Why Shin Megami Tensei is awesome

Retr0gamer

This one scene is better than the whole final fantasy series put together

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzKbz1DxuRE

Gummy Panda

It's no penis demon

Gummy Panda

How far in are you Retro?

Retr0gamer

Played a ****load of it in the last two days. It really is excellent once you get past it's quirks. I have to say it's an excellent game and I'm surprised that it came out in 1992 because it's leagues ahead of anything out at the time or for a good few years after it. Anyway here's some quirks:

- It's a real dungeon crawler. It starts off tough but becomes manageable after you get a few demons. There's random battles everywhere and no safe spots and it can take nearly an hour to map out new areas.

- There's an automapper but it's buried in the menu system which is a little annoying. You've also got to learn that to access the menu you need to hold select and press the confirm button. Another thing to remember that north on the map is where you are facing, this can confuse people initially but you get used to it once you figure it out.

- Save points are few and far between so save states are kind of recommended. Entering a new area is daunting because places to heal and buy equipment have to be discovered in the huge mazes and aren't marked on your map.

- You have to distribute stats for your characters manually and some stats are useless for some characters. MAG is useless for the main character since he has no magic and for the other characters INT and LUC are useless since they only matter for the main character. It's worth noting before you waste valuable points like I did on levelling up on useless stats.

- Be warned that I've heard there is a nasty bug in the game that can lock you out of the final dungeon. It's rare but it's there.

- You've got to check every corner of every maze because NPC are not visible until you are right on top of them.

Now for the good points

- The random encounters are high but the battle system is excellent. Once you get a few demons and learn how to talk to them you can avoid a lot of battles so it becomes less of a grind. It's a good thing the battle system is so good and interesting because there's a lot of battles. The game also has an auto-battle feature to greatly speed up encounters with weaker enemies.

- The soundtrack is excellent. It's subtle and atmospheric and really suits the mood.

- The story really is great, even more so considering it's from 1992. Characters aren't too good and it doesn't deal with emotional scenes very well due to memory restrictions on the amount of text but the story of the two forces of chaos and law fighting each other is compelling. There's also three different endings depending on your decisions in the game. Neither path is entirely right. Law wants to create a paradise for humanity but only the chosen few will be accepted while the rest will die. Chaos wants a world were people are free to do as they please but at the expense of anarchy while the neutral path favours humanity to evolve by itself but requires you to kill a lot of people. It's very deep for such an old game.

- The graphics are pretty good but the demon design and art is exceptional. The first person view is ok but a bit jumpy and I've seen better faked 3D in the likes of Phantasy Star.

- The fan translation really is top notch. Tthe english is very natural and thankfully it's not translated literally which ruins some fan translations. It really is one of the best going but that's par for the course with Aeon Genesis translations. There are a few bugs caused by it but nothing serious. The worst is that you can't buy bullets for guns in the first area but that's about it and I've heard it's impossible to get best armour if you are going for the law ending. However you can by pass these by loading your save game with an unpatched japanese rom.

I'm about a third of the way through the game and just after the big twist in the plot which I really didn't see coming and it was handled really well. I'm loving the game but going to be going through it a lot more slowly now. I've also heard that the sequel is even better.

Gummy Panda

Retr0gamer wrote: »

- It's a real dungeon crawler. It starts off tough but becomes manageable after you get a few demons. There's random battles everywhere and no safe spots and it can take nearly an hour to map out new areas.

- You've got to check every corner of every maze because NPC are not visible until you are right on top of them.

- The random encounters are high but the battle system is excellent. Once you get a few demons and learn how to talk to them you can avoid a lot of battles so it becomes less of a grind. It's a good thing the battle system is so good and interesting because there's a lot of battles. The game also has an auto-battle feature to greatly speed up encounters with weaker enemies.

- The graphics are pretty good but the demon design and art is exceptional.

The above points apply to SMT: Strange Journey.

In regards to law, neutral and chaos

Law wants to create a paradise for humanity but only the chosen few will be accepted while the rest will die. Chaos wants a world were people are free to do as they please but at the expense of anarchy while the neutral path favours humanity to evolve by itself but requires you to kill a lot of people. It's very deep for such an old game.

Law = Peace and harmony but you have to give up your freedom to GOD and follow strict rules.

Chaos = Complete freedom but you lose the protection and safety of Law.

Neutral = Keeping the status quo and letting humans keep the balance rather then letting demons set the terms.

I'm in Sector C of SMT: Strange Journey. Its really good so far and the fusion system has a lot of depth. It doesn't seem that its designed for much grinding.

I always felt SMT games weren't about grinding but having really good strategies and exploiting enemy weaknesses. If you find an enemy weakness in SMT, all demons of that are of the same alignment as the attacking character in the party, will attack the enemy.

e.g.

Player (neutral) - Jack Frost (neutral) - Pyro Jack (neutral) - Pixie (Law)

If say jack uses bufu on a enemy and its weak to it, the player character and pyro jack will attack as well, as they're all neutral.

Retr0gamer

I think you explained Law, Chaos and Neutral better than me

I'd really love to play strange journey but again I'm broke

As for the SMT series and grinding, I find they aren't grind heavy either. Even SMT on the SNES isn't grind heavy and relies more on the demons you have than the level you are at. If you have the rigth demons to take on a boss then you are usually fine. Saying that I heard there's a lot of demon fusion that has to be done to get the right demons in Nocturne.

Gummy Panda

Retr0gamer wrote: »

saying that I heard there's a lot of demon fusion that has to be done to get the right demons in Nocturne.

it's pokemon for the occult

Retr0gamer

It's one way of desribing it

noodler

Fcuking Fanboi

Retr0gamer

I'm not, I've just seen the light. It calls itself shin megami tensei and it's awesome. The only fanboys are the ones deluding themselves that FFVII is the pinnacle of the genre :P

I'm off to summon demons.

noodler

Easily amused / 10.

You just like pretending you are a high school student in Japan for 80% of a 60 hour game.

Retr0gamer

You only play school kids in the person games and SMT: Nocturne. You are much older in every other SMT game usually. Unlike FFVII with 16 year olds running around with swords twice the size of themselves :P

noodler

Retr0gamer wrote: »

You only play school kids in the person games and SMT: Nocturne. You are much older in every other SMT game usually. Unlike FFVII with 16 year olds running around with swords twice the size of themselves :P

Grow up.