#aleph pretty too would be fun to draw them

[cielodabbay]

recoleta drawings and ketchup guy

(I'm preparing to feel ill once I read new chapter 🥲)

[tamarakkoarchive]

Shin Megami Tensei II livetweet thread (8/8)

the second aspect in smt2 that stands out: the crazy twist obviously

i still have mixed feelings over how weirdly written the law ending is but nevertheless the concept of an artificial messiah group was dope. they're pretty much what i'd like to see being explored in fanart the most

aleph felt linked to all these other lab creations and he must watch their fall caused by the fake roles assigned to them that in the end god would never truly approve of

i guess this must be why zayin got so convinced they should keep going even without yhvh

that being said, sadly aleph's connection to them is not really put as much weight as it could've been, he feels super detached because their interactions are very sparse, tbh i think it could've helped if all of them... were playable at some point like mt2 ryu or the smt1 friends. i was fine with the small amount of dialogue in mt2 and smt1 but smt2 is where i felt it ended up really diminishing the impact

i unironically ended up being more fond of the "what could've been" situation between aleph and our dead beth than hiroko lmao she has such an insane reveal behind her but the whole thing goes just "lol. crazy. anyway let's keep going"

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izanami randomly appearing to comment "oh you two remind me of my marriage that is fucked up but for entirely different reasons"

oof how could i forget to show earlier

aside his sunglasses form zayin also turns into this cool shape with six boobs. iconic

the theme connection between smt2 and smt4a that i finally could confirm from that interview was that even back then they did think smt2 satan leaned towards neutral despite being from the law route, with killing yhvh and all. that's why they made him neutral in smt4a

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and now for the third and last thing it's... finally the game where demon fusion gets fun but most importantly: where kaneko starts slaying HARD on demon designs. crazy amount of exclusive designs he was able to draw, a lot even beyond of what they could do relevantly with

alright let's go for the bad!

1. it's a replay nightmare. full of bugs. it somehow has a worse interface than smt1's. gotta mention AGAIN that you can't auto guns. by far the smt where you get lost the most and you gotta write down several passwords to enter locked doors

the dungeon design in smt1 wasn't super diverse either but smt2 it's just... excruciatingly boring. "shitload of doors with nothing" the game. you don't really have reason to fill the whole map because they don't put any reward whatsover be with items or npcs with information

2. THE SOUNDTRACK SUCKS period. it's the same composer from mt1-2 so my disappointment for how cheap the snes games sound in comparison is abysmal. they aren't improved much in the psx rearrangements either

instead of a final boss theme they use the same music from several major bosses (regardless of alignment) and it's just... this

compare it to the super special one from mt2

and now 3... this might surprise you guys since i just talked abt them being better at writing the law and chaos sides and to be fair this is on a subjective perspective but... i didn't like the alignment choices in this game

smt2 to me was essentially a game with dope worldbuilding and dope story concept all ready to be deliciously consumed on a plate but the execution ended up not feeling satisfying on the stomach

i think what made me like smt4&a way more than smt2 is that it showed more impact from the choices happening around the protagonist in a way that i could say "yeah this alignment makes sense for what he's feeling"

basically there's already very few relevant alignments choices and they went too far on making aleph an incognito for the player to insert their own thoughts into so the final result is that he ended up being awfully hard to read and sympathize with

guy is probably not even a year old, no hint of childhood, had fake memories but got them wiped (double brainwashing??) so he was literally a blank state with no humanity inserted into by the time he was found and taken by the gym uncle

he had no mercy in killing when he was a gladiator too so the likely options for aleph's personality is: 1. church tool (fake memories) 2. basically him copying the gym uncle and the normal citizens around him (after his memory got reset)

anyway i think you can guess where i'm going with this, a lot of the buildup to aleph has him either instinctly acting on the law side since it was what he was made for or he gradually replacing his default persona with feelings of compassion from living with normal people

the thiiiiing is, the biiiiiig problem i have with how the alignment system is written in some games that is ALSO a thing here is that when they want to make the player decide between law or chaos they don't discern between dark/light actions (aka being selfish or being selfless)

you'd think being a church tool would make aleph a cold-hearted guy. but no! remember the subplot with the workers in sweatshops? if you decide to release them from being incarcerated, it gives a LOT of points towards being law instead

the chaos side on the other hand wants to protect the underworld and the abyss residents from being exterminated but if you wanna join them you have to act like a selfish jackass in some instances like refusing to help hiroko, wanting to kill daleth or violently coercing demons

so tldr my frustration is that it was just really confusing why aleph would switch from law to other alignments. it got extra ?? with the whole "fake" yhvh and "true" yhvh thing. i don't think they even put down a proper explanation for why he'd prefer killing lucifer in neutral

like geez lucifer is so goddamn selfless in this era! he had his own agenda but prioritized giving help to the weak until the end instead of going on a rant of 'hurr the strongest wins'

man i can't stress enough that law was a big punch on the gut not only for zayin going 180º but also because the game gave you the impression you were gonna be "the kind law guy" and instead you got betrayed and forced to genocide the whole planet into oblivion

anyway that's what i fucking mean when i say aleph is hard to read 🙉 when aleph showed compassion to workers it was a buildup to abandon them in the limbo. when aleph was violent to mutants it was a buildup for him siding with them against the oppressors. like wtf

so yeah something something this game is biased towards being neutral since it was a sequel/alternate future to smt1 just like smt4a was to smt4. it's the best standpoint for how to make his actions make sense, whatever. aleph neutral hooray i guess

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