DIGITAL_DEVIL_DATABASE Community Forum

Oh yeah, back to our discussion about porn games...

While tracking down box art for the intro thread I think I figured out why Giten Megami Tensei wasn't developed by Atlus...

http://www.h4.dion.ne.jp/~kakumei/megaten3.JPG
http://www.h4.dion.ne.jp/~kakumei/megaten2.JPG

...It's totally a eroguro game...  :smash2:

I haven't gotten far into Giten. It's sprites tend to be more naked than the other titles, but I think that is pretty appropriate for Devils in general.

One reason I haven't played it, is the graphics drivers on the PC I was going to play it on seem to automatically mipmap the textures, and I can't disable that with that driver set, so the sprites look really bad (well I'm assuming the game wouldn't have shipped that way)

I'm more likely to play the PC-98 version once I start playing PC-98 games (still working on 88)

Personally I think the original anime is by far all around the best piece of actual art to come out of the Megaten lineage. All of the themes just gel the way good art should. As does the Megaten2 game. Frankly I think Megaten could've been way cooler if it had continued down the line with this sort of atmosphere, rather than being constantly confused about what it represents. At the least I wish some strain of Megaten would've respected it's roots. I think Giten probably does that better than any of the Atlus offerings. I'm a little curious what the business relationships surrounding Giten were like I gotta admit.

Btw, most of Japan's pornographic titles appeared on the PC88/98/Engine platforms. Like PC games here in the states, there were no content authorities or hardware licensing deals afaik for these platforms.

http://www.h4.dion.ne.jp/~kakumei/megaten.JPG

I dunno, they always seemed rather generic to me.

From what I've read Gigaten is supposed to suffer from some major graphics issues that the Windows version didn't really fix.

Where did you get decades old Japanese PCs from anyway?  Let alone the game itself...  Japanese PC games are notoriously expensive and hard to track down.

As far as the best art to come out of the Megaten series... I can't agree with you that Giten does it better, that's for sure - it's amateurish in content and style to me.  I've never found anime-style pornography to be particularly compelling either, especially when it involves dismemberment.  Ultimately that kind of think just strikes me as silly and just distasteful and not in the good John Waters-way, the creepy Japanese subway butt toucher-way. 

Kaneko has these oddball sensibilities that really sell me on his art and always has.  What ultimately sets him apart from other designers though is that he eschews the contemporary anime/manga-styles that seemingly every other Japanese artist in the field seems to be unable to break free from.  Maybe he doesn't give enough cred to the originals, you may be right, but I don't really care too much because I don't really think they looked that great to begin with.  The Digital Devil Story anime was pretty good but also fairly standard for the period.

You just emulate it. There was a place you could download the cd iso for the Windows version. Probably still there, but I don't know the link. Graphics are graphics, they're fine by me. I think timing was more of an issue with the Windows version. Something about it either didn't sync with the graphics interface or wasn't programmed to sync with the real-time clock, so it might run too fast on contemporary machines. Like I said, I have what appears to be mipmapping issues, but most graphics drivers should let you disable that from the control panel. I could pop it into this machine right now I guess and try it. Also I think it get's stuck if your computer isn't totally Japanese locale and all... which you'll basically need to be anyway if you wanna read it.


I didn't say the production values were amazing, though games are released every day with much worse art (though perhaps more polished)

Thematically however, I think I prefer some straight "Eroguro" (think like the anime) to all the kid friendly in tone but with the odd subversively messed up themes interjected here in there. I love all the balls to the wall evil shit and people dying. That's life, when demons invade people are gonna die, like war. It should be more sexual as well I think. I'm fine with all the power-rangers and after-school teen specials, but give me at least one straight up series at least :crying:


I think you miss understand the PC-98 library. Giten is from those pictures extremely tame for a PC-98 title and the PC-98 audience. I don't think it's any more distasteful than a sex scene in an R rated film.


