I read Abdiel's lore description and now know why she's so (relatively, by high ranking Law demon) nice.
She almost went with Lucifer when he rebelled, so of course she's the most reasonable archangel. #Chaosreigns
Also, couple of things post area 3.5:
1. Did anyone else feel a bit under-leveled when they got to the 4th main Daat region? I was like at level 54, and most of the enemies even in the areas near the beginning or around level 60, and they go into the 70s not that far from the entrance. At least I went up in levels really quickly for awhile.
2. Wow Fionn, since you're an unfused demon your stats kinda suck! Your ten levels higher than most of my demons but your stats are kinda worse. Guess I'm gonna use you as fusion material until I am actually high enough lvl to fuse you again.
3. That abcession fight with the four lvl 99 basic enemies was rough, I had to fuse a super tanky aggro absorbing fafnir to get through it.
I read Abdiel's lore description and now know why she's so (relatively, by high ranking Law demon) nice.
She almost went with Lucifer when he rebelled, so of course she's the most reasonable archangel. #Chaosreigns
Also, couple of things post area 3.5:
1. Did anyone else feel a bit under-leveled when they got to the 4th main Daat region? I was like at level 54, and most of the enemies even in the areas near the beginning or around level 60, and they go into the 70s not that far from the entrance. At least I went up in levels really quickly for awhile.
2. Wow Fionn, since you're an unfused demon your stats kinda suck! Your ten levels higher than most of my demons but your stats are kinda worse. Guess I'm gonna use you as fusion material until I am actually high enough lvl to fuse you again.
3. That abcession fight with the four lvl 99 basic enemies was rough, I had to fuse a super tanky aggro absorbing fafnir to get through it.
I think V's making an effort to make everyone seem reasonable. Early on, anyway. To get the alignments on a more even level. Some SMTs have a very 'Neutral Good, Law & Chaos Bad' kind of feel, and I think this game is trying to fix that.
Almost took out the area 2 boss on my first real attempt. Figure one of those demon leveling statues and a minor adjustment or two will seal the deal. He's my favorite boss so far, a pretty varied fight that isn't easy to just build an anti-boss party for.
well I'm at the game's superboss. I really dont like it.
I really hate when the "difficulty" of a boss is "I am constantly spawning adds. fuck you" they're just never fun fights. they're just fucking slogs.
The fight's Atlus-style Almighty spam gimmick is that you're punished for not focus-firing enough. Some of them seem clumsy with resistances and eat up their press-turns. Killing them only resets their debuffs. The healer needs to go, but at least he's weak to an instant kill element.
What I like about this game is when you get crit and die
+4
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DemonStaceyTTODewback's DaughterIn love with the TaySwayRegistered Userregular
edited November 2021
Alright just got through the main sections of area 3 and two thoughts.
1) Area 3 is awesome. Really makes you look at the environment not just the map to figure out where to go. It was so fun like climbing up to a high area and looking out over the environment to see where to go. Can't wait to see what area 4 brings to the table.
2) After getting Wrath Tempest I gotta say I am so amazed that an SMT game... and a mainline one at that has such awesome animations. Like ohmigod. It's so over the top and fantastic! Usually animations are such a weak part of the series. They are usually so simple and so few special unique ones but man they are KILLING it here.
If this exploration and progression were in a more character/story heavy game it could be one of my fav games ever.
I'm happy that the game is not very story heavy, that's not really what I love about SMT. Frankly I wish there was less story, a la SMT3, because the cutscenes and dialog in this game are mostly boring. Someone earlier said that it landed in an unfortunate "dead zone" between minimalist story like Nocturne and a full fledged story like most JRPGs, and so far I agree with that. There's just enough there to force the player to watch pointless conversations and break up the gameplay, but not enough to weave anything like a compelling narrative.
If this exploration and progression were in a more character/story heavy game it could be one of my fav games ever.
I really enjoy the game's premise and its implications. It's just such a shame that the actual story is pretty bare-bones and the characters are not even really a thing.
