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Shin Megami Tensei HD news coming on October 23

HenryEen

Banned
I didn't really feel like IV was anime like Apocalypse was. The only thing you could argue is Isabeau admitting she has feelings for the protagonist in the neutral ending, and even than that's mentioned like, once and then never heard from again. IMO, IV's story is underrated. I like that Apocalypse expanded on that world, but yeah some of the characters....yikes.

My bad, I'm purely referrimg to Apocalypse >.<

IV definitely not animu seeing how it basically a reimagining of SMT1 story.
 
Never got to play the SMT on 3ds cause I didn't have one. More than willing to get them since I have a switch! Hell yeah, Nocturne is still one of my favorites
 

asagami_

Banned
My bad, I'm purely referrimg to Apocalypse >.<

IV definitely not animu seeing how it basically a reimagining of SMT1 story.

To be fair early SMT was very anime. Especially the second game. Of course not the same anime feeling which modern Persona try to appeal.
 

Hylian7

Member
To be fair early SMT was very anime. Especially the second game. Of course not the same anime feeling which modern Persona try to appeal.

I really want to see them do something different with the setting in Persona...make it where the characters are adults like in P2 EP, or do something like where the characters are teachers in the school rather than students, or set it at a college.
 

Opa-Pa

Member
I'm pretty sure we'll find out the actual name and planned platforms after the event. There's no reason not to believe this is V just like we can't really be too sure it's a Switch exclusive, IMO.

My bad, I'm purely referrimg to Apocalypse >.<

IV definitely not animu seeing how it basically a reimagining of SMT1 story.

In anime form :p

Apocalypse definitely jumped the shark and went full anime, but IV was very reminiscent of Persona 3 and sometimes even 4 whenever there was dialogue outside of urgent situations. To the point I fully expected the next game to be just the way it ended up being lol.

Anyway I'm honestly not expecting anything in particular. To me it's clear we'll never get anything similar to Nocturne or SJ again, but if it can be better than IV then I'm game.
 

brinstar

Member
Eh, nothing in SMT4: A really felt like Persona... I think having a band of comrades made sense for that game even if some of them were too silly
 
Erhm, i wasn't talking seriously. Just thought to say something that made as much sense as what you said (playing in front of a TV is last gen) :p

VR is great though. As is portable gaming.


Lol.. &#128578;

My bad. It’s hard for me to tell with Gaf sometimes. “Gaming on a TV is last gen.” Has been something I’ve been saying to a couple of Sony fanboy twits I know in real life. They like giving me a hassle because I’m barely on my PS4 anymore.
 

HenryEen

Banned
To be fair early SMT was very anime. Especially the second game. Of course not the same anime feeling which modern Persona try to appeal.

Well bu anime tropes I solely referring to the more common and tired anime tropes (like the one I mentioned). Currently playing SMT1, and it definitely at least deconstruct the "power of friendship" trope, just like SMTIV and Nocturne. Not to mention unlike most JRPG, SMT story is never about good vs evil, and not about saving the world but shaping it as you see fit.
 

Enduin

No bald cap? Lies!
Really excited to see what they've got in the works. I loved IV and Apocalypse a lot. Hope they're able to build of that even more and hopefully recapture the more subversive tone and stylings of earlier SMT games as opposed to the generic anime of Apocalypse, as much as I liked that game. Would love some DDS vibes to things.
 
Do we know if this is meant to be Switch exclusive or is it multiplatform?

It was announced during the Switch reveal stream, however Atlus has labeled it on their website as Shin Megami Tensei HD Project, in contrast to the Strange Journey remake, which was labeled specifically as a 3DS game. So it's possible it'll be ported to PS4 at some point.
 

Eolz

Member
You probably shouldn't get your hopes up. At best it will surpass Nocturne on the interface/gameplay front, but I have a really hard time seeing modern Atlus reach their old heights thematically/narratively.

Ehhh.
It can be argued that Nocturne is at the top in terms of aesthetics, but it has been beaten both in terms of gameplay and narrative already, by older and newer games.

Do we know if this is meant to be Switch exclusive or is it multiplatform?

We just know that it has been only announced for Switch at the moment. The rest is speculation.
 

HenryEen

Banned
Eh, nothing in SMT4: A really felt like Persona... I think having a band of comrades made sense for that game even if some of them were too silly

The thing is most of the comrades falls into cliched anime archetype and played straight without any twist or subversion.

Asahi : Childhood love interest.

Navarre : Mascot comic relief characters (basically Teddy of SMTIVA)

Nozomi : Team mom. (Mitsuru and Makoto)

Toki : Mysterious Yandere love interest rival.

Hallejujah : Best bro (basically Yosuke, Junpei, and Ryuji of SMTIVA)

Gaston : Tsundere

That being said, you do can subvert the power of friendship tropes in one of the ending lol.
 

butman

Member
Do we know if this is meant to be Switch exclusive or is it multiplatform?

