Segata Sanshiro
Member
The final boss on the Neutral path is such a dick. I think I had to try like 25 times before I had the right combination of luck to win.
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Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey The Official Thread of Minion and Demonica
- Thread starter the_painted_bird
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viewtifulsub
Member
The problem is the lack of variety of demons in the first 2/3rds of the game. You're essentially restricted to 1-5 demons per dungeon, if you choose to stick to a single alignment party.Paulathon said:
I think the more annoying aspect was that the final bosses revolve around using defensive abilities to win rather than offensive. I spent most of the time during the final boss(es) reflecting attacks back and healing.
Pureauthor
Member
Segata Sanshiro said:
Huh. I beat her first try and it wasn't even very tough.
decoyplatypus
Member
The neutral boss has a few fun/obnoxious tricks, but I didn't find her any more difficult than, say,
. On my first try I
Maybe I was lucky with party construction. I'm sure I was also over-leveled having spent two hours grinding before the final boss so I could fuse one last demon.
I don't have a problem with the Demon Co-op system nudging the player toward a smaller set of potential demons. Given the sheer size of a complete compendium, it's not a bad thing to have one more criterion for fusion/party-building. Besides, aligned parties are really more encouraged than required. Follow-up attacks may be nice, but outside of a few boss fights, they're hardly critical (not a pun, I swear). I probably had a 100% aligned party for about 5% of my playing time.
Still, I prefer Press Turn.
Zelenin
reached the second stage, immediately murdered two of my own party members with careless, reflected attacks, and still managed to pull out the win.
I don't have a problem with the Demon Co-op system nudging the player toward a smaller set of potential demons. Given the sheer size of a complete compendium, it's not a bad thing to have one more criterion for fusion/party-building. Besides, aligned parties are really more encouraged than required. Follow-up attacks may be nice, but outside of a few boss fights, they're hardly critical (not a pun, I swear). I probably had a 100% aligned party for about 5% of my playing time.
Still, I prefer Press Turn.
charlequin
Banned
Pureauthor said:
I don't believe you. :lol
Segata Sanshiro
Member
Jeez, what were you, level 99?Pureauthor said:
Pureauthor
Member
charlequin said:
Jihad + Megidolaon + Luster Candy + MC tossing Items (had ridiculous AGI so was guaranteed to always go first)
Her second form went down easier than the first.
Edit: I don't even remember what level I was at anymore. I just walked up to her and smashed her face in. I did have Alice, though. Alice is awesome.
charlequin
Banned
Pureauthor said:
Well, if you were actually level 91+ when you got there (I took my first shot at 80) that at least explains things. :lol
Segata Sanshiro
Member
Actually, MC *always* goes first if you use an item. It doesn't rely on your AGI at all.
charlequin
Banned
Segata Sanshiro said:
And thank Vishnu for that.
Pureauthor
Member
charlequin said:
Flat numbers aside, she didn't have any particularly awful attacks (once I'd insulated myself against Curse magic, anyways). Did I miss anything?
Segata Sanshiro
Member
Well, for one thing, I'm surprisedPureauthor said:
she didn't Reason's Start any of your Luster Candy buffs away almost immediately. Also, Mother's Kiss, which does a ridiculous amount of physical damage and can take out your MC in one hit even if he has phys resist if the hits gang up on him. Asura Roga can easily ruin your day, as well. Great Flood is a nasty attack that debuffs at the same time.
But the dickest move is MA, which hits a random party member for their entire HP and cures Mem for that amount. If it hits your MC and you don't have an intact Dragon Ring, you lose.
But the dickest move is MA, which hits a random party member for their entire HP and cures Mem for that amount. If it hits your MC and you don't have an intact Dragon Ring, you lose.
What was your level anyway?
Pureauthor
Member
Segata Sanshiro said:
Oh, the debuff move was spammed muchly. And the Mother's kiss was used pretty often, but I think most of it hit one of my Phys Reflect demons (I was switching them out a lot during the fight). Asura Roga... I think she used it once and it hit a couple of my demons, but I survived long enough to get them back into the game.
