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Shin Megami Tensei IV |OT| The Dark Souls of Persona

Question about the story, Neutral path at the last fight of the 4
Whites
:

So were the two worlds shown to the player just illusions for the sake of making up our minds about our choices? So far I've assumed they were alt. timelines. Or when the human Akira said something about calling the country he's making Mikado in honor or the samurais I was hoping it would be an ealier point on the same timeline, thus creating some sort or cycle.

Unless there's something ahead that would further explain those two worlds and point of the expanse, I feel it's the weakest part of an otherwise solid setting and narrative.

They're the Tokyos that would've existed had the MC's previous incarnation chosen the Law or Chaos alignment.
 
Energy/Spirit Drain is a must in my opinion for healers/casters, so that means only one skill left, so basically I need to decide whether my Norn is going to be a Mediarahan machine or an Almighty spamming machine.

Hmmm, any thoughts guys? Which do you think will benefit the more?

I disagree. Energy Drain is not something I found myself ever needing after I unlocked the MP walk apps. That alone is enough to mean I never need more MP. The ONLY time I ran out of MP was during a two part boss battle, and you know what? That is what great chakras are for.

Later bosses would bitch slap you if you use any reflect spells.

They will automatically start to whip out Megidolaons out of their ass.

Beelzebub taught me the bad side of using them :(

The reflect spells served me well until after the alignment lock. In fact the boss right before your alignment is permanently locked in is fucked up by phys reflect spell.

Actually, the monochrome forest bosses are also terribly weak to phys reflect. So yeah... it kinda serves well even a bit after alignment lock.
 

Andrew J.

Member
I suspect this in part has to do with the japanese names. I know there's two locations that begin with Shi, shinju and... shibu or something and though I've beaten the game I still don't have any real concept for where they are or how they connect to the other regions. They don't distinguish easily in my mind because they begin with the same sound and have the same number of syllables.

I think this is because the japanese names hold no contextual meaning to me and instead are an arbitrary jumble of syllables. If a town is named, I don't know, Appletown, then I think I subconsciously make connections between the word apple and how that town relates to other regions in the game and it's place in the world. I don't know what the answer is to making this better and I am curious if people who speak japanese or have lived in japan have a significantly easier time with this.

You need to watch some anime where the characters travel around Tokyo a lot.
 
Late game story question, neutral path:
so I'm back in Tokyo after the 4 Whites. Skins talked about how he and someone else fought the guardian deity of Tokyo 25 years earlier, and that at the end of the fight that someone else turned into the firmament covering Tokyo, protecting it from the "missiles".

Is this game referecing SMT 1? Is the world beyond the dome a nuclear wasteland? Is that why Stephen is in the game? And if yes, how could Mikado been built, castles city and all on such a short time span? Or does tone flow differently in Tokyo?

Story is so good.
 

SteeloDMZ

Banned
Who else is pretty impressed by the visuals of this game? Next to Resident Evil Revelations, this might have some of the best 3D environments on the system. Really good stuff with a lot of attention to detail.

Hats off to Atlus.
 
Who else is pretty impressed by the visuals of this game? Next to Resident Evil Revelations, this might have some of the best 3D environments on the system. Really good stuff with a lot of attention to detail.

Hats off to Atlus.

Definitely. Sometimes I wish the camera was true 3D so I could enjoy the environment at all angles. Also can't stand too long to admire or you'll get attacked.
 

duckroll

Member
Definitely. Sometimes I wish the camera was true 3D so I could enjoy the environment at all angles. Also can't stand too long to admire or you'll get attacked.

It's quite interesting how much they modelled and detailed, even in places which are kinda hard to see. If you ever stop indoors and press up at certain points, you can always see that the ceilings and the vertical range is all there.
 
It's quite interesting how much they modelled and detailed, even in places which are kinda hard to see. If you ever stop indoors and press up at certain points, you can always see that the ceilings and the vertical range is all there.

Each area is so unique, I don't think I've noticed repeated building or sign assets.

Also the fact they made these neighborhoods into dungeons was brilliant. Hard to go back to Strange Journey or Nocturne after this.
 

SteeloDMZ

Banned
Yeah, I was panning the camera around Shibuya and there was an "apple store" that had a bunch of 3d laptops inside. I thought the attention to detail was awesome for something that most probably won't even notice.
 
Who else is pretty impressed by the visuals of this game? Next to Resident Evil Revelations, this might have some of the best 3D environments on the system. Really good stuff with a lot of attention to detail.

Hats off to Atlus.

I think the visuals have been shoved to the side in favor of arguments about the 2D battles. They definitely look great, especially the textures and lighting. Put on some armor, put the camera into over the shoulder, and just rotate and watch it. The attention to detail and the little things in this game is phenomenal.

Master difficulty is also pretty rough so far, but I'm only a few battles in.
 
