Today's update is a trio of slimy demons who don't form an evolutionary line but look as though they could. As with Will o'Wisp and company, Atlus could have just slapped a different paint job on each of these demons and called it a day. However, they didn't, instead taking the time to give each one of these puddles of pudding a different idle animation.
"A primitive life form made from a jelly-like substance. Slime have no true origin, though they say these creatures enjoy collecting shiny objects."
SMT III in-game model
I was prepared to give Slime a 4/5 for being a good classic videogame slime, with glowing red eyes to boot. Then I went digging into its history in SMT games and wow, this is bit of a disappointment compared to what went before. To be fair, a lot of the previous games have Slimes that look much like the SMT III one. But there were some gems!
First of all, let's look at the Slime from the Super Famicom remake of Megami Tensei. (Note that we're not even talking about Shin Megami Tensei, but its predecessors.) Click the below images to see the animations.
Two colourways of slime from Kyūyaku Megami Tensei (Super Famicom port of Megami Tensei). Click to see animated gifs.
Here's an enlarged version of the hedoro (sludge) slime to show detail:
Larger version of hedoro slime
I like this one a lot better as a monster design! A horrible eyeless pulsating growth is so much more interesting than a scoop of glop with eyes. Speaking of eyes, though, let's look at the Slime design from Last Bible, a Megami Tensei spin-off on the Gameboy Color.
Slime from Last Bible
Larger version of Slime
Another brilliant design! It's a three-eyed fungal mass and I love it. Imagine this rendered in 3D on the PS2. Let's take one last look at another Slime that could have been. This Slime first appeared in the spinoff title Devil Summoner (and appeared again in the spinoff Strange Journey, which is another of my favourite games!)
Slime as it appears in the Devil Summoner spinoff
This Slime looks much more like the recurring SMT canon that slimes are failed demon-summons. This is an absolutely horrific and unfortunate demon, evoking both fear and sympathy from the viewer, and probably a bit of nausea as well.
A simple green red-eyed slime, while classic, seems so boring and clichéd now. What a shame.
"An infamous jelly-like monster. It swallows humans and grows. It is said that the only way to stop blobs is to freeze them."
SMT III in-game model
Blob is an obvious homage to the 1958 film The Blob. Its Compendium entry and its in-battle weaknesses even reference the titular monster's vulnerability to ice. For this reason it was going to get a 3/5, because yep, that's a Blob alright, but it loses points for having eyes.
"A mass of malevolent intent and emotion that failed to become a true demon. All it does is eat prey and grow."
SMT III in-game model
Concept art by Kazuma Kaneko
Black Ooze is my favourite overall of the 3 slime monsters. It has the most interesting colour palette, and those concentric circle eyes give it a goofiness that's rather appealing. It also makes it all the more startling when it does this:
This screnshot is actually from SMT Imagine, but the animation is the same in SMT III
It might seem odd to give Black Ooze a higher score than Slime and Blob when they're clearly the same basic model - but Slime loses points for being less interesting than some of its previous incarnation, and Blob loses points for not being as good an homage to its source material as it could have been. Black Ooze is under no such constraints!
