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story translation for shin megami tensei nine to celebrate SMT 30th anniversary

coolaid

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since Sega is holding an event to celebrating the ongoing 30th anniversary of shin megami tensei series this year in 2023, i've decided to write a little about shin megami tensei nine from my old xbox console days.

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I bought a leftover copy of shin megami tensei nine back in 2009 and initially tried playing it on my college buddy's brand new xbox360 console, which didn't work at all even after borrowing somebody's detachable HDD, so i bought an OG xbox console from toysrus's clearance section which had the "german world cup 2006" bundle edition, that came with a DVD remote and 2 controller along with a copy of winning 11. the console was the last batch of hong kong model OG xbox that microsoft had put out after its 3 year run here, and it ran on 220v Voltage and plays NTSC-J games.

still i've always had a softspot for the xbox since trying out JSRF on an xbox kiosk back in 2005, as i had jet grind radio on my old canadian dreamcast which i regretted trading most of my games in for spare cash after my dreamcast console fried. so getting an OG xbox console was not only for SMT-nine, but also because i wanted to play JSRF. that being the case, if the dreamcast hadn't died, i think shin megami tensei nine wouldn've came out for the DC instead, as the game was developed by atlus's "maken X" team.....but that's all in the past now.

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Anywho from what i remembered, the game was basically an interquel taking place in the blank of 10 years in between SMT1 and SMT2, chronicling the events which led to the creation of tokyo millennium as seen in SMT2. For even in the screenshot above I took back then, you can see the silhouette of a digitized version of the giant golden pyramid city from SMT2, albeit it was sealed off and inaccessible, even after beating the game.

while the game takes place in a huge metropolitan version of the cyberspace you get to train around in during SMT2, you can return to the real world, which will switch over back to the first person mode from SMT1, abeit being unable to freely move around unless the game lets you, and with no random battles occurring there.

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Here's a translation of the tokyo millennium prophecy that the digital goddess gives at the end of the game:

"and so, those who have been summoned by god have severed their bonds with him.
through this, the world of the old finally comes to an end
with no other entity to rely on
guided by man, a world driven by science begins
forever continuing, a peaceful world
the thousand year kingdom....."

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upon beating the game it'll make clear save file which you can't do anything about. though back then I took these screenshots to show ppl on my local forums that I managed to harrowingly beat the game using an underlevel character, as due to a design flaw in the game, the defense of shibuya battle can be skipped, which resulted in me having a low level character to face the final boss though I still managed to beat it, after nearly 50+ tries by sheer luck.

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as you can see, my playthrough back then was for the female protagonist which i have chosen, and follows the LAW route.....that is if i remembered correctly, since only the blue haired guy and the digital goddess were on my side near the end, as seen above.

Also I named my character “May May” after a friend from my college days back in 2009.

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Anywho the path I have chosen in the game is the one that leads to shin megami tensei 2, as the blue hair companion said so himself: “let go create a world where man is created by mankind”

in the background you can see the giant pyramid from SMT2, aka tokyo millennium, as that was one of the locations you can briefly visited in the game, and throughout the game, as we inched ever more closer towards the time period of SMT2, the story shifted towards that direction as a prelude of things to come. also the battle music will changed to SMT2 to reflect that as well

In cyberspace there's a pathway you can use to physically enter the interiors of the newly constructed tokyo millennium, where you'll arrive in the same cloning tube area where the main character of SMT2 was grown and where you named him in the beginning of that older game.

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as for my female protagonist, the story branch i took simply ended up with her killing everyone, including her best friend, and even the little red-haired boy who grew up loving her but still died by her hand as an adult, of whom can be seen in the above artwork, standing amidst a mirage of the female protagonist; yet fate would be so cruel to them, in this tragic tale of "true goddess reincarnation nine"

in the end, after a century of conflicts, shattered friendships, betrayals and survival, the cloned humans would continued to be grown, dying and re-cloned as they live their lives within the pyramid confines of tokyo millennium, to build their new thousand year kingdom, as time continued to flow ceaselessly by......towards the era of shin megami tensei 2.

Ps I still kept the game manual of smt-nine to this day, though everything else is gone
 
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