Atlus Shin Megami Tensei IV 3DS (beating MaroonSkein to the punch!)

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Shall anyone LP dis gaem?

Wouldn't mind that too, because YT walkthrough videos are full of shit.
I mean, do these guys even know how to shut up?

 

[Nikaido]

You'll need to find someone who hasn't played the game yet if you want someone to LP it. The game is enjoyable on a first playthrough but its flaws can't withstand a second one. I dropped my new game + because it was just too boring to tears to go through the same micro-sized dungeons and repetitive fights again, even with the unlocked harder difficulty. And that unbearably unreadable world map with constant spawning. The harder difficulty doesn't really make the game feel too different, except for the Minotaur encounter of course.

 

[Avellion]

You'll need to find someone who hasn't played the game yet if you want someone to LP it. The game is enjoyable on a first playthrough but its flaws can't withstand a second one. I dropped my new game + because it was just too boring to tears to go through the same micro-sized dungeons and repetitive fights again, even with the unlocked harder difficulty. And that unbearably unreadable world map with constant spawning. The harder difficulty doesn't really make the game feel too different, except for the Minotaur encounter of course.

The difficulty in SMT4 was so poorly balanced. When the first real boss is harder than the final boss, something went horribly wrong with the balancing. You kept getting new tools, and the enemy arsenal stayed the same for most of the part throughout the game. Not to mention, no other boss had the minotaur's exceptional smirking and instakilling ability. Maybe they wanted another matador, but the matador wasn't really that hard as much as he was a reality check.

Not to mention, infinite MP thanks to the redicliously overpowered hp/mana drain ability that fully recharges all your mana from one cast, allowing you to effectively spam phys and magic reflect.

 

[Nikaido]

Not to mention, infinite MP thanks to the redicliously overpowered hp/mana drain ability that fully recharges all your mana from one cast, allowing you to effectively spam phys and magic reflect.

The entire upgrade system was built without much thought. At first I really liked it, because oh shiny and oh bringing some diversity into upgrades. But then I realized that it allows you to upgrade far too many things that just weren't meant to be. Like having a crazy huge army of demons with all the slots you can buy with Burroughs. With that particular pacing of level ups, demon fusion, low cost of buying demons etc and the fact that fusion allows you to select the skills you want, all contributed to keeping a MASSIVE army of demons that all had the skills you wanted without ever having to grind. In the other games, you'd have to grind to achieve that and since grinding is boring most people (I know I wouldn't) would not achieve that level of power and resilience, but SMT IV upgrade systems make it easy and you don't even have to try.
So, between the fact that pretty much all your demons would end up learning Drain magic (along with all the best skills in the game) without any effort, the fact that you have a billion of dem demons in your party (and thus can exchange them when one runs out of mana, rather than waste time using drain on trash when it's not needed) all at more or less the level required with all the skills you want, and things like the mana walker app.. it isn't even possible to run out of resource even if you TRIED hard to.
As soon as I got my first almighty AoE I used that on all trash fight every single time and ended most trash fights in the first round with that. There was never a sense of tension or paying attention to anything. Just spam.

The traditional SMT system wasn't built with the idea that every single party member would be "optimal" and so, being able to select all the right skills, and make demons with the exact strength and weakness you need on the spot really breaks the game. Of course, people could *theoretically* do that in a game like Nocturne, but it would take hours of random fusion shit and grinding, and in the real world, no one has time for this shit, so having imperfect parties kinda contributed to balance the game system. The demon compendium, skill selection and the ease with which you can build a high level demon from the ground up tailor made for whatever truly fucked the game. Combined with essentially infinite mana pool and powerful heals that are pretty much spread around the whole party (PERFECT-SKILL-SELEKSHUN)..
On my first playthrough, by the middle of the game, almost all of my demons had that static selection of skills:
Almighty Attack
Drain
One or two elemental AoE of the highest level
Phys Reflect
Mag Reflect
Party Heal
[Insert random buff/debuff/ailment cure dujour, with demons swapped depending on enemies]

I rarely used other skills. There was never a need to. When you start earning Reflects there's pretty much no point in learning anything else for defense/buff purpose. Reflect are still highly powerful even against opponents who can use almighty, because they'll still hit themselves once in a while with a phys or mag in most cases. And you should never run out of reflect. Things die before all your demons consumed their mana.

The only boss that requires a semblance of classic SMT play is the minotaur when you play in hard mode. And that's only because it's early in the game, before you could start abusing all the goodness from upgrades such as upgraded demon skill slots, demon slots, mana walker, chat apps etc.

