorites. I really like you went the extra mile with your analysis.
This is probably minor to some, but I liked the inclusion of The Hero’s statue crying. Growing up in a Southern Pentecostal family, I was always hearing about the strange “signs and wonders” that supposedly proceeded the Second Coming, such as weeping or bleeding religious statues. That instance called to mind my own experiences and emotions with The End Times.
This game does not pull the punches on it’s atmosphere, or it’s themes or ideas. Once Vengeance is done and dusted and the time comes for SMT VI, I hope we see a return to this style of oppressive atmosphere and borderline horror. Playing as a half demon or a Demi God is fun, but I feel it’s time for a return to the poor soul caught at the wrong place at the wrong time, caught up in a ideological war with only a Comp, demon summoning program and a resolve to survive.
Thanks for this comment! The southern pentecostal perspective is great to hear, I was not aware of the crying statues being a sign of the second coming
@@MarshSMT well, not officially. To the Pentecostal denomination, everything is a sign of the Second Coming. I remember a rare earthquake struck not far from my house and my preacher uncle about had a religious fit over it. Sorry if I worded my OP in a way that sounded like crying statues was an officially recognized sign.
No worries! Interesting regardless
Dude Marsh you dont even know how long ive been waiting for this
You got me into SMT and I always love these videos; some of the best on youtube.
Stalker: “Give me Macca.”
Aleph: “Give me head.”
Stalker: “You didn’t just say that?”
"Uh... can ya suck it???"
What a cool story! I love the way it goes over so many ideas and blends them together.
Note: Aleph is usually indicative of the sound /a/, and Beth is just a differently spelled letter B. It isn’t short for Elizabeth. Classical Hebrew also uses letters for numbers, so Aleph is 1, Beth is 2, and Gimel, the third Hebrew letter, is 3.
No pressure or anything but this is my most anticipated youtube video ever. I'm gonna enjoy this one. That runtime is an absolute blessing.
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;)
MARSHALL, YOU'RE BACK!!!! We missed you bro! Love your vids lol
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.
Marsh you fucking legend, out here with the 3 hour video drop after the 6 hour long outdoor catering shift, THANK you
I genuinely dont think I've ever looked forward to a TH-cam video more than this one. There is so little great content about this game out there, so I'm extremely grateful for this.
I was just rewatching the GU-L video and thinking it had been a bit since you uploaded, only for you to drop a feature length video on one of my favorite mainline games. Awesome, can't wait to binge it instead of sleeping tonight.
these are the kind of games that i can't stand playing but i find absolutely intoxicating to engage with, and your content is perfect for that
good videos man 👍
its finally here! I have legit remembered and checked back to see if you've posted this video a few times. Is bound to become THE SMT II video , since the game has almost zero coverage
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!
I've been having a rough week, so when I i saw this notification I instantly felt alot better, thank you Marsh! :)
This is a fantastic video. I fell asleep listening to the middle half of this and had the most epic, bizarre dreams of fighting through a giant tower. I went back through the video after I woke up.
I played this game so long ago that when I picked it back up the other day, I had completely forgotten about the fortune teller and had no idea where I was supposed to go next. I would love to see this game remade. The lore and characters are just fantastic and there are few games that can take on cosmic themes like Shin Megami Tensei titles.
Thanks for uploading, you’ve got a new subscriber 😊
I've been keeping up with your community posts over the past few months and it is so cool to finally watch this video
Hey Marsh while I am still a very new Megaten/Persona fan just wanted to say I truly appreciate these videos its great to get the full story and mechanics of each of the early Megaten outings. Keep up the fantastic work and I am always looking forward to your next video. SMT II was a wild ride thank you so much for sharing it
If you ever want a unique marathon of SMT, play SMT I, Nine, then II. I honestly feel that Nine’s story becomes so much cooler when you realize that part of it was setting up the events of SMT II.
Indeed. Since NINE is a midquel between the original two Shin Megami Tensei games, this chronological order feels easily digestible (no pun intended).
I guess Imagine isn't worth playing. I mean, I get it, but damn that kinda hurts...
Feather Adonis (gladiator) was seen at the Arena in NINE, which I think is neat
"We're gonna have to beat this thing off to get through" ... my man ain't gonna acknowledge his own brilliance with the big green dong monster? 😄
Crazy that this vid came out today, I literally started binging some of your vids yesterday after over a year of having forgot about this channel. What perfect timing.
Ok, let's get this thing on the road, this is a blind spot beyond like half the story. So let's go.
