The Shin Megami Everything Thread

[scrilla4rella]

I want SMT III but don't have the time to play it, yet. Also picked up SMT IV Apocalypse during a recent sale but haven't started it
There's something wrong with me. I have major respect for all the folks here that seem be able pick one game and stick with it.

[BryanM]

Really don't need Nocturne HD (I have US and PAL copies for the PS2), but I couldn't resist. My review: it's Nocturne in HD.

But does it have Dante from the Devil May Cry series in it??

If not, the best way to play it in HD would be to slap the old disc into your computer and have the emu dejaggify the edges.

[Klatrymadon]

Yeah, the Maniax DLC switches out Raidou for Dante. The free Chronicle DLC includes all of the Maniax content apart from him, though.

[Blinge]

Wasnt the Nocturne remaster a bit of a shitshow? Music still has ps2 compression..

..framerates actually worse than the original etc are the rumours I've heard.

[qmish]

Wasnt the Nocturne remaster a bit of a shitshow? Music still has ps2 compression..

..framerates actually worse than the original etc are the rumours I've heard.

What else to expect from half-assed "remaster" made through redoing the game in Unity3d?

Well, cringeworthy new translation, of course, "culturally changed for north america"
https://twitter.com/CEOofRufus/status/1 ... 3757630465

[Blinge]

Ah man. that fucking sucks.

[M.Knight]

Haha, aren't those kind of lines the ones that age the worst, especially because they try to stay close to current slang?
I've been playing a bit of the original game here and there, and the line in it was doing the job very well.

----

I recently finished Shin Megami Tensei 4. I played it for nearly 10 hours a few years back, stopped after beating the first boss for some random reason, and only resumed it recently. I got the Neutral ending with around 105 hours on the clock. It can veeeery likely be beaten in much less hours but I took my time, got lost a few times, and tried to do as many sidequests as possible whenever they opened up. (instead of later on when they become much easier due to level ups and better demons) There's still some side stuff I haven't finished yet, and maybe I'll try to get the other endings in New Game +, who knows. But I completed a run of the game and saw the credits.

It was pretty fun. Despite a difficulty curve and a battle system that's not as balanced as SJ, as well as a confusing world map with no indications of where landmarks actually are, it was still cool to progress, explore, and play. The QoL really helps with its save-everywhere, fuse-everywhere, no MC death instant game over, actual info on what skill can mutate before you allow/disallow it. I had a good time.

The Press Turn system combined with Smirk can really break many boss battles, as a result I never had much trouble against most of them. If a boss has a weakness, just wail on it over and over again and you can get like 8 turns at once every time, with Smirk making things even more lopsided. Hope you don't get Smirked though, otherwise you're fucked lmao. Also, hope bosses don't randomly get first turn advantage or you can just be fucked for no fault of your own. (field enemies you can attack to prevent this, but nothing for bosses)

Bosses who didn't have weaknesses were more interesting in a way since you had to build a team that can resist their attacks and buff you properly, but even the final boss wasn't hard actually and it made me expect another actual final boss later on which sadly never materialized. My Magic-oriented MC with Concentrate and strong spells could deal a ton of damage. At worst I die once, switch my starting team and equipment, and that's it. I actually had more trouble with a bonus boss you can get a bit earlier

Spoiler

Beelzebub and its Sick status + Megidolaon spam. It was kinda annoying that this boss forces you to buff yourself but not too much otherwise he goes crazy, and vice versa for debuffs. It feels a bit cheap, but at least finally beating this guy was satisfying

and one of the first bosses since team building options were more limited. One of the late-game bosses

Spoiler

One of the angels in the Purgatorium with the shield

also had some sort of gimmick I didn't really understand, which forced me to switch my strats and kinda brute-force it, that kind of unconventional attacks should have been explored more.

Speaking of battles, I think the optional VR ones are some of my favorites in the game. They act more like teaching experiences and puzzles that you have to figure out since the team, enemy composition and behavior, and turn limit are all fixed. This aspect alone makes them fun to try to crack (except the very last one, which I haven't completed yet and feels like arbitrary bullshit honestly), but the little quips and lines from the demons really elevate the scenarios you're presented with. The second-to-last VR mission is my favorite due to how much personality was infused into what would otherwise be a normal demon team, and how cool it makes the fight feel like as a result. Taking down those cocky jerks with my demon brothers-in-arms and superior tactics felt all the better thanks to it. The only additional thing I wish those battles (and boss battles for that matter) had was a way to instant-skip the initial dialogues in case you tackle them again after a failure.

