The Shin Megami Everything Thread

[Steven]

It's entirely possible that V might be my least favorite in the series. The combat and presentation is stellar, but the plot and characters are absolute garbage from top to bottom. Vengeance just makes it even worse.

Wait what V actually has a plot and characters?

Vengeance is weird though. It's good when it wants to be, but there are large parts where it doesn't want to be, which tend to be the parts that are built on or copy/pasted from regular V. Vengeance's story also very strangely hinges unexpectedly heavily on the player having played regular V first, which I don't think is especially great. At least it fixed the problem of "Neutral = the only one that's good" thing,

Spoiler

although it did it in arguably a very lazy way by simply choosing to not have a Neutral ending at all

but the Law ending here is... yeah. The Law ending is literally

Spoiler

a perfect ending, at least for humanity. YHVH doesn't exist and therefore can't enslave everything, demons also don't exist anymore, and there are no downsides at all, and this is communicated very poorly right up until the moment you see it and then you're like WTF is this? This is like a Neutral ending, but with none of the downsides of Neutral! This isn't what I was expecting based on what I was told for the entire game!

Yeah. Vengeance is weird. I do genuinely think that if the general ideas of Vengeance were better written and the game itself not built on the foundation of a game as disappointing as SMT V, it could have been a pretty great hypothetical SMT VI. Unfortunately, it fumbled (or possibly completely botched, but it's been a while since I've played either version of V and don't remember everything) the execution of its story at a few critical points and was built on the foundation of a game as disappointing as SMT V, and is at least 60% to 70% the same game. That's not good because I got a very strong rushed/incomplete feeling from V, like the devs built a game around an awesome (and super unbalanced, in true SMT fashion) already existing battle system but the rest of the game never made it out of alpha before they were ordered to ship it.

Also, just to delight/torment everyone who knows of its existence, I hereby officially remind everyone of the hat scene.

[cj iwakura]

The biggest sin that Vengeance suffers, especially in a choice-driven series like SMT, is not letting your choices matter, and boy does Vengeance do this all the time.



If this were Nocturne?



I did a whole tirade about it here:

https://iwakuraproductions.wordpress.co ... vengeance/

The Qadistu are the only saving grace, because they have badass designs and amazing music, but much like every idea in V, they don't amount to much.

Though their music is incredible.

[Steven]

Oh yeah it sucks at choices, too. I don't remember how bad regular V is about that, but I don't think it was much better. Meanwhile, IV had this cool mid-game two-path branching thing that depended on a choice you made. Wish more SMT games would do that, and also have route splits that are much earlier and more meaningful. V was especially bad about the route split. V and Vengeance tend to generally have good concepts, but then once beyond the concept phase everything falls apart very quickly and badly. They tend to have great ideas or concepts or whatever, and also great battle systems, so it's very disappointing. The weird and boring quasi-open world emptiness does not help.

I wonder if they even know what they are doing anymore. I think I've mentioned before that the last great non-rerelease game in this franchise was SMT IV, which was nearly a decade and a half ago and now it's time for the Saving Private Ryan gif, but I don't know about Persona 5 Tactica, which everybody seems to have largely ignored or otherwise not cared about for some reason. I guess the P4 dancing game was actually pretty fun too now that I think about it, but I don't know if many people really care about that one. Nearly a decade and a half of mediocrity is disappointing.

Obviously, if you include rereleases, you've got P4U, which is excellent, both Devil Survivor 3DS games, 3DS Soul Hackers, the recent Raidou remake-ish thing, III HD (I know it had some problems at launch, but after the patches I see literally zero reasons to play it on PS2 ever again), the HD ports of P4G and P4D, and I'm assuming the P3 remake that I didn't play is at least decent. P3P HD version also exists, but I don't know anything about that one. It's probably fine, but I wonder if it's just an AI-upscaled thing lazily tossed into a PSP emulator instead of actually ported and therefore running natively. There are probably some that I forgot, and at least Devil Survivor Overclocked predates SMT IV and doesn't really help my argument, but you get the idea.

Then there is Deep Strange Journey, which some hate and others don't. Still gotta play that eventually. I found a copy of non-Deep Strange Journey, which I guess is now Shallow Strange Journey, at Book Off by my house. Might pick it up. Not sure yet. I do have DSJ already, so at this point the only main SMT games that I don't have Japanese copies of are regular SJ and II. And of course Megami Tensei I and II, but yeah.

Speaking of Megami Tensei I and II, I ran into Masuko Tsukasa randomly at a Toaplan event last year, so, yes, I met the dude who made the awesome Ginza music from SMT I, among other things. That was pretty cool, and very unexpected. Hopefully I'll run into him again. Love that game's soundtrack.

[Sima Tuna]

It's entirely possible that V might be my least favorite in the series. The combat and presentation is stellar, but the plot and characters are absolute garbage from top to bottom. Vengeance just makes it even worse.

Wait what V actually has a plot and characters?

Vengeance is weird though. It's good when it wants to be, but there are large parts where it doesn't want to be, which tend to be the parts that are built on or copy/pasted from regular V. Vengeance's story also very strangely hinges unexpectedly heavily on the player having played regular V first, which I don't think is especially great. At least it fixed the problem of "Neutral = the only one that's good" thing,

Spoiler

although it did it in arguably a very lazy way by simply choosing to not have a Neutral ending at all

but the Law ending here is... yeah. The Law ending is literally

Spoiler

a perfect ending, at least for humanity. YHVH doesn't exist and therefore can't enslave everything, demons also don't exist anymore, and there are no downsides at all, and this is communicated very poorly right up until the moment you see it and then you're like WTF is this? This is like a Neutral ending, but with none of the downsides of Neutral! This isn't what I was expecting based on what I was told for the entire game!

Yeah. Vengeance is weird. I do genuinely think that if the general ideas of Vengeance were better written and the game itself not built on the foundation of a game as disappointing as SMT V, it could have been a pretty great hypothetical SMT VI. Unfortunately, it fumbled (or possibly completely botched, but it's been a while since I've played either version of V and don't remember everything) the execution of its story at a few critical points and was built on the foundation of a game as disappointing as SMT V, and is at least 60% to 70% the same game. That's not good because I got a very strong rushed/incomplete feeling from V, like the devs built a game around an awesome (and super unbalanced, in true SMT fashion) already existing battle system but the rest of the game never made it out of alpha before they were ordered to ship it.

Also, just to delight/torment everyone who knows of its existence, I hereby officially remind everyone of the hat scene.

The best SMT for endings is Devil Survivor Overclocked, which I can't believe I forgot about until just now. That game would easily slot in my top 3, taking a spot from Nocturne. Nocturne is a cool game but Overclocked has the best SMT story of any SMT I've played. Each main path is fully defensible as "the correct" choice. Law has you becoming the Voice of God, and it's arguable there's nobody better to pick to represent Humanity to the divine. You truly feel like you are a servant of God while also attempting to serve Humanity's interests and give no quarter to the ravages of demons. The Chaos path is likewise amazing. You refuse to accept Heaven's bullshit excuses for the way the world is, you reconcile with your cousin/brother after lifetimes of potentially bad will, he becomes your right hand and you usher in a new era of FREEDOM for Humanity.

There are other paths too, some where you chicken out or align yourself with a shifty character and get a less satisfying ending because you just tried to survive. The fact you have more choices than just Chaos/Order/Neutral adds a decent amount of depth and replay value, especially since the game as a whole is well-written.

