I'm glad to see that you're enjoying the game. The next full dungeon you're about to go to is one of my favorites. Don't let me hype it up too much though, I liked it for strange reasons.
You only ever get to have 3 active members in your party. Eventually you get more members to switch between but you only are able to use 3 for battles.
Hard mode Lucifer in SMT3: Nocturne Maniax Chronicle edition is sooooo annoying. I finally beat him yesterday though. Getting dekaja'd at every turn and the boss using Diarahan really makes the fight long as hell.
Hard mode Lucifer in SMT3: Nocturne Maniax Chronicle edition is sooooo annoying. I finally beat him yesterday though. Getting dekaja'd at every turn and the boss using Diarahan really makes the fight long as hell.
Lucifer Diarahan's himself once in the battle to max life. In addition, if you play on Hard mode in Chronicles edition, he gains a Dekaja effect on his "Root of Evil" attack. That's on top of having Dekaja and Dekunda as well. It's a very volatile fight as a result. If you don't move to reapply buffs and debuffs after they've been cleared, you risk dying out the following turn because of how much damage he'll be able to do to you. In the Maniax/US version, you were essentially safe unless you got hit for 90% during Root of Evil but now you're not safe unless it only does 20% or no damage to you.
Lucifer Diarahan's himself once in the battle to max life. In addition, if you play on Hard mode in Chronicles edition, he gains a Dekaja effect on his "Root of Evil" attack. That's on top of having Dekaja and Dekunda as well. It's a very volatile fight as a result. If you don't move to reapply buffs and debuffs after they've been cleared, you risk dying out the following turn because of how much damage he'll be able to do to you. In the Maniax/US version, you were essentially safe unless you got hit for 90% during Root of Evil but now you're not safe unless it only does 20% or no damage to you.
Pass. Wish my mom didn't sell mine last year. Oh well.
Also since some people were talking bout it, I liked most SMT4 redesigns. It was nice to have, you know, some variety for once and most were pretty cool. Moreover I loved the angel redesigns as they clearly went for the description of angels as mechanical beings, not humans with wings. Lilith looked dope too (minus not having legs but still).
I could go for some redesigns here and there too (Horus and Seth sure need them), but most of SMT4's designs threw the series' entire distinguishing design philosophy out the window, leaving no room for source material and prioritizing subjectivity, which is something just about every other RPG already does. Amemiya made the Archangels mechanical because "demons and angels are embodiments of humans' thoughts, they will still be artificial beings" but that's about the only trait represented, save Michael whose identifying serpent imagery was bungled. (Unlike Michael's Triumph, the serpent is shown as a living accessory, and it gets worse once they merge into Merkabah and Michael is reduced to a little accessory sitting on a now fully developed dragon's head.) Kuebiko is a god of knowledge and wisdom who is traditionally depicted as a scarecrow but Kyouma Aki disregarded this on the basis that "using the motif of a scarecrow would have made him look like a Western horror B movie monster", displaying an astounding disregard for what Kuebiko represents as well as a lack of creativity.
That break with the series' unifying design philosophy is key - SMT demons attempting to utilise mythological iconography within a somewhat historical context that also brought in various other elements of their associated cultural baggage (Albion basically being the Cerne Abbas Giant comes to mind) was what distinguished them from similar JRPG monsters - while there were plenty of anachronistic choices and decisions made purely to be cool or referential, the best designs were able to leverage it with researched reference to the figures in question instead of letting it take over the design with the exception of the most shallow surface elements.
While I don't mind redesigns, I really did not care for what happened in smt4 with some of the demons. To this day, I can not look a Lucifer without laughing/crying. There are some really good designs for example that Minotaur and Odin were amazing. Asmodeus was good too. But then you get things like Medusa, Lilith, and the 4 angels. They just seemed over designed and without a true direction. I would prefer that they tried to stick more with the older style of basing designs from the mythology of the demons/angels.
While I don't mind redesigns, I really did not care for what happened in smt4 with some of the demons. To this day, I can not look a Lucifer without laughing/crying. There are some really good designs for example that Minotaur and Odin were amazing. Asmodeus was good too. But then you get things like Medusa, Lilith, and the 4 angels. They just seemed over designed and without a true direction. I would prefer that they tried to stick more with the older style of basing designs from the mythology of the demons/angels.
