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I've found best way to farm macca (at this point of the gaem - for careless fusing purposes), much better, efficient and fun than hunting mitamas - switch difficulty do Safety and start killing Demi-Fiend over and over - on Safety he's really easy for 99 party, first time gives 666.666 macca and after that prize is still above 200.000. Plus, if you have already used his essence, you will receive another one.
I wanted the game to flop, now seeing the success they will want to "expand their audience", like every other series trashed by the normalfag audience. Time to go back to my cuck shed of dungeon crawlers without auto mapping which will always be free from normalfag influence, or games without UI like Dwarf Fortress.
I wanted the game to flop, now seeing the success they will want to "expand their audience", like every other series trashed by the normalfag audience. Time to go back to my cuck shed of dungeon crawlers without auto mapping which will always be free from normalfag influence, or games without UI like Dwarf Fortress.
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.
i generally agree with what you said, I had a lot of trouble coming to a consensus in my head in regards to how i feel about the difficulty of the game, kept going back and forth between being happy and not. im not in a great state of mind and wasnt back then so that mightve contributed. the level being a big factor in damage scaling definitely played a trick on me more than once, with some optional bosses making me unsure if im approaching them wrong or just needing to hit the level gym and go up in numbers.
ive finished the game today at hard with 80-something hours and wanted to do some more bad takes but i think i went too aggresive with trying to finish the game and burned myself out twice in the process + personal stuff.
overall feels like a good game, but not a great game. i had my hopes up in the beginning with a sane difficulty curve, mana being an actual issue, and checkpoints instead of save anywhere, but return pillar, estoma, trafuri and smoke balls trivialize the exploration and resourse management bit. abscesses and bosses started getting interesting near end of 3rd area, abscesses with 3 or more enemies in particular i found surprisingly fun and stimulating. game in general felt like it was losing steam in the 3rd area, and taito restored a bit of the drive.
dungeons felt too big. not in the "muh dungenz too long" sense. corridors felt ridiculously large, making avoiding encounters easier combine this with easy predictable patterns and being able to easily outrun demons aaaand it gets boring. i actually liked the smt4 encounters in dungeons more. ambushes, not being able to easily outrun, not being able to easily disable them via estoma. the ability to see them felt less like a way to avoid them and more like a way to give the player means of starting the fight on your own terms. also i think corridors were much tighter, so you couldnt just run past them.
im mixed on essences, felt like they undermined fusion a bit. not sure how to change that or if it should be changed at all. it definitely cuts some tedium out, but it kinda served the "flavor" in a way. i never got into fusing lvl 99 pixies with -dyne skills though so ymmv. i liked the fantasy of tweaking the builds and figuring out fusions to make a squad that works for the fight, so the ability to quickly patch a resist or an elemental skill onto a demon with essence fusion went against it a bit. so its probably me being dumb and weird.
special shout outs to ananta, principality, lahmu and dominion (and to lesser extent camael) who i held onto a bit longer than i probably should, but with grimoires and sutras they kept giving me bang for the buck.
also (lawchad very end boss spoilers i guess?)
the nahobino nuwa fight was so underwhelming it hurts. i dont know if i went overboard with resists/nulls on my team, got lucky or if she really is that easy, but after flubbing my first try and spending 10 minutes getting demons with good fire spells, i just did her 5x faster barely having any strategy. spammed fire spells and chucked a mediarahan once or twice and that's it.
luci pissed me off with him nulling majority of stuff but i kinda appreciate it getting me out of my comfort zone and forcing to redo my squad a bit. i feel like the game couldve started incentivising pierce a bit earlier though. or maybe im blind and/or stubborn and just didnt get it when it tried to?
--
after contemplating a bit, i feel like a big reason for nuwa fight being the way it is was me getting rank violation miracle and just fusing lvl 95 baal with maragibarion and high fire pleroma lol. not sure if thats more on the game or on me but at least its somewhat solved.
so yeah, a strong 7/10 for me, i guess. ill get started with nocturne after i detox myself from turnbased anything for a bit, probably. was nice chatting with yall, cheers
i am setting up for shiva/demifiend now. had a quick look at shiva, seems like the only answer is set up with luster candy / debilitate / dekunda? i dont see how else to survive the massive almighty attack?
i did some careless fusing so might havr to hunt essences down or something, esp bowl of hygiea as well.
I'm still going through the main story, in the Demon King's castle atm. So far lil fox bro and black ooze were my MVPs overall.
Trying to regain an essence seems pretty grating- is it just a matter of feeding a demon a grimoire, autobattling an ez fight, hoping for the best and then repeat? Other than the essences that are sold in the store that's the only way I can thinkto get them.
Trying to regain an essence seems pretty grating- is it just a matter of feeding a demon a grimoire, autobattling an ez fight, hoping for the best and then repeat? Other than the essences that are sold in the store that's the only way I can thinkto get them.
Level up demons and hope for the best is the only way to get certain essence for demons that are not random encounters and I've never met situation when demon give it more than once, for another you need to refuse demon and level up again
For demons/random encounter - buy Deadly Aura 3 miracle, you can demand essence form cornered demons.
Other than store you can find essences in treasure box, some are rewards for completing quests (e.g. 'Power Beyond Control' gives Amanozako's one).
Oh, and you can farm Demi-Fiend essence every time you kill him.
i am setting up for shiva/demifiend now. had a quick look at shiva, seems like the only answer is set up with luster candy / debilitate / dekunda? i dont see how else to survive the massive almighty attack?
This and try to to transfer Null Phys (form Ongy-Ki) / Repel Phys (Fallen Abdiel, NG+ only) and Enduring soul.
Level up Idun for Golden Apple spamming.
