That thing Cleve was talking about - Let's Play SMT!

Clockwork Knight · Oct 8, 2009

IMAGINE is a free to play, advertisement and microtransaction based MMORPG set on the Shin Megami Tensei universe that around begining of this year got an english version or something

Wha...brb, downloadan

The Wizard · Oct 8, 2009

well, my p3 undub notremovedfrominventory copy still needs a day to finish, so yeah, downloading. i most likely will hate it as much as i do my small cell lungcancer, but everyone and -thing deserves a chance.

is there, by the way, any reason the demon stuff things in persona don't talk? i get the whole mask thing, wait no, actually i don't. how exactly is sunnoming fucking loki helping me face everydays hardships? wasted potential i say.

and demon genocide doesn't bother me in the least. not if it's happening to those tablekitchen-with-a-face dudes or ball-toungue-mask things. no one likes them, anyway. altough, i must confess, killing izanami did go against my code of honor. i'm a lady killer, not a lady killer... yes, i shut up now.

SerratedBiz · Oct 8, 2009

I found P3 to be better than P4. I'm currently trying out P2 Innocent Sin which looks pretty good except for the pain-inducing random encounters.

Also, Imagine is pretty good, I've been playing there for some time. Though it does share the magic and demon system with SMT, it also drags along the problems inherent to any other MMO, ie grinding your ass off. It does have a storyline you follow as the 'main quest', though, and dungeons are usually done as instances, which give it a certain Guild Wars feeling which appealed to me. Fun if you like the setting.

deuxhero · Oct 8, 2009

SerratedBiz said:
I found P3 to be better than P4. I'm currently trying out P2 Innocent Sin which looks pretty good except for the pain-inducing random encounters.

I liked P4 better because of the pacing. After the first 2 game months P3 became "Clear new block, do the social links untill next block" many time. P4's plot was gradual (instead of thrown into chunkjs at the end of the month) and I can't help but like one of the very few games with a dark story without any really emo characters (except maybe Yosuke).

Black Cat · Oct 8, 2009

@ SerratedBiz

Like the setting? I bloody love the setting. :cry:

There goes what little social life i had left after that fiasco, sob sob. I'll download it so i can give it a spin after finishing with Shin Megami Tensei II, nya.

@ The Wizard

Its Kuroi Neko teaches darke magicks, nya! bonus time, yay! Aren't you happy? Of course you are!

To begin with, while usually they are used as meaning the same thingie, in the occult the terms Invocation and Evocation are used to describe two very different concepts. The later one, Evocation, is what we do, in a very romanticed fashion, in the Shin Megami Tensei games, sumoning an entity to have a chat and ask thingies and stuff. The former one, Invocation, is the one you do in the Persona games: To become fully or partially possesed by an entity, concept, or archetype in order to gain part of its power, knowledge, mindset, and insight. The lesser varieties of Invocation actually do little more than changing the Witch's mindset, attitude, personality, and stuff to that of the summoned thingie, so that you may win diferent perspectives of thingies, or the kind of attitude you need to do something you want or need but lack the personality or mindset to be able to do, or stuff.

So, for example, if your boyfriend is a retard who acts like you are a thingie and you lack the kind of frontal, direct personality to put him on his place you do a lesser archetypal summoning of, like, Lilith or Babalon or Morrigan or something and either put him in his bloody place or go ax crazy on his butt, depending on the Lady's mood and how much of a jerk he is to her. Though summoning any of those in such a situation i would bet would end in bloody murder. But to go beyond personality changes and subconsious insight and resonance fields or stuff the sorceress needs to actually do a full invocation, becoming partially or completely possesed by the entity-thingie. It is not the safest branch of the occult.

That's the theory, leaving completely aside belief, or lack of belief, in such thingies. In that regard the Persona games are pretty well researched and stuff, but then most of the Megami Tensei games have thingies like that, is only that they are romanticed and stuff to make them into cool games so they aren't always noticeable. For example, one of the most common methods to catalogue invocable archetypes, structures, symbols, concepts, and entities is to group them in the Tarot Card whose symbolic and psychological meaning is the closest to the thingie's resonance and inclinations, kind of like how each demon in the Ars Goetia has a tarot card and elemental attributions and stuff. You'll recognize that from the Persona games, surely.

