Shin Megami Tensei IV - Tokyo / Cafe Florida | Reacting To Video Game Music!

Рет қаралды 6,561

Күн бұрын

Пікірлер: 52

@digitaldevilarts2589 8 ай бұрын

bullet point explanation of the megami tensei franchise: - Megami Tensei is the name of the franchise as a whole. - Shin Megami Tensei is their main series (apocalypse happens) - Other spin offs happen in the same general universe, but happen in new timelines (Persona for example is in a timeline where apocalypse doesn't happen). - There are many other Megami Tensei subseries such as Persona, Devil Summoner, Avatar Tuner, the list goes on. - Persona was never actually called SMT, it was just to easily convey to western consumers that all these games are part of a single franchise, but it was removed once Persona had its own footing in the west to not rely on SMT brand recognition to sell.

@ssjsylver 8 ай бұрын

To add on, Persona stopped having the moniker of Shin Megami Tensei when Persona 4 Golden happened (unless you want to count spin offs in which case it happened way earlier than that)

@mornwind318 8 ай бұрын

And nowadays SMT is a niche franchise compared to the mainstream Persona, it came full circle!

@Lutyrannus 8 ай бұрын

I don't think that "Persona was never called Shin Megami Tensei" is a good way to explain it. It's much easier to just say that it was never called Shin Megami Tensei *in Japan.* The first game was Megami Ibunroku: Persona, and every game afterwards was just "Persona [Number]"

@kevinnguyen4711 8 ай бұрын

Tokyo is one of my favorite world map themes, actually. It plays when you're exploring a ruined, post-apocalyptic Tokyo, and yet it sounds so hopeful and dreamy, like you're in a bubble floating above the clouds. It always gave me a feeling of "Hey, life goes on," as while everything is destroyed around you, there's always people trying to live their best lives amidst disaster. That's what I always think of when I hear it.

@TheAntiCosmic 8 ай бұрын

Cafe Florida plays specifically in a few scenes where you are discussing the distant past so the sound choice is definitely quite intentional

@J2ojuiced95 8 ай бұрын

Tokyo is a world map theme and it’s such a great one, it’s one of my all time favourite SMT tracks and it perfectly encapsulates the feeling of being in a post apocalyptic Tokyo, that still has a somewhat thriving population. Shoji Meguro himself ranks it as one of his favourite SMT tracks and even did his own arrangement of it, for the series 25th anniversary album.

@thatrandomgamer6278 8 ай бұрын

Fun fact: Shoji Meguro has stated that Tokyo is his favourite piece of music in all of MegaTen. It’s especially nice to hear because Kozuka has said he feels very disappointed by IV’s OST as many critics of the game claimed the soundtrack was unremarkable and forgettable. Edit: Also, Tokyo is a map theme.

@fearthemightyedelgard8137 8 ай бұрын

I wanna know what remarkable music sounds like to those critics, IV has an absolutely insane soundtrack. Sad to hear Kozuka was disappointed by IV's soundtrack for that reason, but his(and Toshiki Konishi's) follow up work for IV:A and V is absolutely amazing, so I guess his self-criticism paid off.

@thatrandomgamer6278 8 ай бұрын

@@fearthemightyedelgard8137 I know, it’s crazy to me that it could be called forgettable. IGN said similar things about V’s OST too. I do prefer IV’s music overall compared to V’s. But it’s not by much.

@alkalineclockwork8715 8 ай бұрын

@@fearthemightyedelgard8137 Nowadays you pretty much only see overwhelming praise for IV's soundtrack, so I think what might have happened is that people were just caught off guard at how different IV sounded from Nocturne and had a negative gut reaction. Another factor could also be due to the game being on the 3DS, which doesn't exactly have the best audio output around. It's also worth noting that when the soundtrack was released in 2014 it did still sell quite well, and in 2017 Atlus did a series-wide popularity poll for the Top 20 tracks in the franchise and Battle b2 came right in the 20th spot. I don't really think Kozuka would have been brought back for V if people still had a negative opinion of IV's soundtrack.

@fearthemightyedelgard8137 8 ай бұрын

I'll be fair to IGM here and agree that the early game over world themes aren't too memorable, but as soon as you get to the second major area they start to be more interesting. All the battle themes are among the best in the series though, so no idea what they were on about there, but it IS IGN after all. @@thatrandomgamer6278

@Spaced92 4 ай бұрын

It's probably reviewers comparing it to Persona music which is more accessible, the Nocturne battle music feels more like what Persona established for itself, but I always thought it didn't fit the isolationist vibe.

