History VideoGame / ShinMegamiTenseiIV

* VendorTrash:
** Your primary means of income (outside of using certain talk skills on demons). Gathering "relics" and selling them at stores is how you make cash. Relics can be anything; semiprecious stones, commonplace technological junk like computer mice or compact discs, or furniture like chairs and desks. The item description for the various modern items is of some confused primitive trying to make sense of them, amusingly. (Mice are thought to perhaps be a small storage box for jewelry, and they think that [=CDs=] are strange mirrors.)
** The demon meat healing items restore so little HP that using them to recover is nearly worthless. However, they fetch for a lot of Macca when sold. Additionally, a wandering Hunter found across Tokyo's rooftops will buy some off you for several times its original market value if you're willing to track him down and give him exactly what he wants.

* AdultFear:
** [[spoiler:Hariti has her son Priyankara kidnapped and she has no idea what happened to him. Thankfully Flynn can save the boy and reunite mother and son.]]
** [[spoiler:Parents sending their children to Roppongi Hills when the Ashura-kai promise their children will have a future. They don't mention what that [[HumanResources future will be]]. One mother even breaks down once the war starts since she sent her son there recently believing they could take care of him better than her.]]

** Mido, the fusion app, is completely based on the Cathedral of Shadows fusion master from ''I'', ''II'', and especially ''Nocturne'', complete with certain BGMs that play while in this app.

* IAteWhat: The food and drink they sell in the bars ''does'' heal the party, but some of the characters are wary of the contents.
-->'''Burroughs''': Did it just... move?
** Occasionally, Isabeau and Walter avert this; the former will express her pickiness about specific details of what she's eating (implying that she otherwise enjoys it), and Walter will outright enjoy his meal.
** In an endgame EasterEgg, should you visit the bars on the Law or Chaos routes, even [[spoiler:[[EldritchAbomination Merkabah and Lucifer]]]] [[UpToEleven will be horrified by the food]].

* NamedAfterTheInjury: One of the higher-ranking members of the Hunter Association is called Skins, because he looks like his face once fell off and they had to staple it back in place. A flashback shows that he was initially annoyed with the nickname but it grew on him. We never find out his actual name.

** The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCXs0lFDrS4 Hunter Tournament]] music is a remix of the theme of Ginza from ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiI''

** [[spoiler: A young girl appears at the beginning of the game and asks for someone to revive her. She appears briefly through the story.]]

You are chosen to become a Samurai, and learn a truth kept hidden from the general population: that beneath Mikado lies Naraku, a realm of demons which the Samurai are tasked with suppressing. Yet when a mysterious [[BlackKnight Samurai in black armour]] begins to spread demonic influence beyond the borders of Naraku, the Samurai are at a loss. That is until the Monastery- a religious order of researchers and the most influential faction within Mikado- step in. Convinced that the answers lie within Naraku (and hungering for the "ancient relics" buried within), the Monastery order the Samurai to travel to the deepest and most forbidden levels of Naraku in search of the "Black Samurai". With the most senior Samurai refusing to break their code, it's up to you and and your fellow Samurai apprentices to lead the exploration and discover the secret kept hidden at the lowest level of Naraku... a secret that reveals this is but the beginning of your adventure.

The game uses a blend of old and new ''[=MegaTen=]'', with field exploration in 3D, a la ''[[VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne Nocturne]]'', but battles in first person 2D with animated sprites, a la ''[[VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney Strange Journey]]''. ''SMT IV'' also reuses the Press Turn system from ''Nocturne'', where weaknesses can be exploited for extra turns, and the PreExistingEncounters system from ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'', where enemies can be seen on the field and hit for advantages in battle. However, there are also battles against special "Horde" enemies, which appear as large crowds of enemies. There is also the Smirk system. When performing certain actions in battle (like [[NoSell nullifying attacks]]), a character will smirk, which guarantees the next attack move to be incredibly powerful.