The music is absolutely fantastic, this game is banger city. I already listened to the OST a decent amount before but playing the game and discovering even more tracks in their context is great. There's obviously the rocking Battle B2 theme which I imagine even people who haven't played the game are familiar with (and if you aren't, just go listen to it right now, it's sooo good), or the relaxing overworld theme, but most of the other tracks in the game are also very good. I was surprised to see it wasn't Meguro who made the music, but someone else named Ryota Kozuka. He did an outstanding job here!

Story-wise, I thought the game had both a really engrossing world with lots of potential for interesting events and conflicts, but also many areas where said potential feels underdeveloped and underutilized. :

Spoiler

The opposition between Mikado and Tokyo and the differences between the two places' cultures and life conditions was unusual and interesting. There's obviously the "Unclean Ones" language and the other in-your-face stuff like the completely different scenery and setting but I also like some of the more subtle ways this is depicted such as the relic item descriptions. Fucking lmao at the skateboard being a "dangerous stepladder", the bicycle being a "small water mill" and the saxophone being a "golden beast's horn".

The subplot with Mikado higher-ups also basically asking you to scavenge technology and items from Tokyo while looking down on its population is the entertaining kind of hypocrisy you'd expect from them, that's nice but it also didn't really go anywhere. Another similar unresolved point is the social castes and the differences between Luxurors and Casualries. The setup is ripe with potential for social commentary and conflicts that flesh out Jonathan and Walter as well, alongside with choices and solutions that could maintain or break this status quo within Mikado. But aside from the books given by the Black Samurai, there's really nothing that comes out of it.

Actually, the whole of Mikado is kinda forgotten very quickly once you're no longer in it, even though Hugo had a very suspicious air to him and felt like he was involved in shady stuff. And who even is Navarre already? If it wasn't for seeing mentions of him sometimes on the internet I would have completely forgotten about his existence. Isabeau also barely had a presence and personality, even in the Neutral route where she's supposed to be important. Nozomi, a sidequest-only NPC helper, had waaaay more, amusingly enough.

Characters in general weren't too strong. The situations they are put in and the general context is ripe for good interactions, but they aren't as compelling as they could have been, especially later on. The alignment characters in particular start out fairly well and the way their opposite personalities and backgrounds contrast with each other gives some good banter and dynamics, but then the alignment choices kick in super suddenly and you don't really see the gradual progression towards their final situations. Walter kinda turns into a big idiot the further the game progresses. When you get into Infernal Tokyo and the consequences of Chaos choices, you can see the deeply disturbing system with Neurishers being slaves to Demonoids who feed on them while barely keeping them alive since they still need them (it reminded me a lot of work and capitalism in general actually, which makes it all the more chilling), you can see the perpetual hellish red sky landscape with burning cars everywhere...and then Walter is like "oh yeah that sounds like my jam! I like this" just because there's some endless competition and fighting going on. Bruh. What the fuck Walter.

And even beyond the fact that they are super obviously designed to represent the Law and Chaos factions in all their extremism and ridiculousness, the lack of gradual build-up towards those alignments and only seeing the characters again as bosses after the alignment lock makes it hard to fill in the massive gap between their Samurai selves and their boss fights. Jonathan doesn't even show his human self in front of you so there's a bigger disconnect. Walter fares better since he chats with you before the fight, and what he undergoes seems quite horrifying (One of the few times where the overly detailed, too busy and confusing angel style from guest artists actually worked, besides obviously the good and clever designs like Minotaur or Chemtrail), and kinda contradictory to what his beliefs are supposed to be. (Freedom and chaos, yay! Okay, now I'll just become a gross embryonic left hand thingy for someone else ewww). Maybe their routes explain the shift in more details but on neutral it seems like a big jump, especially since they weren't fanatical at all before, just slightly opinionated

