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

[grudgebringer]

I was reluctant to believe, until I downloaded it yesterday and stared at the main menu screen for a couple of minutes listening to soundtrack... and it still feels kind of unreal.

 

[Krraloth]

What a travesty.

 

[Martius]

So far my gamer pride is still in one piece. Lets see how long it can last.

 

[Abu Antar]

So far my gamer pride is still in one piece. Lets see how long it can last.

Mine will last until I get a physical copy for the 3DS or a digital release for PC. A.k.a. for all eternity.

 

[evdk]

I am happy to announce that I posses no pride.

Game is fun.

 

[Nikaido]

That was a D1P for me despite the bullshit we had to put up with. Not disappointed so far.

 

[Krraloth]

I'm still raging.

 

[Hirato]

I for one am glad that the delays allowed them to iron out a few final issues before bringing it over to the European region.

 

[Krraloth]

I am not going to buy it. I was looking forward to it some 6 months ago.

 

[evdk]

Have they done something to the demon fusion formula? I do not remember most of my fusion option being 4-6 levels higher than my current max from SJ or Nocturne.

 

[Hirato]

The main change I've noticed so far with fusion is that you can explicitly set all the skills a fused demon will have, this pool being defined by their direct parents and the base skills for that demon.

 

[Nikaido]

The main change I've noticed so far with fusion is that you can explicitly set all the skills a fused demon will have, this pool being defined by their direct parents and the base skills for that demon.

You can also directly fuse demons from your compendium, you don't need to summon them before going to the fusion screen. This shit is amazing. With the compendium option activated it allows you to see a more complete list of what can be fused in this game.

So far I'm liking it. The game has a lot of quality of life features, and I like the added progression that goes beyond the traditional skill and stat selection (software you buy for Burroughs). The soundtrack is amazing too, and the visuals are actually pleasant to the eyes, unlike the other recent SMT releases. (behead whoever did Devil Survivor's art)

 

[Avellion]

The biggest improvement with this game are the quality of life features, especially in the demonic compendium which makes demon fusing a lot less time consuming than it used to be. Being able to see all your fusion choices with a demon, even if the other demons are not in the party makes demon fusion a lot easier and convenient.

Overall

Pros

• It is Shin Megami Tensei, hence the typical stuff that makes the franchise enjoyable are in.
• The Demonic Compendium is brilliant
• Such a huge library of demons to choose from
• A wide variety of skills to learn
• Since the entire party needs to be wiped for a game over, no more cheap deaths (enemy party casting instadeath spell on protagonist before you even get to make your first move). Although I still kind of miss the whole protect the protagonist thing.

Cons

• Protagonist can only learn active skills, which means that unless you go mage, you will have more skill slots than you need.
• The writing is pretty poor for SMT standards.
• The visuals are not as good as Nocturne's
• Some parts of the game remind me of the JRPG genre's answer to BioWare: nuPersona.
• The difficulty is really uneven. The smirkotaur is by far the hardest boss in the game, in fact, he is one of the two bosses that actually killed me (the other one being someone who could inflict AoE instant death on physical attacks).
• Smirking
• The bosses are a lot less creative than Nocturne's
• Equipment system is nowhere near as intersting as Nocturne's Magatama system.
• Attribute system is a mess, invest everything in magic (magic is the best stat), and you can kill most bosses in no time at all. You will outdamage your demons by so much.

Overall it is a decent game, but not a let down compared to Nocturne and Strange Journey.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Yeah I caved in and got the game. I've put some 20 hours in so far and while I think it's a good game, there are of course some problems. I'll provide my own list of things that I thought were good and bad.

Bad:

-The lack of healing rooms means that they have had to cut down on dungeon length by a buttload. The dungeons are soo teeny tiny now and I'm saddened by that. I feel like I'm done with every area before I even really begin getting into it. Maybe it's a 3DS limitation?