I never saw MA, though. But based on your description it just reminds why I don't like the SMT standby of 'MC dies, you lose HAHAHA'
charlequin
Banned
Pureauthor said:
Besides the stuff Segs mentioned, at the moment I arrived at the final boss, at level 80 with on-level demons that could generally make relatively short work of all the random encounters in the final dungeon,
even her first form would spam hit-everyone elemental attacks that dealt 400+ damage to demons that weren't strong against the element and instantly kill any and all demons with a weakness.
I mean, I'm not saying there's no way to beat that, but it's a might bit more work than most of the other bosses to date.
In my case I was pushing hard to finish the game, so I went into that boss underleveled at 76 (Law Route). Ironically, the "big bad boss" before the final one in that route only took me 2 tries.
But my poor strategy that eventually won the fight for me after 9 tries was:
Not resistant to Phys = too easy
But my poor strategy that eventually won the fight for me after 9 tries was:
- MC only uses items, mostly expensive HP and SP recovery. I had 9 Chakra Pots, 3 Great Chakras, 9 Bead Chains, and 4 Beads of Life. Ocassionally, if all is going well, I'd use elemental gun attacks if she was weak to them in part 2, since all 3 of my demons were same alignment.
- While I tried to apply all of the debuffs, Seraph's job was to cast Salvation every turn to restore health and also disable Asura Roga.
- The combo buffer/debuffer is Norn with her "Lost Word" spell: it randomly chooses between healing the party for full HP, restoring the entire party's MP, Increasing every member's stats by 1 (Luster Candy), and Decreasing them all by 1 (Debilitate). On the plus side, this only costs 20 MP as opposed to 50 for Luster/Debilitate. But as if the pure randomness weren't enough, it also has a chance to cast these same spells on your enemy instead of you. This is where luck plays a huge factor. But eventually, I'd have Mem's stats down to -3 (her ATK power being the most important one) and my party's up to +1 or +2. Lost Word would occasionally restore the party's MP, so that helped to cover my Seraph's Salvation spam. Once everything is where I want it, I never touch Lost Word again, because it's finally time to start attacking, and I don't want to risk Norn healing Mem for full HP.
- I really needed Mem's attack power down ASAP, so I used an Attis equipped with War Cry. Problem was, even with his level in the 70s, he couldn't survive any of her hit-all elemental spells, even from full health, giving him zero chance to even cast War Cry. The solution was to force Mem into casting Wave of Death (a significantly weaker Almighty spell) by throwing out a Magic Mirror. Any status ailments inflicted would be covered by Seraph's Salvation.
- Once I had one War Cry and one Debilitate applied, I swapped out Attis for Shraosha, who also has Salvation, to take over for Seraph on healing duty.
- The two damage dealers were Norn (lvl 74) with Concentrate + Megidolaon, and Seraph (lvl 89) with Big Bang (More powerful version of Megidolaon, costs 70 MP). Seraph is practically cheating (you get him for free after completing a quest), but I needed guys that could survive her basic hit-all elemental spells, so I didn't have much of a choice.
- With the debuffs all applied, I got into a rhythm of MC restoring MP (and in emergencys, HP) with items, Norn and Seraph doing constant Almighty damage, and Shraosha healing every turn. Occasionally Shraosha would go down from Mother's Kiss and even Darkness (he's merely Strong against Curse, not Null), but that just put Seraph back on healing duty while MC brings him back.
- Once Part 2 begins, I take everything from the top: One War Cry, and keep Lost Wording until I get the buffs/debuffs I want. This time, throwing out Magic Mirrors or casting Makarakarn forces her to use MA, but it always seemed to miss whoever it was targeting. It was enough to bring Attis back for one last War Cry. Then the strategy stays pretty much exactly the same. Since I'm only using Almighty damage, I don't have to worry about her changing resistances. And that Mem Aleph attack that sends demons of one algnment back to your Demonica? Not once, in her 15 or so attempts in using it, did that spell affect my crew of Law demons. Supreme luck or by design? Don't know, don't care.