Kaneko just does a different kind of art, which mostly isn't done because it's highly intensive (expensive)

You have to appreciate the subtleties of the anime if you're going to appreciate it. If anything, Kaneko totally lacks sudtlety. I thought Persona was brilliant, though obviously in a different vein. His SMTI&II stuff was very solid. But I think DS/SH were too ambitious. And from there he just spiraled into a total obliviousness. My guess is somewhere along the line an artist's ego gives out, and if no one is there to set them straight, they just become unable to critique/doubt their own impulses... and ultimately their art suffers. 

That's for sure.


To each their own I suppose.  As far as anime and manga go...  I have to admit that I kind of hate the homogeneity of the art-form.  I tend to only respect the ones that either show technical proficiency in some way or other, are just so original that they break the traditional molds, or, barring either of these, can be appreciated for sheer camp value.  There's plenty of straight-up eroguro stuff out there...  I just don't think Megaten was intended as such. 


It didn't say it was disturbing, just distasteful.  It struck me as less art and more as a deposit in some weird, Japanese guy's spank bank.  It's one thing to show the horror of a demon invasion, even throw some sexual shit in there... But when you make it some big-boobed, bug-eyed bimbo being essentially slaughtered and raped...  It's just too pre-teen Ted Bundy to me.


I'm not exactly sure what you mean by 'subtle.'  I'm pretty sure we've covered this ground before - I feel essentially the opposite.  He's only gotten better since the early Shin Megaten days.  I didn't think he was ambitious enough.  Now there's an almost draftsman's quality to what he does.  Everything is crisp and clean and, most importantly, not colored with markers.

I mean the subtlety of fine taste. And clearly Megaten was intended to be Eroguro! Or else what do mean by "intended", god intended? Obviously Aya Nishitani intended otherwise, and the anime did a good job with it, and even Megaten2 stuck to these roots I think. So who intended what? Obviously Atlus never intended Megaten to be straight up dark/truly satanic in tone, or that's how it would've ended up. Now it's just kiddy fodder more or less.

Kaneko is about as close to 'fine taste' as you're going to find in the video game/anime industry as far as I'm concerned.  I don't really think that Atlus was really that concerned with upholding the (for lack of a better word) integrity of the novel, as Shin Megami Tensei is clearly its own beast.  I'm pretty sure Aya Nishitani helped write (or actually wrote) the storyline for the Digital Devil Sagas.

Megaten has almost universally been geared towards teenagers since the first game.  There are far fewer games in the series with adult protagonists than adolescent ones, and the adults are usually barely over 20.  Some Megaten games are darker/more Satanic than others, but I don't think the presence of eroguro elements would make them any more so.  The whole concept of eroguro always seemed to me as kind of pathetic.  It's one thing to put sex and brutality together, it's entirely another to inject stereotypical ideals of women into the mix - "I'll never be able to get this ideal so I'll just rape and dismember them with my mind," is generally the statement made by eroguro.  I mean, when you say Megaten should be 'eroguro' you could just mean you want more sex and brutality in your Megaten games, which is fine, and to a certain extent I agree with you, but consider why you never see chubby women or men (on the recieving end, so to speak) in that kind of art. 

I don't know what your hangup with this Eroguro business is. But take the anime.... Loki "virtually" rapes Ohara (though she seems to be enjoying herself) and proceeds to brutally consume (phagocytosis) an entire classroom of brain washed zombie kids. If there is a distinction in your mind there between that and Eruguro it must be pretty nuanced. At any rate, I wish Atlus would make a game with heavier darker themes like that. Not to mention the complex characters, much like the Izanami/gi mythology itself.

And I don't consider Kaneko's far out designs subtle... subtlety in taste is a kind of minimalism or efficiency... it's tweaking a subject until it's just right. Kaneko obviously just shoots his wad and proceeds to the next glaring hodgepodge on paper. If that's what you like, more for you, but at least recognize what it is (I'm primarily referring to his characters and game specific boss Devils with contempt)

There's no nuance at all.  Eroguro is essentially porn with with grotesque elements.  That scene in the anime was brutal yes, but it hardly typifies the entire picture.  I think it's important to note however that this scene plays out the typical male rape fantasy wherein the victim is depicted to enjoy being raped.  I'm not offended, I just think the idea is adolescent in the extreme, playing off of male insecurity and nascent and unfulfilled sexual desires, and ultimately makes the whole scene seem rather amateurish and sexually retarded, not to mention disturbing to women who are far less likely to entertain this type of fantasy.  Regardless, I think that Atlus should make a "darker" game as well, but  I don't think injecting elements of eroguro would come anywhere close to achieving this (and would be anything but subtle).

