The Shin Megami Everything Thread

[Blinge]

woop beat beelezebub. SMTIV

Flynn, Metatron, Fafnir, Masakado/Titania
flynn's at lvl 83 something ridiculous

That's it for the game. Neutral route, pretty much all i have to do is let the credits roll now.

[ryu]

woop beat beelezebub. SMTIV

Flynn, Metatron, Fafnir, Masakado/Titania
flynn's at lvl 83 something ridiculous

That's it for the game. Neutral route, pretty much all i have to do is let the credits roll now.

Good job!

I'm glad they simplified routing in Shin Megami Tensei V. Constantly having to look up guides in III and IV was no fun. And I still screwed up in Nocturne and ended up with no ending at all.

[Steven]

It seems that nothing was announced at the 30th anniversary event a while ago. Sadness, but not unexpected.

woop beat beelezebub. SMTIV

Flynn, Metatron, Fafnir, Masakado/Titania
flynn's at lvl 83 something ridiculous

That's it for the game. Neutral route, pretty much all i have to do is let the credits roll now.

Don't forget to fight Red Rider, who is Neutral route only. He's also by far the hardest boss in the game outside of the DLC super boss. Fun fight, though.

[Blinge]

argh ffs. Red Rider? where he at

wait there's a low chance for him to even appear?
not doing that.

[cj iwakura]

argh ffs. Red Rider? where he at

wait there's a low chance for him to even appear?
not doing that.

Yeah, it's a throwback to classic SMT, something I could do without.

[BulletMagnet]

Seems Atlus accidentally revealed trailers for both a Persona 3 remake and a Persona 5 SRPG spinoff.

[Sima Tuna]

I don't care about either of those. I just want Devil Survivor Overclocked HD. Maybe a Devil Survivor 3 as the chaser, although I'm not sure modern Atlus/Doi are capable of doing the series justice.

[Steven]

Hopefully they manage to not make the game super boring this time.

Oh yeah, and inb4 Denuvo shows up.

I don't care about either of those. I just want Devil Survivor Overclocked HD. Maybe a Devil Survivor 3 as the chaser, although I'm not sure modern Atlus/Doi are capable of doing the series justice.

I am okay with Doi overall and I like his art more than the sort of weird-looking art in the Devil Survivor games, but I understand why people don't like him. Post-Sega Atlus, however, is concerning. I do want more Devil Survivor, but I have been very dissatisfied with how Atlus has handled Megami Tensei since 2014, aside from the ports. Who knows, and maybe/hopefully this new Persona 5 Tactica thing will be good. Perhaps they'll bring Devil Survivor back if this does well, but the last thing they brought out of retirement was Soul Hackers and lots of people didn't like Soul Hackers 2.

[Sima Tuna]

I didn't play Soul Hackers 2 because it didn't look even remotely similar to Soul Hackers 1, which I loved. Why would I bother? I'm not going to play a game that I suspect will just upset me.

[cfx]

I didn't play Soul Hackers 2 because it didn't look even remotely similar to Soul Hackers 1, which I loved. Why would I bother? I'm not going to play a game that I suspect will just upset me.

I bought Soul Hackers 2 specifically because it looks nothing like Soul Hackers 1. As much as I wanted to like the first game, I just don't, though I don't know how much of that is because of how much I despise playing games on portables.

I'm interested in Persona 3. I'm not interested in a remake of Persona 3, because I have no faith that Atlus, or at least Atlus USA, will not change the story or characters "for modern sensibilities" and that Atlus Japan will likely screw up the game's difficulty and make it too easy just as they did with Persona 4 Golden and apparently did with Persona 5 R.

Also, I absolutely hated the music in the new trailer. If that is in the PS2 game I don't remember it. I can't stand rap and hip hop in general, but barely tolerate Persona 3's soundtrack. Can't say the same for what's in this trailer.

[Steven]

Forgot something, and I must add something to this:

I am okay with Doi overall and I like his art more than the sort of weird-looking art in the Devil Survivor games, but I understand why people don't like him.

