The Shin Megami Everything Thread

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

cj iwakura wrote:And yeah, DDS' super bosses are yum. P3's is fun, too. After that, Atlus lost their teeth.
I remember some tough ones in Nocturne too. Disappointing to hear they softened up.
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

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BryanM wrote:You also don't have the problem of grotesque AI incompetence to deal with there.
That's very true; after finishing Portable I attempted to play through The Answer, but couldn't stick with it, partially due to the AI and partially because somehow knocking enemies down worked differently (I forget the exact details, but I remember disliking it).
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

Post by cj iwakura »

I forgot, you don't even get to fight Strega at the same time. What a waste.
(I heard once someone did a patch to make them actually difficult... sign me up for that.)
Steamflogger Boss wrote:
cj iwakura wrote:And yeah, DDS' super bosses are yum. P3's is fun, too. After that, Atlus lost their teeth.
I remember some tough ones in Nocturne too. Disappointing to hear they softened up.
Nocturne's haven't aged well. Even Lucifer is a cinch compared to stuff from DDS1/2. They went all in on those games, difficulty wise, and you can't exploit stuff like Dark/Bright might.

The last super difficult bosses they did were Elizabeth in P3 and Lucifer in Devil Survivor.


I haven't seen Stephen in SMT IV's DLC, but I hear he was pretty stupid. Soul Hackers 3DS had a ridiculous gauntlet, but that was more because you had to fight Raido/Raidou/Battleship back to back to back.
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

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I beat Soul Hackers not long after my last post, but haven't done more than poke my head in the extra dungeon yet. I'm tempted by the idea of a proper Raidou battle, rather than him lamely pasted in Dante's place. Nemissa doesn't seem to have any dialogue, though, which is weird after how vocal she was in the main game.

Concerning Persona 3, Strega's too easy, but I had a hell of a time against the Hanged Man boss right after them on my first playthrough. It probably gave me more trouble than any of the floor guardians in Tartarus. Of course, Megami Tensei is a series where foreknowledge and preparation make a huge difference, so on my next run I maxed the Chariot link early, fused Thor, made my teammates Counterstrike weapons, and ground it into the pavement.

While they're no Kandori in combat, I think Strega worked well in the narrative, particularly Takaya. He's a real bastard, contrasting with the inarticulate and purely-predatory Shadows.
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

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Since I'm more likely to get a proper answer from people who have played them, what would I be missing if I elected to jump straight into Persona 2 without playing the first Persona?
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

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Of the three PS1 Persona games, the only one I'd recommend is Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, which is damn good.

The original Persona did interesting things with narrative and characterization; storytelling improved by a light year in the the two actual years since SMT if. Gameplay is really lacking, though, regardless of whether you play the PS1 or PSP version. In skipping it for Eternal Punishment, you'd miss some callbacks and the returning characters would have less weight, but the latter game's main cast and plot aren't reliant on it.

The most-skippable is the other Persona 2, Innocent Sin, whose game design is an inferior proto of Eternal Punishment's, and whose story makes itself irrelevant.
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

Post by BryanM »

Missing a surfing butler and Hitler are subjectively important things. The journey is more important than the destination.

That is an unfortunate side effect of Atlus milking their assets for maximum revenue. Similar to Pokémon, you get multiple copies of the same game. Games that already are over 100 hours long each.

I can live without fully experiencing Last Bible 2 and 3, they were bad for the time and now that there's an actual market of games unlike the 90's, they're best forgotten. Still worry about missing out on Card Summoner though...

(..Saw a video the other day about the butchered 1st Persona localization. Changing Titania, queen of the fairies to "Queen Fly" killed what was left of my brain.)
BryanM rambles on more about AI controlled characters
The only other game I can recall that forced this was Dragon Warrior 4. The wizards would refuse to use their best attack spells. Cristo pathologically used the instakill "Defeat" spells. Which, after over 50 uses and never once killing a single thing, I can confirm has less than a 3% hit rate.

