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In honor of 25 years of Demon Summoning, GAF Plays: The (Shin) Megami Tensei series
- Thread starter Jucksalbe
- Start date
drtomoe123
Member
I beat Persona 1 for the first time today. It feels really good knowing that I get to play IS next. P2 and Strange Journey are the only US MegaTen games that I haven't played through.
perfect free
Member
I flaked on writing up my travels through the last two sectors, but I finally beat the Chaos route in Strange Journey. Only took me 3 months and 80-something hours!
The final boss and
can go die. in. a. fire. I don't know how many tries it took, but it felt like far too many, especially since I was buffing/debuffing like it was going out of style.
The final boss and
her stupid goddamn Requiem (unblockable instant death for entire party)
Koroviev
Member
I still need to finish this. I'm ~35 hours into it. Is it just me, or is there a lot of trial-and-error involved in navigating the later dungeons? I think I'm still trying to figure out where to go in
Delphinus
Congratulations! I still have Strange Journey ahead of me (stopped at the beginning of Sector C, or whatever it was called).
perfect free
Member
Oh, that sector is juuust the beginning. Four more dungeons of teleporters, pitfalls, and invisible walls (and possibly other things I forgot/blocked out) await you! Also, if you can't figure out where to go next, remember to check for hidden doors.
Koroviev
Member
That's what I meant by "trial-and-error." Having to turn to face every piece of wall in the hope of discovering a hidden passageway. I mean, some are obvious due to the symmetry of the dungeon, but others...oy vey.
That's interesting. I guess I was lucky against her because I didn't die even once and I found the Law's final boss way harder
Persona 1 has a really great ending. The game grows a bit tiresome towards then final hours, but the end makes up for it.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
cj_iwakura
Member
I envy you the ability to play through them all in sequence for the first time.
encephalon
Member
IS is amazing! And quite the reward for enduring P1.
I'd be up for it if I could try in English! Is that fan translation for Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei still going on or what?
cj_iwakura
Member
Yep, not done though.
Koroviev
Member
The trial and error is when you roll your MC at the beginning.
I actually didn't really pay attention to that, despite re-rolling stats like a fiend in the Devil Survivor games.
With no English translation, it's kinda hard for me to do. But I guess I will use the excuse to finish Raidou today.
Uhh...two summoners? Who might the second one be?
We're back in Tsukudo-Cho. Somehow. Oh, a cat! That one looks familiar, let's follow it!
And there he is, the second summoner! It's another Raidou, but this one's called Raido and has a cat named Goto. Okay, so basically we went back in time a few months. But either we got a "u" within that time or this is not the same timeline. Are there different timelines in this game? Guess, we'll see.
Oh, and of course, to get a better understanding of the situation we should go to the shrine (because they know everything over there).
Isn't it nice how they have an artifact for everything? How often does this happen exactly? Maybe we should rather spend the time to stop Munakata from abducting Kaya? Oh well, who knows where we really are.
I see potential for a completely new game here. Travel around the world to gather the pieces of the Amatsu Kanagi before the evil emperor does. Good thing, in this game we can just warp to the locations since they are all places we visited before.
First stop: Dark Sakuradayama. There's not much here except for a puzzle we have to solve.
There are six stones (three on the left, three on the right). We have to hit all the stones with the new fancy sword we just got. The only problem is that sometimes when one stone is activated another one does as well.
Well, not the only one, here's another one: If we leave one side all stones stop resonating immediately because the sword has to be close. But demons are special, demons don't need a sword. So we just send one to the other side and let him do the rest of the work.
Can't have a trial of wisdom without a trial of strength.
He's surrounded by several minor demons. He will always summon new ones if you kill them, so just kill the ones that are annoying and concentrate on the boss. I didn't really find a weakness so I hit him with the sword as much as I could. You only have to watch out for his one special attack that hits everything in a larger circle around him.
Earth Prism get!
On to Ginza-Cho. This time the challenge is to get to the boss.
We need a Fury demon (for the ability "Use Force"), good thing for once we already had it. So we push those street cars aside, but then the last one wouldn't budge. We have to reach it from the other side. Not the first time we are in this area, so we know we have to take the way around the construction site.
But the path is blocked by a Tainted Gate, which means only a demon can go on here. There's a minor boss fight on the way, so make sure not to use a weak demon (and of course it has to be a demon with the "Use Force" ability). Once the last street car is moved we can reach the area behind the Tainted Gate with Raidou and find the boss on top of the bridge.
