Atlus Shin Megami Tensei V - It's been hurting my OCD.

[dacencora]

my save file

I'm convinced redditards are braindamaged and suck Nocturne's dick so hard because having to use buffs is peak strategy for them. Does the difficulty pick up from where I am? So far most of the fights I've had people hype up were easy. Hydra took me a few tries, Loup Garou needed like three, everything else goes down in two max.

I'm pretty sure my honeymoon phase is wearing out, if it didn't end outright. Random encounters are background noise now, I can spam Estoma for borderline free and completely ignore everything. In SMT4, you needed to hit an enemy with your overworld attack. And I'm pretty sure in general Estoma only worked if the encounter was lower level, so you had to fight till your level outmatched enemies in the area. Here? It's just a big "fuck off" button that completely disables encounters. If I somehow *do* end up in a fight, Trafuri is dirt cheap, so are Smoke Balls.

I'm convinced the game gives the player too much control *and* too much information. Spyglassing bosses on the first turn removes the element of discovery since you already know everything there is to know. Magatsuhi moves are beyond lame, for some reason even if you're fighting a badass sword-wielding physical attacker, their magatsuhi move just has to be an elemental AoE for some fucking reason (Cum Hail with a Maragion, are you serious???). Oh right, the reason is that you need to be able to cheese the move with a dampener. The most threatening big dick moves are just free turns for the player.

I literally never need to look at my demon's weaknesses. If they're weak to the magatsuhi move, I give no shits, because I use dampener. If they're weak to most attacks, I use dampener anyway for extra safety, or spam Guard and it's the same, since Guard prevents weaks and criticals. I've spent 0 minutes fusing my demons specifically for a boss fight. [EDIT: i do occasionally use an essence or two to get weakness-hitting attacks onto a demon, but that is at most. i guess just how it works with the essence fusion nowadays. still, usually id have to fuse new demons for resists/nulls, and that's just not the case here because of dampeners and guard anyway, so my point kinda stands?]

Buffs and debuffs are still king, Fairy Banquet and spamming debuffs made Lahmu a walking miserable joke.

Why are dampeners cheaper than shards? Seriously. 150 macca. Shards are, what, 300? 400?? What the fuck Fatlus. 3 dampeners is too much. Nerf that shit to 1 max.

Sorry for the rant, I just... just don't know. Why are people busting nuts over the difficulty? It's not hard. I don't feel in danger. In SMT4 at least I had to concentrate+megido the random mobs, here I just ignore them. I'm playing on Hard, I'm not braindead grinding, the only DLC I own is Return of the True Demon and I'm not even making any use of fiends at all (using a sprinkle of Daisoujou, and that's it atm, Hell Biker and Matador are kinda meh). No bullshit Cleopatra, no bullshit Artemis. Idunn is reportedly really strong, got her a bit ago, haven't used her much though. No Mitama DLC. Am I doing something wrong? Should I be playing drunk? Should I avoid doing any sidecontent to keep myself underleveled? Should I staple my balls to the wall? I even avoided getting the Knowledge of Tools miracle because I can tell it's busted and I found the game to be easy enough as it is.

I'm not good at video games. I'm not a veteran of the series by any means. Old RPGs scare my zoomer brain. I'm not doing any big brain strategies, most of my fusions are just me winging it to get a higher level demon.

Walked into the

Spoiler

Shohei

fight yesterday by accident. He ripped a new one in my MC with a physical attack. If I boot up the game tomorrow, do minimal prep, and manage to do him second try (first serious try), I think I'm just gonna turn the game off at the spot and start Nocturne. Or SJ:R. I have both. I'll get to see what the fuss is all about.

Internet lied to me again and I'm mad. Am I doing something wrong???

Man this is interesting. I obviously suck compared to you. Matador took me quite a few tries, and I fuse demons specifically for every boss fight. I didn't think that IV was particularly difficult. I think that V is much harder and so was Nocturne. The only real challenge on SMT IV was that some of the mobs could smirk you and then destroy you fairly easily. The bosses are much more meat-shieldy in this game, I think, than they were in IV. In IV I could take a few hits to see what the boss was weak to, but in V, I just use the spyglass because my demons seem squishy and bosses are more powerful. TLDR: I'm bad at this game lmao.