Devil Survivor Overclocked is a 10/10 SMT game, and I didn't even touch on the gameplay, which was a fine blend of old SMT rpg and strategy game. It's not as consequential as Soul Hackers, but there is a resource cost associated to using demons. Devil Survivors brings back the cybertech-religious-magical relationship between humans and demons (summoning through technology) which I have always preferred to just... "Magic." Using technology gives even more justification to adding a resource cost or upkeep on demon use. IIRC the way Devil Survivors works, it's not an ongoing cost but any upgrading or obtaining of demons gets expensive fast.

Devil Survivor 2 is not terrible but it goes some pretty weird places and is even less a traditional SMT game, especially with regard to story. I guess my ultimate top 3 SMTs would be Strange Journey Vanilla, Devil Survivors Overclocked and Soul Hackers. Yeah... That sounds pretty great to me. Three perfect 10s.

I have never played SMT 2, which is a huge gap in my SMT cred that I'll have to fix one of these days. Given many people also point to that one as potentially the best.

SMT V and Apocalypse both had awful stories imo. Too much Super Sentai garbage in V and Apocalypse was "it's just anime."

[cj iwakura]

Choices sucked in V too. What's even more hilarious about Vengeance was how it promised to flesh out characters that got the short stick in V, and uh, no it doesn't. They get just as little if not less relevance.

[Steven]

The best SMT for endings is Devil Survivor Overclocked, which I can't believe I forgot about until just now. That game would easily slot in my top 3, taking a spot from Nocturne. Nocturne is a cool game but Overclocked has the best SMT story of any SMT I've played. Each main path is fully defensible as "the correct" choice. Law has you becoming the Voice of God, and it's arguable there's nobody better to pick to represent Humanity to the divine. You truly feel like you are a servant of God while also attempting to serve Humanity's interests and give no quarter to the ravages of demons. The Chaos path is likewise amazing. You refuse to accept Heaven's bullshit excuses for the way the world is, you reconcile with your cousin/brother after lifetimes of potentially bad will, he becomes your right hand and you usher in a new era of FREEDOM for Humanity.

There are other paths too, some where you chicken out or align yourself with a shifty character and get a less satisfying ending because you just tried to survive. The fact you have more choices than just Chaos/Order/Neutral adds a decent amount of depth and replay value, especially since the game as a whole is well-written.

Devil Survivor Overclocked is a 10/10 SMT game, and I didn't even touch on the gameplay, which was a fine blend of old SMT rpg and strategy game. It's not as consequential as Soul Hackers, but there is a resource cost associated to using demons. Devil Survivors brings back the cybertech-religious-magical relationship between humans and demons (summoning through technology) which I have always preferred to just... "Magic." Using technology gives even more justification to adding a resource cost or upkeep on demon use. IIRC the way Devil Survivors works, it's not an ongoing cost but any upgrading or obtaining of demons gets expensive fast.

Devil Survivor 2 is not terrible but it goes some pretty weird places and is even less a traditional SMT game, especially with regard to story. I guess my ultimate top 3 SMTs would be Strange Journey Vanilla, Devil Survivors Overclocked and Soul Hackers. Yeah... That sounds pretty great to me. Three perfect 10s.

I have never played SMT 2, which is a huge gap in my SMT cred that I'll have to fix one of these days. Given many people also point to that one as potentially the best.

SMT V and Apocalypse both had awful stories imo. Too much Super Sentai garbage in V and Apocalypse was "it's just anime."

It is pretty hard to find fault with Devil Survivor Overclocked. I'll try. Here goes.

The music is mostly just whatever.
Late game potentially devolves into Holy Dance spam because that's probably optimal.
Some of the English voice acting (that mostly means Yuzu) is quite poor, which itself is an outlier for Atlus-developed games. Obviously does not affect the Japanese version.

Uh................ that's seriously all I've got. I know this game probably has some massive and very obvious flaws or noticeably undercooked parts somewhere because it's an Atlus game, but where are they? Actually, no, don't tell me. I'd rather not know. If we're getting REALLY picky, is there a text skip, which makes replays faster? I don't remember. Again being very picky, some of the girls' boobs (Yuzu again) look weird too, but even that applies more to Devil Survivor 2. I'm very convinced that Devil Survivor Overclocked is the best game in the entire franchise, at least as far as I have played, and this franchise has like a trillion obscure games that only about a dozen people even know about, so I might be missing something. Only played Devil Survivor 2 for a few hours, too, so I do want to play that some more.

Nothing to do with this in particular other than it being part of the trillion obscure games, but here is everyone's reminder that CAVE (yes, that CAVE, the DoDonPachi CAVE) made a Shin Megami Tensei game and that Biri-Biri is in it because why the hell not.

Choices sucked in V too. What's even more hilarious about Vengeance was how it promised to flesh out characters that got the short stick in V, and uh, no it doesn't. They get just as little if not less relevance.

Only the girls ultimately mattered in Vengeance.

Everyone: "Does that mean Miyazu is finally something more than a clunky and barely relevant plot device?"
Atlus: "lol no of course not, we meant only the new girl who was supposed to be in the original game but got cut (thx 4 paying 2 beta test on switch btw) and Tao, who was already the most developed character in the original game"

This is the part in typing the message where I genuinely did a big sigh and feel... resigned to a disappointing but ultimately non-important fate. The non-Miyazu girls get to be important while everybody else got even less importance than last time. At least it actually has a more interesting general story or whatever than V, as poorly conveyed as it is. The whole vengeance thing could have been pretty interesting, and I do think it still is more interesting than regular V. That doesn't say much, but there it is.

[Sima Tuna]

The best SMT for endings is Devil Survivor Overclocked, which I can't believe I forgot about until just now. That game would easily slot in my top 3, taking a spot from Nocturne. Nocturne is a cool game but Overclocked has the best SMT story of any SMT I've played. Each main path is fully defensible as "the correct" choice. Law has you becoming the Voice of God, and it's arguable there's nobody better to pick to represent Humanity to the divine. You truly feel like you are a servant of God while also attempting to serve Humanity's interests and give no quarter to the ravages of demons. The Chaos path is likewise amazing. You refuse to accept Heaven's bullshit excuses for the way the world is, you reconcile with your cousin/brother after lifetimes of potentially bad will, he becomes your right hand and you usher in a new era of FREEDOM for Humanity.

There are other paths too, some where you chicken out or align yourself with a shifty character and get a less satisfying ending because you just tried to survive. The fact you have more choices than just Chaos/Order/Neutral adds a decent amount of depth and replay value, especially since the game as a whole is well-written.

Devil Survivor Overclocked is a 10/10 SMT game, and I didn't even touch on the gameplay, which was a fine blend of old SMT rpg and strategy game. It's not as consequential as Soul Hackers, but there is a resource cost associated to using demons. Devil Survivors brings back the cybertech-religious-magical relationship between humans and demons (summoning through technology) which I have always preferred to just... "Magic." Using technology gives even more justification to adding a resource cost or upkeep on demon use. IIRC the way Devil Survivors works, it's not an ongoing cost but any upgrading or obtaining of demons gets expensive fast.

Devil Survivor 2 is not terrible but it goes some pretty weird places and is even less a traditional SMT game, especially with regard to story. I guess my ultimate top 3 SMTs would be Strange Journey Vanilla, Devil Survivors Overclocked and Soul Hackers. Yeah... That sounds pretty great to me. Three perfect 10s.

I have never played SMT 2, which is a huge gap in my SMT cred that I'll have to fix one of these days. Given many people also point to that one as potentially the best.

SMT V and Apocalypse both had awful stories imo. Too much Super Sentai garbage in V and Apocalypse was "it's just anime."

It is pretty hard to find fault with Devil Survivor Overclocked. I'll try. Here goes.

The music is mostly just whatever.
Late game potentially devolves into Holy Dance spam because that's probably optimal.
Some of the English voice acting (that mostly means Yuzu) is quite poor, which itself is an outlier for Atlus-developed games. Obviously does not affect the Japanese version.

