As 2023 folded into 2024 I sat thinking about what new experiences I could have that I've missed out on and then uh I suddenly was like "wow I want to replay Shin Megami Tensei 1" so here I am and I finally played through the GBA port that fans graciously worked to have the only official script the game has had so far from Atlus and I put this on my 3DS of all systems just to add onto this.

Shin Megami Tensei 1 is the most influential video game I have played so far in my life as someone who likes to make games to be quite honest, back when I got into the series I initially started the SNES version of this game after years of wanting to play it (and the iphone version) when I was 15 but I was too much of a anti-fun baby to sit down and just get all the stuff set up. After playing this game I immediately made my own game that took a bunch of ideas from this one to the point that I'd say it's a clone, my imagination was just blown wide open by how this game combined horror and dungeon crawling beautifully and 5 years later I'm still in love with it frankly.

The best way I can describe what makes this game good is that it's a JRPG set in a metropolitan setting, buildings and traversing the city and world itself are confusing and you could very well end up being stuck down a winding path that could kill you if you take a bad turn. Shin Megami Tensei is a game that thrives in a Super Famicom-era sense of maturity with not only this very realistic setting but also an almost David Lynch-esc obsession with creating a dream-like situation blended with very apparent Akira and Devilman elements. I haven't really played a lot of PC games but looking at those games at the time and playing even a bit of Wizardry, what I can say is rather than Dragon Quest being simplification for home consoles of a dainty adventure in a mystical world Shin Megami Tensei takes very direct RPG elements and weirdo PC gameplay ideas for the home console (or in this case now ported to portable) experience.
That being said the weakest aspect of this true RPG by the numbers design comes down to alignments, a system determining which specific faction in the game you side with which can determine what enemies you can recruit and what options you have in the story even but is determined by story actions and battle-to-battle situations, which this port alleviates (at least based on my memory of the SF original). Another minor flaw that only crept into this replay is that the game is very easy to break once you know a few tricks to where I'd say this was the smoothest SMT experience I have which is kind of funny. I genuinely believe that (spoiler for mechanic that you can exploit here) the use of stunning enemies with ice and electric attacks was probably something that made the later Press Turn system exist so in of itself SMT1 is rough and very early but man yeah idk SMT Nocturne really kind of flipped everything in this era of the franchise on its head yet I still find the archaic aspect of this era in the franchise very appealing (Soul Hackers is indeed the most addicting megaten game in my opinion).

Going to this port now, wow besides having the GBA sound chip this is a stupidly good port and from all the evidence I've gathered this was based on the Playstation 1 port so maybe just play that one instead lmao. What's added only on this version of the game (that I still don't know how to use) is small story content you get from defeating bosses which is very cool and jarring if you've only played the Super Famicom version like I did lmao.

Overall: I am still a Shin Megami Tensei maniac lol