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Shin Megami Tensei |OT| Choose a new Reason
- Thread starter HylianSeven
- Start date
Bunch of Toku artists, yeah. For all the returning demons Doi redrew them more in Kaneko's style and added some new ones.
Which makes it all the more baffling that most of the designs he did for Strange Journey Redux were so terrible.
I think the DDS duology has the best battle system followed by Nocturne. IV Apocalypse still have problems with smirk activating via RNG, no VIT stat and your Persona-tier party members being able to nullify an enemy attack after your party gauge is full. Neat stuff like demon affinities and good difficulty curve (on War mode) don't make up for the flaws that the game has which are numerous.
I just ran into Metatron(NOBLE VOICE) after Amala 1, and it just occurred to me: what happens if you agree with him? Does it affect alignment or lock you out of anything?
Apocalypse is arriving today. What's the best place to read up on SMT IV's story? I remember nothing.
excuse me please do not erase this important work from the record
https://twitter.com/NeoGAFNewThread/status/739178038299090949
also thankful that his ten year silence after decades of frequent interviews was broken for that important el shaddai vita dungeon rpg
In other news, things getting abit more interesting in my apoc playthrough.
Flynn got kidnapped before he could unleash Masakado and he would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids (Nanashi and Asahi).
My only problem with this is I got pretty excited after unleashing Krishna becuase I thought "what if they just kill Flynn and have the story go from there?" was being telegraphed with all the hero worshipping going on and was hoping for a dark twist.
That and I'm not sure how The Divine Powers are supposed to be at odds with Lucifer since they seem to share the same goal but I'm assuming or rather hoping that will get explained at some point.
My only problem with this is I got pretty excited after unleashing Krishna becuase I thought "what if they just kill Flynn and have the story go from there?" was being telegraphed with all the hero worshipping going on and was hoping for a dark twist.
That and I'm not sure how The Divine Powers are supposed to be at odds with Lucifer since they seem to share the same goal but I'm assuming or rather hoping that will get explained at some point.
My first impression of Apocalypse is pretty damn good. The war difficulty makes me backtrack to the residential area to heal up all the time though. I wonder if it's worth the hassle. I hope I finde a demon with Dia soon.
Is there any point in talking to the NPCs? Can I miss out on quests? I'd rather skip all the blabla. None of them had anything interesting to say so far.
NPCs are just flavour text in this game. All your quests are through the Hunter's Association.
The Partner system in Apocalypse is the perfect way to create more of a traditional party within SMT without sacrificing the demon based ones.
I like it a lot. Hopefully they bring it back for V. Though I would't complain if they went for more of a lonely tone like Nocturne.
I like it a lot. Hopefully they bring it back for V. Though I would't complain if they went for more of a lonely tone like Nocturne.
The only things I'd change are making the Partner Attack something you have to activate instead of just getting a free round of healing, buffs and damage every six turns, and that the choice between partners influences what support you get.
I don't want partners to return in such an overt way like Apocalypse. If we're going to be a demon summoner, then that should be what the conflicts and situations revolve around; it should be you and your demons. That, or compromising with just one main partner, like Nemissa in Soul Hackers.
It's more of an atmosphere thing.
It's more of an atmosphere thing.
I'd like that as well. Just the 2 of them trying to survive in a world gone to shit, no other party members.
I just hope they do Lucifer better than they did in IV and Apocalypse. He can be pretty interesting when done right.
In the older games, he comes across as a pretty smooth customer, in the last two, he's kind of turned into this hideous weird alien vampire that feels more overtly evil.
In the older games, he comes across as a pretty smooth customer, in the last two, he's kind of turned into this hideous weird alien vampire that feels more overtly evil.
I am surprisingly okay with this. So tired of beloved Lucifer-sama in these games allegedly about choice.
Is it really an improvement though?
The idea of Lucifer actually being a sort of anti-hero and God being a self absorbed tyrant actually intrigues me. Portraying him as more of a monster or villain would feel pretty cliche/a step backwards from what they've been doing.
Alien Toreador Lucifer isn't an improvement but after so many games of super bishie Lucifer I'll take it.
I'm tired of a series fundamentally about choice completely eschewing that in favour of countless repetitive stories about Lucifer the master manipulator who's just so cool you're never allowed to turn on him, or screwing yourself out of the best ending for having the gall to want to.
The only time Law endings have been treated positively were Devil Survivor Overclocked and Strange Journey Redux, two games that ruined the careful morality balancing act of their source games in favour of more easily digestible happy endings.
My ideal path would be to portray both Lucifer and YHVH as persuading entities with opposing views to one another but whom the player might genuinely see themselves agreeing with one over the other depending on their own views on religion, politics, ethics, etc. These are supreme entities of near limitless power, so they should be mediators who represent unattainable ideals for men, something humankind would never be able to achieve by themselves. As it is, law is just kind of a meme (DeSu notwithstanding), while Neutral and Chaos have their moments. A repeat of IV/Apocalypse's Lucifer would be uninteresting to me, though I do think it was an ok one-time experiment.