The boss fight's very similar to the fight in Sakuradayama. Lots of minor demons around the boss. But this time the boss is weak against Frost, so bring some ice bullets.
Another prism!
Now we can go to the final area: Harumi-Cho.
Basically we have to run around the area and wait for the right enemies to show up and then pray to god they drop the right item. Sounds like a lot of fun.
This times eight. I would guess the right enemies appear in about one out of three times, so they aren't really rare. But eight is a bit too much. Especially for an area that isn't new.
You can also buy those Purity Charms, but with that price it's probably better to just wait for the next Shouten.
30 minutes later we managed to gather the necessary items. They then take us to the boss, a hydra (or something similar). Looking at the screenshot I kinda get this urge to play a bit of House of the Dead.
Same as with the first boss. Only this time it seems to be a Frost demon. Didn't find the weakness again, so I just hit him with my sword until he fell.
We gathered all the prisms. The final one was hidden at the shrine. Now that the Amatsu Kanagi is put together again, we can finally head back home. I hope we at least get to keep it. This chapter feels so much like filler content already, let it at least have some kind of significance for the story later on.
Is this just gibberish or why wasn't it translated? Anyway back at the bridge Raido sents us back to our right time period (hopefully).
Chapter 9 is done. Finally in the double digits! Let's see how fast we can wrap this up.
"Capital in Flames"? That sounds like a prophecy we heard about some time ago.
Thank you!
Back at the agency, we find....noone. But Narumi left a letter telling us to stop our actions and that he will take care of it all. Yeah, right. He mentioned something about the Navy, so we're off to the Navy HQ in Harumi-Cho.
The Soulless Army is already let loose and killing Navy people left and right.
Narumi went to the underground factory. But the Cannon Battery #4 we used before to get there isn't working anymore, so we have to find some other way. Let's get back to the agency.
Seems we left the door open. A terminator got in. Since his contract is supposedly over, he doesn't want to fight anymore. All the while Munakata is busy getting finishing his final preperations. Let's take a look outside.
So the satellite is launched now. We failed pretty badly in stopping anything the bad guys were doing. Ah, who cares. We will win in the end for sure!
Ah, I know! There were those suspicious two statues we found a while ago. So let's look there.
There they are! We put the two orbs into the statues and then step on the two pressure plates in front of them. Down the well we take the train (or at least follow the rails) to the underground facility.
Of course, now that we're back again, there have to be more walls. First two are fire and electricity.
On our way, we meet this demon who claims to have slept a thousand years just to meet us. And then he fights us (to test our worth....). He really shouldn't have slept so long, maybe then he wouldn't have been such a weakling. Nothing noteworthy about that fight.
A Tainted Gate is blocking our way. Out of concern for our poor demons we decide to find a way to remove the wall instead of just sending someone through.
We will soon meet his crazy (really, really crazy) buddy, but before that we have to pass another two walls. This time they are ice and wind walls. Also try to recruit a Parvati demon on the way.
I had to laugh so hard at that scene. That guy really is crazy. But he'll help us.
He removes the gate. But right after it we are greeted by another wall. This one needs bullets. No problem, we always have bullets.
Hey! How did he get here with all those walls and stuff? At least we can convince him that we'll come along with him to meet Munakata.
Ohh...no it's getting interesting. And disgusting. So he was "possessed" by a demon? Seems like a rather small demon.
Behold, indeed! It's crazy (and I mean wtf crazy) cutscene time! I'll just post those screenshots all together.
This is....I don't have any words for this. This game is going completely nuts. I wanted to add a video link but I didn't find it on YouTube. All Let's Plays I looked at stopped playing the game somewhere along the way. Maybe I will cut my own video and upload it later on. I'll edit it in then.
Time to stop laughing. A boss fight is coming up.
This boss fight can get pretty hard with the wrong demon. It seems he is weak to elemental attacks, at least he was weak against the two I tried on him (ice and elec). I struggled a bit in the beginning because I was using the wrong demon. I strongly suggest using the Parvati you should have recruited along the way. She can attack from a distance and also heal with Media. A perfect combination for this boss.
Just make sure to return the demon to its tube when he starts to throw a bunch of Hirukos at your demon. If they grab it it will be killed instantly. This means you should have a lot of MAG for this fight (I used about 2000 MAG in this fight).
Demon dead. Now to kill a battleship transformer! Next time.
Can't wait to see if the next episode can beat the craziness of chapter 10.
Just take it with you.
