Shin Megami Tensei Series Review (9-16-09)

I like the smt series, I haven't played all of them but of the ones I have played I will gladly tell you about them (spoilers for those who have not played the game).
Nocturne:
This is a great game and a lot of people do not seem to understand the plot for some reason. It isn't random that the world ends and you survive. The main character is going to visit a teacher in hospital and the teacher is part of a cult who are attempting to end the world so they can change it and make it better. Hikawa (the leader of this cult) ends the world but ensures that everyone in the hospital survives (for the obvious reason that he doesn't want himself and his followers to die). The teacher did not want the main character to die (which raises questions as to what kind of relationship they had). Then after the world ends *spoiler* lucifer *spoiler* inserts a parasite in your eye which turns you into a half demon. The plot for the rest of the game is simple you must choose a side to take depending on what you want the new world to be, then climb up a big tower and beat the crap out of “god” and force him to make the world into whatever “reason” you picked (the reasons being a basic premise the world is based on). (I put god in “” because people tend to get confused, its not the christian god its actually the fire god kagutsuchi.) Now as for the skills having different names its only like how in final fantasy fire spells were fire fira and firaga and ice spells were blizzard blizara and blizaga. If you didnt know what “bufudyne” was then you wouldnt have to look it up, just look at the spell description which says “a single target heavy ice spell” if you get hit by a spell its kind of obvious what it does from either the animation or (in the case of rakunda) it will say “defense reduced”. With the bosses, I laughed when you mentioned matador. EVERYBODY gets beaten by matador on their first go through the game, this is because he is the first boss that isnt straight forward so to beat him you actually have to think and prepare for the battle (which admitidly requires either looking at a guide or losing against him first) all you need then is to equip the magatama that voids wind spells and make sure to have either dekaja (gets rid of his buffs) or sukunda/fog breath (decreases agility), you dont need to level grind for ages and there are probably other ways to beat him though what I have said is the most obvious and easiest to do (I did not use a strategy guide to work out how to beat him). I don't think you need a strategy guide to beat this game, I will start a new game and try it (my memory is terrible so you can't say ill just remember how to beat all the bosses and puzzles). Getting game over when the main character dies on nocturne makes sense as the demons in your party are basically slaves (except pixie and dante) so they don't really give a shit if you die.

Persona 3:
As for this it doesnt make sense why you get gameover when the main character dies. In answer to your question “what is at the top of the tower” I wont spoil it for you in case you havent completed it yet but I will say that it is not god or the devil but it is cool. one of the only things i really hated about persona 3 was the fact it tells you that you have a year but you dont you have until the end of january which is only about 9 months and as a warning persona 4 is even worse for this as you only have until xmas. The storyline to persona 3 is basically that they are trying to find out what the hell is going on with the dark hour, the shadows and personas, while making sure that the shadows dont kill people/give them apathy syndrome. With the social links most are quite interesting and I never had a problem with the girls getting mad at each other thing (guess i just got lucky) on both persona 3 and persona 4 my character had like 5 girlfriends at once.

Persona 4:
As a warning this game is very sexual for the first part of the game, not sure why though. There is no tower in this game.

Overall: I think what attracts people to this series is because its so different to other rpgs. It is one of the few rpgs that says “fuck not offending people” and goes ahead and has as much sexual content and swearing and evilness in it thats needed. Nocturne has some good examples of this, there is a child demon (jack frost) that called me a bastard when I answered a question wrong during battle and then hit me with bufu, when fighting the morie sisters I beat one then went to save before beating the next (I did not realise that I would have to fight them one after the other without leaving the room) and when I went to fight the first one again she said “my, you are persistant, we would make you our slave if we didn't have to kill you” (implied sexually), and then of course there is the fact you can decide to team up with lucifer and beat the crap out of a god. One of the things I really liked about these games was that the storylines were not the usual “go beat up this pretty boy because he wants to destroy/take over the world or has kidnapped someone you love/want to bone” as well as the freedom to have a different ending, all the persona games have 2 endings and nocturne (maniax edition, which is the one you have because you can't side with lucifer in the original nocturne) has 6 endings.

I have not played devil summoner or digital devil saga yet (interesting fact about digital devil saga though is that the main character from nocturne is an optional boss on it and is one apparently one of the most difficult bosses in all of rpgs). Feel free to ask me anything about persona 3/4 or nocturne though.

I had to stop the video about half way through because of the Digital Devil Saga ending spoiler, since I actually plan on beating that game some point in my life. The Tensei games are really the only console RPGs I can play anymore, since all the other ones are either too fucking Japanese for their own good, or have what I like to call DBZ syndrome where the game just drags on into these ridiculous battles and just never want to end. One game that I just stopped playing was Shadow Hearts Covenant, where you'd spend all this time to find out that the final boss wasn't really the final boss and the final boss after that wasn't the final boss, it was really someone that was your ally throughout the game that decided they wanted to turn evil and fight your…or something like that. It just completely ruined a game I was enjoying the hell out of.

Anyway, I got really into Nocturne and enjoyed how unfairly brutal the game was, but for whatever reason I just stopped. I even went as far as hunting down the strategy book for it, which was well worth the hunter (I must have went to 5 Gamestops, back when most Gamestops were Electronic Boutique) and proved to be extremely useful. I also enjoyed the hell out of Persona 3, which again was a game I just stopped playing for whatever reason and just never found my way back to it. I absolutely hated Devil Summoner tho, the battle system was extremely bad and the game just overall annoyed the fuck out of me.

