Atlus So, uh, Majin Tensei 2: Spiral Nemesis

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Just finished this one and thought I'd share a few thoughts on what I liked/disliked about the game and a few tips for those who plan to beat this one once the translation patch comes out (it's excellent btw). I'll spare myself the trouble of explaining what is a SRPG and what MegaTen games are about.

Fans will prolly enjoy the idea of mixing Fire Emblem with the favorite MegaTen stuff (difficulty that does not feel like an insult to your intelligence, demon recruitment with some funny dialogue, fusing dogs with hawt fairies and so on), but without wasting hours on reading the endless stream of small talk found in Devil Survivor games.

As far as SRPGs go this one is not too shabby and I enjoyed it a lot, but it's not without its fair share of minor flaws that can stack and hinder one's enjoyment of the game, sometimes to the point of burnout, but it's a common problem with almost every MegaTen game, eh?

Be warned: this post may be spoiler-ish, so if you want to be surprised, then stop reading right now.

Spoiler

So, the stuff I liked:

• The player character is not silent, which makes talking to demons feel a bit more natural and there's some genuinely funny dialogue. If you're not a fan of these, you can just bribe 'em w/ $$$/MAG/items;
• You can manage the equipment of all of your allies, including demons, which makes running back and forth between the shops a bit less necessary, as you can just offload your old equipment to them. Also giving bows to certain demons is satisfying as fuck;
• Some of the maps can stomp your ass pretty good if you don't pay attention to the demon types / terrain. Just wait till you reach Ginza;
• Demon Fusion... ahem, Remix Fusion in the middle of the battle. Can be a very powerful tool in the right hands;
• Great soundtrack w/ a few arranged tracks from the original Majin Tensei (although I prefer the original versions a lot more);
• Some great demon artwork where a large portion of designs are pretty different to the Kazuma Kaneko's vision.

Stuff that pissed me off:

• Long-ass enemy turns -- there's minor delay between enemy actions, and it gets very noticeable when there are dozens of demons on the map, which makes you turn off the battle animations and use the speedup function in the emulator, which makes you miss out on some awesome artwork;
• Filler -- some of the chapters feel like they are designed to drag out the playtime and I bet if 10-20% of them were left on the cutting room floor the game would only benefit from it.

Stuff that you should consider doing if you want to reach the ending with your butthole intact:

• Pay attention to the affinity & terrain;
• Get a few MHDs (demons of Dragon King class) as soon as you can;
• Let underleveled units land final blows to get them back on track;
• Let ranged units attack first then use the melee units to avoid wasting time;
• Remix demons regularly (use Rag's shop to obtain the spirits to upgrade 'em), otherwise they'll eventually stop getting stat bonuses upon ranking up (apart from +2 to max hp or smth) and eventually become near-useless, but don't worry about it too much, as they can serve you for a long time w/o issues. As a good example, I had a machete rape squad comprised of Tanki, Brownie and Momunofu from almost the very beginning that only got obliterated somewhere in the second half of the game.

TL;DR: Majin Tensei 2 is gr8 despite some tedious moments and a must play for a MegaTen fan who wants an SRPG fix but cannot stand the weaboo cancer in Devil Survivor.

 

[RegionalHobo]

i'm amazed this is being translated.

what s the group name? do we have a ETA on release?

majin tensei is one of the last frontiers of atlus games for me. i'd play it for curiosity alone but it's also a good game? that s fantastic news

does this use the fire emblem system where units permadie?

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

what s the group name? do we have a ETA on release?

Tom's Translations, can't say anything about the ETA on release as I'm not in the know. IIRC only the Chaos-Light path is left to test.

does this use the fire emblem system where units permadie?

Demons die permanently, but losing a human character results in a game over.

 

[Vagiel]

First of all it's amazing to see it's been translated. I was always interested in these two games.

And a question on gameplay. Are the demon's unique here apart from stats? I mean do they different movement ranges, flying etc?

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Are the demon's unique here apart from stats? I mean do they different movement ranges, flying etc?

Yes, both humans and demons have different movement ranges and types, e.g. certain demon classes can freely move on water, while flying types can also move across tall buildings. The walking units have their movement range affected by the terrain type, e.g. if you're climbing on a mountain or crossing the forest, the movement range will be affected by it.

Certain demons may or may not use equipment for certain slots (or only use specific types of equipment), e.g. MHDs cannot use equipment which kinda makes them feel like glass cannons, while others may equip knives, ranged weapons, same armor as human characters, etc. A Pixie (which I used as a healing unit) is more of a threat if it has some light armor and a knife to avoid getting devastated by a stronger unit, while a weak Brownie can become a walking killing machine by giving him the best available equipment and letting him rank up a few times.

Also, certain demon classes & spells are better/useless against others. There's a table available in the game at any time where you can check their affinity to decide which unit should attack this demon class or just approach the enemy and check the affinity before attacking, which adds another layer to the game.