+1
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DemonStaceyTTODewback's DaughterIn love with the TaySwayRegistered Userregular
I'm happy that the game is not very story heavy, that's not really what I love about SMT. Frankly I wish there was less story, a la SMT3, because the cutscenes and dialog in this game are mostly boring. Someone earlier said that it landed in an unfortunate "dead zone" between minimalist story like Nocturne and a full fledged story like most JRPGs, and so far I agree with that. There's just enough there to force the player to watch pointless conversations and break up the gameplay, but not enough to weave anything like a compelling narrative.
Oh yea it's a fantastic game and I don't come to SMT expecting lots of story. Game is doing amazing at what it sets out to do.
I just personally love story heavy games and everything else is so damn good that it makes me hope some other story heavy JRPG does the other stuff as well at some point. Because man would that be amazing for someone like me!
I've always liked the dichotomy of SMT mainline for the story-light gameplay-focused games and the Persona series for the heavier story focus. I suppose the tone of the two series has diverged a huge amount at this point, though.
Spoilers? Kinda? For a regular demon that wanders around Area 4.
I like how when Nebiros spots you he summons a bunch of Decarbia and then makes a run for it. It's a neat way of showing what Nebiros' deal is simply by how he acts on the overworld.
It's too bad he's also the only one (so far) who behaves in a unique fashion. I mean, I guess there's also the ambushers who jump out of the ground and attack you, but that doesn't have quite as much personality.
I read Abdiel's lore description and now know why she's so (relatively, by high ranking Law demon) nice.
She almost went with Lucifer when he rebelled, so of course she's the most reasonable archangel. #Chaosreigns
Also, couple of things post area 3.5:
1. Did anyone else feel a bit under-leveled when they got to the 4th main Daat region? I was like at level 54, and most of the enemies even in the areas near the beginning or around level 60, and they go into the 70s not that far from the entrance. At least I went up in levels really quickly for awhile.
2. Wow Fionn, since you're an unfused demon your stats kinda suck! Your ten levels higher than most of my demons but your stats are kinda worse. Guess I'm gonna use you as fusion material until I am actually high enough lvl to fuse you again.
3. That abcession fight with the four lvl 99 basic enemies was rough, I had to fuse a super tanky aggro absorbing fafnir to get through it.
Where did you get number 2? I'm in area 4 and haven't seen it.
Also where do you use gems? I'm in area 4 and haven't found a place to use them.
League of Legends: Sorakanmyworld
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
I read Abdiel's lore description and now know why she's so (relatively, by high ranking Law demon) nice.
She almost went with Lucifer when he rebelled, so of course she's the most reasonable archangel. #Chaosreigns
Also, couple of things post area 3.5:
1. Did anyone else feel a bit under-leveled when they got to the 4th main Daat region? I was like at level 54, and most of the enemies even in the areas near the beginning or around level 60, and they go into the 70s not that far from the entrance. At least I went up in levels really quickly for awhile.
2. Wow Fionn, since you're an unfused demon your stats kinda suck! Your ten levels higher than most of my demons but your stats are kinda worse. Guess I'm gonna use you as fusion material until I am actually high enough lvl to fuse you again.
3. That abcession fight with the four lvl 99 basic enemies was rough, I had to fuse a super tanky aggro absorbing fafnir to get through it.
Where did you get number 2? I'm in area 4 and haven't seen it.
Also where do you use gems? I'm in area 4 and haven't found a place to use them.
After beating the Area 3 boss, a new text bubble should appear on the Area 3 map quite a bit back. It's a Queen Mebd, who will trade your gems for incenses.
I read Abdiel's lore description and now know why she's so (relatively, by high ranking Law demon) nice.
She almost went with Lucifer when he rebelled, so of course she's the most reasonable archangel. #Chaosreigns
Also, couple of things post area 3.5:
1. Did anyone else feel a bit under-leveled when they got to the 4th main Daat region? I was like at level 54, and most of the enemies even in the areas near the beginning or around level 60, and they go into the 70s not that far from the entrance. At least I went up in levels really quickly for awhile.
