Never managed to beat that final dlc... Looks like pierce is the only way to go. I have a magic build and as luck would have it none of the demons in my compendium have the skill. When I saw the amount of fusions I needed to do in order to build a party with any chance of winning I just gave up.
+1 to living the SMT4 world the most here. I love the whole apocalyptic vibe of a seedy city with horrible monsters roaming the streets and gangs of demon slayers.
I just fought him for like 50 turns 'cause he kept putting that fucking ailment on all of my characters.
He's never even in danger of killing anyone, he just makes them fucking useless...
To be honest, there still a chance that I may not get the neutral ending this time again. I decided to wing it with my choices rather than go with a nice clean guide approved path. I just arrived in Shibuya and I'm chaos aligned. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't lose access to the guy in the Hunters Association that tells you about your alignment
To be honest, there still a chance that I may not get the neutral ending this time again. I decided to wing it with my choices rather than go with a nice clean guide approved path. I just arrived in Shibuya and I'm chaos aligned. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't lose access to the guy in the Hunters Association that tells you about your alignment
I've actually picked SMT IV back up after a 3-year hiatus. I was loving the game until it all grinded to a halt with what the Neutral ending required me to do. I was hastily reminded of why I dropped it after picking it back up. I don't live in Japan and I'm not familiar with Tokyo; this game is seemingly built around the player knowing this, or intentionally making them wonder where they have to go.
(sniip)
1. Thanks to this post I went back to SMT4 as well, I hadn't played for months and was at the same point you are, dropped for the exact same reason. I then binge played it for 4 hours or so I think. e_e
2.
Holy fuck thanks a ton for letting me know that there is an airship
3. (Neutral path lategame spoilers)
The gameplay really hits rock bottom in these parts. No challenge whatsoever, no sense of progression -when every level per demon needs XP in the hundred thousands, getting 60 XP on average per demon from a fight is literally nothing. That isn't to say I don't like the XP system -it's obviously against grinding, which is always welcome- but having a 5-hour segment near the end of the game solely about fulfilling banal sidequests is a horrible, HORRIBLE idea. The only story development, pretty much, was that female Hunter you share a few sidequests with. ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz.
There's a bunch of points near the end of the Chaos alternate world, save often and let your backup save be right before Akira starts asking you questions near the end.
I just reclaimed my old friend, the Skull Rounds, in SMT4. With my Luck Build increasing the KO activation rate by a lot, this is the final major piece of the puzzle to my playthrough with a High Luck MC.
Just got to Purgatorio. I love it, especially since the Angels are the first truly challenging opponent I've had since, like, the minotaur. Really loving the visual design and atmosphere of Purgatorio, but I'm almost burned out on the game thanks to that 10-hour, abhorrent, nonsensical slog of forced sidequests.
The few highlights from that slog:
-That members only shop in Ginza, holy shit- everything is 330K+ Macca wtf.
-Really liked the end of the Rebirth Of The Lady quest- Nozomi's arc was concluded quite nicely, for what it's worth. Wish Nozomi was a character integrated more into the story- that was a really nice way of sending her off, really the story's best moment so far outside of the reveal/implication that Akira from Blasted (Infernal?) Tokyo is actually the king that founded Mikado.
-Masakado is fucking useless lol
Just got to Purgatorio. I love it, especially since the Angels are the first truly challenging opponent I've had since, like, the minotaur. Really loving the visual design and atmosphere of Purgatorio, but I'm almost burned out on the game thanks to that 10-hour, abhorrent, nonsensical slog of forced sidequests.
The few highlights from that slog:
-That members only shop in Ginza, holy shit- everything is 330K+ Macca wtf.
-Really liked the end of the Rebirth Of The Lady quest- Nozomi's arc was concluded quite nicely, for what it's worth. Wish Nozomi was a character integrated more into the story- that was a really nice way of sending her off, really the story's best moment so far outside of the reveal/implication that Akira from Blasted (Infernal?) Tokyo is actually the king that founded Mikado.
-Masakado is fucking useless lol
Wait, you didn't do the Beelzebub quest? I guess you got burnt too much from the obligatory sidequests, but that's pretty much the hardest battle outside of some DLC and fiends.
I didn't mind the mandatory sidequests at all, I was going to do them anyway because I loved the game and wanted to get the most out of it. Besides, some of them are really good.
I didn't mind the mandatory sidequests at all, I was going to do them anyway because I loved the game and wanted to get the most out of it. Besides, some of them are really good.