It's all pretty simple in a 'makes sense' fashion but results in manageable level of complexity when layered together.

 

[Vorark]

I miss old school Atlus.

 

[lightbane]

I thought this was not fully translated yet? It must be a new patch.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

I thought this was not fully translated yet? It must be a new patch.

It's a new patch, not released to the public yet.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

To not repeating myself I'll paste it here:

I finally beat Majin Tensei II. How's quality of it?

Gameplay-wise it can be compared to Devil Survivor 1 and 2... but the differences between them are the same as between SMT1/2 and Nocturne/SJ - MJII is unbalanced and broken as hell. Offensive magic is pretty useless, you rely mostly on physical hitters so made at least two of them a keep rest in role of healers - heroine as magical one and the others as muscle drink spammmers.

I can't say much about negotiating/summoning/fusing demons coz there wasn't need to that anyway and I hate those early SMT magnetite bullshit.

Difficulty-wise is second easiest MegaTen game second to Innocent Sin. With max strenght characters of pretty high agility I was able to take down almost all bosses in one turn (two hits), including such high level behemoths like Belzebub (trivia: he's a chick here) or satan! Only villains that could survive more then one turn was Michael and Lucifer. I DeSu every boss was a threat, in Majin Tensei II main concern is to annihilate his guards, then he became a cakewalk as he's no more than regular enemy with a little bit more HP and uniqe skills.

Only three things can be considered as PITA - 'artillery' demon units like Niddhogg, Fafnir or Raja Naga that have extremely high attack range and can obliterate any character in 1-2 hits (unless they miss ofkoz) but once you get near them, they're becoming defensless. Second thing is chapter 22? 23? in which you have to protect your base, your units are far from it and there is demon respawning point nearby so unless you have 30 agility you'll fail to reach your own base before demon that spawns after 2nd turn. At last, game is over with death of any human character, not only MC so no revival beads here.

There are one grinding place for each territory - there is a summoner that sends against u some demons and once you killed them, your'e trapped in the map since summoner is unreachable so only way to exit is to escape. There's penalty for grinding escaping, u loose half of your macca unless u run via smoke screen item but who cares - u can reach 999999 capacity limit of macca in a single story scenario.

Overall is a nice game but apart from artstyle, it's inferior to DeSu in every way and shares most of early MegaTens' flaws.

 

[Zerth]

Glad to know It has terrain effects, something that DeSu game most of times lacked (only if u count DeSu 2 Alioth's occasional poison as terrain effect). So, It's split up into stages as DeSu games or It consists of an overworld map where you can enter and roam freely each area as the first Majin Tensei?.

Fans will prolly enjoy the idea of mixing Fire Emblem with the favorite MegaTen stuff (difficulty that does not feel like an insult to your intelligence, demon recruitment with some funny dialogue, fusing dogs with hawt fairies and so on), but without wasting hours on reading the endless stream of small talk found in Devil Survivor games.

Although I prefer demon shenanigans over boring teenager chit chat. I wonder how different is the narrative flow and dialogue structure compared to DeSu games, which is mostly railroaded and infested with pointless dialogue choices (1. Yes 2. No (yes) kind of stuff). It has VN elements?

Only three things can be considered as PITA - 'artillery' demon units like Niddhogg, Fafnir or Raja Naga that have extremely high attack range and can obliterate any character in 1-2 hits (unless they miss ofkoz) but once you get near them, they're becoming defensless.

DeSu Vile race ability it's pretty much similar to this. They are not as vulnerable tho.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

So, It's split up into stages as DeSu games or It consists of an overworld map where you can enter and roam freely each area as the first Majin Tensei?..

It's linear except for alingment choices.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

So, It's split up into stages as DeSu games or It consists of an overworld map where you can enter and roam freely each area as the first Majin Tensei?.

Same as MT1 -- overworld map where you can roam freely between the next chapter, shops (provided you have a clear path to them) and challenge maps, but the story progression is linear with an occasional optional map (I think I encountered only two of these during the whole Neutral playthrough). There are also points of no return which are only connected to Rag's Shop or Remix Station.

It has VN elements?

Talking is minimal compared to Devil Survivor and I only remember two dialogues with choices during a single playthrough (w/o taking communication w/ demons into account(. I'd say there's more talking than in other MegaTen games from 90's, but there's no filler -- even party banter is pretty much a message or two.

 

[grimace]

oddech_wymarlych_swiatow " With max strenght characters of pretty high agility I was able to take down almost all bosses in one turn (two hits)"

When you say agility do you mean speed?

The player character stats are:

Strength
Wisdom
Magic
Vitality
Speed
Luck

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

When you say agility do you mean speed?

Yes, I got used to agility term because of every other SMT using it, force of habit.