cj_iwakura
Member
A lot of SH bosses can be either incredibly easy or a nightmare based on how the AI goes. (I guess this applies to SMT in general, heh.)
When I finally beat
Erika
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Shin Megami Tensei Community Thread: Be Your True Demon
- Thread starter cj_iwakura
- Start date
A lot of SH bosses can be either incredibly easy or a nightmare based on how the AI goes. (I guess this applies to SMT in general, heh.)
When I finally beat
That made me remember the 1v1 with
Finnigan
It's so much fun. Felt like a Rival battle in Pokemon, huh?
SatelliteOfLove
Member
I like how those had "wizard's duels" feel about them, or gunslingers.
40detectives
Neo Member
Sorry if I didn't express myself correctly. Sorry if bad english if at all. I also misread your post.
I found the buffing pretty heavy in SH but not broken, I like it how they force you to use them. It made me feel like they aren't thrown away turns.
Or maybe you could say I like how they broke it =D
Eh, didn't know that either.
I just received this:
And it does more or less shows: the art of the first book seems way less precise as the latter ones.
I've been supposing for a long time that one of Kaneko's design traits I like the most (the pure, minimalistic style, not drowning into needless details) simply stems from him beggining designing with low poly models. Knowing back then he started with the poly models, before doing the art itself, only conforts me in this.
Dragon1893
Member
Oh, OK. They're definitely OP though, even the final boss can be turned into a cake walk.
RecursiveFault
Banned
I've been really curious about those art books. How much Nocturne art is in the third? I've heard conflicting things.
Each book has exclusively all the new designs for respectively SMT I, II and III, (or the redesigns in some cases, even minimal ones like Michael from SMT I to II).
But the reused designs from SMT I and II are not in the third book for example.
As SMT III reused a lot, and to not have a thin book, the third book also has redesigns from the (PS1 I think ?) remasters from the first two games, as well as some from NINE. So the third book overlaps a bit with the first two.
The first two books are exclusively about SMT I resp. II, and don't overlap from what I saw (aside for the archangels).
I didn't play the first two games sadly, I'm impressed by some demon designs that got worse in Nocturne IMO, like Decarabia or Othrus, and a lot of designs I never saw I really like (e.g. Morrighan, Pascal...).
I don't know how anyone can be conflicted about these books, they're beautifull.
Edit: to be clearer: the books only feature demon (and the rare human) designs, nothing else (apart for the PC from SMT I and II).
wow, good condition too, how many hundos did it take to get all of that???
I got a bud who's going to try and pick them up for me in Japan this spring but I'm not sure if they'll even be that much less expensive heh.
Got them off amazon (US). I already asked one friend over in Japan, he couldn't find them (even though I suspect he idn't search very hard).
The paper cover is a bit torn on the edges, but well yeah, I'm pretty happy with their condition.
The shipping prices (to Germany) killed me (books themselves were expensive (around $100 each, abit less maybe), but ok imo)
SatelliteOfLove
Member
I have to be incredibly strong not to drop that money on those. A rerelease would work wonders.
100$ each? My goodness.
When I think I got them for something like 35$ each 7 or 8 years ago. I didn't know prices went that high.
That's pretty cool, thanks for posting.
NeonZ
Member
I don't think it's a matter of artistic cohesion, it was just a way to reuse sprites in the first couple of SMT games. In those pages you've posted, look at how half of Cerberus' body is reused for two other demons. Considering how the designs seemed to be made with cart space limitations in mind, it makes sense that they'd first be sprites.
I finished Digital Devil Saga 1 last week but I didn't really like the characters or story. The setting is kinda cool, but the whole back plot became kinda stale and I was bored after the mystery resolved more and more, so I didn't enjoy it either. Having 6 parties fight gang wars was far more interesting. Could have made the game around that without the
crap.
I enjoyed Persona and Nocturne (never finished it for some reason tho; can't remember why, played it when it was released).
So would I like the Devil Survivor and Devil Summoner series?
matrix
I enjoyed Persona and Nocturne (never finished it for some reason tho; can't remember why, played it when it was released).
So would I like the Devil Survivor and Devil Summoner series?
