Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei

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This article is about the video game for the Famicom. For the series of novels, see Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei (Series). For other uses, see Digital Devil Story.

Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei
デジタル・デビル物語(ストーリー)　女神転生Digital Devil Story: Goddess Reincarnation
FCMobile Front cover of the Famicom version Title screen of the mobile version
Developer(s)	Atlus
Publisher(s)	Namcot (FC) Atlus (Mobile) Bandai Namco (NSW)
Genre	RPG
Platform(s)	Famicom MegaTen α Megami Tensei Atlus Web-EZ
Release	Famicom Japan September 11, 1987 MegaTen α Japan April 1, 2004 Atlus Web-EZ Japan September 29, 2005 Mobile phones China 2006 Namcot Collection Japan August 20, 2020

Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei is a 1987 role-playing game for the Famicom, and the first entry in Atlus's Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei series. It was developed by Atlus, published by Namcot, and released on September 11, 1987. The game is a loose adaptation of Aya Nishitani's novel of the same name.

A sequel, Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II, was released for the Famicom in 1990. In 1995, both games were remastered as part of a collection in Kyūyaku Megami Tensei.

A port of Megami Tensei for mobile phones was developed and published by Atlus, initially releasing through the MegaTen α mobile website on April 1, 2004 as a free trial. It was later made available by BBMF through the Atlus Web-EZ service on September 29, 2005. In 2006, the mobile phone port was released in China under the title Shin Megami Tensei.

In October, 2020, it was released in Volume 3 of Namcot Collection.

To date, Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei has not seen an official release outside of Japan. The Famicom version received a fan translation on October 25, 2018, through a collaboration between translators Stardust Crusaders, EsperKnight and Translator Tom.

Blurb

EnglishJapanese

No one can defy the Devil and live to tell the tale! In the mysterious demon shrine, loaded with terrifying traps, the Devil and his legion of demons bare their fangs!

大(だい)魔(ま)王(おう)に逆(さか)らうものは決(けっ)して生(い)きては還(かえ)れない!! 謎(なぞ)の悪(あく)魔(ま)神(しん)殿(でん)には、恐(おそ)ろしい罠(わな)が待(ま)ちうけ大(だい)魔(ま)王(おう)の率(ひき)いる魔(ま)物(もの)たちが牙(きば)をむく!!

Daimaō ni sakarau-mono wa kesshiteikite wa kaerenai!! Nazo no akuma shinden ni wa, osoroshii wana ga machiuke daimaō no hikiiru mamono-tachi ga kiba o muku!!

—

Synopsis

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Gameplay

Exploration and resources

Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei is a first-person dungeon crawler where the player navigates through a plethora of dungeons with multiple floors, battling enemies and obtaining experience points to level up the two main characters, Nakajima and Yumiko. The player is not provided a full map of the dungeons at the start but is required to map out the dungeons themselves by drawing them on a grid map - although the game does provide a limited view of each floor (3x5 squares respectively), which can be accessed by using Yumiko’s Mapper spell.

The player starts out in Micon City, located at the very top of the Daedalus Tower, and must then progress through various dungeons to obtain all the necessary items to defeat the evil god Lucifer and free the goddess Izanami from imprisonment. Along the way, the player will encounter various characters and items required to progress through the game, be it through interacting with certain NPCs or obtaining them after defeating a boss or solving a puzzle. Sometimes, multiple items need to be used to clear a dungeon or solve a certain puzzle. Besides those key items, the player can also obtain equipment such as weapons and armor, some of which can only be equipped by a specific character. Armor generally increases the character's defense, making them more resilient against attacks from enemies, whereas weapons change the power and amount of attacks a character may have. Another type of item the player can obtain is magical Jewels - items which can be used in demon negotiation or to fully heal a character, although in the mobile version using the Jewels also restores a character's MP and removes all status ailments except Death, as well as Amethysts – special gems which can be used to bribe demons in battle when using the “Run” command for a 100% escape chance, as well as traded for items from Rag's Jewelry.

Enemies drop three resources – Macca, Magnetite (abbreviated as MAG in-game) and Experience Points (abbreviated as EXP). Macca is the in-game currency, allowing for the player to bribe demons during negotiations, purchase weapons and items and summon demons from the COMP, whereas Magnetite is used to keep the summoned demons alive, slowly draining with each step depending on the amount of demons in the party and their Magnetite consumption rate, known as "Shift Points" in-game. Experience Points allow both Nakajima and Yumiko to level up after a certain amount has been gained, increasing their max Hit Points and allowing the player to allocate one extra stat point to one of the character’s six stats. Both Nakajima and Yumiko have a shared EXP pool, which means that a party member can still level up even if they’re dead.

Facilities

When exploring, the players may encounter various helpful facilities and NPCs. Those include:

Name	Description	Found in
The Healing Fountain	A location where characters’ Hit and Magic Points can be recovered by paying a certain amount of Macca.	Daedalus, Bien
The Weapons/Armor Shop	A shop area which provides weapons and armor for Nakajima and Yumiko to buy.	All major locations.
Rag's Jewelry	A special kind of shop accessible only in later dungeons. It provides four items: Dragon’s Whisker (Full HP recovery), London Boots (Returns the player characters to Daedalus Tower), Call Thunder (Damages the party) and two plot-important items – the Ares Necklace and the Magatama of Heaven, both required for a puzzle later in the game. All those items cannot be purchased with Macca, instead requiring the player to give the shopkeeper Rag an Amethyst found in the dungeons.	Valhalla, Mazurka, Rotting Sea of Flames, Infini Palace
Jakyou Manor (Mansion of Heresy)	An area where the player can fuse their allied demons, as well as recover status ailments for a certain amount of Macca.	Daedalus
Hypnotist & Goddess Statue	When interacted with, those two NPCs teleport the player back to Daedalus Tower (Hypnotist) and Bien (Goddess Statue).	Valhalla, Mazurka

