Shin Megami Tensei Series

[Battlechili]

Any of you ever played any Shin Megami Tensei games?

 

Is a series of RPGs developed by Atlus that has been going on since the PS1 era (though before that, there were Megami Tensei games). Its had a bunch of spinoff series, the most popular of which is the Persona series.

 

I recently started playing Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner- Raidou Kuzunoha VS The Soulless Army and Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES. They've been a lot of fun. Surprisingly so, even. 

 

The games, while often varying at least a little bit in terms of gameplay, all tend to share similar themes. They often combine a lot of religious and occult elements with (usually) turn based gameplay that involves fighting, summoning, and negotiating with demons so that the player can later use those said demons in combat. A good many of the games are sort of like Pokemon in a way, where while you can fight as well, getting demons on your side and using them for battle against other demons is very common. They games are oftentimes very dark and sometimes very Japanese.

 

Recently, Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne was added to PSN. (and Devil Summoner, Persona 2: Innocent Sin, Persona 3 FES, and Persona 4 had already been added) 

 

 

Anyways, have any of you played any of the SMT games? What do you think of em'? Do you have a favorite one?

SMT discussion thread.

[mjakob42]

I do love Atlus...

 

Many of my friends back home are hardcore fans of the series, Persona 3 especially. I really want to play them - it's just a matter of taking the time to sit down n' play them. I've been needing something else to help kill time, so if I go pick up P3 within the next few weeks or so, consider yourself my reason for doing so 

[Xortberg]

Fair warning to anyone who's yet to play Persona 3: for the love of all that is holy, PLAY THE PSP VERSION

 

It lacks the extra, post-story mode, which is a bummer, but that's a small price to pay considering it's the only version of the game that lets you directly control your party instead of only letting you directly control the main character forcing you to rely on the insanely retarded AI for your party members.

 

But yeah, I've tried to play lots of SMT games but the only two that I've managed to invest myself in enough to complete are Persona 3 and 4. P2 was just so poorly translated and had that stupid system where you have to negotiate for tarot cards to get new Personas, and the games in the SMT series proper just haven't managed to get me hooked. The closest one's come was Nocturne, but my computer couldn't handle it on an emulator when I reached the later, more graphically intensive parts of the game. Now that it's on PSN, I'll probably play it.

[Battlechili]

Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga was recently added to PSN. Looks like Atlus is on a role.

Persona 3: The Movie #1 came out in the US today as well.

Fair warning to anyone who's yet to play Persona 3: for the love of all that is holy, PLAY THE PSP VERSION

 

It lacks the extra, post-story mode, which is a bummer, but that's a small price to pay considering it's the only version of the game that lets you directly control your party instead of only letting you directly control the main character forcing you to rely on the insanely retarded AI for your party members.

 

But yeah, I've tried to play lots of SMT games but the only two that I've managed to invest myself in enough to complete are Persona 3 and 4. P2 was just so poorly translated and had that stupid system where you have to negotiate for tarot cards to get new Personas, and the games in the SMT series proper just haven't managed to get me hooked. The closest one's come was Nocturne, but my computer couldn't handle it on an emulator when I reached the later, more graphically intensive parts of the game. Now that it's on PSN, I'll probably play it.

I uh...I don't know about that. Persona 3 FES has anime cutscenes as well as, like you said, the extra post-story mode. You have some control of your party using the "tactics" screen, and the AI isn't bad in FES. 

Half of P2 has been released in a remade version for PSP. It might not have those translation issues.

I do love Atlus...

 

Many of my friends back home are hardcore fans of the series, Persona 3 especially. I really want to play them - it's just a matter of taking the time to sit down n' play them. I've been needing something else to help kill time, so if I go pick up P3 within the next few weeks or so, consider yourself my reason for doing so 

Do get P3! I'm glad you're willing to try the games, and P3 is a GREAT start for the series. Hope you enjoy it!

[Xortberg]

I've been waiting for that movie so long. I've only ever heard the English voice actors in the game, so I'm interested to hear how the Japanese sounds.

 

I uh...I don't know about that. Persona 3 FES has anime cutscenes as well as, like you said, the extra post-story mode. You have some control of your party using the "tactics" screen, and the AI isn't bad in FES. 

Half of P2 has been released in a remade version for PSP. It might not have those translation issues.

 

The anime cutscenes are nice, but holy shit you can't be talking about the same AI I played with. Mitsuru constantly spamming Marin Karin even when literally EVERY OTHER OPTION SHE HAD was a better choice? And WARNING: Mild last boss spoilers

 

The last boss throwing up an ability every few turns that block all damage and reflects it as a flat 500 damage on whoever hits it? Yeah, the party AI never learned from that. If they got killed by it once, they'd go right back to attacking it the moment you revived them. The whole last part of that fight I just had to have every party member set to do nothing every 3/5 turns or so.

 

The AI is completely retarded. Anime cutscenes and an after-story mode that, from what I hear, suffers from the dumb AI even more do not make up for it in my opinion. Especially when P3P also adds the female playable character mode, which nets you a whole new set of Social Links, and also adds some extra stuff to the ending of the game.

 

And yeah, the P2 remake has new voice actors I think, which implies they probably also had a better translation. I still don't like the whole "negotiate for cards" aspect, but with better translations the negotiations might actually start to make some sense so maybe it'll be better.

[Battlechili]

Just a heads up; Digital Devil Saga 2 along and Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs King Abaddon have been added to PSN.

Besides that, the game Devil Survivor 2: Break Record is finally set to be released on the 3DS in Japan on Janurary 29.