It's very fascinating to see how the old team chose to approach the gameplay and the mechanics of the game, now wonder it took them so long between SMT2 and 3 afterwards; SMT2 seems and feels like the apex of everything that Atlus had learned up to that point, mechanics-wise, with all the returning mechanics receiving major updates and some new ones being things the enemy could do but not the player, like "human"-demon fusion, opening up the doors for many possibilities. And as a weird coincidence, Breath of Fire 2 seems to have used a similar system with the Shaman Fusion, both SMT2 and BoF2 coming out barely months apart. I wouldn't be surprised if Capcom at the time did see that and hastily threw the Shaman system at the last minute together however but I doubt it due to how well implemented it was, still, a fun coincidence. And then you got the guns, a staple of imbalance in early SMTs and the source of many old memes. Nice.
The story and narrative seem to be on maximum turbo output this time, as if this is the proper first game that "broke away" from classic MT completely and found its own identity in the mainline, a rebelious expression by the old Atlus studio. And it only leas to more interesting avenues of storytelling and worldbuilding. Almost to a proto immersive sim kind of way, more similar to the Wizardry games did it, which is pretty huge for a SNES game from Japan. The story's pretty well told as well, really good stuff. I certainly didn't see some of the twists that happened, even if I vaguely knew some stuff, like Aleph's vague origins. For GU-L to be inspired by SMT2, that must have been quite something. As for the entire Law route, it's one of the few amicable ones indeed, so much that Strange Journey Redux basically almost copied for the new endings. It's also somewhat more poetic in a sense, as if the game takes "yeah, take that Old Testament" approach, slightly implying that Alep is basically not just any Saviour but Cyberpunk Jesus himself, and the new leader of humanity in a paradise-like society as seen in the New Testament etc etc. Which is a very interesting way to approach a Law ending.
The way the post game is presented is also interesting, as if to say that SMT2 is the end of a really long journey and that it's the end of a Saga, starting from MT2. And no wonder, given the direction SMT3 takes and how much more in common it has with the side games of DDS and Raidou(and more accurately the attitude of the Devil Summoner games) instead of other mainline games, which could possibly imply that Atlus saw this as the "end" of old Atlus and the beginning of the then-new Atlus, the transitionary period that game us Devil Summoner series, the more urban setting, the more wild and rebelious main characters with amazingly gaudy yet endearing fashion sense and bizarre plots that veered beyond the battle of good and evil. Shame that Atlus went back to that with SMT4 and beyond.
Said it before but it needs repeating, the , MTII and SMT1 osts and their various arrangements are just so cool and their 8-bit / 16-bit original sounds are just so cozy for this type of dungeon crawling. Always nice to hear them in the background. I like how your humour has naturally morphed to be more SMT-like over the many videos, dunno if you put it conciously in your scripts or not but the kind of amicably corny jokes and observations remind me of those old forum days. Nice. From the puns, to the worldplay and finally to the many Mara jokes. Oh and remember, Mara's female.
As always, great video Marsh, really enjoyable and nice coverage, especially of a game that's still somewhat niche.
Ps : Neutral all the way, btw.
On to more specialised commentary :
00:05:47 - Ah, our good old pal, Cyber Danpei- I mean Janitor Okamoto- I mean regular, future Tokyo Milenium Okamoto; nice to meet him again and see he hasn't changed his goal to make Yabuki Joe- I mean, Akira Miyamoto- I mean, Hawk, into a boxer. Some things never change.
00:05:058 - "Let's just say Okamoto's not the best with money" you're telling me buddy, poor guy had to code Black Tiger, a flight action game on some dinky pc and had to help on coding SF2 while being underpaid by Capcom, before being able to make his dream game of Final Fight at the time. What? Oh sorry, you meant this Okamoto, not Yoshiki Okamoto, my bad. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
00:23:44 - Shoulda went for the Bible names for the memes Marshal ( ͡• ͜ʖ ͡• )
00:24:45 - Nice.
00:38:20 - Hey now Marsh, it might not seem like much but a japanese game having a buttler named "Alfred" is a huge innovation; it is almost mandated by law that every buttler EVER, is to be named "Sebastian" or "Sebas". Atlus were true trailblazers back in the day.
01:04:16 - Yup, now starts the awesomeness, with the urban myths, tv horror and horrori-fication of big action stars and symbols, still have a blast when looking at these goobers in artbooks.