Uh................ that's seriously all I've got. I know this game probably has some massive and very obvious flaws or noticeably undercooked parts somewhere because it's an Atlus game, but where are they? Actually, no, don't tell me. I'd rather not know. If we're getting REALLY picky, is there a text skip, which makes replays faster? I don't remember. Again being very picky, some of the girls' boobs (Yuzu again) look weird too, but even that applies more to Devil Survivor 2. I'm very convinced that Devil Survivor Overclocked is the best game in the entire franchise, at least as far as I have played, and this franchise has like a trillion obscure games that only about a dozen people even know about, so I might be missing something. Only played Devil Survivor 2 for a few hours, too, so I do want to play that some more.

Nothing to do with this in particular other than it being part of the trillion obscure games, but here is everyone's reminder that CAVE (yes, that CAVE, the DoDonPachi CAVE) made a Shin Megami Tensei game and that Biri-Biri is in it because why the hell not.

There is fast text speed in Overclocked. I think you can skip cutscenes too.

Holy Dance spam is fine but the other early Dances have their place as well, and I enjoy the semi-RNG of not exactly knowing where the Dance attacks will land. It's a trade-off for how powerful they are.

Devil Survivor Overclocked has an amazing intro btw:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3TAXvtmkfU

Devil Survivor 2 has an even better intro:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EhDGXyUAaQ

The girls' have some unusual boobs because of the art style of that particular designer. I kinda like his weird cat-eye characters, though. He also did the art for Caladrius Blaze.

The story of Devil Survivors 2 is very strange, almost nothing like typical SMT. Instead of "5 minutes before the Apocalypse," it's more like "5 minutes after the apocalypse." Whereas Nocturne was straight-up post-post-post apocalypse, reconstruction era (minus humans.) I saw a comment that called Devil Survivors 2 "Evangelion of SMT." Not the worst description, although the characters in DS2 are better than Eva. In my opinion. I have never liked Eva that much, although I only ever watched the original anime run of it.

Both Survivors games have extremely strong characterization. Overclocked is better as an SMT experience, though. Both games have some unforgettable "humans struggling against the inevitability of death" moments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gez-DOsC3Ko

3ds SMT was such a loaded era. I know some people like Persona but I don't see what about Persona can even remotely compare to Devil Survivors 1 and 2, SMT Strange Journey Vanilla, Soul Hackers 1 or even SMT IV.

[cj iwakura]

The best SMT for endings is Devil Survivor Overclocked, which I can't believe I forgot about until just now. That game would easily slot in my top 3, taking a spot from Nocturne. Nocturne is a cool game but Overclocked has the best SMT story of any SMT I've played. Each main path is fully defensible as "the correct" choice. Law has you becoming the Voice of God, and it's arguable there's nobody better to pick to represent Humanity to the divine. You truly feel like you are a servant of God while also attempting to serve Humanity's interests and give no quarter to the ravages of demons. The Chaos path is likewise amazing. You refuse to accept Heaven's bullshit excuses for the way the world is, you reconcile with your cousin/brother after lifetimes of potentially bad will, he becomes your right hand and you usher in a new era of FREEDOM for Humanity.

There are other paths too, some where you chicken out or align yourself with a shifty character and get a less satisfying ending because you just tried to survive. The fact you have more choices than just Chaos/Order/Neutral adds a decent amount of depth and replay value, especially since the game as a whole is well-written.

Devil Survivor Overclocked is a 10/10 SMT game, and I didn't even touch on the gameplay, which was a fine blend of old SMT rpg and strategy game. It's not as consequential as Soul Hackers, but there is a resource cost associated to using demons. Devil Survivors brings back the cybertech-religious-magical relationship between humans and demons (summoning through technology) which I have always preferred to just... "Magic." Using technology gives even more justification to adding a resource cost or upkeep on demon use. IIRC the way Devil Survivors works, it's not an ongoing cost but any upgrading or obtaining of demons gets expensive fast.

Devil Survivor 2 is not terrible but it goes some pretty weird places and is even less a traditional SMT game, especially with regard to story. I guess my ultimate top 3 SMTs would be Strange Journey Vanilla, Devil Survivors Overclocked and Soul Hackers. Yeah... That sounds pretty great to me. Three perfect 10s.

I have never played SMT 2, which is a huge gap in my SMT cred that I'll have to fix one of these days. Given many people also point to that one as potentially the best.

SMT V and Apocalypse both had awful stories imo. Too much Super Sentai garbage in V and Apocalypse was "it's just anime."

It is pretty hard to find fault with Devil Survivor Overclocked. I'll try. Here goes.

The music is mostly just whatever.
Late game potentially devolves into Holy Dance spam because that's probably optimal.
Some of the English voice acting (that mostly means Yuzu) is quite poor, which itself is an outlier for Atlus-developed games. Obviously does not affect the Japanese version.

Uh................ that's seriously all I've got. I know this game probably has some massive and very obvious flaws or noticeably undercooked parts somewhere because it's an Atlus game, but where are they? Actually, no, don't tell me. I'd rather not know. If we're getting REALLY picky, is there a text skip, which makes replays faster? I don't remember. Again being very picky, some of the girls' boobs (Yuzu again) look weird too, but even that applies more to Devil Survivor 2. I'm very convinced that Devil Survivor Overclocked is the best game in the entire franchise, at least as far as I have played, and this franchise has like a trillion obscure games that only about a dozen people even know about, so I might be missing something. Only played Devil Survivor 2 for a few hours, too, so I do want to play that some more.

Nothing to do with this in particular other than it being part of the trillion obscure games, but here is everyone's reminder that CAVE (yes, that CAVE, the DoDonPachi CAVE) made a Shin Megami Tensei game and that Biri-Biri is in it because why the hell not.

Choices sucked in V too. What's even more hilarious about Vengeance was how it promised to flesh out characters that got the short stick in V, and uh, no it doesn't. They get just as little if not less relevance.

Only the girls ultimately mattered in Vengeance.

Everyone: "Does that mean Miyazu is finally something more than a clunky and barely relevant plot device?"
Atlus: "lol no of course not, we meant only the new girl who was supposed to be in the original game but got cut (thx 4 paying 2 beta test on switch btw) and Tao, who was already the most developed character in the original game"

This is the part in typing the message where I genuinely did a big sigh and feel... resigned to a disappointing but ultimately non-important fate. The non-Miyazu girls get to be important while everybody else got even less importance than last time. At least it actually has a more interesting general story or whatever than V, as poorly conveyed as it is. The whole vengeance thing could have been pretty interesting, and I do think it still is more interesting than regular V. That doesn't say much, but there it is.

Miyazu just got a different level of non-importance to the plot, before getting casually fridged(in all but name) to Egypt.

But what was most hilarious was how they did Sahori, lo fricking l.

Spoiler

Not only does she STILL get immediately killed off, but then they have the gall to bring back Tao afterward, who doesn't give a damn, and the plot just moves merrily along.

Devil Survivor is a solid game, and does a great job of a modern-ish take on SMT, which makes it all the funnier that the less-demonic 2 got an anime(which I enjoyed, surprisingly).

[Mortificator]

I'm amused that in Majin Tensei II you go to heaven and it has public transportation

[Steven]

There is fast text speed in Overclocked. I think you can skip cutscenes too.

Holy Dance spam is fine but the other early Dances have their place as well, and I enjoy the semi-RNG of not exactly knowing where the Dance attacks will land. It's a trade-off for how powerful they are.