2. Wow Fionn, since you're an unfused demon your stats kinda suck! Your ten levels higher than most of my demons but your stats are kinda worse. Guess I'm gonna use you as fusion material until I am actually high enough lvl to fuse you again.
3. That abcession fight with the four lvl 99 basic enemies was rough, I had to fuse a super tanky aggro absorbing fafnir to get through it.
Where did you get number 2? I'm in area 4 and haven't seen it.
Also where do you use gems? I'm in area 4 and haven't found a place to use them.
he's on top of a mountain. on one of the mountains in area 4.
Hmm... I finally have access to prayer of strength and magic but my older demons aren't gaining any more bonus stats when leveling. Wonder what determines how many they can get. I wonder if fusion bonus and incenses count against prayer level up bonuses. If that's the case then you'd have to wait to use incenses until after the prayer level up bonuses run out to get the most value out of them.
I have prevailed against boss and now beaten the game.
I have some thoughts about the game but overall I really enjoyed it. I did kinda think it starts to fall apart a bit mechanically around the last quarter of the game though.
Wanna know how screwy skill-descriptions are in this series?
Carnage Fang and Mac an Luin are the same type of skill, with almost the same description. Only Carnage Fang is described as "Heavy" damage while Mac an Luin is described as "Severe" damage, and Carnage Fang costs less MP to use. Can you guess which one can deal more damage? It's Carnage Fang!
Abyssal Mask in japanese and other languages is described as reducing the chance of instant death, which it does. But the english localisation-team didn't seem to think that's important.
This one is unrelated, but Omagatoki: Critical's "omagatoki" seems to only be "magatoki" (calamity-time) in the japanese release, while the "critical" is "kaishin" (satisfaction).
Looks like the first half was localised by someone who didn't think the original japanese was fancy enough, whose shift ended right after "Omagatoki:", and then a second person who thought it was way too fancy came in to finish the second half.
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Magus`The fun has been DOUBLED!Registered Userregular
Assuming there is a NG+, I wonder if anyone has come up with an all-star team.
Also, I noticed that I never got the same feeling of being OP as I did in SMTIII. I think it's because even the strongest enemies have at least one elemental weakness.
In SMTIII, once I started fusing boss monsters things really turned around.
Also, I got to level 99 to kill the special boss and haven't finished the area they were in yet. Everything is probably going to be a pushover now, sadly.
And yeah, the framerate is dog shit but what can you expect from two GameCubes glued together? I've seen it run on emulators at 60+ FPS which makes me slightly annoyed it was Switch exclusive.
Yeah I wish this had come out on PS4, it would be nice if the game ran better. Doesn't ruin the experience by any means but it is a downside.
Early/mid-game spoilers
Finally beat Lahmu, he was a real pain in the ass on hard mode. Fusing Sukuna-Hikona was what pushed the fight from "almost" to "won handily." He's the first demon with Matarukaja that I've found, and that made it possible to quickly destroy the tentacles one by one and win the first phase of the fight without exhausting my resources. Gems were also very useful in this battle, since the boss's weakness changes in the second phase and it's hard to build a party geared toward both weaknesses.
I like the rhythm of the first phase of the fight; the player naturally wants to kill all the tentacles at once, but Babylon Curse made that impossible for me, so destroying them while remembering when he was going to heal was a complex game of turn management.
Very satisfying win, definitely the most trouble I've had in this game so far. Very much looking forward to the third area.
Abyssal Mask in japanese and other languages is described as reducing the chance of instant death, which it does. But the english localisation-team didn't seem to think that's important.
? On my screen for fusing Fafnir, the description of Abyssal Mask is "greatly reduces the chance of insta-kill and being afflicted with status ailments."
Wrapped up Khonsu's sidequest. It was pretty neat. But it's also kind of frustrating because it makes me wish the rest of the game had its writing.
Khonsu's sidequest has few scenes and a small supporting cast in Miyazu and Isis, but it still manages to convey pretty much everything it needs to. We get why Khonsu's doing what he's doing and what his plans for the future are.