Minimalism can be good sometimes but I don't think it fits with Megami Tensei, a pointedly weird and complex game series.  I never said that his designs weren't "out there," but I do argue it fits better with Megaten.  I don't think his method quite plays out as you describe either, but hey, you're entitled to draw your own conclusions, however based in conjecture they may be.           

You can't psychoanalyze/sanitize everything this way... I see no reason the scenario in the anime is improbable for what it depicts. Sometimes people get raped... though you could argue she was more mind raped than anything else. If Loki had totally mind raped a dude, you'd be all systems go about it. And don't try to pretend you wouldn't :cool:

The only difference as far as Giten is concerned is the level of maturity I think. Besides the fact many early Eroguro films are considered some of the best of Japanese cinematography. Eroguro themes involving people are pretty disturbing. Involving demons, it's kind of run of the mill, involving people involved in occult practices, it's pretty standard satanic themed stuff.

And I'll say so knowing pretty well your stomach for gore is probably 10x my own :geno:


Besides, I'm not even positive pornography mixed in with fantasy remains pornography. If you make that argument the concept of fantasy itself becomes almost a kind of pornography.


That said, I rather enjoyed the freedom of the Giten sprites. If anyone knows the link to that page with all the sprites please share -- though now that I think about it, I seem to recall it being lost to the internet's event-horizon at some point.

I didn't say it was improbable, just frustratingly adolescent...  I'm also not exactly psychoanalyzing it so much as making an observation.  I just don't think rape makes for a particularly compelling conceit no matter what the sex of the victim. 

I'd also argue this is precisely the kind of thing that makes it less mature than the other games in the Megami Tensei line.  I mean it would be one thing if the victim was portrayed as anything but a big titted bimbo, but as it is...  It just screams juvenile to me.  :emo:

I don't think the anime is "juvenile"... if anything Atlus Megaten is very juvenile. I don't think Giten is juvenile either... though it is pretty immature (and not in the same way games are stamped "mature")

Not actually playing Giten very far, and I'd guess that is every nude scene in the game (which is very few by PC98 standards) I can't really comment. But I get the impression if the art style was a little more sophisticated we wouldn't be having this discussion. The one screen with the chick sprawled out on the bed is kinda gratuitous (or more so low brow) in and of itself. And it is hard to imagine a scenario where it would not be. The other screens however since they're animated probably represent a significant scene from the game, and I don't think you can necessarily discredit them so easy without actually having played the title itself.

Well, what I've seen of the game has led me to believe as much.  By the same token though, you shouldn't really be making the same judgments about other Megaten games without playing them: most notably Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga.  There are actually some significantly gory scenes in both and neither come off as juvenile on a whole.  Late teens/and people in their 20s perhaps, but we both fit into that demographic.  I think they are pointedly more geared to attract a female audience however, which, considering the prevailing attitudes of Japanese people and the expectation of women in Japanese society to be obnoxiously cute, it doesn't surprise me that they would have juvenile elements to them.  The Jack Brothers are a pretty perfect example of this kind of thing.

See, you were just making a blanket assumption about a game in it's entirety. Also I think you take "fan service" too far. Japanese don't think as much about throwing in an obligatory tit scene here or there. It's not such a puritanical society.

I just criticize aspects of Megaten titles which are obvious without playing them. Mostly the artwork just tends to put me off. Too much of Kaneko's contemporary stuff tends to illicit first a laugh and then a cringe from me. I can't much help that. Throw enough of his pieces like this into a title and give them prominent roles, and I can pretty easily conclude I won't enjoy looking at the game... therefore I don't play it. You won't hear me saying these are bad games or categorizing them in any unfair way. I blame Kaneko, because the games for the most part seem like they'd be ok if the artwork just wasn't too much. I don't think Kaneko is a bad artist, nor is he necessarily less than any other production artist being given work in Japan for that matter, but I think he could do a lot better if he was a more serious artist in the academic sense. But then these games aren't being sold to academics are they :smug:

PS: As long as the target demographic is children and not scarring their precious little minds... I say that is juvenile (versus adult)

What? :confused: No I'm not...  I did exactly what you're claiming to do: criticizing aspects of a game without playing it.