Devil Survivor Overclocked has an amazing intro btw:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3TAXvtmkfU

Devil Survivor 2 has an even better intro:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EhDGXyUAaQ

Yeah, the intros are the only music I really remember from either game. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but maybe they were just limited by the DS. I haven't played many DS games, including the original DS versions of the Devil Survivors, but the DS games that I have played generally don't have particularly great audio. Most that I have played are okay, but Tales of Hearts made me feel like my ears were going to implode at times last year because it has terrible audio quality and a rather limited soundtrack. I remember the sandstorm sounding like someone left the water running, which was unintentionally funny as hell. Fun game otherwise, though.

The girls' have some unusual boobs because of the art style of that particular designer. I kinda like his weird cat-eye characters, though. He also did the art for Caladrius Blaze.

Yeah, the artist guy definitely likes drawing torpedo boobs for some reason. The art itself is fine otherwise, and it works, even if it's super different from the Kaneko art that most of the Atlus games before it have.

The story of Devil Survivors 2 is very strange, almost nothing like typical SMT. Instead of "5 minutes before the Apocalypse," it's more like "5 minutes after the apocalypse." Whereas Nocturne was straight-up post-post-post apocalypse, reconstruction era (minus humans.)

This is also something I'd like to see in SMT. It's never really been done and I think that would be interesting. Drop enough nukes on a Soul Hackers 1-looking Tokyo to trash the place but leave human survivors, turn the wreckage into a war zone for Law and Chaos immediately afterward, and then don't get teleported to the future and instead have to figure it out immediately. That would be excellent, and that's what I want from SMT. Meanwhile, in reality, I get SMT V.

I still do want to eventually get through SMT I and II because they're tonally and thematically closer to what I actually want. II in particular is (widely?) regarded by people that have managed to tolerate its gameplay as having the best story in the entire franchise or something like that. I just can't play old turn-based RPGs though.

I'd thought for a while that I'd like to see a Devil Survivor 3, but as I think about it more, I realized that although I'd like a mechanically expanded version of what we already have, I don't know what needs to be improved regarding the gameplay mechanics. You can't really put press turn into Devil Survivor's gameplay because that's just going to mess it up, and it doesn't really have any unneeded, unpolished, or extraneous mechanics that I can remember. Skill crack is kind of annoying at times, but that's part of the strategy. No ideas. Is Devil Survivor 1 perfect after all...? Well, I remember it being extremely difficult to beat some parts of the game without grinding because it has weird difficulty spikes (hi Wendigo) all over the place, but maybe I missed something and/or my strategy was completely terrible, so for now I'm going to say "possibly".

I think I mentioned it a few posts ago, but P5T exists. I found a used copy for... uh... some system a few days ago at... uh... some store. I think it was Switch at Book Off, but I forgot. I also forgot the price, but it was in the 3000 to 5000 yen range. I might try it. I hope someone from a Devil Survivor dev team, specifically the game design part, worked on it.

I saw a comment that called Devil Survivors 2 "Evangelion of SMT." Not the worst description, although the characters in DS2 are better than Eva. In my opinion. I have never liked Eva that much, although I only ever watched the original anime run of it.

Yeah, Eva is okay. I only watched it once, and I saw the whole thing, including End, which is a super fucking weird movie BTW, in one sitting. Once it was over my reaction was "...huh" and that was it. I did see the first two reboot movies, too, but I never saw the last one for some reason. Knowing me, it was probably unbelievably hot outside when it released and I was probably just too lazy + didn't want to leave the air conditioning to go to the movie theater.

The best thing about Eva, or at least the thing that I like the most about it by far, is that in 1996~1997 a certain 17-year-old kid with really bad chuunibyou wanted to marry Rei so badly that he wrote a love song for and about her, and that I got to see an absolutely amazing live performance of it at the end of April 2024.

Both Survivors games have extremely strong characterization. Overclocked is better as an SMT experience, though. Both games have some unforgettable "humans struggling against the inevitability of death" moments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gez-DOsC3Ko

Would it be weird to say that Devil Survivor 1 is definitely one of the better written things Atlus has put out even though I've forgotten most of the stuff that happened and am going on pure "yeah, I remember that being unexpectedly good even though I can't actually remember any of it"? That also might not say much because Atlus put out SMT IV Final, SMT V, and SMT V Vengeance, but it's still solid overall for what's there. I particularly like that it has de facto Law/Chaos/Neutral endings without getting bogged down in the problems normally associated with how Atlus handles alignment-related storytelling... at least as far as I've seen because I haven't 100% completed the game, and, you know, don't remember anything anyway, so if I was to play the game again, it would almost be like playing it for the first time a second time. Don't ask how I am so forgetful. I don't know myself.

3ds SMT was such a loaded era. I know some people like Persona but I don't see what about Persona can even remotely compare to Devil Survivors 1 and 2, SMT Strange Journey Vanilla, Soul Hackers 1 or even SMT IV.

Well, P4 has an excellent soundtrack that I think is one of the better soundtracks in the franchise and is comparable in quality to most of those, as long as you like the mostly unintelligible and weird English. I do because it makes me laugh at how silly it is, so that makes it great.

As an aside, the only music that I remember from P5 is the title screen/main menu because it was just some muffled thumping sound or something like that. I was very disappointed by that game's soundtrack after P4 and SMT IV. It's probably still good on its own but maybe just weaker in comparison.

Miyazu just got a different level of non-importance to the plot, before getting casually fridged(in all but name) to Egypt.

But what was most hilarious was how they did Sahori, lo fricking l.

Spoiler

Not only does she STILL get immediately killed off, but then they have the gall to bring back Tao afterward, who doesn't give a damn, and the plot just moves merrily along.

I think that Miyazu was in the game LESS in Vengeance, too. Sahori, though... that was a mess even in regular V... just like the rest of the game lol

I really, REALLY hope they don't do anything like V ever again. I'm sure they will since it's almost guaranteed to be the highest-selling SMT ever. Normally I'd say "the highest-selling SMT ever somehow" but this game had pretty good marketing, so the reason is not a mystery at all. IV did too, I think, and that was the record holder until V.

Devil Survivor is a solid game, and does a great job of a modern-ish take on SMT, which makes it all the funnier that the less-demonic 2 got an anime(which I enjoyed, surprisingly).

So the anime was actually good? I'll be sure to try it once I finish Devil Survivor 2. I really do want to finish that damn game eventually. Just got a billion higher priority things, sadly.

I'm amused that in Majin Tensei II you go to heaven and it has public transportation

I have never played either Majin Tensei. How are they? I know Ronde sometimes gets lumped in with Majin Tensei as part of that subseries, but everyone hates Ronde a lot, which makes me want to try it! I love games that are bad enough to be funny, because that makes them highly entertaining.

[Sima Tuna]

Would it be weird to say that Devil Survivor 1 is definitely one of the better written things Atlus has put out even though I've forgotten most of the stuff that happened and am going on pure "yeah, I remember that being unexpectedly good even though I can't actually remember any of it"? That also might not say much because Atlus put out SMT IV Final, SMT V, and SMT V Vengeance, but it's still solid overall for what's there. I particularly like that it has de facto Law/Chaos/Neutral endings without getting bogged down in the problems normally associated with how Atlus handles alignment.

I think it's fair. Devil Survivors 1 has a lot of writing and it's all pretty great. It's not exactly a visual novel but I think it captures the best parts of a visual novel, which is the depth of the characters and how all its themes are explored. PTSD and community are elements that rarely come into shin megami tensei, but here they are in the forefront. The apocalypse is happening and a lot of these people are just running around trying to find bottles of water. This also probably plays into the more nuanced and interesting moral alignment system. Not only do Chaos and Law feel more fully-fleshed, but those "non alignment" paths are pretty interesting.