SMT-25th-Projects.jpg


I vote it will be multiplatform. If not, It would say Switch instead of HD.
 

marmoka

Banned
I liked the story of IV more than Apocalypse as well. The gameplay improvements were obvious in A, but the story and characters,... Too much anime.

Probably the character were not that developed in IV, but somehow, they all had a lot of charm for me, and the story had a creepier atmosphere at the same time.
 

Viale

Member
Lol I feel like the opposite. I thought IV had an incredibly weak cast of characters and ending, and apocalypse while tropey had a cast and story that was much more endearing to me. The end of apocalypse also made me care more about the characters and story of IV more than the actual IV ever did.


Apocalypse was definitely more anime though.
 

HenryEen

Banned
I liked the story of IV more than Apocalypse as well. The gameplay improvements were obvious in A, but the story and characters,... Too much anime.

Probably the character were not that developed in IV, but somehow, they all had a lot of charm for me, and it game the story a creepier atmosphere at the same time.

SMTIV overarching story is actually a reimagining of SMT1 ! The opening is basically a copypaste of SMT1 from the ''EL ELOHIM ELOHO ELOHIM SEBAOTH' part to the dream when you meet Law Hero and Chaos Hero and gives them name !

If you can stomach outdated graphic and gameplay you should try SMT1! I find SMT1 post apocalyptic atmosphere is more creepier than SMTIV
 

Mediking

Member
Lol I feel like the opposite. I thought IV had an incredibly weak cast of characters and story, and apocalypse while tropey had a cast and story that was much more endearing to me. The end of apocalypse also made me care more about the characters and story of IV more than the actual IV ever did.


Apocalypse was definitely more anime though.

Wrap it up.

We're done.

The gameplay in IV was really good... which helped it alot.

...

Wait...

The story is actually really intense if I remember right...
 

Hylian7

Member
HD stands for Hentai Demons. Mara all day.

No one made a gif of it, but I would totally post a gif of the dude from the TGS stream rubbing the head of the Mara statue they were selling.

IV's story was very stiff. If it wasn't for the AMAZING gameplay...

I made a thread about this before, but I thought there was a lot of stuff people missed in IV's story.

Stuff like Tayama's true nature that's never explicitly stated, but heavily implied, the major culture shock of the Samurai seeing all the technology of Tokyo. The whole thing about Isabeau and the manga seems kind of silly, but also shows that it's something that someone who lived right above Tokyo all her life was able to enjoy something that was inherently Japanese. The idea of them reading literature and becoming demons, further showing the idea that demons come from the thoughts of humans was pretty neat. This was taken even further when they added demons like Chemtrail, based on a conspiracy that even says in it's lore that it exists because people believe in the conspiracy. I really want to see more Rumor demons like that in general, but that's another topic. There's actually a lot of cool stuff in SMTIV's story that's easy to miss.
 

marmoka

Banned
SMTIV overarching story is actually a reimagining of SMT1 ! The opening is basically a copypaste of SMT1 from the ''EL ELOHIM ELOHO ELOHIM SEBAOTH' part to the dream when you meet Law Hero and Chaos Hero and gives them name !

If you can stomach outdated graphic and gameplay you should try SMT1! I find SMT1 post apocalyptic atmosphere is more creepier than SMTIV

Right now I have other priorities, but I'm really considering to give it a try again this Holiday. I played it long ago with the translation patch, it was my first SMT game, and I didn't understand the mechanics. I died all over again and finally gave up. But I loved the atmosphere. I tried later Nocturne and IV, and could finally understand the mechanics of the franchise. After playing them and Apocalypse later, I think I'm ready to return to SMT I, and this time I will do it well.
 

Viale

Member
Wrap it up.

We're done.

The gameplay in IV was really good... which helped it alot.

...

Wait...

The story is actually really intense if I remember right...

I had to change my comment slightly, the story in the middle of iv did get pretty interesting. I stand by the characters/neutral ending feeling weak though.
 
IV's story is great, but you're only really going to get the most out of it if you're going around talking to all the characters and are the sort of person who likes filling in the gaps yourself from what everyone is telling you. The world building in IV is really strong.
 

HenryEen

Banned
No one made a gif of it, but I would totally post a gif of the dude from the TGS stream rubbing the head of the Mara statue they were selling.



I made a thread about this before, but I thought there was a lot of stuff people missed in IV's story.

Stuff like Tayama's true nature that's never explicitly stated, but heavily implied, the major culture shock of the Samurai seeing all the technology of Tokyo. The whole thing about Isabeau and the manga seems kind of silly, but also shows that it's something that someone who lived right above Tokyo all her life was able to enjoy something that was inherently Japanese. The idea of them reading literature and becoming demons, further showing the idea that demons come from the thoughts of humans was pretty neat. This was taken even further when they added demons like Chemtrail, based on a conspiracy that even says in it's lore that it exists because people believe in the conspiracy. I really want to see more Rumor demons like that in general, but that's another topic. There's actually a lot of cool stuff in SMTIV's story that's easy to miss.


I just want to say that the sidequests is so good in building the world in SMTIV. My favorite is the one regarding King Ahazuya, cannibalism and Beelzebub..

