The Shin Megami Everything Thread

[Sima Tuna]

At the risk of being jumped on for asking anything as usual, could that big wall of spoiler text be put in a spoiler tag like Steven did? I don't even have the game yet and I'd rather not know everything about it before playing.

No problem, my man. Sorry 'bout that. Sometimes the spirit of 'tism overtakes me.

[Steven]

Spoiler

This is a problem that extends way beyond just SMT. Persona has had a dungeon design problem since Persona 3. And SMT has had one since... Possibly SMT IV or SMT III, depending how charitable you feel. SMT V is definitely a low point, however. Right down there with Persona 4's identical box rooms.

At least Persona 5 has a higher percentage of non-randomized dungeons. I want to say a much higher percentage of randomized dungeons, but I haven't played it since 2017 or so, but it is better than P3 or P4 in that regard in any case.

Good points, all. I think the mark of a good Law/Neutral/Chaos choice is when all of their viewpoints feel intelligent and reasonable. Devil Survivor Overclocked did this the best of any SMT I have played. It's not entirely obvious which route is which alignment (since they are tied to character alliances) and your main character sees a satisfying conclusion no matter which route you take, so long as it isn't an obvious cop-out bad end.

Too many of the SMT games hold up True Neutral as the undisputed good end for the story. Which is also usually the least interesting conclusion where everyone lives happily ever after and the world returns to normal. Basically a reverse isekai with truck-kun bringing your corpse back to life in the real world.

Detailed spoilers for Vengeance endings, which kind of fixes this:

Spoiler

It has two endings, Law and Chaos, and I got Law. I was actually Neutral, but since there is no Neutral ending, it gives you a choice between Law and Chaos, but apparently only if you are Neutral. If not, it supposedly automatically forces you into whatever one you are aligned with.

This time Law is actually really weird. It's poorly written because it's kind of not how she explains it earlier in the game, but near the end, Law hero Tao finally gives her last expo dump about her philosophy, and she says she wants to create a world that is basically perfect. No downsides at all. No slavery, you have free will, and all of that stuff. Then you get the ending and it's actually that. WTF? This isn't a Law ending! This is more like a Neutral ending! Yeah, it's weird.

I didn't get the Chaos ending because although I was planning on reloading my save, I didn't want to put up with fighting the tortuously long (but not overly difficult) two bosses before the final boss again, so I saved over my file. The Chaos ending seems like a Dark-Chaos ending judging by how crazy the new Chaos hero is. I kind of want to see it, but I'm not sure if I want to see it badly enough to replay this lifeless game again.

Youko is an interesting Chaos hero. She's in your party for the entirety of the first three areas before she leaves. She's actually really good in battle, aside from being weak to one of the two worst elements to be weak to: Expel. If you can prevent her from being insta-killed, which happens more than I thought it would because a lot of enemies seem to have Hama/Mahama in this game, she will carry you through almost the entire first 75% of the game.

She's crazy, though. That whole thing with Sahori being bullied still happens, and when you talk to Tao about it on the roof Youko shows up and quite literally says "You should just murder the bullies. Then the bullying will stop". Holy crap girl, just a few posts ago I just said to stop being mean because that has nothing to do with Chaos philosophy! I imagine her ending probably is in line with this and is your typical genocide ending.

Every game in the series (except if..., maybe? Also unsure about Strange Journey) has a theme. They go like this:

I: Neutral
II: Law
III: Chaos
IV and Final: Neutral
V: Law

I am not sure about Vengeance, but if I had to guess, I would choose Chaos as its theme. It's pretty obvious it's a Chaos game given how it all plays out.

IV Final spoilers:

Spoiler

This game does something interesting that no other game does as far as I remember because it has two Neutral endings; Bonds and Massacre are their official names, but in practice they are Light-Neutral and Dark-Neutral endings. I can't believe I am complimenting this piece of shit on something other than its music, but this is actually a really cool idea, as horribly executed as it is in this awful game. I guess Deep Strange Journey does something similar by having multiple Law and Chaos endings, but I haven't played it. I am planning on playing it soon, however, so I'd like to see those endings for myself.

I'd like to see more games have Light/Dark/Neutral variants to their endings, although as it is I fear that a Neutral-Neutral ending, should it exist, would become the de facto "good ending" that Neutral is now. Simple fix: don't make a Neutral-Neutral ending. IV Final doesn't have a Neutral-Neutral ending and nobody complained about it there, although they did rightfully complain that both of the two Neutral endings are awful.