For that game I assumed they wanted to show off their new battle system that, in theory, would reduce the number of inputs necessary. In practice I still wonder if it was an outlet for their spite and sadism. They put in all this work making completely unusable skills and no one ever uses them, and instead of making them usable they force us to waste hours of our lives reaffirming why we never use those skills.

I think it was also one of the experiments in Persona 3 in trying to make the other units feel like their own people instead of your property. But mostly it was about torturing us with wasted time on 5% accuracy boosts.
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

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BryanM wrote:That is an unfortunate side effect of Atlus milking their assets for maximum revenue. Similar to Pokémon, you get multiple copies of the same game. Games that already are over 100 hours long each.
Facts.
BryanM wrote:The only other game I can recall that forced this was Dragon Warrior 4. The wizards would refuse to use their best attack spells. Cristo pathologically used the instakill "Defeat" spells. Which, after over 50 uses and never once killing a single thing, I can confirm has less than a 3% hit rate.

For that game I assumed they wanted to show off their new battle system that, in theory, would reduce the number of inputs necessary. In practice I still wonder if it was an outlet for their spite and sadism. They put in all this work making completely unusable skills and no one ever uses them, and instead of making them usable they force us to waste hours of our lives reaffirming why we never use those skills.

I think it was also one of the experiments in Persona 3 in trying to make the other units feel like their own people instead of your property. But mostly it was about torturing us with wasted time on 5% accuracy boosts.
I feel like most JRPGs have a lot of dead weight. Maybe I'm just playing the wrong ones but it seems like more work than what will be done to make a game where all the moves matter.
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

Post by cj iwakura »

Mortificator wrote:I beat Soul Hackers not long after my last post, but haven't done more than poke my head in the extra dungeon yet. I'm tempted by the idea of a proper Raidou battle, rather than him lamely pasted in Dante's place. Nemissa doesn't seem to have any dialogue, though, which is weird after how vocal she was in the main game.

Concerning Persona 3, Strega's too easy, but I had a hell of a time against the Hanged Man boss right after them on my first playthrough. It probably gave me more trouble than any of the floor guardians in Tartarus. Of course, Megami Tensei is a series where foreknowledge and preparation make a huge difference, so on my next run I maxed the Chariot link early, fused Thor, made my teammates Counterstrike weapons, and ground it into the pavement.

While they're no Kandori in combat, I think Strega worked well in the narrative, particularly Takaya. He's a real bastard, contrasting with the inarticulate and purely-predatory Shadows.
The other optional bosses are super fun, especially Sid Davis. They're all voice acted, too, and very well. The penultimate is a royal pain, though.

Strega are great characters, just wish they'd make them more of a threat. When you fight enemy Persona users in 1 and 2, you know it's gonna be rough. Even 5's are more of a menace(though not much).
Mortificator wrote:Of the three PS1 Persona games, the only one I'd recommend is Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, which is damn good.

The original Persona did interesting things with narrative and characterization; storytelling improved by a light year in the the two actual years since SMT if. Gameplay is really lacking, though, regardless of whether you play the PS1 or PSP version. In skipping it for Eternal Punishment, you'd miss some callbacks and the returning characters would have less weight, but the latter game's main cast and plot aren't reliant on it.

The most-skippable is the other Persona 2, Innocent Sin, whose game design is an inferior proto of Eternal Punishment's, and whose story makes itself irrelevant.
The original Persona has some great characters, but time hasn't been kind... though if you have the patience for playing through it and IS before EP, you'll be rewarded for picking up on all the little connections. Tadashi was a great writer.

That said, EP is easily the best one, but it's even better still if you recognize everyone else, especially from IS. It wasn't a luxury we had in 96, so it's good that it's an option now.
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

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BryanM wrote:The only other game I can recall that forced this was Dragon Warrior 4. The wizards would refuse to use their best attack spells. Cristo pathologically used the instakill "Defeat" spells. Which, after over 50 uses and never once killing a single thing, I can confirm has less than a 3% hit rate.
That's why I used Ragnar, Alena, and Taloon.
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

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cj iwakura wrote:When you fight enemy Persona users in 1 and 2, you know it's gonna be rough.
oi, that fight in Eternal Punishment against the clones of your old characters. Still sticks in the noggin after all these years.

