MMO Monday: Shin Megami Tensei: IMAGINE Online - Goodnight, Sweet Prince!

Edit: 5/18/2014 - The amount of attention this article has gotten is not only overwhelming, but heartwarming as well. I'll reply to every comment when I can. I'm truly humbled by how many people enjoyed reading, and I sincerely hope I was able to do it justice. Feel free to share your memories or fondest moments in the comments. Despite SMT: IO's closure, the fun times we have shall always live on.

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Sorry about being gone so long, my urge to write just hasn't been here lately. As a present to anyone who reads my garbage, this article is jam-packed with info! Please, I sincerely hope that you enjoy.

It's the day we all fear from the bottom of our wallets-- er, hearts. The day our favorite mmo gets shut down and we are given nothing but a short amount of time and a cutoff date. Everyone spreads the news, gathers on the forums, and gets contact information from each other before the inevitable climax. Some players become pessimistic, claiming that they "knew it would happen eventually", and strive to bring everyone else's optimism down. Others cling to hope, an uncertain hope that maybe another publisher will come to save the day. Just maybe. Nonetheless, the story ends as the server shuts off and hundreds sit at their desks. A few-second silence fills the atmosphere as the player wears a slight frown before eventually exiting out of the application. Some have already accepted the cold truth, and have already done the deed of uninstalling, moving on to other things. Time passes; and although tears are shed, we players lie powerless in the wake of the very corporations that control what we love. Acceptance finally leaks into our hearts, and we continue on with the memories and friendships that we made etched into our souls.

It sucks, doesn't it? As someone who has been fondly attached to MMOs for the past 5 years, I know the pain of a game eventually shutting down. You invest time and money to it, but in the end it all gets erased. Truly then, it's the journey that's most meaningful, and not the destination.

Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine Online is a case of such, being up since 2007 in Japan and late 2008 for North America. While the Japanese server is still alive and running, the U.S. server has unfortunately kicked the bucket as of February 28th, 2014. Nontheless, SMT:IO is a wonderfully crafted game, and so I'd like to take the time to appreciate it in retrospect as its glorious age in NA has drawn to a close.

(Image courtesy of hardcoregaming101.net - the site that I practically worship)

SMT:IO is a unique game in that it gives the player a huge element of control. You decide everything, from where your stat points go, to what skills you learn, to what expertise you learn (to coincide with your class selection) and what demon partners you have by your side (based on your alignment). Any SMT fan will immediately have a nerdgasm, but all of these options can be overwhelming for a casual mmo player or even someone not entirely familiar with anything in the SMT universe. I'll break it down into a few subsections.

Class - While there are no predefined classes laid out (healer, mage, ranger, etc) there are a few "classes" that utilize specific skills and expertise. You could become a close-range melee, using blunt-force weapons to do your damage, while pumping your stat points into strength and vitality for the most common melee build. You could become a magic-user, cramming your stat points into magic and intelligence to get the most bang for your buck, and learn all of the various AOE magic skills the game has to offer. While being a mage, you could also go out of your way to learn a  few healing skills and buffs to help out your party or to just help while soloing -- if you choose.

You could go the gunner route and focus on shooting things from afar, but you could then add curse magic to your roster of skills, and charge up cursed shots that do more damage than normal shots while debuffing your enemies. Even so, you could make a character for the sole purpose of crafting weapons or refining armor. You could be a jack of all trades, and a master of none. Or, you could limit yourself to one profession but be completely maxed out in all respective areas.

(Courtesy of the SMT:IO Wiki, currenly hosted by Sesshou. http://megaten.sesshou.com/wiki/index.php/Expertise)

Alignment - Alignment only affects minor parts of the story (there are story quests in this game, they actually make up the meat of the quests, if you're wondering). However, alignment is much more relevant in deciding your choice of demon partners. Much like in the early SMT games, you recruit demons from the field (yes, the very same ones you grind and level up on) and then have them fight alongside you. That process in itself isn't terribly complicated, but your choices matter much more when considering alignment. There are three paths for you to choose: Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic. Just as players fall into different alignments, so do demons. A lawful character can befriend, summon, and use a chaotic demon just fine, and vice-versa. However, the magnetite cost to summon a demon that isn't of your own alignment is substantially higher.

What is magnetite you ask? Basically, a secondary form of currency that is only used for demon summoning and certain special burst attacks. Let's say that a Lawful Character summons the Seraph Uriel (also of the Lawful alignment). The magnetite cost to do so might be around 400~500. However, let's take that same demon and try to summon him on your character who is aligned with Chaos. That cost jumps to double or even more. Magnetite may go around somewhat quickly these days, but when different dungeons/situations call for a variation in your partner choice, you'll find that this can get exceedingly expensive.

Stats & Expertise - Finally, we come to the art of numbers in electronic gaming. Imagine lets you distribute your stat points any way that you see fit, so you have full control over the growth of your character, as well as their strengths/weaknesses. You also can choose what expertise to level up, which paves the way for skills (both passives and actives). Expertise leveling up is time-consuming and sometimes a pain (for example, to learn healing skills you have to use healing items quite a number of times to level up the expertise), but every level feels rewarding as your character continues to become more defined.

While no character was truly perfect, there were so many variables that no two people were exactly the same. Even if their end result was similar, the path they took to get there was quite different. Sadly, screwing up badly enough was usually a death sentence for your character, as the ways to reset stats and skills were very limited.