I swear, Sega took entirely the wrong lessons from SMT III. It was the atmosphere, music, visual style (Kaneko art!) and theming that made SMT III so interesting. The story was pretty... Um... What is a kind word for barebones and obvious? It wasn't so much what happened in SMT III that was cool as the way that SMT III did it. You can't steal a bunch of ideas from SMT III and put them in a Doi game with nu-Persona, nu-SMT game design and it's gonna be a smash hit...

I think V is the best selling SMT game. It was IV previously, but I think it's V now, and that was before Vengeance. I haven't checked the public reception of the port, but it got good reviews. We'll probably have to wait another 7~10 years for them to release the next game, of course, but hopefully they clean it up and give us something better next time.

Nah, I say dump Press Turn. I feel like I have to keep apologizing and point out that I DO like Press Turn in some of the games. But I don't think it's worth keeping around at this point. It's too unbalanced. It plays out like rocket launcher tag even from level 1, in most of these games. You either obliterate the enemy or you get destroyed. It can kinda work when the damage numbers are low enough that neither side can overwhelmingly body the other with a single string of Press Turns... But that's not how most Press Turn SMT games go.

Strange Journey changed this, as did Soul Hackers and Devil Survivor Overclocked. Choosing the correct type to defeat your enemy is still rewarded heavily in all of those games, but not so absurdly as in SMT IV and V.

Press Turn is great. Given how boring most turn based battle systems are in non-SRPGs, I am amazed that turn based RPGs survived the 80s at all. Press Turn is like the only enjoyable turn based battle system I have ever seen outside of SRPGs. Half of the reason that I don't like Strange Journey is because of its awful, incredibly slow and boring battle system. I would have bought Deep Strange Journey immediately upon launch instead of waiting 5 years if it had been fixed by adding Press Turn.

Thank god for Tales of Phantasia. That's some real galaxy brain shit right there.

"Let's make a battle system that doesn't completely suck and has the potential to actually be fun to play!" - Tales of Phantasia devs

Then of course most of them got pissed at Scamco for some reason and left to make Star Ocean, a series that basically nobody cares about.

Defense stat. #1 change to ALL future games needs to be to increase the importance of defense and special defense stats. Not saying you have to force the player to burn skill points pumping boring defense stats, but give them more equipment, accessories and/or slots on a paperdoll so they can pad out their defenses without sacrificing their build's effectiveness. Defense NEEDS to be a viable part of the game. A defensive tank should be able to take repeated attacks of an element it is weak to without dying. It wouldn't be broken because you'd still get whatever negative penalty was implemented for an enemy using type-advantaged attacks. Whether it's losing your turn like in Persona, or an almighty chase attack like Strange Journey, or having your stats debuffed, whatever. But currently in most SMT games, defense is not a strategy. It either doesn't exist or it's not worth using.

V is a super defensive game by this series' standard. Aside from the balance-ruining defensive items, I think it's also the only Press Turn game with a defend command.

Unfortunately, as of IV Final pierce goes through repel, making repel arguably worse than drain now. I'd like to see this reverted to how it used to be because there's probably more incentive to use drain than repel now.

There are also a few new defensive skills in Vengeance. One of them guarantees that you'll dodge during the next enemy turn and another is an attack skill that can only be used after a dodge. Obviously, these two skills are supposed to be used together, but if you get a lucky dodge you might as well use it. I didn't use either of these skills and opted for a safe, boring build, but I may check them out if I make it far enough in the next playthrough without getting bored and dropping it.

Hayatarou is also REALLY good now, and he does stupidly huge damage and is great for defensive play. He can cover for your team with the cheapest skill ever (just 3 MP!), take quite a few hits since he resists a lot of stuff, not die, and do a single 100% HP revive when he does die. You can definitely play V and especially Vengeance defensively.

You could also make the case that III and IV are super defense heavy, as well, or more specifically evasion heavy, given how ridiculously powerful Sukukaja and Sukunda are in those games. Then of course they made evasion buffs/debuffs so weak in V that they probably aren't worth wasting a skill slot to have unless you have literally nothing else to replace those skills with.