That's my current feelings, but I'll know for sure when I see what the list of sidequests looks like when I reach that point. Part of the issue seems to be people that used the guides on how to easily get a Neutral ending, and they suggest you don't do sidequests because many of them mess with your alignment and ruin the quick and easy Neutral thing they have. But this also means that you have to do all of those sidequests at the end of the game when you've probably outpaced their difficulty and there's just a ton of them. I've been doing most of the sidequests as they come, so if I can stay Neutral, I should hopefully have a lot less stuff to do.
That's my current feelings, but I'll know for sure when I see what the list of sidequests looks like when I reach that point. Part of the issue seems to be people that used the guides on how to easily get a Neutral ending, and they suggest you don't do sidequests because many of them mess with your alignment and ruin the quick and easy Neutral thing they have. But this also means that you have to do all of those sidequests at the end of the game when you've probably outpaced their difficulty and there's just a ton of them. I've been doing most of the sidequests as they come, so if I can stay Neutral, I should hopefully have a lot less stuff to do.
The problem isn't the number of side quests. The problem is that, at least for the majority of the playerbase, the game simply does not do a good job of telling you where you even need to go to complete them. Navigating across the world, with little clue where you even need to go and with that encounter rate, is a very real pain.
I stumbled into the Neutral route; I hadn't followed any guide up to that point and I had done a good amount of side quests before then. But it really turned into a different experience when it required the player to fulfil specific objectives at obscure locations, where I then needed to refer to guides very often.
Not to mention that, yes, there's the issue of difficulty where the challenge wasn't there for a large portion of it, where one "Sea of Chaos" dispatched of any encounter I came across.
Wait, you didn't do the Beelzebub quest? I guess you got burnt too much from the obligatory sidequests, but that's pretty much the hardest battle outside of some DLC and fiends.
Also weeeeeeeeeelp, done with SMT4. Did the neutral path, not doing the other ones (SAT year coming up...)
Final impressions:
Wonderful battle system that's at its best when it is incredibly difficult.
Really liked the last two dungeons, Lucifer was quite hard, which I liked (took me 5 tries).
Mara's appearance fucking slayed me.
Great OST especially in dungeon tracks.
Cathedral of Shadows is pretty shite, not interestingly designed at all and Mido is zzzzzz. Very annoying BGM there.
Liked the environments and the atmosphere, but that overworld map and sidequest padding was utterly abysmal. Otherwise quite detailed environments and all, really nice graphics save for non-boss demons.
Story was meh with a couple high points (Nozomi's quests, Blasted Tokyo), characters were alright though they weren't that memorable and there wasn't much character interaction, didn't expect any different. Isabeau is cute though <3
And here I was wondering why there was no SMT community thread. I ended up finding it accidentally when googling stuff from Raidou 1 haha. I ended up finally picking it up again out of excitement for SMT4A and got to the final boss last night, it's been a pretty solid experience.
And here I was wondering why there was no SMT community thread. I ended up finding it accidentally when googling stuff from Raidou 1 haha. I ended up finally picking it up again out of excitement for SMT4A and got to the final boss last night, it's been a pretty solid experience.
Day one either way, but I'm looking forward to reading impressions from specific people.
Raidou 1 was a great ride, it just sucks that few will want to play it because of the repetitive battle system. I loved that Tokyo style though (maybe my favorite after SMT4) and the final boss sequence was crazy. I'm glad I got to finish it last year.
I didn't mind the mandatory sidequests at all, I was going to do them anyway because I loved the game and wanted to get the most out of it. Besides, some of them are really good.
The sidequests didn't bother me because I did nearly all of them before I reached the endgame. However it is something I can look back on and say "this is bad game design" because it could so easily kill the flow of the game.
I think I broke Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker cracking Zyodine and Repel elec (still on the way of being useful to any member). I remember more difficult the game :S
Raidou 1 was a great ride, it just sucks that few will want to play it because of the repetitive battle system. I loved that Tokyo style though (maybe my favorite after SMT4) and the final boss sequence was crazy. I'm glad I got to finish it last year.
Yeah I have to admit the combat made me doubt at first, I thought it'd be repetitive and too easy, but it was a bit more complex than I thought and fusions (although particularly restrictive here) are always fun. Plus I loved the setting and soundtrack. I'll probably get the sequel on PSN after finishing Apocalypse. PS2 SMT games really need to be released as PS2 classics on PS4.