SMTIV's demons were designed by guest artists, which is why their designs were so variable stylistically, and they didn't reuse that artwork in any other game or any of those artists. It might have worked better in a 3d game though, since the 3d models would at least remove the issue of clearly incompatible art styles of the drawings.
Some of the designs returned in IV Apocalypse though, since it was a direct sequel, but all returning ones were redrawn by Doi, and it doesn't seem like we'll ever get those designs anywhere outside of SMTIV/A itself. Apocalypse's new designs (which were completely made by Doi) seem like they might return though, considering Doi's Odin in the teaser for SMT HD.
Hmm, after SMT IV, IV: Apocalypse and P5, I get the impression Atlus has been taking a much more offense-oriented approach to their battle systems than before. At least I don't remember enemies hitting so hard in the PS2-era games. It makes battles very swingy.
Hmm, after SMT IV, IV: Apocalypse and P5, I get the impression Atlus has been taking a much more offense-oriented approach to their battle systems than before. At least I don't remember enemies hitting so hard in the PS2-era games. It makes battles very swingy.
Most harder RPG series are doing this the last decade. On low difficulty, anybody'd fall into wrecking from the huge number of powerful options. On normal or above, the elite rule-bender types are kept in check.
Hmm, after SMT IV, IV: Apocalypse and P5, I get the impression Atlus has been taking a much more offense-oriented approach to their battle systems than before. At least I don't remember enemies hitting so hard in the PS2-era games. It makes battles very swingy.
I've always said this, and this applies globally to the whole series: SMT boss battles are not contests of force like other RPGs. They're puzzles. Most of the time the solution is more offense-oriented like you said, however I can think of plenty that generally a defensive solution works the best.
Example from SMTIV:
King Kenji, I struggled like no other on this boss until I got a tip to get something that could null any one of the conditions Ancient Curse inflicts on you, and take away his press turns.
While as a whole, I liked Apocalypse's gameplay better than IV's, the one thing that bothered me was all the humans getting some kind of ability to pierce Rp/Nu/Dr, so you could just use anything on anything. I usually do magic builds on my protagonist when the game allows, and in this one Nanashi was a complete and total god pretty fast.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it, but I still don't think it's a good game. There is far too much backtracking, you end up going through most dungeons at least twice. The dungeons feel more designed to frustrate and waste your time rather than provide a challenge and the game is fundamentally poorly balanced.
My favorite part was
reaching the underworld and finding the old world alive still.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it, but I still don't think it's a good game. There is far too much backtracking, you end up going through most dungeons at least twice. The dungeons feel more designed to frustrate and waste your time rather than provide a challenge and the game is fundamentally poorly balanced.
My favorite part was
reaching the underworld and finding the old world alive still.
How far are you into it? It has some of the best characterized villains in any SMT.
Sadly, you feel like you only get a small glimpse into a world much bigger than you. I love that about Devil Summoner's universe; you aren't a special snowflake. There are summoners EVERYWHERE.
How far are you into it? It has some of the best characterized villains in any SMT.
Sadly, you feel like you only get a small glimpse into a world much bigger than you. I love that about Devil Summoner's universe; you aren't a special snowflake. There are summoners EVERYWHERE.
Fuse'em and lose'em. It's the way of a Devil Summoner. You can break the game pretty thoroughly using just Nemissa and a good Zoma, though. I made mine into a support tank.
Also, you could make a solid case for SH being Atlus USA's best dub. Every voice is perfect, even a certain dark summoner with only two lines.
I wasn't a fan of using Liam as Spooky because hi Akihiko, but apart from that, it's stellar.
Most harder RPG series are doing this the last decade. On low difficulty, anybody'd fall into wrecking from the huge number of powerful options. On normal or above, the elite rule-bender types are kept in check.
I've always said this, and this applies globally to the whole series: SMT boss battles are not contests of force like other RPGs. They're puzzles. Most of the time the solution is more offense-oriented like you said, however I can think of plenty that generally a defensive solution works the best.