Sob sob, i'm feeling geeky and weird and crazy at the same time. Hope it answered the question, though.

deuxhero · Oct 8, 2009

So Evocation is more than a horrible school of magic filled with nothing but direct damage spells? Interesting.

SerratedBiz · Oct 8, 2009

deuxhero said:
very few games with a dark story without any really emo characters

We can agree on that point. Maybe it was because I played P3 first, however, but 3 gave me a much 'darker' or 'scary' feeling than 4. The opening cutscene to 3, with you walking through the bloodied streets with the coffins just standing around and all, gave me a very eerie feeling. The little kid that shows up in your bedroom, he sort of creeped me out. Whereas 4 felt much more relaxed and maybe more cartoonish with Teddy there. In any case, I feel both games had a lot of potential for developing a darker, scarier plot or scenes or imagery, and didn't go in that direction enough.

lightbane · Oct 8, 2009

Well, Digital devil saga has too unique plot and characters, more concretely, it's a true mature game, almost Codexian, it has:

BEWARE SPOILERS

The standard silent protagonist (until a cutscene where you discover he was so badass that angried God and leveled 70% of Earth's population), an intelligent, non-lame chick (that transforms into a demon with tentacles and has tit-mouths), an angry brute that's always angry (with a surprising reason to do so), a Jamaican with dreadlocks, a tactical genius cold and almost emotionless and yet non-emo, a crazy tomboy bitch that's a tranvestite (more specifically hermaphrodite), a guy with glasses that is also a badass, and finally an annoying child who is made in purpose to be annoying, I'll explain:
She was partially responsible for the game events and later in the game the party starts dying randomly until they go to the Sun to talk with God to stop being a faggot, what's worse is that she is a pedo too 'cause despite looking like 14 years old or so, she was grown-up artificially (she would have 6 years old!), and later in the game she absorbs Serph the main character to become the ultimate transvestite, a genderless being with great tits and Sera's childish voice, being extra creepy but in compensation having a demon-form so badass that has no weaknesses. And at the game's end, you fight God (who is an infinite mecha), and you discover that God is Earth and Earth is God, and thus God is retarded, and the main character becomes the Tranvestite God and finds a cat that was following the party in both games, that apparently was either the main character from the future or another tranvestite that looks the same. After this mindfuck shitstorm that would make Shinji Ikari proud the protagonists are all reincarnated even with their clothes for some reason (excepting the guy with the glasses that for some reason the developers forgot of him

)

ghostdog · Oct 8, 2009

Black Cat said:
@ Deuxhero

Not really a wallpaper version since it is, like, vertical and stuff, but here i uploaded the original, big big superbig scan to my imagethingie so you can download it if you want.

Click here, nya.

Since I also wanted an SMT wallpaper I went and made a widescreen one from your scan. I hope you don't mind.

Black Cat · Oct 9, 2009

@ ghostdog

No problem. Actually, i saved that, and would use the corresponding Konata macro to illustrate but then i would get called names or something.

deuxhero · Oct 9, 2009

What does flat chests being a status symbol have to do with that pic? not that they are bad...

Black Cat · Oct 9, 2009

Hey, hey

I was referring to the Frikken Saved image macro!

But, wait a minute... I though only girls could confess in Fair Codexia watching Lucky Star without everyone screaming FAG! at them, mostly because it would make totally no sense in that case.

:incline:

Krash · Oct 9, 2009

Holy shit that was fast

Well done

deuxhero · Oct 9, 2009

Black Cat said:
Hey, hey I was referring to the Frikken Saved image macro!

But, wait a minute... I though only girls could confess in Fair Codexia watching Lucky Star without everyone screaming FAG! at them, mostly because it would make totally no sense in that case.

You need to watch the series to see the image macros get used?

Black Cat · Oct 9, 2009

@ deuxhero
I just though you had seen the series and was quite amazed you would confess to doing so in here, with all the faux machismo and, like, people who thinks is edgy to be stupid. Sorry i mixed it up, but there was no bad intention or sarcasm or stuff, really. I'm, like, totally not thinking that insulting people over internet makes me cool, so if i say something offensive chances are i messed up the words or, like, something stupid like that. No bad intention at all.

@ Krash
Thanks! I'm glad you liked it.

deuxhero · Oct 9, 2009

None taken Odd that my nod to my love of small breasts goes unmentioned and unmocked

Elzair · Oct 17, 2009

How long does this game usually take?