 

[Tigranes]

"Too much information/tools for the player" + "Not enough survival mood driven design" is probably what all the major criticisms boil down to (and correctly so). I am still very happy that we have a new mainline SMT that has, on the main, really really good gameplay.

For cat boy - I assume Hard? It's not the most difficult SMT at all due to the amount of control player gets over every phase of the game. If you're reading reddit or somethng and caring about the opinions there maybe that's a problem you can solve in your life.

Plot was nonsense in almost every SMT so I dunno what the big deal is there. I see SMT stories as just fragments to set the general mood around the Big Question rather than any coherent sequence of actual events.

 

[catgode]

If you're reading reddit or somethng and caring about the opinions there maybe that's a problem you can solve in your life.

unfortunately im at a spot in my life where arguing with people on the internet is the most exciting thing that's happening

"Too much information/tools for the player" + "Not enough survival mood driven design" is probably what all the major criticisms boil down to (and correctly so). I am still very happy that we have a new mainline SMT that has, on the main, really really good gameplay. [...] It's not the most difficult SMT at all due to the amount of control player gets over every phase of the game.

Yeah, if you remove all the dumb crying I did, that's basically where I'm at. I'm definitely enjoying the game myself still, feels like a good 7/weak 8, I just feel like it's playing it too safe. Wish bosses threw more curveballs I needed to actually prepare for/adapt to. Was fighting some random abscess and saw enemies absorbing Magatsuhi, so I used a dampener for the element I was expecting out of habit. Got slapped for 4 critting basic attacks. Survived, but it still shook me up a bit just because I wasn't expecting it. But yeah, I wish the Magatsuhi moves were something spicier than just a "some elemental attack" like severe single-target elec or medium AoE fire for the sole purpose of being counterable by an item. Something almighty or a powerful debuff. Maybe endgame bosses have something interesting up their sleeve, I hope.

Also not too thrilled with the level-based damage calculations. This isn't an open world game where I can go wherever, we're still gated by story progress, so there's no need to enforce the soft level requirement anyway. I won't the fighting enemies on level X without beating that one boss on the way. The only real "value" out of this level thing is that we can have ridiculously powerful enemies on the map to come back later to, but the game doesn't allow us to easily check their levels without jumping into a fight, so you never really know if you're ready. Too low of a level? You deal no damage and get oneshot. Too high of a level? Your damage numbers are doubled and boss tickles you.

As a side effect, demon variety in random encounters suffers a bit. If a game pulls up an earlier demon in a fight to accompany whatever you've engaged, they usually serve as nothing other than a minor distraction. Got 2 Koppa Tengus when engaging Nekomatas, and they dealt 5 times less damage hitting my weakness than Nekomatas just using the basic attack, purely because of the level gap. Might've not included them in the formation at all at this point.

my quote

my save file

I'm convinced redditards are braindamaged and suck Nocturne's dick so hard because having to use buffs is peak strategy for them. Does the difficulty pick up from where I am? So far most of the fights I've had people hype up were easy. Hydra took me a few tries, Loup Garou needed like three, everything else goes down in two max.

I'm pretty sure my honeymoon phase is wearing out, if it didn't end outright. Random encounters are background noise now, I can spam Estoma for borderline free and completely ignore everything. In SMT4, you needed to hit an enemy with your overworld attack. And I'm pretty sure in general Estoma only worked if the encounter was lower level, so you had to fight till your level outmatched enemies in the area. Here? It's just a big "fuck off" button that completely disables encounters. If I somehow *do* end up in a fight, Trafuri is dirt cheap, so are Smoke Balls.