@masstrash4609 8 ай бұрын

Smt games are very diverse when it comes to their soundtrack and the songs you reacted to before this were all battle tracks

@ShinNessTen 8 ай бұрын

To explain this game would be an arduous task, but the general premise of a Shin Megami Tensei game is that the real world is being invaded by demons in one way or another. In SMT 1 somebody made a demon summoning program and then accidentally let loose demons into the real world. In SMT 3 Nocturne they just... appear one day and the world just suddenly ends. In SMT4 it's probably the most complicated because you start in what seems to be just a fantasy medival setting with samurais, peasants and such, only to reveal that Tokyo itself is burried underground like an ancient forbidden city and you meet modern day people there and it's honestly quite a bizarre, yet interesting setting. Most games take place in a post apocalyptic Tokyo, so the track with the same name would be the overworld theme here. As for Cafe Florida, I don't actually remember but I think it's just some random shop theme in underground Tokyo.

@HollowGolem 8 ай бұрын

Cafe Florida is where you meet up with the Neutral reps near the alignment lock, and if you do the Neutral ending you go back there more while you're filling the chalice.

@kouleifou 8 ай бұрын

Core SMT tends to have a strong dichotomy between traversal, narrative, and battle tracks. The battle tracks will almost always have a sense of dire urgency and gutteral production (especially with Ryota Kozuka). Traversal/town music will usually have a chiller more relaxed vibes, or music that fits the location like a dive bar or night club. Finally, narrative scenes will tend to have more ominous sounding chords used. So, SMT OSTS are a really odd hodgepodge of soundscapes that make a lot of sense in context, but bizarre for someone just listening to the tracks on their own in my opinion.

@IKimdraculaI 8 ай бұрын

Just yesterday I was listening to Tokyo and thinking it was going to be nice to see what you think of it. But the title is kind of spoilerish, lol. It is by far my favorite World Map theme ever, so fitting for the place/state of the world! It’s my favorite megaten track.

@Jaimethepanda 8 ай бұрын

Such a good world map theme that I was bumping the Tokyo theme while I was trying to navigate the Tokyo Subways last month.

@striderm 8 ай бұрын

Cafe Florida is the name of a bar you can find in the game.

@karst7575 8 ай бұрын

Wandering (and getting lost) in post-apocalyptic Tokyo with this track is such a vibe.

@TurnArklight 8 ай бұрын

So first things first, I do not believe these songs have much of a direct relation to each other. In around the second act of the game's plot, you are introduced to the wide world map of the game. This is the song that plays on that world map as you're travelling from place to place. As for Cafe Florida? Despite being the one to request it, I actually have no idea where it plays lol 🙃 dirty little secret, despite having listened to the OST in full, I never actually finished SMT4. I was just really struck by this song when I heard it. So much of the soundtrack is so harsh, yet here comes this beautifully calming piano piece mixed to sound like it's playing from a scratchy old record player. It makes me wonder if this track is diagetic music, in this horribly broken world as the one place you can safely enjoy a cup of coffee. I knew it was a bit of a risk requesting this specific track, as naturally there would be no guarantee that you'd be in any state of mind resembling mine when I had first heard it, but I really recommend this as a song to just drift away to. Perhaps over a cup of coffee.