As for my alignment, I managed to get into the desired Neutral end, but I'm not sure I would have succeeded if at some point I didn't check some info on when the alignment lock can occur and when I should start thinking about re-aligning myself correctly since I was mostly Law the entire time before the Lilith/Tayama choice. I did some sidequests including the tournaments where I spared everyone, and I also encountered the random Ikebukuro woman and told her I was human. Somehow those are all giving you Law points (especially the woman which gives you as much as the climatic final choice before the alignment lock WTF Atlus). So I had to go with Walter right before the alternate Tokyo segments and mostly pick Chaos answers there to get back into Neutral, with no way to know how far I've realigned myself until it's already too late because the NPC that tells you about the alignment is no longer there (WTF Atlus [bis]). In the end it seems like I was lucky enough to get into Neutral during the final question where you are forced to choose between Law and Chaos again. It's so nonsensical, shouting "I want to destroy the order!" and then the White reply with "Oh okay, so you chose neutral", which feels absurd as a conversation lol.

Well actually, I first picked the White ending answer because I thought that was my ticket for Neutral end lol. Quite an ominous ending really, especially the boss "fight". There's just something to the moody music and the lack of resistance the boss offers, which makes it very foreboding. It was a good boss fight in a way, probably more impactful and final-boss-like than some of the Neutral final bosses, but yeah I still reset afterwards to pick Neutral instead.

It's fairly strange to have to swing between Law and Chaos answers all the time instead of staying Neutral always, I don't really like it. The Jonathan/Walter choice is a good example of that, and it really looks like an alignment lock (even though it's not), where I thought not being able to interact with Isabeau meant I messed up. Also why should we unleash the demons in Ichigaya, wouldn't that just make things even worse? Look at how bad everyone has it with the current situation already.

Overall, the way the alignments develop, and the way you get into an ending or another are all quite inferior to something like Devil Survivor where it's not just one linear scale, and you can have access to multiple ending choices depending on how you played and interacted with each character during the previous days. And even the final conflict and stakes are not as natural here. In other words, the war between God and Lucifer is really boring and out of place. I don't care one bit about those two supposedly very important characters. It's weird to say that in a SMT game since that has to be expected but that's how I feel. They are handy to have as a background thing, and an excuse to have the demon invasion, but putting them and their ideologies at the forefront doesn't do it for me.

The parts where we go in the alternate versions of Tokyo are one way to show how their extremist solutions are fucked up anyways and that the solutions that mankind should aim for are likely going to be more reasonable and nuanced. Even the characters in those realities end up sliding towards the alignment whose consequences they aren't currently undergoing. I also appreciated the implications of that segment being something of the past (and the future?) since the kingdom of Mikado seems to have been built over the Blasted Tokyo. Kind of a good mindfuck moment.

There's just so many interesting conflicts and events within the game to flesh out where the philosophy of chaos and order could be more organically integrated to the fascinating world they have here. Do we reform the Luxuror vs Casulary caste system? Do we follow through with the immigration program from Tokyo to Mikado (or vice-versa) and if so, how do we deal with the culture clash? How will the Mikado population deal with the newfound knowledge about the "Unclean Ones" and their society which created lots of the tech and items that are sought out by them? What about the Reds and the deals with demons, now that the Ashura-Kai are crumbling? And so on and so forth.

So many questions the game could have tackled and where the Law and Chaos influences could be used to provide some answers and solutions that are pragmatic in their own ways, instead of just "beat the angels" and "beat the demon lord".

[cj iwakura]

Wasnt the Nocturne remaster a bit of a shitshow? Music still has ps2 compression..

..framerates actually worse than the original etc are the rumours I've heard.

I don't mind the former, but I can confirm the latter. Any high impact spells feel like they're going to make the game crash, lol.


That said, the VA is good-great(Matador, Yuko, and Hikawa have all been excellent, not a fan of Hijiri's), and it's still my favorite RPG of all time. I can forgive a lot.

Raidou was a LOT tougher than I expected, though...

Haha, aren't those kind of lines the ones that age the worst, especially because they try to stay close to current slang?
I've been playing a bit of the original game here and there, and the line in it was doing the job very well.

[snip]

This is an excellent summation of IV's many issues. Kaneko had great ideas, but I gather they had too many cooks in the kitchen with way too many ideas, then they had to rush to the 'omg we need chaos/law heroes' finish line.