Hard agree. What, do people not think a first-person dungeon crawler can be beautiful to look at? It would cost them less money to make in first-person and they could reallocate money they would have used 3d modeling to build more dungeons and expand out gameplay. Why is it that the best SMT games are all on old or underpowered systems? It's almost as if the technical specs of the machine have no bearing upon the quality of a dungeon crawler series. The SMT games that released during the DS and 3DS life cycle knew how to make the most of a very limited budget and console.

People would complain about it being low budget and/or ugly because it's first person. That was one of the major complaints against IV, which is disappointing because that first person battle system has like 12 times the personality and awesomeness of the battle systems in III and V despite being otherwise mostly identical. I also don't know how well a first person dungeon RPG would sell among the general masses. I get the feeling that tile-based dungeon RPGs are probably seen as "outdated" and no longer relevant or something, so that may turn a lot of people away. There are all sorts of ridiculous reasons that people don't buy games, so it wouldn't surprise me.

I'd love it if they made it a first person dungeon RPG with Press Turn, though.

Anyway, I've kind of started another run. Not sure if I will finish it, but we'll see. I chose the option to restart with almost nothing (not sure what it's called in English) again. I miss being able to hold 8 skills, but I am going to do the same boring physical build I did last time and for early game physical build it really doesn't matter if I don't have a lot of skill slots. Magic build is even more boring for this game, sadly. Did that once and probably won't do it again.

I'm really glad I'm not the only one underwhelmed by Vengeance. The GAMEPLAY and presentation are still top shelf, but the core story is not that interesting, and V-2 is just like, well, here's more of it with a random new insert girl, we guess.

I do dig the Qadistu designs, but their plot doesn't seem much more interesting than V's.

Now if they were, like, a Lilith faction rebelling against Lucifer for their treatment during the Eden debacle, that would be interesting, but I feel this is just another indicator that they really have no direction without Kaneko or Okada.

Yep, this is basically how I feel. Said new girl is pretty interesting, though. She's way better written than any other character in this game, although that doesn't really say much in comparison.

She was supposed to be in the original version of V but got cut from the game (along with a large amount of other things, apparently), and I wonder how different or identical she is here compared to how she was originally planned to be implemented before she got cut. I think it's very likely that she will become one of the more popular human SMT characters, or at least get used as a meme goldmine. Before I complained that this game isn't really as edgy as I'd like and expect from SMT, but I apparently forgot that she's a huge edgelord.

[Augemitbutter]

Finished the original route at ~70hours. Fused around 90%. Cleared almost all quests? It was fun and snappy (PS5). Atlus is channeling the old speedy gameplay spirit with this one. Back in the PS2 gen people suffered slow loading cinematic RPGs with unnecessary camera tracking and endless text until their niche came to the rescue. I think this is a good follow-up to their old cure.

I'll mention the bad things briefly: Losing real deep dungeon gameplay, many difficulty options with no fine tuning, pay to win DLC. Basically modern Atlus. But they're not alone with their chicken approach. Capcom just had Dragon's Dogma 2, which is way too easy too.

Other than that i like the style, the music and i love how i can play another take on the game in the near future. I need to fuse everything and get that 100%. Which reminds me i didn't use essences on the demons in this run, just the skills from regular fusions. I was spending too much time in menus as is. I feel only two bosses pushed back

Spoiler

Shiva and Lucifer.

I left some superbosses up for later. Anyway, so far it's in the upper tier SMT for me, thanks to the snappy gameplay. Could have been the very best without the chicken and some dungeons but what can you do. It's the environment.

Now i have time to start Elden Ring DLC.

[Steven]

Oh yeah, they made the final boss harder if you kill the superboss, which is one of the weirdest oversights in the original game. You'd prepare for this hard optional boss and then steamroll the rest of the game because they never thought to rebalance the rest of the game if you did actually beat that boss, but now you're still at risk of dying, or at least I was, as I was still 10 levels below said superboss when I won that fight.

I also just realized that I forgot to do some sidequests that I wanted to do. Oops.

Not sure what to play next, but I kind of want to do Deep Strange Journey, which I bought in preparation for death of the 3DS eshop but never played. Maybe I'll like it more than regular Strange Journey despite the character redesigns being worse. Hopefully I didn't miss any important DLC because that shit's gone now.