I'm not objecting to tit scenes either, I just think they're trite, overdone, and used to appeal to perpetually virgin school boys.  I.E. juvenile.

I just think your objections to Kaneko's recent work are just kind of vague and related more to your own personal taste rather than an objective 'fine taste.'  It's kind of weird that your attitude generally parallels my own regarding that Soejima-guy's work on the recent Persona games though.  I'm not calling Giten a bad game either, I just don't have any desire to play it based on what I've seen.  The content is immature and the artwork is ugly to boot.

I don't mind poor artwork in a game. I do mind artwork I find intellectually offensive. I rather like the P3 guy's stuff... well not really, but compared to Kaneko it goes down easier. If anything his stuff probably suffers more from trying to be like Kaneko. Izanami was just fugly. If that's the best you can do for a final boss, it worries me that this stuff gets published. I think the industry on both sides of the Atlantic are basically fucked. I'm a sucker for any reviewer that basically tears every game that comes across them a new one. That's just the way I am about games these days.

Obviously Giten wasn't done on a Nocturne sized budget. It's still a game with more or less traditional Megaten mechanics none the less I presume. Compared to Famicom graphics, it doesn't really bother me. You just have to respect a game from the era it comes from. And for that era, that art is not at all bad. Though it would be considered fanart these days. Technically the art even does stuff you don't see in contemporary game artist's repertoires, and frankly it really isn't as bad as you think.

Everything is personal. But you were all like, this is Eroguro and Eroguro is bad, and I begged to differ.


So much for myspace I guess :biggrin:

Split... you can change the topic subject to something more appropriate if you prefer. Shocking Giten Revelations or whatever :smokin:

Put 18+ in the subject if you like.

I didn't say eroguro was bad either, I just don't personally like it and view it as insultingly immature.  I only said as much.

To me, Soejima is the quintessential poseur.  His style is just so derivative, I struggle to equate it with Megaten (or Persona for that matter) at all, which in my view is/was an intensely original concept.  I tend to agree with you about the industry, but I don't think its necessarily that bad.  I actually tend to prefer retro games to new ones if my rather large Super Nintendo/original Famicom collection is any indication.

Yeah, derailed topics are fun.   :smug:  Myspace is like soooo five years ago anyways.

I just plopped Giten into my portable and had a play at it. The complex you begin in is unnecessarily large. However this time I managed to stumble across a VR trainer and try out the battle system. I actually gotta say this could be the most sophisticated traditional Megaten gameplay ever achieved. It's really good actually. I tried to take screenshots but something about the game playing in fullscreen mode or directx wouldn't accept the print screen event.

The fonts are generated by Windows, and with the game being so old the fonts get messed up a lot. And almost every character has extra pixels along the bottom. Probably like in those screenshots you found (the one that showed game text seemed to be having the same issues)

I think sprites use a directx texture filter, so even though they're low resolution the pixels are blurred into one another. This makes the sprites really ugly. They'd probably look better in a low resolution on a smaller display. This might be intentional on the games part, but on a modern display in fullscreen mode its so blurry when closest to the sprite it's like they're etheral beings.

My guess is the PC-98 game would be much better. It shouldn't have any filtering hardware support or font issues, and should be designed to play at a lower resolution.

If I could just figure out a way to force it to play in a window and figure out how to save my game I'd give it a serious play. Then probably wait for PC-98 version to finish it.


The game play itself is pretty cool. The dungeons are actual 3D. On a grid like virtually all Megaten. The rooms however are pretty much just cube mazes with six sided textures which save for doors and stairs are always the same as far as I can tell.

