The General SMT Thread

[Chaos Avian]

Oh yeah Atlus went bust I heard... WAIT WHAT? Pairing up with NIS America?? OH YES... OOHHH YES~

 

[monkeynohito]

Their parent company in Japan is in trouble for financial naughtiness of some white collar sort. According to the US branch, "We’re carrying on day-to-day activities, business as usual." It would be a ways down the road before any troubles trickle down if it even comes to that.

 

[Jawnsunn]

I'm not too worried. All they have to do is re-release Persona 3 and 4 again, and they'll be making bank.

On a sort-of related note I've been playing the Persona 2 duology(Innocent Sin, Eternal Punishment) again. They're pretty aged games, but I REALLY want to finish the story. I only got through 8 hours of it(Music Store Dungeon) until I gave up.

Maybe I should change this thread into a general SMT thread...

 

[monkeynohito]

Yeah, general SMT thread is a good idea.

I've only ever played Eternal Punishment out of the two and not too far in because it plays a little glitchy on my PS2. I didn't even know Innocent Sin was released on PSP. That's it, I have to get a portable playstation thing now, but it's confusing for an old man like me...

 

[Jawnsunn]

That playstation portable thing you talk about is probably best JRPG gaming system to date.

Disgaea, Ys, Trails in the Sky, Lunar 1, PSX RPGs on PSN, Persona 1-3 Portable, Cladun...

not to mention how easy it is get emulation and ps1 running on that system.

sweet jesus.

brb, gonna go find a psp. 

 

[monkeynohito]

Yeah, definitely need one when Income is a little more disposable. Does Vita run PSP games? I was always put off by trying to make sense of all the different PSP models too, any suggestions there? Of course, 3ds has some nice-looking games too. Spoilt for choice.

Anyhoo, new trailer spills the beans on the contemporary-looking levels:




Though it -could- be the same sort of reality instancing we saw in Strange Journey, it seems like they travel to Tokyo the old-fashioned way. Connection to any previous games in the series seems pretty implausible if it's the actual city though.

 

[Jawnsunn]

It would be mindblowing if Tokyo was just some VR Mission thing like the ones they had in SMT 2 and Digital Devil Saga.

oh man...

About the PSP: Yes, the Vita can run CERTAIN PSP games. As in the ones only on the PSN Store, not UMD copies. For PSP models, anyone will do. There's 1000, the 2000, and the 3000 series. The 3000 has a brighter and slimmer design. I think if you look around hard enough, you'll probably find one for at least $30-$50. Maybe if you went to a flea market or garage sale, you'll probably have more luck on finding one for cheap.

Jeez, just talking about this makes me wish I had a working PSP again. My broken one that's sitting next to my Ys Seven and Special Edition Ys 1 and 2 Chronicles is tormenting me. The abuse I gave it when I was in 6th to 8th grade pretty much gave the thing cancer and died on me in 2011.

RIP Jawnsunn's PSP 2006 - 2011. Never Forget.

 

[monkeynohito]

I just started Nocturne again, it's such a dinosaur. Unbalanced battles that'd make Dragon Quest blush, enemies weak to attack types you don't even have access to yet, fiddly interface. Seriously, you have to remove a party member before you can summon a new one, so many hassles all over the place. No Compendium access until a fair ways in either. It's crazy how far the series progressed at P3 and afterwards.

I'm actually wondering how they'll handle demon negotiations in the new one. I'm kinda worried they'll go for something more like Persona 3 and 4, but I did think the negotiation in Strange Journey was vastly superior to Nocturne even. I was better structured and lacked all those banter skills taking up valuable skill real estate.

It'd be a little weird, but what if SMT 4 is a direct sequel to Strange Journey? It would make sense with the Black Samurai and if that Tokyo really was a copy.

 

[Jawnsunn]

I never found Nocturne's beginning that hard. I just punched **** and dealt with it. After that, it goes by a lot better. You won't mind the random battles if you got a good party set-up. But Matador. Matador will Frick you up.

Oh god, the demon negotiations:

"Hey, give me some money and maybe I'll be your party member!"

>Gives 500 macca

"This isn't enough you cheap bastard, come on!"

>Gives 1000 macca and a Chakra Drop

"Look, sorry, but I can't be your party member. I see you're already at full health. Let me heal you again, just in case!"

And then there's the Labyrinth of Amala... That place is dayum insane.

I need to get back to playing Nocturne again. I haven't finished it myself.

 

[Touchfuzzy]

I like Nocturne, but in some ways it is really really badly designed. HEY GUYS LETS HAVE SUPER FREQUENT RANDOM ENCOUNTERS WITH ABSOLUTELY ZERO SAFE ZONES, SO YOU CAN EVEN WALK FROM A SHOP TO A SAVE POINT WITHOUT BEING ATTACKED 80 TIMES.

Also random encounters took waaaay too long if you took them out as efficiently as possible, so that was another added wrinkle in the "random encounters every 5 steps".

 

[monkeynohito]

Just beat Matador again. Brute forced him at 18 with a uzume, noguchi and a bicorn who only lasted, like, 3 rounds. Barely managed to pull through with me and uzume left in the red.

Oddly enough, there are a very few legitimate safe zones in the game like the mannikin area of the underpass and some of the dungeon healing rooms (moon phase exploit, on!) There were some odd conscious decisions going into making encounters frustrating. Step in that water and the rate shoots up beyond normal though.

