I'm making this page to document all the info I can find for Digital Devil Story - Rebirth of the Goddess by Telenet.
I'm now working on a translation for the MSX version of this game! Check out the Github repo for more info.
Digital Devil Story - Rebirth of the Goddess (The subtitle is usually left untranslated as Megami Tensei) is a videogame by Telenet based off of the novel trilogy of the same name by Aya Nishitani. This game is different from the one that Atlus made (and eventually made a sequel to and spawned their flagship franchise) where this one was developed by Telenet Japan (also called Nihon Telenet). Compared to Atlus' first-person dungeon crawler RPG, Telenet went for a top-down dungeon action game. This game is commonly compared to Atari's Gauntlet released two years earlier but to compare it to a game I have actually played, the game is a lot like Jack Bros.
In this game, our protagonist Akemi Nakajima must travel through various parts of the Demon World to defeat Loki. Along the way, Nakajima finds the friendly demon Cerberus and his friend Yumiko Shirasagi. To get through the various parts of the Demon World, Nakajima must travel up or down the floors of each area to travel by finding stairs. While looking for the stairs there are various demons going after Nakajima, he must use his Sword (which is more like a short-ranged projectile) to defend him and attack the enemies. You'll also find lots of treasure chests which usually contain Macca, the currency you use if you can find the wandering salesman. The game also has a moon phase system. From what I've noticed, more enemies spawn the closer it is to a full moon. The area to the right of the gameplay screen has this design with a pentagon on it. This design updates as you eventually find Cerberus and Yumiko, both are needed for the good ending apparently. Before meeting Loki to fight him, Nakajima also fights his possessed teacher Ohara and the demon Set. That is just the information I've been able to gather after beating the game (I've beaten the MSX and PC-88 versions.) Scans are available for the manual, which covers all versions, which can be found on websites like necretro.org though only in Japanese.
The game seems to have received much less praise (and sales?) than the adaptation by Atlus. It still seems to have its fair share of advertisements in various PC magazines (and also a review of it in Spanish). Overall, this game seems to have low popularity even in the game's release country.
On the topic of Japanese only content, these games were exclusively released in Japan, but have some English parts. The names of the area you're in, the PC menu (if you find the PC item), and the combat log that displays demon names and if you take "damege" are all in English. But cutscene text between areas and the text that NPC give are in Japanese, which is an issue since there's a lot of Statues of Yumiko that give useful hints. So far, there hasn't been any translations (neither fan nor official) for any release. If you do play this game, this longplay of the PC-88 release should be helpful. And while there isn't much information on this page, here is the Megami Tensei Wiki article for the game.
I have started hacking the MSX version for translation but I am still looking for someone to help with the translation itself and maybe some graphics. Please contact me if you would like to help in any way.
Since there's four different releases of this game, I thought it would make sense to have sections on each different version.
DDS Library Page about this version (Japanese only)
DDS Library Page about the product (Japanese only)
Digital Devil Story was released first on the PC-88 and MSX from what we know. According to DDS Library, release dates weren't given for the game and instead just announced the month of the games' release.
This version is probably the most accessible/played out of the non-MSX versions as it is also playable on PC-98 systems. The game was also rereleased under Project EGG's emulation service in 2006 for multiple Windows systems (DDS Library Page about Project EGG.)
According to DDS Library, the differences with this version are:
Holding the C and D on the title screen brings up a music player. The game's soundtrack has many releases as well. This includes the Telenet Music Box which was interestingly also available on the Sharp X68000. While the game itself was not ported, the soundtrack was. The soundtrack has been ripped for listening.
DDS Library Page about this version (Japanese only)
DDS was also released on the cheaper MSX to reach more players. Because it is on weaker hardware, this version has a lower graphical and sound quality.
This version is also the most popular among English-speakers thanks to Marsh's video about this game (He briefly plays and mentions the PC-88 release, but only says that it's "better.") This version is also the most accessible thanks to the many MSX emulators available to use.
You can hold down Esc to display a minimap of the current floor you're on, showing the current view and where you are as well. I noticed that the minimap flickers a lot and the icons don't always show up but I'm not sure if this is an emulator issue or not. To access your items, hold down Enter and move left and right with whatever you use for movement. Another thing that's unique to this version is that demon names do not show up in the activity log. Instead, it will just alert the player if Nakajima has been spotted by a demon with the term "BE FOUND" which is funnier than it should be.
When playing this game on an emulator, make sure you have the Japanese version of whatever BIOS you are using so that the text shows up properly.
DDS Library Page about this version (Japanese only)
DDS Library Page about the product (Japanese only)
According to DDS Library, the differences with this version are:
Besides this, the game is very simillar to the PC-88 release.
DDS Library Page about this version (Japanese only)
DDS Library Page about the product (Japanese only)
According to DDS Library, the differences with this version are:
According to the game's fm-7.com page (Japanese only), there is a debug mode available in the game. Pausing the game with Esc and then typing 7/WT enables it, showing the player's XY coordinates, direction, and enemy HP. Most importantly the player is invincible. The music player is also available in this version as well by holding Esc on the title screen and pressing Space to advance to the next song. Because of the game's invincibility mode, I would recommend this version to play if you just want to focus on exploring the Demon World without having to deal with the barrage of enemies as Nakajima's HP is very limited. The problem is that FM-7 emulators seem to only be in Japanese (as in, all the config options are in Japanese) which can make setting them up much more difficult. I will include a guide here eventually on how to set up and emulator.