* AdvertisedExtra: Navarre and Commander Hope. The former features prominently with the main characters in much of the promotional material, but he's actually just an obnoxious StarterVillain who has no mandatory appearances following the first arc (though he does become an AscendedExtra in [[VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIVApocalypse the sequel]]). The latter has an appearance, [[KnightInShiningArmor personality]], and [[SupportingLeader job title]] worthy of a BigGood, but in reality he's a puppet of the corrupt Monastery (and depressingly aware of it), and by the time you reach Tokyo and start meeting the people ''really'' in the know about the plot he's a total nonentity.

* AssistCharacter: Jonathan, Walter and Isabeau all function as a assist characters; one of them will almost always be present during a battle and will occasionally chuck in attack spells or healing to help you. Once in a while the enemy will target them instead of your party, too.

** The Demon Enhancer apps can fall into this. With all five of them, all your demons effectively earn double the stat boosts, except they're all spread across each stat, including their dump stat. Despite that, it allows lower level demons to become monsters when trained to high levels, likely having higher stats than most high level demons, to boot. The impractical bit? Low level demons for the most part don't exactly have strong moves, which you will need to fuse onto them, and their exp requirement per level is a lot higher than that of demons that start higher, meaning they take a lot more effort to get where you want them.

** The Fiends, which barring [[spoiler:the Neutral exclusive Red Rider, the Law/Neutral exclusive Trumpeter, and the Chaos exclusive Mother Harlot]], are available in all routes after the alignment lock. They (excepting David, Plasma and Mother Harlot) have a spawn rate of 1 in 256 odds, only appear in a specific spot of a specific map, have at least 5 press turns (Chemtrail has '''6'''), are harder than the {{Final Boss}}es for the most part, will spam Almighty attacks like nobody's business [[ArtificialBrilliance if you fully protect yourself from their main offensive moves,]] and drop very good rewards. The four Riders can also be fought at once in a quest in [[spoiler:Infernal Tokyo]], but they are all ''heavily'' toned down and can be defeated even with a party that isn't prepped for the {{Final Boss}}es.

** In the beginning of the game, the protagonist, Jonathan, and Walter goes up the battlement to see the Kingdom of Mikado in its magnificence. [[spoiler:In the Chaos ending, he and Lucifer (under the appearance of Hikaru) are on the same battlement to watch Mikado burn.]]

** Downplayed with HP and MP. In a rarity for the ''Shin Megami Tensei'' franchise, the maximum HP and MP for you and your demons can exceed 999. However, HP and MP scales remain similar to past games, so seeing four-digit HP on your characters is very rare (generally, only physical-based demons near level 99 will be able to touch it) unless you use Doping (a skill to boost HP capacity), and an MP capacity of over 999 is even more rare.

** Mido, the fusion app, is completely based off of the Cathedral of Shadows fusion master from ''I'', ''II'', and especially ''Nocturne'', complete with certain BGMs that play while in this app.

** Bosses are arbitrarily unwilling to talk if you try Scout or Negotiate. Otherwise bosses would be trivial to defeat by either making them go away or join you (although boss demons become available for fusion upon defeat). Every other chat skill works just fine though (unless they're also a human or horde, who won't listen to ''anything'').

* CultureChopSuey: East Mikado is based off of feudal Japan but has Western architecture and the characters have non-Japanese names. [[spoiler:The actual history of Mikado explains ''exactly'' why this has happened.]]

** Impact based attacks knock the enemy into the background.

* GenreShift: Subverted, as while the Middle Ages/Renaissance Kingdom of Mikado at first glance makes it appear that ''SMT IV'' is going into the realm of a fantasy JRPG akin to ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'' or some ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' titles, essentially going in the opposite direction of the previously released ''Strange Journey'' and it's MilitaryScienceFiction setting, it's soon revealed that the {{Cyberpunk}} Post-Apocalyptic Tokyo still exists as an underground civilization, returning ''SMT IV'' to its mainline trappings. The soundtrack itself does this through the game, going from old European style fantasy tunes in Mikado to Synth and Rock in {{Cyberpunk}} Tokyo.