All RPGs can ultimately be broken through grinding or ultimate party planning. The problem with SMT IV is that it requires neither. Playing the game normally, doing zero sidequests, only story missions, not grinding/running in circles but just killing the things that spawn in front of you is enough to achieve quasi-perfection. Playing the game a second time ultimately feels like a chore. The only time I ever did sidequests in my first playthrough was right at the end, when I was begged to by one of the most idiotic story chain quests I've ever witnessed, in the Neutral path. The Neutral path is fucking cancer. To those who are thinking about playing this game, make sure you set a specific tone during conversations and don't ever stray from that tone. You don't want to end up in the neutral path. It's fucking shit.

 

[Avellion]

Yeah, the select all skills you want for demon fusion is far too powerful, and it robbed demons of any uniqueness they might have had gameplaywise, turning each demon into a generic list of stats and resistances (in my game jack frost has no frost spells at all, but has fire spells and a lightning spell). I think Devil Survivor handled this MUCH better. Where each demon could not have their natural skills replaced at creation.

By the end of the game, each demon in your party ended up with the same skillset, when someone goes oom, just switch them out. When the protag gets oom, drain, and restore 70% of your hp and full MP. Not like you even needed your demons by the end of the game anyways. None of the enemies you ever fought had any counters to your arsenal, so just fully debilate the bosses and fully luster candy yourself. And hit them for thousands of damage.

 

[Nikaido]

Yeah, in Devil Survivor I always felt like I was making tradeoffs. Most of the demons that had useful buffs in my group didn't necessarily have the right attack skills, or right amount of MP etc. Passives felt far more necessary in DS too. Getting your hands on passives that boosted things like your mana was a huge fucking boon in that game. SMT IV has quite a lot of universal skill slots and no reason to trade active skills for passive unless you're just going for overkill rather than generic ability of doing everything.

As soon as I got my hand on him, Decarabia joined my parties in DS just for the one single skill: shield all, despite him being pretty mediocre all around. I never felt like I was making that kind of choice in SMT IV, it was just too easy to keep everything optimal and you always had a lot of money for the compendium as long as you sold all the items you looted. If you didn't suffer from the "I might need that item at some later fight" syndrome of never using them, and just sold everything, you always had more money than you needed to constantly replace every single party member with optimal ones. It's better to have an optimal party than have useful items, just sell everything you get your hands on, even stuff that refills MP.
In Devil Survivor, I was struggling for money. There was a point at the end of the game where I had to be careful as to which demons I bought off the auctions and when I used the compendium. I couldn't infinitely screw with the system.

DS is the superior game in every way on the 3DS (overclocked remake). SMT IV is just passably entertaining for starved JRPG players. It's also a lot more replayable, has various new game + events that are pretty cool, and the added day after the endings is genius. The only criticism I have for it is the godawful art, but I can overlook that for a great game.

 

[e-mailio estevez]

I actually prefer being able to assign whatever skills to whatever demons I want. That's probably just me being sick of rerolling for hours after running through Persona 3 and Persona 4, but I prefer it all the same.

When I went through Nocturne for the first time, I played with my own house rules. Played it on an emulator, created a custom cheat file that allowed me to easily set X skill to whichever demon I wanted. I played it sort of like Civilization, once I first 'discovered' a skill, I'd be free to put it on any demon whenever I wanted.

You'd think this would make the game easy, but it really didn't. It meant I spent a lot less time grinding macca or xp, so I was usually a little lower level than I was meant to be. I still found Nocturne pretty challenging and fair with it's difficulty, and TPKs weren't uncommon.

I'm going through 4 right now, and you're absolutely right. It's piss-easy and I really wish you could pick Hard mode from the get-go. I got lucky and learned concentrate and megido pretty early, and everything just immediately dies. I tried burning through the story quests in the hopes that fighting higher level stuff would provide a challenge, but instead they just dump loads of XP on you and you end up levelling up really quickly. I really like SMT4's fusion system, but Nocturne is still the better game.

Shall anyone LP dis gaem?

How would this work? The only way I know to take screens on the 3DS is to upload them to Miiverse... is there another way?

 

[Hobo Elf]

Making perfect demons on Nocturne was a fucking nightmare. Took me many, many hours of resetting my PS2 when I was trying to fuse a Daisoujou with a Fog Breath, War Cry and a bunch of other super useful spells. It was worth the trouble, but I do not miss that "feature" at all.