I think I mentioned this several pages ago, but I don't really like Doi's redesigns of the main characters in Deep Strange Journey. They are fine on their own, but I like the original designs more and they could have left the original designs in and it probably would have looked fine. I know they probably had him do the redesigns so the characters would fit in better with that new girl they added, but she still looks ridiculously out-of-place as it is, even with the Doi redesigns, as if she just came from a Star Trek cosplay event and never bothered to change out of her costume, complete with a weird-looking phaser.

I've heard that Soul Hackers 2 was not so great. I preordered it on console to avoid Denuvo on PC, but then I cancelled for some reason that I no longer remember. After it released I found out that I didn't really miss anything of value.

I can't stand rap and hip hop in general, but barely tolerate Persona 3's soundtrack.

I thought I was the only person in the entire world that hates Persona 3's awful music, but apparently not! At least I remember it, though, as I can't remember any of the music from the entirety of Persona 5 at all.

[cfx]

I've heard that Soul Hackers 2 was not so great. I preordered it on console to avoid Denuvo on PC, but then I cancelled for some reason that I no longer remember. After it released I found out that I didn't really miss anything of value.

I haven't played it yet, but since I like JRPGs that everyone else hates (i.e Star Ocean 6) and hate some that are well-loved, I figure I have a good chance here.

I can't stand rap and hip hop in general, but barely tolerate Persona 3's soundtrack.

I thought I was the only person in the entire world that hates Persona 3's awful music, but apparently not! At least I remember it, though, as I can't remember any of the music from the entirety of Persona 5 at all.

P5's soundtrack is mostly inoffensive so that's probably why you don't remember it. I dislike the vocalist or I'd like it more. That reminds me of another change made for P5R that I dislike; a second battle theme was added that you get if you do a surprise attack (I think), and I dislike that one, and you end up hearing it more than the original one.

I have Persona 4 Dancing and Persona 5 Dancing as I like the games, and the music is ok enough. I couldn't stomach Persona 3 Dancing, because they took the awful soundtrack and made it even worse with really terrible and irritating remixes.

I think in Persona 3, I can tolerate the music because of how ludicrous much of it is. Go into every battle and it's instantly "baby-baby-baby-baby-baby-baby-baby...." and it's hard not to laugh.

[BryanM]

The music's incredible. Only bits and pieces of engrish are legible; a middle ground between properly looped liminal music, and unloopable textual music.

It's like an additional minigame layered into the game: "What the fuck are they saying?" you can ask yourself, as you try to figure it out. On the first time you hear the loop, and the ten millionth as well. It makes no difference; you'll have long have gotten sick of the meaningless battles before you make any progress into figuring this shit out.

...Music is like humor I suppose.

[cfx]

I had a similar reaction now that you mention that, but thought it was one of those cases where everyone else probably understood what was being said and I was just desne.

[Sima Tuna]

There's this one song in persona 4 that I always joke with my sister about. It sounds like the lyrics are screaming "you're a lesbian! You're a lesbian!" directly at the player.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN6t6kjkSJI

[Mortificator]

With the magic of RERELEASE even P1 can get in on it

[BryanM]

Heh heh, see? It gets harder to get tired of if you can't make out all the words. Being able to remember all the words is a very bad thing, like being nagged by the same lecture on a loop. One of those SCP cognito hazards.

This Ghostbusters fan song gets pretty old pretty fast, too. Not as fast as songs for babies tho...

Knowing the real words can actually make the songs worse! There's one nerd who worked out a lot of the lyrics of Forced Battle using the original Macintosh speech program: it's technically not "one more god rejected", but "there was a god in heaven". From there, knowing its just a bunch of bible quotes makes it more lame : (



.... god I choked on my water watching that P4D clip...

[BryanM]

Project Re:Fantasy trailer has dropped.

[Sima Tuna]

Project Re:Fantasy trailer has dropped.

No gameplay? Banished to the shadow realm!

Spoiler

There should be a law against trailers using only prepared CGI/anime footage.

[cfx]

There should be a law against trailers using only prepared CGI/anime footage.

Did you watch all of it?

While the trailer is apparently created for the zero-attention-span crowd with how it's cut together, there's clearly gameplay in that. It should be obvious given the menus shown, battles with commands and HUD, etc. Plus there's walking around and that hoverboard or whatever it is.