** All of the Fiends in this game are, unlike ''Nocturne'', not plot important at all. Two (David and Mother Harlot) are found in Challenge Quests, one (Plasma) is found in DLC, and the other seven are [[GuideDangIt randomly found in specific areas of specific maps with 1/256 odds]]. Six of those seven are series staples, including Matador, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and Trumpeter. The seventh, however, is the Space Flea to end all space Fleas. It's [[spoiler:''a Chemtrail''. Yes, it's a demon that embodies the theory that the streams airplanes create are part of a conspiracy.]]

* GreyAndGrayMorality: All three sides have positives and negatives. Even the Bad End [[spoiler:is treated as final act of desperation against the ViciousCycle of YHVH's system.]]

** Finally manage to get on the Neutral path? Have fun dealing with the 19 required sidequests to proceed! While some of them are obvious, others are not so much. Some aren't even in the pub, requiring you to find mostly out of the way generic humans to accept a quest for! If it's any consolation, only the human-issued quests and Nozomi-related quests are necessary to complete, and none of them require you to fight the level 90 {{Bonus Boss}}es.

* HateSink: Tayama. He's [[BigBadWannabe not the main villain]], he probably doesn't even know what the actual main villains are up to, but he's the only major antagonist not to be portrayed as [[VillainHasAPoint having any sort of point]] other than pure selfish powerlust (and [[spoiler: that less humans have been eaten by demons]], which still isn't enough), and the Law, Chaos, and Neutral factions all agree he's the vilest being in Tokyo. Fans tend to concur.

* TheHorde: Hordes are unique battles where a large pack of enemies appear on screen that count as a single unit. They have multiple turns and doing damage causes the numbers to dwindle as the battle goes on and several are mini bosses. The upside is that, despite counting as one unit, hordes take damage multiple times from "multi-target" spells, so one good Mazan can blast half of them away.

** Occasionally, Isabeau and Walter avert this; the former will expresses her pickiness about specific details of what she's eating (implying that she otherwise enjoys it), and Walter will outright enjoy his meal.

* ImAHumanitarian: [[spoiler: A whole group of regular humans is found guilty of this at the end of the quest ''Mysterious Story of Tennozu''. At first you hear about how weird that a shelter in an area warded off by the Ashura-kai, without any way of sustenance, has food for its dwellers despite all odds. A woman from this place [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial forcefully]] tells you it's [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial just]] beef. Which is even more odd considering Tokyo's inability to raise cattle since two and a half decades ago, as pointed out by two outsider hunters stationed in there. By the end of the quest they finally admit [[HumanSacrifice from where the "cows" came from]]. All under the watchful eye of a demon lord and your former king!]]

** An in-universe, as well as possibly an out of universe, one is when the four are [[spoiler: trying to find the Black Samurai]] the come along a room and find [[spoiler: her Demonica starting right at them. Fortunately though it is just a spare suit inside a glass case]]. This startles Walter as well.

* MirroringFactions: The leaders of the angels and demons, on the Neutral route wind up looking a lot alike. Both have [[spoiler: established super-Domains in significant locations, combined with one of your friends get a power boost, both blame Isabeau's death on a outside force (the Angels/Tokyo) rather than it being because of their their own actions, taunt you in their voice, ask nearly-identical questions with the same responses, and when you put them down bother Merkabah and Lucifer ''scream'' disbelief at their defeat by mere humans, only to get eerily calm and inform you that humans are too weak to live without them, and it won't be long until they return]].

* MundaneObjectAmazement: Any "relic" found within Naraku are actually modern day mundane objects, and therefore worth a lot of money. Some of the objects are understandably confusing, like computer parts and other gadgets, more technological-based leisure items, documents, cosmetics, certain medicines, and certain food items. The appraisal descriptions for anything more modern are pretty amusing.

