Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse

Setting

Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse takes place in the 203X, within the same setting as Shin Megami Tensei IV. Twenty-five years after the Neutral route, a devastating war was waged between the angels and the armies of Lucifer. To protect Tokyo from damage, a great rock dome was created. While it protected Tokyo, resources became progressively scarcer over the following years, while angels and demons ruled over the human population. The protagonist, a teenager, is killed while on a demon hunt; He is contacted in the afterlife by the demon Dagda, who offers to restore the protagonist to life in exchange for becoming his "GodSlayer". When returned to life, he is manipulated by Dagda and Odin into freeing Krishna from a prison made by YHVH, who forms an alliance of various polytheistic deities called the Divine Powers, for the claimed purpose of saving humanity and opposing Merkabah and Lucifer. The storyline follows from the beginning of the previous game's Neutral route: main protagonist Flynn and his companion Isabeau have chosen to ally with the people of Tokyo, while Flynn's former companions Jonathan and Walter have respectively become the hosts for Merkabah, leader of God's angelic forces, and Lucifer, ruler of the demon hordes. The storyline does not follow the previous game's three-tiered moral alignment system. There are multiple endings, but none are explicitly Law or Chaos; instead, they are all Neutral to some degree.

Plot

In post-apocalyptic Tokyo in the year 203X, a Hunter cadet, whose default name is Nanashi, is killed by demons on a routine supply run. In the afterlife, a demon named Dagda offers to resurrect him in exchange for his service as his Godslayer. Shortly afterward, the revived Nanashi and his childhood friend Asahi are manipulated into unsealing Krishna, a malevolent deity who intends to destroy the universe and recreate it in his own image whether humanity desires it or not. Krishna takes Asahi hostage in order to force Flynn, the liberator of Tokyo, to surrender to him. Krishna intends to force Flynn to become his own Godslayer in order to make his dream a reality. He also unleashes the monstrous serpent Shesha to begin harvesting human souls for his plans. Nanashi and Asahi set out to defeat Krishna and Shesha and fix their mistake. Along the way, they recruit several companions: Navarre, the ghost of a deceased Samurai; Nozomi, a Hunter who has been granted the power of Dagda's mother Danu to become the queen of the fairies; Hallelujah, a young man who works for the Ashura-Kai; Gaston, Navarre's younger brother and the captain of an elite squad of Samurai known as the Crusaders; Toki, an assassin for the Ring of Gaea; and Isabeau, Flynn's comrade and primary ally. They also receive guidance from Stephen, a mysterious ally in a wheelchair. Together, the group defeats Shesha, infiltrates Krishna's base in Tsukiji Konganji, defeats Krishna, and rescues Flynn. The party then sets out to defeat Merkabah and his angels and Lucifer and his demons. Nanashi has the option of siding with Merkabah, in which case Tokyo is destroyed and a kingdom of God is established in Mikado. He may also side with Lucifer, in which case Mikado is burned to the ground and the world descends into anarchy. In either case, Flynn leaves and remains at large. If Nanashi remains on humanity's side, a massive three-way battle ensues, Lucifer and Merkabah are killed, and humanity emerges victorious. During the celebration afterwards, Flynn murders the surviving Hunters. He reveals himself to be Shesha, reincarnated in Flynn's form, and explains that Krishna faked his own defeat and used Shesha to manipulate the Hunters into getting rid of the angels and demons; the real Flynn remains in Krishna's clutches. Shesha murders Asahi and transforms into the Cosmic Egg, a giant object that will hatch into Krishna's new universe when the full moon rises. The party storms the Cosmic Egg to defeat Krishna and his Divine Powers once and for all. Inside the Egg, Dagda reveals his plan to hijack the Cosmic Egg and create his own universe where all humans are completely independent from one another, and demands Nanashi's aid in his plan. Danu opposes him, and wants Nanashi to destroy the Egg. If Nanashi rebels against Dagda, Danu revive Dagda's true good side who is in line with their ideals, and Nanashi kills Dagda's dark side. The true Dagda then resurrects all of Shesha's victims, including Asahi. If Nanashi sides with Dagda, his friends turn against him, and he is forced to kill them all. In either case, Nanashi then makes his way to the heart of the egg, where Krishna and Flynn are. Krishna forcibly fuses with Flynn to become Vishnu-Flynn and battles Nanashi, but he defeats him and separates the two.