-The combat system is far more polarizing this time, especially with the retarded Smirk system to add in more salt (on you or your enemies' wounds, depends on the situation). Additional turns for exploiting weaknesses was plenty enough as an advantage, but now Smirks make it even worse. Getting ambushed by demons who have a skill or spell that you or your team may be weak against always bad news, but in this game I just instantly reset the game as soon as it happens because I know it'll lead to a swift wipe pretty much always. Maybe I'm not remembering things right, but I don't remember it being this extreme in previous MegaTen games. I've survived many encounters that have had me on the edge of my seat biting my nails, but I've had no such encounters in this game. Either I wreck everything hard, or they wreck me. While this has more or less always the case, I find that there is less middle ground in SMT4 than in previous entries. Also, there is even less reason to go with a Physical build now. Magic is even more dominant now because of Smirks.

-This is a personal opinion but I liked it better when stats capped out at 100 and you had less points to mess around with. The game gives you a shitton of stats and also a shitton of stat enhancing items. I feel like my character is a fucking powerhouse.

-The new demon designs are pretty crappy, too. Most of them are overdesigned with too much detail that don't add anything, just makes them look busy. There are a few designs that are OK, but they still clash with the old design far too much. The coloring and the style are just far too different and that really throws me off.

Good:

-As has been already mentioned, there has been a lot of Quality of Life improvements. Random skills from fusions was bullshit. Everyone just kept resetting the game until they got what they wanted. It was a huge pain in the ass when you got into the really complex fusions and spent hours upon hours just resetting the game trying to get the skills that you wanted.

-Music is so good. After SJ's boring soundtrack that did nothing but harm the experience for me I'm glad that they went back to the synth and guitars.

-The environments look good, I just wish the areas were longer.

-The game still feels like a Shin Megami Tensei game to me. I was afraid that it'd feel like Persona: Shin Megami Tensei, but gladly that isn't the case.

 

[Nikaido]

Yeah I caved in and got the game. I've put some 20 hours in so far and while I think it's a good game, there are of course some problems. I'll provide my own list of things that I thought were good and bad.

Bad:

-The lack of healing rooms means that they have had to cut down on dungeon length by a buttload. The dungeons are soo teeny tiny now and I'm saddened by that. I feel like I'm done with every area before I even really begin getting into it. Maybe it's a 3DS limitation?

I think your point is in reverse: the lack of healing room is a thing because the dungeons are small, rather than the other way around. And the dungeons are small because it's a 3DS game, yes. They opted for a full on 3D environment and you get constant loading from small area to small area. They should've used the Etrian Odyssey engine again, like SJ, and kept the classic dungeon crawler style, which allows for large areas even on limited hardware. I don't feel the added verticality adds anything to the game.
A good example of the engine/loading issue is the quest where you have to kill 5 corpse demons and encounter the Dullahan. The quest involves three outdoors areas that, in better hardware, would've been loaded as a single one.

The same thing happened to the PSP sequels to Valkyria Chronicles. They had to severely cut down the size of areas.

It's one of the numerous pain points of seeing most of the type of JRPG you like being transferred to mobile consoles. We will never see games like these on home consoles anymore.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Regardless, the game should've been for a real console. Preferably the PS3 because that's not regionlocked. Of course before that would happen we'd have to ask Atlus to start giving a damn about mainline SMT again and not just Purseowner.

 

[Martius]

Well, some from atlus said that Persona5 at first was also hand-held title (just on vita). I guess in best scenario we should see few more spin-offs and maybe after that next mainline game on stationary console.

 

[Avellion]

Everyone just kept resetting the game until they got what they wanted. It was a huge pain in the ass when you got into the really complex fusions and spent hours upon hours just resetting the game trying to get the skills that you wanted.

My opinions are mixed on this. On one hand, I enjoy the freedom to pick your skills for fused demons, but at the same time I feel they went too far. Most of my demons usually didnt even have any of the skills they are normally meant to have. But having the RNG select your skills was an absolute waste of time. Especially for Purse Owner 4 and that "bring me a persona with X skill" questline.

Best solution would be to allow players to make the skills native to the demon mandatory (as in the starting skills), and allow the player to fill in the rest of the slots.

