SMT: Nocturne

[Average Manatee]

The way this game handles physical skill upgrades made me scratch my head a bit. You can get your first heavy-hitting single target physical skill (divine shot) at 45 or so while the first medium aoe skills take more than 10 levels after that and cost too much god damn HP. It's not until you're 70+ that you get hades blast. I can't imagine this being for balance reasons, as getting divine shot made bosses much easier for me as I could be critting w/ focus for 1700 at that level when bosses had 3000-4000 hp. I beat the third rider in 4 minutes compared to the 12 minutes or so that the previous one took.

Edit: nice, Sati changed one of her spells to wind cutter. That's a mega damage skill at 50 and exactly what I needed to fight Black Frost.

Wait until you get Freikugel + Focus combo, does insane damage to single targets.

- Edit: Been years since I last played Nocturne, but Deathbound is alright for small groups of enemies since it can hit twice; it scales with VIT, I think. Deadly Fury only hits once but has higher crit rate which translates into more press turns. Gaea Rage isn't anything special but looks awesome in action.

You can check my little writeup of physical skills across a few posts on page 4. TL;DR get life-boosting skills and rely on HP-dependent physical skills. Become a tank and deal more damage than normal skills at the same time.

Some additional notes:

- Physical skills in general are more about getting multi-hits or crits rather than pure damage. For a single-target single-hit attack "Heavy" vs. "Light" is the difference between a base damage coefficient of 60ish vs. 40ish (for reference basic punches are 32). The various levels of multi-hit skills have roughly the same differential (e.g. a light multi-hit might be 20s vs. heavy 30s).
- What matters more is stats. The damage for a normal attack (punch or physical skill) scales off the sum of your level and strength. The damage for an HP-dependent skill scales off your Max HP. So just boosting those stats is where most of the real power increase comes from, not from the skill base damage going from 40 to 60.
- Focus + Heat Wave is a great early game physical setup (HP-dependent). For bosses you can actually just rely on punches if you like, since most other early game skills tend to have accuracy problems and you don't want to pay HP for a marginal increase in damage. An MC even moderately focused on physical is generally going to out damage most physical demons on your team just due to higher level/more stats from magatama/incense/focus.

 

[Puukko]

I'm on the 5th kalpa atm. Looking to fuse Lachesis into Harlot soon (boy did it take some planning to find out how to achieve that) and evolve Scathach into Skadi before Lucifer, with Black Rider as my 4th. I do have Ganesh and Dante as backup, too.

I have a feeling the last dungeon will be a cakewalk after this.

Edit: hmm, I was under the impression Lucifer was required to finish Amala but it appears not.

 

[Puukko]

Kagutsuchi and Lucifer beat, True Demon Ending achieved with 82 hours on the in-game timer, but that's with extensive speed boosting. I was level 85 with my demons in the 80-83 range and did not think it possible for me to beat him first try.

Overall I was very impressed with the game and really enjoyed it. Going back from DDS2 to this I was concerned about losing the QoL changes, but it really was quite minor. I got quite deep into demon fusions and made extensive use of the spreadsheets, help program and walkthrough I had on hand, though I strived to at least attempt bosses without consulting the walkthrough first.

Luckily, there's no shortage of games in the series for me to play, though I will likely alter my original plans a bit and give one of the Personas a go before returning to mainline with the 3DS games later. Now to wait for SMTV...

 

[d1r]

Kagutsuchi and Lucifer beat, True Demon Ending achieved with 82 hours on the in-game timer, but that's with extensive speed boosting. I was level 85 with my demons in the 80-83 range and did not think it possible for me to beat him first try.

Overall I was very impressed with the game and really enjoyed it. Going back from DDS2 to this I was concerned about losing the QoL changes, but it really was quite minor. I got quite deep into demon fusions and made extensive use of the spreadsheets, help program and walkthrough I had on hand, though I strived to at least attempt bosses without consulting the walkthrough first.

Luckily, there's no shortage of games in the series for me to play, though I will likely alter my original plans a bit and give one of the Personas a go before returning to mainline with the 3DS games later. Now to wait for SMTV...

Skip Persona 4, and Persona 1. The amtsophere, story, and cast of 4 is absolute garbage, and Persona 1 aged terribly. Persona 2 has a great cast, and a better story, but the gameplay is still ... dated.

Persona 3 is kinda ok, even though it still uses a lot of cringy anime tropes. It's definitely darker than 4 and 5 though, and the music is great too.

Shin Megami Tensei IV on the 3DS is peak SMT, and one of the best games I have ever played in my life. I would almost suggest you to completely skip the Persona series just to start right now with IV. Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse (what if scenario of SMTIV) is even better on the gameplay departement, but heavily suffers from anime tropes, and a really really bad cast. The first part of the story is pure garbage, and the 2nd part kinda saves the whole thing. I would call it the Dark Souls 2 of the Dark Souls series. lol

 

[Puukko]

Yeah I've been doing quite a bit of research into each game, just having the difficulty of choice at the moment. I've got IV set up and ready to go but those warnings about the difficulty of the first dungeon weren't exaggerated. Also started SJR so yeah, I've just got to set my mind on which one I want to stick with.

 

[d1r]

Yeah I've been doing quite a bit of research into each game, just having the difficulty of choice at the moment. I've got IV set up and ready to go but those warnings about the difficulty of the first dungeon weren't exaggerated. Also started SJR so yeah, I've just got to set my mind on which one I want to stick with.

The difficulty drops off very quickly, as soon as you're out of Naraku, and get more into demon fusion. Naraku unironically is the hardest part of the whole game.

 

[aweigh]

Don't listen to anyone who says Persona 1 is bad. As far as the Persona series is concerned the best ones are the first two games, with the very best one being Persona 2: Eternal Punishment.

