Topic: The Megami Tensei Thread

I don't see why anyone would think Atlus would make SMT into an action combat game. It's a JRPG, and while some JRPG's head into that tutorial, I highly doubt something like SMT would.

Considering Atlus also completely backtracked on their plans to have real time combat in Persona 5 early in development it's clear they'd be opposed to that even touching mainline at all. If they wanted to do action combat they have P5 Strikers as well as the Raidou games that they can revisit

@Slowdive I could barely hear it over the treehouse gameplay sadly.

@Snaplocket My point is that I think a lot of your negative speculation about this title is unlikely to come to pass. Atlus isn't going to make this massive open world and then only allow you to save at terminals or something like it's a PS2 game.

Also, while it's fine to dislike the choice, I don't know that you can call the game ending when your main character dies a QoL problem. Frankly, I think it makes perfect sense, even if it makes the game a bit harder. It'll be fine if Atlus doesn't fill the game with demons that spam instadeath skills at the player. Especially since you'll be able to ambush enemies in the field and have more control over what you end up fighting.

@Slowdive You could ambush enemies like that at least as far back as Persona 4, though. It was also a mechanic in the 3DS games.

Apparently Monark has been listed for a 01 March 2022 release, at least this is what the gamestop website says here in Italia: I don’t know if it’s 100% true but you can actually preorder it. Anyway it looks possible considering the early 2022 release. Looking forward to this.
Update: it’s also on Amazon with the same date.

That's odd, as it only says '2022' on Steam, @Primo40295 .... The latest official trailer says 'early 2022', for the West. So, those dates seem likely to be placeholders!

@BruceCM I know it’s a bit odd but it looks legit: other titles have different placeholder dates or literally unspecified ones, it even has a deluxe edition with an art book and downloadable soundtrack. But you can also preorder SMT V even though those should open on Monday and surprisingly it’s among the bestsellers on Amazon Italia so yeah pretty weird.

Looking closer at some of the Japanese gameplay and the Treehouse it looks like they actually changed how buffing/debuffing works to more closely align with how it works in the Persona games where it's set for a specific amount of turns and doesn't immediately affect your entire party but only who you cast it on

@TheFrenchiestFry Square Enix is on the bottom right of the Bravely Default II boxart with Nintendo on the box spine. Same with other 3rd party titles published by Nintendo like Octopath.

@Grumblevolcano Except if that was the case Nintendo would also be listed as publisher on the website instead of SEGA just like with the Bayonetta games on Switch or hell even Tokyo Mirage Sessions which Nintendo published even though Atlus developed it

This looks like it's another Persona 5 situation where it's Switch exclusive because Atlus. It's just tradition that mainline SMT is mostly confined to Nintendo consoles

Amanozako is a cutie. Really like her design.

Atlus has given us two Sophias in the same year and they couldn't be more different

@Slowdive Yep. This is basically what Pokemon Sw/Sh should have had: open-ended environments with a heavy emphasis on exploration, detailed 3D models with unique animations, and (from the looks of it) the ability to have at least one of your monsters follow you in the overworld (it really seems like that's the case from some of the footage I saw in the Japanese trailer).

i tried booting up my old smt1 save file to see if i can beat it before 5 and i genuinely believe its the worst smt game. when every single ailment they throw at you lands idk how you can enjoy it without save states

@Ralizah it will be interesting to see how it compares to Legend of Arceus, they basically have a similar structure (heavy focus on exploration and demon/Pokemon “training”) but even though the games are yet to be released in my opinion SMT V looks way better and that’s incredible considering the amount of money that everything involving Pokemon makes. In the end it’s a matter of quality before quantity, we waited a really long time for this game and it seems it payed off.

Arceus looked incredibly rough the first time it was shown. I'm surprised it's coming out so early in 2022 but I can only hope they've taken the time since to patch things up because that performance was not smooth at all

@Primo40295 SMT looks vastly better, although, honestly, if they can make a halfway decent open-ended Pokemon JRPG, I'd be willing to forgive a lot. As it stands, I'm still wary of Arceus, but if it turns out well, I hope it outsells the other, really disappointing mainline Pokemon releases on the system.

I dunno how much of it is a matter of talent, experience with HD game design, or just that they're expected to turn out multiple games over the course of a generation and so can't devote proper attention to one product at a time. The team working on SMT V basically went radio silent from 2017 until last year. GameFreak doesn't seem to have that privilege. Pokemon is too much of an annual institution.

@Ralizah I grew up playing Pokemon and as someone who enjoyed the (obviously flawed) open world sections of sword and shield I really hope that they can fix at least the performance and deliver a game that can possibly be a breath of fresh air. But it’s Pokemon, it will sell a lot no matter what. Nevertheless I am really happy that they’re trying new things. In the best case scenario we will have two great games this winter so let’s hope for the best.

By the way if you can have demons following you I really hope that it’s not limited to the smaller ones. Just imagine walking around with Lucifer looming behind you.

@Slowdive I'm not a fan of the goofy running animation, though. It's like an inch away from being Naruto running.

But yeah, traversal overall looks hugely improved. And it really seems like the game has an open world design. No more navigating a cursor around a flat 2D landscape in the overworld.

@Primo40295 Yeah. Since the demons seem to be modeled to scale in the overworld, it would be really fun to run around with some enormous monster following behind you

RE: Pokemon, they do at least seem to be trying to do new things, which defeats the "we'll never get anything new other than weird gimmicks because Sword and Shield sold well" argument. I wasn't a fan of the wild areas, though, unfortunately. I think the game would have been stronger overall if they'd focus on making routes that are wider and less explicitly linear.

It'll be interesting to see how a game that's just one big wild area will turn out. I did hear the environments in the Sw/Sh DLC expansions were improvements on what was available in the base game, so we'll see.