 

[Martius]

Best solution would be to allow players to make the skills native to the demon mandatory (as in the starting skills), and allow the player to fill in the rest of the slots.

Funny enough, that's how fusion works in Devil Survivor remake on 3ds.
One thing which is strange to me is that physical skills now cost mana instead of percentage of health pool. I guess it was change because everyone is glass canon but thanks to that demons with physical skills and low mana just suck.

 

[evdk]

One thing which is strange to me is that physical skills now cost mana instead of percentage of health pool. I guess it was change because everyone is glass canon but thanks to that demons with physical skills and low mana just suck.

That's not a new thing though. Worked that way in other SMT titles before, off the top of my head I think in Strange Journey (I certainly remember playing Nocturne and being irritated that physical skills suddenly cast from HP).

 

[Avellion]

Best solution would be to allow players to make the skills native to the demon mandatory (as in the starting skills), and allow the player to fill in the rest of the slots.

Funny enough, that's how fusion works in Devil Survivor remake on 3ds. *1*
One thing which is strange to me is that physical skills now cost mana instead of percentage of health pool. I guess it was change because everyone is glass canon but thanks to that demons with physical skills and low mana just suck. *2*

1. Yup, and I loved it.

2. It also results in that pretty much every demon in your party will now be equipped with Spirit/Energy Drain. Of course, demons with high magic drain so much more mana than phys demons as well. My magic based protag could refill his entire mana with one drain spell.

 

[Nikaido]

Are all endings as nonsense heavy as the neutral path? By nonsense I mean this motherfucking festival of retarded challenge quests that no one sane would want to do considering the amount of walking all just to get a 5 second fight or sometimes just.. taking pictures (fetch boy!) in a game that has the worst world map in history and constant random encounters that are nearly unavoidable (on the world map). I'm not even sure I want to pick up the game at that point, I'd go back and replay it on another path if they do not suffer from this.

I truly enjoyed the game up till that point. I can't believe they fucked up so bad. I could overlook the issue with the world map just by ignoring most of these mediocre side quest stuff but the end game, at least on neutral, requires it which really puts salt into the wound. The most mundane of side quests are insane time sinks with the constant loading of areas and then auto battle of mobs that don't give any xp (relative to your level at that point in time). It's a friggin' chore and I don't play games to feel like I'm washing dishes. I would almost beg for level scaling, because I don't mind random encounters too much when they're at a more threatening level.. auto battling for hours isn't my idea of fun.

The mix of unreadable map and a spawning system that does not depend on walking, but time, where things will just keep respawning and attacking you even if you don't move.. Jesus motherfucking christ.

 

[Nikaido]

So, from what I've read, the other paths have nothing like that. Good. I just finished the challenge questing shit and it took like 5+ hours of running around without doing much of interest. Probably the most negative part of the game.
The picture taking questing being made mandatory by the path is fucking retarded.

My recommendation to anyone who hasn't gone past the Blasted Tokyo part: try as hard as you can to stick to law-ish or chaos-ish answers. Do NOT roleplay choices because if you get locked into neutral you WILL regret it heavily. The neutral path turns what was a mostly average, but enjoyable, SMT game, into a trip to boreland. Play a one-note character.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Heh, I got the Kamen Rider armor.

YHVH better watch out because this badass Chaos motherfucker is coming for his candy ass. Currently I'm in the process of fusing Lilith, I'm only missing Cherub now after that long ass side quest to get the Black Maria. Between the side quest to get the Black Card and the Kamen Rider armor I'm pretty much broke now. The stuff they sell in the secret shop in Ginza costs a fortune, too, but I really want to strut around in the Demonica Suit in all its 3D glory. How do people grind Macca in this game?
Also, there's something amusing about having Lucifer as a party member following you around Tokyo. I don't mean it as him being your demon, but as a guest. These games are goofy as shit.

 

[Martius]

I wonder how that armor looks in game since its not demonica. As for macca, there is always dlc for that
From what I heard asking demons for money is good source, at least later (right now most I got was mere 100 macca).