Contrast this to the two other gods who don't drop out of the race for the Throne: Odin and Zeus. Their motivations aren't stated, barely even implied, and their visions for the world they intend to create if they do take the Throne are... uhm... non-existent. A few more demon NPCs hanging around near their boss arenas in Area 4 would've helped flesh them out even the little, but the game doesn't bother.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Wanna know how screwy skill-descriptions are in this series?
Carnage Fang and Mac an Luin are the same type of skill, with almost the same description. Only Carnage Fang is described as "Heavy" damage while Mac an Luin is described as "Severe" damage, and Carnage Fang costs less MP to use. Can you guess which one can deal more damage? It's Carnage Fang!
Abyssal Mask in japanese and other languages is described as reducing the chance of instant death, which it does. But the english localisation-team didn't seem to think that's important.
This one is unrelated, but Omagatoki: Critical's "omagatoki" seems to only be "magatoki" (calamity-time) in the japanese release, while the "critical" is "kaishin" (satisfaction).
Looks like the first half was localised by someone who didn't think the original japanese was fancy enough, whose shift ended right after "Omagatoki:", and then a second person who thought it was way too fancy came in to finish the second half.
And this is why I believe in localization over translation.
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MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
edited November 2021
So, for what it's worth, Carnage Fang is slightly weaker than Mac an Luin normally, and slightly stronger than Mac an Luin on a crit
In Japanese, it also makes a distinction between the power of the two, even though Carnage Fang is only a hair weaker than other attacks that are classified as Severe
The MP difference is fairly stark, however, but that can just be down to "Unique skills can have unique stuff about them I guess"
EDIT: Mac an Luin also has a higher hit rate, for whatever that amounts to
I gotta say, while Reverse Compendium Fusion is incredibly convenient and useful, it does sort of take away from the mystery of demon fusion. In my first playthrough of SMT3 I was always excited to check the new fusion results after catching or fusing demons. It felt like I was exploring one set of possibilities among many, some of which I'd never know about until New Game+. I loved the feeling of seeing some super-powerful demon come up in the result table.
In SMTV you basically have everything mapped out. Even though possible future fusions don't become visible until you've registered their ingredients in the Compendium, you can usually see most of the options that are a few steps ahead of where you are. And with the "analyze" screen and Reverse Compendium Fusion screen, you can check what lower level demons you missed and go catch/fuse them. Choosing one fusion path for your demons doesn't make others invisible to you, since the possible results from Compendium are still viewable. Thus, it's pretty easy to make sure you've obtained every possible demon up to your level, something that would have been inconceivable on a first playthrough of SMT3.
This works well with the way the game is balanced; many boss fights, especially earlier on, seem to want you to look at all available options and fuse two or three demons that seem made for the job. But it takes away from the occult atmosphere of the fusion process, by reducing it to a series of clearly viewable spreadsheets.
I don't think it's a bad feature, but I do find fusion to be a bit less exciting in this game than in Nocturne. On the other hand I spend days in these fusion menus, which wasn't as true in SMT3.
On the surface I agree, but I also remember the stretches in Devil Survivor 1/2 where I spent more time staring at the fusion windows than actually playing the game.
The one convenience option I want for fusion is "Individual Reverse Compendium Fusion". That is, pick a single demon (party or compendium), and scroll the available options (party or compendium) for fusion with just that one. Because sometimes I'll have a demon I want to get rid of and would like to fuse with anything, in my party currently or otherwise.
---
Area 4:
Me: "Y'know, it's hard to take this villain speech from Dazai seriously when he's wearing that SUCKER hat..." two seconds later
Dazai: throws away SUCKER hat
Me: shrug of "well, you got me there" two seconds later
Dazai: incredibly spikey
Me: uncontrollable bathos-fueled laughter
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
Abyssal Mask in japanese and other languages is described as reducing the chance of instant death, which it does. But the english localisation-team didn't seem to think that's important.
? On my screen for fusing Fafnir, the description of Abyssal Mask is "greatly reduces the chance of insta-kill and being afflicted with status ailments."
I guess I only read half of it.