[Sima Tuna]

Do it. Deep Strange Journey is still good because it's still Strange Journey. It's too easy though. OG Strange Journey didn't pull any punches and at times felt more like survival horror than an rpg. Strange Journey Redux gives you a bunch of overpowered bullshit right away that seriously reduces the challenge. You can disable some of it though. The real problem with handing the player a ton of overpowered options and trusting them to toggle all of those off is most players won't. They'll leave all of that stuff on and, along with the expanded power of the main character, experience a game that's far less rewarding (in terms of progression.) In my opinion, of course.

The extra content added for the Redux version is largely all ass. The extra dungeon sucks. I love all the base game dungeons but not the new one. The new Doi characters are dumb, especially the girl. Who seems to be there to punch you in the dick over picking one of the default endings from Strange Journey. "Nuh uh, player! You better get the true ending this time!" Bleah. The SJ Vanilla endings are better than the new ones. The new ones are just "True Ending" variants designed to provide the ultimate "perfect routes."

Unrelated, but I skipped Dragon's Dogma because it looked easy, bland and boring compared to the first game. My favorite part of DD1 was the amazing mega-dungeon that opens up when you finish the game, as well as the other mega-dungeon DLC. Dark Arisen kicked my ass back in the day. But it was a blast.

[Steven]

Aw hell yeah I got a better idea; I went to the Book Off by my house spontaneously to consider getting the Switch version of Vengeance for handheld mode, but instead I insta-bought something else



Devil Survivor Over Clock and 3DS Devil Summoner Soul Hackers! 4500 yen for the former and 4100 yen for the latter. Not bad, and I expect these to go up in the future.

Probably going to play Over Clock now, as I've never played the Japanese version. Now I have every Japanese 3DS Megaten, SMT or otherwise.



I was planning on getting the original Saturn version of Soul Hackers, but I guess not. I honestly don't trust the fragile 3DS hardware to survive longer than my Saturn, so uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I have almost all of the US versions, but I am missing Strange Journey Redux and only have Deep Strange Journey. I'd like to get the original Japanese DS Strange Journey eventually, but I'm satisfied with this for now. Won't bother with Strange Journey Redux; I don't need English versions anymore.

[cj iwakura]

SJR encapsulates everything wrong with Atlus post-Kaneko SMT, avoid it like the plague. The new art is especially insulting, at least Doi's V art tries to emulate Kaz, but the art in SJR was done by second-stringers, and boy does it show.

[Sima Tuna]

I'm jelly over that Devil Survivors Overclocked physical. I had to settle for the digital versions back when I was getting into 3ds SMT, because the english games were all too expensive even then.

[Steven]

Was the 3DS (New XL, in this case) always this uncomfortable to hold? Probably just got used to the Steam Deck, which is one of the two most comfortable handhelds I've ever used, along with the glorious Sega Nomad. Steam Deck and Nomad have something in common: they are bulky, especially the Nomad, which is essentially a giant brick, but it works due to it being a very comfortable brick. The 3DS just sucks to hold. It's so thin! It's like trying to hold onto a fish or something like that. That might sound weird, but if you've ever held onto a thin live trout or whatever you know exactly what I mean. The Switch has the same problem, even though I ditched the Joy-Crap for those Hori things, which are still a bit awkward.

Anyway, I forgot how low the audio quality in Devil Survivor is, and the music is just kind of whatever, which is disappointing considering Megaten has a well-deserved reputation for sonic excellence. The max volume is also quite low, which is a semi-frequent problem with 3DS games in general. Aside from that, it's still Devil Survivor and it's still amazing. I give it 13 out of 10, even with the somewhat lackluster audio, and if you are reading this now you should go play Devil Survivor instead.

The Japanese version only gives 3 characters for the player character's family name, 3 characters for the given name, and 6 characters for the nickname. Being extremely not creative, I named my dude あああいいい and the nickname is Dude. This was a terrible idea, as いいい is a bit too close to いいえ and いい, causing me to occasionally misread stuff. Probably ought to restart with a less stupid name since I'm still on day 1, but it would probably end up being something else that is equally stupid like をををんんん or a mess of random kanji or something like that.

I am very surprised at how similar Yuzu's Japanese and English voices are. I don't think I've ever heard such a similar performance between the Japanese and English voice cast before, aside from those extremely rare instances where the Japanese voice actor speaks English well enough to do the English version of the same character as well. She's still an annoying and dislikable character, unfortunately, and until she gets better skills and better demons she's probably more of a liability in battle than an asset. At least the voice acting in general is better here, as the English version's voice acting is not very good at all.