- Even with her ATK power reduced and my DEF up, she would occasionally kill my MC with Mother's Kiss. Pissed me off enough times to finally go after that Dragon Ring just as an insurance policy. In my very next attempt after acquiring that ring, though, I didn't even need it.
- While I tried to apply all of the debuffs, Seraph's job was to cast Salvation every turn to restore health and also disable Asura Roga.
- The combo buffer/debuffer is Norn with her "Lost Word" spell: it randomly chooses between healing the party for full HP, restoring the entire party's MP, Increasing every member's stats by 1 (Luster Candy), and Decreasing them all by 1 (Debilitate). On the plus side, this only costs 20 MP as opposed to 50 for Luster/Debilitate. But as if the pure randomness weren't enough, it also has a chance to cast these same spells on your enemy instead of you. This is where luck plays a huge factor. But eventually, I'd have Mem's stats down to -3 (her ATK power being the most important one) and my party's up to +1 or +2. Lost Word would occasionally restore the party's MP, so that helped to cover my Seraph's Salvation spam. Once everything is where I want it, I never touch Lost Word again, because it's finally time to start attacking, and I don't want to risk Norn healing Mem for full HP.
- I really needed Mem's attack power down ASAP, so I used an Attis equipped with War Cry. Problem was, even with his level in the 70s, he couldn't survive any of her hit-all elemental spells, even from full health, giving him zero chance to even cast War Cry. The solution was to force Mem into casting Wave of Death (a significantly weaker Almighty spell) by throwing out a Magic Mirror. Any status ailments inflicted would be covered by Seraph's Salvation.
- Once I had one War Cry and one Debilitate applied, I swapped out Attis for Shraosha, who also has Salvation, to take over for Seraph on healing duty.
- The two damage dealers were Norn (lvl 74) with Concentrate + Megidolaon, and Seraph (lvl 89) with Big Bang (More powerful version of Megidolaon, costs 70 MP). Seraph is practically cheating (you get him for free after completing a quest), but I needed guys that could survive her basic hit-all elemental spells, so I didn't have much of a choice.
- With the debuffs all applied, I got into a rhythm of MC restoring MP (and in emergencys, HP) with items, Norn and Seraph doing constant Almighty damage, and Shraosha healing every turn. Occasionally Shraosha would go down from Mother's Kiss and even Darkness (he's merely Strong against Curse, not Null), but that just put Seraph back on healing duty while MC brings him back.
- Once Part 2 begins, I take everything from the top: One War Cry, and keep Lost Wording until I get the buffs/debuffs I want. This time, throwing out Magic Mirrors or casting Makarakarn forces her to use MA, but it always seemed to miss whoever it was targeting. It was enough to bring Attis back for one last War Cry. Then the strategy stays pretty much exactly the same. Since I'm only using Almighty damage, I don't have to worry about her changing resistances. And that Mem Aleph attack that sends demons of one algnment back to your Demonica? Not once, in her 15 or so attempts in using it, did that spell affect my crew of Law demons. Supreme luck or by design? Don't know, don't care.
- Even with her ATK power reduced and my DEF up, she would occasionally kill my MC with Mother's Kiss. Pissed me off enough times to finally go after that Dragon Ring just as an insurance policy. In my very next attempt after acquiring that ring, though, I didn't even need it.
KuwabaraTheMan
Banned
I'm certainly not as far as all the rest of you (although I just got the game a couple of weeks ago), but I'm definitely enjoying what I've played (currently in Carina). I really like exploring around and searching for different stuff in the dungeons, and the EX Missions are a lot of fun. I finally managed to finish that hunting challenge from Bootes.
I like the existence of Demon Sources, but I wish that they still learned moves from leveling up.
I like the existence of Demon Sources, but I wish that they still learned moves from leveling up.