Of course, I also think entirely new alignments closer to philosophies would be a possibly even more interesting approach, something akin to, or perhaps an evolution of what Nocturne attempted, but I don't really expect them to go back to that anytime soon.
Of course, I also think entirely new alignments closer to philosophies would be a possibly even more interesting approach, something akin to, or perhaps an evolution of what Nocturne attempted, but I don't really expect them to go back to that anytime soon.
as someone with some truly terrible takes, i can't handle the idea of people preferring dopey cartoon villain lucifer to magisterial enigmatic lucifer. if this is what the fanbase wants this series is dead dead dead! we need a lucifer who actually lives up to his own final dungeon theme in smt4.
The problem is chaos becomes kind of the status quo after the first/second apocalypse.
Law is against the status quo.
This is even true in SMTII and SMTIV where the existence of Tokyo Millenium/Mikado is a fragile stab against a chaos status quo and law goes to insane (corrupting) lengths to maintain that "stab."
Chaos is instead largely "demon apocalypse gets worse," which frankly is bad imo. But it also just feels like evolution of the status quo rather than yet another apocalypse.
Law is against the status quo.
This is even true in SMTII and SMTIV where the existence of Tokyo Millenium/Mikado is a fragile stab against a chaos status quo and law goes to insane (corrupting) lengths to maintain that "stab."
Chaos is instead largely "demon apocalypse gets worse," which frankly is bad imo. But it also just feels like evolution of the status quo rather than yet another apocalypse.
OG Strange Journey is the last great mainline game and it will probably stay that way.
"Magisterial Enigmatic Lucifer" was played out by Raidou 2.
I think IV was great, Apocalypse was a massive disappointment though.
Apocalypse was superior to IV in every way save for its more overt, exposition laden storyline.
Everything concerning the writing, characters and story is insufferable. Unlike most jrpgs, mainline SMT held itself to a certain standard. Apocalypse took it and threw it into the bottom tier anime garbage bin.
It lacks any kind of subtlety or nuance, the pacing is poor, all major plot points fall flat and have absolutely no gravitas.
And that thing where you get stuck and have to mash attack to break free has to be the most annoying and pointless addition any human being could possibly come up with. The final dungeon is a fucking slog.
No point in beating a dead horse, let's just say that it's not what I'm looking for in SMT.
you are v. wrong and i do not wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
I won't belabor the apocalypse point since i already wrote a short essay earlier in the thread. but the best example of how smt can innovate (if it even needs to innovate, smt's whole thing is that there is nothing else out there remotely like it) is smt3, which took many bold steps while remaining recognizable within the series.
Nocturne did indeed take many bold steps forward.
Whereupon Maniax took a giant leap backwards into traditional Law vs. Chaos storytelling, and barring you from a dozen hours of optional content unless you submit to Lucifer-sama.
Apocalypse took all that LNC bullshit and chucked it into a bin to tell a character focused story about breaking free of the ho-hum status quo the series has dug for itself out of slavish dedication to its own tradition.
A quick question guys : I want to start Nocturne again (haven't played it in a really long time) and I have a choice between JP Chronicle Edition for PS2 or NA PSN version for PS3. I've only played it on PS2 before and I'm wondering if there's anything noticeably different about the PSN version? Loading speed, bugs, anything like that? Otherwise the choice would be purely which language I want to play in, I guess.
Slavish dedication?
SMT1, 2, 3, SJ, and 4 are all pretty damn different.
I don't have personal knowledge but I thought the PSN version was buggy tbh. Could be wrong.
SMT1, 2, 3, SJ, and 4 are all pretty damn different.
I don't have personal knowledge but I thought the PSN version was buggy tbh. Could be wrong.
Just go back to pages 39 and 40 (50ppp). There's a lot of discussion of their variance about Chaos and Law and Neutral.
Let's just say I have some differences when it comes to Apocalypse's handlind of LNC vis-a-vis Nocturne's True Demon Ending.
My only point is "don't be reductive." Not saying you have to agree with what anyone posted in the discussion I reference but it should be apparent if you read that that people are pulling out different strands and angles on law and chaos over the games on some basis. Reducing them to rehashings is just not tenable.
I'm not calling them rehashes, I'm saying that they're too devoted to repeating the core tenants of SMT to the detriment of new and original storytelling. Nocturne was bold and original with one of the only good moral choice systems in the series and then Maniax cocked that up with a brand new ending entirely devoted to Chaos.
That, and the constant dickslurping of Lucifer is old hat, which is a separate problem altogether.
That, and the constant dickslurping of Lucifer is old hat, which is a separate problem altogether.
I for one hope that SMTV is about the power of friendship and how it triumphs over everything, not even God or Lucifer can stop it. And don't forget lots of J Pop.