SJR encapsulates everything wrong with Atlus post-Kaneko SMT, avoid it like the plague. The new art is especially insulting, at least Doi's V art tries to emulate Kaz, but the art in SJR was done by second-stringers, and boy does it show.

I heard there was some other new art by someone other than Doi and I heard it was bad, but I haven't seen it. I do want to go find a Japanese non-Deep (Shallow?) Strange Journey eventually. My US Strange Journey is cart-only, so this time hopefully I can get a CIB copy.

I'm jelly over that Devil Survivors Overclocked physical. I had to settle for the digital versions back when I was getting into 3ds SMT, because the english games were all too expensive even then.

They're only like $50~$70 USD now for a North American copy. Unless you want a European copy, in which case holy crap! Those are insane prices.

[Augemitbutter]

New 2DS XL is comfortable to hold. Of course it comes with its own problems.

[Steven]

Reverse Collapse kicked my ass so hard today that I randomly turned on my PS5 and noticed that SMT III HD was in the system, so I took that disc out and put the Vengeance disc in and played Vengeance again. I noticed that it gave me a thing to ignore my level when fusing demons, so I ended up getting a level 39 Kurama Tengu when I was only level 12, and then a level 28 Nata Taishi about 5 minutes later. The game is now very easy, although this may be temporary. I ran through Minato-ku effortlessly as a result and am now at the save point just out in front of Tokyo Gijidou.

I'm probably just going to go through the game relatively quickly just to get the new Chaos ending, but who knows. Maybe I'll decide to drop the game or maybe I'll go get some more endings or kill the new super boss... or is it super bosses? I think there are several new super bosses, but I'm not sure about the number or even what the requirements to fight them or their locations are. I am still of mixed feelings about how the Law and Chaos thing turned out, but that is true of how I feel about this whole game and its previous version, both of which have some good aspects (the music, the demon models, which are probably largely recycled from Persona 5, a small amount of the animations, and... uh, that's about it) dragged down to hell by all of the bad stuff that is greater in both number and severity.

[Arino]

"Final" in Japan = "Apocalypse" elsewhere I guess?

[Augemitbutter]

is here no NG+ where you keep your compendium but level and money are reset (Vengeance)?

[ryu]

"Final" in Japan = "Apocalypse" elsewhere I guess?

Yes.

I finally beat the P3 remake. The main plot is intact, the graphics are better, but everything else feels lacking compared to the original. The new 2D art style is really generic, the remixed music feels flat and sterile, the new lighting ruins some otherwise atmospheric locations and the game is easier to break than ever before because it throws rewards at you for overleveling. Even on the highest difficulty level the game doesn't account for this and I beat the final boss (phase 2, the one that matters) in maybe 6 turns.

It's fine to experience the story, but FES on PS2 still feels like the better overall package.

[Sima Tuna]

PS2 Persona 3 was such a chill game back in the day. Unlike Portable, you could walk all over the city and waste time talking to worthless npcs who mostly had nothing interesting to say. You'd grind some social links, then visit the dungeon to grind levels all night. You'd only be forced to leave the tower once all your party members were exhausted (counting all the ones you rotated in fresh to keep going.)

There's something I enjoy about P3's vibe that the other Persona games don't do for me. I wouldn't say the game is amazing or anything, but I do think the ps2 P3 (whether FES or not) is my favorite version. Portable strips out too much of the walking. Which is more convenient yes, but contributes to the world feeling less alive. The whole game of Persona 3 is a big waste of time anyway. It's 99% grinding (social links or combat) and 1% getting your ass handed to you on turn one. So the game bringing me to the dungeon/social links "more efficiently" by not allowing me to walk around the town misses the mark.

[BulletMagnet]

Seems they're attempting to Kickstart an official SMT board game.

[Augemitbutter]

I finished my 2nd playthrough of Vengeance some time ago (new route). It was a little dull TBH, so that 100% compendium has to wait. It was basically a new cutscene playthrough.

About P3 Remake: I skipped that one for now because the main guy keeps smiling this awkward smile in the menu. Why do this? It's like they have never played the original. Also my last run of the original on PS2 was like 3 years ago. Still looks fantastic on CRT.

[nogden]

Metaphor: ReFantazio is out in 48 hours! Reviews are looking very solid as expected of Altus. Really looking forward to playing this one

[BryanM]

The whole game of Persona 3 is a big waste of time anyway.