And as far as I'm concerned, Devil Survivors is probably the only relatively modern SMT game where Neutral isn't "THE DEFINITIVE BEST/CANON ENDING." I think a case can be argued for either Law or Chaos as the definitive (most satisfying) endings. Chaos because it's directly tied in with the two principle characters of Cain and Abel, and how they reconcile. Law because the progression is fantastic, with your character learning how to become Metatron. Maybe that's too much spoiler, but perhaps it will also convince lurkers to play the game.

I have played Persona 3 and 4. Preferred 3, even with all its problems. But generally, I'm not big on Persona. My intro to SMT was Nocturne. I still like Nocturne but I don't think it's THE BEST SMT anymore. Digital Devil Saga is, imo, the new "underrated SMT." Nocturne got a port but no port for DDS yet. A combined port like .Hack GU would be ideal, that combines DDS1 and 2 into a single game (which it is.)

I would like to see SMT (not persona-I don't care what persona does) remove Press Turn. Or heavily limit it. I think Press Turn ultimately constrains Atlus' creativity with the combat system. You can't have a Soul Hackers combat system with Press Turn, because 6 characters on the field + Press Turn would equal 12 fucking turns before the enemy could act. And if the enemy could do the same to you then the fights would devolve into rocket launcher tag from level one. Smirk wasn't a good solution to the problem but it was an attempt. I'd like to see more attempts made to remove Press Turn and replace it with something else. Maybe buffs? Like, you hit an enemy with a critical weakness and get a free stage of special attack buff? Or if you critically defend against an attack that would have killed you without defending, you'd get a stage of defense buff? I don't know. That probably opens up more abuse than press turn... I'm just tired of press turn because I think it makes the combat kinda shitty. It works in Nocturne because everything is so deadly that you NEED those extra turns. But you can also get SMT'd super hard in the early game because of how Press Turn works.

[Mortificator]

I don't like DDS2 nearly as much as the first. The setup was so much better than the payoff.

About DDS mechanics in general, it's kinda bad that your characters are completely interchangeable aside from their stat growths (and the gun they use in human form, which is occasionally relevant). Anyone can learn any skill. But this is bizarrely coupled with party members coming and going according to the whims of the plot. Oops, the linchpin of your battle plan just left. And while anyone can get any skill, the only way to get them is by slowly grinding up through the mantra grid, sometimes through several tiers of pre-reqs. You don't have alternative ways of slapping on powers like skill cards or demon sources.

Since everyone ultimately can have identical mantra grids, I think it would have been better for there to be just one party-wide grid everyone could equip themselves off of. Then you'd just need to master each mantra once, instead of potentially FIVE times.

I'm amused that in Majin Tensei II you go to heaven and it has public transportation

I have never played either Majin Tensei. How are they? I know Ronde sometimes gets lumped in with Majin Tensei as part of that subseries, but everyone hates Ronde a lot, which makes me want to try it! I love games that are bad enough to be funny, because that makes them highly entertaining.

Majin Tensei I is just boring. MajT 2, while quite short of Devil Survivor, does some interesting stuff even if much of it isn't well thought out. The AI takes obscenely long to take its turns, though. Mitigated on an emulator with fast forwarding, but nigh-unbearable on original hardware.

[Steven]

Peaceful days died. Let's survive. I'm playing Devil Survivor now. My 3DS battery has apparently gone to shit because it doesn't last very long. I hate this fucking system because of this. It's so unreliable and there is no way to know how available new batteries will be in the future.

I think it's fair. Devil Survivors 1 has a lot of writing and it's all pretty great. It's not exactly a visual novel but I think it captures the best parts of a visual novel, which is the depth of the characters and how all its themes are explored. PTSD and community are elements that rarely come into shin megami tensei, but here they are in the forefront. The apocalypse is happening and a lot of these people are just running around trying to find bottles of water. This also probably plays into the more nuanced and interesting moral alignment system. Not only do Chaos and Law feel more fully-fleshed, but those "non alignment" paths are pretty interesting.

That's a big part of why it's so good. It does a lot of great stuff very well, and although it's not a Shin Megami Tensei game, it's still better at being SMT than at least the past 3 games. I don't think that's entirely due to how poorly made those games are; those are not great, but Devil Survivor is some sort of miraculous creation that combines most of the best attributes of the best things Atlus has ever done. The secret best "SMT game" isn't actually even a SMT game, it's Devil Survivor Overclocked, which somehow out-SMTs most of SMT.

And as far as I'm concerned, Devil Survivors is probably the only relatively modern SMT game where Neutral isn't "THE DEFINITIVE BEST/CANON ENDING."

SMT V Vengeance absolutely 100% does this. It sort of cheats to do it, but it does this. If you want the very short details, which some might consider minor spoilers, here you go:

Spoiler

it just doesn't have a Neutral ending at all lol

I have played Persona 3 and 4. Preferred 3, even with all its problems. But generally, I'm not big on Persona. My intro to SMT was Nocturne. I still like Nocturne but I don't think it's THE BEST SMT anymore. Digital Devil Saga is, imo, the new "underrated SMT." Nocturne got a port but no port for DDS yet. A combined port like .Hack GU would be ideal, that combines DDS1 and 2 into a single game (which it is.)

I like P4 a lot more. P3 is fine, especially P3P because it speeds up gameplay significantly with the cursor thing and therefore has better pacing, unfortunately at the cost of the cutscenes. Is it worth it? Probably. I wonder if there is a mod or something out there that restores the cutscenes, at least for the male main character. If you choose female there isn't much you can do about that because she doesn't have cutscenes at all, of course. I don't remember if her music is better, though, or how much of it is even different. It's been too long.

Now I have played DDS a little bit. I never really played it that much because... of some reason. I don't remember why. Avatar Tuner is on the list of PS2 games to buy if I ever see a copy locally, but I keep fucking forgetting about it every damn time I go to a game store and it annoys me. One day I'm going to make a list of all of the shit that I keep forgetting about and specifically go to find those things and make sure to bring the list with me.

Speaking of SMT III, I did see Raidou 2 at the Book Off by my house the other day, and it was the special copy with SMT III Chronicle Edition. It was 5000 yen and in good shape. I thought about buying it because it's cool and I'd never seen it before, but ultimately I realized there is no point in playing Chronicle Edition when I have the HD version, which is the same thing but better. The HD port could have been better, like by not being 30 FPS, actually having analog movement, by offering the option to get rid of that weird shit at the sides of the 4:3 pre-rendered cutscenes, and not still using the horrid super compressed music, but at this point, I don't think there are any reasons at all to play any version of SMT III on PS2 ever again. There are mods for PS2 and I don't know if those are available for HD yet, but it wouldn't surprise me if they do exist.

I would like to see SMT (not persona-I don't care what persona does) remove Press Turn. Or heavily limit it. I think Press Turn ultimately constrains Atlus' creativity with the combat system. You can't have a Soul Hackers combat system with Press Turn, because 6 characters on the field + Press Turn would equal 12 fucking turns before the enemy could act. And if the enemy could do the same to you then the fights would devolve into rocket launcher tag from level one. Smirk wasn't a good solution to the problem but it was an attempt. I'd like to see more attempts made to remove Press Turn and replace it with something else. Maybe buffs? Like, you hit an enemy with a critical weakness and get a free stage of special attack buff? Or if you critically defend against an attack that would have killed you without defending, you'd get a stage of defense buff? I don't know. That probably opens up more abuse than press turn... I'm just tired of press turn because I think it makes the combat kinda shitty. It works in Nocturne because everything is so deadly that you NEED those extra turns. But you can also get SMT'd super hard in the early game because of how Press Turn works.

Press turn is one of the only reasons that I can actually play SMT III and its sequels. Its presence makes turn-based battles not completely fucking miserably boring. I literally need it, and I have absolutely no idea how turn-based RPGs survived the 80s, let alone the 90s, without it or a strategy RPG-like battle system.

