It is the outset of the 21st Century… Mankind continues to prosper, even though they have brought their planet to its ruin through pollution, overpopulation, war, poverty and crime. In the midst of all of these problems, mankind now faces a greater pressing concern, because in the middle of the South Pole an abyss of absolute darkness and destruction has appeared, quickly expanding and consuming everything along its path; The Land of Ruin… The “Schwarzwelt”
But mankind did not stagger. Clinging to hope, the United Nations forms the “Schwarzwelt Joint Project” which unites four elite teams of some of the best researchers, soldiers and scientists in the world outfitted with top of the line equipment and technology to send them to investigate this anomaly. As such, the investigation team heads towards the Scharzwelt, not knowing that what awaits in the Schwarzwelt will forever change their perspective on life.
The image of the Investigation team heading towards the Schwarzwelt is truly a great one, since it creates a sense of dread and expectation of what is to come throughout the rest of the game and what will be the outcome of this expedition. I think those expectations certainly did deliver on their promises.
I consider myself a fan of the Shin Megami Tensei series, what with its emphasis on mythologies from all over the world, moral philosophies and what is mankind’s place on the ongoing war between the ones from the heavens, and those from down below. Strange Journey takes a different spin on the core guidelines of the most common SMT games, but it never really strays far from the core essence and themes of each installment.
First off, Strange Journey does not take place in Tokyo or anywhere in Japan really. As described earlier, it takes place in Antartica, but that’s no reason to get acquainted with the familiarity of our own earth, because in reality, the Schwarzwelt is just twisted mirror of the harsh realities of the issues that human society faces. Issues like the perpetuation of War, the consequence of Luxury, Excess, Consumption and the accumulation of Waste.
The art direction in this game is admirable, each sector in Strange Journey is unique in the way it represents these issues through visual metaphors alone, not without the help of some preaching from the demons you find along the way, of course. The character and demon designs from Kazuma Kaneko deserve mention too, who represent their characters and mythological backgrounds without being too complex or bland, it is the perfect mix of simple and unique.
Another aspect worth mentioning is the soundtrack by Shoji Meguro, which provides each sector of the game with fitting atmosphere but only truly shines during its combat themes and leitmotifs, which make the Schwarzwelt Investigation mission feel like the epic, decisive ordeal that it truly is. It differs almost completely to the cyberpunk techno music of the earlier games, but in the best way possible, giving it a clear sense of identity.
In other SMT games you’re usually on the defense from an oncoming demon invasion, but in this case you’re the one invading their homeland. To protect yourself, you must rely on the “DEMOuntable Next Integrated Capability Armor” or DEMONICA which allows you to perceive and converse with demons. In order to survive, you must form alliances with these demons by recruiting them into your party, fusing them together to create stronger demons and using them in battle; organizing your party to gain the fullest advantage of them. Collecting and fusing demons to use in combat is extremely addictive, and one of this game’s greatest virtues thanks to the great diversity in demons designs and near infinite strategies that can be performed by combining their affinities and skills in combat against a much stronger foe.
Apart from this twist in gameplay, Strange Journey plays like any other turn-based, dungeon crawling RPG, where you explore areas in a first person perspective, fight random encounters and retreat to your hub to heal, manufacture items, upgrade yourself and travel to other areas. In a way, it plays a lot like a Metroid game, where the more you explore the world, the more abilities you unlock that will help you progress through the story and fight enemies easier, which keeps the player interested to see what new kind of abilities they can find in this world.
Although the battle system in Strange Journey may seem pedestrian, it has an added layer of complexity in the form of the Demon-Coop system and Alignments. In the game, each demon has a specific alignment which can be Law, Chaos or Neutral, just like the player character who can be aligned to either of these depending on the choices he makes throughout the game. If your alignment is the same as the one from any of the demons in your party, and you hit the elemental weakness of the enemy demon, both of you will perform a Demon-Coop attack for extra damage, which is essential to use during bosses. Keeping this in mind, the player must always be adjusting his team composition to hit as many weaknesses as possible and to have as many demons with the same alignment as the player, which adds yet another layer of strategic complexity to the already complex system of fusions and demon collection.
Alignments play an important part in the story and characters of Strange Journey too, because in a world of demons, its really hard for any of our characters to not to take a stance towards either side of the ongoing war, which makes them develop naturally as characters from simple mercenaries to uncaring angels of law or savage demons of chaos. Characters in Strange Journey are simple and easy to grasp at first, but their complexities show as they grow from the experience and align to a cause, yet they don’t become villainous but slowly more sympathetic or apathetic in a way that’s believable and makes their characters more complex individuals.
The start of Strange Journey is reminiscent of movies like Predator or Alien, where our characters go ahead just to carry out their mission, but the end result is more than they bargained for, as they are quickly hunted by overpowering beasts unlike anything they had seen before and end up scattered and lost on this unknown land. The tone of the early portions of Strange Journey helps hook the player in quickly with somewhat familiar issues like lack of fuel or being stranded in an unfamiliar place with no sign of escape as a way to ease them in to the later parts with the more hard hitting drama and philosophical conflict.
The rest of the story of Strange Journey carries on with a tone of pessimistic optimism, where our characters are constantly facing adversities which not only threaten their life, but mankind as well; yet no matter how many of these problems pile up, our heroes always find some way to get around them just barely while still maintaining hope of coming out on top by the time it’s all over; and the more demons and angels preach about the issues of mankind and our inevitable doom, they will eventually find a way learn from past mistakes and make right to old wrongdoings. This tone is only further emphasized by the grueling difficulty of the game, mostly in the later parts though.
Sadly, Strange Journey starts to lose a lot of steam on the later portions of the game, as certain character motivations start feeling rushed and the story keeps reusing certain plot devices as a way to develop some other characters; all while the dungeons have now lost a lot of creativity in their design and layout, even reusing entire assets from earlier parts of the game at one point.
The dungeon layouts are also very hit and miss. Certain areas of the game have rather unique layouts and visual designs that go hand in hand with one another and with the exploration mechanics of the level, but some others have rather random layouts with tons of annoyances that do no more than just frustrate the player, all while keeping them removed from the atmosphere because of the disconnect between visual design and map design, which don’t go hand in hand very well in these cases; but by the time you reach the end, the game picks up the pace and strengthens up it’s tone and gameplay to end on whichever satisfying note you chose when the time came to make the decision that would affect the outcome of mankind’s future.
I don’t know why I had put this game down for so long, since it is definitely one of the very best Nintendo DS RPG’s, if not one of the best DS games in general. Playing Strange Journey was an experience that felt fresh and new for the franchise, yet also reminded me of its best aspects and why I love it so much. It definitely deserves your time, and if you haven’t played any games from this franchise before, then please start with this one if you aren’t already planning to do so.
> The Main Mission Operation: Review Strange Journey has been completed.
AUTHOR'S NOTES
I can't believe its been so long since I last posted this review. I think it holds up well and my thoughts on the game haven't changed much, but the writing is definitely more simplistic than my later works. You can also tell that I had NO IDEA how to end my reviews. Its kinda embarassing to see the ending nowadays.