I'd remember it a little better if I had played Innocent Sin I bet...
Steamflogger Boss wrote:I feel like most JRPGs have a lot of dead weight. Maybe I'm just playing the wrong ones but it seems like more work than what will be done to make a game where all the moves matter.
It only takes a little bit of paying attention to make skills that are viable. There's an expected standard value for a lump of damage - anything that takes time to deal its damage has to be higher than that. Charm and sleep effects have a defensive effect, but in most trash encounters there's not enough need or time to get a payoff from them.

And then there's combo effects, effects that can only stack once, enemy resistance, etc. It's really basic stuff that most games already have the levers to pull on. It's absurd that I'd be impressed by Etrian Odyssey games for making poison alright. All the spells in Dragon Quest 1 had a point dangit!

(It's often pointed out how Dungeons and Dragons traditionally had very few direct damage spells. And a ton of utility and environmental spells, like a telekinetic hand or an alarm or a spell to conjure comfy chairs. With the simplified combat model of the jRPG, tactical environmental stuff isn't an option. Making some numbers go down while keeping other numbers up is about all there is. They don't give themselves a lot of room with unlimited uses of healing skills that completely restore an HP gauge by the endgame.)
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

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BryanM wrote:
Steamflogger Boss wrote:I feel like most JRPGs have a lot of dead weight. Maybe I'm just playing the wrong ones but it seems like more work than what will be done to make a game where all the moves matter.
It only takes a little bit of paying attention to make skills that are viable. There's an expected standard value for a lump of damage - anything that takes time to deal its damage has to be higher than that. Charm and sleep effects have a defensive effect, but in most trash encounters there's not enough need or time to get a payoff from them.

And then there's combo effects, effects that can only stack once, enemy resistance, etc. It's really basic stuff that most games already have the levers to pull on. It's absurd that I'd be impressed by Etrian Odyssey games for making poison alright. All the spells in Dragon Quest 1 had a point dangit!

(It's often pointed out how Dungeons and Dragons traditionally had very few direct damage spells. And a ton of utility and environmental spells, like a telekinetic hand or an alarm or a spell to conjure comfy chairs. With the simplified combat model of the jRPG, tactical environmental stuff isn't an option. Making some numbers go down while keeping other numbers up is about all there is. They don't give themselves a lot of room with unlimited uses of healing skills that completely restore an HP gauge by the endgame.)
I mean I don't disagree but I'm still always pleasantly surprised by well made jrpgs.
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

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WelshMegalodon wrote:Since I'm more likely to get a proper answer from people who have played them, what would I be missing if I elected to jump straight into Persona 2 without playing the first Persona?
I played Persona on PSP. Both routes.
Both soundtracks

It's garbo don't touch it. :lol:
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

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Beat the tsundere. The impact that Level has on the damage algorithm is absurd - I was dealing nearly triple the damage and taking 1/3rd as much in return. It really makes all other game elements feel dumb and pointless.

Orpheus Telos is kind of a booby prize to punish those with OCD in this version of the game. Without elective inheritance or skill cards, it's hard to see how to turn him into much more than a Black Viper bot for the bonus boss without hours of menu re-roll grinding.

I tried using the bathroom to cure the protagonist in the ending, but it didn't work. If I was in charge of this call, I would have added a secret ending for anyone who used it 100 times or something. For one, it would be funny. But it would also be a way of saying "See? Some game elements *do* matter."

The takoyaki stall Octopia should be shut down for false advertising. All these octopuses in its ads, zero octopus in its food.

