Delicious Waffles
Member
Glad I reserved it yesterday. Looking forward to it.
wait so the game is only monster battlin'? Why does the protag have a sword and gear then?
1 and 2 have different songs playing til the first attack. The same goes for Strange Journey.Not in 3. 1 and 2? I don't remember. Haven't played since 2005.
I especially enjoyed Destructoid's review, not because of the high score they gave it, but because of how much he really seemed to enjoy and savor the experience, someone who obviously has some experience with the series. Just makes me look forward to the game that much more.
Eh, Dale North likes almost everything jrpg related... so take that with a grain of salt.
Eh, Dale North likes almost everything jrpg related... so take that with a grain of salt.
Hasn't it always been like that since you can negotiate instead of fight?
The other handheld games don't feature fully explorable 3d environments and a 3d mc. People have also waited ten years for a new SMT for it to only have worse presentation than III. Of course people are talking about it.
Hi everyone, this is Jasmine from GamesBeat (VentureBeat).
Talking about the specifics in the dungeons is a bit tricky because it can venture into spoiler territory but I'll avoid that. The dungeons are in third person, letting you crawl and jump and pick up relics. Demons appear as bursts of blue digital figures and can chase you great distances.
The reason it is a landmine for spoilers is that the types of dungeons will differ wildly throughout the game, and are eventually linked together through the overmap.
It's a nice change from SMT: Strange Journey and feels a bit more like Persona, which should help new players tremendously.
Good to know. Also excellent avatar choice!
To battle demons.
I find the world of Shin Megami Tensei intriguing, but I'm *reaaaaaaaaally* not into fusions, demon collecting, and grinding. And I cannot stand it when a battle takes so long only for a lucky hit by the boss to destroy your entire party near the end.
I second this sentiment. The cheap cutscenes is what people should be really disappointed with.
THIS! It's what I was saying from the beginning. The 3D cut-scenes in Nocturne were fantastic, the world and cut-scenes really added to the atmosphere and I don't think the demon sprites ruin that nearly as much as the switch to Trauma Team style cut-scenes. Nocturne's cut-scenes are even presented even better than what they did for Persona, and I would've gladly taken 3D cut-scenes over the VA if there had to be a choice due to budget.
So um stupid questions. If the battles are just you and demons, are the human party members just story characters? Or do they fight with you too?
And I know that you see a 3D model of Flynn in the dungeons. Do they other characters have 3D models at any point in the game?
Hmm, I see. Thanks. The sprite thing doesn't bother me that much, but I would have hoped that the other characters played more of a role...I believe there are random times when your human companions offer assistance in battle kind of in the same way as certain story characters would randomly help in FFIII.
And no, I believe it's just sprites for your companions, though pedestrians in Tokyo are 3D models.
Hmm, I see. Thanks. The sprite thing doesn't bother me that much, but I would have hoped that the other characters played more of a role...
I guess I was just expecting a more Persona/Nocturne type battle system. Well, the reviews are very positive and it looks like a great game either way. I'm excited.
I meant like the Nocturne battle system mixed with the addition of human party members like in Persona. Sorry, my wording was kinda confusing there.But it literally is the Nocturne battle system. Do you mean like, the graphics?
At the end of your party's round in battle, if you have a human ally tagging along, they will attack or cast a spell automatically. Sadly, sometimes they'll use an element the boss is immune to, causing the boss to smirk and pull off an attack that wipes the party.
I only saw this happen once, and that was when I had screwed up pretty royally with an attack and the AI just mimicked my tactic. I found it tried to stick close to what I was doing in most cases and just resorted to physical attacks if it could not.
But that once time I pulled a total Vinny Caravella and cast bufu on something? Yeah, that was the worst.
Yeah. It's not a frequent thing at all. 99% of the time they'll roll with an attack that they know won't have any detrimental effects on your party.
Except that take I cast bufu, and it got absorbed, and then the AI cast bufu.
Then we all died. T_T
Accidental Bufus are, like, the WORST
I had Bufu + 5 or something on my MC, so I was just kind of recklessly casting it on everything for massive damage.
I made a huge mistake. Hahaha.
Mine was Bufula + 4. I cast it by mistake, trying to get down to Agilao. But I hit Bufula.
Yeah. After the first 20 hours, most deaths are your lack of focus/preparation than the monsters being overpowered.
