/v/ - Video Games

I've only played and finished SMT1 still, but halfway through I started using a guide to get the neutral ending. Planning on playing SMT2 soon, and Nocturne/Strange journey after that

>>15160039

The classic SMT duology is still top tier in my book. Good choice.

Which version are you playing? If the SNES version, did you make sure to get the patch that fixes bugs in the AG translation? This one:

http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2616/

>>15160053

I played the SNES for 1, and going to play PSX for 2. I'm making a point to play everything in japanese so I don't have to deal with translations whenever I can.

So why did SMT4 retcon The Great Will and YHVH to be separate entities again? Did Christfags finally force Atlus to throw them a bone?

>>15160077

Wasn't that already technically the case in Nocturne and Strange Journey?

>>15160089

I don't recall if SJ mentioned the Great Will (though I think the brainwashed crewmates in the Law path mention having "been touched by the Great Will"), but I'm fairly certain Nocturne was on the "they're the same thing" position. The game over screen (vid related) and its myriad of angels and heavenly imagery imply its YHVH when it says "The comfort of death will come for men and demons alike, by the guidance of the Great Will", and Lucifer mentions that he himself was made by the Great Will, and that it would curse Demi-Fiend for ruining the Vortex World in the True Demon Ending (where you're literally marching against heaven for Armageddon).

>>15160053

I don't know. Anyways, I liked to compare how SMT handled Lucifer to later depictions of Devilman manga particularly Devilman Lady. The original Devilman manga had Satan be acting on an injustice that God did only for him to do the same thing proving God right (not morally but). It was more even handed then the whole "God is true final boss" later in the series. Devilman Lady even managed to save everyone that was eaten the turtle demon when the original Devilman had to kill everyone to defeat him including a little girl that he knew.

>>15160127

I had a bad experience with the early translation patch but the new one is a lot easier to understand. I still miss how the newer games would give descriptions of what the spell or item does and its MP cost.

>>15160020

I really liked the gameplay of DeSu1 but I hated the story particularly because it was ruined by the 8th day. I want to ignore it but it is clear that the writers intended 8th day to be what happened. I heard that DeSu2's story is shit but it abandoned the Law-Chaos faggotry so maybe I'll give it a try.

>>>/a/

>>15160263

Funny that what spurred me to stop being lazy and actually use my japanese was exactly that: waiting forever for a fan translation just for it to be cancelled (Tales of Phantasia X for the PSP in this case)

I'm playing a pirated SJ Redux. I'm ready to go through Sector E's teleports again. Yukiko really made the story weird. She kills you and no one at the Red Sprite freaks out after you came back to life. I also hate how there's no dual audio option. Very lazy of Atlus.

>>15160410

That reminds me, how have those IMAGINEfags been doing these days? I know one dev showed up here in a thread awhile back to show off a demon that wasn't in the original MMO, but I haven't heard much since.

>>15160459

What kind of machine translator do you recommend that would work exactly?

>>15160476

From what I remember from a friend, it got an update a few weeks ago. Has up to act 16 are done along with both WILDCAT's and rebirthing system in place so about halfway done. Still mostly untranslated though.

>>15160216

>I still miss how the newer games would give descriptions of what the spell or item does

Yeah, I had some issues with that for some spells and items I didn't recognize or forgot, like "Rimudra". SMT I also doesn't explain how certain things like sword fusion work, but I guess that's what the instruction manual was for. It's just odd because in Rag's Shop it's explained how the gem exchanges work so you would think they could have done the same thing for the other systems like sword fusion.

>>15160263

Horrendous. It would be one thing if he didn't want to do it any more and handed it off to someone else, but he insists on sitting on it.

>>15160410

>and retroactively ruining Strange Journey with DSJ with the god awful "true endings"

I forgot about the SJ Redux. Another reason to be pessimistic.

Am I the only one looking forward to the mobage?

I just finished Apocalypse now that 3DS emulation is a real thing, and it was mostly a disappointment. I enjoyed some of the fights and the final boss was very fun, but overall the writing and setting was all over the place Dagda did nothing wrong.

About to start Soul Hackers now, hope it's not a letdown too

>15161020

I refuse to give this a (You). Sage so fewer people have to see your post.

>>15161047

Soul Hackers is absolutely kickass, by the way. If you want to make the game ez modo, when you get a certain question, say she's sex personified, or however it's worded. The third choice, basically.

Sage for doublepost.

>>15161051

> If you want to make the game ez modo

That's the last thing anyone playing SMT should want

>>15161047

Soul Hackers is a good remake of the original. It's similar to SMT 1 and 2 with the 6 party members and MAG.

>>15160263

Faggot. I hope someone upstages him again like with Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei.

>>15161257

There used to be an SMT MMO sadly it was your typical hotkey mmo instead of the usually SMT turn based style combat.