01:12:00 - Marsh, come on, stop being suspicious of big method actor Robert DeNero, practicing his biggest role yet for the premier of the 1987 film Angel Heart. Just have a drink with the fine fellow, what could possible go wrong? (¬‿¬ )
01:14:25 - The silent tears can mean something else, which may be on the nose given the early games still had themes of re-incarnation before SMT3 tried to curb it and then went back to them in DDS and SMT4; The Hero is the re-incarnation of Adam, the firstborn, so he's sad to see that his children still fight and are dogmatic and what's worse, that his creator and the angel that used to hang around the big guy, still bicker with each other and use the poor humans as toys for their petty conflict. It doesn't help that Aleph in a way, is a modern cyberpunk messiah, an artificial human, not one from dirt and mud but from a lab tank this time, and he has to repeat all the shit the Hero went through to keep the peace a little longer. It's as if the spirit of Adam, through the first SMT Hero is now going into Aleph(and the player), since Aleph wasn't a reincarnation but a creation, thus he's the Hero's spiritual successor, as the new "Adam" of a new age and a new humanity in a new millenium. Since the Hero never gives into despair but still feels sadness for others due to his empathy(insert something about the Hero being so empathic and this is why he saved the Law Hero and the Charlie Hero in his dreams. Yes, I know what I wrote). And it may be a coincidence but Cerberus saying at 01:28:33 "Hey it's me. Remember me? your old friend, Cerberus." reads less likely as a dog being playful but Cerberus now seeing you as the Hero, his previous owner, while he was still Pascal.
01:36:50 - Canon Ending of Neutral Allignment, the Hero ends up with a Pixie, just as Kaneko and Okada always intended. Amazing, no wonder this kind of masterpiece of a thematic story was repeated with SMT3 ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
01:51:25 - The dance scene will be available as a QTE minigame in Shin Megami Ga Gotoku II, where Aleph will disco dance so hard, he'll actively learn the Essence of Demons and proceed to win the entire game, coming in 2034 by Sega.
01:56:47 - I want to make clear the irony of naming the place "Arcadia" as if to namedrop the greek kingdom but at the same time, a very famous magazine called "Arcadia" was going around, about Arcades and Fighting games in Japan, with artists that already dabbled or would later dabble in these kinds of dystopian societies. And the whole Arcadia here is almost set up like the dingy arcades in downtown Tokyo. 90s alternative scene Japan was quite the trip, I swear.
02:07:10 - Based Parasyte / Kiseiju enjoyer. Also a product of the 90s, I swear, something was going on in downtown Tokyo.
02:12:45 - Funny you say that because two games almost kinda had the kind of fate you describe for their themes a bit earlier and were closer to the Dungeon Crawling genre than the Doom games of the 90s; I'm refering to Ultima 8 Pagan and Ultima Underworld I and II, despite the games having you face the equivalents of Satan and you being basically a crusader of Protestan Christianity. Pagan in question was the target of many angry mobs.
02:32:32 - Insert DMC3 reference due to Kaneko, but it's actually a SMT2 reference, but it's actually a Bio Senshi Dan reference but it's actually a Contra reference. Yes, I went there.
02:43:55 - Could be but I think it goes like this : [Wisdom = Knowledge + Time(age, memories)] so it's not that they'll take away their memories, the people will lose their ability to think critically and be reduced to dumb, pacified "sheeple", only existing for food, sunlight and maybe the ocassional procreation. Basically, what they are doing is wanting to go back to how things were when Adam and Eve were around, as ignorant and blissful existences, with the minds of simpletons. In this case, [Knowledge] is one of the crucial parts of humanity in the series, the "evil" in human's soul that balances the "good/law", to reach a perfect balance. Since YHVH and the Archangels want an Eden, well...humans must be "cleansed of evil" thus Knowledge, since it was gained thanks to Lucifer's help and due to breaking the Law of their creator. In short, nowhere near as bad as what the Elders did, for sure, but not that great either.
Also insert some part of social commentary about lazyness and confort and how it corrupts people to simpletons etc etc, yada yada, japanese 90s social issues, and something about Schools getting more lax and ineffective etc. and somehow lead to Persona etc. etc.
02:49:03 - I don't know the original JP script but if it is what I think it is, the way it's worded here; Lucifer probably means that "wiping the Earth clean" = "Restore the Planet to a clean and technology-free world once more" rather than human genocide, basiclaly the whole planet Earth will be Eden and how was Eden? Dumb naked people running around happy and frolicking with other animals, free under the Angels and God's watchful eye. The "inventions" of manking come from "knowledge", therefore they are "evil" like Lucifer, so they must be wiped. I think that's what they mean and it's probably re-inforced by the endings as well.
02:51:46 - Yup, called it.