Misses -really- hurts in this game's press turn design too. Dude, missing sucks already! It was still pretty harsh in Persona 3, but at least it made sense since it was that party member losing the next turn. They just got rid of it altogether in P4, didn't they?

It was minor improvements to negotiation flow like front-loading the questions that really elevated Strange Journey's system for me. When are they going to show me how many of a requested item I have left though?! They list Makka, so they understand the concept.

Umm, also another request for a thread name change to general SMT, I can't stay on topic for the life of me here. Or we could start a new one.

 

[Shelby]

Ok back on track, I have super low bandwidth so I couldnt run the video you posted about the new game but I am a super fan of the series, but the main thing I want to know is will they actually SHOW your demons in battles this time or are they just gonna show the names like in all the other handheld versions which I HATE btw.

 

[Jawnsunn]

You won't see your demons in the game, just like the old Dragon Quest games. In my opinion, I find it pretty cool since SMT4 caters to both the newcomer/casual crowd and the fans of the older SMT games.

I don't even understand how I like front-view battles.

I like Nocturne, but in some ways it is really really badly designed. HEY GUYS LETS HAVE SUPER FREQUENT RANDOM ENCOUNTERS WITH ABSOLUTELY ZERO SAFE ZONES, SO YOU CAN EVEN WALK FROM A SHOP TO A SAVE POINT WITHOUT BEING ATTACKED 80 TIMES.

Also random encounters took waaaay too long if you took them out as efficiently as possible, so that was another added wrinkle in the "random encounters every 5 steps".

Estoma is your friend man. With that on your backup demon, random encounters are every 30 steps or so.

Will probably change the thread soon. Go off-topic. Have fun!

Edit: Done!

 

[Touchfuzzy]

Dude, I've beat the game, but honestly, I've always felt that use items/spells to reduce encounters for a set amount of time are just another hindrance. Why make me constantly open the menu just to use an item and consume something and go back constantly. If they had balanced the encounter frequency to begin with, they wouldn't have needed that to be an always do thing.

I'm usually not one to ***** about random encounters. Hell, I'm an old school DQ fan. But Nocturne's encounters are ridiculous, not only in frequency but in LENGTH, and having to constantly spam a spell just so I can run around an area without being attacked every 2 seconds is not good design.

 

[monkeynohito]

Lalala, here's some of the negotiation, battle and fusion from SMT 4:




Negotiating a new demon right into your party mid-battle is sexy. I see they've made great advances in the item bartering too, namely seeing how much of something you have left, lol.

I have to agree with Touchfuzzy on the random encounters. They resemble some of the worst areas in a DQ game, far beyond when you factor in waves and you have to be on point with weaknesses or be in for one drag-ass fight when there aren't any. On the other hand, I never really get bored with the boss fights, they can be marathons sometimes, but they manage to keep the fights dynamic

 

[Jawnsunn]

I probably never minded the random encounters since I put so much points into STR on my Demi-Fiend.

Encounter ->Auto-Battle ->Done!

I'm 11 hours into Persona 2 Innocent Sin, past the Aoba Park dungeon.

Hoooly crap did this game get good. Some lady just called my friend a pawn of Hitler. That's some crazy foreshadowing right there.

If any Persona 3 & 4 fans are out there, I recommend to give the Persona 2 games a try. If you can deal with the encounter rate, there's actually a really awesome story under it that gives P4 a run for it's money.

 

[Chaos Avian]

P2 is amazing. heck I managed to get P1 and P2 for a total of £16 off of PSN. I think P1 has the higher encounter rate but I do prefer 2. It's like the Persona games got watered down over the years. Although I loved P4 its the only SMT game so far with a "happy" ending. I'm a bit evil so I was ok, but I wanted some more suffering~

 

[monkeynohito]

I'm an American; I like happy endings. :3

I love all the Persona games. 1 & 2 really give the demons and the mystical otherworld a more unique external personality and presence. It's cool to visit their world and see how strange it all is. Everything about Persona 3 and 4 is more about character drama though and the plots and creatures and anomalous nature of the circumstances support that better. The later ones are definitely more personal I think.

Has anyone played either of the Demikids games? lolol

 

[Jawnsunn]

Before there was Kanji, the man who like dudes who are chicks with huge breasts, there was Eikichi Mishina.

Spoiler

"Oh, oh! Listen up, you little ****! Michel's here now, so you'd better know your place! You want a piece o' me, ****er? Well then, come at me!"

Badass enough to get a demon's cards with that line.

 

[awesomerhys]

I'm dying to get my hands on SMTIV, but there's been no release date announced for Europe yet! And the accursed 3DS region lock is making sure I have to wait. God damn it, Nintendo! 

Gonna be predictable here and say my two favourite SMT games are P4: Golden and Nocturne, though I never did beat the latter on account of it being balls hard. I'd love Atlus to HD-ify it and add difficulty levels/various extra things. I'd love to play the Raidou Kuzunoha games, too, but they're somewhat rare and expensive, to my knowledge at least.

I also really love the dark tones the series has, definitely creepier and ballsier than most other RPG series. I played a little of Persona 2 on my Vita, and was immediately weirded out by the fact that half of the students' faces were completely bandaged up.