I'm convinced the game gives the player too much control *and* too much information. Spyglassing bosses on the first turn removes the element of discovery since you already know everything there is to know. Magatsuhi moves are beyond lame, for some reason even if you're fighting a badass sword-wielding physical attacker, their magatsuhi move just has to be an elemental AoE for some fucking reason (Cum Hail with a Maragion, are you serious???). Oh right, the reason is that you need to be able to cheese the move with a dampener. The most threatening big dick moves are just free turns for the player.

I literally never need to look at my demon's weaknesses. If they're weak to the magatsuhi move, I give no shits, because I use dampener. If they're weak to most attacks, I use dampener anyway for extra safety, or spam Guard and it's the same, since Guard prevents weaks and criticals. I've spent 0 minutes fusing my demons specifically for a boss fight. [EDIT: i do occasionally use an essence or two to get weakness-hitting attacks onto a demon, but that is at most. i guess just how it works with the essence fusion nowadays. still, usually id have to fuse new demons for resists/nulls, and that's just not the case here because of dampeners and guard anyway, so my point kinda stands?]

Buffs and debuffs are still king, Fairy Banquet and spamming debuffs made Lahmu a walking miserable joke.

Why are dampeners cheaper than shards? Seriously. 150 macca. Shards are, what, 300? 400?? What the fuck Fatlus. 3 dampeners is too much. Nerf that shit to 1 max.

Sorry for the rant, I just... just don't know. Why are people busting nuts over the difficulty? It's not hard. I don't feel in danger. In SMT4 at least I had to concentrate+megido the random mobs, here I just ignore them. I'm playing on Hard, I'm not braindead grinding, the only DLC I own is Return of the True Demon and I'm not even making any use of fiends at all (using a sprinkle of Daisoujou, and that's it atm, Hell Biker and Matador are kinda meh). No bullshit Cleopatra, no bullshit Artemis. Idunn is reportedly really strong, got her a bit ago, haven't used her much though. No Mitama DLC. Am I doing something wrong? Should I be playing drunk? Should I avoid doing any sidecontent to keep myself underleveled? Should I staple my balls to the wall? I even avoided getting the Knowledge of Tools miracle because I can tell it's busted and I found the game to be easy enough as it is.

I'm not good at video games. I'm not a veteran of the series by any means. Old RPGs scare my zoomer brain. I'm not doing any big brain strategies, most of my fusions are just me winging it to get a higher level demon.

Walked into the

Spoiler

Shohei

fight yesterday by accident. He ripped a new one in my MC with a physical attack. If I boot up the game tomorrow, do minimal prep, and manage to do him second try (first serious try), I think I'm just gonna turn the game off at the spot and start Nocturne. Or SJ:R. I have both. I'll get to see what the fuss is all about.

Internet lied to me again and I'm mad. Am I doing something wrong???

Man this is interesting. I obviously suck compared to you. Matador took me quite a few tries, and I fuse demons specifically for every boss fight. I didn't think that IV was particularly difficult. I think that V is much harder and so was Nocturne. The only real challenge on SMT IV was that some of the mobs could smirk you and then destroy you fairly easily. The bosses are much more meat-shieldy in this game, I think, than they were in IV. In IV I could take a few hits to see what the boss was weak to, but in V, I just use the spyglass because my demons seem squishy and bosses are more powerful. TLDR: I'm bad at this game lmao.

I'm wondering if maybe you just fought Matador at a lower level than me? I can certainly see the fight being challenging if you attempt it underlevelled enough, which is easily possible since you can access the fight wayyyy before you're even close to lvl 26, which is I believe what Matador has. I found him to be decently manageable, just Sukunda him out of his Red Capote, Force Dampener when he prepares Magatsuhi (I think he was casting Mazan for it, right?) and abuse the weakness, but I was close to him at level. Could've fought him a bit earlier, I knew it was possible if I spent some time doing tryhard fusing, but I figured I'd rather spent less time moving forward in the game and getting these 2-3 levels than more time fusing for one fight I might've just been underleveled for. I think I might have missed out in retrospect. And no, I don't think IV was difficult either, that's pretty much the popular opinion. Difficulty drops off hard after Minotaur/Medusa.