That's why I don't like the gameplay of SMT I, II, Strange Journey, etc. at all, and the reason that I never bought Deep Strange Journey until years later when I got it used. They could have fixed Strange Journey just by adding press turn to Deep Strange Journey and I would've played the hell out of it, but they didn't, so I didn't buy it. If they get rid of press turn for the next SMT, I think there is a high chance that I will hate it, or maybe even not play it. I didn't grow up with RPGs at all, like I didn't even know they existed until Pokemon released in the USA, so maybe that's why, but...

I don't like DDS2 nearly as much as the first. The setup was so much better than the payoff.

About DDS mechanics in general, it's kinda bad that your characters are completely interchangeable aside from their stat growths (and the gun they use in human form, which is occasionally relevant). Anyone can learn any skill. But this is bizarrely coupled with party members coming and going according to the whims of the plot. Oops, the linchpin of your battle plan just left. And while anyone can get any skill, the only way to get them is by slowly grinding up through the mantra grid, sometimes through several tiers of pre-reqs. You don't have alternative ways of slapping on powers like skill cards or demon sources.

Since everyone ultimately can have identical mantra grids, I think it would have been better for there to be just one party-wide grid everyone could equip themselves off of. Then you'd just need to master each mantra once, instead of potentially FIVE times.

I'm amused that in Majin Tensei II you go to heaven and it has public transportation

I have never played either Majin Tensei. How are they? I know Ronde sometimes gets lumped in with Majin Tensei as part of that subseries, but everyone hates Ronde a lot, which makes me want to try it! I love games that are bad enough to be funny, because that makes them highly entertaining.

Majin Tensei I is just boring. MajT 2, while quite short of Devil Survivor, does some interesting stuff even if much of it isn't well thought out. The AI takes obscenely long to take its turns, though. Mitigated on an emulator with fast forwarding, but nigh-unbearable on original hardware.

That is not very promising at all lol.

Normally I am pretty strictly anti-emulation and play exclusively on real hardware for everything save the PS1, but if it's that bad, I will probably use an emulator for the speed up button if I ever get to Majin Tensei. Eventually I want to, but...

[Sima Tuna]

Okay, so I completely forgot about the tedious mantra leveling system in Digital Devil Saga. That's a very valid criticism of it. Mostly, when praising DDS, I was thinking of the atmosphere, characters and setting, which are wholly unique. But yeah, now that I remember what the experience of gaming the game was like... It is pretty heavy on grind. Companions definitely need more differentiation and yes, it's not good when the story yanks away your party and forces you to use a different one. All the characters being able to learn the same moves and being the same aside for growths just makes me think of FF7 and FF12.

I don't despise Press Turn entirely, but what I don't like about it is how it limits certain things. I've never seen a Press Turn SMT game with 6 party members. I think all of them have been 4 ever since it was introduced. The strategic rows system from Soul Hackers also has never been used in Press Turn. At its worst, Press Turn also creates these massive chains where you wipe or are wiped instantly, similar to what Smirk does in SMT IV actually. If speed is the issue, there are ways to make jrpg combat faster without press turn, such as by issuing orders and then all party members act at the same time (what Suikoden does.) Devil Survivors doesn't use Press Turn either, and I never had a problem with the speed of its combat... Although mostly you just use dance to kill everything.

I guess theoretically, Atlus could make an SMT game that's press turn, with rows, using 2 in front and 2 behind. Not sure how it would work though, because part of what's great about Soul Hackers is the way that front characters can tank for rear characters. In Press Turn, tanking is not usually an option because the enemy will just farm extra turns off the tank and then wipe either him or everything else.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

All the characters being able to learn the same moves and being the same aside for growths just makes me think of FF7 and FF12.

I know what you mean. A lot of people were fine with this in FF7 and FF8 it seems because their limit breaks were visually flashy, but limit breaks were largely variations on "expend meter to deal damage" and I felt their regular abilities were mechanically too same-y (especially in FF7 where they were tied to materia you could transfer whenever you wanted). I guess the same was true in FF3 and 5's job systems, but each job had more distinct limitations and building them up and forming a team was far more interesting, and FF6's characters felt much more distinctive due to ability and equipment difference between them (magic being learnable by everyone notwithstanding). Finding a good balance between distinctive characters while allowing for a degree of player customization is tough.

[cj iwakura]

So the anime was actually good? I'll be sure to try it once I finish Devil Survivor 2. I really do want to finish that damn game eventually. Just got a billion higher priority things, sadly.

Yep. It's OOP now, I think, but I was able to get the whole show for like $15 when it was being liquidated.

The most fun episodes are the ones with the demons having behind-the-scenes manipulative scheming, but they're few and far between sadly.

Speaking of SMT III, I did see Raidou 2 at the Book Off by my house the other day, and it was the special copy with SMT III Chronicle Edition. It was 5000 yen and in good shape. I thought about buying it because it's cool and I'd never seen it before, but ultimately I realized there is no point in playing Chronicle Edition when I have the HD version, which is the same thing but better. The HD port could have been better, like by not being 30 FPS, actually having analog movement, by offering the option to get rid of that weird shit at the sides of the 4:3 pre-rendered cutscenes, and not still using the horrid super compressed music, but at this point, I don't think there are any reasons at all to play any version of SMT III on PS2 ever again. There are mods for PS2 and I don't know if those are available for HD yet, but it wouldn't surprise me if they do exist.

The PS2 version is near and dear to me and has a certain charm, not to mention the mods like Hard Type, so yeah, it's not leaving my library anytime soon, if ever.

[Steven]

Peaceful days died, and so did Haru because her idiotic AI ran into a corner and got trapped and mobbed by demons. Yep, that's my first game over. Lol I forgot about this part! I love this damn game.

I opted to take Wendigo's Resist Ice instead of Ice Dance. Maybe that was a mistake, but too late now. I hope I can get some decent physical skills soon because for now Atsuro is just there to have demons. I seem to remember that he becomes very powerful later after he gets some good physical skills, but right now he's carried by whatever demons I give him. His MAG and MP stats barely exist because he's physical, so you can't really give him a magic attack and expect it to work out well, and of course you have to go for a while to get a decent physical skill. I do have that stupid 50% accuracy one already, but I don't want to use it.

Hours later edit: went to Book Off and Tsutaya today. Found P5T PS5 version for 1280 yen, P5T PS4 version for 1780 yen, and regular Strange Journey for 2300 (I think) yen. Guess nobody has the PS5 still, otherwise I'd imagine the PS4 version to be cheaper, but it's not. Might pick up the PS5 version because how bad can it be, and also Strange Journey. I am fucking kicking myself for not buying the pristine CIB Metroid Fusion that they used to have for "only" 8000 yen. Fuck me, I'm going to regret that one for a long while because it's normally closer to double that price. 200 fucking bucks for Metroid Fusion. I'm about to spend a decent amount of cash on Fatal Frame II Xbox version next week, though, and possibly the Xbox version of its predecessor as well, so we'll see.

I don't despise Press Turn entirely, but what I don't like about it is how it limits certain things. I've never seen a Press Turn SMT game with 6 party members. I think all of them have been 4 ever since it was introduced. The strategic rows system from Soul Hackers also has never been used in Press Turn. At its worst, Press Turn also creates these massive chains where you wipe or are wiped instantly, similar to what Smirk does in SMT IV actually. If speed is the issue, there are ways to make jrpg combat faster without press turn, such as by issuing orders and then all party members act at the same time (what Suikoden does.) Devil Survivors doesn't use Press Turn either, and I never had a problem with the speed of its combat... Although mostly you just use dance to kill everything.