The "protagonist with a weird run" theme continues in the extra campaign. Instead of a guy who runs around with his hands in his pockets, now it's a girl who naruto runs everywhere. It's the kind of thing that's "just different" to help make the game stand out from the crowd. Whoever came up with the idiotic idea for Minato's running animation deserves a $10,000 bonus.
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

Post by cj iwakura »

BryanM wrote:Beat the tsundere. The impact that Level has on the damage algorithm is absurd - I was dealing nearly triple the damage and taking 1/3rd as much in return. It really makes all other game elements feel dumb and pointless.
This better not be a dig against Elizabeth! I'll fight you.
Orpheus Telos is kind of a booby prize to punish those with OCD in this version of the game. Without elective inheritance or skill cards, it's hard to see how to turn him into much more than a Black Viper bot for the bonus boss without hours of menu re-roll grinding.
If you want the true demon road, go play the vanilla version and kill her without Telos. It separates the real fusionists from the amateurs.
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

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cj iwakura wrote:This better not be a dig against Elizabeth! I'll fight you.
Nah, Liz is straight as an arrow with her affections. Ryoji is the tsu-tsu.

I'm putting the Liz fight on indefinite ice for now. My Persona completion log is only 1 out of 8.5 so far.

Yu's still sitting at the bus station, waiting for his uncle to show up.
If you want the true demon road, go play the vanilla version and kill her without Telos. It separates the real fusionists from the amateurs.
Some of the things I do in that room, man.

I seriously spent half an hour and most of my remaining Yen grafting Wind and Elec Amp onto Beelzebub, to have a nice trash sweeper. When I knew I'd only be playing the save file for another ~40 minutes at most. When I knew putting Victory Cry on Helel would make a lot more sense. Nonsensical behavior, to put it generously.
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

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My Strange Journey resumed for a bit on my commute.

I finally met Ouroborous in Sector Eridanus.
It Hamon'd the fuck out of my party and i can't damage it enough with my remaining light resistant guys to out-race its healing.
I couldn't even be mad, part of me's glad that the game has become challenging again. Will have to try some fusing/ get a suitable party for it.

Well, I would. The problem is the minute I start playing at home, I fall asleep.
My not-so-strange journey home from work is now also sleep or just staring blankly into space and not paying attention to my music.
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

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BryanM wrote:
cj iwakura wrote:This better not be a dig against Elizabeth! I'll fight you.
Nah, Liz is straight as an arrow with her affections. Ryoji is the tsu-tsu.

I'm putting the Liz fight on indefinite ice for now. My Persona completion log is only 1 out of 8.5 so far.

Yu's still sitting at the bus station, waiting for his uncle to show up.
If you want the true demon road, go play the vanilla version and kill her without Telos. It separates the real fusionists from the amateurs.
Some of the things I do in that room, man.

I seriously spent half an hour and most of my remaining Yen grafting Wind and Elec Amp onto Beelzebub, to have a nice trash sweeper. When I knew I'd only be playing the save file for another ~40 minutes at most. When I knew putting Victory Cry on Helel would make a lot more sense. Nonsensical behavior, to put it generously.
To take out vanilla Lizzie, you need a Persona of every element that resists but doesn't reflect or null, that uses its opposing element, and every single one of them should resist physical if you want a snowball's chance in hell.

It took hours, but it was worth it.
Blinge wrote:My Strange Journey resumed for a bit on my commute.

I finally met Ouroborous in Sector Eridanus.
It Hamon'd the fuck out of my party and i can't damage it enough with my remaining light resistant guys to out-race its healing.
I couldn't even be mad, part of me's glad that the game has become challenging again. Will have to try some fusing/ get a suitable party for it.

Well, I would. The problem is the minute I start playing at home, I fall asleep.
My not-so-strange journey home from work is now also sleep or just staring blankly into space and not paying attention to my music.
That's what I love about SJ, it never loses its fangs. Difficult from start to finish.
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

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cj iwakura wrote:That's what I love about SJ, it never loses its fangs. Difficult from start to finish.
Oof I dunno. Since getting into Mithras Palace until meeting Ouroborous I haven't found the game difficult. Not a cakewalk, but not too tough.
THEN AGAIN - I'm using the save scum feature on redux.. so yeah.

so Ouro part 1. I broke the bank re-summoning old law buddies to fuse them again. Got some Tree fucker resistant to holy and used nasty islam tree (as welll) source to give it Agidyne. My girl kikuri-hime with the heals. And.. Skogsra because she can take the the hamaon hits. Frickin' tree party.
I only just realised you can stack Tarukajas LOL. ffs.
Anyway ouro went down and I felt like mr 200IQ.