(This is actually one of my screenies! Hooray!)

The meat of the game is composed in story quests, which yield the most exp, the best rewards, and are the primary way to establish your alignment. While sadly I have not played a story quest in a very long time, it wasn't nearly as lackluster as many MMOs and even had some heart-tugging moments involving a pixie near the beginning (how could I let her go with that adorable face?). The best part is that most of the story quests can be done with a party, so you could invite others to share in the experience and loot they they wouldn't be able to get just by going through the standard dungeons.

Demons level up just like Pokemon, and they gain new skills as they do so. While it'd be much too lengthy to explains all of the mechanics here, I can at least give a brief overview. If you befriend two demons, you can take them to the cathedral of Shadows and fuse them together, usually resulting in a stronger demon that has inherited a few skills of the original two, giving it an edge over the ones you'd normally find in the field. You can also level up your friendship with demons by leveling them up, using a specific item, or using the "Care" command ever 12 hours. If you use care while your partner is at max friendship, they will give you an item. It's usually a consumable (though a very useful one) but sometimes you can get a very nice consumable item that you can't find elsewhere, making it worth your time and effort to make your entire team love you. Try not to let them die though, as it decreases their friendship a bit.

Dungeons are another big aspect of the game, as it's where you will get the most delicious loot and fight alongside strangers or friends. In order to access the dungeon, you must first purchase a plate (the only really annoying aspect, as these could get costly later on) that corresponds to the difficulty that you desire. Bronze plates are "easy" mode (Level 10~25) Silver is "intermediate" (Level 25~50) and Gold is "Hard" (50+). Because this game is awesome though, any lowbie with highbie friends could sit back and soak up the exp from higher level players in a Gold instance, making the grind a little less... grind-y. The best loot is given when the boss takes their fall, and every player is rewarded their own special treasure chest. There were also some dungeons where you're under a time limit and control your demon partner only, but getting to party with people could sometimes be a hassle, as their partners had to be of the same family and high friendship to tag along.

One of the things I loved about running dungeons was that it was usually pretty easy to find a party, and the atmosphere was very relaxed. We all were very different in our builds, yet we worked together to take down hordes of enemies utilizing our skills and our partners' skills. In my entire experience through all difficulties of dungeons, I never once got called out for making a mistake. We all played our part and did our best, and sometimes the fight for survival could be incredibly intense.

I personally started playing sometime mid-2010, before completely wrecking my character, going on hiatus for a few months to focus on school, and then coming back early 2011. Not sure what made me want to come back, but I was interested in giving it a try once more. I buckled down, did some research, and made a solid plan so that I wouldn't completely destroy the new character I had created. She was a melee named Sanix. The melee class was simple and easy to understand, and after some rough stat setups, I eventually got comfortable and leveled her up. It took quite some time, but I proudly got her to level 65. She may not have had the best gear ever, but she was a solid melee with good attack and defense, and I had a blast playing with her.

Graphically speaking, SMT:IO isn't incredible (look how old it is) but it remains faithful to the SMT franchise with the character and demons models, as well as the locations. It always seems like it's nighttime, and the atmosphere that Imagine creates is hard to match, and will likely be the only game to do so effectively. The Kagutsuchi phase always there to remind you of the passage of time. Even the holy city Arcadia feels eerie and quiet with the blanket of stars overhead and the cathedral in the distance.

In conclusion... SMT:IO is just a great game with so many innovative ideas and freedom that it never gets old. Despite the extreme lack of updates and bugs in the game, the players never ran out of things to do, and continued playing very often. The community was a bit on the small side, but very receptive and welcoming to new players. It's truly a shame to see such a lovely community get denied time and time again by a greedy publisher and a company that had no intention of ever improving the NA experience of Megaten. I saw it leave Aeria, move to ATLUS Online (not to be confused with the Atlus that doesn't suck), and finally on to Marvelous USA's Online division. With the hint of new updates being released sometime this year, the abrupt announcement of MarvelousUSA's online dept. closure was a real shame, and ultimately, the game's conclusion.

Most saddening to me was a quote from a forum mod basically saying that they never saw it coming and that they were informed at the same time as the players. My heart does go out to those who only had a month to get new jobs and I really hope that they were able to find something before the cutoff date. I know that can't be easy. I also give my condolences to the Pandora Saga community, which although I knew not much about, was a game that saw its prime some time ago and surely had a great cluster of dedicated players.

I was happy that I learned just quick enough to log myself in for a short time before the servers went down. It was fun being silly in Shinjuku Babel for some mayhem one last time.

From Wikipedia: Unfortunately, on January 27th, 2014, Marvelous USA announced that it would be closing down as of February 28th, 2014, and that all of the titles it was responsible for hosting would be dropped. On February 28th, 2014 many players of Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine Online logged in to spend some time in the game for the last time before it closed at 5:00PM PST. [Link]


Resources:

http://megaten.sesshou.com/wiki/  -- The Wiki, hosted by Sesshou and preserved for all to take a gander at.

http://www.megatenonline.proboards.com/  -- The player-hosted forums, where players still gather and talk about the game, as well as give tutorials for those who wish to play the Japanese servers.

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/megaten/megaten4.htm  -- The hardcoregaming101 article that talks about the game when it first opened, worth a read (like many articles on hcg101).


As always, thanks for reading! If you played megaten, be sure to cherish your memories and experiences~