A rant about DemiKids. I’ve always disliked the comparison of Shin Megami Tensei (MegaTen / SMT) to Pokémon for several reasons:

1. It undermines both franchises’ innovation.
2. Megami Tensei predates Pokémon by over a decade.
3. Most importantly, it’s a surface-level comparison at best. The two games have totally different philosophies in regards to the monsters.

Pokémon is an RPG masquerading as a virtual pet sim. The games are generally advertised by collecting, trading, and battling; all social activities. While the Pokémon metagame is secretly very complex and heavily strategic to anyone that’s attempted to get into it, the games themselves are deliberately easy to allow the player personal choice. Any team is effective enough to beat the game, and you’re encouraged to win with favorites by the game’s dialogue.

MegaTen‘s almost the opposite. In nearly all the games, the Demons are tools. They’re not meant to get attached to, and due to their often ugly appearance, the creators themselves probably feel this way and have designed the games so that the player has little issue treating them as disposable. Demons are generally valued for power and tossed aside when they outlast their usefulness. It fits the themes of the franchise pretty well, and both approaches to the monsters in these franchises are executed perfectly in their own way. There’s nothing to be gained by comparing them, because they have a distinct, separate focus.

This is where DemiKids let me down. As a fan of the monster collector genre, I’ve never viewed the MegaTen franchise as one. I’m never in the same mindset when I play them. I’m not making companions; I’m making soldiers for my survival. Generally, monster collector games go with the Pokémon philosophy and encourage favoritism. Off the top of my head, Dragon Quest Monsters is an exception, but it’s still more lenient with regards to personal choice than SMT is.

DemiKids looks like MegaTen going Pokémon, but instead of adapting its philosophy, they just adapted its child-friendly tone. The battle system still encourages you to dispose of weak monsters, but now they’re cute and cuddly, and there are several you might like to keep. But if you do this, you put yourself at a disadvantage, because it’s not how the game wants you to play. It’s like a MegaTen game pretending to be something it’s not. If I wanted the standard SMT design philosophy, I’d just go for any other SMT.

That’s always been really disappointing to me. When DemiKids first came out, I was excited to have new monster-collecting games, but they really aren’t. They came from an era of SMT where they seemed to be making several spinoff series dedicated to different gameplay concepts, and I thought this was going to be their Pokémon. Instead, it’s just SMT that looks like it’s for babies and lacks anything special to offer.

Rant done. I’ve had a bone to pick over this for years.