Literally cannot be fucked with the added content for the most part. Maybe i'll do a bit more after Eridanus. But I hear you can only view the OG ending(s) if you don't finish the added content/Womb of Grief first.
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

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Blinge wrote:
cj iwakura wrote:That's what I love about SJ, it never loses its fangs. Difficult from start to finish.
Oof I dunno. Since getting into Mithras Palace until meeting Ouroborous I haven't found the game difficult. Not a cakewalk, but not too tough.
THEN AGAIN - I'm using the save scum feature on redux.. so yeah.

so Ouro part 1. I broke the bank re-summoning old law buddies to fuse them again. Got some Tree fucker resistant to holy and used nasty islam tree (as welll) source to give it Agidyne. My girl kikuri-hime with the heals. And.. Skogsra because she can take the the hamaon hits. Frickin' tree party.
I only just realised you can stack Tarukajas LOL. ffs.
Anyway ouro went down and I felt like mr 200IQ.

Literally cannot be fucked with the added content for the most part. Maybe i'll do a bit more after Eridanus. But I hear you can only view the OG ending(s) if you don't finish the added content/Womb of Grief first.
Ah, didn't know you were playing Waifu Edition, lol. It's a lot easier, though I hear the new dungeon is great.
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

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Lot easier.. how? Did they actually change how tough the game is?
I was only aware of the addition of save scumming.
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

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I read a few reviews suggesting the general difficulty has been reduced in Redux: damage, EXP, encounters tweaked. I think they also removed the instant death if the MC died too? Genuinely don't remember the original being particularly hard, outside of the first few hours, so it's a shame it was nerfed so badly. OG SJ definitely felt like the 'real' SMT3... not that the PS2 game isn't amazing!
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

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ALSO: seeing the countdown for the Persona 5 Royale announcement (sigh) with STILL no SMTV news in sight is pretty heart breaking. I know Fatlus love to dawdle, and they regretted teasing it so early, but this is ridiculous.
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

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Ah, they're not gonna cannibalize their own sales advertising against themselves like that. It's not just P5, the Tokyo Mirage port is coming next month. (With its censored skin shadows that implied humans have bones inside of them and all.)

It might come out way too late to do great, though. Persona Q2 came out too late and bombed since the 3DS was dead at the time. On one hand I am a bit sad it's the first Persona localization to not get a dub, but I'm still glad it got translated at all.

SqeeEnix certainly didn't bother with Joker 3. That made me feel like we're back in the 90's all over again.
MX7 wrote:I think they also removed the instant death if the MC died too?
That was really fun, considering I went with the Wealth Based Oligarchy route my first playthrough instead of the Absolute Authoritarian Communism or Absolute Authoritarian Capitalism routes.

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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

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Really wanted to buy PQ2 purely because it meant I wouldn't have to endure a dub (Atlus never let you mute the voices in the battles for some reason. "My demon's are a bit different!" arrrgghhhx1000000) but I played the first one for about 3 hours and gave up. Think I'm all Etrian-ed out.

Used to love MC instakills, even after two hours in the bonus dungeon in 3 or whatever. Not sure I could hack it now.
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

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It's a sub-app you can buy that removes MC insta-kills heh.

I was going to ask for sources for if Redux has truly been nerfed but then i realised I don't give a good god damn, I'm still enjoying it.
Even if the portraits are different to the original, oh the humanity.
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

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Blinge wrote:It's a sub-app you can buy that removes MC insta-kills heh.

I was going to ask for sources for if Redux has truly been nerfed but then i realised I don't give a good god damn, I'm still enjoying it.
Even if the portraits are different to the original, oh the humanity.
The new apps mostly take all the fangs out of the game.