I'm not so sure the demon sprites used in the PC version are the same as the PC-98 version. The PC version look more drawn, while the PC-98 sprites as I recall from that sprite library were more pixel art Famicom style. My memory could just be foggy. Edited: I think actually the PC version is probably just a quick hack to try to make some money off the Windows market back then.


You have a lot of equip, and more stats to pump pts into than ever. Interesting ones at that. I'd list them if that screenshot had worked out. The stats are generally more practical than the old five abstract stat system. You get to assign 1pt per level but also get a fixed set of points. I think those might be distributed based on a choose-your-own-adventure style exam at the beginning of the game (along with your starting stats)


What's really interesting is the gameplay though. It looks like Devil Summoner sort of. But you can see the Devils in the rooms you're in. You can shoot them with a gun from 3 squares away if they're in your line of sight. As you probably could with magic as well. I used a mahajio stone I got from somewhere in the VR game and it cleared out a whole room of Devils. So magic/explosions hit around the squares too. You have a traditional party of six. And plenty of room to store devils. I only got to fight alone however. From two squares away you can do a melee attack. And from one square (facing the Devil) you can attack as well -- being closer might make the attack stronger, or might be required for some attacks. At this closest range the bottom half of the Devil is cutoff by the 6 slot party area on the bottom of the screen. I wish that somehow wasn't the case.


I can't say how totally balanced the gameplay is, but the basic system might be better than any traditional Megaten title honestly. Every piece of equip has a visual graphic, and there are at least as many equip types as in Megaten2, probably more.

I don't really mind the art style or theme, but the NPCs heads often come out pretty messed up. And you get the same NPC graphic no matter how close you get. All the sprites always face you. I'm not positive if DS1 worked that way, but it's easier to keep track of things at least. Also you can see NPC sprites from a distance.

The general thrust of hte character design is acceptable as far as I'm concerned.


Truthfully I think it's kind of interesting. I could program something like this in less than a week in my free time technically. It might even be fun to make a fan game based on it as a demo line. It kind of combines Megaten with King's Field, my too favs... only puts it on rails (I think that is the way the new PSP KF games work anyways) ...but it might even be fun to take it off the rails. Another funny coincidence is I think the company responsible, ASCII, even used to handle NA localization of early Fromsoftware titles including King's Field II.

A sample of some images oddly stored in bmp format in the Giten disc image :smokin:

I sort of missed this. Again, I'm not at all entirely convinced Kaneko does all of his pieces alone. He releases artbooks with his name on them, so you'd think he does. But this high gloss stuff, I think I've even seen pictures of other people working on this with illustrator type application suites. And just looking at the stuff and knowing what it takes to produce them, I don't believe one man could probably find the energy to do it. Especially not a moderately famous person... possibly a person locked away in a room without windows. I'm not saying he doesn't have the ability to do this stuff himself, or he doesn't pioneer all the techniques he uses / directs the production. But I have a feeling he still just basically does concepts and lines, then hands the whole thing off to others too fill everything in, and probably digitally tweak the lines afters capturing with ocr technology.

Hajime Sorayama really does formulaic fantasy stuff sorta like this -- and without computers afaik. But he's probably a huge nerd and doesn't have game deadlines to contend with. Kaneko realistically probably does very little of the actual man hours that go into the pieces a lot of people give him full credit for. Again, I can't make that claim with any absolute authority, but if I'd have to bet I'd say everyone of his high gloss pieces are poured over by a staff of handlers/post-processors. If anyone owns one of his "works" artbooks, if he had assistants, I'd think they'd be credited inside somewhere.

Even if his work is accomplished by the efforts of multiple people it would hardly detract from it.  :hearton:

To answer a past post (I somehow ended up on pg2)

I just think his stuff is either too bland or too over the top. You almost never see a just right piece. I think my judgment is objective enough. I have my own peculiar tastes, but I wouldn't let them get in the way of my judgment.

I think his insane Persona/DDSaga beasts are just random mish-mash with way too much thought into detail and none into the actual composition or context. I think many of his boss designs are just pulled out of someone's ass compartment. I think his portrayal of a demon realm is hardly convincing and rarely inspiring. He does have a Noire flare which I have a feeling is more what you identify with than anything in particular. Also I never like his human characters. They're completely unrelateable or believable... and I'd be embarrassed to be caught dead with any of them in public -- if that is worth anything!

