107retrostationQThe battle system is used in the Persona series. QYou can convince all the demons to join your party. QGlobal mythologies inspired the themes.L
et’s be honest, most RPGs
aren’t exactly profound.
Pretty young protagonists
working their way up
through the ranks to fight
a big bad is all well and
good, but most don’t plumb
the depths of human experience. Shin
Megami Tensei: Lucifer’s Call does – and
as it forces you to stare into the abyss,
it lets you know it’s staring right back.
Lucifer’s Call was the first Shin
Megami Tensei (or MegaTen) game to
release in Europe, introducing a new
continent of players to the brooding,
gothic aesthetic. It instantly gained
notoriety among RPG fanatics –
something Atlus had fully planned for.
The developer knew the West would
be hungry for a different kind of RPG:
something darker, something deeper,
something harder. The game, like the
rest of the MegaTen franchise, is known
for its difficulty. It’s frustratingly hardat times. Labyrinthine dungeons and
enemies placed to mess with your
abilities aside, Lucifer’s Call is a difficult
teenager of a game that sometimes
feels like it doesn’t want to be played.
But therein lies its charm. Once you
crack the code – figure out how to beat
the (in)famous Matador boss, say – the
rewards are palpable: ’80s-inspired
synthwave tracks kick in, new areas
built in this weird mix of biological
and geometric matter open up, and
powerful new monsters appear.
The game breadcrumbs you forward,
story beat by story beat, tempting you
in.Thedeveloperbuiltthistitletomimica ‘journey into hell’, taking inspiration
from The Divine Comedy and Apocalypse
Now. You play as an unnamed
protagonist who, in a nutshell, gets the
fate of the world placed in his hands. As
you travel through a version of Tokyo
that’s being held in stasis, awaiting the
judgment of God, you get to figure out
your alignment. Are you good or evil,
on the side of order or chaos? Do you
want to embrace what remains of your
humanity or explore the throbbing new
demonic urges that you’ve been given
by (you guessed it) Lucifer himself?IT’S YOUR CALL
Think of it as a big game of synthpunk
Dungeons & Dragons. You are the only
character in this messed-up world who
can influence how reality gets remade.
Sure, a few other humans survived,
and they’ve all got ideas of how the
rebirth should go (social Darwinism,
communism, isolationism, and more
are touched upon in this surprisingly
philosophical journey), but you’re the
one who can pull the trigger. The game
is all about choice. It never tells you
when an action or choice you make
‘flags’ the narrative. You never know
when you’ve done something that’ll
affect your final route, the bosses you
fight, the demons you can recruit.
At a time when your alternatives
were Final Fantasy X, Dragon Quest
VIII, and Kingdom Hearts II, Lucifer’s
Call made you feel in control. It let you
literally shape the world, and showed
you how deep and distressing a 3D
RPG could be. It was – and still is – a
benchmark for RPG storytelling, even if
it was criminally overlooked in its day.Every month we celebrate the most important,
innovative or just plain great games from
PlayStation’s past. This issue we look into the
apocalyptic world of one of the most criminally
underrated games on PlayStation 2...
The devil you know
Shin Megami
Tensei:
Lucifer’s Call
CLASSIC GAMETHINK OF IT LIKE
A BIG GAME OF
SYNTHPUNK DUNGEONS
& DRAGONS.