>>15162626

>hard-on for Gnosticism.

Is that why they shoved the demiurge even into Persona?

>>15160459

Even using jisho.org, I take a crazy amount of time just finding the kanjis through their radicals. I tried doing this for Shining Force but the kanjis themselves were so pixelated I had no idea what most of them were.

>>15161051

Another easy mode thing you can do is get 50000 points in the casino for the sword. It's a huge grind but the sword will melt everything for most of the game. I bought it, realized how op it was and reloaded my previous save.The grind was for nothnig

The fight against Steven in Apocalypse made me laugh the first time I played it, it almost felt like a joke mod someone made.

>>15162626

Devil survivor 1 was the most enjoyable. Its the soundtrack in my opinion.

>>15160410

>After Apocalypse: friendship is magic

I think you mean Apocalypse: Dagda is Always Right

>>15164847

Apocalypse: Everyone is fucking retarded except Dagda

>>15164856

Dagda made the game good for me, I ignored most of the party members' shit and enjoyed the gameplay and storyline otherwise. I don't understand the hate the game gets in these threads because mechanically it was an excellent SMT game.

>>15160020

YAMATO DID NOTHING WRONG

>>15164899

Dagda is the like the Groose of SMT4A, they took anything possibly likable about the game and stuffed it into one character.

>>15168445

>not using the undub

He is voiced by Char in the Japanese version.

does anyone think alex convincing zelelin not to go through with her plan seem kind of forced? and its never explained why alex is in the womb of grief since her plan is to change the future which doesnt have anything to do with the womb of grief and she just happened to find her way there. everything about her feels forced

>>15171387

Seems like someone from Atlus has a fetish for their OC donut steel in remakes.

Persona 3 is the best SMT.

>>15160476

>>15160518

Yep, that's about right. What's coming up next is Diaspora, the 30-man raid content. Thing is, this has to be done first since a few parts of it were actually tied to the final acts. Once that's done, then the content makers can piece together the content for all of the other acts so that covers all of the DB licenses.

>>15171638

it really adds to the dagda is just an edgy fedora tipper thing. sometimes it felt like dagda was raising a good point while other times it just felt like edge for the sake of it.

>>15160127

One thing I've come to think over the years as I play the older SMT games is that one mechanic I would like to see return is technically a step back; but that would be having Demons return to having static stats and removing their ability to level up.

With SJ being my first SMT game, and having both leveling up my demons and their sources to farm it didn't bother me as it just fell into the groove. But having played a number of games with it now, it's begun to get boring wanting to grind out a complete spell list for each demon/persona I acquire. It was very refreshing to just know that a demon was both already completed in terms of available moves, and that I had one less thing to grind out going into new areas, basically only having to worry about my own character stats and the one or two humans that might be with me.

I'd also like to see press-turn get put on the shelf, it was a great mechanic but because it's design limits the sizes of the parties and I get the impression that IV wanted to mimic how the earlier games had multiple humans in the party, but designating them to a uncontrollable side role instead of letting you control them in favor of giving you 3 demons instead because party size is limited and giving the player a more static human with smaller moveset would hinder variety.

>>15161207

I totally forgot about KMT, should I play them before or after SMT 2? Or does it matter?

>>15171991

Doesn't matter but probably after. KMT has better UI than SMTII. Way better.

A Kuzunoha cell makes war with a group of Persona-users. Who do you side with? Neutral means beating up both.

>>15172013

Alrighty then.

For mainline SMT games, here are my favorites.

>1. Nocturne

The Law vs Chaos dichotomy in other SMT games never appealed to me as much as the Reason vs Reason moral grayness that Nocturne employed. It was less about siding with (((Lucifer's))) or (((YHVH's))) vision of how the world should be, & more about which philosophy would you personally deem best for the new world order. Not simply locking you into another game with the same old SMT "complete freedom is chaotic and bad" vs "complete order is strict and unfree" storyline, but by giving you more varied philosophies this time around.

Like "complete darwinism where the strong must reign and the weak must die", versus

"complete isolationism where everyone is separated into their own ideal world", versus

"complete neutrality where stopping time completely means that neither bad or good actions can occur".

These Reasons are still extreme and absolutist in their approaches, but they were a nice change of pace from the usual Law vs Chaos extremism of other SMT games.

It also had the best Lucifer boss fight of the entire series. Thanks to how the story built him up + traveling through an unfair Hell (Labyrinth of Amala) for the right to face him, it did feel like the most realistic interpretation of the Devil this series has ever come close to replicating.

