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Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers |OT| New World Order, Old World Chaos
- Thread starter cj_iwakura
- Start date
cj_iwakura
Member
Tough call. I KNOW SH is a great game, IV is just very very likely to be one as well.
So... for now, the sure bet? SH.
MarcoZombieCannon
Member
Hey no problem!
On SH or SMTIV: I'm personally getting both, but in the end it might come down to preferences. If you don't care for 1st person grid based movement then I would get SMTIV. Otherwise just just SH now and then SMTIV down the road when you can.
If IV doesn't end up playing better than SH, there will probably be rending of garments. I really enjoyed my time with the JP 3DS Soul Hackers and will be doing it again with the English version, but at the same time it's definitely a late-90s RPG. At the time of its release, Soul Hackers was easily the most accessible, least clunky game in the series; today, that means its appeal may be squarely to existing SMT fans.
By virtue of IV having the Press Turn System alone, the choices and strategy in every part of the game, from skills to demons, will be more meaningful than they are in SH. Judging from what we know so far, the whole scope of the game will easily trump SH.
Now characters and story on the other hand...Soul Hackers may have the edge there, but we don't know yet.
Im always like this a week before any game release Im anticipating. Even more if the game has a demo. What sucks with 3rd party releases on eShop, is that we don't get them at Midnight EST
MarcoZombieCannon
Member
I know that feel. Anyone have a time machine I can borrow?
Get SH now, get IV later.
cj_iwakura
Member
I could be persuaded to move up the Saturn preview by two days.
MarcoZombieCannon
Member
I'm still okay waiting. I'm not sure about everyone else, but I think having the preview a little closer to release would be better than having it followed by 6 days of nothing.
cj_iwakura
Member
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Friday's the perfect time, three days after, you get the real thing!
(I better not be the only one camping GameStop.)
MarcoZombieCannon
Member
Amazon shipping for me, and that means I won't get the game until late-afternoon to early evening. It's going to be an especially excruciating wait that day.
Nahh, Friday is good.
cj_iwakura
Member
I went Amazon originally, but since there's a chance I can get it on Monday night, I went for it.
It'll be just like when I picked up No More Heroes 2 on the night everyone wanted some game called Mass Effect 2.
MarcoZombieCannon
Member
If I was confident that I could still get a copy properly reserved this late I would switch to GameStop. The midnight release for
I'm at the mercy of Best Buy shipping.
Though, I did order Bioshock Infinite the day before it released and they got it to me next day, and that was with regular expedited. Hopefully, they'll do the same. Worse comes to worse, I'll have it a day or two later.
cj_iwakura
Member
OP Version, uh, 3.5 is live.
All the screens are now from the English version, and the release date has been moved to the top.
And put the character sections in quotes. That's as concise as it gets!
All the screens are now from the English version, and the release date has been moved to the top.
And put the character sections in quotes. That's as concise as it gets!
buddha0991
Member
CJ, I commend you on your work on this OP, I am impressed, friend.
MarcoZombieCannon
Member
Looks good CJ! The font looks much improved in the 3DS version, like, a ton.
Pierre Levegh
Member
I preordered from GameStop as well. Are they doing some type of midnight release?
cj_iwakura
Member
There's a midnight release for Injustice. I was told Soul Hackers is street dated, which means they will also have it available.
Now mobile device friendly! Great work.
natkingcoleslaw
Neo Member
So I have never played an SMT game. I do plan to, now that I have got my hands on my first ever Nintendo console (3DS). So can anyone advise me, which would be a better starting point, this or SMT IV? Anyways fingers crossed for an eshop release.
cj_iwakura
Member
Definitely this, SMTIV will be a lot more unforgiving for sure. And yes, this has eshop too.
Tyrant Rave
Banned
You're from SoFla right CJ? Do you know if all Gamestops down here will be doing the Injustice midnight release?
cj_iwakura
Member
Can't see why not, Broward's sure are.
natkingcoleslaw
Neo Member
Thanks for the reply, but I was thinking more in terms of enjoyability, presentation, and especially story rather than difficulty. I guess it would be more difficult and quite impractical to compare the two since SMT IV isn't even out yet (is it?)