Barrylocke
Member
I can't really describe against Digital Devil Saga because I never got too far in that game myself. Devil Survivor is more about a group of teens surviving in an active Tokyo crisis, which is a little different from games like Nocturne where the damage comes and goes before you really have a chance to do anything about it. Devil Summoner on the PS2 is more about solving a series of mysteries as a detective in 1920s Tokyo. The game and especially the localization gives the game a roaring 20s vibe.
Don't forget that the gameplay in both of these games very different from most of the other SMT games. Devil Survivor mixes strategy RPG and turn based game play by having you position your characters around on a grid and then fighting one turn or more of RPG combat when two characters meet. Devil Summoner at least the Raidou Devil Summoners are action RPGs though they still have recruiting, fusing and use of demons.
Thanks for the summary. Survivor sounds more appealing settings-wise, but I kinda dig the gameplay approach of Summoner after looking it up on youtube. Also PS2 > DS. Might give it a spin.
Bit of forwarning: Raidou 1's setting is amazing, and from what I saw the story is good too. But the actual combats are kinda meh imo, and the very high encounter rate doesn't help.
Raidou 2 greatly improved on the combats, which makes it far more pleasant to play.
Edit: actualy, as you spoke about both of them, Devil Survivor was the exact oposit for me. I didn't care too much for the setting (it was still nice, but that character design...), but the combat system was great.
Encounter rate can't be worse than DSS.
Are Raidou 1 and 2 connected? Should I play 1 before 2 if I wanted to start?
Also still have Persona 2 to play.
The encounter rate is about the same IIRC (on the high side), and no they are not really connected although there is a shared cast. The opening parts of Raidou 2 seem to assume you haven't played the first as most things are reintroduced for the player.
Raidou 1 is safely my least favorite of the PS2 megaten games. Not to say it's doesn't have some qualities (the setting, some of the characters). But it was clearly a style of game they didn't have much experience in and so it's a bit raw. Camera control kinda suck, and battles felt a bit stale and sluggish.
Raidou 2 is "rad as hell' as charlequin is known to put it. It improves on numerous things from combat to game structure. The narrative is weaker though. This was my post from a few years ago when I delved into these games.
Seda said:
Thanks for the impressions!
In recent times I value character and story much higher than gameplay, so it seems I will start with Raidou 1, when I start to dig into the series and I'm actually glad to hear that 1 is superior here in that department to offset the weaker gameplay. I think it's also better to 'upgrade' the experience instead of downgrading it. That's why P3 => P4 is so much better than going P4 => P3. If you hadn't played Raidou 1, the sequel wouldn't have impressed you as much I'm sure.
Right, I'm the type of person who likes to play in release order. Skipping Raidou 1 wasn't an option, personally. I like to see how things change in sequence.
It's not all too long, thankfully, so know it's not an immense commitment.
cj_iwakura
Member
To add to that, if you want primarily human art, get Digital Devil Apocalypse. It has stuff from Maken X, Devil Summoner 1 & 2, Persona 1 & 2, SMT1&2, etc. Great assortment of Kaneko goodness. I love my copy.
I just ordered a copy from Amazon, it was relatively cheap.
cj_iwakura
Member
Yeah, mine was too. I don't expect the value to stay cheap if word gets out.
I beat Soul Hackers! Weirdly enough, I like how little they seemingly did to update it. It makes for a nice little time capsule. Contrary to popular belief, good games don't "age poorly"-- a game that's aged poorly probably wasn't very good to begin with.
I definitely had some small issues with the game, though, that made me appreciate my time with the more modern games in the series that I've played. For one, fusion. There's a lot of talk these days about how the increasingly lenient fusion rules are making SMT games too easy (SMT4, P4G, PQ, etc), but Soul Hackers (and presumably other early games in the series) are a pretty good demonstration that it goes both ways.
I mean, it's kind of nice that I didn't have to Circle-X-Circle-X-Circle-X a bunch of times to get the demon I wanted, but the tradeoff is that I never got the demon I wanted. I had a Rakshasa from level 43 up until about level 58 because I wasn't able to get even one of his debuffs to pass on to any demon that I tried to fuse using him, before I just said screw it and fused him into some random and decidedly-more-useless fusion fodder so I could stop thinking so hard about fusion. I'm pretty sure I can count on a single hand the number of times I was able to make a demon I'd be happy to hang on to for more than a level or two without running to the Goumaden to try my hand at something even slightly better. It's compounded by the fact that demons don't level up at all, to boot.