Apocalypse has a slightly more focused story, but falls victim to a ton of eye-rolling anime tropes along the way(but it is MUCH harder, which is good).


Nocturne, on the other hand, was far more streamlined in its story and world design, though I'm not sure how much of that you can attribute to Yamai stepping in for Maniacs... the original game always looked really barebones to me, I can't imagine playing the game without the Fiends and Lucifer.

[Vanguard]

Well, cringeworthy new translation, of course, "culturally changed for north america"
https://twitter.com/CEOofRufus/status/1 ... 3757630465

WHY is it so hard for translators to just do their jobs without adding shit like this?

[Blinge]

it's still my favorite RPG of all time. I can forgive a lot.

Great to hear!
So would you recommend this new version, or Emulating the original?

[cj iwakura]

it's still my favorite RPG of all time. I can forgive a lot.

Great to hear!
So would you recommend this new version, or Emulating the original?

Emulation is dicey, but then again, so's the new one... The newer version has more QoL, but the original is a classic, so it depends on what you have the patience for, really.

Personally, I'd say play the original first, and then enjoy the remaster if it's your cup of tea.

[Vanguard]

Works fine in PCSX2.

[Mortificator]

I had no issue with it in PCSX2 either. I think the one factor that might get me to switch to the remaster is selectable skill inheritance, it's so tedious to back out of and re-enter the fusion menu to shuffle what they get (or just have subpar demons).

[Vanguard]

That's a huge quality of life improvement, yeah. Probably worth enduring a bad translation for it, not like Nocturne is heavy on talking.

[BryanM]

It does say so much with so little. The hypocrisy of all the Reason bearers is crystal clear. That scene where the Nazi Girl is talking down to literal mud people as she's murdering them all, mocking them for being weak when she was in their literal same position, arguably lower on the totem pole even, just a few moments ago.

The message would be muddied up with long discussions full of "hellos" and "how was your last thursday going" ("it's always thursday, it's the end of the world jackass") and such.

At least our protagonist is consistent: "As long as I wander around like the homeless hobo I am, and punch things hard enough, things will be O-K."

[cj iwakura]

That's a huge quality of life improvement, yeah. Probably worth enduring a bad translation for it, not like Nocturne is heavy on talking.

I think the new translation is fine, and it largely kept most of the dialogue untouched.

It does say so much with so little. The hypocrisy of all the Reason bearers is crystal clear. That scene where the Nazi Girl is talking down to literal mud people as she's murdering them all, mocking them for being weak when she was in their literal same position, arguably lower on the totem pole even, just a few moments ago.

The message would be muddied up with long discussions full of "hellos" and "how was your last thursday going" ("it's always thursday, it's the end of the world jackass") and such.

At least our protagonist is consistent: "As long as I wander around like the homeless hobo I am, and punch things hard enough, things will be O-K."

Hikawa and his "world of stillness" too, from the who was running with the damn Gaians and is just as quick to stab his own people in the back when they're no longer useful. Look how quick he turns around on the MC once he realizes how strong he is, when he just tried to kill him not a few hours before. And with a Baphomet! Mid-tier at best.

[BulletMagnet]

I think the one factor that might get me to switch to the remaster is selectable skill inheritance, it's so tedious to back out of and re-enter the fusion menu to shuffle what they get (or just have subpar demons).

This is actually one of those things where I have to admit my rose-colored glasses semi-trumps my good sense; on the merits I completely agree with this, and am glad that more recent SMT games ditched the random skill assignments, but at the same time this is one of the few times I kind of "get" what Dark Souls fans are talking about when they say that the oppressive parts of a game's design help define its world and overall personality. The same goes for the "game over if the protagonist dies" mechanic; on paper I hate it, but it's a notable part of my memories of playing Nocturne on the PS2 and eventually feeling like you've "conquered a world that actively hates you". I definitely wouldn't want Atlus to go backwards in either of those areas, but in spite of myself I have to say their departure is a little bit bittersweet for the likes of me.

[cj iwakura]

New SMT-ish game supposedly in the works from ex-Atlus devs:

https://twitter.com/monark_info/status/ ... 8137353226

It seems to have the vibe, at least. Tsukasa Masuko(composer) and Aya Nishitani(original MT's writer) are involved, to name a few.