When I first got SMTIV I went for the chaos ending like I always do than I got towards the end and the story happened and never beat it.
I kind of want to start over to go for the neutral ending. I've never went for anything other than Choas playing the SMT series and spin offs. How hard is it to get the neutral ending in this?
After 50 hours I'm done with Raidou 1. Damn, the last sections of the game got pretty crazy,
I didn't expect it to be so heavily connected to SMT1 and 2 at all
, that was great. That final battle was insane too.
I took my time to do the Alice and Beelzebub quests and ended up killing Kudan in the process so I guess I beat every single extra boss.
Yeah I have to admit the combat made me doubt at first, I thought it'd be repetitive and too easy, but it was a bit more complex than I thought and fusions (although particularly restrictive here) are always fun. Plus I loved the setting and soundtrack. I'll probably get the sequel on PSN after finishing Apocalypse. PS2 SMT games really need to be released as PS2 classics on PS4.
When I first got SMTIV I went for the chaos ending like I always do than I got towards the end and the story happened and never beat it.
I kind of want to start over to go for the neutral ending. I've never went for anything other than Choas playing the SMT series and spin offs. How hard is it to get the neutral ending in this?
I can say what I remember but know that I have a piss poor memory due to medical reasons.
I can't remember if Lilith was Lucifer or that blond ghost girl chick was but I started losing interest when Walter sacrificed himself to revive Lucifer.
The sacrifice wasn't bad it was the Lucifer character I found lacking, boring, and design was unappealing. It made me miss Walter alot.
Traveling the Multiple realities was also, huh? The one that killed my hype for the Choas ending was the one where you fought the energy dude who got the Choas ending in his reality. His "I'm tired of fighting but oh yeah fighting shtick was kind of lame." I mean dude, you chose to be free of Law. Conquer all the demon tribes or demon up or something. He seemed like he was going threw a mid demon life crisis.
Killing off the girl only having her to slit her own throat while saying something about love and family to the main character was also, huh?
There was more I can't remember. Some of it was from the more minor characters. The Law and Chaos paths I felt was flesh out to a bare extent but the neutral seemed lacking.
I don't know if I'm being unfair or too critical. I have loved almost everything with Shin Megami Tensei in the title. I just didn't connect with any of the characters and story line in this one.
Edit: One thing I absolutely loved about Shin Megami Tensei IV is the game atmosphere.
I don't think you're being unfair at all, I had a great time with SMT4 but it definitely has its flaws. For me it was trying to give your friends the spotlight despite also making them extremely one dimensional and predictable, and a lot of the flaws in the story come from that. Tokyo and atmosphere in general were great tho.
As for the neutral route, I've heard the easiest way to get into it is answering the first option in all dialogues,
side with Jonathan, and then tell the whites you want to destroy the status quo.
Personally I tried to go for chaos and got into neutral by accident lol.
If you're only doing it for the story tho, I don't think it's worth it. Neutral path is literally
just the chaos and law final dungeons with the same bosses and no neutral specific dungeon or boss at all.
It's a good way to exhaust most of the content in the game tho, but the mandatory quests are a pain.
I can say what I remember but know that I have a piss poor memory due to medical reasons.
I can't remember if Lilith was Lucifer or that blond ghost girl chick was but I started losing interest when Walter sacrificed himself to revive Lucifer.
The sacrifice wasn't bad it was the Lucifer character I found lacking, boring, and design was unappealing. It made me miss Walter alot.
Traveling the Multiple realities was also, huh? The one that killed my hype for the Choas ending was the one where you fought the energy dude who got the Choas ending in his reality. His "I'm tired of fighting but oh yeah fighting shtick was kind of lame." I mean dude, you chose to be free of Law. Conquer all the demon tribes or demon up or something. He seemed like he was going threw a mid demon life crisis.
Killing off the girl only having her to slit her own throat while saying something about love and family to the main character was also, huh?
There was more I can't remember. Some of it was from the more minor characters. The Law and Chaos paths I felt was flesh out to a bare extent but the neutral seemed lacking.
I don't know if I'm being unfair or too critical. I have loved almost everything with Shin Megami Tensei in the title. I just didn't connect with any of the characters and story line in this one.
Edit: One thing I absolutely loved about Shin Megami Tensei IV is the game atmosphere.
letting us visit the alternate versions of Tokyo was a great touch and Isabeau's death was one of the most impactful scenes in the series for me. Being forced to do that was really hard for me and motivated me to start a neutral playthrough right after finishing my first which was law.