Yeah, I noticed this earlier too, but before P5 I wasn't sure whether this was just the Maniax Team doing their thing and trying something different or if it was a company-wide change in design. After P5 I got my confirmation.
There are things I like and dislike about this approach. I think it works really well for boss fights since it keeps you on your feet constantly. I just beat the second palace's boss and I'm not sure if I was underprepared or not but that felt like an ordeal (at least on Hard Mode), I really wasn't expecting such an intense fight in a Persona game. That's when I think the damage-heavy approach is at its best because every single turn and decision matters in the long run, which is great for boss fights. Also, if you happen to get a bullshit RNG roll and lose to circumstances outside of your control
(which is something that happens in pretty much all games where RNG is a thing so you just gotta learn to accept it)
the punishment isn't so severe since you can just retry.
I'm a bit more mixed on it when it comes to random encounters though. It makes most fights in a dungeon too one-sided, either in your favor or against you, and that's usually not very interesting. It's also much harder to accept deaths outside of your control when the punishment can be as severe as anything between half an hour to hours of progress depending on the circumstances. I'm usually not one to whine about those things, but even I found myself in a couple situations where I couldn't help but call bullshit.
I still want random encounters to feel dangerous, but there's a better balance to be achieved here. If I had to choose an example, I think Darkest Dungeon has a pretty nice balance of tough enemy encounters (that progressively wear your party down throughout your dungeon run) while also not feeling totally lopsided to either side, at least early on before I had to take a break from it.
Yeah, I noticed this earlier too, but before P5 I wasn't sure whether this was just the Maniax Team doing their thing and trying something different or if it was a company-wide change in design. After P5 I got my confirmation.
There are things I like and dislike about this approach. I think it works really well for boss fights since it keeps you on your feet constantly. I just beat the second palace's boss and I'm not sure if I was underprepared or not but that felt like an ordeal (at least on Hard Mode), I really wasn't expecting such an intense fight in a Persona game. That's when I think the damage-heavy approach is at its best because every single turn and decision matters in the long run, which is great for boss fights. Also, if you happen to get a bullshit RNG roll and lose to circumstances outside of your control
(which is something that happens in pretty much all games where RNG is a thing so you just gotta learn to accept it)
the punishment isn't so severe since you can just retry.
I'm a bit more mixed on it when it comes to random encounters though. It makes most fights in a dungeon too one-sided, either in your favor or against you, and that's usually not very interesting. It's also much harder to accept deaths outside of your control when the punishment can be as severe as anything between half an hour to hours of progress depending on the circumstances. I'm usually not one to whine about those things, but even I found myself in a couple situations where I couldn't help but call bullshit.
I still want random encounters to feel dangerous, but there's a better balance to be achieved here.
Persona 5's boss battles I wasn't particularly a fan of because they felt particularly repetitive. They all had no weakness, and some even had a a "silent" weakness, 5th palace boss:
When you get her out of the sky, gun does a shitton of damage even though she isn't actually "weak" to it.
The battles felt incredibly scripted more than anything and very little like I was actually in control. They just beat you over the head for the most part what you should do, and sometimes there is only one right answer. Example (5th palace spoilers again):
She takes off into the sky for a huge attack, and Futaba tells you when she's coming back down. You have to be ready for her attack. Using my normal SMT brain, I was thinking just Rakukaja and Sukukaja to survive it. Nope, everyone just has to guard. It's the only way to survive it....
Persona 5's boss battles I wasn't particularly a fan of because they felt particularly repetitive. They all had no weakness, and some even had a a "silent" weakness, 5th palace boss:
When you get her out of the sky, gun does a shitton of damage even though she isn't actually "weak" to it.
The battles felt incredibly scripted more than anything and very little like I was actually in control. They just beat you over the head for the most part what you should do, and sometimes there is only one right answer. Example (5th palace spoilers again):
She takes off into the sky for a huge attack, and Futaba tells you when she's coming back down. You have to be ready for her attack. Using my normal SMT brain, I was thinking just Rakukaja and Sukukaja to survive it. Nope, everyone just has to guard. It's the only way to survive it....
