Shin Megami Tensei - Lucifer’s Call
Verdict: The apocalypse never looked so good
Platform: PS2
Rating: 4/5
Lucifer’s Call is the latest in a long line of Shin Megami Tensei (True Goddess Metempsychosis!?) games dating back to the Super Nintendo. Set in Tokyo, the entire population of the world is annihilated by a global catastrophe called the Conception and (paradoxically) the fate of the entire world lies on your shoulders as it’s saviour or destroyer.
This is a Japanese RPG (Role Playing Game for those not in the know) of the most comprehensive kind. Played in a very similar style to the grandiose Final Fantasy series, it’s a turn-based fighting, random battle encounters and standard levelling up affair but what sets it apart from being just another clone is a number of things. The levelling up system has the extra element of ‘Magatama’, symbiotes that can be consumed (physically through the eye!) and imbue the player with powers. You can switch between these, keeping powers you’ve learnt and gaining new ones, giving you greater flexibility. The random battle encounters, a standard (gripe) in this genre, can be too frequent and make certain sections gratingly long but they’ve included an auto attack feature to counter this. The main crux of the battle system is the ability to persuade the demons you fight to join your party and also fuse them with others to create different, more powerful ones (as well as them evolving on their own). It’s this that is the real meat of the game, giving it a Pokémon style ‘gotta catch em all’ edge as there are over 100 different demons to get. You can also choose between dark and light paths (always an issue of contention in our house), giving an extra sense of freedom (and maturity) to an often linear genre. But the first thing you’ll really notice about this game is the stunning anime styled graphics and animation that create a rich and imaginative world of comic book detail and character design. This stylisation can work against it though, alienating some players not accustomed to such eastern eccentricity.
On the whole, it treads familiar ground with some novel touches, deep gameplay and an artistic verve bereft of many western titles. What’s not to like?