And yeah, there's about four tiers of accuracy for damage-moves, with most at either 98 or 108, and a small handful at 50 or 118. Mac is a 108, Carnage is a 98. As an example, all of the standard spells like the Agi-series are 98s.
The one convenience option I want for fusion is "Individual Reverse Compendium Fusion". That is, pick a single demon (party or compendium), and scroll the available options (party or compendium) for fusion with just that one. Because sometimes I'll have a demon I want to get rid of and would like to fuse with anything, in my party currently or otherwise.
---
Area 4:
Me: "Y'know, it's hard to take this villain speech from Dazai seriously when he's wearing that SUCKER hat..." two seconds later
Dazai: throws away SUCKER hat
Me: shrug of "well, you got me there" two seconds later
Dazai: incredibly spikey
Me: uncontrollable bathos-fueled laughter
he needs more power
also, if your in area 4 and want to figure out how to get to a miman that seems in an impossible to reach place, the answer is almost always jump off from that really big mountain and hop along rooftops to it.
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Andy JoeWe claim the land for the highlord!The AdirondacksRegistered Userregular
Post-Diet Building
Can't help but wonder if the developers ever considered (were tempted by?) implementing some sort of social simulation gameplay loop. Storywise there is this mechanism for going back and forth between Da'at and "regular" Tokyo already, it could conceivably have accommodated a more Persona-like structure.
Posts
Instantly getting full debuffs can often be more impactful than one really good crit for turn
Also, couple of things post area 3.5:
2. Wow Fionn, since you're an unfused demon your stats kinda suck! Your ten levels higher than most of my demons but your stats are kinda worse. Guess I'm gonna use you as fusion material until I am actually high enough lvl to fuse you again.
3. That abcession fight with the four lvl 99 basic enemies was rough, I had to fuse a super tanky aggro absorbing fafnir to get through it.
I think V's making an effort to make everyone seem reasonable. Early on, anyway. To get the alignments on a more even level. Some SMTs have a very 'Neutral Good, Law & Chaos Bad' kind of feel, and I think this game is trying to fix that.
1) Area 3 is awesome. Really makes you look at the environment not just the map to figure out where to go. It was so fun like climbing up to a high area and looking out over the environment to see where to go. Can't wait to see what area 4 brings to the table.
2) After getting Wrath Tempest I gotta say I am so amazed that an SMT game... and a mainline one at that has such awesome animations. Like ohmigod. It's so over the top and fantastic! Usually animations are such a weak part of the series. They are usually so simple and so few special unique ones but man they are KILLING it here.
If this exploration and progression were in a more character/story heavy game it could be one of my fav games ever.
I really enjoy the game's premise and its implications. It's just such a shame that the actual story is pretty bare-bones and the characters are not even really a thing.
Oh yea it's a fantastic game and I don't come to SMT expecting lots of story. Game is doing amazing at what it sets out to do.
I just personally love story heavy games and everything else is so damn good that it makes me hope some other story heavy JRPG does the other stuff as well at some point. Because man would that be amazing for someone like me!
It's too bad he's also the only one (so far) who behaves in a unique fashion. I mean, I guess there's also the ambushers who jump out of the ground and attack you, but that doesn't have quite as much personality.
Where did you get number 2? I'm in area 4 and haven't seen it.
Also where do you use gems? I'm in area 4 and haven't found a place to use them.
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
After beating the Area 3 boss, a new text bubble should appear on the Area 3 map quite a bit back. It's a Queen Mebd, who will trade your gems for incenses.
he's on top of a mountain. on one of the mountains in area 4.
The 4th area is another area where iv spent way way way too long staring at a marker on the map for a fruit or miman going "How the fuck."
Nvm found her.
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
Do you mean the dlc, or is there another one?
I have some thoughts about the game but overall I really enjoyed it. I did kinda think it starts to fall apart a bit mechanically around the last quarter of the game though.
Carnage Fang and Mac an Luin are the same type of skill, with almost the same description. Only Carnage Fang is described as "Heavy" damage while Mac an Luin is described as "Severe" damage, and Carnage Fang costs less MP to use. Can you guess which one can deal more damage? It's Carnage Fang!