That's all entertainment. It's all trash, at the cosmic objective level.

The remake looks alright with ups and downs, but I'll never play it. I'm barely more than halfway through Persona 4 Peasant Version and have a stack of stuff I'm nowhere near finishing.

I have very strong lols that they have some guy making dog noises for the dog's voice acting. People who haven't spent a lot of time around dogs might not be able to tell, but it's very obvious to anyone who knows what one of those things actually sounds like. That alone would distract the everlasting hell out of me. Just hours of pausing, and laughing or shaking my head in disappointment.

The memes have been good to us, though. And that's what really matters, when the day comes that Anubis weighs our hearts on his scale.

[Sima Tuna]

The whole game of Persona 3 is a big waste of time anyway.

That's all entertainment. It's all trash, at the cosmic objective level.

On a cosmic objective level, so are we.

[BIL]

There's big tits and big hogs but few can rock both simultaneously with such aplomb

EDIT: I just got ninja'd into the next dimension, well-played Burinju I would say this post reads a little off, but we are all Baphy bros ITT

[BryanM]

Started Soul Hackers. That mid-90's tech enthusiasm is palpable. You know how the early 3d games were always "WOWZERS WE GOT 3D NOW!", and inventory menus would have these giant spinning 3d models of like your guns or sandwiches or whatever? Like every five seconds it's like "WOW, WE GOT VIDEO!" Lots of 3d renders of vehicles driving around.

The grungy cyberpunk aesthetic combined with the linear dungeon crawler gameplay makes it yet another solid entry of the same old thing we all know and love.

Seeing magnetite in these old games always invites questions of 'what were they thinking'. My theory is the designers just really, really liked it as a concept. It's even in the Last Bible games, but only as this weird rare secondary currency that can be spent in a couple places. Why they would introduce gas as a mechanic to use your dudes in a game about having an army of demons, I dunno. I would just cap the number you can summon at a time, and raise the cap as you progressed. Instead of creating disincentives to use yer dudes. (Maybe they really liked the Luck stat and wanted it to be good for something??)

That's obviously not as bad as it is in Majin Tensei - where the game's literally supposed to be about having an army of monsters, and then does everything in its power to make you not want to deploy an army of monsters.

[Steven]

Soul Hackers is a cool game. I'd like more like Soul Hackers, SMT IV (and by extension SMT I and II), and Devil Survivor and less like SMT III, SMT V, and Persona. Of course that won't happen, especially because Persona prints money for Sega now, but it would be nice. Very nice.

I also discovered something recently. Apparently, the Vitality stat in SMT III doesn't actually increase your defense stat because the game doesn't have one. I always thought that it was indeed a defense stat, but it isn't. All it does is give you more HP. I guess. Everyone complains about this in SMT IV, which is the far superior game, but nobody ever complains about it in III. Fascinating.

[cj iwakura]

Started Soul Hackers. That mid-90's tech enthusiasm is palpable. You know how the early 3d games were always "WOWZERS WE GOT 3D NOW!", and inventory menus would have these giant spinning 3d models of like your guns or sandwiches or whatever? Like every five seconds it's like "WOW, WE GOT VIDEO!" Lots of 3d renders of vehicles driving around.

The grungy cyberpunk aesthetic combined with the linear dungeon crawler gameplay makes it yet another solid entry of the same old thing we all know and love.

Seeing magnetite in these old games always invites questions of 'what were they thinking'. My theory is the designers just really, really liked it as a concept. It's even in the Last Bible games, but only as this weird rare secondary currency that can be spent in a couple places. Why they would introduce gas as a mechanic to use your dudes in a game about having an army of demons, I dunno. I would just cap the number you can summon at a time, and raise the cap as you progressed. Instead of creating disincentives to use yer dudes. (Maybe they really liked the Luck stat and wanted it to be good for something??)

That's obviously not as bad as it is in Majin Tensei - where the game's literally supposed to be about having an army of monsters, and then does everything in its power to make you not want to deploy an army of monsters.

Magnetite isn't just not a problem in SH, it's broken. You can easily accumulate tons of it, then exchange it for bottomless stacks of macca.

Also, I loved that era of gaming, when everything had an FMV for the littlest things, it was always a cool flex. I miss having cutscenes.

