Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine Online is exactly what one would think of when thinking about an MMO in the Shin Megami Tensei universe. The world is post-apocalyptic, desolate, and overrun with demons.
After a brief tutorial of the battle basics, I was thrust into the barren land. There were a couple of other players running around with companion demon, some NPCs who were giving out quests, and of course, the demon compendium.
My first mission was to befriend a Leader Pixie and convince it to let me use one of its scales from its wings for a quest. Like the single player SMT games, players can not only fight demons, but can also soften them up and befriend them to use as allies.
The battle system is actually different from previous SMT games — it’s real time. Players click the demon to target it, click a skill or attack, and then click the demon again or the skill again to confirm. Magic and special skills have a charge time to prevent people from spamming more powerful attacks. It may sound basic at first, but I like the strategy involved with stringing together attacks, guards, counters, and special attacks.
I haven’t gotten to any hard enemies that I needed to pair up with other players with to attack yet, but I’m looking forward to it. The party and clan system seems to be pretty straight-forward based on the number of groups I see running around the game.
Images courtesy of Aeria Games.
Published: Dec 9, 2008 11:45 am