@AREAlhero 8 ай бұрын

Forgive me if this is overwhelming at all but here's an overview of the Megami Tensei (commonly refered to as MegaTen by the fans) franchise, as I presume there are more MegaTen songs in your requests: Megami Tensei began as a novel series by Aya Nishitani about a student that invents a computer program to summon demons and (forgive the pun) all Hell break's loose. This got adapted into two games by Atlus (Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei in 1987 and Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II in 1990) on the Famicom (Japanese version of the NES) that never made it stateside. As an aside, these games are the first instance of the monster-collecting/monster taming genre that later got popularized by Dragon Quest 5 and later Pokemon. Atlus wanted to create a franchise out of these games starting with the Super Famicom (Japanese version of the Super NES) with a reinvented setting based on the basic concepts of the novel, hence the release of Shin Megami Tensei in 1992 on the Super Famicom. This game established the tone and setting of series as post-apocalyptic, hardcore dungeon crawlers where your choices decide what becomes of the ravaged world. This got a sequel in 1994, as well as a spin off Shin Megami Tensei if..., also in 1994, which notably focused not on a post-apocalyptic world but a smaller story set in a high school. These games are a complete story arc and are intended to be viewed as the first and most fundamental subseries of the franchise: Shin Megami Tensei or SMT. Around the 90s, to widen the wings of the franchise, Atlus started branching the MegaTen series into many spin off series separate to their intended core series of SMT. These include some forgotten series like the Last Bible games on Game Boy and the Majin Tensei strategy games on Super Famicom that were modest successes. They would get a more successful spin off series with 1995's Devil Summoner on Sega Saturn, but all of these series never got released outside of Japan. The next year would have Atlus release Megami Ibunroku: Persona on the PlayStation, with a franchise first worldwide release. The Megami Ibunroku in the title denotes its status as a spin off of the MegaTen franchise, but this would not be retained in the rest of the world where Atlus tried out the name Revelations: Persona. Revelations was attempted to be the English name of the MegaTen franchise in the West, but ultimately it did not stick. For us fans of MegaTen music, Persona is the first composition work Shoji Meguro did for Atlus. Persona would go on to be a great success, encouraging Atlus to release more titles in the West as well as develop the Persona franchise with 1999 and 2000's Persona 2 games. These games tie way more to the other titles in the MegaTen franchise in setting and tone, though do introduce deviations that would later be used in the Persona series starting with 3 onward. Atlus would return to the SMT series with the advent of the PS2 with a landmark title for the series, Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne released in 2003. Not only does it have this reputation for it being the first Western release of the SMT series, but it is a revolutionary game in informing the design of the rest of the MegaTen franchises games. Relevant to our interests here, it is Shoji Meguro's first time composing for the SMT series in particular. It went on to be a major success for Atlus, and inspired many titles of theirs on the PS2 including its mechanics being directly iterated upon in the Digital Devil Saga spin off series. The combat mechanics of Nocturne would also be directly lifted for 2006's Persona 3 (who's director had previously directed Nocturne), but these would then be coupled with social simulation elements and a calendar system when not in the game's dungeon. This alongside Shoji's iconic compositions and revolutionary UI design made Persona 3 a worldwide success, but a truly revolutionary RPG in its homeland of Japan; something which its sequels Persona 4 in 2008, and especially Persona 5 in 2016. Persona 3 and 4 were originally released in the West with their titles as Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 and Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 respectively to make clear to Western consumers their link to Nocturne and try to key off of Nocturne's success, but this distinction only exists in the West who did not commonly know about the MegaTen franchise by this point in time. With a few other spin off series like 2009's Devil Survivor on the DS coming out in the meantime, SMT proper did not return until 2009's Strange Journey. This was then followed by the next major release in the SMT series with 2013's Shin Megami Tensei IV on the 3DS. These games return to a focus of pure dungeon crawling and post-apocalyptic goodness with an emphasis on world-building rather than Persona's focus on characters and scenario. SMT 4 was later followed by a direct sequel SMT IV: Apocalypse in 2016 on 3DS. While these games were successes in their own right, their release on handheld devices stifled their growth potential to the mostly console playing Western masses, which made Persona 5's release on PS3 and PS4 especially significant to the series, becoming the new highest selling entry in the entire franchise. This kind of caused the perception of Persona as a series to eclipse the series it originally spun off from, which is not a condemnation of either series so much as it is a reflection of the taste of Western gamers having aligned with that kind of game design. Shin Megami Tensei V released in 2021 for the Nintendo Switch would be the biggest success of the SMT subseries, selling over 1 million copies in 5 months, which is an immense achievement for the series, though it does get overshadowed by Persona 5's over 7 million sales. Tl;dr Megami Tensei or MegaTen describes the entire franchise produced by Atlus. - Megami Tensei also describes the first two games in the series, adapting a Japanese novel "Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei" series by Aya Nishitani. - Shin Megami Tensei or SMT can be thought of as the 'main series' establishing the IP as separate from the novel, with titles SMT1, SMT2, SMT if..., Nocturne, Strange Journey, SMT4, SMT4: Apocalypse, and SMT5 - Persona is a spin off series of SMT that really deviates with the release of Persona 3 on, that eventually achieves more success in the West than the rest of its franchise. These games go on to be so popular there are even more spin offs for each of the later titles. - There are other spin off series in the MegaTen umbrella of varying levels of notoriety, including Last Bible, Majin Tensei, Devil Children, Devil Summoner/Soul Hackers, Digital Devil Saga, and Devil Survivor across many different consoles.

@digiopsnyc 8 ай бұрын

Tokyo from SMT4 is one of those tracks that I will never forget

@Cyrus_Bright 8 ай бұрын

Tokyo is one of my personal favorites from 4, such an absolute banger of a vibe. I could listen to it on repeat all day... in fact, I have xD

@suicunesolsan 8 ай бұрын

I feel too often battle themes are recommend to you because those imprint on us the most during memorable battles or bosses. As a result, we forget to recommend other tracks--atmospheric of world traversing music tracks--which can and are often completely different, but just as good. SMT's music isn't just grungy rock; there's quite a bit eclectic sound there, from somber pianos, to Gregorian chants, and 8-bit funk.

