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# Digital Devil Story - Rebirth of the Goddess

I'm making this page to document all the info I can find for Digital Devil Story - Rebirth of the Goddess by Telenet.

## About The Game

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 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. 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.
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 Izanami 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.
Since there's four different releases of this game, I thought it would make sense to have sections on each different version.

## PC-88 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:

- There is a Level system (which increases as demons are defeated)
- Enemies tend to get stuck in walls, which can then be defeated with angled shots
- The difficulty is lower compared to other releases
- Slightly lower graphical quality

Holding the C and D keys on the keyboard on the title screen brings up a music player. The game's soundtrack has many physical releases as well.

## MSX Version

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 MSX emulators available to use.

## Sharp X1 Version

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:

- Nakajima makes footsteps sounds when he moves
- Picked up items do not respawn
- Demons will continously spawn
- You can still take damage even when Cerberus is called
- Names of enemies are different or spelled different from other releases
- The salesman's items are priced differently in each area
- There is a demon that has homing projectiles that can be stopped by intercepting

Besides this, the game is very simillar to the PC-88 release.

## FM-7 Version

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:

- Cerberus has the shortest summoning time
- Enemies AI are the smartest, trying to keep distance away from you, making the difficulty higher
- You can move diagonally
- Slightly improved graphics and more demons compared to the PC-88 release

According to the game's fm-7.com page (Japanese only), there is a debug mode available in the game. Pausing the game with the Esc key 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.