I beat Persona 3 and I will not spoil it for you. x3 I have to admit that I did get a bit annoyed of the whole 'school' thing but oh well. It took me a while but I did beat Persona 3 surprisingly without any cheats, guides, help, or anything of the sort. When I got to the final boss, I thought 'shit I'm gonna lose' and I did. So after leveling up for like a week I finally beat him. As for when you said you can just leave someone behind if they die but the main character cannot, I hate that. One thing I hated a lot about the game was when Death started coming after you when you were in the tower. But I found a way around that. If I wasn't near a way out, if I was trapped, I would move so I was behind Junpei and Death just killed him. It was funny. I would be like “Fuck! Death is coming! Goddamnit, just leave Junpei behind!” It is a great game and I have not completed the second part of P3FES. Yes, everyone, there is basically two games in one. XD

I'm playing Persona 3 on the PSP and it's pretty easy for me. I wish the game had more bosses than just preparing for the boss that appears during the full moon and advance the plot. I'm at a part in the story where I'm just going through summer vacation and not even bothering to level grind or climb the tower and I find out why the bosses are showing up once every month, but it doesn't answer my question of, “HOW WAS THE TOWER MADE?! WHAT THE FUCK DOES IT DO?! ALL IT DOES IS STAND ON TOP OF MY SCHOOL!” I think I've been playing this game for five days and for some reason, I can't put it down. From morning to 4 a.m, I'd play this game spending the majority of the time just being sociable to my classmates and raising my social link levels. That's probably why I play this game because most RPGs don't really give you the whole “being sociable with the NPCs”, and I can also summon the Horseman of Death (he's actually called Pale Rider but he looks like the Grim Reaper on a horse so Death+ horse= 1 of the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse right?).

Sorry I accidentally double- posted.

Oh, and I forget.

Star Ocean 1, 2. Give those a chance. Star Ocean 1 was for Snes, Star Ocean 2 for PS1.

Now, Star Ocean 3 is falling into heavy cliches but it's not so bad, gameplay is the main reason really. I personally dislike the unjust comparisons to The Matrix, as the central philosophy differs heavily (SPOILERS: SO3's underlying end philosophy is, I think therefore I am)

Star Ocean 4 suffers from… Stupid, Stupid story twist. Stupid.

So yeah, SO1, 2, nice enough. But they're more action RPG, so it won't fit well with traditional RPG. Sort of akin to how Tales might be offputting for some.

SO3 is a bit give or take. SO4… Well, that's just sad. Gameplay's alright, but the story was just… bad fanfiction quality.

PS. Beat Nocturne on Hard, true demon ending, damn proud.

Oh and. The spells have been named as such since the first SMT… I think SMT actually came before Pokemon. So technically speaking, you can always nitpick and go “Pokemon copied off of SMT”

I know I enjoy being technical.

Way too many comments for me to look over. So basically:

The spells: They’re mythological or linguistic adaptations from all over the world, fitting well for the huge mishmash of mythology. (Ex: Megido, it’s a fortress though you might have better luck googling Megiddo. I believe it was supposed to be the edge of the apocalypse.)

Side note: Demons is a mis-translation from the original series, which lists all the “Demons” as Supernatural. Just to answer anyone’s curiosity as to why angels and hindu gods are listed as Demons. It’s because of a mistranslation, but Supernatural typically doesn’t sound appealing to most gamers.

Nitpicking: SMT is a selling brand here. Originally there’s only roughly 5 SMT games. SMT 1, 2, If, 3(Nocturne/Maniacs(US)/Chronicle version), SMT Strange Journey.

Megami Ibunroku is the other series, where Persona fits in the whole place. Persona 1 got ported over as Revelations Persona. Persona 2 was never ported, Persona 2.5 was ported as Persona 2: Eternal Punishment.

Persona 3, 3FES, P3P, P4, Digital Devil Saga, Devil Summoner were all misbranded as SMT over here to up sales and make the Atlus made series more easily identifiable.

Though incidentally also caused the ridiculously long title: Shin Megami Tensei Devil Summoner Raidou Kuzunoha vs The Soulless Army

Oh… damn, didn’t mean to triple post but.

General strategy that works with all bosses:
Cover your ass: Resist Expel/Death (Light/Dark) until you finally get Null. Next priority: Protect yourself from Status Ailments.

Rely on Buff and Debuff

For Nocturne: Focus on Physical. Most bosses until near end won’t be protected against it. Quick hint: Get Tornado. Heavy hitting spell early on.

And yes, when you have a strategy guide, you clutch unto it and it becomes your personal bible.

Now… on to commenting directly to other subjects in the video.
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DDS. I’d argue that it compares more to SO3. You’d need to know the full story, so that’s a whole spoilerfest theory right there.

Persona, it’s kinda sad that you missed out on the original entries. Personas are basically the metaphysical representation of your ego. The whole addition of nihilism in Persona 3 was… gimmicky, and made it a bit kind of… hard to deal with in a way. (Though personally I just kinda blurred it out of my mind)

Mudo/Hama (instant kill, dark and light respectively) don’t have that low a chance… it’s roughly 40%. Both ways (Yes, you using the spell gives a 40% chance of instant kill)

By the by. It’s okay to dislike parts of SMT games, they’re far from perfect, quite obviously. Persona 3 for exemple is a game I love, but accept as heavily flawed. As to answer your query as to why I love it…

Well, think of a young teenager playing a game where high school kids could defeat supernatural creatures utilising the power of their ego, their identity projected as the image of gods and demons… Damn. Oh and, the original two Personas make better use of philosophy then Persona 3/4.