Abyssal Mask in japanese and other languages is described as reducing the chance of instant death, which it does. But the english localisation-team didn't seem to think that's important.
This one is unrelated, but Omagatoki: Critical's "omagatoki" seems to only be "magatoki" (calamity-time) in the japanese release, while the "critical" is "kaishin" (satisfaction).
Looks like the first half was localised by someone who didn't think the original japanese was fancy enough, whose shift ended right after "Omagatoki:", and then a second person who thought it was way too fancy came in to finish the second half.
Also, I noticed that I never got the same feeling of being OP as I did in SMTIII. I think it's because even the strongest enemies have at least one elemental weakness.
In SMTIII, once I started fusing boss monsters things really turned around.
Also, I got to level 99 to kill the special boss and haven't finished the area they were in yet. Everything is probably going to be a pushover now, sadly.
And yeah, the framerate is dog shit but what can you expect from two GameCubes glued together? I've seen it run on emulators at 60+ FPS which makes me slightly annoyed it was Switch exclusive.
Steam Profile | Signature art by Alexandra 'Lexxy' Douglass
I'm ashamed I had to run away from that...
Early/mid-game spoilers
I like the rhythm of the first phase of the fight; the player naturally wants to kill all the tentacles at once, but Babylon Curse made that impossible for me, so destroying them while remembering when he was going to heal was a complex game of turn management.
Very satisfying win, definitely the most trouble I've had in this game so far. Very much looking forward to the third area.
Khonsu's sidequest has few scenes and a small supporting cast in Miyazu and Isis, but it still manages to convey pretty much everything it needs to. We get why Khonsu's doing what he's doing and what his plans for the future are.
Contrast this to the two other gods who don't drop out of the race for the Throne: Odin and Zeus. Their motivations aren't stated, barely even implied, and their visions for the world they intend to create if they do take the Throne are... uhm... non-existent. A few more demon NPCs hanging around near their boss arenas in Area 4 would've helped flesh them out even the little, but the game doesn't bother.
And this is why I believe in localization over translation.
In Japanese, it also makes a distinction between the power of the two, even though Carnage Fang is only a hair weaker than other attacks that are classified as Severe
The MP difference is fairly stark, however, but that can just be down to "Unique skills can have unique stuff about them I guess"
EDIT: Mac an Luin also has a higher hit rate, for whatever that amounts to
In SMTV you basically have everything mapped out. Even though possible future fusions don't become visible until you've registered their ingredients in the Compendium, you can usually see most of the options that are a few steps ahead of where you are. And with the "analyze" screen and Reverse Compendium Fusion screen, you can check what lower level demons you missed and go catch/fuse them. Choosing one fusion path for your demons doesn't make others invisible to you, since the possible results from Compendium are still viewable. Thus, it's pretty easy to make sure you've obtained every possible demon up to your level, something that would have been inconceivable on a first playthrough of SMT3.
This works well with the way the game is balanced; many boss fights, especially earlier on, seem to want you to look at all available options and fuse two or three demons that seem made for the job. But it takes away from the occult atmosphere of the fusion process, by reducing it to a series of clearly viewable spreadsheets.
I don't think it's a bad feature, but I do find fusion to be a bit less exciting in this game than in Nocturne. On the other hand I spend days in these fusion menus, which wasn't as true in SMT3.
---
Area 4:
two seconds later
Dazai: throws away SUCKER hat
Me: shrug of "well, you got me there"
two seconds later
Dazai: incredibly spikey
Me: uncontrollable bathos-fueled laughter
I guess I only read half of it.
And yeah, there's about four tiers of accuracy for damage-moves, with most at either 98 or 108, and a small handful at 50 or 118. Mac is a 108, Carnage is a 98. As an example, all of the standard spells like the Agi-series are 98s.
he needs more power
also, if your in area 4 and want to figure out how to get to a miman that seems in an impossible to reach place, the answer is almost always jump off from that really big mountain and hop along rooftops to it.