Just got the story quest for Shinjuku National Park, about how far am I into the game? I feel I've been spending way too much time grinding demons for fusion, and doing sidequests in general.
 

NeonZ

Member
Late game story question, neutral path:
so I'm back in Tokyo after the 4 Whites. Skins talked about how he and someone else fought the guardian deity of Tokyo 25 years earlier, and that at the end of the fight that someone else turned into the firmament covering Tokyo, protecting it from the "missiles".

Is this game referecing SMT 1? Is the world beyond the dome a nuclear wasteland? Is that why Stephen is in the game? And if yes, how could Mikado been built, castles city and all on such a short time span? Or does tone flow differently in Tokyo?

Story is so good.

There's a samurai you can talk to in Mikado who says that after he spent some time in Tokyo and returned, his son seemed to be older. So, yes, time passes differently in Tokyo and Mikado. I'd guess it flows slower in Tokyo. Jonathan says that the nuclear missile craters in the desert world are similar to the lakes in Mikado, so it's very likely that outside of Tokyo it really has been 1500 years since a nuclear apocalypse and so the environment has recovered, although there are still marks from the missiles.

Tokyo's timeflow likely was changed just to allow it to survive, because I doubt it'd have lasted 1500 years naturally as an underground city. I haven't seen any direct confirmation though, so far and I'm about to finish the Law path, I just want to finish all side-quests before going to fight against the final boss.
 

SteeloDMZ

Banned
Just got the story quest for Shinjuku National Park, about how far am I into the game? I feel I've been spending way too much time grinding demons for fusion, and doing sidequests in general.

You still have like 60% of the game left, haha. Shit's massive.
 
I noticed that we could check our alignment just by looking to the character icon in the overworld map:

- Spins left: Law
- Spins right: Chaos.
- Spins back and forth: Neutral.

Interesting small detail, Atlus!!
 

NeonZ

Member
I just found out that we could check our alignment just by looking to the character icon in the overworld map:

- Spins left: Law
- Spins right: Chaos.
- Spins back and forth: Neutral.

Interesting small detail, Atlus!!

In SMT IV, that only works after the alignment lock, so it's kind of pointless.
 

duckroll

Member
I noticed that we could check our alignment just by looking to the character icon in the overworld map:

- Spins left: Law
- Spins right: Chaos.
- Spins back and forth: Neutral.

Interesting small detail, Atlus!!

Hasn't this been debunked? It's true of the previous games in the Megaten series including the Raidou games, but it doesn't seem to be the case here?
 
So what exactly makes Alice so special? Die for Me seems great but it doesn't work really well if anyone in the group Resists Dark.

Am I supposed to build her a certain way in order to make her a powerhouse?
 

Kincaido

Got 99 problems and only one of them is a waifu
Yeah, my character was going back and forth for pretty much the whole game but the cynical man said I was law.
 

Dresden

Member
So what exactly makes Alice so special? Die for Me seems great but it doesn't work really well if anyone in the group Resists Dark.

Am I supposed to build her a certain way in order to make her a powerhouse?

good resistances, immune to ailments, high magic, Die for Me + Debilitate for uber utility
 
So what exactly makes Alice so special? Die for Me seems great but it doesn't work really well if anyone in the group Resists Dark.

Am I supposed to build her a certain way in order to make her a powerhouse?

She has natural immunity to all status effects. Die for Me is great for many mobs. She has an insane magic stat. She can be built to last most of the game, if you can get her good elemental attacks and some good HP.

edit: And Debilitate is great for boss battles.
 
So what exactly makes Alice so special? Die for Me seems great but it doesn't work really well if anyone in the group Resists Dark.

Am I supposed to build her a certain way in order to make her a powerhouse?

She naturally nullifies ailments which is very useful in one boss fight. She also comes with Debilitate which is a great debuff.

It's easy to fuse her with a bunch of Null skills too. I made mine so she nullifies everything.
 

daripad

Member
OMG
Medusa
is so fucking hard. I tried
Minotaur
like 10 times before killing it but this new one is very difficult. I think I'll have to grind some more just for this one and see what other demons I can get.
 
She naturally nullifies ailments which is very useful in one boss fight. She also comes with Debilitate which is a great debuff.

It's easy to fuse her with a bunch of Null skills too. I made mine so she nullifies everything.

I decided against making a Null All demon. Mostly because end game bosses seem to just spam almighty skills. The only insanely useful null late late game seems to be null phys.
 

SteeloDMZ

Banned
OMG
Medusa
is so fucking hard. I tried
Minotaur
like 10 times before killing it but this new one is very difficult. I think I'll have to grind some more just for this one and see what other demons I can get.

Get demons with Zan and also pass the skill to your main character through the demon whisper.
 