 

[Avellion]

I dont like what Nocturne did either with the fusion skill inheritance, it went too far in the other direction. SMT4 had a good thing going, but they made it a bit too freeform. A few tweaks to the system and it will be perfect. Just force the demon's default skills to stick with the demon, at least until you unlearn them through levelling up.

Edit: That said, you dont really need overly powerful demons in either game. Nocturne was perfectly doable even on hard, even if you didnt constantly reroll skills. The challenge in these games are so well crafted really, and barely any of the game overs I had felt cheap.

 

[Martius]

http://megaten4f.jp/

Strangely enough Atlus will release Shin Megami Tensei 4 Final in February next year in Japan. Its not a re-release but new game in same universe. Hopefully they will tweak some things like difficulty curve.

 

[Abu Antar]

I'm not sold on those characters. I will still keep an eye out for this.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Can't wait for Europe to get cucked hard again.

 

[Martius]

Hopefully not this time. So far NIS is releasing Atlus games faster than Atlus did SMT4.

 

[Avellion]

Shin Megami Tensei IV: Final is set in the year 203X. In order to avoid the destruction caused by the gods war that suddenly broke out 25 years ago, the sky was covered with a thick bedrock to avoid contact with the outside. The war ended before long, and while Tokyo is surviving, there are few goods to go around and people are killing each other, and man is dominated by the angels and demons standing at the top of the food chain.

The game’s characters consist of:

• Protagonist (voiced by Hiro Shimono) – The protagonist spends his days as an apprentice for the organization known as the Outlaw Hunters. During a mission, he is attacked by a demon and dies.
• Mysterious Demon (voiced by Shuichi Ikeda) – After his death, he forms a contract with the protagonist, who was wandering around the underworld, and grants him a new life and the ability to summon demons.
• Asahi (voiced by Tomoko Seike) – The protagonist’s childhood friend. She is 15 years old and belongs to the same Outlaw Hunters group he does.
• Navarre (voiced by Shintaro Ohata) – The same Navarre from Shin Megami Tensei IV. Unable to rest in peace after losing his life to something minor, when he meets the protagonist he wastes no time in possessing him. He’s green and has a chibi figure.

Speaking to Famitsu, producer Kazuyuki Yamai said: “We’ve looked over a lot of player feedback from Shin Megami Tensei IV and we’re making improvements everywhere we can, even to thinks like controls and demon conversations—there is a lot of reconsideration and reforming going on. We’re aiming to make the number one RPG for 3DS, so we’re paying attention to every detail. We’re making it so that even those who didn’t play Shin Megami Tensei IV can enjoy this game.”

Development on Shin Megami Tensei IV: Final is currently 90 percent complete.

Shin Megami Tensei IV: Final is due out for 3DS in Japan on February 10, 2016 for 6,480 yen.

http://gematsu.com/2015/10/shin-megami-tensei-iv-final-first-story-character-details

 

[Hobo Elf]

He? Anway, backstory sounds like Hitoshura 2.0.

 

[Sul]

The last true SMT was Strange Journey. After that the series began to slowly merge with Persona into a kawaii amorphous blob.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Literally Hitoshura. Even comes with the tattoos.

 

[evdk]

Literally Hitoshura. Even comes with the tattoos.

Wonder if it's gonna come with the gameplay as well.

 

[Latro]

Literally Hitoshura. Even comes with the tattoos.

According to the scans it even has Lucifer discussing YHWH a bit, True Demon path too?

 

[lightbane]

So the Demifiend's next incarnation/future descendant, right? This time he has seemingly learned to keep his clothes on. And even gain some attitude. Compare:

Spoiler

 

[grudgebringer]

I wonder if EU will get physical edition this time around.

 

[Hobo Elf]

https://youtu.be/DcsVo_OmSno

https://youtu.be/SgmXyt91pq8

Atlus released two BGMs for SMT4 Final. Not awful, but doesn't sound as good as the SMT4 ost.

 

[Perkel]

considering buying it but first i wanted to finish SMT Strange Journey..
God damn it it reminded me why SMT games are so boring after a while.

Is SMTIV same thing like earlier ones or it has some new stuff in it to keep it interesting after first few demons ?

 

[Avellion]

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

Bros how do you judge SMT4 after completing? Is it as dark/mature as main SMT/Strange Journey or is it more Animu/Persona focuaes? Does it include any crucial gameplay innovasions that keep it fresh for people which finished most of SMT games or should I just watch walkthrough and forget?