If he'd just tone down the pretentiousness I'd dock him a lot of flack. But that doesn't mean I'd be satisfied. But see I'm into Megaten for the concept. You sometimes I think are primarily just into Kaneko.

Another thing is I think Kaneko overshadows Megaten itself too much. Sometimes you can't even tell which one people are really into. And since he hardly does any other game, it's ridiculously hard to separate the two.


I'd much prefer Megaten be more like the new Devil Man anime like in my avatar. Or for that matter like the original Megaten anime (ideally with Gegege/Urusei Yastura type comedic foils as well)

I like the David Lynch type stuff too, but I'd prefer it be quarantined to the Persona series. Most of all I just think anymore he's a highly technical hack.

Who're we kidding? This thread isn't safe for anyone :goodnight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rrqdnp9BaDw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3bb4hR9hh4

I love Go Nagai, but Devilman was essentially Cutie Honey meets the Bible.  I have all 5 of the original manga and I've read it all the way through.  Like pretty much everything Nagai has ever done, it really is hackneyed in a lot of ways...  I mean most of the plot involves Akira and Ryo going back in time and righting famous historical wrongs (in the Devilman way I suppose; I.E. must kill evil ex-lover - not just Siren).  Don't get me wrong, I love me some Devilman, but it's not the paragon you think it is.  It typifies much of what you seem to object to about Kaneko's art.

I won't lie though, Kaneko did sell me on the series but I don't think that's a bad thing.  What I like about his stuff is the disregard for convention that almost no one in Japan's art world seems to be able to break free from.  Better yet, his stuff is still highly technical, a best of both worlds sort of thing.  Plus he injects quite a bit of modern fashions (which I suspect is what you are round-about objecting to) and keeps the Megaten series current, rather than the same old pastiche of itself being repeated ad nauseam.

I'm not sure why you seem so intent on ripping his stuff apart.  If I were you I'd focus on the main offender - Soejima.  That guy is fucking awful...  :sick:     

I wasn't elevating DevilMan itself. I just offered the two extended sequences inside those links (the second starts later in) as an example of a fairly believable and compelling demon world. It's somewhat different in terms of Megaten, but my point is, it can be pulled off by artists. And often is quite well. Atlus Megaten games have always been disjointed in terms of a cohesive visual presentation. The only exception might be the original Persona, but I think that was probably accidental... plus too easy.

At any rate, I thought it was obvious those two links, but I apologize for not making more of their intention in the post. I woke up really sick yesterday and had been up several hours past my bedtime.

PS: I only know about as much as you can about Devilman from reading Wikipedia these days. I've also seen the two vhs cassettes from the late 80s but that's pretty well it.

How can something be a "fashion" if no one actually dresses that way outside of 21st century teenage synchronized-dance music videos decked out by a recent NYC fashion institute graduate?

Isamu and Chiaki's outfits are exactly the kind of thing I would see hipsters wearing walking around downtown Portland.  Same with Hitoshura's track suit costume.  DDS is supposed to be futuristic so that doesn't really apply.   Persona 2 I have to admit is a bit out there (esp. with Maya's erm, heartboob suit), but the late 90s were a weird time for fashion anyway.

When clothing begins to look like a "costume" you're stepping into strange territory :smug:

The only reason I used "costume," was to denote that Hitoshura had more than one outfit.  :razz:

Regardless you touched upon a deeper truth :doh:

All of the outfits in Nocturne look like costumes, save for possibly Hitoshura.

I still think http://www.dokuganryu.com/scans/megaten/i/07.jpg is >

 :hearton:

Which is funny, cuz that's the only one I referred to as a costume.  :rainbow:

That's a remake of an old char so it don't count. Not that anyone ever said one was better than the other :confused:

Besides that redo is really lame. Could've been much better :doh:


Technically I did say "possibly". Long sleeved jacket and shorts is pretty top heavy you gotta admit.