I guess theoretically, Atlus could make an SMT game that's press turn, with rows, using 2 in front and 2 behind. Not sure how it would work though, because part of what's great about Soul Hackers is the way that front characters can tank for rear characters. In Press Turn, tanking is not usually an option because the enemy will just farm extra turns off the tank and then wipe either him or everything else.

I thought about it some more and I realized that Devil Survivor does have the extra turn thing that is pretty similar to press turn, but I still don't think actual press turn would work for Devil Survivor. The whole point is that you have to figure out how to do the most damage with just a single action, and if you add press turn to that it's probably going to be weird. It might work with the rows thing. That might mess with the game's pacing, but maybe not. Actually, I think the movement speeds could be made faster and the game would benefit slightly. Movement ranges aren't super far anyway, especially Yuzu's terrible 3 movement range, but it would be nice.

I never realized it before, but the tiny little character sprites used during battle are actually pretty great, as are the environments those little sprites walk around on. I always forget that the DS was the last major game system to heavily rely on pixel art due to hardware limitations, but it tends to have pretty good pixel art in general, I think.

So the anime was actually good? I'll be sure to try it once I finish Devil Survivor 2. I really do want to finish that damn game eventually. Just got a billion higher priority things, sadly.

Yep. It's OOP now, I think, but I was able to get the whole show for like $15 when it was being liquidated.

The most fun episodes are the ones with the demons having behind-the-scenes manipulative scheming, but they're few and far between sadly.

I checked Amazon Japan and it's definitely OOP and much more expensive than that now. Think the box set was 10,000 yen used. Not terrible, at least. I remember when it cost like 8000 yen for just two fucking episodes of Haruhi on DVD, and that was back when I was getting paid in USD and it was 70~80 yen to the dollar. Do not miss those days. I am like 90% certain that I got a film strip in one of my Haruhi DVDs, though.

Speaking of SMT III, I did see Raidou 2 at the Book Off by my house the other day, and it was the special copy with SMT III Chronicle Edition. It was 5000 yen and in good shape. I thought about buying it because it's cool and I'd never seen it before, but ultimately I realized there is no point in playing Chronicle Edition when I have the HD version, which is the same thing but better. The HD port could have been better, like by not being 30 FPS, actually having analog movement, by offering the option to get rid of that weird shit at the sides of the 4:3 pre-rendered cutscenes, and not still using the horrid super compressed music, but at this point, I don't think there are any reasons at all to play any version of SMT III on PS2 ever again. There are mods for PS2 and I don't know if those are available for HD yet, but it wouldn't surprise me if they do exist.

The PS2 version is near and dear to me and has a certain charm, not to mention the mods like Hard Type, so yeah, it's not leaving my library anytime soon, if ever.

I checked and it seems that hardtype is indeed not available on the HD version yet. That is kind of surprising. Does that mod even work with any of the Japanese versions?

[Mortificator]

Okay, so I completely forgot about the tedious mantra leveling system in Digital Devil Saga. That's a very valid criticism of it. Mostly, when praising DDS, I was thinking of the atmosphere, characters and setting, which are wholly unique. But yeah, now that I remember what the experience of gaming the game was like... It is pretty heavy on grind. Companions definitely need more differentiation and yes, it's not good when the story yanks away your party and forces you to use a different one. All the characters being able to learn the same moves and being the same aside for growths just makes me think of FF7 and FF12.

In a ruined city, in an endless junkyard, six tribes with no history kill and eat each other for the right to climb a high-tech tower to Nirvana. That's an incredibly evocative concept. Serph is unfortunately a silent protag, and Cielo is cringe, but Argilla, Gale, and goddamn HEAT are quite well written. Hunting is my favorite battle theme against stiff competition.

Peaceful days died, and so did Haru because her idiotic AI ran into a corner and got trapped and mobbed by demons. Yep, that's my first game over. Lol I forgot about this part! I love this damn game.

I opted to take Wendigo's Resist Ice instead of Ice Dance. Maybe that was a mistake, but too late now. I hope I can get some decent physical skills soon because for now Atsuro is just there to have demons. I seem to remember that he becomes very powerful later after he gets some good physical skills, but right now he's carried by whatever demons I give him. His MAG and MP stats barely exist because he's physical, so you can't really give him a magic attack and expect it to work out well, and of course you have to go for a while to get a decent physical skill. I do have that stupid 50% accuracy one already, but I don't want to use it.

When you get the auto skill that guarantees physical hits it becomes badass! And lol, a rough adjustment for me's the second time you have to protect Haru's hot dumb ass. Unlike most MT games, in Devil Survivor you can have multiples of the same demon, and when you get your fourth guy you almost have to since he doesn't come with his own (despite using the Jack Bros as an NPC). But I was stubbornly against rebuying demons, and no new ones are on the auction block at that point, and none of mine had movement skills...

[Steven]

When you get the auto skill that guarantees physical hits it becomes badass!

I completely forgot about this skill! I did just get it, so I gave it to Atsuro and built him a whole team that has that 50% accuracy skill so now he can go around smashing things with a team of guaranteed critical hits.

And lol, a rough adjustment for me's the second time you have to protect Haru's hot dumb ass. Unlike most MT games, in Devil Survivor you can have multiples of the same demon, and when you get your fourth guy you almost have to since he doesn't come with his own (despite using the Jack Bros as an NPC). But I was stubbornly against rebuying demons, and no new ones are on the auction block at that point, and none of mine had movement skills...

I remember the second time you have to protect Haru, the one at the amphitheater, but I totally forgot about the first one! Movement skills are super important in this game though. There are like a million enemies that will hit you with the 1 move range status and the only ways to get rid of that are to move or use a skill that increases you movement range. It's funny that the 1 move status effect remains if you don't move, so you literally have to move or it won't go away, and doing that might mess up your positioning and leave you vulnerable. The devs knew what they were doing.

Definitely need to buy lots of demons in this game, though. It's pretty tempting to buy them and fuse them immediately because lots of them come with like one skill, and that's not especially helpful.

Partway through day 2 right now. This game is much easier than I remember it being, at least for now. Time to go to Akasaka tunnel. I remember this part being annoying, but maybe I'm wrong. We'll see.

I kind of want to talk about Devil Survivor, the Yamanote circle, and how the passage of time works in this game, mostly for the probably many people who have never used the Yamanote Line. I never really thought about it until now, but I realized last night that it would indeed be very easy for the government to lock us inside the Yamanote circle. There are lots of places where the line runs on bridges, like the entire part from Shimbashi to at least Akiba or Ueno is all one giant bridge-thing. There are lots of parts, like from Shimbashi to Akiba, where the only parts that the bridge opens up are over roads to allow cars to pass under, so it's not like there are support struts that you can walk between in a lot of places, creating choke points that would be very easy for the military to defend. This is the Yamanote Line just a few meters north of Kanda Station

Spoiler

This is what it looks like for those areas that you can walk through. There are a bunch of places that look like this, and all the military would have to do is set up some sandbags or some Hesco barriers and there's basically no way anybody's getting through that.

I'm trying to think about how I'd escape from inside if the military did actually show up and barricade us inside. My first thought is swim out through a river, assuming that the river isn't blocked by the military too. The Kanda River in Kanda/Akiba is one I'd try. Other than that and maybe trying the sewer, the only thing I can really think of is to find one of those spots where the train tracks are built on a hill or whatever that could realistically be climbed. From Gotanda to Ebisu or so is mostly built on top of a little hill, but it's also sandwiched between a few other train lines in that area and others, so assuming the trains are still running, you'd risk becoming roadkill. I know it's possible to get in there because there is graffiti in those places, but assuming a Devil Survivor-like situation with the JSDF guarding the place, not likely.