2. Apocalypse

Before you faggots complain, let me explain. I don't think that the friendships themes in this game are very "SMT-like" imo. In most SMT games, your friends and allies usually start off on good terms with each other. But eventually as the story progresses, they will become bitter enemies who are driven apart because their differing philosophies (Law diehard supporters, Chaos diehard supporters) prove too incompatible with one another. In Apocalypse, the reverse happens. Your teammates start off as hating each other, but because Friendship is Magic™, become all buddy buddy towards the end. Atypical of how SMT stories and characters usually play out.

That said, I still think this game has the best YHVH fight of the entire series. Rather than simply fighting him through brute force alone, the game's writers were clever on how to accurately defeat an almighty god. You have to systematically debunk his entire religion and teachings to cause him any harm. If he no longer believes himself to be omnipotent, his own doubt leaves him vulnerable to pain afterwards. Very clever.

It's here where the friendship themes come into play and their inclusion finally make sense. These unlikely companions of yours grew together as a group and eventually formed strong bonds with each other. Their arcs in the game's story not only served to watch them become friendlier personalities, but when it came time to debunk YHVH's points one by one, their words and deconstructions actually had weight behind them. Powered by their own personal arcs within the game's story that served as a prime example as to why YHVH's teachings are proven utterly wrong.

3. SMT4

Basically a modern reimagining of SMT1. Complete with the quintessential Law vs Chaos storyline that SMT is known for, where the clearly Chaos ally (Walter) and clearly Law ally (Jonathon) transform into diehard supporters of their own alignment. Out of all the mainline games, I think that this one did the Law vs Chaos story the best, simply because Walter and Jonathon perfectly embody those two sides.

SMT4 might not have had a good final boss. Nothing like Nocturne's Lucifer or Apocalypse's YHVH, but as stated above, it did have two of the best Law/Chaos human characters this series has ever seen. Quite possibly The best portrayals of those alignments.

>4. Everything else (SMT1, SMT2, Strange Journey, if…)

I despise first person dungeon crawlers. That boxlike maze of traveling is just horseshit and not fun. This is mainly why I prefer the 3D movement of Nocturne, SMT4, and Apocalypse.

In addition to this, I also prefer games like SMT4/Apocalypse, later Persona games, and Chrono Trigger that let you see an enemy outside of battle before you fight them. I like having the option to avoid battles if I can successfully avoid contacting enemies outside of battle. Games where you walk around on empty floors and still trigger unnecessary battles like in Nocturne and Final Fantasy X can get annoying after a while. Not every weakling is worth fighting for chump exp.

If SMT5 comes out with 3D movement and overworld enemies, I would definitely play it and not throw it in the trash like I do with worthless first person dungeon crawlers.

But despite me liking how SMT4/Apocalypse handled the way you initiate battles, I would still prefer to play Nocturne over either of them. Simply because its atmosphere, story, and overall experience were just that good.

But to be frank, Nocturne is the only good one I would replay out of the Main SMT games. The rest were just one and done experiences for me.

>>15170916

Yeah, Dagda wasn't a good choice for the kind of character they wanted to him to be. A god like Set would have been a better choice for an edgelord who wants to overturn the current order.

>It MIGHT have worked better if the choice between bonds and massacre was alot earlier and picking one would have the opposite trying to convince you to the other which a few outs to change before the final confrontation.

If for no other reason, this would have been better because the game would have been more interesting to replay. You could go through your first playthrough on the massacre route, the bonds route, or switching between the two and then play the game again with another route in mind. Obviously this would have been harder to implement, though.

>The Divine Powers are another aspect that could have been interesting but the writers couldn't make them anything more then generic villains.

Agreed. Being able to side with the Divine Powers would have been cool, too, but again, would be harder to implement than just having them as villains.

>One of the few parts 4A did well was just talking to random NPC's, they feel like they are the only things that are on point. Everyone is depressed as shit and barely scraping by, food is running thin and everything is fucked.

Yeah the setting of SMT IV is still excellent in 4A so the game has that going for it.

>>15171638

Yeah, the more embarrassing bits of Dagda's dialogue were probably unavoidable given this. They'd have to switch Danu and/or Dagda out with other characters to sidestep the bratty, brooding kid vibe.

>>15171947

>Demons return to having static stats and removing their ability to level up.

I would potentially be okay with this, but I don't think it would compliment skill inheritance very well, which would take a lot of the fun out of fusing demons for me. The lack of skill inheritance in KMT and SMT I made demon recruiting and fusion less interesting than it is in the later games. Of course, there could be static, set skills and skill inheritance. Demons could have set open skill spaces or the player could just have to deal with some given skill(s) being overwritten. However, I think it might cheapen the better skills if you already have them as soon as you fuse a given demon and you can pass the skill on to another demon through fusion. Having open skill spaces that can be filled by inheritance or by unlocking new skills as a demon levels up also seems more organic to me if the designers are going to include skill inheritance.