Bring Yoshitsune with Impaler Animus and Critial Zealot - with Hassu Tobie you will alway have ciritals -> more press turn ->more chance to kill Ananta / Parvati before they heal Shiva.
Give MC Demi-Fiend essence for affinities (on Safety he's way easier than Shiva on Casual).
I still haven't beat him because I gave up on first run (magical build on Normal), now I'm replaying NG+ on Hard but that's how I'm doing preperations based on previous countless fiascos.
I feel like the game is a huge letdown in a lot of regards. A lot of the new mechanics have made the game too easy, as described by others before. I never run out of MP and rarely need to go back for healing, and getting back to a save point to fully heal is as easy as a return pillar which trivializes the whole experience anyway. I essence fusioned my MC with almost every resistance known to man so there's no chance of instakills and a very low chance of losing any battle.
I feel like the essences really make building the protagonist and other demons too easy. Whispering in IV was at least more dependent on actually training demons in your party instead of just finding an essence which has the skills or resistances you want. Fusion is also way more convenient by adding a fusion list that includes the compendium. In other SMT games, I always used to write the fusion combinations down I couldnt do yet but have already discovered. This more exploratory aspect of party building kinda gets lost as well.
All in all, I was satisfied with the game in general, even though several aspects let me down a bit (difficulty, story, environments). Doing my third playthrough now, this time as a reborn, and going for true neutral.
I am not super convinced - my lv92, 100+ luck MC seems to have sub-50% chance on landing +9 affinity charm. Seems to be ailments can be great to make life easy for mobs and some bosses but you cant rely on it the way you can luster candy or blocks. You can do Accursed Poison but then you give up other uses like Shield of God or Freikugel.
Managed to get Hard Shiva down over half with Yoshimitsu, Fallen Abdiel and Alita but I really should have kept Idun... just not enough buffer to avoid collapse when one or two things go wrong.
I am not super convinced - my lv92, 100+ luck MC seems to have sub-50% chance on landing +9 affinity charm Seems to be ailments can be great to make life easy for mobs and some bosses but you cant rely on it the way you can luster candy or blocks..
Just like everything else combat related in SMT and Persona, I'm guessing that ailment reliability goes up the closer/higher in level you are in relation to the target. Stats matter but not to the same degree as your level does. Iirc in SMT5 you do and take about 10% more damage for each level you are above or below the target. If it works similarly for ailments it would have a dramatic effect on application.
And while Luck does help landing ailments, +/- 100 is considered to be average at level 90+. It isn't going to be fudging the numbers too much in your favor. Since stats cap out at 999, there's going to be a pretty gradual shift in effectiveness. I have no idea how affinities affect ailment chances, if they do.
If you're worried about wasting turns then there's always the option to use skills where the ailment is a secondary effect.
Take my words as idle musings rather than raw facts, however.
Surely ailment affinity affects ailment chances, or what are they even for? That said, I'm still not entirely sure what LCK does in SMT5 (hence ending up with a silly 100str/100lck MC).
Since the actual game more or less ends around lv80, its a bit of a pain to get up to lv99 unless you stocked a ton of gospels - I think this is where the heavy level dependence hurts. A level 70 demon with 100+ main stat shouldnt die from a feather brush just because of level.
Surely ailment affinity affects ailment chances, or what are they even for? That said, I'm still not entirely sure what LCK does in SMT5 (hence ending up with a silly 100str/100lck MC).
Since the actual game more or less ends around lv80, its a bit of a pain to get up to lv99 unless you stocked a ton of gospels - I think this is where the heavy level dependence hurts. A level 70 demon with 100+ main stat shouldnt die from a feather brush just because of level.
Luck is for ailment application. It doesn't seem to increase Critical at all. Might have some kind of affect on hit/dodge chances. I hoarded my gospels until the very end so I could boost my level for the end game stuff. It felt like the low level cap on enemies was done just to "force" people into buying the XP Mitama DLC.
https://personacentral.com/atlus-2022-smtv-sales/
Looks like SMT V did pretty alright regarding sales. Not as good as Persona 5 obviously, but 800000 isn't a bad number considering IV took 2 years to get to 600000.
https://personacentral.com/atlus-2022-smtv-sales/
Looks like SMT V did pretty alright regarding sales. Not as good as Persona 5 obviously, but 800000 isn't a bad number considering IV took 2 years to get to 600000.
That is more than I thought it would sell, since in Japan it only sold 184,388 units according to Famitsu. It seems that the marketing push that Atlus and Nintendo did help quite a lot to move units outside of Japan.
They should make a sequel to Strange Journey and turn that into the Wizardy hell some of you want.
I'm very much enjoying SMT5 so far. Can't believe I slept on this series. I get the criticism about the lack of danger though: on screen enemies trivializes the concept of resource management when set in a open sandbox setting.
Finally did Shiva. Hard, lv95, MC 110str/110lck. Almost no grinding or superfine fusing until a bit of gospels at the end primarily so Ailat doesnt die in 1 hit.
MC Murakamo and Revival Chant as backup
Ailat for debilitate and luster
Then rotation of second Nuwa, dark Abdiel, Yoshitsune, and so on for taking out demons.
Relied on divine swap Shield of God to ride the Magatsuhis/Impales when something went wrong, and otherwise could manage - burned some chakra pots and a couple somas on mostly Ailat. Murakamo and occasional Magatsuhi freikugel did most of damage.
Hugely crippled by a lack of high level Idun or Tao, and I hear Cleo DLC would be even better. Seems like a dedicated unique buffbot is indispensable for the megabosses.
I'm mostly pleased that it is possible to do Hard Shiva without hours of exhaustive preplanned grind and fuse... but looking at Demifiend and not sure its possible for him.
I sometimes don't know if is satire or not, map markers fried the brain of the average person, he never wondered what the pillar of fire was or didn't feel the curiosity to explore.
