Topic: The Megami Tensei Thread

Wow how I love SMT III.

It might be as I’ve played a few games in the series but the difficulty hasn’t been as punishing on normal as it’s reputation so far. Matador wasn’t as bad as Minotaur in SMT IV and I’ve just got passed the firey demon mentioned above. I do like to be slightly above the level for each area so I can recruit.

SMT III really isn't as hard as people make it out to be

It does have its fair share of "that bullsh*t" type moments but it's a game that requires skill without working against the player that actively

Strange Journey makes this game look like a Kirby game by comparison

Just started Nocturne & gone for 'normal' difficulty ..... I'll let you know how it goes when I actually get into any fights

Yeah, I'll be sure to check here if I do get lost or stuck, etc, @Slowdive.... Hardly started yet

@Slowdive I want to say apart from the early road block is actually kind of on the easy side (for instance bravely default 2 is way harder in the first 20-30h).
I am enjoying it but it is kind of a bummer that you cannot really stick with team mates as they level up really slow and after a while get no new skills and yes, I know that it is not the game mechanic but I tend to get attached to a team in JRPGs...

Nocturne is an unbalanced nightmare on Hard difficulty, but on Normal, the challenge feels just right. It's especially easier now that you can just customize whatever skills your demons inherit from fusions. You just have to understand and adapt to the mechanics.

Digital Devil Saga was even more approachable on the standard difficulty setting.

I still think the hardcore reputation of most of these games is undeserved, and likely driven by people playing them like Final Fantasy, where all you really need to do is grind your way to victory.

@Balta666 Ideally you'll fuse away demons as soon as they've evolved and/or learned all of their skills, but if I have an especially good demon and/or nothing good is available fusion-wise, I'll wait for a while before ditching it.

@Ralizah and that is pretty much what I have been doing. I just don't like it that much. I would prefer if the levelling of demons was in line with the demi-fiend (but I understand why they made it that way)

Christ, I forgot how much Ongyo-Ki sucked. What an annoying boss.

I just started SMT III on the weekend, and I think I went into it with a bit too high of expectations. I'm only a few hours in, and I figure my opinion will change a lot by the end of the game, but the beginning of SMT IV drew me in much more than the beginning of SMT III. I've read a lot of opinions online that SMT III is the best Megaten game, some even say it's their favourite turn based JRPG of all time, which hyped the game up a bit too much for me. Definitely still a fun game though, just like any other SMT game.

I don't think Nocturne is the BEST game in the series, but it is absolutely the most important one, given how deeply it influenced the rest of the franchise going forward. But I think there's also something to be said for the unique setting, horror-tinged atmosphere, and especially the lack of traditional law/neutral/chaos routes.

The only major flaw, IMO, was the randomized skill inheritance, which just made it artificially difficult in certain regards. With the HD Remaster, I think it's absolutely a top 5 MegaTen game. Possibly top 3. It lacks a number of the annoyances that plagued SMT IV (confusing world map; unbalanced smirk system, including randomly assigned allies who can and will get you killed thanks to dumb AI; lopsided difficulty curve; etc.), so it's just behind IV: Apocalypse for me.

The DDS games would probably come in near the bottom of the pile. Above their older SNES/PS1 fare, but below everything that came after Nocturne. The battle system is great, since it's taken directly from Nocturne, and the voice acting was impressive given the time period, but everything else was underwhelming.

@CactusMan Still stuck? There's a fairly simple strategy for killing him, if you're interested. If you fight him at full Katgutsuchi, the real one will cast a visible shadow, which you can clearly make out shortly after he replicates. It takes a long time, but if you go in with an agility/accuracy debuffing skill and hit the real demon with an attack every turn, he'll spend 90% of the fight just replicating himself and casting the same buffs over and over. You'll probably want to go in with someone who knows rakunda as well, so that his defense isn't maxed out. Even better if you go in with someone who can buff your party's attack and accuracy.

@Snaplocket Never understood the "imo" thing. I've gotten yelled at a few times online for saying something and not clarifying that it was my opinion, and I've just always found it to be weird. Like... why would I say something if it wasn't my opinion? I guess the accusation is that you're conflating statements of opinion with facts when you state opinions so directly, but anybody with a brain in their head would know that discussions of art/media preference are opinion by default, since there's no objective standard by which to evaluate art.

Which isn't to say that there aren't dumb opinions, but a dumb opinion is dumb even if "imo" is appended to it.

Sorry, rant over.

I'm just a few hours into Nocturne at the moment. I think it was around two hours before I figured out how to talk to the demons. I was expecting the demons to do it unprompted like they did in Persona 5.

I just had a small question that someone might be able to answer. I know that buffs and debuffs are hugely important but with the current characters I have, a buff costs 12 MP but my demons have about 40 MP in total. It just seems that stacking them on a boss would demolish your MP really quickly. Is the best way to deal with this to stockpile MP recovery items or do the demons get much larger MP pools a few more hours in?

@alpacatears they do and there is a skill that allows you to generate MP as you walk that is the best!