Member
Oh, cool. I hadn't heard anything for a while, so I was wondering about it.
SpaceBridge
Member
Guys, I booted up Nocturne since last year. Started up my save which was from somewhere at the Assembly of Nihilo (sp?). Got lost in some maze where I need to get to some storerooms, and was defeated repeatedly by regular random encounters. Ugh. What should I do? Restart the game, try to slog my way through? I loves the games atmosphere and world, but sometimes it just isn't fun to play.
Koroviev
Member
Guys, I booted up Nocturne since last year. Started up my save which was from somewhere at the Assembly of Nihilo (sp?). Got lost in some maze where I need to get to some storerooms, and was defeated repeatedly by regular random encounters. Ugh. What should I do? Restart the game, try to slog my way through? I loves the games atmosphere and world, but sometimes it just isn't fun to play.
Man up.
cj_iwakura
Member
I miss art of that caliber.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
Megaten!
Guys, I booted up Nocturne since last year. Started up my save which was from somewhere at the Assembly of Nihilo (sp?). Got lost in some maze where I need to get to some storerooms, and was defeated repeatedly by regular random encounters. Ugh. What should I do? Restart the game, try to slog my way through? I loves the games atmosphere and world, but sometimes it just isn't fun to play.
Megaten!
Supermanisdead
Member
Going to finally beat the boss in P3FES today. Last time I died because of Revolution + crit + second crit! I lost like 15 days. Now I'm just grinding for Onyx.
When I played, I went through new passages in a snakelike maneuver where I would face the left wall, press R, press down to turn around, press L, press down to turn around, press R, etc...
Is this just gibberish or why wasn't it translated?
It's basically just "magic words." It doesn't really mean anything.
Ah, thanks for clearing that up. It went on for so long (I think it was three or four lines) that I wasn't so sure if I was supposed to understand anything.
So, let's bring that thing down!
It would be pretty stupid to directly attack a walking battleship, so we decide to bring down the satellite instead. To get there we need a rocket, best ask a crazy scientist living in a garbage dump?
Seems he is not crazy enough. He actually needs more specific data to pull this off.
So where could we find this data? Maybe someone who spent all of his recent time gathering information on the Super Soldier Project.
You actually see the giant thing on the map screen (in the upper right). Very nice.
Okay, we go to see Sadakichi. He should know something. And really, he gives us his report on everything he found out and all the plans he stole.
All the relevant data is written in Russian (I guess Sadakichi just grabbed whatever he could find), so we have to find someone who can read Russian and of course our first choice would be:
Victor! Wait, what?
The important bit actually is the Tsiolkovski's equation. But that doesn't really help Victor. He suggests to look for Rasputin. How do we find him? We haven't seen him for a while and he's not in our agency. There's not really anybody who knows him.
Besides random travelers. Seems we can find him at the Soda Joint in Ginza.
Now here's someone we haven't seen in quite a while. Tae, you sure got irrelevant fast.
Rasputin is more concerned with Tae right now, so we somehow have to get his attention. And yes, "Smack him" actually is the right choice this time. So let's have some fun!
Down he goes. He's a robot, so we're allowed to do anything with him.
And anything includes delivering him to Victor, which isn't really a nice thing to do. But now he seems to be ready to talk.
Whatever. Crazy scientist guy will know what to do.
So basically we have to reduce the overall weight while still finding someone to go up to the satellite and blow that thing up.
The game is mocking us.
Good idea! Just send a demon, noone cares about those.
And while we're at it, kill the pseudo-cat as well.
The menu to choose the demon to go up has to be one of the stupidest design decisions in this game. The game asks you for every single demon you hold until you choose one. You can't even look at the status screen for each demon. Use someone with a healing spell.
Let's think back. Who would have honestly thought there would be a scene like this in the game after playing the prologue.
Docking complete.
There it is, the core. Let's destroy it!
We only have the demon we chose before in this fight. Raidou stayed behind. Don't bother with the enemies or the core at the beginning of the fight (it took me a while to notice), there are three defense mechanisms on the side that have to be destroyed first. And even afterwards you can't attack the core until you finished off the remaining enemies. And after that, only the core is left. Destroy it!
We did it!
And that's it. Satellite destroyed, battleship taken down. But the game is not over yet. Don't forget to resummon the demon you just killed off!
And done! Next time we meet another person we haven't seen for a while.
It's getting a little late over here, so I won't be able to finish the game today. The finale will have to wait until tomorrow.
cj_iwakura
Member
Oh you ain't seen nothing yet.