Black Cat · Oct 17, 2009

@ Elzair

Around two weeks, i'll say. Same with the sequel, but that's playing a lot. Keep in mind, though, this is not the kind of game you can just play a little bit every day since you receive new content just after wading through numberless random encounters. If you have free time doing a chapter, to give it a random name, will take you around five hours or so of play when you know where you go and what to AUTO or RUN, a bunch more when you don't. At least in my experience if you can't play that much is better to just leave it waiting until you do, if you play a little bit, like two hours, it gets odious and horrible after three or four days of wading through the same encounters. And savestates are cheating, nya.

ghostdog · Oct 18, 2009

Savestates are mana from heaven, the holy gift of emulation to humanity. They are the best thing that has happened to console games. Seriously, I'm replaying SMT right now and without savestates it would be a real pain.

Jasede · Oct 18, 2009

Pussy...

Azira · Oct 20, 2009

Very much impressed, Black Cat. Thoroughly enjoyed reading this LP, even though it did steal 2 long nights, which I probably should've spent on the couch with my wife, but being an understanding wife, I haven't fallen out of favour yet. :D

Now I'm looking forward to reading through your other LP. Keep up the good work!

The Wizard · Oct 27, 2009

yeah, answered pretty much everything except why exactly atlus got lazy and didn't write dialogue for the pokedeities. i can understand that thor, for example, not having much to say about shit going on. because, let's face it, he has a hammer and smashes things. that is how he rolls. but the other major ones like loki, wotan, shiva, lucifer or even the starters like izanagi? all that sets them apart is the short nonunique flavour text they give you when you stitch them together like frankensteins monster in the velvet room and a bunch of stats. it just doesn't feel like you have loki inside you ...no wait, scratch that. because if anything, persona makes you feel you have loki inside you. "who's that warlock who is a sex machine to all the chicks?". but seriously, the only thing they really do is speed up the level of sl progression. lame. i'm pretty much nly rambling right now, but fuck you, i slept for 14 hours straight and drank a litre of coffee after waking up, i can and will do this all day long. if neccessary i will even walk to japan and let my frustration out on the developers. i've never seen so much wasted potential since morrowind. it's like the developers don't want to make a game that is a more refined and dignified version of pokemon. of what use are those dozens of persona besides enabling you to see more non interactive cutscenes by beating the shit out of monsters? the fusion system is another thing i have a severe problem with: you can make pimp persona, but why would you want to? let's take a severe example, i can make an izanagi that knows primal force, power charge and absorp wind, but it would take hours sitting in the velvet room fusing and then "down" fusing things and then hoping that the skills i want it to inherit show up in the skill list. why couldn't it just select the best skills to pass down instead of making it actually harder to inherit them? or let me select them manually? no fuck you, says mister smugfacesliteyeddeveloper,here in japan we love wasting time on trivial shit.if you want to see all the game has to offer you will jump though our burning hoops or FUCK YOU! then there are the social links, and i hope i don't need to write why exactly those are fuck up, man. yeah, i'm pretty sure if i spent a few hours a day for 10 sundays with that ol' lady down at the river she will be delighted to tell me about her sick husband that broke her heart every morning he woke up because he couldn't remember who the hell she even is. in a sense, it is even more fucked up than hentai that depicts women going crazy and getting orgasms every 10 seconds just by having anal sex(which is fucking impossible. if i ever meet a guy who claims to have made a woman come by anal sex alone i will punch him in the fucking throat and spit in his lying shit face).
i feel better now.

Black Cat said:
@ SerratedBiz
Sob sob, i'm feeling geeky and weird and crazy at the same time. Hope it answered the question, though.

although studying hundred year old texts written by people we now would treat by drop feeding them antipsychotics is a little odd, there are worse things you could be doing in your free time. so you shouldn't feel bad. except if you believe in the stuff, then you should feel bad. and get help. and burn your parents for the glory of the morning star.

anyway, thanks.

ghostdog · Nov 3, 2009

After hating this level a whole lot we reach the third general: Maou Arioch!

Since I'm at this point in the game, let me just mention that Arioch is the arch-deity of Chaos in the Elric novel series by Michael Moorcock. Moorcock's universe is also governed by powers of Law and Chaos so maybe that was a reference there. Maybe SMT's creators have been influenced somewhat by Moocrocks books.

This is Elric summoning Arioch :