@alpacatears Buffs are definitely important, but you won't need to layer them on thickly within the first few hours. As you fuse higher level demons (and your demons level up, unlocking more skills). MP pools naturally increase in size. For example, I'm... 22 hours in, and my demons all have 100+ MP available to them. Some closer to 200 MP.

Although it's worth mentioning that MP drops become fairly plentiful as loot from battles as the game goes on. Your ability to stock more demons will also increase during certain points in the story. I've been stockpiling them and only using them when it's absolutely necessary.

For now, the most important buffs to focus on are anything that lowers/raises accuracy/agility, because if the enemy is missing half of their attacks, battles are going to be a lot less dangerous thanks to the way press turn combat works.

@Snaplocket Nocturne was primarily important for defining the way MegaTen 'feels' in terms of the gameplay, with the biggest contributor being its innovative battle system. Some variant of press-turn combat has been used in nearly every MegaTen related since the release of Nocturne, and while it's a tad barebones in Nocturne compared to later iterations, it's still one of the best turn-based battle systems ever devised.

Anyway, "most" people don't think DDS is better. SMT is obscure by default, and the DDS games represent an even more obscure spinoff property. I imagine that obscurity is part of their hipster appeal for certain people.

Anyway, as to why I don't like them?

1) The story-telling is a mess. DDS1 bides its time and barely develops the main plot for large stretches of the game, instead focusing on worldbuilding and character development. DDS2, on the other hand, is the polar opposite: the game barely ever slows down, and introduces new plot elements at a rapid pace, to the point where it's difficult to keep track of what is happening.

2) DDS2's dungeon design is total mess. In place of conceptual dungeons with story-telling, puzzles, etc. DDS2 opts to throw gigantic series of hallways with almost no interactivity at the player. Hours and hours of hallways. The dungeon design is worse in that game than in Persona 4, which is a remarkable feat in its own right.

3) The central gameplay loop, which involves unlocking mantras and grinding repetitively for hours on end to unlock new skills, is shallow and far less interesting than the elaborate creature collecting/raising/fusing gameplay of SMT. Like, imagine if you took Pokemon, but removed the monster collecting/training/breeding element and replaced them with a grid system for unlocking different elemental attacks that primarily involved grinding. Grinding for money, so that you have enough to grind to complete a mantra. Endlessly. It's boring.

4) The games are excessively linear and lacking in exploration. The world map can't even be traveled. You navigate it with a menu.

5) The central gameplay gimmick, involving the consumption of opponents, was totally wasted, and it just forces the player to devote a portion of their skills to attending to a needless mechanic that adds little to nothing to the game proper.

6) The game features the worst OST I've heard in a post-Nocturne MegaTen game.

7) Obnoxious set-pieces. The worst of which was the prison escape segment in DDS2. Possibly the most annoying stretch of gameplay I've ever seen in an Atlus-developed game.

8) This is also primarily an issue in the second game, but the way DDS will rapidly pull party members in and out of your active party is obnoxious and totally destroys a lot of the planning one can put into the games. I would have preferred to build the characters differently so that each has their own role in the party, but instead I have to waste time and money having party members grind out identical skillsets so that my party could function if a switch up were to happen without warning (which it does, frequently, in the sequel).

They tried their hand at a more traditional JRPG, and I think it highlights the strength of the unique gameplay loops in SMT and Persona. There's just nothing special about DDS, nothing it particularly excels at (apart from voice-acting in a PS2 game, the quality of which I've already acknowledged).

I think DDS1 is decent, and still better than a lot of JRPGs I've played, but DDS2 is so flawed that I'd struggle to even call it a good game.

As to Nocturne, I actually really like the plot. The thing is that a lot of it is optional and/or involves talking to NPCs. The developers want the player to be as mystified by what happens throughout as the Demi-Fiend probably is, so the plot is one that requires paying attention to dialogue and/or incidental worldbuilding. It's a hard thing to be mysterious without seeming obtuse, but I think Nocturne hits that balance perfectly.

Anyway, I've not encountered any cheap deaths thus far, and Nocturne has the second best set of dungeons of the 3D MegaTen games after Persona 5 (which reigns supreme in terms of dungeons).

@Snaplocket That's fine. You asked why I rate them so low, and I explained, in some detail. I stand by my criticisms, especially considering how recently I played them.

I don't hate the games. Especially DDS1, which, as I've pointed out, I think is a considerably better game than its sequel. But Atlus has been in the habit of making stone-cold classics for a while now, and I just don't think these games are there.

Dear @Ralizah and @TheFrenchiestFry, may you elaborate on why DeSu2 is not an acceptable bridge between Megami Tensei games and Neo-Persona games (from 3 to 5)? Basically, DeSu2 for DS was my first Atlus game I ever played, I loved the battle, the monster collection, the branching choices. But In online communities, this game always ends to bring more negative comments than positive ones. Like Ralizah did a few pages ago...
The reason now I play Megami Tensei games is mostly because I found DeSu2 in one day!