@xfrosty2319 8 ай бұрын

the picture on the videos for the songs is the album's cover art and it goes fucking hard imo

@menosay1912 8 ай бұрын

Persona is basically a spin off series of the Megami Tensei series. One that surpassed the original as it is MUCH more approachable. Also Persona has a lot of dialogue. but SMT is FAR FAR less talky then most RPGs in general. Also SMT games are generally modern/future times, just with monsters invading en mass and making themselves at home ,

@mornwind318 8 ай бұрын

Hard disagree that Persona surpassed the original, they're very different beasts. The original series also sparked spinoffs like Digital Devil Saga, which is baller. Persona mostly got more love because anime.

@menosay1912 8 ай бұрын

@@mornwind318 I meant surpassed in popularity, and it IS much more approachable and easy compared to mainline SMT games.

@kl0764 8 ай бұрын

@@mornwind318in a commercial and critical sense Persona has definitely surpassed SMT. And most of my favourite Atlus titles aren’t persona games

@soragranda 8 ай бұрын

Persona is a Spin Off from the Mainline, which is Shin Megami Tensei, both are Megaten games. In regards of surpasing, popularity wise, yes persona surpassed the mainline, but get in mind persona is design to be accessible whiles SMT is design to be more than that and actually challenge you even at lowest difficulty level.

@menosay1912 7 ай бұрын

@@soragranda Yes..... I pointed out in my initial post it was more popular because it was more approachable.

@spiderhey1535 8 ай бұрын

Tokyo is in my top 3 favorite smt songs. Like i'll never forget the experince of arriving to tokyo and hearing Hugo through the gauntlet saying "It seems you've safely reache the unclean one's country...Tokyo" while this masterpiece of a song plays in the background, It's like You know a songs gonna be good when ryota himself says this is his best and favorite piece he's ever created. so glad you finally listened to it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@Painocus 8 ай бұрын

Atlus has a thing of not actually naming their spin-offs series (Shin) Megami Tensei in Japan. I think the only ones that had it consistantly was Megami Tensei: Last Bible (think SMT meets Dragon Quest or early Final Fantasy) and Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Children (think SMT meets Digimon). Persona 1 was called "Megami Ibunroku: Persona" in Japan, but after that they dropped any reference to Megami Tensei. Persona itself is a sequel of sorts to Shin Megami Tensei If..., a "what-if"-scenario spin-off to SMT1.

@Slagomancer 7 ай бұрын

The first moment the Tokyo song plays is a gaming memory that will stick with me forever. It got me hooked into SMT honestly. What a reveal and what a track.

@nemesiswontdie 8 күн бұрын

It's always throws me off when I hear my username mentioned in a video lol. The fuzz in the background on Cafe Florida is just part of the song. I uploaded the OST in WAV 1,411 kbps 16 bit, so there wouldn't be any huge quality drop when uploading to KZbin. I was surprised when I heard the noise in the actual OST too, because my original in-game recording of the track had a bunch of comments talking about the noise and I couldn't do anything about it unfortunately 😅 As for there being next to no info in the description of the videos - yeah that's my bad. I didn't think that my uploads would get so many views back then. I just wanted to take down my in-game recordings and swap em out with the OST as fast as I could. It's the same with the SMTV OST I uploaded. I've been meaning to get around to adding artist info in the description. It's just a lot of work and going back to 200+ uploads is a hell of a commitment lol

@mercurymachines4311 8 ай бұрын

Such a gorgeous track. It's very Billy Corgan-esque, I can imagine him singing over this.

@ssjsylver 8 ай бұрын

I got lost so many times in Tokyo dawg this lowkey gave me ptsd from how many times I got party wiped 😭

@felipebisi4145 8 ай бұрын

From IV places i like mostly Tokyo, infernal something i forgot the name And mu favorite of IV Camp Ichigaya

@karst7575 8 ай бұрын

Infernal Kasumigaseki?

@felipebisi4145 8 ай бұрын

@@karst7575 that one

@shugafakker 8 ай бұрын

i dont know if its just me but the tokyo map theme makes me feel some sort of "i dont even know how to describe it" and thats about it and i like it its just dreamy i dunno lol

@digitaldevilarts2589 8 ай бұрын

please please PLEASE react to "Lord of Chaos" from Shin Megami Tensei V, along with "Dancing Crazy Murder" and "Battle - Shiva" I think those songs really show off Kozuka's musical skill and variety.

@masstrash4609 8 ай бұрын

He has already reacted to the dancing crazy murder on the channel

@digitaldevilarts2589 8 ай бұрын

@@masstrash4609 why dont i remember that lol

@digitaldevilarts2589 8 ай бұрын

honestly i feel like some of the song choices ppl recommend are always the most boring, who tf told him to react to the demifiend battle theme (i think he reacted to that one if i recall) although the proper smt iii battle theme is peak i hope he hears it haha @@masstrash4609