***

I think I'll just stop complaining and go back to actually playing the game, but from what I've read it gets easier as you go on, as is tradition, so I might not get what I look for. Slightly miffed even on the "hardest" difficulty I have to put extra effort to be slapped by the game. I wonder how far I'd be able to get just ignoring all the side content, mitamas and navigator loot before avoiding fights and being underleveled blocks me for good. For now, back to pumping Principality with grimoires because I don't want to let go of my cool angel.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I'm convinced redditards are braindamaged and suck Nocturne's dick so hard because having to use buffs is peak strategy for them.

No, you're mistaken. Nocturne is praised for its cool atmosphere, competent dungeon design and engaging mechanics. The challenge in MegaTen has always been the dungeons as a whole with the traps and dead ends that waste your resources; usual dungeon stuff. Looking at combat in a vaccuum is a mistake. Individually, combat and bosses have never been all that challenging in MegaTen outside of a few exceptions. It's fun and it does require you to think about things like team composition and skill inheritances instead just mashing buttons or grinding to get through, but it has never been very hard. Brainlets who get ambush Mudo'd screeching over the game being too hard despite it giving you several options that completely negate (and punish the enemy while doing so by robbing them of their turns) should be ignored.

''OOOOHH GUYS GUYS DO YOU REMEMBER NOCTURNE? WE ARE JUST LIKE NOCTURNE ? DO YOU MEMBER THE CONCEPTION? THE AMALA DRUMS? THE GAME IS JUST LIKE NOCTURNE , SO MUST BE GOOD yAH?''

It is a spiritual and literal sequel to Nocturne, so it makes sense.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

Guyz, which Abscess has Demon Proficiency IV?

 

[Puukko]

Guyz, which Abscess has Demon Proficiency IV?

The one with Yamato-no-orochi and the end of the highway near Odin in the fourth area. Also has divine proficiency IV. South side of the map.

 

[Tigranes]

Game does get easier after a while, but I did like how some mid-game bosses tried to change it up a bit with the resistances and pierce and such (though I basically made Idun permanent party member at that point). Just wish they went up a level to even more different and tricky bosses lategame.

 

[Anonymous Wife Scholar]

This game clearly wasn't 100% finished and lack focus. That's especialy true when you stop to think about everything involving the story , plot points and especialy characters like Yuzuru that give a vibe of ''This game clealy had a entire area or two cut''. 8/10 game but it could be much more honestly. It feel like the team behind SMT has a ton of raw talent but they're like headless chickens trying to make a semi-decent story and characters. I got that feeling playing SMT4 , SMT4Apocalpyse and SMTV just make me certain that something is wrong with Maniax/SMT team.

Thank you anon! You are a good anon! Maniax did have more wifes content anon! It did! Apocalypse was 10/10 wife kino anon! It was! Give me cute Asahi wife! Give me cute Pascal the dog is here wife! You are a good anon!

 

[Carpincho Pampeano]

This game clearly wasn't 100% finished and lack focus. That's especialy true when you stop to think about everything involving the story , plot points and especialy characters like Yuzuru that give a vibe of ''This game clealy had a entire area or two cut''. 8/10 game but it could be much more honestly. It feel like the team behind SMT has a ton of raw talent but they're like headless chickens trying to make a semi-decent story and characters. I got that feeling playing SMT4 , SMT4Apocalpyse and SMTV just make me certain that something is wrong with Maniax/SMT team.

Thank you anon! You are a good anon! Maniax did have more wifes content anon! It did! Apocalypse was 10/10 wife kino anon! It was! Give me cute Asahi wife! Give me cute Pascal the dog is here wife! You are a good anon!

CHOMP! Nothing personal dog.

Doing my second run of this game, this time i'm going law so i will build a MAG protag with healing a buffing skills and with maha type attacks, i have to finish the game three times to unlock the full compendium.