For me, the story and battle time are balanced in DeSu games. The reason I always gave up Neo-Persona games is the terrible focus on social activities that, the majority of it, I may find boring anyways. Pressing the A button for 50 min sessions is not playing and not really funny.
And I don't really like visual novels(and when I played neo Persona, I feel like I'm playing this type of game), except when I like the subject (e.g. for studying). For me, the dual-language visual novel (English-Nihongo) is the best way to learn new Nihongo words.

Anyway, Persona 4 Golden came on Steam, almost a year later and I still need to beat the goDDDamn game.
Thanks for reading my comment, mates!

EDIT: I want to FF time until Atlus post something SMT V related!

@Alex90 I personally think that DeSu 2, potentially more so than SMT IV Apocalypse, wrote its characters in a pretty archetypal and cookie cutter way, where they all sort of felt more like caricatures or stereotypes rather than completely realized and fleshed out in their own right, and it reminded me a lot of how Persona characters in 3-5 (but more 4 & 5 imo) tended to have a distinctive personality trait that would basically almost completely define them as characters, like Daichi being the timid and forgetful one, or Io being the polite, booksmart one

Most of my problems with the game are purely story and specifically character related. The gameplay is a big positive mostly because it carries over the systems from the first Devil Survivor which I thought were excellent.

I personally think the archetypal writing works better in Persona because the slice of life setup of the stories tend to lend themselves better to scenarios that use those archetypes for meaningful character development or making the parties of each game feel like they function more as a single unit or team.

@TheFrenchiestFry And I disliked so much Dagda and the love triangle in SMT IV A, e.g. Dagda instead being more a character that brings more existentialism and nihilistic approach, he just an edgy teen god. Such a waste of a character! Toki expressing that she be with Nanashi anyways and seconds later facing him on Anarchy until death is such a distasteful choice of Atlus.
Hoy, Atlus, you want to bring more Persona-like themes on SMT? Why not adopt a Social Link based on decisions just like Mass Effect and Dragon Age? This way us SMT gamers can have allies like in the SMT IV A system (such a Quality of Life improvement from IV, imagine you selecting Jonathan your ally on Minotaur fight! And casting more Bufu, of course). And make the branching choices better by not being neutral-path bias.
Ah if only Atlus read this thread!

@Snaplocket Persona is definitely more of a character driven series as far as the MegaTen games go

I'd say the closest the other side series have come to replicating the focus on character in tandem with narrative and gameplay was probably SMT IV (the first one, not Apocalypse). Both it and Persona make the characters an essential centerpiece and vehicle to push narrative, which also adds to the gameplay, which is something I admire about Persona even if I think for the most part, they aren't as instantly replayable as something like Nocturne or Soul Hackers or anything

I loved IV Apocalypse's cast and storytelling. It's so different from normal SMT, but, like with a Persona game, the personalities are vivid, characters evolve over the course of the narrative, and while it's true there's a love triangle element, I didn't think it intruded too much on the larger narrative. They're far more developed than characters you'll find in other mainline games.

As with XC2, I imagine it just comes down to a portion of the audience being uncomfortable with characterizations that are more anime-inspired.

I don't disagree that the way the endings were handled was less than ideal, though. I'm not sure why the Massacre ending was even a thing. The game was CLEARLY designed to facilitate the Bonds ending, and you're punished for even choosing Massacre unless you act like a smarmy ass through the rest of the game. And even if you do, the logic of the narrative doesn't mesh well with that ending.

I'm inclined to say it was trying to do something similar to Undertale, but that game actually plays well with its dual-ending structure, because the pacifist and genocide routes are VERY, VERY different. Atlus should have ditched the idea of multiple endings entirely, or else structured the game in such a way that it could logically lead to the Massacre ending.

Still, that's such a minor complaint in the grand scheme of things.

@Alex90 I don't recall dunking on DeSu2 recently, but it's true that the game, while fine mechanically, didn't make much of an impact on me. As with @TheFrenchiestFry , I have no real issues with the gameplay. Rather, it's everything else: the cast is thoroughly generic and forgettable, the story is completely lacking in the tension that worked so well for the original DeSu, and, in general, nothing about it grabbed me. Although I also haven't tried out whatever the new story arc is in the 3DS re-release.

But, to your point, I think the primary thing that would keep it from being a bridge to mainline for Persona fans is the gameplay. Devil Survivor games play very differently from mainline AND Persona. DeSu1 at least works better on this level insofar as, thematically, it's a great fusion of classic SMT with a unique stylistic approach. DeSu2's plot felt like something out of a bad sci-fi anime to me.

For me, the 'obvious good ending' is 'Massacre route' and 'the morally questionable bad ending' is Bonds route. It is not SMT if you would not kill at least one of your human friends. At the end of the 'Massacre route', Nanashi became a god and create humans anew, also Nanashi makes baby-gods with Navarre for the sake of 'lol's. Why this is a bad ending? Ok, if you are not liked the thought of making babies with Navarre, pick Isabeau as a goddess.