02:53:44 - Wow, thanks Satan! Guess SMTIV Apocalypse was more SMT than people ever gave it credit for. Or it was one of the laziest rehashes of previous SMT plots to prop up the new stuff that would handle future Atlus from that point on. You be the judge. (¬‿¬ )
02:55:26 - Thank you for bringing this up, I value as much authenticity as possible in translations so that's a something to have in the back of my mind, as I'm sadly not as good with japanese, yet. Also, that makes it even similar to SMTIV A than I realised, damn. SMTIV A being a pseudo neutral version of SMT2 while SMTV being "look we're SMT3" just starts to make me wonder if SMT4 would have been SMT1 all over again had it not for quite a few of Kaneko's original script notes making it in the script to at least attempt to alter the obviously SMT1-lifted plot threads and points.
03:17:18 - THANK YOU!
Really appreciate these comments, they're always a lot of fun to read through
When I was playing, I had no idea about the magic stat check needed at the full moon dance club, so I had to come up with a crafty solution where I downed a drink that gives you 4 extra magic until the next moon cycle, and had to path a way to the club before the full moon ended. It was kinda nuts but I really appreciated the bars for exactly this
I also wonder if SMT NINE’s “Green Bear” is a reference to the colosseum’s red bear?
@@melly5741 I didn't realize it at the time but that seems pretty likely yeah good catch
Fun fact, the drinks at the bar give a boost that scales off of the stat it's raising, meaning the more you invest in a stat the more you'll get out of drinks. There's multiple possible starting stat spreads for Aleph, Hiroko and Beth that the game assigns at random at the start of the game. I'm pretty sure one of those stat spreads has Aleph start with like 2 Magic, which means a drink isn't going to get you over that threshold on its own.
Marsh, you're one of the few TH-camrs I have notifications enabled and will drop everything immediately once you upload (regardless whether it's MegaTen content or not). Another great video my man, keep em coming.
Imagine if atlus decides to remake all these old smt games. Man that would be amazing😆
So far, the SMT4 series on the Nintendo 3DS was the closest we had to SMT 1&2 being remade.
Hurray! I'm glad you were able to make this video! I hope it encourages more people to give SMT II a playthrough.
This is my favorite mainline game, so excited to see that you enjoyed it, can't wait to dive into this vid!
Putting all the music used in order in your description is so goated.
Nicely done
Thank you for the Marsh drop. I’m studying hard for an exam right now so I’ll watch this in chunks to try and destress.
It is always nice to learn some of the extra stuff that you researched and found that i missed in the SMT series. Cheers.
Holy shit. The SMT II Marsh video. This is a monumental shift in time.
I find it weird that for how much Moloch gets hyped up in the Abyss arc you never get to fight or talk to him. Hes just off in the distance watching you fuck up the abyss.
Amazing video. Hinokagatsuchi is dead, long live Hinokagatsuchi
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.
I've never played any of the Shin Magami or Last Bible games, but man, their story/game summaries are the absolute best bedtime stories.
I've never been so early to a Marsh video. Can't wait to watch this one daily until the next one comes out :O
SMT II is my favorite RPG of all time. Words can't express how happy I am you finally got to this game and gave it the painstaking attention it deserves.
Ever since you did the first one I hoped you'd make this one! Hell yeah. Great video as always :)
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
I honestly feel I’ll always appreciate your SMT1 and SMT2 video for showing how unique mainline is, because it kinda shows me as to why these games were seen as being so great in the first place. It makes me want to give more of atlus games outside of persona a shot, lol
I love the SMT Series, I started with Devil Survivors and got addicted to it since. This channel is such a trip and one of my all times favorites, the long video essays on the more underappreciated games is honestly a genuinely delight to find on my feed.
Great job on the video Marsh, love to see you making more peak. This is the first time I played a game before watching your vid on it and I'm glad you loved it as much as I did, especially when it came to the characters, story, and choices. Also happy I was able to contribute to this one in some small way
Thanks for the save states very useful
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
3:05:55 Lol, I remember this guy being a New Game+ superboss in Devil Survivor.
thanks for taking the time to make this video!!! I started smtv recently and love it, so seeing how the series evolved is cool!!!
it is so nice to see you cover this game and that you liked it. while i struggled with navigating (and backtracking) at times, the story and world building really is something special, and it is lovely to revisit it like this. i picked the chaos ending partly because i worried that the law one would ultimately side with YHVH, but watching this was a great reminder of what an interesting character zayin is in the game and in SMT in general. thank you for your effort, it really shines through.
I absolutely love your content, Marsh. You’re a great narrator and put a lot of effort into framing the whole story of these games that really comes through when you’re watching. It’s thanks to you that I have such a deep love for this series when I was only familiar with the persona series. Your channel is criminally underrated and I look forward to your next work! Here’s hoping for a 5 hour vid of this format on strange journey redux lol.