Or you just walked into a massively overwhelming boss fight. But still, you didn't think it through before acting and got smoked because of it.
And that's why I love this game, I guess.
Also just read through your review. Good stuff.
Did either of you find that the difficulty was almost solely a function of your party makeup? I'm experience with Strange Journey, there were cases where bosses could either be unbeatable to impossible to lose with a couple changes to the party.
Basically can out of battle strategy trivialize tactics in battle*?
*other than the zoning out and casting the wrong spell
While I actually do like all that stuff, I would love to see another game similar to Digital Devil Saga that focuses on an actual party of human characters but within a SMT/Persona type world and with that kind of storyline. Basically DDS where they don't turn into demons themselves.
This is basically a repost from the first page, with some extra information:
Megami Tensei was a game series, based on the Japanese novel series Digital Devil Story, that started in the NES and featured many mythological creatures, collectivelly called "demons", which the player could recruit to fight alongside them through negotiations during battles. It was basically the first 'monster' franchise, although with a dark story focusing on the battle against hell's forces, and later heaven and hell battling with humanity in the middle of an Earth ruined by the battle (with figures from various mythologies - basically every demon is taken straight out of some legend). The two NES titles were made by Namco, when Atlus rebooted and continued the series in the SNES, it was renamed "Shin Megami Tensei." SMT introduced a law-neutral-chaos axis, which defined the various endings according to which faction the protagonist sides with, heaven's law, the demon's chaos or neither, humanity's neutral.
There was a SMT title for the SNES called "SMT:If" that changed several of the conventions that the series had up to then. It took place in an alternative timeline from the first two SMT games, where the all out war between law and chaos never happened, not following up their story directly. Rather than siding with factions, you chose a character to team up with and that was what changed the storyline and ending. It also introduced a "Guardian Spirit" mechanic, involving associating demons with the hero to get different boosts. It also focused strictly on high school characters, while still keeping the demon system from the previous games.
SMT:If's new mechanics and ideas, rather than staying in future SMT titles, were eventually further developed when Atlus made the original Persona for the Playstation (which was still labeled as a "Megami" title in Japan, although its successors weren't), which continued the world featured in SMT:If and greatly expanded on the Guardian Spirit mechanic with the new "Personas", which replaced the recruitable demons. Spells, fusions and demon/persona designs still are often shared between Persona and the original SMT series, but the focus, structure and tone of the story is very different. The routine and social links only exist in Persona - which dropped demons as party members since the start, and later also dumped demon negotiation. Meanwhile, negotiations and recruiting demons is still a core part of mainline SMT, which also continued focusing on battles involving heavenly and demonic forces with humanity's future in the middle.
Persona is a spin-off of the SMT series. The SMT series focuses on talking to demons, negotiating with them so they can join you in battle, exploring unique dungeons in a post-apocalyptic world, deciding what route will you take out of many possibilities, etc. And it's though as nails.
The difficulty is definitely there despite having a party primed to take advantage of weaknesses. My biggest problem is that I rarely utilize buff and debuff spells for the sake of powerful offensive magic and group healing. If I take my time, I can brute my way through any situation, though I may have to swap out weaker characters with great magic for stronger characters with virtually no magic.
Being able to keep several demons with you at any given time makes it easy to mix up your party on the fly (even in battle).
But even the most prepared party can miss or be struck by a critical blow that will throw the turn count in the enemy's favor. Often, that one extra turn is enough to ruin your attack flow or knock out a demon.
Through fusion, you'll often end up with useful demons with wonky weaknesses too. Sometimes it's just unavoidable and you'll suffer the consequences.
Yes, I would love that. I would als love a Megami Tensei game without the fusions and with a limited amount of party members, be they demons or humans, with stories to tell and character development. Of course, that would take away the identity if Megami Tensei, but I would not mind at all. (I know i'm in the minority by far here).
that would be my absolute dream as well.
I fear the series, as it is, is not for me. Everything about it seems very appealing, except for the monster/demon recruitment, which I hate.
It almost stopped me from playing Dragon Quest V! Fortunately, it turned out to be mostly optional and I could ignore it.
Sounds like Digital Devil Saga are the games for you!that would be my absolute dream as well.
I fear the series, as it is, is not for me. Everything about it seems very appealing, except for the monster/demon recruitment, which I hate.
It almost stopped me from playing Dragon Quest V! Fortunately, it turned out to be mostly optional and I could ignore it.