[BryanM]

Man it's a pain that I can't get anything to inherit Tarunda except the Zoma...

I also discovered something recently. Apparently, the Vitality stat in SMT III doesn't actually increase your defense stat because the game doesn't have one. I always thought that it was indeed a defense stat, but it isn't. All it does is give you more HP. I guess. Everyone complains about this in SMT IV, which is the far superior game, but nobody ever complains about it in III. Fascinating.

Bwahaha. More shocking SMT3 revelations: AGI and LUK do absolutely nothing. They don't even bother to balance the stats or give people an alternative experience. (As having excessive amounts of money and rare equipment early on from LUK in the games that actually make it do something does.)

Majin Tensei has to be the most unbalanced by far. You automatically counter attack everything that attacks you in a turn, so Strength and durability are insane value, even on the heroine who has magic spells. And it really screws over the demons who can't counter and aren't durable. (For the few demons worth using at all on the field at a time.)

Reducing incoming damage can be really busted in RPGs. I'm not sure why more designers aren't more careful with it. I guess we'd have to blame Dragon Quest, like for everything else.

Of course that won't happen, especially because Persona prints money for Sega now, but it would be nice. Very nice.

Really the equation is "more fuckable = more money". (Though yeah copying Tokimeki to create attachment with their product is effective.) I really respect how the character avatars are often half-assed in Soul Hackers, like the artist had to pump out a hundred of these things in four months and just didn't have the time to give'em a second pass.

I lulled when I tried the "love quiz" thing on the girl route and got Lunch as the result. It reminded me a lot of how the bachelors on offer in Harvest Moon games were....... .... dramatically substandard compared to the bachelorettes.

Waifufication has always been an aspect of these games. Right from the start, in the original story that inspired it all, where.. well, you know.

The monster roster really changed over the decades, eh. Gods and goddesses used to be a late game race, but they're brought forward much earlier in the modern games. As well as the over-all majesty on hand - most of the starter monsters here are like something you'd find out of a garbage can. They're not exactly weird centaur dudes or griffins or whatever.

Magnetite isn't just not a problem in SH, it's broken. You can easily accumulate tons of it, then exchange it for bottomless stacks of macca.

Yeah that's the problem - either you don't have enough gas and it's not any fun, or they have to flood you with gas and it's a non-mechanic... so why have it?

Also, I loved that era of gaming, when everything had an FMV for the littlest things, it was always a cool flex. I miss having cutscenes.

/walks into the shop to exchange my currency with the vampire guy for Yen
/"Welcome customer!"
/Slow animation plays

Ah, it does create some warm fuzzy feelings. I respect it more than how like Pokemon will constantly waste your time with confirmations for every micro action you take on the world map: "Are you SURE you want to surf on this water? I know it'd be way faster to just have you surf and if you didn't want to you could just hop right back onto the land, this isn't marriage proposal here or anything, but we don't want to startle anyone here. For pete's sake, there's kids and pregnant women playing this game, after all!"

Mostly because it cost them some actual time and $ to make the stupid animation. So I feel like they're more deserving to waste my time, yanno?

[XoPachi]

I have no interest in these games. A friend was streaming it and I tuned in right when he was fighting this boss. Instantly went to look up this song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK72sfCwkOo

Damn.

[Steven]

I also discovered something recently. Apparently, the Vitality stat in SMT III doesn't actually increase your defense stat because the game doesn't have one. I always thought that it was indeed a defense stat, but it isn't. All it does is give you more HP. I guess. Everyone complains about this in SMT IV, which is the far superior game, but nobody ever complains about it in III. Fascinating.

Bwahaha. More shocking SMT3 revelations: AGI and LUK do absolutely nothing. They don't even bother to balance the stats or give people an alternative experience. (As having excessive amounts of money and rare equipment early on from LUK in the games that actually make it do something does.)

SMT III is a broken, poorly designed game. Is it still fun? Eh, sometimes, but damn does it often seem like it was designed by clueless interns instead of professional game designers. Among other things, I'm still appalled that the game exclusively uses 8-way digital movement despite being a 3D game that shipped on a system that came with an analog controller in the box. The audio quality is also horribly terrible and they didn't bother to fix it on the recent ports even though the PS4 version shipped on a Blu-ray with more than enough space for uncompressed audio. It's only 7.95GB on PS4! There's a shitload of space left on the disc! Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Reducing incoming damage can be really busted in RPGs. I'm not sure why more designers aren't more careful with it. I guess we'd have to blame Dragon Quest, like for everything else.