* NoSell: In [[spoiler:Purgatorium]], the final dungeon of the Chaos route and the penultimate dungeon of the Neutral route, [[spoiler:conversation skills do not work, as the demons there are selectively deaf to those who did not "pledge allegience to God", you included. You can only use them the demons the Terminal Guardian summons at the Purgatorium Terminal, who aren't part of God's forces, and Merkabah does allow you to talk to him but only during the two times when he asks you a question.]]

** [[spoiler: In the Ancient of Days DLC, YHVH sends a avatar of himself, Ancient of Days, to continue his goal since Pluto failed.]]

* OrderVersusChaos: Tokyo has been split between the Lawful Ashura-Kai, which negotiates with demons to establish order, and the Chaotic Ring of Gaea, which wants all out war with the creatures. This is a funky reversal of how things usually go with regards to Order/Chaos, where usually "Chaos" is collaborating with demons to gain their power and "Order" is the ones looking to eradicate them.

* RocketTagGameplay: There's no defensive stat any more, and armors only give you a pittance of new hit points. When things go bad, they tend to go bad ''fast''. So the gameplay revolves around either utterly annihilating the enemy in as few turns as possible or dying to them on the first round.

** The entire pre-Tokyo arc borrows heavily from the Literature/BookOfGenesis: Mikado is essentially Eden, with its people living in peaceful harmony. The Black Samurai is a stand-in for the Snake, tantilizing humanity with the temptation of forbidden knowledge. As the people acquire this knowledge, they gain awareness of their situation and their trust in the status quo and God vanish. In fact, the Black Samurai outright cites Genesis [[spoiler:during her execution]], with the quote at the top of the page.

* SummoningRitual: Three are quests that can be done on NewGamePlus. [[spoiler: The first is involves the revival of Astaroth, where Minako along with the aid of others is attempting to, and succeed, in summoning him. The second involves a quest in Infernal Tokyo where Master Therion has a orgy/Sabbath between Demonoids and Neurishers to summon Mother Harlot, but only ends up summoning her in a alternate Tokyo due to Flynn interfering. The third happens upon Jonathan's route and requires that Flynn slay Morax, Tokisada, Chimera, and Gryphon. Their collective heads are to be sacrificed in order to summon Seraph.]]

** The game's cover makes it clear that Walter eventually sides with Chaos and Jonathan with Law, though a savvy player should be able to tell at a glance who represents what. Walter looks like a rebel and Jonathan looks very prim and proper. The game will also make it ''extremely clear'' which is which within the first half hour, mostly with what they appear to say in your dreams.

* UrbanFantasy: Much of the game takes place in modern day Tokyo, but involves demons, angels and [[spoiler:alternate worlds]].

The game was released on May 23, 2013 in Japan and was released on July 16, 2013 in North America - notably, one of the shortest turnaround times in franchise history for the export market. Unfortunately getting it to Europe took a bit longer- it was finally announced for a (download-only) release on October 30th 2014.

* BrokenAesop: The White trying to convince the hero to flip the table would be a pretty devastating, self-aware critique on just how [[CrapsackWorld Crapsack]] the SMT-verse is, and how it indeed can cause a case of a bleak world with no optimistic outcome. However, their methods of trying to convey this message kind of fall flat: the [[spoiler: [[BadFuture Bad Futures]] they send you to not only have genuinely likable characters, but they're arguably only marginally worse than the present, and by the end of both you're made them better places by putting the [[NiceGuy Akiras]] in charge. On the other hand, both worlds represent the logical end to the machinations of Law and Chaos, and both are just as bad as the other for different reasons.]] Then again, it could be an in-verse case of AccidentalAesop; no matter how bad things seem to be, [[WorldHalfFull there's always a way of making it ever so slightly better.]] Burroughs herself will [[spoiler:comment on how screwed up the White is, so it doesn't seem like the player is expected to find their arguments compelling, to say the least.]]