At least this talk shows I was smart in bailing in Grus. I was only level 60 as I was probably a good portion of the way through the maze from hell, and I can't imagine I would have gained much more than 10 levels or so by the end of the game without taking extra hours to grind. And level 70 doesn't sound like nearly enough.
Great fun before that, though!
Great fun before that, though!
charlequin
Banned
botticus said:
Unless you put on the reduce-encounters sub-apps, it'd be hard not to get to at least 75 by the bottom of Horologium, especially with the White Album (XP boosting app) available.
Also, Grus rocks. :lol
God I'm so stupid :lol Ok, one of the rewards for a super late-game quest is called "Megido Fire." But the game never tells you what type of item it is, even after you get it. It sounded like a consumable item like an Agilao Stone or something, so I was going back and forth in my inventory looking for this damn Megido Fire thing for half an hour.
Only after I finish the game and scratch and claw my way through the last boss fight do I find out that it's a Gun. A Gun that would have been incredibly useful in the last fight, too. :/ Not the highest pure attack power, but comes with heavy Fire to single, heavy Fire to all, and heavy Almighty to all attacks.
Only after I finish the game and scratch and claw my way through the last boss fight do I find out that it's a Gun. A Gun that would have been incredibly useful in the last fight, too. :/ Not the highest pure attack power, but comes with heavy Fire to single, heavy Fire to all, and heavy Almighty to all attacks.
Splash Wave
Member
I'm pretty terrible at SMT games, so I apologize in advance for the shitty questions.
Where I'm at: Just finished the first mission where you have to rescue the crew. How hard is this game going to get? My Pixie died, and reviving her will require me to use all of my money (300 Macca), which I'm assuming isn't much, but I'm wondering what the gameplay is going to be like from here on out. Should I be constantly reviving my demons or just getting new ones? Do I get new party members?
Where I'm at: Just finished the first mission where you have to rescue the crew. How hard is this game going to get? My Pixie died, and reviving her will require me to use all of my money (300 Macca), which I'm assuming isn't much, but I'm wondering what the gameplay is going to be like from here on out. Should I be constantly reviving my demons or just getting new ones? Do I get new party members?
KuwabaraTheMan
Banned
Jimmy Stav said:
I'm a lot further in (4th dungeon), and I'm not having any problems with reviving party members now. I've got like 30+ Revival Beads and multiple demons with Recarm, so it definitely gets easier to revive your party members. Macca is definitely at a premium, though, especially in the early going.
Named my character Dave Bowman. The only "true" name! 
So, I'm doing something stupid. I have a Pixie in my party, and some others. I encounter a Pixie - talk to her - get an item (sometimes not), rinse repeat with other monsters as well. Is that... okay? Seems like I can get a lot of, say, Revival Beads.
One thing I didn't like: you can't grind that much. Enemies gives so very little experience.
So, I'm doing something stupid. I have a Pixie in my party, and some others. I encounter a Pixie - talk to her - get an item (sometimes not), rinse repeat with other monsters as well. Is that... okay? Seems like I can get a lot of, say, Revival Beads.
One thing I didn't like: you can't grind that much. Enemies gives so very little experience.
decoyplatypus
Member
Jimmy Stav said:
Throughout the game you will be recruiting new party members via demon negotiation. Do you understand how this works or do you need a primer?
As to your revival question, you will probably want to revive fallen party members in most situations. You could delete the pixie and recruit a new one, but the new pixie would start at her base level (thus sacrificing whatever experience you'd gained with the original one), and you would have to give up macca during negotiation for a new one anyway. Later in the game you will have revive spells of your own and a surplus of revive items. For now, the bottom line is that if you're out of cash and your pixie is dead, you need to level up a bit and fight more conservatively: make brief forays into the dungeon and return to the Red Sprite regularly until you're confident you can reach the next save point.
SJ is a pretty hard game. It's not the hardest in the series, but you can expect to die both from boss fights and the occasional tough-luck normal encounter.
