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Real meaning: "trial" -> takes more than one try to get it correct "error" -> you will make mistakes.
The maps aren't flat, and navigating around them requires problem solving. More than a few areas, for example, require you to scale buildings to reach them, or to figure out basic level design puzzles via platforming.
This is sadly my consensus as well, and I've actually collected 180 mimans so far. I'm in the last area of the game so I'm gonna finish it, but the lack of dungeons and the annoying open world design is not so fun for me. I enjoy the combat and fusion stuff, as always.. but this is my least favorite SMT because it focuses more on platforming than anything else. The atmosphere / environmental atmosphere is very boring and repetitive as well.
Idk this one of few games that i actually like to explore, it's a lot better compared to Xenoblade Chronicles 2 exploration or most open world games. All the exploration is well rewards and every rewards make the combat , fusion ,etc better. I don't think would be good to continue this thread but as one of , this game is perfectly fine.
My main issues is the story while interesting , have terrible pacing , lack of any meaningful choice so far (you can't stop Sashori from getting bullied or answer why she has bruises for some fucking reason) and the characters are so fucking forgetable asides from Dazai.
He's the only character with screen time , some devemploment and is actually a character. I understand that SMT is not about the character but god damn Atlus , throw me a bone here lmao. I want Jiminez, Gore, Arthur and Zelenin back.
I'll also criticize the actual physical world you traverse. This isn't really the game' s fault and it is far from the only series suffering from this problem, but post apocalyptic worlds just aren't very interesting. Endless ruined buildings with very little beauty in them just make me think how they could be made actually interesting. Pure blobbers suffer from this to a lesser extent due to being more abstract and less lifelike depictions of the setting so your imagination does more of the work. And again, the actual traversal is fine, they've done a good job at promoting exploration and making you use your noggin to figure out how to get that Miman or treasure. Lots of verticality. But in the end, it's just ruined buildings upon more ruined buildings.
In this sense, do you think Nocturne overland map is more effective? Perhaps because it's abstract and so forces the player to use imagination, as you said?
He's the only character with screen time , some devemploment and is actually a character. I understand that SMT is not about the character but god damn Atlus , throw me a bone here lmao. I want Jiminez, Gore, Arthur and Zelenin back.
Looking back at it, I think SJ may be the most balanced and well paced game in the series in terms of story, world and characters. Every time you get back to the ship, the crew has something new to say and observations to make. Zelenin and Jimenez are built very believably and you get to see their transformations (mental and physical) with no huge gaps that would make to confused as to what happened. When there are story missions, you never feel like you've been ripped away from your blobbering into a hand holded sequence, it all ties together very well. The story is never forgotten for a long time and it never hurries to dump exposition on you like its life depended on it. Traversing the world helps you unravel the mystery and reality of your situation, piece by piece.
Strange Journey I didn't like very much because except at the end, the dungeons are simplistic and limited, and the structure doesn't give you much freedom.
Agree. The whole Nocturne is a pain to navigate, be it dungeons or overworld map, because of the "random encounters" mechanic it's built upon. I wonder if there's some modernized instance of this concept that makes it good.
Back to SMT5, I'm past the Hydra and starting to feel tired of the constant desertic environments. This and the music. Will those change?
Agree. The whole Nocturne is a pain to navigate, be it dungeons or overworld map, because of the "random encounters" mechanic it's built upon. I wonder if there's some modernized instance of this concept that makes it good.
Back to SMT5, I'm past the Hydra and starting to feel tired of the constant desertic environments. This and the music. Will those change?
Both the environment and music will change, yes. However, see my rant about ruined buildings earlier. It does have some really neat sections and subverts your expectations quite a bit at times which helps keep it more fresh than it would otherwise be.
The black textures are fucked up LODs which is an issue with some demons. Valkyrie will appear rainbow colored at a distance, for example. Sometimes it doesn't load the highest quality LOD until you're right next to the semon and even then it depends on the angle for some reason.
SMT IV's overworld map was terrible, especially compared to Nocturne's which was pretty fun to try and figure out. Strange Journey and Nocturne have excellent dungeons. Wild to me that there are people who play SMT who wouldn't like them.