Party members and party composition

The player's party initially consists of just Nakajima and Yumiko, though, as the player progresses through the game, demons can be recruited to fight alongside them, up to three demons at a time using the TALK command in battle. When recruited, demons are stored in a COMP - Nakajima's portable computer, from which they can be summoned with the "Call" command, provided the player has enough Macca. The maximum number of demons Nakajima can store is 7 and attempting to recruit any demons with a full COMP stock will result in a guaranteed failure. Demon party members also cannot use their magic outside of battle and require Magnetite to stay alive – if the player’s Magnetite count reaches zero while a demon party member is still in the party, they will start taking damage with each step until the demon party member dies or the player obtains more Magnetite. Allied demons also cannot level up by obtaining Experience Points, so fusing them at the Jakyou or Mansion of Heresy is required to obtain stronger party members.

Demon fusion is preformed at the Jakyou Manor, where two demons can be combined to make new demons based on the demon’s fusion value, the result of the fusion varying depending on the combination of demons. Fusing together demons who do not have a specified fusion outcome (marked by a star symbol on the fusion chart) will result in a Fairy Dryad being made.

Only four races of demons - Therian, Beast, Jirae and Fairy can be recruited, whereas negotiating with other demon types will result in them running away or attacking the party. Demons of the Element, Genma, Holy, Kishin, Avatar and Deity races must be made via fusion and cannot be encountered in battle.

Combat

Monsters are encountered as the player progresses through dungeons - mostly in the form of random encounters triggered either by walking around the dungeon normally or by going through doors, which has a higher chance of triggering a combat encounter. Combat is turn-based, with turn order based on the character's agility. Yumiko, Nakajima and allied demons have somewhat different combat abilities - while all types of party members can attack and defend, only Yumiko and the demons can use magic by consuming MP or Magic Points, whereas only Nakajima can summon demons from the computer (assuming the party doesn't have a member with the Sabato spell) and negotiate with demons. Enemy demons each also possess a plethora of abilities unique to them, such as the ability to do party-wide fire breath or roaring attacks, inflict status ailments such as Poison, Paralysis and Stone, as well as permanently drain Nakajima and Yumiko’s levels by one.

Status Ailments

Both allies and enemies can inflict various types of status ailments on their opponents using Status Ailment spells, each spell having a chance to fail and not inflict the status ailment at all. Below is a list of all the status ailments present in the game:

Status ailments in Digital Devil Story

Name	Description	Type*	Cured by
DEAD	Character cannot act in or out of battle. DEAD demons are also returned to the COMP and cannot be summoned until they are revived.	Heavy	Recarm
CLOSE	Cannot move for a few turns.	Light	Patch
SLEEP	Cannot move for a few turns.	Light	Patch
FREEZE	Cannot move for a few turns.	Light	Patch
STONE	Character cannot act in or out of battle until cured and will gradually take damage with each step outside of battle.	Heavy	Clinik
PALYZE	Character cannot act in or out of battle until cured and will gradually take damage with each step outside of battle.	Heavy	Clinik
POISON	Character will gradually take damage with each step outside of battle.	Heavy	Clinik

*Light status ailments can wear off on their own after a few combat turns or steps taken in a dungeon. Heavy ailments do not wear off and must be cured at the Jakyou Manor or by using the Clinik spell.

Stats

The following are the parameters the player characters can upgrade as they progress through the game. At the very start, both Nakajima and Yumiko are given 15 Stat Points to distribute into each of their respective statistics, each having a value of 5 by default. Additionally, stats can be increased by one point the characters level up.

Stats

Japanese	English	Manual Description
つよさ	Strength	Increases HP when you level up, increases physical damage and defense.
ちりよく	Wisdom	Affects the power of magic and negotiation success rate.
こうげき	Power	Increases damage for physical and magic attacks.
きびんさ	Agility	Affects turn order, hit rate, and evasion.
うん	Luck	Affects the four other stats. increases success rate of Status Ailment skills.

Development

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According to Hideyuki Yokohama, former managing director of Atlus, the development was inspired by PC-98 Versions of Ultima and Wizardry being installed on company computers, and it took about a year. Kazutoshi Ueda began development based on Wizardry and Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei, and the manuscripts of Digital Devil Story 2: Mato no Senshi, introducing his own ideas such as Fusion Accident, Auto-battle, and Full HP recovery upon leveling up.

Trivia

• According to author Aya Nishitani, Akemi Nakajima is shown programming in 6502 assembly language for the MOS Technology 6502 8-bit microprocessor during the game's intro. Nishitani speculates that Nakajima may actually be using a computer with a more powerful Intel 80286 16-bit microprocessor, suggesting that the use of 6502 assembly might have been intended as a joke by the developers.
• Daisuke Narisawa claimed that development only took four months.
• According to Kazunari Suzuki, one of the contract programmers hid an easter egg in the game, but Kōji Okada later removed it from the second production.

Nomenclature

Names in Other Languages

Language	Name	Meaning
Japanese	デジタル・デビル物語(ストーリー)　女神転生 Dejitaru Debiru Sutōrī Megami Tensei	Digital Devil Story: Goddess Reincarnation
Simplified Chinese	真・女神转生 Zhēn Nǚshén Zhuǎnshēng	True Goddess Reincarnation

Gallery

See Gallery