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Shin Megami Tensei

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vladgd:
Ever since Persona 5 hit last year, and I bought it and "cough" never played it "cough" I got back into Persona 4 and actually beat it. That game(p4) ended up being one of my favorite jrpgs, and the more I think about it, favorite games in general, from that one playthrough.

So Persona 5 still sitting on the shelf...it still has me thinking, I aughta play it...after...maybe I beat a real megaten game.

I'm not a guy who goes out of my way to play games because they are HARD FOR TRUE GAMERS, but yknow contra is one of my favorite all time games and that has a reputation, I beat dark souls which was amazing...not because it was hard but because it was amazing, and persona 4 is probably the hardest jrpg I've personally beaten...and all I hear is it's amongst the easiest games under the megaten umbrella.

Pretense out of the way, I hear this game (Nocturne) is nasty brutal and unfair, yet at the same time really really good. I'm not seeking it out because it's hard (im playing on normal, im not a nutter who'd play on hard), but for western releases it's the first smt game, it's cheap on ps2 when I bought it, and the setting is cool. It's a really refreshing setting, and I kinda want more...which I guess we're getting with the strange journey remake, and smt5 will be on the switch in the future.

Having a game where the start is everybody on earth dies, and they actually play through with that, that's cool. It's not like fallout where there's pockets of people barely eeking out a living, everybody is dead, and it's just demons and ghosts and shit.

So I've played roughly 8 or so hours in the past week, going slow in-between doing boring adult obligatory stuff, but it's fun so far. I just beat matador, who is like the first fuck you road block part of the game, knowing this, I prepared a lot beforehand and managed to get him first try. The kicker is, matador has a reputation for being hard, but the game after matador? IT DONT GET EASIER! Any fucking random battle can kill you, the tables can turn and the planets can align in such a way where you just die from a normal low leveled encounter. Not to mention they don't hold your hand, beat matador with a sliver of life left...uhhh you're still where you encountered him, in a place with moderate/hard random battles, far enough away from the save point to kill you before you're off to safety. It's a cool while at the same time kinda frustrating tension you don't get in the standard final fantasy fare I'm used to. Ohh and healing that usually comes to you free in a lot of games now? yeah that costs money, demon dies? even more money, you die? GAME OVERRERERRRRrrrr....and the healing place is usually a random battle or two by the save place...so...bad luck can happen if you choose to take one over the other...enemy ambush + crit...yeah...

I've been interested in exploring more non square jrpgs, and atlus is doing me well so far. Anyone hear of/play nocturne? Or other smt games I've yet to play? Looking into smt4/4a at a later date if I can manage to beat this one. Playing on ps2, legit with a real copy of the game of course, no emulation, no ps3 digital version (don't own a ps3 so no access to the superior ps3 store)




*edit*

Thread renamed since I'll be playing a good few of these games. I'm hooked.

Spectere:
I haven't played any of the SMT series, though I've certainly looked into them. I considered picking up SMT4 for 3DS based on its reputation alone, but I never got around to it.

Kinda sounds like Nocturne is probably a bit more than I'd be willing to take, though. What you described seems almost unnecessarily brutal (though I guess you can argue that it punishes unprepared players).

vladgd:
So far...it's ok. I did have a situation recently where im out and about, went back to the healer, heal to full, take 4 steps to the save point, enter a standard random battle...

"blablabla uses focus (boosts attack immensely next turn, but no big deal), next turn, BLABLABLA CRITS, BLABLABLA ATTACKS, dead main character GAME OVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR"

Literally looking at the save door too. Fortunately I didn't do anything important, but still, this game will get you.

From what I hear about smt4, the early game is just savage(nocturne early game isn't bad at all), but I haven't played it myself yet.

But yeah, it's a game all about being prepared. Unlike other jrpgs, you want to use items liberally in this game, and there's a meme for these games "use buffs retard" Which having just beaten Thor...buffs can turn an impossible fight into a trivial one, assuming you live long enough to get set up. I enjoy using mechanics usually not worthwhile in other games. Buffs even moreso in nocturne, unlike persona 4, buffs last the entire battle unless an enemy has a spell to take them away, and most of them seem to affect your whole party or all enemies in one go.

Spectere:
Oof, yeah, I'm really bad when it comes to item usage. I'm definitely a packrat in games because I'm always worried that I'm going to screw myself later by using an item now. It's not so bad when I know what to expect, but until I get that that point I guard my hoard jealously.

And yeah, the scenario you mentioned would probably make me rage pretty hard, haha. That's actually a good example of why I never even considered the Fire Emblem games until they introduced a casual mode. I've heard so many stories about people having characters killed off before they could even take a turn (and that actually happened to me in Awakening, buuuuut softcode mode saved me). I mean, it's realistic in a sense that you could stumble into a battle that you have no hope of winning, but it doesn't make for good gameplay.

vladgd:
This game's starting to drive me crazy. Part of the reason I have yet to play P5 is, it has a lot of quality of life changes...that would probably make nocturne unplayable. So you're fusing demons, and you can pass over skills, you select 1, then 2, see what skills you got, it's wrong, so you deselect them, do it again, it's wrong again. I've literally tried over a thousand times(that's actually an understatement, probably closer to 2000 resets of the rng), no exaggeration, and still haven't gotten what I wanted, the same applies for vanilla persona 4 (golden fixes it somewhat), and it's annoying. So did I get what I want? No, you find a skill you can probably live without, deal with 2 of the 3 skills you wanted and go forward. It just aint worth resetting over and over and over and over....and over and over andoverandoverandover

And even in p4, except for like Rise's dungeon, and the near end of the game, you fight a boss, and...you're safe. This game...you still have to go to a save point...which is a problem when say, any random battle can kill you from 100 to 0, before you can even act or do a damn thing about it. It's raising my blood pressure for sure. I have not yet had a game over after a boss, but that stress is on you after fighting a hard as fuck boss (of which there are many) to know that you might die before you can save.

I'm decently far right now. Hard to have context, but I'm level 38 right now, so I think I'm at least half way? maybe more?

Either way, I ran into another dumb scenario. There's an attack that does low damage, but has a chance to lower your hp to 1, ff games have this it's no big deal...except in a game where your main characters death leads to a game over...so back attack, enemies go first, do that attack on my mc, it works, he has one hp, next enemy attacks, he's dead, game over, I didn't even have an option to push a button.

I literally think it's impossible to beat this game without a few game overs unless you are extremely lucky. There are skills to REDUCE back attacks but not ELIMINATE. It kind of reminds me of the final boss of ff13. ff13 is an awful game and I don't recommend it, but the final boss spams death a lot...and 13 to my knowledge is the only ff where the main character dies, GAME OVER BITCH. So same scenario as nocturne and p4. You can spend time to craft things to boost resistance to death...and that's cool, but it doesn't reduce it to 0...so that means at any time in the boss fight, you can just automatically lose and get a game over, and there's not a damn thing you do can about it other than getting lucky, which is the only option I am aware of.

I KNEW IT WAS GOING TO BE HARD, I WAS IN FOR A CHALLENGE, but it's one thing to know of something, and another entirely to experience it.

Regardless, the fun is outweighing the frustration, so I MUST CHUG FORWARD! If I can somehow beat this monster, I may need an easier game as a break...



Halo 2 on normal? lol

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