I will take Strange Journey and Nocturne's step-based random encounters (it tells you when you're gonna get one with the red flashing) over the never-ending spawning randoms in SMT IV any day of the week. SMT IV made it so it was pretty impossible to look at your map for any extended period of time because you would get swarmed by 5 different demon blobs coming at you. Add SMT IV's lackluster dungeons (I liked Camp Ichigaya, and Pluto was alright) and it's just not as much fun for me. Persona 5 doesn't have respawns unless you leave so it's a lot better, and I haven't booted up SMT V yet, so I can't comment on that.
Finished game on hard, collected 198 fucking mimans, did all the quests and created all fusions except last 2 which were lvl 95 (I ended up lvl 91). Took 64 hours.
Final dungeon & bosses were a joke after doing optional bosses. Could not handle smt3 demon boy on hard and did not want to grind 8 more levels.
Shiva
was a good challenge when he was 8 levels higher than me.
I went full magic build but after realizing leveling up all the elements takes too many points I just went for almighty + support build. Yoshitsune as is tradition is still very strong and you get him relatively early. Did probably around 70% of dmg on bosses after I got him till end game.
Build was: Hassou tobi (obviously), Impaler's Animus, phys+high phys pleroma, critical zealot, high restore, null dark, enduring soul.
Was planning on going for law route but that is probably the most disgusting one. Ended up with Raidou ending
Incline:
Good combat & challenging on hard
Fusions are fun
Leveling is not too tedious because of little moon guys. Better than grinding normal encounters but gets boring pretty fast.
Some of the areas were fun to explore
SMT3 dlc fights were probably my favorite encounters. Early bosses were good also.
Decline:
Secret ending locked on ng+. I did all the requirements without guide
Cant see weaknesses on enemies you have previously encountered when they are part of boss battle or some other shit
90% of quests are shit
Essences are too easy to get and it makes too easy to create very strong demons. Getting best essences are pretty much part of main story corridors.
So many stat boosting / leveling up items. Think I ended up with around 150-200 grimoires and 20-30 gospels. Attribute boosting items probably around 200-300.
Parkour at end game was tilting
If you have for example 9/10 potions at your inventory and you find a container which has 2 potions you cannot loot the container.
Too many dlcs I just bought smt3 one.
Story was passable but it was poorly presented. Not that I would pay too much attention to the story in smt games.
Dialogue choices dont matter at all. You can pick which ever ending you want when there is just last place to explore.
Some tips:
I would guess that physical builds are better than magic ones
Items are very strong
Fairies boost (max all buffs on party) is probably the best one I ended up using Titania very long just because of that.
Overall I enjoyed the game was better early-middle game than end game. 8.2/10. Not good as strange journey or smt3 but still good.
Played nocturne around it release on ps2. The dungeons are okay They are all linear romps for the most part none of them are confusing except the final one is dog shit and made me quit the game. Padding shit teleporting puzzles to draw your game out? Nah I'll watch the the remainder 10-20 min on youtube. The games difficulty became extremely easy after the thor boss and I fused all the godlike demons that can do stuff like heal everyone to max every turn no motivation to play.
Played nocturne around it release on ps2. The dungeons are okay They are all linear romps for the most part none of them are confusing except the final one is dog shit and made me quit the game. Padding shit teleporting puzzles to draw your game out? Nah I'll watch the the remainder 10-20 min on youtube. The games difficulty became extremely easy after the thor boss and I fused all the godlike demons that can do stuff like heal everyone to max every turn no motivation to play.
My main issues is the story while interesting , have terrible pacing , lack of any meaningful choice so far (you can't stop Sashori from getting bullied or answer why she has bruises for some fucking reason) and the characters are so fucking forgetable asides from Dazai.
He's the only character with screen time , some devemploment and is actually a character. I understand that SMT is not about the character but god damn Atlus , throw me a bone here lmao. I want Jiminez, Gore, Arthur and Zelenin back.
Oh yeah, some interesting story development after the third area. It may be a dump, but it's a dump that rekindled my interest after that ass of a dungeon.
Played nocturne around it release on ps2. The dungeons are okay They are all linear romps for the most part none of them are confusing except the final one is dog shit and made me quit the game. Padding shit teleporting puzzles to draw your game out? Nah I'll watch the the remainder 10-20 min on youtube. The games difficulty became extremely easy after the thor boss and I fused all the godlike demons that can do stuff like heal everyone to max every turn no motivation to play.