When I moved and my walk to school became longer, I realized that the area inside the Yamanote circle is actually not as big as I thought it was, and that the areas that you can go to in this game are surprisingly close to each other; I can walk from Shinagawa Station (which is NOT actually in Shinagawa BTW lol) to Roppongi or Azabu Juuban in about 30 or 40 minutes, even with traffic lights and whatever. It's probably only another 30 minutes from Azabu Juuban to Akiba, but you can definitely walk from Roppongi/Azabu Juuban to Tokyo Tower in like 15 minutes. Obviously if you actually decided to walk from Shinagawa Station to Kudanshita to Shibuya to Akiba and then back to Shinagawa Station, or even just from Shinagawa Station to Akiba, it would take a while, but most of the individual areas that you can go to in this game aren't really that far from each other, so when you play Devil Survivor, you might be tempted to think "damn these kids can walk really fast!", but it's really not that unrealistic, especially since lots of cars seem to have gotten trashed during the first night and there probably isn't much car traffic because of that and the military barricades.

[cj iwakura]

Speaking of SMT III, I did see Raidou 2 at the Book Off by my house the other day, and it was the special copy with SMT III Chronicle Edition. It was 5000 yen and in good shape. I thought about buying it because it's cool and I'd never seen it before, but ultimately I realized there is no point in playing Chronicle Edition when I have the HD version, which is the same thing but better. The HD port could have been better, like by not being 30 FPS, actually having analog movement, by offering the option to get rid of that weird shit at the sides of the 4:3 pre-rendered cutscenes, and not still using the horrid super compressed music, but at this point, I don't think there are any reasons at all to play any version of SMT III on PS2 ever again. There are mods for PS2 and I don't know if those are available for HD yet, but it wouldn't surprise me if they do exist.

The PS2 version is near and dear to me and has a certain charm, not to mention the mods like Hard Type, so yeah, it's not leaving my library anytime soon, if ever.

I checked and it seems that hardtype is indeed not available on the HD version yet. That is kind of surprising. Does that mod even work with any of the Japanese versions?

I highly doubt it. Reverse importing, ahoy!

[Sima Tuna]

That's a really interesting write-up on the Yamanote Line. Obviously the Devil Survivor team put some thought into their setting and made it personal to them. The best art is made that way. They either were very familiar with the area or they did a lot of research during the making of the game, but my assumption is more the former than the latter.

[Steven]

The PS2 version is near and dear to me and has a certain charm, not to mention the mods like Hard Type, so yeah, it's not leaving my library anytime soon, if ever.

I checked and it seems that hardtype is indeed not available on the HD version yet. That is kind of surprising. Does that mod even work with any of the Japanese versions?

I highly doubt it. Reverse importing, ahoy!

Ehhhhhhhhhhh but then you don't get the Japanese text though...

That's a really interesting write-up on the Yamanote Line. Obviously the Devil Survivor team put some thought into their setting and made it personal to them. The best art is made that way. They either were very familiar with the area or they did a lot of research during the making of the game, but my assumption is more the former than the latter.

It's probably very likely that at least one person on the dev team used the Yamanote Line to get to work. It's the most important train thing in Tokyo and therefore the most important train thing in Japan, and literal millions of people use it daily. I no longer remember where I heard this (probably from one of the business teachers at my university) but I did hear that when it breaks, supposedly Japan's national GDP decreases by about 1%. Yeah, it's a big deal. Supposedly. I don't even know if it's actually true or not, but it would not surprise me.

It gets more interesting when you really start to look into it, though... or maybe it doesn't, but you never know. At the start of the game, you're in Shibuya, at Shibuya 109... uh, sorry, Shibuya 901, which is a few hundred meters outside the Yamanote circle, but then once you get your COMPs, Atsuro goes to I think Miyashita Park to sit down and hack the COMPs while you walk around and meet him there later once he's done, which makes sense because there is absolutely fucking nowhere to sit in Shibuya, and Miyashita Park is literally just barely inside the circle by only a few meters. Want to see how close it is? Here's what the Yamanote Line looks like from inside Miyashita Park.

Spoiler

That train is the Yamanote Line. It's on the inside of the loop, so it's heading south from Harajuku to Shibuya.

So, yeah, if everyone had just stayed right the fuck where they were when they got the COMPs instead of moving east by just a few hundred meters, they never would have been caught in the lockdown zone. Lol thanks Atsuro.

The one I don't get is this place:

Spoiler

This is supposed to be at Shibuya Station, but this is a semi-fictional version of it. That building's logo suggests it is supposed to be a stand-in for Tokyu Department Store, of which there are a few in Shibuya, and none of them are in the location shown here. You can see Shibuya 901 or 109 or whatever in the background, and there is only one place where you can see that angle from inside the Yamanote circle, which is here:

Spoiler

and it looks totally different, as the game scraps the bridge over the road, which is of course the Yamanote Line's tracks, and obviously that's important for the game's story. The building in the foreground under construction is Shibuya Station. No idea what this place looked like when this game was originally released, but I doubt it looked like how it does in Devil Survivor. I went to Shibuya for the first time about 10 to 12 months later, but I didn't go to the east side anyway, so I wouldn't know what it would have looked like then. Hikarie is connected to Shibuya Station, but it's over to the left by about 100 meters or so. Miyashita Park is like a 2-minute walk to the right from where this picture was taken.

[Steven]

Megami Tensei turned 40 a few days ago and we all missed it. Some fans we are.

Took some time off Devil Survivor to play MGS1 for the first time in like two fucking centuries, and I'm also playing Memories Off for some reason now too. Will resume Devil Survivor tomorrow.

[cj iwakura]

If it's any consolation, I've decided to release our rough betas of Devil Summoner(PSP) and Devil Children Red/Blue(PS1) out into the wild, so there's that.

[Steven]

Yeah see this is what I meant the other day about this series having a billion spinoffs that nobody's heard of; I had no idea that Devil Children got a PS1 release until now.

How is Devil Summoner PSP compared to Saturn BTW?

[cj iwakura]

Yeah see this is what I meant the other day about this series having a billion spinoffs that nobody's heard of; I had no idea that Devil Children got a PS1 release until now.

How is Devil Summoner PSP compared to Saturn BTW?

Far more playable. It has better QOL interface updates and you can easily save anywhere without needing to get an app like in the Saturn port.

The Saturn one is near and dear to me because I do love me some Sega SMT, but the PSP version is by far the one to play for accessibility.

[Blinge]

SMT 1

SNES or PS1 what's the way to go?

[Steven]

Yeah see this is what I meant the other day about this series having a billion spinoffs that nobody's heard of; I had no idea that Devil Children got a PS1 release until now.

How is Devil Summoner PSP compared to Saturn BTW?

Far more playable. It has better QOL interface updates and you can easily save anywhere without needing to get an app like in the Saturn port.

The Saturn one is near and dear to me because I do love me some Sega SMT, but the PSP version is by far the one to play for accessibility.

Huh. Guess I'm going to have to look into that now. I was planning on playing it on Saturn and I'm always looking for excuses to buy new Saturn games, but if the PSP version is just better, that's probably it then, isn't it?

SMT 1

SNES or PS1 what's the way to go?

Well... PS1 version has kanji (and I don't mean Tatsumi lol) and is therefore easier to read, so that one. I think movement speed should be faster on PS1 as well, but I haven't played it on SFC for quite some time. SFC's only real advantage that I can remember is that you might prefer the SFC version's music over the PS1's.

[cj iwakura]

SMT 1

SNES or PS1 what's the way to go?

Definitely SNES, even though I like the PS1's visual upgrades, the SNES vibe just fits the game better, especially the music.

[Blinge]

lol wat. won't be playing in japanese. fan translations if i have to