I can't read your spoilers since I haven't gotten to that part yet, but so far I'm very pleased with P5's boss battles. I feel like the "mini-bosses" have been a bit too easy, and a particular battle against an Archangel on the first palace did feel very repetitive in how they wanted you to approach it, but the actual boss fights have been a pretty good mix of scripted sequences to take out the enemy while still giving you agency over how to approach most of the fight. It's usually only towards the end that the "takedown gimmick" tends to take hold and I have no issue with it so far. It feels like a novel way to beat the enemy after a tough fight and an interesting change of pace since you usually have to adapt your strategy to work with one less party member. It also feeds into the whole Phantom Thief motif, so I like that.
I'll give you that the lack of weaknesses feels a bit lazy after what the Maniax team achieved with Apocalypse, but even that game trivialized the whole system by the time you reached the endgame. The battles still work really well as more "traditional" affairs though, buffs and debuffs are emphasized a bit and the weaknesses become more of a concern for your party than the enemy, so there's still some thought to be put into it.
I usually disliked that because more often than not, I ended up chaos aligned, but always wanted angels on my team. Though fusion was an kinda easy way around that.
There are Famitsu scans out there for Strange Journey Redux. The bullet points:
- Releases October 26 in Japan
- Sort-of new demon appearing: Anahita. Last time she appeared were in Giten Megami Tensei and Majin Tensei II, but not in this artwork. It's new artwork. Looks to be drawn by Doi. Pretty good design, she's both the god of and source of the world river, and her art conveys that in a very Kaneko-ish way.
- There's artwork of Alex in some kind of red and black Demon-Demonica-like mask.
I can't read Japanese, so if anyone can help me out there...
So I've played SMT IV for around 10 hours now. Damn is the beginning brutal, Naraku was filled with mobs which would pretty much murder you if you didn't defeat them before their turn. It certainly made dungeon crawling more intense lol. And the bosses, holy shit the bosses. Minotaur was a pain, but not that frustrating. When I got lucky and didn't get half of my party members killed on his first turn, I just buffed/debuffed until he wasn't such an issue.
Now Medusa, on the other hand, was a handful. All it took was a drop of unfavorable RNG an she would completely destroy my party. I don't even know how I managed to defeat her. I'm not sure, but I think that for now at least, this game is harder than Nocturne. There, Matador was the only early roadblock and I sure as hell wasn't as afraid of the random encounters as I am here where I start screaming internally every time I get ambushed by the enemies lol.
Also, since I got into Tokyo, the game kinda became... aimless? I'm just wandering around the map until I accidentally trigger a story event. Sure, I have a main goal, but it's a bit nebulous and I'm not feeling that invested in the story so I hope it picks up soon. Interestingly, I didn't have a problem with this in Nocturne despite the story being much more sparse there.
About the redesigns, I just want to add that Medusa looks really amateurishly drawn, I chuckled when she got revealed since it was supposed to be intimidating, but it ended up being really goofy because of her derpy face.
I stopped chuckling when she immediately obliterated me
So I've played SMT IV for around 10 hours now. Damn is the beginning brutal, Naraku was filled with mobs which would pretty much murder you if you didn't defeat them before their turn. It certainly made dungeon crawling more intense lol. And the bosses, holy shit the bosses. Minotaur was a pain, but not that frustrating. When I got lucky and didn't get half of my party members killed on his first turn, I just buffed/debuffed until he wasn't such an issue.
Now Medusa, on the other hand, was a handful. All it took was a drop of unfavorable RNG an she would completely destroy my party. I don't even know how I managed to defeat her. I'm not sure, but I think that for now at least, this game is harder than Nocturne. There, Matador was the only early roadblock and I sure as hell wasn't as afraid of the random encounters as I am here where I start screaming internally every time I get ambushed by the enemies lol.
Also, since I got into Tokyo, the game kinda became... aimless? I'm just wandering around the map until I accidentally trigger a story event. Sure, I have a main goal, but it's a bit nebulous and I'm not feeling that invested in the story so I hope it picks up soon. Interestingly, I didn't have a problem with this in Nocturne despite the story being much more sparse there.