[Klatrymadon]

I share that unease about the way demon skill inheritance is seemingly going to work going forward, BulletMagnet. Far from being a straightforward, unarguable improvement, IV's approach to inheritance (i.e. giving you full freedom to determine what they get) killed any personality the demons had as expressed through the mechanics, for me. They became mere character portraits for you to attach whatever you like to. I understand Apocalypse addressed this somewhat by adding type affinities (e.g. if you give Jack Frost the Agi spell it just won't be very good), but previously the skills and affinities were about all the "fleshing out" the demons received as characters, so I might be alone in this, but I hope V goes back to defining its demons more rigidly...

(Of course, I'm not suggesting it's a bad thing that you don't have to back out of fusion 99999 times in Nocturne any more, just that I hope certain trends aren't around for good...)

[BulletMagnet]

It sounds like the perfect candidate for a feature that used to be standard but has since become optional: folks who are used to the old-school games could enable it, while others could switch it off (I seem to recall that Fire Emblem has been doing this with its signature character permadeath of late). Hopefully Atlus is willing to put that little bit of extra effort in going forward.

[Vanguard]

It does say so much with so little. The hypocrisy of all the Reason bearers is crystal clear. That scene where the Nazi Girl is talking down to literal mud people as she's murdering them all, mocking them for being weak when she was in their literal same position, arguably lower on the totem pole even, just a few moments ago.

It was a pretty good combination of cartoonishly evil and completely realistic.

I share that unease about the way demon skill inheritance is seemingly going to work going forward, BulletMagnet. Far from being a straightforward, unarguable improvement, IV's approach to inheritance (i.e. giving you full freedom to determine what they get) killed any personality the demons had as expressed through the mechanics, for me. They became mere character portraits for you to attach whatever you like to. I understand Apocalypse addressed this somewhat by adding type affinities (e.g. if you give Jack Frost the Agi spell it just won't be very good), but previously the skills and affinities were about all the "fleshing out" the demons received as characters, so I might be alone in this, but I hope V goes back to defining its demons more rigidly...

(Of course, I'm not suggesting it's a bad thing that you don't have to back out of fusion 99999 times in Nocturne any more, just that I hope certain trends aren't around for good...)

There are reasonable alternatives. I like the idea of assigning each skill a skill point cost and when you fuse a demon you can only buy skills up to what they can afford, so you can get some of what you want but probably not everything. If you have one super great skill you can ensure it'll be inherited but beyond that you'll have to rely on their natural abilities. That's more or less how Nocturne turns out anyway if you don't want to spend an hour rerolling. Maybe their max skill points are equal to their experience level or something so that your options open up more over time until you can get everything you want at endgame.

[Mortificator]

It sounds like the perfect candidate for a feature that used to be standard but has since become optional: folks who are used to the old-school games could enable it, while others could switch it off (I seem to recall that Fire Emblem has been doing this with its signature character permadeath of late). Hopefully Atlus is willing to put that little bit of extra effort in going forward.

And then you enable the "I'm old-school!" option and are left without skill inheritance entirely. There wasn't any in MT1, MT2, or SMT1. SMT2 and Soul Hackers had inheritance via internal mathematical computation. I think Nocture's where shuffling started, and it's the worst of both words; now inheritance is player-influenced but the way the player influences it flicking back and forth between menus ad nauseum. And that carried over to Persona 3 & 4 and Raidou's games and Strange Journey (but not to DDS, which also thumbed its nose at protagonist-down game overs) before being discarded. So it was only a thing from like... 2003 to 2009.

I understand and agree with making demons more than interchangeable wads of skills, but there's got to be a better way.

There are reasonable alternatives. I like the idea of assigning each skill a skill point cost and when you fuse a demon you can only buy skills up to what they can afford, so you can get some of what you want but probably not everything. If you have one super great skill you can ensure it'll be inherited but beyond that you'll have to rely on their natural abilities. That's more or less how Nocturne turns out anyway if you don't want to spend an hour rerolling. Maybe their max skill points are equal to their experience level or something so that your options open up more over time until you can get everything you want at endgame.