* BrokenAesop: The White trying to convince the hero to flip the table would be a pretty devastating, self-aware critique on just how [[CrapsackWorld Crapsack]] the SMT-verse is, and how it indeed can cause a case of TooBleakStoppedCaring. However, their methods of trying to convey this message kind of fall flat: the [[spoiler: [[BadFuture Bad Futures]] they send you to not only have genuinely likable characters, but they're arguably only marginally worse than the present, and by the end of both you're made them better places by putting the [[NiceGuy Akiras]] in charge. On the other hand, both worlds represent the logical end to the machinations of Law and Chaos, and both are just as bad as the other for different reasons.]] Then again, it could be an in-verse case of AccidentalAesop; no matter how bad things seem to be, [[WorldHalfFull there's always a way of making it ever so slightly better.]] Burroughs herself will [[spoiler:comment on how screwed up the White is, so it doesn't seem like the player is expected to find their arguments compelling, to say the least.]]

* HeroicMime: The Protagonist is [[GrandfatherClause still mostly unvoiced]], even though everyone else now is.
** He will, however, occasionally say something when entering a fight or pausing the game.
** This gets lampshaded early on in a conversation in K's Bar. One patron mentions that Isabeau and Jonathan keeps quiet, and you're even quieter, scarcely saying a word.

* AugmentedReality: The gauntlet displays icons over interactable objects and doors in the game using holograms. There are even some Challenge Missions that take place entirely in the Gauntlet's VR.
* AlienGeometries:
** The Tsujiki Hongwanji temple of the Ring of Gaea is a maze of doors that teleport you all over the place.
** The angels' stronghold of [[spoiler:Purgatorium consists of an entire pocket dimension filled with cathedrals hewn from floating rocks, pillars of light that pull you from the floor and to the ceiling (reversing your minimap in the process,) and walkways that don't even exist until you step on them]].
** Its demonic counterpart, [[spoiler:Lucifer Palace, uses teleporters to generate the Hall of Eternity, from which only the most observant can escape]].
** Sufficiently strong demons can make "Domains", dimensional distortions covered in [[BloodyBowelsOfHell pulsing tendrils that shimmer with power]]. Your minimap doesn't even work in most of these, making them seem even more maze-like. They're also BiggerOnTheInside.

* AttackOfThe50FootWhatever: [[spoiler:Masakado's Shadow]]

* NotSoDifferent: The Ashura-kai and the Ring of Gaea, according to one NPC. He observes that Tayama wanted people to use Reds to co-exist with the demons, and Yuriko wanted those humans strong enough to manage it to live with the demons.
** The leaders of the angels and demons, on the Neutral route wind up looking a lot alike. Both have [[spoiler: established super-Domains in significant locations, combined with one of your friends get a power boost, both blame Isabeau's death on a outside force (the Angels/Tokyo) rather than it being because of their their own actions, taunt you in their voice, ask nearly-identical questions with the same responses, and when you put them down bother Merkabah and Lucifer ''scream'' disbelief at their defeat by mere humans, only to get eerily calm and inform you that humans are too weak to live without them, and it won't be long until they return]].
** There's also the matter of the the two DLC [[BonusBoss Bonus Bosses]] for [[spoiler: Blasted and Infernal Tokyo. While their ''motivations'' are pretty far apart--the Ancient of Days is trying to finish cleaning the world out to make room for God's chosen, and Sanat's just a BloodKnight nonpareil who's looking to see if the seeds of chaos he sowed ''well'' before humanity evolved have ripened to his liking--the entities they're ''based on'' are apparently regarded in scholarship as related to each other. Now consider their race names--"Godly" for the Ancient, which in this series typically means "Law King", and "Chaos King" (contracted to "Chaos" in the English version) for Sanat. The "kings" of the two sides would be regarded by some scholars as ''the same entity''. Sanat, depending on your answer to his taunt, might even remark the "true war" is fought against the "dispensation of the universe", a phrase the Ancient often repeats at the beginning of his fight.]] It's enough to make you wonder if Atlus is trying to say in this game that Law and Chaos are ultimately just negative images of each other, rather than genuinely dissimilar.
*** As of ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIVApocalypse'' this is [[spoiler: completely confirmed - Merkabah and this version of Lucifer are merely two halves of Satan - YHVH's [[TheDragon Dragon]], and the entire Law/Chaos conflict is a two-man con.]]

