Topic: Shin Megami Tensei IV Final Announced for 3DS

@Spoony_Tech - Now I wanna know what that text says, dangit! Hopefully that other instance they mentioned wasn't important, but the one they detailed sounds bad enough. On the plus side: It's a long game, so at least that gives them a little leeway in terms of fixing it - not nearly as many people to get mad about it.

Good catch, Spoony.

It's an annoying oversight, but it says volumes about Atlus that they immediately and transparently addressed and apologized for the issue. Makes me wonder how different the localization of TMS would have been (aside from the obvious lack of censorship) if Nintendo hadn't been staring over their shoulder the entire time.

Got it! Now lets see if I have time to play it.

Don't let that stop anyone from leaving impressions here please!

Played for a couple of hours after I left work.

It's different.

SMT IV, even from the beginning, felt like an apocalyptic epic. Full of darkness and grandeur. I'd liken it more to a fable or epic poetry.
This, in turn, feels much more grounded. At least thus far, it's like experiencing SMT IV from the perspective of one of the normal people in that game. You're not some high and mighty noble. You're a kid who is enmeshed in the social order and, through an unfortunate series of events, is beholden to some snarky demon who clearly has an agenda of his own.
I'm sure the scope of the game will open up as its goes along, but playing it feels less like a hero's quest and more like a proper story.

Interestingly, the main character of SMT IV has become this major hero to the people of Tokyo. People practically worship the guy. And, the first time you meet him, he's saving your butt from a high level demon: you're doing 9 damage to it while he's doing 1500+ damage. It's a clever way of making the player feel the enormous gap in power between Nanashi (the kid you play as in this game) and Flynn.

Two other observations:
1) The characters in this game so far feel more like actual people and less like talking heads who espouse certain philosophical points of view. It complements the less epic feel of the game.
2) The game is pretty gentle thus far. At least, in comparison to other SMT games. Maybe it gets rougher as it goes along, but I'm on the highest difficulty available by default and, unlike SMT IV, which seems to immediately toss you into terrifying, sink-or-swim encounters, this one feels more like it's easing you into the game. I've yet to feel a genuine sense of danger.

PS: Play with headphones. The music in this is even better than it was in SMT IV.

PS 2: The smirk system has been nerfed. I remember people complaining about how much it unbalanced SMT IV, though, so maybe it's for the best.

@Ralizah Thanks for your feedback! I've stuck it in my system but as always haven't left the title screen as of yet. I know enough about the first game that I don't need to beat it to start this sadly. I was spoiled to one of the endings.

Oh and I can't believe Nintendo allowed pictures on Miiverse for this game. We already know which demons will get posted by the immature users just because.

@Spoony_Tech I'm glad Nintendo is allowing screenshots (so far, at least) for this game. So far there's also more small moments of comedy than in SMT IV (at this current moment, in fact, my Nanashi is dressed up in some gaudy little sailor outfit; it's fantastic).

Granted, we'll see if Nintendo lets the community be when every other post is people making dirty jokes about their screenshot of Mara or Angel.

I personally think Nintendo should restrict the communities for M-rated games to people who are over 18 and just let them post whatever they want (within reasonable limits, obviously).

Also, you realize this game retcons SMT IV's neutral ending, right? Unless you're talking about the law or chaos endings.

@Ralizah I'm not sure which ending the person was referring to. I was on the neutral path as well but missed some all important skills from some demons to advance. For whatever reason I can't make any more demons and just really got stuck.

The way the English voice actors pronounce some of the names in this game bugs me. Especially Asahi. Everyone says "aSAhi," really emphasizing that "sa," which is not the proper way to pronounce the name.

Atlus, I'm cool if you only want to include a dub voice track, but for the love of god, coach your voice actors on the proper way to pronounce the names.

EDIT: Well, even though the game starts off more gentle, I can confirm that on "War" mode, the first real boss is still a royal pain in the tuckus. Killed me four times before I finally deigned to fuse new demons that weren't weak to his element and won. Just barely won the fight, though. Only had Nanashi and one of my demons deployed by the end of the fight.

EDIT 2: Another nice thing: this game doesn't force you to pay money or macca to get revived.

This is definitely one of the less oppressive SMTs I've played, in terms of both gameplay and atmosphere. My feelings on that are mixed, but I'm enjoying myself nonetheless.

EDIT 3: Wow, not only does the game revive you for free, but it puts you back the way you were before you engaged the enemy you died to. There appears to be zero risk of losing progress in this SMT.

LOL, Krishna now wears a fedora and has created a sort of League of Super Best Friends with other Gods.

I haven't even had my first battle but I get a good feeling from seeing old characters and places. I guess I just miss the first game that much and had lasting memories.

When you fight a certain boss that was in SMT IV, the music reverts back to that first game's boss music.

Brilliant.

Well, I've spent three hours fighting Krishna over and over, only to have the guy cream me every time. His strategy seems to be:

• Hit my entire party with every possible status element. That same move also lowers my party's stats, by the way.
• Proceed to buff his own stats.
• Hit my party with some of the strongest elemental magic skills in the game.

Ugh. This guy is beyond Minotaur levels of infuriatingly difficult.

I'm almost 70 hours deep into this game now. It's awesome. Possibly the best SMT I've ever played on a mechanical level.

I've been playing but stuck on a boss atm. I need to level up clearly and get better demons. I'm also on hard mode.

I never had trouble with the Minotaur in the original IV. Maybe I'm just too good

@TheLZdragon You are!

I think it was more an adjustment boss for most. Once you got past him everything else seemed easier after that. I know I thought it was a bit tough for an early boss.

I already ground myself to dust and got good demons by then. I pretty much breezed through most of the game.

I breezed through SMTIV after the minotaur boss.

The funny thing about the Krishna fight is that after getting creamed for hours in a row, I overprepared and beat him in, like, three minutes.

Also playing on War mode. SMT games should be somewhat of a struggle.

@Spoony_Tech What boss?

@Ralizah It's Sukina Hikona. Can't seem to take enough health of before he takes me down. I'm lightening the crap out of him and still not getting there. I'll figure it out though.

@Spoony_Tech The funny thing is that, within the same day of beating Sukuna-Hikona, I actually fused him and added him to my team. He's a great demon to have in the early hours of the game.