Manikin is the one with a Frost Bro boss? The one with mirrors or something? If so, sorry but that's shit too because there's a boring and complex puzzle there. I remember wasting hours to solve that shit, while having to face the unending horde of random encounters. I almost dropped the game at that point.
Played nocturne around it release on ps2. The dungeons are okay They are all linear romps for the most part none of them are confusing except the final one is dog shit and made me quit the game. Padding shit teleporting puzzles to draw your game out? Nah I'll watch the the remainder 10-20 min on youtube. The games difficulty became extremely easy after the thor boss and I fused all the godlike demons that can do stuff like heal everyone to max every turn no motivation to play.
Manikin is the one with a Frost Bro boss? The one with mirrors or something? If so, sorry but that's shit too because there's a boring and complex puzzle there. I remember wasting hours to solve that shit, while having to face the unending horde of random encounters. I almost dropped the game at that point.
Yeah the icy snake guy and you have to go through portals that turn the map upside down. Sorry to hear that it bored you, I thought it was a ton of fun. The random encounter rate is fairly high in Nocturne, but I did not feel annoyed by random enemies at all in that dungeon.
I concur what Puukko said about the story development after the third area. Felt like this kind of thing should've happened like 1/3 or 1/2 in to the story, not in the last quarter.
25-30h in, just destroyed the abscess that unlocks the 6th skill slot miracle. I'm a relative newfag to the series and actually only ever finished SMT4 so feel free to laugh at me if I get something blatantly wrong or show off my ignorance.
Combat is fun and music kicks ass, these were the two things I was hoping to be gud, and so far I'm content. Storywise,
seeing a highschool girl chastising Abdiel for losing Aogami X years ago and having this be played out completely straight was actually hilarious. Sahori arc feels kinda dumb so far, but I've heard plenty about story being ass, so I'm already biased.
Switch is not handling this game well at all, I'd say it's embarassing but everyone stopped caring long ago because "its the switch what did you expect???". Wish I could zoom out the camera at least a little bit at times but the poor tablet would kick the bucket if I did.
In terms of exploration - it's fun, but I'm getting a bit weary of it and I've heard 3rd area is a mess to get around, so a bit afraid of that. The fact that jumps have the same height/power when jogging and when running is infuriating, and the lack of zoom out I mentioned makes looking for Mimans even more of a chore.
In terms of difficulty, the game feels... weirdly fair? Even a bit too stacked in favor of the player. I'm playing on Hard and I don't think I ever died in a way that felt bullshit. Random encounters remain threatening, but game gives me enough of control and tools to make demons my bitch, provided I don't fall asleep in front of my TV. Magatsuhi moves for enemies are nice when dealing with random shitstains in the overworld, because their crits + extra turns from those can easily turn a fight into a game over if you're not careful, got me good a few times while trying to recruit a demon on autopilot. However, they make bosses feel like jokes - it's fairly easy to guess which move is the special one if you spyglass, and even if you don't once they use it once, just take a mental note of it and abuse dampeners. So far only (bosses spoilered)
Hydra and Loup Garou
felt like actual roadblocks for me.
Two questions:
1. did anyone actually have a demon run off with their shit in negotations? I found demons in my playthrough to be weirdly agreeable and whenever I get to the gifting part, negotation is as good as done in all fairness.
2. what do people think of acquring the essences? I had the impression that the demons themselves would be more involved in the process, kind of how in Strange Journey, if I recall correctly, you'd get demon sources when you maxed out analyze level of a demon. Here, technically you might get an essence as a drop from a fight or as a level up gift, but generally you get most of them from... random containers in the middle of bumfuck nowhere? I'm drowning in random-ass essences that were just stuck in a random puddle in the corner of a ruined building and it feels like developers noticed they have easy 200+ unique drops in form of essences so they can just throw them around hap-hazardly to fill out the map. Wish there was more of a focus on getting them from demons, more areas like the ones with Inugami or Daemon essences, or maybe some sort of a consumable to extract the essence from demons. Literally anything that's not just picking them up from a random dumpster.
catgode I think you can buy Essences from the skeleton shop?
Something interesting I noticed that's (apparently) new for the series: you're supposed to use your full roster and not just the main lineup. The function to swap demons now cost just half an action making it viable to put the demons warming the bench to work. This is making me plan my roster in function of roles: 3 magic attackers, 2 phys/tankers, 2 healers, etc. and swap them in and out during fights. It also makes for less dependency on Chakra drops.