Koroviev
Member
I'm in the mood for another playthrough of Devil Survivor 2 (have only completed it once so far), but I'm not sure if I want to go with my NG+ save or a fresh start. I think I chose to carry over some of my prized demons, but facerolling through the game isn't very exciting.
I went with the
route the first time around. I'm somewhat torn between one of the
routes or the
one.
I went with the
Yamato
Daichi
anguished
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
Sending your cat into space is literally the only good thing about Devil Summoner.
Kaneko, music, setting, protagonist. These facts are unassailable.
Nah, there is a lot more great stuff. But I give you that overall it's not a good game. I can't see myself ever playing through it again.
Koroviev
Member
A devout member of the Atlus faithful would replay it at least once a month.
"Keep your life free from love of other franchises, and be content with what you have, for Atlus has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” "
Koroviev
Member
Heresy!
The Return of
Banned
not sure why you put yourself through the misery then. Do you own Devil Summoner 2?
Yes. The first one is still an interesting game and I really wanted to see where the story goes, but now that I've seen it all that remains is the gameplay. And that really isn't that great. So no need to replay.
The Return of
Banned
Well you may have a better experience with Devil Summoner 2, gameplay was my main reason for not liking the first game, but I enjoy the 2nd a lot. I'd suggest giving it a few hours to see what you think, but I can understand if you don't want to play them back to back.
Augemitbutter
Member
the second game is far better. one of the best RPGs of last gen to be exact.
Woah didn't even know this thread existed, how awesome
I started playing Person 3 FES last week! I completed the OG P3 when it was released but never got around to FES. Fuck P3P btw.
Anyway, onto my game progress! 13 hours in, got up to level 30 or so of Tartarus, level 13.
One thing I'm worried about is being able to get my Charm, Academics, and Courage up in time. I know Charm and Courage are way faster to level up(around 80 points iirc) while Academics is around 240. I figure every night I should be studying before sleep(unless sick) for Academics and using the arcade at night for Charm and Courage when I don't go to Tartarus. So much to balance in these games, it's stressful but super fun.
I started playing Person 3 FES last week! I completed the OG P3 when it was released but never got around to FES. Fuck P3P btw.
Anyway, onto my game progress! 13 hours in, got up to level 30 or so of Tartarus, level 13.
One thing I'm worried about is being able to get my Charm, Academics, and Courage up in time. I know Charm and Courage are way faster to level up(around 80 points iirc) while Academics is around 240. I figure every night I should be studying before sleep(unless sick) for Academics and using the arcade at night for Charm and Courage when I don't go to Tartarus. So much to balance in these games, it's stressful but super fun.
foobarry81
Member
not really an answer to your question, sorry.
But seeing you posting here on Devil Summoner sort of sold me on the game, so I just ordered it. (Being in Europe I don't have the option to pick DS2 over it anyway.) I read that you're not all too crazy about it, but going from the screenshots it does seem to have a really nice atmosphere about it. It somewhat reminded me of Shadow Hearts: Covenant stylistically. So really looking forward to that. And I guess I'll be able to stomach whatever is not so great about the game. We'll see. Edit: SMT is supposedly a 30h game: http://howlongtobeat.com/gamebreakdown.php?gameid=711
not really an answer to your question, sorry.
Oh, the setting is great, the writing is great, the story is crazy. It's just the gameplay that's seriously lacking and there is some stuff in there that can make it really frustrating. If you look around on the internet you find a lot of aborted Let's Plays and people who stopped halfway. So you have to be able to cope with some frustration and repetition.
I'm kinda sad we never got Devil Summoner 2 here in Europe. It's the only one of the PS2 SMTs we missed out on. I imported the game when it was released in the US.
And since you plan to play Raidou 1, DON'T read my next update on the game (which I'm currently writing on the side). There will be serious spoilers and more in-depth speculation about the story.
foobarry81
Member
I'd import it, but then I'd also need a US PS2... :-(
I haven't really been reading your posts very thoroughly (to avoid too many spoilers obviously). Just went through them looking at the screens and trying to get the bigger picture of it, the general structure of the game and all. And it just looks really appealing on the surface. Maybe you just have a way to get people enthusiastic, even when you're not all that enthusiastic about the matter at hand yourself.
Maybe you just have a way to get people enthusiastic, even when you're not all that enthusiastic about the matter at hand yourself.
Haha, now that is something I've never heard before.