Just tell me what your SMT veteran instincts tell you.
cj_iwakura
Member
No, IV isn't out yet, but I can vouch for SH.
Story remains to be seen, but from what I've seen so far, I'd give Soul Hackers the edge in presentation, since it has fully rendered cutscenes.
They're dated, but I think they're neat looking, see the original OP in the OP.
SMT IV's probably going to use static portraits with limited animation for cutscenes, like Trauma Team did, so it's going to be comparatively lower budget.
Dungeon wise, both look fantastic.
Another way to look at it was that Soul Hackers was a full-fledged mainline R&D1 project at the time, Atlus had their dream team committed to it. SMTIV, sadly, is still more or less a side project for current Atlus.
Tyrant Rave
Banned
Sweet, I'm in Broward. Gonna try to grab it at midnight. Thanks for the heads up.
Really disagree here. Not trying to sour up a Soul Hackers OT: I think it's a great game that will be eaten up by the right audience, which I believe will mainly be existing fans. The changes made to the 3DS SH serve to make it more palatable to the modern SMT audience rather than offering something with broader appeal.
Soul Hackers' 3D dungeon graphics absolutely look dated, but it's pretty much a port of a 16-year-old game, so they are by no fault of its own. On the other hand, IV's dungeons are all fully rendered and explorable in third-person and they look fantastic. Enemy animation in battle is a sticking point, but at least IV has animation frames for its enemies, rather than the static sprites of SH that merely shift from side to side (which I think has a certain charm of its own). There's honestly not much difference between the two in cutscenes and character interaction.
Soul Hackers was the spark that lead to a more accessible SMT series. Even if SMT IV is just a "side project," it's still building off more than a decade of incremental improvements to a formula, while the hacks and easier modes for Soul Hackers 3DS are merely BandyAids to cover up the game's age.
cj_iwakura
Member
I love how IV looks so far, but I first played SH a couple years ago and was blown away by how good the 3D dungeons looked. The draw distance and aesthetics still look great, I think.
Does this game have skill points I have to distribute when someone levels up? If so, what's a good way to min/max it so I can pretty well roll though it without really feeling like I'm putting them somewhere they aren't doing anything?
Also, are what the demons want in negotiations static or random? Is there a nice guide out there I can refer to if I don't want to miss out on one?
Also, are what the demons want in negotiations static or random? Is there a nice guide out there I can refer to if I don't want to miss out on one?
TurnipFritters
Member
You can distribute stat points for the hero and the heroine. Since the heroine learns magic and gets all of her MP restored when she levels up, it'd be a good idea to put points into her intelligence and magic stats (and mostly ignore her strength stat). Since the hero can't learn magic, he should pretty much never have any points put into his magic stat and you may want to focus on building up his strength.
Luck, as always, is pretty much a dump stat.
Yeah, the design of everything in SH, from world to characters, is great, no question. As for the dungeons, maybe compared to other contemporary Saturn games, but I couldn't believe the 3DS version didn't do much to spruce up that part of the presentation. The dungeon graphics and framerate and some other frustrations presented me with an initial hump playing the 3DS version, but once I got over it I was addicted. Still, it was there. For a first time SMT player, Soul Hackers may not make the best impression, but is still a no-brainer choice for anyone who loves SMT, dungeon crawlers, or has an affinity for 32-bit era RPGs.
And since both games will be available digitally, there's no fear of missing an Atlus print run this time around! If you can only choose one right now, the other will still be immediately available whenever you're craving another.
Well that's pretty straightforward. I love this two party thing. Thanks turnip.
OK I put in my preorder on Amazon. First game I've ever preordered, actually.
Also, what's the best Nemissa path (you get a question in the beginning of the game asking you to describe Hitomi, and Nemissa's skillset changes depending on your answer).
"Cheerful": Fire and Expel skills
"Cool": Ice and Death skills
"Surprisingly sexy": Electricity skills with earlier access to Almighty skills than other 2 paths.