It's also kind of disappointing how little consequence any of the player's decisions have on anything, considering the series it belongs to. I'd routinely go and check the consequences of any seemingly-major decisions after I'd actually made my own decision, to see what I might be missing out on, and invariably the answer was that I wasn't missing out on much of anything. Stuff like choosing to side with
might have constituted a different ending or route in other SMT games, but all lead to the same place here (New Game Plus not withstanding, though my understanding is they added that in the 3DS version?)
Conversely, it is cool how some smaller decisions do have interesting consequences: accidentally choosing which Nemissa you're getting at the start, or the way Finnegan's choices change the ensuing boss fights, and the way the final Vision Quest determines which version of the final boss you fight. I just wish decisions had more narrative consequence in addition to the gameplay ones that do exist.
Cool game all around though!
I definitely had some small issues with the game, though, that made me appreciate my time with the more modern games in the series that I've played. For one, fusion. There's a lot of talk these days about how the increasingly lenient fusion rules are making SMT games too easy (SMT4, P4G, PQ, etc), but Soul Hackers (and presumably other early games in the series) are a pretty good demonstration that it goes both ways.
I mean, it's kind of nice that I didn't have to Circle-X-Circle-X-Circle-X a bunch of times to get the demon I wanted, but the tradeoff is that I never got the demon I wanted. I had a Rakshasa from level 43 up until about level 58 because I wasn't able to get even one of his debuffs to pass on to any demon that I tried to fuse using him, before I just said screw it and fused him into some random and decidedly-more-useless fusion fodder so I could stop thinking so hard about fusion. I'm pretty sure I can count on a single hand the number of times I was able to make a demon I'd be happy to hang on to for more than a level or two without running to the Goumaden to try my hand at something even slightly better. It's compounded by the fact that demons don't level up at all, to boot.
It's also kind of disappointing how little consequence any of the player's decisions have on anything, considering the series it belongs to. I'd routinely go and check the consequences of any seemingly-major decisions after I'd actually made my own decision, to see what I might be missing out on, and invariably the answer was that I wasn't missing out on much of anything. Stuff like choosing to side with
Spooky versus siding with your other friends
Conversely, it is cool how some smaller decisions do have interesting consequences: accidentally choosing which Nemissa you're getting at the start, or the way Finnegan's choices change the ensuing boss fights, and the way the final Vision Quest determines which version of the final boss you fight. I just wish decisions had more narrative consequence in addition to the gameplay ones that do exist.
Cool game all around though!
cj_iwakura
Member
Soul Hackers is VERY strict regarding fusion. If I remember right, certain demons always yield fixed results, and some spells can not be inherited from certain parents, no matter what.
As far as I can figure out--
If you try to make a demon who inherits, say, healing spells, by using two demons who have no healing spells, the resultant demon will simply inherit nothing. Thus, the only inheritances are the ones that are "whitelisted" by the demon's inheritance type. In fact, I'm not even sure if "inheritance types" exist in any sense, or if each demon has its own whitelist of abilities, because sometimes the skills inherited were kind of arbitrary (Bombdi and Mazionga, for instance)
Once you've got a fusion that has enough whitelisted skills between its components to fill a Demon's skill bars, the resulting skill set that the Demon inherits is fixed in some way. Seemingly nothing can affect it. Either there's a priority list of some sort within the whitelist, or the game is determining inheritances with some sort of algorithm that employs variables the player has absolutely no control over and for our purposes are essentially fixed. Either way, this system is set up in such a way that some demons wanted to inherit Media instead of Mediarama and that drove me up the wall.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
Yup, there's restrictions, so the game's difficutly doesn't dive into a toilet after a threshold of buffs or some such. It's not preffered, it's necessary.
That's part of what I was referring to. By beginning with the sprite; the storage, memory and colour limitations can be accounted for in the designs themselves, rather than being an awkward, compromised version of concept art the system can't effectively display.