I like how this sounds.

[BulletMagnet]

Possible leak of a November 11th release date for SMT5.

[cj iwakura]

Also sounds Nocturne-ish, which would help justify why they pushed III so hard(not that they shouldn't anyway).

[BryanM]

The randomized growth stuff always reminded me of Dungeons and Dragons. Starting off in Pool of Radiance can take hours to the dedicated min/maxer, and then every level up is almost half an hour of save scumming. After all, the difference between +1 Max HP and +14 is enormous. (At least SMT guarantees your demon +3 stat points per level~)

Transferring directly a design meant for tabletop to a video game (and vice versa) without understanding context leads to a bit of vestigial-feeling wonkiness. In tabletop, characters die like flies, completely disposable. And characters being vastly stronger or weaker than another one adds variety. A fighter with middling strength always being shown up by others, his inferiority complex is a story. In a video game it's nothing more than the worst thing you can possibly be: inefficient.

The worst thing about SMT3+ skill inheritance, besides the amount of time it took, is how obtuse it was as well. Newbies don't know that lower rank skills have a much higher chance to be passed on, so you have to craft basically low level "graft monsters" with high level skills (a pixie with Ragnorak and such. It's actually pretty easy to stack a ton of endgame skills on these things when you're fusing them with Lucifers or whatever), then use them to pass on stuff to the parents, then use the parents to create the damn thing you want in the first place. Skill ranks aren't even mentioned in the game~

I'm on the side of not bringing it back in any capacity anytime soon though. On the basis that it's a solved system, and there's plenty of games that used it. Keep mixing things up a little~

IV's approach to inheritance (i.e. giving you full freedom to determine what they get) killed any personality the demons had as expressed through the mechanics, for me. They became mere character portraits for you to attach whatever you like to.

Skill inheritance very much does that inherently. It's a min/maxy kind of system where there are just optimized loadouts. I certainly always felt the only difference between demons was their base resistance line (and in Devil Survivor, the racial class skill).

Back in the old games, it was always a chasm between something being total garbage to totally OP. Fine in a gacha game, but not so much when you can control what you acquire.

Inheritance was always a bit of a concession (along with letting them level up) and contrary to the philosophy of those older games: "Your pets are disposable trash, fuse your dog to Satan just do it do it doit" to embracing the natural inclination of a player to grow emotionally attached to their dudes. There's a bit of ongoing tension there - do we want SMT to be pokemon now or not?

[BulletMagnet]

And, uh, another possible release date leak, slating Monark for October 14th in Japan.

[cj iwakura]

The art is giving me a Caligula vibe which is, uh, not a good look.

[Klatrymadon]

Apparently the English script from the vaporised iOS port of SMT1 is now available in a patch for the GBA version. I'd love to be able to play every non-SFC iteration of the game at some point (I own the PCE CD and PS1 ports despite their being impenetrable to me), so it's nice to realistically be able to dive into one of them sooner than expected.

https://twitter.com/romhackingnet/statu ... 65700?s=19

[MX7]

I've watched the Japanese trailer to SMTV about five times now. It's rare that I've been this excited about a game, finally got a Switch and the Nocturne remaster. Hope there's an option to switch the voice lanngage to JP or at least switch it off cus Atlus's dubbing of Megaten games is terrifyingly bad (still have flashbacks of SMTIV and Persona 3&4...). Shame to hear about 3HDs unacceptable translation, though if it's a few pop culture references it should be fine. The games are always a bit quirky and unhinged, definitely not as grimdark as fanboys like to opine.

Nice to hear about the SMT1 dump too. I keep around my IPhone4 just to boot up and play this every so often. It's a nice port. Shame they never did anything with it. I still lust after a hypothetical port of SMT1&2 in the Etrian Odyssey 4 engine... Perhaps when the 4 remaster and 5 make Atlus unfathomably rich they'll listen to me.

[BryanM]

cus Atlus's dubbing of Megaten games is terrifyingly bad (still have flashbacks of SMTIV and Persona 3&4...).

pfft ha, just be honest and admit there is no theoretical dub that you'd prefer over the sub

as long as you don't watch episodes of Full House in a Japanese dub with English subtitles, Demiurge will forgive you