[Guest]

I noticed I forgot to put up an image of II's box art, but the Kyuuyaku shows up fine in my browser.

Most racist game ever:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square%27s_Tom_Sawyer

Jim is practically an Octopus monster

I love that kind of stuff.  Japanese just seem to be blissfully unaware of the offensive nature of black face and have been for years, it's wonderful.    That's not the worst I've ever seen though.

OT:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=49163540
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=53001321
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=51866542

Chariot-riding Mara was in Shin Megami Tensei II for sure.  You fight him in Kokuma Tower.

North America had plenty of porn games during the Atari days.  General Custer's Last Stand, Beat em and Eat em, Knight on the Town, there's seriously tons of them.  All of them are like the most tasteless things I've ever seen though. 

The Mara and Louis Cypher profiles are actually pretty cool...? 

I'm actually hosting the images myself.  As long as I don't exceed bandwidth limits they're good.  There's a four image limit to the attachments apparently though.

Yeah, Masakado is an optional boss who gives you a new Magatama for defeating him in the Bando shrine.

I was pretty sure that Izanagi & Izanami were in the older games, but now that I think about it I'm not entirely sure.

Yeah, it's not totally finished.  The Megaten Hell section needs cleaning up and has quite a few omissions.  I'll change things around when I get around to adding the box art.

I used "sections" because I thought I was overusing the word "board" but I can change that around for you too.  I wanted to tack on a little thing on the end regarding the anime/live-action serieses as well as card games/mobile phone stuff/akuma zensho discs.

I think I can still edit it after locking it, just can't make it a sticky. :P  For now maybe we should keep it unlocked until I finish it up.

Oh you.  I finished the first part of it anyway.  I need to track down box art for all the miscellaneous games, but I'll get to it either tomorrow or Monday.

There are only two differences in Maniacs second time around games that are
worth taking note of. The first is that you can pick your starting outfit,
either the new, "hooded shirt" outfit, or the "classic" Nocturne starting
outfit--these outfits give your hero very minor bonuses to his starting stats.
The hooded outfit gives you a +2 Power, +1 Vitality bonus, and the "classic"
outfit gives you a +2 Magic, +1 Speed bonus.

The second, more noticable difference, is that in second-time around games you
can get your Hero's Press turns boosted by one. (So with just the Hero you get
2 press turns, with one ally you get 3, etc.) If you've "qualified" for all the
graves in the ADZ, when you enter the first Grave room you'll meet Kerberos, who
will teleport you to B666 of the 5th Calpa. There Izanami and Izanagi will greet
you and give you the Press Turn Bonus.

So yeah, they're only in Maniacs and briefly.  Have NO idea what they look like but I'm guessing they're probably similar to their previous incarnations, just cell shaded and polygonal.

Hello and welcome, one and all, to the Digital Devil Database forums!

With over 52 games (and counting!) in the Megami Tensei franchise, it's hard to imagine that it all started with a dimestore novel written over twenty years ago.  The series has been reincarnated countless times in an array of formats, many of which were sadly unavailable to we Westerners until relatively recently.  From the early Famicom days to the Online Megaten of today, the Digital Devil Database functions as an English language sounding board for all of them.

A comprehensive guide detailing the history of the Megami Tensei franchise can be found HERE.

The forums have been divided up by individual series and for relative ease.  I've provided a minor introduction to each section, detailing the games in the series and providing some online resources and links.

I hate to say it, but the Wiki is wrong.  Izanagi and Izanami just aren't in SMTIII.  Again they may be in Maniacs, but I'm fairly sure they aren't.

Really?  Well, they aren't in the SMTIII that I have, but they could be in Maniacs maybe?  Afaik they've only been in Persona 4 on the PS2-generation titles.  They look like the standard S&M creatures that that new character designer guy's been squatting out - you know like all the starter Persona in P3.

The Vortex World, as is my understanding anyway, was a 'stasis' world.  The only humans who were allowed into this world were the ones that were still in the hospital when the "conception" happens.  It's really pretty heady stuff for a video game.  There are other people who 'survived' - the Manekata - who are almost like chemotherapy patients/epileptics.  The arguably more important characters are your friends, but there are two major Manekata - kind of like Gotou and Thorman in Shin Megaten I.

I don't know if they'll go for a true blue SMTIII, but it's clear they wanted to try different things with Nocturne and I think they succeeded    in that. 

*A pro po of nothing, I've always disliked the SMT acronym since it also stands for "surface-mount technologies."

The "Babel" part is also a play on words of such, referring to the klan chat channel! Basically this will be a no bullshit open chat klan, so Babel seems appropriate (Babel is also a verb, look it up if you don't know it)

The Language Arts Nazi in me wont let me let this go...    When spelled "babel," it can only be a noun.  "Babble" is the verb-form, though both spellings can be used to denote idle chatter/talking, but in this case Babel is just a homophone to "babble," though "Babel" is usually pronounced "bay-ble."

http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?babel002.wav=Babel

As for Kagutsuchi. I haven't played Nocturne, so I'm in no way an authority. But I thought your question was rather rhetorical, because it seem's like something is trying to "fix" the world, or at least rebirth. If I'd played the game, I could answer you with some authority about Kagutsuchi's role -- but as he is a final boss, I don't know if he's good/bad or indifferent, or what precisely.... seems like he could be any or all from what little I know.

If Nocturne is at all cannon. I'd say it represents time after the neutral ending of SMTII. The world is returned to the way it was by the Goddess presumably. But maybe Lucifer broke into that artificial world, or at least for some reason the time for familiar R&R was over. From there it would be hard to guess what the Nocturne protagonist is. I certainly don't know why he was chosen of all people to recreate the meta-verse so to speak. Often in these types of scenarios all living creatures are said to undergo this rebirth decision within their own subjective bubble world.

I'm not convinced Nocturne is really SMTIII. It appears to be rather a Gaiden, which just happened to be released before SMTIII itself. Otherwise it wouldn't have a subtitle. No way would a bona fide SMTIII need a subtitle. Since it was released prior (theoretically) that would most likely make it a prequel Gaiden. Obviously this is speculation, but it's also just very common-sense I think.

PS: Of course Nocturne is evocative of the night, which is the ending of things. That could signify it is the aftermath of SMTII or the end of a future SMTIII. Who really knows. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the protagonist of Nocturne ends of being the new replacement for YHVH in an eventual SMTIII.

SMT III has the "Nocturne" title I think because the gameplay is so markedly different than the previous games in the series.  Whether or not that's a good thing I suppose is a debatable point, but there is a ten year gap in the release of SMT II and Nocturne, so I don't really think SMTIII was meant as a direct sequel or even a Gaiden.  It's simply the third Shin Megami Tensei game.  There certainly are references and similarities for sure but I don't think they're supposed to be directly connected in any substantial way.  I think the "Nocturne" portion of the title more refers to the different style and approach rather than designating it as a side-story to an as of yet unmade SMTIII.

As for the role of hitoshura in the Megateniverse, I'd say he was chosen in much the same way as the protagonist of Shin Megaten 1.  Aside from the moral and philosophical decisions you make throughout the game both characters are essentially silent and the role is essentially supposed to represent yourself in game (as appealing or unappealing as that may be).

Although with the recent box art I've seen for the up and coming Raidou game I tend to agree with you that hitoshura might eventually replace YHVH.  He already was the biggest bitch of a boss to beat in RPG history in DDS.