Topic: The Megami Tensei Thread

https://www.flickr.com/photos/playstationblog/51125358122/

The PlayStation Blog released a high quality image of a "Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series" sticker you can put onto your physical copy of the HD Remaster lol

@TheFrenchiestFry Perfect. I'll use that Sticker on every physical game I own.

@TheFrenchiestFry Ah good to hear. Can't wait to see if I can print that sticker off from the printer at work on the sly...

@VoidofLight Anyone willing to learn its mechanics will do fine with Nocturne on normal difficulty. Its hardness is overstated, and, frankly, the new easy mode is insulting. Nocturne is harsh game. It's supposed to be at least a little bit challenging.

And with the addition of non-random skill inheritance on demons, the game is going to be easier than ever.

@Ralizah Nocturne may be hard but MegaTen's been a LOT harder before

Honestly I'd argue Persona 3 and Digital Devil Saga are both way harder than Nocturne

@TheFrenchiestFry Dunno about hard mode, but the DDS games are pretty damn easy on the default difficulty. Worst part about those games is all the gd grinding you have to do trying to unlock new mantras.

Nocturne's hard if you play it like a FF game where you just grind until you're high level enough to crush your enemies, which is probably what a lot of people did when they first played it. Nocturne requires engagement with and an understanding of its mechanics. Same as SMT IV. I don't know if you remember, but when SMT IV first released, there were a bunch of articles whining about the difficulty level. And... the beginning is hard. And then it gets pretty easy through the rest of the game.

Hey there, i just noticed this thread and figured I'd ask some questions here if that's ok ^^'. Which ones are generally considered the smt games with the best story and characters?

I've been playing through SMT 4 and while it's been very fun exploring the world and especially fighting and fusing demons. The story itself just hasn't been doing it for me at all. I don't really like any of the characters and their dialogue is so boring with some questionable english VAs

I had planned on going through each ending but the more i play, the more I'd rather just try to fix my alignment to get the neutral ending and moving on to Apocalypse. It's still a great game overall, but most of the time i just found myself wishing I was playing a persona game instead. And if smt 4's story is considered one of the best, thatd be a little worrying lol

@Judal27 You're going to probably get a wide range of opinions on that question given MegaTen is such a sprawling series that goes back decades

SMT IV imo is largely held up because of its gameplay but there are definitely better MegaTen stories out there. My personal favorites for narrative/characterization are the Persona 2 duology, Devil Survivor 1, Digital Devil Saga for its worldbuilding, Soul Hackers (which is also on 3DS), Persona 3 and I know it's not technically referred to as MegaTen but Catherine is also excellent and criminally underrated.

@Ralizah are those mechanics well explained or is it required to check on YouTube for proper tutorials?

@Balta666 I don't recall having any issues, but then, I came to it late, after experiencing other, post-Nocturne SMT games.

It's not too bad, really. Pay attention to weaknesses and resistances. If a boss is crushing you with, say, fire magic, then fuse demons who resist or null fire damage. If the boss is weak to an element, you'll want multiple demons to be able to attack with skills of that element. In general, over the course of the game, you'll want to build up a stable of demons with access to a variety of elemental skills so you can tackle any enemy you come across.

There are buffs and debuffs in the game. You really want to buff your party and debuff the enemy whenever possible. This can often make the difference between victory or defeat. Especially with bosses who like to boost their own evasion stat, as the cost of missing an attack is pretty steep.

It's all pretty basic, common-sense stuff, honestly. It's just that you can't ignore most of the aspects of the battle system and blow through it with level grinding and brute force like you could with a Final Fantasy or Pokemon game.

The only thing the game really doesn't explain is that pumping points in magic for your main character is bad for late game builds. Have your demifiend focus on his physical attack stats and try to get increasingly strong physical skills on him. And, this is just a general SMT recommendation, try not to evenly spread out your skill point allocation. Focusing on two or three stats will be much more useful overall.