 

[EvilWolf]

This game clearly wasn't 100% finished and lack focus. That's especialy true when you stop to think about everything involving the story , plot points and especialy characters like Yuzuru that give a vibe of ''This game clealy had a entire area or two cut''. 8/10 game but it could be much more honestly. It feel like the team behind SMT has a ton of raw talent but they're like headless chickens trying to make a semi-decent story and characters. I got that feeling playing SMT4 , SMT4Apocalpyse and SMTV just make me certain that something is wrong with Maniax/SMT team.

Thank you anon! You are a good anon! Maniax did have more wifes content anon! It did! Apocalypse was 10/10 wife kino anon! It was! Give me cute Asahi wife! Give me cute Pascal the dog is here wife! You are a good anon!

CHOMP! Nothing personal dog.

Doing my second run of this game, this time i'm going law so i will build a MAG protag with healing a buffing skills and with maha type attacks, i have to finish the game three times to unlock the full compendium.

I did a full elemental/almighty MAG build my first playthrough, I'm done with everything except Shiva, the last abcess and DF. I'm going to try full STR this time because it seems vastly superior to MAG considering each element has a strength move and there are a ton of strength based almighty attacks.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

I'm done with everything except Shiva, the last abcess and DF.

Everything except final boss or you can play post-endgame?

 

[EvilWolf]

I'm done with everything except Shiva, the last abcess and DF.

Everything except final boss or you can play post-endgame?

I haven't actually went to the actual endgame yet, but DF and the last abcess are lvl 99 and I haven't hit 80 yet to get to Shiva. I just managed to cheese

Spoiler

Ra

by having the MC, Isis, and Cleopatra essenced to block everything and just healing everytime he casts an almighty attack. I also got incredibly lucky with

Spoiler

Mephisto

because he wouldn't stop casting his main darkness attack on people who were immune to it.

 

[Carpincho Pampeano]

I'm done with everything except Shiva, the last abcess and DF.

Everything except final boss or you can play post-endgame?

I haven't actually went to the actual endgame yet, but DF and the last abcess are lvl 99 and I haven't hit 80 yet to get to Shiva. I just managed to cheese

Spoiler

Ra

by having the MC, Isis, and Cleopatra essenced to block everything and just healing everytime he casts an almighty attack. I also got incredibly lucky with

Spoiler

Mephisto

because he wouldn't stop casting his main darkness attack on people who were immune to it.

You are supposed to defeat the level 99 abcess by using ailments and de usual buffs and debuffs, i did it at like level 70 that way.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

You are supposed to defeat the level 99 abcess by using ailments and de usual buffs and debuffs, i did it at like level 70 that way.

This Abscess is epitome of trolling. Nah, Slime, Pixie, Onmoraki, Pretty with basic skills, piece of cake.

First round - WTF???

I haven't actually went to the actual endgame yet, but DF and the last abcess are lvl 99 and I haven't hit 80 yet to get to Shiva.

One of few walkthrough says:

The demon is unlocked by purchasing the “The Return of the True Demon” DLC. Talk to Sophia at the World of Shadows after progressing to a certain point to start a subquest involving battle challenges against Fiend Demons. Defeat the DLC boss during the post-game after clearing the main story.

https://samurai-gamers.com/shin-megami-tensei-v/demi-fiend-boss-guide/

Dunno if the mean New Game Plus or player can continue after killing main story boss.

 

[Hobo Elf]

The demon is unlocked by purchasing the “The Return of the True Demon” DLC. Talk to Sophia at the World of Shadows after progressing to a certain point to start a subquest involving battle challenges against Fiend Demons. Defeat the DLC boss during the post-game after clearing the main story.

https://samurai-gamers.com/shin-megami-tensei-v/demi-fiend-boss-guide/

Dunno if the mean New Game Plus or player can continue after killing main story boss.

There is no "post-game" in SMT5. The game ends when you kill the final boss and prompts you to make a NG+ save that starts from the beginning with some carry over. You have to beat Demi-Fiend before the final boss and this can be done on your first run as no content, apart from a few demons, is locked behind NG+ like some early rumors claimed.

 

[EvilWolf]

I'm done with everything except Shiva, the last abcess and DF.

Everything except final boss or you can play post-endgame?