Echoes, nothing wrong with depending on the kindness of strange demons. It's actually nice to be able to explore large regions of the game without having to fight (and to earn lots of Macca/recovery items while doing so).
KuwabaraTheMan
Banned
Echoes said:Named my character Dave Bowman. The only "true" name!
So, I'm doing something stupid. I have a Pixie in my party, and some others. I encounter a Pixie - talk to her - get an item (sometimes not), rinse repeat with other monsters as well. Is that... okay? Seems like I can get a lot of, say, Revival Beads.
One thing I didn't like: you can't grind that much. Enemies gives so very little experience.
I've been doing the same thing. It's a good way to get more money and items. It also helps preserve your MP so that you can get further into the dungeon without having to use too many items.
Splash Wave
Member
decoyplatypus said:
Thank you!
I just got the tutorial for recruiting demons (I have two now), but if you have any advice outside of what they tell you I'm more than willing to listen.
The Pixie death was a little shocking. I played a decent amount of P4 (until the complexity became too much of a mental/time investment. I hated demon-fusing) so I was expecting difficulty, but the actual cost of revival really surprised me (especially when I expected healing to be free).
I'm in a weird place where I have the time of a casual gamer, but the tastes of the hardcore gamer I once was. I'm determined to, at the very least, make some significant progress in this game.
Segata Sanshiro
Member
You missed the awesome last dungeon. It's probably the best-designed dungeon I've played in a long time.botticus said:
Segata Sanshiro
Member
In my opinion, there was only one really weak dungeon, and it was pretty short. You gave up too easily. The dungeons are long and difficult, but that's kind of what makes a good dungeon.Cep said:
decoyplatypus
Member
The last dungeon is almost worth the price of admission all by itself. I probably spent close to 15% of my playtime in that one monstrous labyrinth.
Jimmy, I can't say I have any specific advice for demon negotiation. There are far more skillful SMT players on this board who may be able to help you there. One trick to remember is just what Echoes and Kuwabara were talking about: talking to a particular demon when you already have that demon in your current roster will automatically net you items, macca, or a free heal. This is always helpful when exploring new areas (and sometimes a godsend when you're not prepared to fight).
Jimmy, I can't say I have any specific advice for demon negotiation. There are far more skillful SMT players on this board who may be able to help you there. One trick to remember is just what Echoes and Kuwabara were talking about: talking to a particular demon when you already have that demon in your current roster will automatically net you items, macca, or a free heal. This is always helpful when exploring new areas (and sometimes a godsend when you're not prepared to fight).
charlequin
Banned
Cep said:
I'm totally confused. Everyone kept telling me about the terrible unpleasant dungeons in this game after you get to the midpoint and for me, once you hit Eridanus the dungeon design really gets going. Grus is fucking awesome. :lol
KuwabaraTheMan
Banned
decoyplatypus said:
It's worth noting that it doesn't always happen. Sometimes, they'll just be total douches and leave without giving you anything. Also, some species (unintelligible ones and the hidden demons) won't even notice/care that you have a member of their species in your party.
charlequin said:
It really depends on how you would define "good" dungeons, especially in a dungeon crawler. For a crawling fanatic, Eridanus is literally heaven. For others, it virtually is a layer of hell in of itself. Personally, I felt that the dungeons after Eridanus were pretty boring. Fornax kinda sucked in every respect (boring dungeon, meh) and Grux was a palette swap dungeon that's over pretty quick. At least Sector H was good to look at and had good (and new) music. Too bad the bosses were off the bullshit scale in that dungeon.
charlequin said:
Yeah, I don't really get the dungeon complaints either. For me, the two weakest dungeons were B and D. I like F's "wing" structure, G's mazes, and the first stratum of sector H (it really is like an entire EO stratum). E was fantastic all around. Hated the music in the first part of H, and all of G though. There's no reason for the game's soundtrack to be as brief and repetitive as it is.
Pureauthor
Member
Arid Anus would be so much better if they let you tag your maps.
But nooooooooooooooooooo...