>I'd also like to see press-turn get put on the shelf, it was a great mechanic but because it's design limits the sizes of the parties and I get the impression that IV wanted to mimic how the earlier games had multiple humans in the party, but designating them to a uncontrollable side role instead of letting you control them in favor of giving you 3 demons instead because party size is limited and giving the player a more static human with smaller moveset would hinder variety.

I hadn't thought of this before. I definitely like the idea of having companions and demons in the party proper, but I like the press-turn system so much that I think I'd rather have the latter than the former if I had to make a binary choice.

>>15173288

>However, I think it might cheapen the better skills if you already have them as soon as you fuse a given demon and you can pass the skill on to another demon through fusion

To your first point there is the possibility that the inheritance will lose some of it's variety. To this point, grinding for a high skill or demonic source isn't really a good incentive to keeping someone in a party, and once you have a necessary skill in the compedium it removes that tedium as you just fuse it around. In some way I would be ok with shrinking down skill inheritance if it meant that negotiations returned to being more fleshed out like they were in P2 or the early SMT games. Since to compensate for static spell lists you'd need to have a stronger option to recruit to gain access to skills. And if I'm not mistaken some demons can only be acquired through fusion anyways so that just means having a full compendium becomes more necessary.

Persona 1-2 where creatures only have 7 ranks and that's their full repertoire that would be optimal in balancing progressing a demon and grinding. In those games all that matters is how many times you use a creature's spells and you rank up once you hit a threshold (like casting 18 spells). While this number increases for each rank it just rewards you for using the creature and you will always have a consistent step towards the next spell as opposed to having to eventually hit the wall of grinding when you get higher level persona. In fact, it takes less spell uses to rank up with stronger persona.

>but I like the press-turn system so much that I think I'd rather have the latter than the former if I had to make a binary choice.

I want larger starting parties back even if it's just 5. Press turn has been great but I think they have hit the wall with ways to spice it up so another paradigm shift would be nice, and something that accommodated more humans for a mainline game's party would go a ways towards re-integrating the law/chaos/heroine reps back into the narrative on a mechanical level. Having them tag along as an unintelligent AI that occasionally makes a situation worse by using the wrong spell (at least it happened to me in IV) was frustrating.

I got the new law ending in strange journey and i liked it. even though the whole thing with Alex was forced it was not to see zeliein get back her humanity

>>15174237

>To this point, grinding for a high skill or demonic source isn't really a good incentive to keeping someone in a party, and once you have a necessary skill in the compedium it removes that tedium as you just fuse it around.

That's a good point.

>if it meant that negotiations returned to being more fleshed out like they were in P2 or the early SMT games.

I can see this being a worthwhile compromise, but I just finished SMT I and I found the demon negotiations to be simpler than in the later games. A lot of the demons have the same jerk personality and you only have the "Friendly" or "Threatening" approaches when starting a conversation. As far as I could tell, there also aren't any cases of demons interceding on your behalf if the negotiation goes poorly like in Nocturne. It's been a while since I've played the later SMT games so maybe the demon negotiations aren't as in-depth or varied as I'm remembering in those games. Anyway, I see the appeal of curtailing the skill inheritance system in favor of a better demon negotiation system.

>And if I'm not mistaken some demons can only be acquired through fusion

I'm pretty sure that's correct. Fair point.

>Press turn has been great but I think they have hit the wall with ways to spice it up so another paradigm shift would be nice

After giving it some thought I agree with you here, despite how much I like press turn. Strange Journey had an interesting battle system without press turn by including the alignment combos. It would have been a shame if something novel like that wasn't implemented and instead we got the press turn system again. I think the press turn system deserves the praise it gets, but more mechanical variety in SMT going forward would be a net positive.

>unintelligent AI that occasionally makes a situation worse by using the wrong spell (at least it happened to me in IV) was frustrating.

You're not the only one. I remember Walter and/or Johnathan giving bosses Wink by casting the wrong spell multiple times. Of course, this meant I couldn't do anything and just had to take a massive hit. IIRC they "fixed" the issue with Wink in Apocalypse by making the AI not cast spells the enemy was strong against. They might have nerfed Wink itself, too.

WHERE IS KANEKO

>yfw a mobile game shat out by SEGA is more faithful to mainline SMT than 4/4A

>yfw SMT5 is probably just gonna be more of the same gay shit SMT4 brought to the table

>yfw atlus is dead

>>15181979

The fucking mobile game has absolute shit rates in terms to getting good demons. Some demons are summon-only (AKA Gacha-only), and collecting MAG to fuse the high-rate demons is a fucking absolute show of misery. The aura gate is nice, but too bad that it's the only 1st person dungeon that exists.

>>15182014

100000 a week ain't worth shit if the high end demons are still 3 million to fuse.

>>15160263

I don't even really want to play if, but I hope someone else translates it.

>>15181112

He has been dead for quite some time. Why else do you think he vanished off the face of the earth?