@TheFrenchiestFry awesome, i actually have all of those loaded across multiple consoles. With persona 2 and digital devil saga being some of the ones i really wanna play most

Would you also recommend the devil summoner raidou games for story and characters? I know the gameplay is different from the norm, but its art and atmosphere is by far the most appealing and interesting to me. They're actually the ones i really wanna play the most for some reason ^^'

@Judal27 Raidou's stories are definitely stylistically different to an extent and exude a bit more of a cool factor. They're not as dreary or self-serious as mainline but they exude a different kind of vibe that I think makes them enjoyable on their own merits

You really just have to get used to the gameplay since it's this pseudo-blend of action RPG gameplay but with the demon summoning and tactics of turn based SMT

@TheFrenchiestFry tbh im probably not going to factor in gameplay too much since I'm also going to play smt 1,2 and If and i heard those are extremely archaic. The more modern games can't be that bad in comparison right

I'd like to ask one last thing, is vanilla P4 still worth playing? Like if you had to choose between it and Golden, would it still be a good choice or is it just completely obsolete now?

@Judal27 I'd personally choose Golden, especially nowadays when it's way easier to get thanks to it being on PC. You don't really lose much by playing the original and vanilla P4 is still a pretty solid game, but there is extra content I find compelling enough within Golden to make it a worthwhile re-release

@TheFrenchiestFry i get that, honestly i just prefer playing on a tv which is really the only reason why I'm even contemplating playing the original on ps3. I don't understand why they didn't just release golden on consoles too. It definitely wouldve sold just as much if not more with a price point that generous. But it is what it is, I'll likely just get it on steam at some point and maybe it'll be on sale by then

Thanks for the response tho, I'll be keeping it in mind as i go through this series which is easily becoming one of my favorites

So, I've been reading impressions on Nocturne HD, and watched the GameXplain video on it. Obviously only a small portion of the game is covered, but everyone seems pretty happy with the performance of the Switch version (or, at least, not dissatisfied). Maybe the Western release fixed the issues from the Japanese version. I do recall the loading in P5's Western Switch release turned out to be slightly faster than we were led to believe from import footage.

@Judal27 Atlus' behavior is one of the great mysteries of the world.

Anyway, vanilla P4 is perfectly fine. Perhaps even better insofar as it's slightly more challenging than Golden. I do hate the way you acquire new Personas in that game.

The big benefit to getting vanilla P4 on PS2 if, of course, the physical collecting aspect of it.

@Ralizah oh man, do you still fuse demons in P4? Or is there a different way to get personas? That's been one of my favorite things and i really thought it was like a standard for the series ._.

If vanilla P4 is more challenging, it's definitely a plus as long as it isn't too reliant on RNG ^^'. My main worry though is any of the extra story content. That if you chose to go vanilla P4, you'd still be getting the same story and characters. Or does Golden give them so much more depth that it'd be a shame to miss out on it?

@Judal27 Oh no, you do fuse Personas. I just hate its iteration of shuffle time.

So, in P5, you 'collect' a Persona by negotiating with it and getting it to agree to join you, like in pretty much all of the previous SMT games. Particularly Nocturne on up, which refined the system over previous games.

In P3, P4, and P4G, you 'get' new Personas by playing a minigame called shuffle time. At the end of the battle, you have a chance of activating this minigame, where a bunch of cards with a variety of functions (giving you extra money, healing you, etc.) will be selectable after being mixed up. One of these cards will usually be a type of Persona, and this is how you build your stock for fusions.

P3 features a system where you can learn to easily track where you card goes:

P4 features the most irritating iteration of the system, IMO, by making it difficult to even select the card you want by constantly mixing them up instead of just shuffling them. Additionally, you'll trigger "arcana chances," which will result in a certain card that's either rightside up or upside down, and can grant you benefits or hurt you depending on which one you get. The annoying thing is that some of these arcana chances can randomly and permanently decrease your Personas' stats:

P4G refines the shuffle time system and makes it less of a headache. Here you don't randomly select cards, but instead a bit of a game is made of selecting cards in the right order to maximize benefits. If you get a 'sweep bonus' by selecting all of the cards, then it makes it easier to trigger the next shuffle time and rewards you with more base card draws the next time:

@Ralizah The postion of the guy in that Persona 3 vid made me think you were posting a vid for one of the dancing games.

@Ralizah Wow that sounds very tedious in the long run especially the permanent stat decrease, why would you do that to the player lol? But Ill have to try it out myself tho im definitely not looking forward to it even if it's more lenient in 3 and Golden ^^'

Despite it being so random at times, i love negotiating and it's one of the things also keeping me so drawn to smt 4, weirdly. I guess SMT V will mostly likely have it, so hopefully P6 does too. And thanks for the info on this