#SMTiV

[katribou]

fwan 🍮

[breaknoon]

I had a play through of SMTIV where i had a high DEX Yurlungur with great guns skills, They would just gun everyone down. I'll never forget you!

[parasitoidism]

Did you know gaming?

In Shin Megami Tensei IV (2013) Jonathan sacrifices himself to the archangels to bring about a world where the word of god is law and all dissent is met with execution by massacring everyone living below the ceiling despite the fact he abhors suffering and injustice and cares deeply for others, and has severe misgivings about the cause he is giving his life for in the moment. This is because he is an idiot .

[duckpasta-kamonabe]

2020v vs 2024 quick sketch

(Beware of the 90s OVA pipeline!!!)

[clavtheft]

miscellaneous flan collection

[kexiu-0415]

smt!

[vinnigami]

November 18 2023

I finished SMTIV and this was my main takeaway really

[astrosexologist]

🧿 the great raven of the underground

[thishappenedinsmt]

[furinana]

The undertones behind Walter and Jonathan's relationship that you might not know about

I'll be calling attention to traits present in their dynamic that are unknown to most players in the West due to incomplete localization.

Now... where do we begin? Oh, right. In the part after you're done with Naraku and get to spend the holiday with the other two.

This scene is presented in almost the same way in both languages but Jonathan's reaction seems emphasized on a specific word in the Japanese script.

"T...t-t... that's crude, Walter. I would never... such a thing like that to women..."

In either case, if this ended at Jonathan's response, it would be mostly nothing worth commenting on. Jonathan is the Law representative raised by a family that worked in the Monastery so naturally he's gonna behave in a more chaste way, correct?

But then you have Walter's posture becoming uncomfortable followed by immediately changing subjects as if he's already in the know of what Jonathan was anxious about compared to the player (thus Flynn) being rather out of loop about what was going on.

The thing is... the meaning was actually already available for the players, even prior to SMTIV's release! That is, if you accessed the official website and clicked on the interviews with the Japanese voice actors (which included in-character voice clips). All of the translations presented in this post were done by takujilvr

"I'll only tell you this because it's you, all right? Only because it's you! I'm afraid I can't bring myself to like women very much. Being raised in a household with two elder sisters and one younger made me lose any illusions about them I might've had. You're a man, so I feel much more at ease with you."

Certainly, he doesn't seem to specifically refer to anyone in this clip. It could be Flynn or probably anyone else as long as they're a male.

But there are other voice clips aside this one that point towards a more definitive interpretation.

"Enough of that "Ooh, you'll catch cold!" drivel, Jonathan, you sound like a naggy old wife. I can't abide being constricted, this chest must stay bared!"

"S-Stop pulling my hair, Walter! It won't straighten out, I got it from my mother!"

They don't have voice clips directly acknowledging anyone else, leading to the impression that Walter and Jonathan were being more marketed as a duo over their dynamic with the main character.

But the shocking reveal comes with this one:

"I'll only say this if you promise not to tell anyone! Cats, I just love 'em. When I see one outside, I can't help but crouch down and give it some pets! Wait, no. I mean, listen, I can't stand fish. And they can take it off my hands, can't they? That's why I love cats. Right."

A player that reached the part where the party gets hit by Yaso Magatsuhi's scent in Roppongi will thus connect the dots:

How one interprets the twist of this scene might change entirely with the voice clip in mind. It opens the possibility that, differently from many players' assumptions, Jonathan was acting like a feline not because he's secretly a cat lover. But, most likely, due to WALTER liking them. And he would have no way of knowing that unless Walter told him off-screen.

To summarize...

Jonathan is unable to feel attraction for girls and feels more comfortable with guys which would be inevitably an obstacle for his future considering his conservative background

Walter has phobia of fish despite what his family does for trade and has a soft spot for cats specifically because they eat them for him which would be defined as a 'weakness' to his self-reliant image

1 and 2 are each most's intimate secret and they revealed them for each other

"But how much does this add to the main plot?" Even when pushing aside subtleties from this extra material, attentive Megaten veterans would notice that the Law & Chaos representatives from SMTIV have an explicitly close bond compared to most characters of opposing sides in other titles of the mainline series.