This is one of the reasons that I like Scamco's Tales series. If you don't want to take damage, you can opt to simply move out of the way. It's nice to have games that have battle systems that are actually fun. What a novel fucking concept! Thanks for making RPGs not boring as shit, Scamco and Telenet!

Really the equation is "more fuckable = more money". (Though yeah copying Tokimeki to create attachment with their product is effective.) I really respect how the character avatars are often half-assed in Soul Hackers, like the artist had to pump out a hundred of these things in four months and just didn't have the time to give'em a second pass.

Unfortunately for Atlus, the most of the Tokimeki Memorial girls are super cute and most of the Persona girls aren't. Tokimeki Memorial is notoriously extremely difficult and very obtuse, however, so unlike Persona, where you can effortlessly get any girl you want...

I have no interest in these games. A friend was streaming it and I tuned in right when he was fighting this boss. Instantly went to look up this song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK72sfCwkOo

Damn.

This is by far one of the least good battle music tracks in the entire game.

Then you go check out SMT IV's soundtrack and throw SMT V's in the dumpster because it is nowhere close to comparing to IV's soundtrack's perfection.

[BryanM]

Lol, softlocked due to a Null: Ice effect on my armor I didn't even know I had. Some of that real old-timey SMT experience here~

It's nice to have games that have battle systems that are actually fun.

It's pretty odd that designers have to fansplain'ed to that 'make it as fast as possible' optimizes the fun. When you're doing something, that's fun. When you're sitting around waiting, that isn't fun.

I've gone on length about how having a larger party size makes these things generally less fun, all things being equal. As a way to mix things up sure of course, but you'd think at least 1% of jRPGs would have one active character as the standard in their battle system. There's like... Pokemon, and nuthin' else.

I'm still appalled that the game exclusively uses 8-way digital movement despite being a 3D game that shipped on a system that came with an analog controller in the box

There's this mascot in Genshin Impact called 'Paimon'. The english voice director kind of went mad after the first couple months, and changed direction on a number of voices. The one of most Impact: Paimon's pitch went up into the ear-splitting range. And she's the one character that talks all the time. So the game on this planet with the highest development budget put into it has this horrible flying ear-splitting diaper baby thing.

The community likes to complain about her. A lot.

I, of course, love her. And everyone hating her makes me love her even more.

Your hatred of SMT3's movement system stimulates similar feelings of joy.

... it's times like this I wonder if I might be a demon.

Unfortunately for Atlus, the most of the Tokimeki Memorial girls are super cute and most of the Persona girls aren't. Tokimeki Memorial is notoriously extremely difficult and very obtuse, however, so unlike Persona, where you can effortlessly get any girl you want...

Hey, take that back! Yosuke/Stupei/Kanji/Bear/school committee girl are very cute! (Is this a 'having opinions excludes the scope of your potential audience' thing? Toki girls are all idealized, generalized archetypes that exist to wag their tail to the player like dogs.)

Tokimeki is actually very simple and easy. It's a monogamy simulation, so as long as you don't choose to be a whore you will win the day.

.... as long as it's not Puzzle-dama. Puzzle-dama is a brutal battlefield where dreams go to die. The dream that you thought you could match colors together.

(.... I really thought I knew what the color green was....)

The Persona play duration is just too freakin' long to replay the things to see everything, so necessities of design are what they are.

I have no interest in these games. A friend was streaming it and I tuned in right when he was fighting this boss. Instantly went to look up this song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK72sfCwkOo

Damn.

Pleasurable art and music are core to all games; you can throw a stick at ArKnights or Granblue and it'd land on a banger or an insane ASMR menu track more than half the time.

For SMT culture though, you only have to be familiar with this meme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wovh784sz9M


..... while I'm linking ArKnights songs, I have to link Wrathful Cerulean Flame. You rarely see a song that was made entirely for a crescendo that plays in a 10-second long in-game cutscene.

[XoPachi]

This is by far one of the least good battle music tracks in the entire game.

Then you go check out SMT IV's soundtrack and throw SMT V's in the dumpster because it is nowhere close to comparing to IV's soundtrack's perfection.

Just sounds cool to me.

[Squire Grooktook]

SMT IV and SMT V's soundtracks are both fire and of near equal quality.