List of learned skills here: http://megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/Nemissa#Stat
Cheerful path seems lame while Cool and Surprisingly Sexy seem good. SS seems a little better though?
Also, what's the best Nemissa path (you get a question in the beginning of the game asking you to describe Hitomi, and Nemissa's skillset changes depending on your answer).
"Cheerful": Fire and Expel skills
"Cool": Ice and Death skills
"Surprisingly sexy": Electricity skills with earlier access to Almighty skills than other 2 paths.
List of learned skills here: http://megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/Nemissa#Stat
Cheerful path seems lame while Cool and Surprisingly Sexy seem good. SS seems a little better though?
TurnipFritters
Member
Fire is the most practical since fire/expel weaknesses are really common in random encounters.
Elec lets her inflict shocked status but mazio spells have a poor area of effect. Megidola is great, but you probably won't have it until you're literally heading into the last dungeon so.
Ice isn't completely awful, it's just... not as good as the other two. Death spells aren't very useful (hell, over half the Divine clan are either immune or highly resistant to it), and Ice is... it's not bad, it just isn't very good.
Like, picking Ice or whatever isn't going to lock you out of finishing the game or anything, so pick whatever you want to use.
I went SS (by luck) on my playthrough and her Megidola and the Hecate Queen of the Full Moon skills turned her into a walking death machine, if she wasn't already. Also helped with the post-game stuff immensely, if you're planning on doing that.
PowderedToast
Junior Member
did anything come of that spanish online store that supposedly put this game up early?
MarcoZombieCannon
Member
After looking at the list I think I will too. Cheerful looks kinda eh.
Call Me Maybe
Banned
Okay, I promised some quick updates, so I'll let you all have my earliest impressions. I might discuss my reaction to the story, but the story itself will not be mentioned, so don't worry about spoilers.
- Love the 2D art, especially for the cutscenes.
- Voice acting is kind of grating after five minutes (thankfully you can turn it off)
- The game maps movement to the Dpad in a 3D space which is a pet peeve of mine. I absolutely hate that, and I can't find an option to change it. The analog stick is relegated to instead moving a map of the 'dungeon' on the bottom screen around. Why they couldn't have done it the other way around I will never know.
- The story so far is... bizarre
- The battle system takes a while to come to grips with! I still don't fully know what I am doing, but I can say this, it's pretty interesting.
All in all, I'm a bit mixed as to how I feel towards the game right now. It's a very old game, and a lot of the old design sensibilities are showing. But it's fun, and it's super hardcore, and it's keeping me playing, which is always a plus.
- Love the 2D art, especially for the cutscenes.
- Voice acting is kind of grating after five minutes (thankfully you can turn it off)
- The game maps movement to the Dpad in a 3D space which is a pet peeve of mine. I absolutely hate that, and I can't find an option to change it. The analog stick is relegated to instead moving a map of the 'dungeon' on the bottom screen around. Why they couldn't have done it the other way around I will never know.
- The story so far is... bizarre
- The battle system takes a while to come to grips with! I still don't fully know what I am doing, but I can say this, it's pretty interesting.
All in all, I'm a bit mixed as to how I feel towards the game right now. It's a very old game, and a lot of the old design sensibilities are showing. But it's fun, and it's super hardcore, and it's keeping me playing, which is always a plus.
That's how it is in EOIV. Worked for me.
Call Me Maybe
Banned
I know, I hated it there too. And in Unchained Blades.
Seems to be a common trend, but it just seems so inherently counter intuitive when you have an analog slider right there.
Why? You only go in 4 directions. It does show how odd the 3DS is designed though.
Call Me Maybe
Banned
I guess. It's just that I tend to associate the analog slider with movement, and the dpad with secondary functions, so having that inversion is always a bit of a shock.
Ergonomically too, the analog slider makes infinitely more sense than the Dpad (which brings us back to the point you just raised, yes).
cj_iwakura
Member
Are the shopkeepers voiced? And I prefer d-pad movement.
As for Nemissa; fire. She has a skill that does more damage when she's low on health, and it's a killer.