And it's not just the portraits being different(and a pale imitation to Kaneko's art), they added cringey modern tropes like blushing portraits and stuff. Kaneko would be flipping in the broom closet if they ever let him out.
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

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I have such a love for vanilla Str range Journey. It feels like a Super Famicom Megaten done right. The soundtrack is just as ballsy and weirdo as the persona games, and I love the concept that setting the game in Antarctica would ensure international acclaim. It's genuinely nihilistic. The revelations about the demon's experiments starting from the second dungeon raise really fascinating points about how metaphysical beings would view something as illogical and alien as 'death'. I played most of it on a gruelling commute from Cricklewood to Dartford. Then I met my now wife, who blasted through it in a few weeks, and it became 'our game'. I don't have any concrete issues with the new art beyond the fact it looks way too clean and cuddly. But I'm invested in this game more than most other. And I'm pretty sure people would be peeved if Dark Souls was remade to make Solaire more kawaii and curse easily negatable!

As far as difficulty goes from what I gather 'normal' is easier than vanilla, and 'hard' is harder. For what it's worth, I found Persona 5 at least thrice as hard as Strange Journey, though this may be due to familiarity with the SFC games!

Regarding Royal: I think I'll give it a try. Hopefully they'll sort out the flat translation. Though that only became a problem for me when it was pointed out. Hmmm. My biggest issue was the lack of vocals in the soundtrack compared to 3 and 4, so hoping that gets 'addressed'...
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

MX7 wrote:Used to love MC instakills, even after two hours in the bonus dungeon in 3 or whatever. Not sure I could hack it now.
I never really understood the purpose of them. I know the justification for them in the original Megami Tensei games was that as the summoner, your summoned creatures wouldn't feel obligated to help if you died. I don't know as much about the original games if there's instadeath that gets chucked around, but MC death -> gameovers weren't a thing in the first two Persona games as you were a team of humans. They tried to justify it in P3 and P4 as plot related (and as justification so you don't have to hope the AI controlled team will revive you in P3) and you can at least get items that will stop instadeath attacks to some extent, but it's still not great as far as RPG mechanics goes to have enemies with instakills capable of immediately gameovering you if they happen to target and hit one specific person...

It seems especially out-of-place in an Etrian Odyssey style game where getting a few people killed in a serious fight is far from unusual.

It's sometimes used as a gimmick in a scenario such as in FF6 when you have Banon or in Final Fantasy Tactics as a protection requirement, or in Arcana, where any of three humans dying in battle is an immediate gameover (but there's no instadeath attacks of any kind in that game). That's more reasonable I think.
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BryanM
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Re: The Shin Megami Everything Thread

Post by BryanM »

Atlus has been a little weird about how it tries to jump into the mainstream, historically.

Last Bible was supposed to be a Dragon Quest clone with demon collecting. It came out on the gameboy before Pokemon and its only real competition were the Saga games. So it was passable fare, at the time. It didn't really execute or explore the "Dragon Quest meets Megaten" concept remotely well, but it didn't have to. *

Then they released Last Bible 3 on the Super Famicom. Oh boy.

Ignore the fact this game came out one entire year after Final Fantasy 6 came out. Just take its merits as a SNES jRPG: it looks like dogshit. The ground in the battle screens had the copy and paste tool used excessively (though I do like far-off elements in some of them, like clouds or the walls of a canyon), the coloring on monsters is flat and oversaturated, the texture in menus make it hard to read text... I think the gameboy games look better and have more personality, honestly.

And Devil Children was trying to cash in on Pokemon waay too late. It might be scrubbed from the internet now, but a guy (KaioShin.. yes we were all 13 once) working on the translation of Ice and Fire retired from the scene and offered his opinion that these games weren't good.

The only time they had a really successful normie experiment was with the Persona 3 formula, that I can recall.



* Dragon Quest Monsters did a better job of that... and came out six years later. Man the Gameboy just wouldn't die.
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