If Nanashi sided with his friends, Flynn finishes Krishna off. Nanashi then destroys the heart of the egg, ending Krishna's plans for good. As the group begins to celebrate, Stephen appears and reveals that there is one more enemy standing between humanity and true freedom: YHVH, the creator god. Stephen opens a portal to YHVH's universe, and Nanashi and Flynn invade his realm. They undergo a trial from YHVH's second-in-command Satan, and are deemed worthy to confront YHVH. Satan temporarily resurrects Flynn's old friends Walter and Jonathan to aid them, and the group battles and destroys YHVH once and for all. Afterwards, humanity is finally freed from the gods and a new peace is forged by Tokyo, Mikado, and the demons.

If Nanashi sided with Dagda, Flynn is killed in the battle and Nanashi executes Krishna. The Cosmic Egg hatches into Dagda's new universe, and he appoints Nanashi as its new Creator. Afterwards, Stephen appears and explains that the new universe cannot fully come to fruition until YHVH is killed and the old universe destroyed. Dagda resurrects Flynn and a companion of Nanashi's choice to be brainwashed into serving as his Godslayer and Goddess, respectively. After wiping out the remaining Hunters, Nanashi invades YHVH's universe and kills Him. The old universe dies and is reborn as a new universe where humans are free from all outside influence, and Dagda fades away, leaving Nanashi to rule his new creation.

Development

Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse was born out of discussions about what Team Maniacs, the makers of Shin Megami Tensei IV, could do that was characteristic of their team. Ultimately, they decided that they wanted to make a completely new title as opposed to an upgraded re-release: as they wanted the game to "make everything clear", they added the word "Final" to the title. Production on the title began after development ended for Shin Megami Tensei IV in 2013. As part of their development, the team looked at player feedback for the game to improve and refine some aspects while keeping others. Their goal was to make "the number one RPG on the 3DS". Multiple staff from the original game returned, including producer Kazuyuki Yamai and character designer Masayuki Doi. Satoshi Ohyama, who had worked on Shin Megami Tensei IV as main programmer, was assigned as director. The story's main themes are making or breaking bonds with others, and the advent of "inevitable reality", with a key word in the story being "deicide". An element of the story was the idea of deities from polytheistic deity factions fighting back against being subsumed by the monotheistic Abrahamic deities. The game's world and basic scenario were created by Kazuma Kaneko, while the script was written by Yusuke Miyata.

Demon designs from the previous game were refined, including the characters Medusa, Merkabah and Lucifer. Doi designed the deity figures based on the traditions surrounding them in their native mythologies. The coloration of polytheistic deities was likewise influenced by beliefs surrounding colors from their native lands. The human forms of Merkabah and Lucifer were based around the idea of the monotheistic factions drawing power from human faith. The game's main protagonist was originally designed to be much older, with his adult design carrying over into one of the game's non-playable characters. Instead, the protagonist was made into a teenager so as to better relate the game's themes. Tying into the game's themes is the fact that the main protagonist comes from a far lower-class, less elite force than the protagonist of Shin Megami Tensei IV. The music was handled by composer Ryota Koduka, who had previously worked as composer for Shin Megami Tensei IV. He worked on Apocalypse alongside his work arranging tracks for Persona 4: Dancing All Night. At the time of the game's announcement in October 2015, development was approximately 90% complete.

Promotion and release

The game was first teased through the main website for Shin Megami Tensei IV: when a specific hashtag had been forwarded through Twitter 15,000 times, a rocky surface hiding the title would break and reveal its secret. The game was eventually revealed on October 5, 2015. The game was released for the Nintendo 3DS in Japan on February 10, 2016, and in North America on September 20, 2016. It was also released in the PAL region by Deep Silver, on December 2, 2016 in Europe and on December 9 in Australia. North American pre-orders and launch day copies included a set of three metal emblem pins in the forms of a peace symbol, an anarchy symbol, and Dagda's mark.

For its Western release, the subtitle was changed from "Final" to "Apocalypse". The localization team's main task in this respect, once they had Atlus' permission to make necessary alterations, was to create a name that would give the same implications as the Japanese title while being easier for Western players to understand. Among the titles that needed to be turned down were "End War" due to copyright issues and "Holy War" due to potential backlash. As an "A" symbol was incorporated into the logo, they decided on a word beginning with A. The title "Apocalypse" was reached after much discussion. For about two weeks during this process, the team considered dropping the game's numeral as had been done with Nocturne.

Reception

Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse was the highest selling game in Japan during its debut week, with 96,349 copies sold. These sales figures were approximately half of the debut sales for Shin Megami Tensei IV, and it was noted to be a very strong performance for a non-numerical Shin Megami Tensei game.