Order VS Chaos: Shin Megami Tensei

Order and Chaos. Two concepts that everyone knows and understands. We have to balance these two in order to have a peaceful society that's just common sense. But what if such a world vanishes, destroyed by nuclear weapons and that the people who remain try to carve a new way of living out of all the madness? What if they fought each other over their ideals to the death? What if the powers that be are very much real and very much aware but choose to do nothing?

That's the world of Shin Megami Tensei. A world where chaos and order stand on opposing sides and embody what they stand for to an absurd degree. And you're the kid with some weapons and a portable computer that can summon demons.

Did I forget to mention the demons? Well there's demons. Some are horrifying and some are adorable either way you're gonna need their help. Our main character can't fight demons with magic so he needs to recruit demons to help him out. This is the tricky part, everyone but you has picked a side.
If you stumble into a town on the verge of death and low on supplies you better pray you didn't walk into an opposing town. If you're lucky you'll be paying a lot for your expenses. But more likely is that you'll die walking around.

The point is choices mean everything. They shape your demon choices, they shape the fate of your friends and it even determines the ending.

If you decide to play the game devoted solely to order then God and his angels appear and unify the world under his might. Sounds like a happy ending right? Well you'd be wrong. God takes away the free will of everybody and starts a kingdom under his dictatorship.
Yeah since this is a Japanese game there's a lot less concern about depicting God in a negative light.
God isn't depicted as you'd expect he's a selfish and petty tyrant with nothing but contempt for the concept of free will. And he certainly doesn't look human.

But without order there is chaos, chaos is represented by Lucifer who's agenda is a lot harder to get. He makes it quite clear he hates his former master and is doing everything he can out of spite for him but at the same time he says that he'll never abandon humanity. If you go for the chaos ending then seems a little better everyone can think for themselves at least. But Lucifer makes it clear that some races just aren't cut out for survival in a world of chaos. The strong will live and rule and the weak will simply die.

So in short we've got two sides both ruled by otherworldly beings who's moral compass is pretty shattered. So our hero has another choice, fight back against both and lead the world into a new future free of God and Lucifer. Whether he does is of course entirely up to the player.
And that's the big question of the game: No one else knows or cares about the real problems in front of them so what can you do to fix things? And in that what makes you qualified to fight for the future apart from the fact you're the only person who can talk to demons consistently?

If you go for the path of neutrality things are a lot better than they could be. I won't say anymore because this is the canon ending and it teaches a pretty important lesson about humanity and what it can do if allowed to be by itself. And the risks it takes if left unchecked.

Shin Megami Tensei is 22 years old at this point and when it first came out it was consisted ground a breaking for its treatment of story, themes and interpretations of other cultures mythology it was something special. And them every one and their dog started copying it and doing it better.

The game was truly revolutionary in its treatment of the post-apocalypse, demons, morality and the like... and everybody in Japan proceeded to rip them right the hell off, from Neon Genesis Evangelion to Super Robot Wars to Soul Eater (the latter being a kind of Lighter and Softer Deconstructive Parody, that's how far we've come). Seeing what made the original game so unique can be somewhat harder in this day and age. The gameplay also suffers from this in a huge way - in 1992 the first-person dungeon crawling was relatively unique in execution. For anyone used to post-Quake 3D navigation or PS2-era and beyond user interfaces, though, the game will want to make you tear your eyes out in frustration over how clunky it is. The mapping feature itself requires you to open two menus alone.

If you want to experience the story that started it all it's actually available on iPhones in English for the first time ever. That 22 year wait paid off.