You could certainly wish for more shown, or it not to be cut up and edited like it is, but this is far from a typical anime or pre-rendered only thing.

From what is shown, I have a major complaint. In making the menus and battle interface cool and stylish, they totally forgot to make them actually readable and usable. Persona 5 has a crazy interface, but you can still read things at a glance. Not so here, especially that all-caps font that just all runs together.

Take this image:
https://rpg.jp/en/images/gi_image_02.jpg

The command menu on the left--I'm old with imperfect eyesight so maybe it's on me, but I can't read that. Sure after staring at it long enough I can, but at a glance? No way. Playing this game for long periods is going to be headache-inducing.

(Edited to remove unintentionally agressive-sounding tone...)

[Steven]

I thought that I would never see a game with a more hideous UI than Persona 5, but it looks like Atlus managed to outdo (???) themselves. Are they letting 3-year-olds design their UIs by just taking random shit and throwing it together whether it looks like trash or not now? SMT V's was very bland and sterile, but I will take that over unbelievably ugly.

Speaking of SMT V, I wonder if this will launch at 9,878 yen like SMT V did. I hope not. In any case, more information required.

[cfx]

I was reminded a bit of those old budget software "desktop publishing" packages that you could buy at Walmart or wherever that were intended so you could make your party fliers and such, and people tended to think they had to use every font included along with as much clipart as possible in their projects.

Or, for another similar comparison that might mean more to some of you, a typical old Geocities website.

Speculation: While obviously this isn't going to be Xbox-exclusive, it's not shown as being on Xbox One. The Persona 3 remake and Persona 5 Tactica that were also announced at this Xbox event listed Xbox One as well as Xbox X|S. So I will speculate that this game will be only on PS5, while the other two will be PS4 and maybe also PS5. I'll leave this here so I can be ridiculed if I am wrong.

[Blinge]

I'm interested in Persona 3. I'm not interested in a remake of Persona 3, because I have no faith that Atlus, or at least Atlus USA, will not change the story or characters "for modern sensibilities" and that Atlus Japan will likely screw up the game's difficulty and make it too easy just as they did with Persona 4 Golden and apparently did with Persona 5 R.

Oof does that mean P5 R is not the one to play??

I can't stand rap and hip hop in general, but barely tolerate Persona 3's soundtrack. Can't say the same for what's in this trailer.

Jeez I feel bad for you. P3 soundtrack is a banger

[Blinge]

The music's incredible. Only bits and pieces of engrish are legible; a middle ground between properly looped liminal music, and unloopable textual music.

It's like an additional minigame layered into the game: "What the fuck are they saying?" you can ask yourself, as you try to figure it out. On the first time you hear the loop, and the ten millionth as well. It makes no difference; you'll have long have gotten sick of the meaningless battles before you make any progress into figuring this shit out.

...Music is like humor I suppose.

I always loved this one from P4
about 50 seconds in it sounds like
https://youtu.be/d-x3ojOGWa8

YOUR PASSION. YOUR PASSION. I DRINK A COFFEEEE

[ryu]

Project Re:Fantasy trailer has dropped.

Reminds me a lot of Persona 5 somehow. I was more intrigued when they first announced it and it seemed like they were going for a classic JRPG experience.

[cfx]

I'm interested in Persona 3. I'm not interested in a remake of Persona 3, because I have no faith that Atlus, or at least Atlus USA, will not change the story or characters "for modern sensibilities" and that Atlus Japan will likely screw up the game's difficulty and make it too easy just as they did with Persona 4 Golden and apparently did with Persona 5 R.

Oof does that mean P5 R is not the one to play??

In reference to the difficulty, don't take my word for it as I don't see others express the same sentiment.

As for the changes in dialogue or story, it's up to how you feel about censorship and catering to political correctness.

[Blinge]

yeah i imagine they will utterly ruin any P3 or 4 remake on woke grounds.
then again.. Atlus has been amusingly tone-deaf in the past.

10/10 would definitely go through a JRPG dungeon and bossfight to stop someone transitioning their gender again.