About the redesigns, I just want to add that Medusa looks really amateurishly drawn, I chuckled when she got revealed since it was supposed to be intimidating, but it ended up being really goofy because of her derpy face.
I stopped chuckling when she immediately obliterated me
You basically went through SMT IV's hardest section already, the difficulty steadily drops off a cliff from now on, with a few spikes here and there. As far as individual encounters are concerned, the stuff the game throws at you in the beginning hours is tougher than Nocturne, but as a whole the game feels a lot easier. It's also much more forgiving since you can save anywhere or pay 3DS coins to Charon and there aren't any elaborate dungeons until very late into the game.
SMT IV's story is really slow/passive for the most part. You're just going around Tokyo searching for the Black Samurai and reacting to events. The first half of the game is more about world building and atmosphere, the actual plot doesn't get interesting until fairly late. I want to say maybe 60~70% in?
Medusa gets plastic surgery for the sequel and she looks much better.
You basically went through SMT IV's hardest section already, the difficulty steadily drops off a cliff from now on, with a few spikes here and there. As far as individual encounters are concerned, the stuff the game throws at you in the beginning hours is tougher than Nocturne, but as a whole the game feels a lot easier. It's also much more forgiving since you can save anywhere or pay 3DS coins to Charon and there aren't any elaborate dungeons until very late into the game.
SMT IV's story is really slow/passive for the most part. You're just going around Tokyo searching for the Black Samurai and reacting to events. The first half of the game is more about world building and atmosphere, the actual plot doesn't get interesting until fairly late. I want to say maybe 60~70% in?
Medusa gets plastic surgery for the sequel and she looks much better.
Nice to know about the difficulty, I don't mind hard games, but this was getting a bit ridiculous. And yeah the new Medusa is an improvement, a bit too much on the busty side, but definitely an improvement.
The best part is Arthur being the "Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series"
That said I still think people really are blowing this thing about SJR being "anime" out of proportion. Based on the footage, there is no real reason to believe that. Sure, the redrawn human art is not good, but still doesn't leave any indication of going "too anime"
Also, I am really loving the new Doi demons in SJR. While Doi isn't Kaneko, I loved his designs in Apocalypse.
Anahita is about halfway satisfying to me. There's a lot to like and Doi did his homework but the titillating pose and "come hither" expression are bad fits for her. It really feels like Doi's work is being compromised by bad direction from some higher up on the team or something. He's still susceptible to lapses of judgement (as was Kaneko at some points) but he can do better, I think.
I just love that D3EP right in the middle of the title. It's stupid that I find it funny, but I can't help it.
So, is there any notable additional content from transferring your DDS1 save file to your DDS2 game? P5 has really put me in a PS2-era SMT mood and I really need/want to play DDS. I'll give it a try on my PS3 later, but if the performance is as awful as it sounds I'll just try to emulate and see if I can get better results, which is why I'm asking about the save files.
I just love that D3EP right in the middle of the title. It's stupid that I find it funny, but I can't help it.
So, is there any notable additional content from transferring your DDS1 save file to your DDS2 game? P5 has really put me in a PS2-era SMT mood and I really need/want to play DDS. I'll give it a try on my PS3 later, but if the performance is as awful as it sounds I'll just try to emulate and see if I can get better results, which is why I'm asking about the save files.
Anahita is about halfway satisfying to me. There's a lot to like and Doi did his homework but the titillating pose and "come hither" expression are bad fits for her. It really feels like Doi's work is being compromised by bad direction from some higher up on the team or something. He's still susceptible to lapses of judgement (as was Kaneko at some points) but he can do better, I think.
Ehh, she is the river deity of fertility, and he really nailed the "God of and source of the world river" aspect.
I do we hope we see the good designs from IV and Apocalypse come back. While there are very little good designs from IV (other than good ones like Minotaur), Apocalypse had more good ones. I would be okay with seeing these come back:
Also, does anyone know who drew Minotaur in SMTIV? I figure it was one of the guest artists as it doesn't really look like Doi's style, but I hope it's not lost from the series because it was a guest artist.