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: InUniverse, [[spoiler: the White attempt to invoke this with Flynn by taking him to Blasted and Infernal Tokyo, the alternate worlds that would have come to pass had his previous life chosen those paths. The White want him most of all to realize that no matter which option is chosen, eventually people will try to seek that which was lost: in Blasted Tokyo, Akira says he does not mind the Reactor opening a gate to the Expanse, as the survivors will be able to seize control of the demons to lead into a world of joyful chaos. In Infernal Tokyo, just after Kenji's dead, Akira starts organizing the Neurishers and rationing their use, establishing the foundations of an ordered society. On a meta level, this is done to elicit support for the White and their plan to blow up the Reactor, destroying the universe (if not multiverse) for good.]]

* BrokenAesop: The White trying to convince the hero to flip the table would be a pretty devastating, self-aware critique on just how [[CrapsackWorld Crapsack]] the SMT-verse is, and how it indeed can cause DarknessInducedAudienceApathy. However, their methods of trying to convey this message kind of fall flat: the [[spoiler: [[BadFuture Bad Futures]] they send you to not only have genuinely likable characters, but they're arguably only marginally worse than the present, and by the end of both you're made them better places by putting the [[NiceGuy Akiras]] in charge. On the other hand, both worlds represent the logical end to the machinations of Law and Chaos, and both are just as bad as the other for different reasons.]] Then again, it could be an in-verse case of AccidentalAesop; no matter how bad things seem to be, [[WorldHalfFull there's always a way of making it ever so slightly better.]] Burroughs herself will [[spoiler:comment on how screwed up the White is, so it doesn't seem like the player is expected to find their arguments compelling, to say the least.]]

* ViolationOfCommonSense: You have to actually be leaning a bit towards Law or Chaos (2 points or more in either direction) to be able to get the Neutral ending. If you are ''perfectly'' Neutral or 1 point off from it, the final alignment-affecting question will swing you towards Law or Chaos because it's worth so many alignment points, and there is no option that will keep your alignment score within the Neutral margin.

* MeaningfulName: Hikaru can mean "light" in Japanese [[spoiler:hinting at her true identity as Lucifer, "the bringer of light".]]

* PoorCommunicationKills: A fair amount of grief could've been averted if [[spoiler:Koga Saburo explained to the samurai why Tayama is bad for Tokyo, or if the Ashura-Kai goon (or the demons that appear in front of the cages) guarding the three captive archangels told the samurai ''why'' they're locked up, rather than immediately fighting the samurai and dying (Well, [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg the goon]] [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere just runs away]]).]]
-->Asmodeus notes that explaining the situation within earshot of [[spoiler:the archangels ruin their plan, implying that the angels even just remembering who they are and what power they have would allow them to break out of the cages.]]

** The Minotaur fight can go one of two very different ways based on which ally is chosen to fight with you. If you get Jonathan or Isabeau, Minotaur is a challenging but fair fight for how early he is in the game. However, if you get Walter, it may or may not become unwinnable, as Walter will happily ''repeatedly'' use spells that Minotaur is immune to, which on top of doing no damage will cause Minotaur to smirk, allowing him to heavily damage the party. If you get Walter in the fight, your best bet may just be to restart until you get someone else.