But nooooooooooooooooooo...
charlequin
Banned
Yaweee said:
Agreed! I was getting kind of bored in Delphinus, but Eridanus drew me right back in and Grus was like omg so awesome.
Pureauthor said:
Yeah, I liked to call sector E "Dusty Butthole" but people looked at me funny. :lol
(I agree it'd be better if they let you notate the maps. SJ-2, I guess!)
charlequin said:
Segata Sanshiro said:
I only got as far as Sector D and have recently picked it up again (mainly for the music and the art though).
I suppose my problem with the dungeons lies in the fact that I never really played any of those old dungeon crawlers, so the dungeons I am used to craw through feel more...natural.
Do not get me wrong, I feel that they are fantastically structured, but even with the great atmosphere, a sense a of place feels really missing (and this is exacerbated by what I feel to be an unnecessary length).
And then there is the story progression and how I think it clashes a little from the dungeon progression...
Cep said:
In comparison to Nocturne (and both DDS games), how do they differ in your opinion? For instance, the Karma Tower of DDS1 has similar teleporting nonsense that Eridanus has, but I still like the Karma Tower more due to the sense of urgency in the story, the music, and the graphic/art style. That, and the structure is mazey without being utterly sadistic. Surprisingly, the SMT series has made much worse dungeons than anything in Strange Journey at one point or another, so that could be another reason why some are used to this kind of thing too.
I'm pretty sure that Neutral Route Cathedral in the first SMT game can count as a war crime.
MechaX said:
I did not like DDS, so I never got past a couple hours on that one.
As for Nocturne, I still had the same problem with the some of the dungeons not feeling like actual places, but Nocturne has such well structured dungeons (some with actual puzzles) that I did not really mind too much.
Then again, I found Nocturne's combat to be much more engaging so that may also have something to do with it; SJ's combat is really dull and simplistic in comparison.
Splash Wave
Member
A couple more questions (and thanks to everyone for the help so far):
Should I just register all of my demons, or should I wait until I'm going to fuse them? And should I avoid demons that aren't of my alignment? I'm neutral right now, but I'm pretty sure I'm leaning toward law.
Should I just register all of my demons, or should I wait until I'm going to fuse them? And should I avoid demons that aren't of my alignment? I'm neutral right now, but I'm pretty sure I'm leaning toward law.
decoyplatypus
Member
Jimmy Stav said:
1. The most important time to register demons is before you fuse them, but you may want to re-register the same demon every so often in case you get a bad result from a skill change. In fact, the only time you WOULDN'T want to register a demon is when you already have a better version of the same in your compendium. For example, if you had a great Lilim that you fused away, and you recruited a new Lilim solely as an ingredient for fusion, you wouldn't register the second Lilim.
2. People may have different opinions on this, but I don't think there's any reason to avoid demons of a different alignment. They may have valuable skills (or fuse into demons with valuable skills), and lacking a perfect devil co-op isn't going to prevent you from winning regular fights.
thefil said:
The fusion system is a lot less complicated in Strange Journey than in P1. In SJ, when you negotiate successfully with a demon, you just get that demon, not its card which you then have to fuse later to get a workable Persona. Demons can be fused at anytime, too; you don't have to visit a special facility to do it.
There's tons and tons of other differences too, of course, but that one in particular is what I think may make SJ accessible to someone who was turned off by P1.
jaundicejuice
Member
About the only complaint I have of Strange Journey is the inability to add on to your map, there are some sections in the third realm that were kind of off-putting because of this.
Did I post yet? This game is fuck-all awesome. Best DS game I've played ever, maybe. I just got to the forth area, didn't have my DS for, like, 4 or 5 days, and was dying.
Jumping back in today.
Never played a SMT game except a little bit of that Persona PS1 game, which I was not ready for at the time (when it first came out) I was looking for something with higher production values...
LOVE THIS!
Jumping back in today.
Never played a SMT game except a little bit of that Persona PS1 game, which I was not ready for at the time (when it first came out) I was looking for something with higher production values...
LOVE THIS!