[ryu]

10/10 would definitely go through a JRPG dungeon and bossfight to stop someone transitioning their gender again.

Honestly I think Persona 4 had the right idea about coming of age.

I'm not really looking forward to the P3 remake anymore. Not much because of the change in socio-cultural climate, but mostly because I didn't like the direction Persona 5 was steering in terms of gameplay and style. Those dungeons and menues were atrocious. I'd take classic Tartarus any day over P5's dungeons. Don't fix what isn't broken.

[BryanM]

I was thinking it might have had an older fantasy art style to it. It was probably extremely unrealistic to think it might be more like Sword World or The Record of Lodoss War, especially when it came to the actual game.

Nope. Bog standard jRPG. I'm starting to understand why "jRPG" was such a pejorative for grognards back in the day.

Shit, Konami has given up on the pachinko racket and is trying to make actual video games again, a little bit. Even made a Tokimeki (that's the original Persona 3 game) tweeter page leading into the anniversary. Rumors about a remake murmur around, like they always do whenever a corp acknowledges that they own a certain IP. If they make it more of an immersive sim with the ability to walk around the world, and amp up the number of elective pointless battles in it, such a thing could be one of the better Persona games... if if if.

I'd take classic Tartarus any day over P5's dungeons. Don't fix what isn't broken.

The dungeons in 3 and 4 are definitely busted, haven't gotten to 5's yet. It could be defective in a more different kind of way.

Even with a little more work they could have brought things up to the standard of Diablo 1. It's amazing how just a little bit of variety can elevate empty hallways meant to house monsters and chests into feeling like an actual space. The randomized mini-worlds in Dragon Quest Monsters 2 were better and vastly more meaningful spaces.

Minimal effort was put into them; which was fine since they were there to just fill space and pad time. But frankly even with totally half-assing it, with only a week's more worth of effort by one guy, they could have done better.

I'll always stress: your randomly generated dungeons should not have small segmentation as its backbone. Make most of your room modules large.

YOUR PASSION. YOUR PASSION. I DRINK A COFFEEEE

.... It's "passion"?! Always heard it as "vision".

See, it's like reading a novel or something. Everyone has a different interpretation!

yeah i imagine they will utterly ruin any P3 or 4 remake on woke grounds.

In most contexts I'd be triggered by the w word, but they censored shadows in Mirage Sessions. Shadows. Shadows that made it look like human females have bones inside of them. Like, a skeleton and stuff. What's even the point of anything anymore.

Fuck me, I didn't know Royal was censored, and now I'm royally pissed. Haaah.... I'll just have to hope it wasn't much.

P5X has some censored designs on its monsters (you're not allowed to be too horny in China), but unlike Mirage Sessions where they made the ugliest+laziest version of a wedding dress imaginable, they actually put a tiny bit of work in. I just mean, they didn't use the MS Paint bucket tool to change peach skin into part of a white dress. And the succubus redesign is actually pretty popular; it's not like we haven't seen these guys a million times already, or that they only appear for a few seconds in a playthrough.

There's no telling if that's going to be regional or not. Some companies have the decency to offer an M rated client for their games. All a downstream consequence of the profit model.

... to be fair though, the original source material this entire franchise is built on is indeed the kind of thing only Devilman-loving sickos could love. Loki doing Loki stuff, etc. Yumi has opinions on this sort of thing...

[ryu]

Even with a little more work they could have brought things up to the standard of Diablo 1. It's amazing how just a little bit of variety can elevate empty hallways meant to house monsters and chests into feeling like an actual space.

Ah yeah, you're right the dungeons in P3 and 4 are very low-effort even for randomly generated ones. The Cave of the Ancients in Lufia II is almost more fleshed out by comparison. But the dungeons in P5? I don't even want to think about them. Every puzzle, no matter how dumb and simple, gets explained in an overly long cutscene. The stealth mechanics flat out don't work and make no sense. First off, it's an RPG. You'd get floored by bosses if you were to stealth past every encounter. It's slow and tedious, and considering how you're likely to backtrack a lot it's always better to just fight and clear the way. Ironically avoiding enemies is easier and smoother to execute in P3 and P4.