I generally prefer to play in release order as well, which is the main contributing factor to my hesitation in playing the subseries. I have no doubt I'd enjoy the second game if I started with it, but it'd feel wrong to skip the first, especially if its narrative is worthwhile. And even if it's not as long as the turn-based games, the prospect of 30 hours of torture isn't that appealing...
I got mine for 1000円 a couple years ago which is really crazy.
I think it's still very cheap in Japan today.
Edit: It got a little more expansive but it's still very cheap on amazon.co.jp. Get it while you can.
Yeah people should grab Digital Devil Apocalypse with a quickness, it's been my favorite for years.
On the artbook and guidebook tip, I uh, kinda splurged a bit this month:
My non-Amano favorite of all of these is definitely Devil Summoner World Guidance, it's also relatively cheap and really fantastic, and I actually enjoy it more than the much more expensive hefty Akuma Jiten over there on the left. Just page after page of Saturn era demon art, organized by mythology and geography, so good. Might even like it as much as DDA, I'll have to see after I dive in a bit more deeply.
On the artbook and guidebook tip, I uh, kinda splurged a bit this month:
My non-Amano favorite of all of these is definitely Devil Summoner World Guidance, it's also relatively cheap and really fantastic, and I actually enjoy it more than the much more expensive hefty Akuma Jiten over there on the left. Just page after page of Saturn era demon art, organized by mythology and geography, so good. Might even like it as much as DDA, I'll have to see after I dive in a bit more deeply.
Barrylocke
Member
Alright, time to sit down and finish Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Souless Army once and for all.
the final boss sure is something
Barrylocke
Member
I'm in the final dungeon right now but the boss rush made me get stuck because of Mishaguji again. Both times the same thing happened. The boss is weak against Ice and the only decent ice building demons I had at the time was Raja Naga, who knows Dia Aura (the Regen type move). This move has been really useful so normally this would be a good thing. The problem is that this particular boss knows two status ailment moves. One has the ability of stunnig its target, and the other one is an electric shock that also charms whoever hits seemingly without fail. If my demon with Dia Aura got charmed by the boss, it would eventually cast the move on it. This results in the boss being fully healed in about 10 seconds.
In order to move on I decided to exit the final dungeon, fuse something different that knows a bufu spell and then go back in to hopefully finish things once and for all.
EDIT:
I'm not sure if I can describe the final boss fight much better than that. I'll say that I was pretty scared that I'd die from lack of resources because I didn't have any solid healing demons at the time. The 2nd phase was surprisingly intense form my team. Fortunately I won in one shot. As I said before, it was a pleasant surprise to see this game end by linking to SMT1 and 2. Even without that revelation though, it was a fun adventure that even made me feel more like a detective than Persona 4, although that still doesn't amount to much on that front. The atmosphere of that era of Tokyo really is a lot of fun, and more upbeat Meguro music compared to DDS and Nocturne helped to set the tone. And Raidou the 14th is still probably my favorite protagonist in the SMT franchise. The battle system was...well it's a well documented weak-point. It's dull, and repetitive, and obviously the first major Action-RPG attempt by these guys But it wasn't actively broken, and there were a few cool moments in the boss fights.
The battles make up a huge chunk of the game though, so it's understandable that this game gets ranked lower than the much more interesting Press Turn and even One More styled PS2 SMTs. I'm glad I got to play through it, but I'm not rushing to head back to it anytime soon.
In order to move on I decided to exit the final dungeon, fuse something different that knows a bufu spell and then go back in to hopefully finish things once and for all.
EDIT:
I'm not sure if I can describe the final boss fight much better than that. I'll say that I was pretty scared that I'd die from lack of resources because I didn't have any solid healing demons at the time. The 2nd phase was surprisingly intense form my team. Fortunately I won in one shot. As I said before, it was a pleasant surprise to see this game end by linking to SMT1 and 2. Even without that revelation though, it was a fun adventure that even made me feel more like a detective than Persona 4, although that still doesn't amount to much on that front. The atmosphere of that era of Tokyo really is a lot of fun, and more upbeat Meguro music compared to DDS and Nocturne helped to set the tone. And Raidou the 14th is still probably my favorite protagonist in the SMT franchise. The battle system was...well it's a well documented weak-point. It's dull, and repetitive, and obviously the first major Action-RPG attempt by these guys But it wasn't actively broken, and there were a few cool moments in the boss fights.