Added to that, both Persona 5 and Persona Q are on their way:

 

 

 

 

 

 Mitsuru constantly spamming Marin Karin even when literally EVERY OTHER OPTION SHE HAD was a better choice? 

 

I've had issues with stuff like that myself, although USUALLY (not always of course), if one of my allies has a move that has a type advantage over the enemy they'll spam that. But you're right, that is a problem FES has.

[Arminius H O Fiddywinks]

It's a Shin Megami Tensei thread, but we're talking about Persona...

 

It's like a Super Mario Bros. thread and we're talking about Luigi's Mansion.

[Battlechili]

New Persona 5 trailer. Gameplay footage imbound. Proceed to board the hype train.

 

Also some news on Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker. Apparently the extra Durarara!! characters that were being added in the Japanese version will likely not be in the American version. Speculation believes that this is due to licensing issues. And while a release date for the game has not been confirmed in the US, Amazon is listing it for April 7.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2015-01-12/durarara-characters-appear-in-devil-survivor-2-record-breaker-game/.83179

It's a Shin Megami Tensei thread, but we're talking about Persona...

 

It's like a Super Mario Bros. thread and we're talking about Luigi's Mansion.

Its not like there's a whole lot of new mainline SMT news. Besides, I'm fine with people going so far as talking about Catherine and its only related in existing within the Persona universe. I like SMT, but besides the rerelease of Devil Survivor 2 there isn't much to talk about.

[Battlechili]

New Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem trailer.

 

Now with twice the lack of SMT and Fire Emblem!

 

In all seriousness there's a little SMT in there. Let me know if you find the Hee-Ho...

[Xortberg]

Supremely disappointing. I'm lazy, so I'll copypaste my wall from Facebook.

 

My problem with SMT x FE is that it looks like neither SMT NOR FE

Like holy shit. I saw a Tiki lookalike (or maybe just Tiki it was a split second I couldn't tell) and what miiight have been a shadow Lucina? Maybe?

The character designs looked more like Final Fantasy bullshit, the tone and setting looked much more Persona than SMT (which yes, Persona is an SMT subseries, but it's not SMT proper and it's not what we were teased with all that time ago) and I didn't see a single shadow or SMT demon.

Gameplay didn't look like FE or SMT, or even really a fusion of both. It looked like its own thing, which sure that's cool and all, but it's not what I look for in a crossover of two games each with an established style of gameplay

And the fucking music was terrible. I'm fine with bland Jpop crap if it fits, but Fire Emblem always has these cool, grand orchestrated themes and even if they're only drawing influence from the Persona end of SMT, Shoji Meguro has shat out cooler tunes than what we got in the trailer. The worst songs in P3/4 are better than that. He gives us really good, cool music in a different style for either game and what we got was nothing close to it.

So yeah, SMT x FE is looking pretty shit from where I stand.

 

___

 

Since then, I've had a few things pointed out to me, like:

 

https://scontent-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/11130100_756324091151085_4197142643107988608_n.jpg?oh=4b3c97c9162891d6b62daa1c779c8d63&oe=55B8D6E0

 

So apparently, we DO see FE characters

[8:14:58 AM] Xortberg: ...Nevermind the fact that it looks almost nothing like him, and they don't even give him a color scheme close to what he had to make it a bit easier to realize what we're looking at

 

But yeah, as I said to good ol Rob on Skype, that's barely identifiable as Gangrel. The least they could do was keep a similar color scheme.

 

I'm not happy.

[Battlechili]

There's actually one picture of Jack Frost in that trailer during the scene when the MC is walking around the city with all the colored silhouettes.

[Xortberg]

Like I said, it's been pointed out to me that there's more references and crossover stuff than I saw at first

 

But again, it's shit that flashes up for an extremely small amount of time and isn't even very clear when it does. I was trying to get a screenshot of Tiki around 1;00 or so and I had to rewind three times because LOOK SHE'S THERE NOW SHE'S GONE

 

And then there's Gangrel who's only recognizable because of his goatee really. Once it was pointed out I could see similarities to his crown and shit, but not even giving him the same or a similar color pallet is just dumb. This is a terrible, incomprehensible mess of a trailer.

 

Compare it to the P5 trailer: we got to see the characters in their element as thieves, doing the sneaking thing, which presented a clear theme. We got to see some classic SMT demons, showing that we're apparently departing from the usual Persona Shadows we've gotten in 3/4, we got lots of brief shots but all of those were little mysterious things like the fox-person on the roof or what have you. All the important things, like giving us a look at the characters and whatnot, were there long enough for us to get a feel for them and actually build some hype without having to watch it 5 times and pause every time you see something interesting.

 

Also, the music was good.

[Battlechili]

Shin Megami Tensei IV Final is a thing now. Its apparently a new game, with a sort of similar relationship with SMTIV that Devil Survivor 2 has with the original. The old IV team is back for this one, but it looks like its taking some influence from Nocturne this time around.

Edited October 24, 2015 by Battlechili1

[Battlechili]

Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse is officially out!

Though a fair warning to anyone that might give it a go, Atlus accidentally didn't finish translating it. There's a small part at end-game where if you have a party member fall during a boss fight, dialogue appears. They didn't translate this dialogue, as apparently they never had a party member fall during the particular boss fight where this happens during testing.

http://atlus.com/smtiv-faux-pas-calypse/

(I hope its okay bumping this old thing I made. SMT itself is a series niche enough to where I'm not sure it'd be a good idea to make threads for specific games)