(Persona 2 is composed of two games, Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment).

As for mainline SMT series, well, Nocturne is the one I enjoyed the most. I actually recommend jumping into SMT: Deep Strange Journey on 3DS if you want more hard-core SMT goodness full of stats and demon mechanics.

*Note that SMT: DSJ is a spin-off title and is not related at all to either Persona or the mainline SMT series; I only recommend playing it after Nocturne if you want to play another SMT game that is equally mechanically complex and satisfying to plow through.

SMT 4/Apocalypse are good games, but they're more simplified than Nocturne and kind of downgrades in my opinion, both in overall complexity and challenge as well as less interesting in their story-telling and cast of characters (although SMT 4 is not as bad Apocalypse is in this regard). SMT 4 Apocalypse really went to shit with the cringe-heavy animu shit.

EDIT: I've read that SMT: Soul Hackers is really good but I haven't yet played it.

 

[Deflowerer]

Behead all who criticize Persona 1.

It's actually my favorite SMT game after Nocturne. Fantastic atmosphere (as long as you have the original OST) and great dungeon crawling.

 

[Delterius]

9 out of every 10 history channel fans agree that Persona 2.1 and 2.2 are the best smt games

 

[aweigh]

Persona 2 duology was something special indeed. Really makes the direction the series took with P3 onwards hurt all the more...

 

[Delterius]

we are never going to get another sunglasses hitler maian apocalypse in shamballah

 

[Exhuminator]

I've been playing JRPGs for thirty years, all the way up to the present. To this day Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne remains the very best JRPG I've beaten. It is absolutely brilliant. It is fearless in its execution, beautiful and brutal, and always respects its player's intelligence.

That said, I've not spent much time with the Persona entries. I've only played one actually; I tried to get into P3P... what a vapid boring waste of life that shit was. I sure hope the prior and successive Persona entries are better.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

I sure hope the prior and successive Persona entries are better.

If you're willing to learn Japanese, then prior ones may be your jam.

Otherwise, there's no decent version of P1 for English speakers, as PS1 edition has gimped difficulty and missing one of the routes, and PSP version replaced the music with boring wubwubwub.

P2 are more storyfaggy and less interesting in the dungeon and gameplay department, but still better than P3.

 

[The Decline]

I sure hope the prior and successive Persona entries are better.

If you're willing to learn Japanese, then prior ones may be your jam.

Otherwise, there's no decent version of P1 for English speakers, as PS1 edition has gimped difficulty and missing one of the routes, and PSP version replaced the music with boring wubwubwub.

P2 are more storyfaggy and less interesting in the dungeon and gameplay department, but still better than P3.

There's a music patch for the psp version.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

I sure hope the prior and successive Persona entries are better.

If you're willing to learn Japanese, then prior ones may be your jam.

Otherwise, there's no decent version of P1 for English speakers, as PS1 edition has gimped difficulty and missing one of the routes, and PSP version replaced the music with boring wubwubwub.

P2 are more storyfaggy and less interesting in the dungeon and gameplay department, but still better than P3.

There's a music patch for the psp version.

PSP version has way less tracks and the patch doesn't fix some of the changed sound effects that feel out of place and out of sync (e.g. demon dance attacks).

 

[Poseidon00]

Now that SMT:If... is translated it's my favorite Persona game.

In Nocturne I almost always end up with everyone having Mana Refill so the game becomes a breeze. Long as you have that the difficulty takes a steep dive.

 

[ghostdog]

I sure hope the prior and successive Persona entries are better.

If you're willing to learn Japanese, then prior ones may be your jam.

Otherwise, there's no decent version of P1 for English speakers, as PS1 edition has gimped difficulty and missing one of the routes, and PSP version replaced the music with boring wubwubwub.

P2 are more storyfaggy and less interesting in the dungeon and gameplay department, but still better than P3.

There's a music patch for the psp version.

PSP version has way less tracks and the patch doesn't fix some of the changed sound effects that feel out of place and out of sync (e.g. demon dance attacks).

Even so, the PSP persona with the sound patch is still a good game, and worth a try for those unfortunate enough not to know moonspeak.

 

[aweigh]

absolute BANGER

the ONLY velvet room music worth your time

let's explore a DUNGEON

honestly persona 1 soundtrack on ps1 is probably my favorite of any SMT game. like it more than Nocturne's ost.

 

[Deflowerer]

Yeah that Monochrome track is pretty much the defining track of the whole soundtrack and game's atmosphere in general.

Too bad the main composer (did most of the dungeon tracks) died in a car accident in early 2000s.

 

[Swigen]

I play SMT4 on mute ‘til I get to a boss and this comes on....

 

[aweigh]

western "gamers" have declined actually even more than their japanese counterparts. they are utterly subhuman who only care about removing fanservice and removing lolicon or moe style and playing loot box and mtx shit on their home consoles.

there's a reason why there has barely been any CRPG of note the past 10-15 years: western gamers don't want good games.

 

[Tweed]

Just finished SMT 4 on neutral and honestly it seemed pretty dull. It was just more of the same, but not as well done.

 

[aweigh]

i dropped smt4 around the halfway point. just got sick of it.

 

[Tweed]

I had to force myself to get to the end, I expected them to go all out in the last two dungeons, but they were just more basic teleportation mazes. Honestly, the only particularly hard battles were the DLC bosses. The ending was also pretty weak, the firmament goes away, everyone is together, the end. I went ahead looked at the other endings on Youtube and they really aren't any better, just kind of leaves me feeling used. I certainly hope Apocalypse is better.

 

[Matador]

Apocalypse is better in gameplay.