The battles make up a huge chunk of the game though, so it's understandable that this game gets ranked lower than the much more interesting Press Turn and even One More styled PS2 SMTs. I'm glad I got to play through it, but I'm not rushing to head back to it anytime soon.
cj_iwakura
Member
Congrats. It's a wonderful little romp.
Now try Devil Mode and embrace the true hell.
one of the best boss of bosses in video gaming. to be honest, other then MG:R and NMH1 I can't think of another boss that has completely and totally surprised me. it has been years since i completed the game and i still go back every once in a while to my saved game or youtube to relive the total WHAT of it all
SatelliteOfLove
Member
Raidoh 1 is definately one of those games that I would give the "Must Play 6.0" game for that and a ton of other crazy shit it does so right.
Barrylocke
Member
But looking back, there's a few plot points that I'm not fully sure on in Raidou 1. The big one that I don't get is
How was using the Soulless God to destroy Tokyo now supposed to eventually save the city from the destruction in SMT1?
cj_iwakura
Member
Because that's where it all starts.
Gotou was the idiot who instigated the demonic invasion to declare war on Japan's government.
Barrylocke
Member
But I still don't see how those events have any direct effect on what happened in the game. Unless you're saying that
Destroying Tokyo in general would have prevented it from being a thing that Gotou felt he needed to save with his revolution. But if that's the case then there's still little reason for this particular time period to be the one that needs to be attacked. I suppose there's nothing especially wrong with it being
Oh wait, you aren't referring to
Gotou the general and Gouto the cat as one and the same, are you? Granted, I haven't played Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon yet so I don't have the whole story, but as far as I could tell, it didn't seem like the cat would eventually become the general. Plus wasn't the cat supposed to be a prior Raidou? AND he "dies" helping to take out the satellite, but apparently comes back in the sequel, which implies he's not so mortal, unlike Gotou the general. IDK, I maybe shouldn't be making points about the Raidou plot without having played all of the required games but it seems like they're different characters to me.
cj_iwakura
Member
No, I just mean Gotou the general. I assume that Messian Kuzunoha thinks that by destroying Tokyo, it'll somehow put a stop to his madness, or at least take Japan off the map of being a threat.
CrimsonFist
Member
My assumption is that destroying Tokyo would have such a big impact on history that events would have no chance of playing out the same way, and XL is just gambling on things turning out better.
Barrylocke
Member
The item name topic makes me wonder: How long did it take you guys to get used to Megaten's unusual spellnames? (Masukukaja, Ziodyne, Samarecarm, etc). I remember the names, while interesting, were pretty confusing at first when I played Persona 3:FES for the first time. It took at least 10 hours of play to get most of the names down, and sadly another 20 or so to be 100% comfortable with the buff and debuff names.
Yeah, it does make sense, with the butterfly effect. Destroying Tokyo is a pretty big butterfly. But I wonder if maybe he still succeeded in his goal, seeing as he still managed to destroy half of Tokyo if I understand right. Then again, when you go in the time corridor at the end, there's still people referencing the Great Cataclysm, The Great Flood, and other SMT1+2 happenings, so maybe it really didn't work.
CrimsonFist
Member
Raidou 2 spoilers:
Considering that in Raidou 2 they make almost no reference to Tokyo being attacked by a giant mech, I wouldn't have though that had much impact on history.
I think the general assumption is that Raidou's actions in 2 determine which timeline events follow. Taking the law ending leads to the SMT I/II timeline, and Neutral/Chaos leads to the other Devil Summoner/Persona games.
I'm still not 100% on all the buff/debuff names, although I know most of them. I know I was confused by spell names for a good portion of my first game, Devil Survivor, can't remember how long it took me to get used to them though.
Inquisitive_Ghost
Member
Devil Survivor Overclocked was my first MegaTen, and if I remember correctly, it took somewhere between half of and the majority of my first playthrough to finally remember what everything was.