I decided against making a Null All demon. Mostly because end game bosses seem to just spam almighty skills. The only insanely useful null late late game seems to be null phys.

Yeah I noticed... I just got the last boss on the Chaos path and I'm gonna have to remake my whole team to have more HP. None of them have more than 300 HP besides my character lol

But a Null All demon is still nice to have till then. Made dungeon crawling super easy and made a lot of bosses into simple auto battles.
 
Would I ever regret fusing some of my demons? I'm still early on,
Diving into Naraku to save Navarre. Not that I want to, the damn game is making me... -_- Dude deserves a beat down, IMO.
but I'm very hesitant to actually fuse my demons. I guess I get attached to my party too easily?
 

SteeloDMZ

Banned
Would I ever regret fusing some of my demons? I'm still early on,
Diving into Naraku to save Navarre. Not that I want to, the damn game is making me... -_- Dude deserves a beat down, IMO.
but I'm very hesitant to actually fuse my demons. I guess I get attached to my party too easily?

If you register them in the compendium, you can get 'em back (for a lot of macca that is). Fusing is crucial in the game; don't get too attached to your demons.
 
If you register them in the compendium, you can get 'em back (for a lot of macca that is). Fusing is crucial in the game; don't get too attached to your demons.
Noted. It's too bad macca is such a pain to come by... I guess the same goes for selling equipment? I tend to enjoy collecting and holding onto things, like my original armor. Should I just sell things like that and take the macca instead?

Also, is it just me, or does swapping to "Fellow" difficulty make scouting easier too? Or perhaps I'm just lucky sometimes...
 

duckroll

Member
Noted. It's too bad macca is such a pain to come by... I guess the same goes for selling equipment? I tend to enjoy collecting and holding onto things, like my original armor. Should I just sell things like that and take the macca instead?

No. You don't have to sell equipment to get by. Macca is harder to come by early in the game, but it becomes less of an issue later on when you have many more options to get money faster. The economy design in the game is still pretty tight though, so while I feel like I can afford most things now late in the game, and I can use the compendium regularly without a single demon blowing a hole in my wallet, there are still things I cannot buy, and if I try to buy everything I won't be able to afford it.
 

Alec

Member
Story questions, massive spoilers.

So Flynn is the reincarnation of a man who, 25 years ago, sacrificed himself to become the firmament that Mikado rests on top of? I imagine that this is probably just neat backstory, but I found myself often wondering if it was covered in one of the other games. It is definitely something that I 'want to play'.
 

SteeloDMZ

Banned
Noted. It's too bad macca is such a pain to come by... I guess the same goes for selling equipment? I tend to enjoy collecting and holding onto things, like my original armor. Should I just sell things like that and take the macca instead?

Also, is it just me, or does swapping to "Fellow" difficulty make scouting easier too? Or perhaps I'm just lucky sometimes...

Selling equipment won't give you too much. You gotta loot/find relics and do side-quests for the extra Macca.
 
Noted. It's too bad macca is such a pain to come by... I guess the same goes for selling equipment? I tend to enjoy collecting and holding onto things, like my original armor. Should I just sell things like that and take the macca instead?

Nah. You *can*, but it'll eventually be easier to just farm relics and sell your surplus healing/attack items (which you will constantly be receiving from battles). At least that's how I've been doing it. It's tough at the beginning, but money will start coming in faster once you make it past the initial levels.
 

Lissar

Reluctant Member
Each area is so unique, I don't think I've noticed repeated building or sign assets.

Also the fact they made these neighborhoods into dungeons was brilliant. Hard to go back to Strange Journey or Nocturne after this.

Each area was carefully designed to look like the actual place in the real world! (Maybe with some scaling down, of course). Shinjuku was sort of my place, I spent a lot of time among those streets, and I was surprised at how closely they adhered to the real place.

They even had Studio Alta across the street from the station (I think in game they called it Alte or Alto or something?):

studio-alta-shinjuku.jpg


I laughed a little and then wished they could have put more of the area in game. Still, what they managed to pack in there was pretty amazing.
 
It turns out that the coffee beans delivery was not enough to make me the #1 hunter in the land. Unfortunately, the blackboard is not feeding me any new quests, and neither are the demons I've engaged in conversation. Are there any obvious candidates for quests I've failed to find? I already did
the Amaterasu quest, Osiris, the devas quest, Nozomi's Black Maria quest, and Brigid's cauldron quest, among others
. I can give a complete list of the quests I've completed if that helps.
 
Each area was carefully designed to look like the actual place in the real world! (Maybe with some scaling down, of course). Shinjuku was sort of my place, I spent a lot of time among those streets, and I was surprised at how closely they adhered to the real place.

I guess "Don Heeho" in Shinjuku must be a play on Don Quixote? (I would never have known this if not for the Yakuza series, haha.)
 
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