[Jonathan was the most visibly affected by their breakup]

This extra material essentially adds more to the range of interpretation regarding their intimacy while also making them more relatable beyond their surface of Law & Chaos pieces.

On this note, moments where they "crack" their own alignments also happen briefly in-game.

They were two boys of the same age that became instant close friends however became unable to conciliate the differences emphasized by their caste system and reach the understanding of what would be the best for everyone.

All of this leads to the player's realization that Jonathan and Walter ultimately didn't perfectly antagonize each other as humans but were "pushed" towards their extreme roles by ulterior forces that would subsequently be further exposed in the sequel.

[navarresimp]

It’s Joever We’re Flynnished

Also I finally quit my job today

[megidoreyn]

Hey there, samurai! Have you been holding off on playing SMT IV? Do you want to experience SMT IV in higher resolution to better appreciate the wonderful art and intricate + detailed worldbuilding within this game? Well, look no further! The SMT IV HD Textures Mod is in the works!🎉 ◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️ 【⭐What is the SMT IV HD Textures Mod?⭐】

This is a mod made for the sole purpose of completely "remastering" SMT IV's in-game textures by hand, which includes: the UI + text, backgrounds, character portraits and other visual assets by manually recreating them in higher resolution.

By applying this mod, anybody can experience the stunning HQ detail originally present within the game that was forever lost within the game's original stunted 244p quality. 【⭐How do you manually recreate smaller detailed assets like the Character Portraits?⭐】

In contrast to other HD Mods or Remakes out there using impractical methods to "upscale" character images, our team is dedicated to redrawing the original crunchy ~300px Character Portrait sprites within the game into higher resolution by hand ourselves (using the ~7000px Key Art as a base). And sometimes, we have to redraw certain sprites entirely from scratch!

➡️As one of the artists part of the team, I'm very passionate about getting those iconic "Doi style" elements that are present throughout his SMTIV art. Personally speaking, it's an honor and a learning experience to be a part of this project in being able to faithfully recreate his work with as much respect and care as possible. That being said: We're all basically doing the work that an entire dedicated team within a company would usually do, out of love for this game! And because we want to provide something meaningful for the megaten fandom, too. If you're interested, stay tuned for more information! And don't hesitate to spread the word, too! ◼️◼️◼️◼️���️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️ 【Feel free to follow the staff linked below for any updates on twitter!】 Please give lots of love to the staff! Your interest and commentary means a lot to our humble team + helps motivate us to keep going!💪 ⭐HD UI Redesign, HD Demon Scans and more⭐: 👾Vesk ⭐HD Character Portrait + HD Sprite Redraw Artists⭐: 👾Lamprey 👾Reyn - PS: I'll be posting some of my progress here on tumblr too! ➡️Twitter log of sprites I've finished so far + Works in Progress ◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️ 【Project promotional banner above and character portrait art credit within this entire post + the banner goes to myself (@megidoreyn on twitter and here on tumblr!)】

[parasitoidism]

He really is so funny this gay little thing drinking a 100 yen mystery sludge drink at a shithole bar in the demon infested hell world that exists underneath his house and he’s like excuse me sir.. a napkin? May I please have a napkin for my little samurai face… unbelievable. You drink the pissy shitty special and just wipe your chin off with your sleeve like everyone else in Tokyo. There’s 100 devils outside. Get real

[high-metafive]

'TIS DONE!!!

The first decoding of essentially ALL the text in SMTIV's (English localized) script has been released!! (FYI, as it is an M-rated game, do proceed with caution. Spoilers also, but you knew that.)

You can download the .txt files for offline reading OR you can just flip through them in the repository (or download the one BIG one and ctrl + f around). Either way, I hope this provides a good resource for fans of the game, writers/artists, or folks who just love info and want to know more.

Included as well is a program to decode SMTIV's .mbm files into .txt if you'd like to do it yourself.

Full creds to @affinity-for-beans for the programming and decoding- i.e. the important bit. All I did was help with context and write the README. And edit the silly image up top.

It's not perfect, of course, but I hope this text repository keeps the knowledge of this extremely underrated 3DS game alive.

Have fun!

[violentlydefending]

also idk if you're really kicking that much ass if you keep dying, so...