I actually had a save right before the first big choice which cut a lot of hours from my second run.
I still want to do a third for chaos but this time I'll restart from scratch since it's been so long
I can say what I remember but know that I have a piss poor memory due to medical reasons.
I can't remember if Lilith was Lucifer or that blond ghost girl chick was but I started losing interest when Walter sacrificed himself to revive Lucifer.
The sacrifice wasn't bad it was the Lucifer character I found lacking, boring, and design was unappealing. It made me miss Walter alot.
Traveling the Multiple realities was also, huh? The one that killed my hype for the Choas ending was the one where you fought the energy dude who got the Choas ending in his reality. His "I'm tired of fighting but oh yeah fighting shtick was kind of lame." I mean dude, you chose to be free of Law. Conquer all the demon tribes or demon up or something. He seemed like he was going threw a mid demon life crisis.
Killing off the girl only having her to slit her own throat while saying something about love and family to the main character was also, huh?
There was more I can't remember. Some of it was from the more minor characters. The Law and Chaos paths I felt was flesh out to a bare extent but the neutral seemed lacking.
I don't know if I'm being unfair or too critical. I have loved almost everything with Shin Megami Tensei in the title. I just didn't connect with any of the characters and story line in this one.
Edit: One thing I absolutely loved about Shin Megami Tensei IV is the game atmosphere.
the multiple realities is to discourage you to follow either the path of the Law or the Chaos. I wish they were their own spin-off, specially the Infernal Tokyo.
Funny you don't like these moments (dimensional travels and the death of Isabeau) , they were my favorite and highlight of the game, at least for me.
letting us visit the alternate versions of Tokyo was a great touch and Isabeau's death was one of the most impactful scenes in the series for me. Being forced to do that was really hard for me and motivated me to start a neutral playthrough right after finishing my first which was law.
I actually had a save right before the first big choice which cut a lot of hours from my second run.
I still want to do a third for chaos but this time I'll restart from scratch since it's been so long
the multiple realities is to discourage you to follow either the path of the Law or the Chaos. I wish they were their own spin-off, specially the Infernal Tokyo.
Funny you don't like these moments (dimensional travels and the death of Isabeau) , they were my favorite and highlight of the game, at least for me.
I actually enjoy the multiple realities. Hell the Demi-Fiend(my favorite Shin Megami Tensei protagonist) is somewhere in those multiple realities.
I said above that my memory is crap and maybe I'm not remembering this part of the game well. I just had a issue with the one reality I described above.
Isabeau death was good up until she confessed feelings to the MC. When she said something about feelings and kids I was confused. Did she hinted threw out the game and I didn't pick up on it?
I checked on the current save on my Chaos ending run threw and I'm Lvl 74 and at a place called
Puratorium 5th Crown
, how far am I from the end? Should I start over and try a neutral run and
make babies with Isabeau
?
Should I give the story a second chance? Sounds like I wasn't as open to the story from what you two are saying.
I actually enjoy the multiple realities. Hell the Demi-Fiend(my favorite Shin Megami Tensei protagonist) is somewhere in those multiple realities.
I said above that my memory is crap and maybe I'm not remembering this part of the game well. I just had a issue with the one reality I described above.
Isabeau death was good up until she confessed feelings to the MC. When she said something about feelings and kids I was confused. Did she hinted threw out the game and I didn't pick up on it?
I checked on the current save on my Chaos ending run threw and I'm Lvl 74 and at a place called
Puratorium 5th Crown
, how far am I from the end? Should I start over and try a neutral run and
make babies with Isabeau
?
Should I give the story a second chance? Sounds like I wasn't as open to the story from what you two are saying.
So I jumped back into DDS1 on PS3 yesterday and damn, does it run like ass. It's like 25fps and it makes rotating the camera almost sickening, I got used by now but it's still rough. Does anyone know if DDS2 or Raidou 2 have similar issues on PS3? I want to play those eventually but I'd have to reconsider on what platform if they're this bad, especially Raidou 2.
So I jumped back into DDS1 on PS3 yesterday and damn, does it run like ass. It's like 25fps and it makes rotating the camera almost sickening, I got used by now but it's still rough. Does anyone know if DDS2 or Raidou 2 have similar issues on PS3? I want to play those eventually but I'd have to reconsider on what platform if they're this bad, especially Raidou 2.
