Shin Megami Tensei on SNES is one of those games that feels way ahead of its time—dark, weird, and punishing in the best way. You start off in a Tokyo overrun by demons, and right away, the game throws you into this oppressive atmosphere where every decision matters. The music? Haunting. The pixel art? Somehow makes a 16-bit apocalypse look grim as hell.

What really sticks with me is the demon negotiation system. Instead of just mindlessly fighting everything, you actually talk to monsters, bribe them, or piss them off—sometimes they’ll join you, other times they’ll just attack mid-conversation. It’s unpredictable, and the moral choices you make actually steer the story in wild directions. No hand-holding here, though. The dungeon crawling is brutal, and the first time a random encounter wiped my party, I had to rethink my whole approach.

If you’re into RPGs that don’t pull punches and love that old-school challenge, this is where the SMT madness began. Just maybe keep a walkthrough handy for the more cryptic moments.