I haven't actually went to the actual endgame yet, but DF and the last abcess are lvl 99 and I haven't hit 80 yet to get to Shiva. I just managed to cheese

Spoiler

Ra

by having the MC, Isis, and Cleopatra essenced to block everything and just healing everytime he casts an almighty attack. I also got incredibly lucky with

Spoiler

Mephisto

because he wouldn't stop casting his main darkness attack on people who were immune to it.

You are supposed to defeat the level 99 abcess by using ailments and de usual buffs and debuffs, i did it at like level 70 that way.

I tried it at ~60+ and got my shit pushed in and only managed to smoke bomb out because my MC reflected one of the spells they used so I didnt have time to try debuffs.

 

[Tigranes]

????? You guys mean that last abscess with Pixie and the other early game demons right???? Uhhhhhh guys

Spoiler

u poison, u win

Seems like a quirk of being super high leveled but actually being low tier demons

 

[Thac0]

Hydra took me a few tries, Loup Garou needed like three, everything else goes down in two max.

This is a turn based game. Unless you are playing tactical turn based a boss taking more than one try for someone with experience is hard, taking more than two (ie surviving the first real attempt with prep work) is peak difficulty.
I play hard games to revisit being a child, taking multiple attempts for bosses and getting immense dopamine rushes when beating them. I remember being stuck on some bosses for weeks.
But the problem is we are not dumb children anymore. I can ironman the average Final Fantasy blind, not a single threat of death even. The last boss that had me stuck for more than a day was YHVH from STM IV Apocalypse.

I am gratefull that difficult games like this exist, because if every game was as easy as your FFXIIIs then I would drop JRPGs.
But it still won't be truly difficult in a way a Battle Brothers is.
If you want some more oomph, from the series I played I consider only two harder than SMT.
Etrian Odyssey, because it has a more stringest element of ressource management, and SaGa, because it breaks a lot of JRPG conventions, so you need to relearn a bunch of stuff.

 

[dacencora]

SaGa Scarlet Grace is the most tactical JRPG I have played. There are so many strategies you can attempt on an encounter, and the synergy you can engineer between your team is unbeatable. The game kicked my ass pretty hard, and I missed a very important ability quest somewhere, so I’m going to go back and finish it one day. I haven’t played any of the other SaGa games so I can’t say how tactical they are.

 

[Miner 2049er]

Scarlet Grace has one of the best turn based combat systems of all times.

 

[Mortmal]

I'm done with everything except Shiva, the last abcess and DF.

Everything except final boss or you can play post-endgame?

I haven't actually went to the actual endgame yet, but DF and the last abcess are lvl 99 and I haven't hit 80 yet to get to Shiva. I just managed to cheese

Spoiler

Ra

by having the MC, Isis, and Cleopatra essenced to block everything and just healing everytime he casts an almighty attack. I also got incredibly lucky with

Spoiler

Mephisto

because he wouldn't stop casting his main darkness attack on people who were immune to it.

You are supposed to defeat the level 99 abcess by using ailments and de usual buffs and debuffs, i did it at like level 70 that way.

No need of buffs and debuff , max magic on main character , absolute attacks or elementals bypassing defences. Same on demons, they completely bypass any ressitance and can still even crit and weakness abuse.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

After testing how OP is Murakamo even with pretty low strenght I regret going magical bulid but it's too late. Only 3 main bosses bosses remain so I propably skip Shiva and Hitoshura and try to take them out on new run with physical MC.

 

[dacencora]

After testing how OP is Murakamo even with pretty low strenght I regret going magical bulid but it's too late. Only 3 main bosses bosses remain so I propably skip Shiva and Hitoshura and try to take them out on new run with physical MC.

This makes me feel better about running a STR Nahobino. Sakanagi is pretty cool, too

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

This makes me feel better about running a STR Nahobino.

This is not even funny, my MC has 60 in STR and +150 in MAG, yet Murakumo does damage similar to Trisagion.

 

[Delterius]

I regret going magical bulid

isn't that a feature of the series