Now that I think about it, it seems like a lot of world building are relegated to sidequest and NPC dialogue...

Edit : ^ exactly what Kuwabara said.
 

MudoSkills

Volcano High Alumnus (Cum Laude)
The problem I had with IV is that the central cast don't have enough time to breathe - would have been better for them to have a lot more dialogue. By the time the alignments lock in you just want to tell Jonathan and Walter to chill the fuck out, because it went from 0 to 100 in about half a minute.
 

Opa-Pa

Member
Lol I feel like the opposite. I thought IV had an incredibly weak cast of characters and ending, and apocalypse while tropey had a cast and story that was much more endearing to me. The end of apocalypse also made me care more about the characters and story of IV more than the actual IV ever did.


Apocalypse was definitely more anime though.

Yeah, same here, to be honest. I wasn't bothered by Apocalypse's anime story as much as I hated specific elements like horny lolis and your childhood love interest being technically your sister. The rest was fine for what it was, not without its faults, of course.

IV had great atmosphere, premise and overall structure, but lots of story elements are outright unfinished rather than purposely vague, and the cast outside of their tropey outside... they're basically as plain as their SMT1 counterparts which is more than 20 years old.

Combat and balance were a broken mess too, and the game had the audacity to lock hard mode behind story completion.
 

Hylian7

Member
Yeah, same here, to be honest. I wasn't bothered by Apocalypse's anime story as much as I hated specific elements like horny lolis and your childhood love interest being technically your sister. The rest was fine for what it was, not without its faults, of course.

IV had great atmosphere, premise and overall structure, but lots of story elements are outright unfinished rather than purposely vague, and the cast outside of their tropey outside... they're basically as plain as their SMT1 counterparts which is more than 20 years old.

Combat and balance were a broken mess too, and the game had the audacity to lock hard mode behind story completion.

I think in both games, some of the early game DLC really broke the game. I forget which one it was, but there was an early game DLC in IV where you could get a demon with a good Almighty skill, and it was whisperable....lol.
 

Enduin

No bald cap? Lies!
The problem I had with IV is that the central cast don't have enough time to breathe - would have been better for them to have a lot more dialogue. By the time the alignments lock in you just want to tell Jonathan and Walter to chill the fuck out, because it went from 0 to 100 in about half a minute.

Yeah this my problem. The main plot and cast were interesting, but lacked any proper development. There were long stretches of nothing happening narrative wise and then boom major shit would go down out of nowhere.

Anime as it might be Apocalypse had a much more even paced and consistent narrative arc from start to finish and it benefited greatly from it.

So if they can keep that frame work and pacing of story and character developments but make it a bit less generic anime that would be perfect.
 

Mediking

Member
No one made a gif of it, but I would totally post a gif of the dude from the TGS stream rubbing the head of the Mara statue they were selling.



I made a thread about this before, but I thought there was a lot of stuff people missed in IV's story.

Stuff like Tayama's true nature that's never explicitly stated, but heavily implied, the major culture shock of the Samurai seeing all the technology of Tokyo. The whole thing about Isabeau and the manga seems kind of silly, but also shows that it's something that someone who lived right above Tokyo all her life was able to enjoy something that was inherently Japanese. The idea of them reading literature and becoming demons, further showing the idea that demons come from the thoughts of humans was pretty neat. This was taken even further when they added demons like Chemtrail, based on a conspiracy that even says in it's lore that it exists because people believe in the conspiracy. I really want to see more Rumor demons like that in general, but that's another topic. There's actually a lot of cool stuff in SMTIV's story that's easy to miss.

I had to change my comment slightly, the story in the middle of iv did get pretty interesting. I stand by the characters/neutral ending feeling weak though.

If I remember correctly... don't you fo through some kinda torture building in IV? Like you see people who are in alotta pain? Jeez. Lol I'm trying to remember...

The problem I had with IV is that the central cast don't have enough time to breathe - would have been better for them to have a lot more dialogue. By the time the alignments lock in you just want to tell Jonathan and Walter to chill the fuck out, because it went from 0 to 100 in about half a minute.

MudoSkills!!! Hey!!!
 

HenryEen

Banned
The problem I had with IV is that the central cast don't have enough time to breathe - would have been better for them to have a lot more dialogue. By the time the alignments lock in you just want to tell Jonathan and Walter to chill the fuck out, because it went from 0 to 100 in about half a minute.

I think a lot of people tend to agree that IV had horrible pacing. Everything feels like moving sooo fast in the second half of the game.

Yeah, same here, to be honest. I wasn't bothered by Apocalypse's anime story as much as I hated specific elements like horny lolis and your childhood love interest being technically your sister. The rest was fine for what it was, not without its faults, of course.

IV had great atmosphere, premise and overall structure, but lots of story elements are outright unfinished rather than purposely vague, and the cast outside of their tropey outside... they're basically as plain as their SMT1 counterparts which is more than 20 years old.

Combat and balance were a broken mess too, and the game had the audacity to lock hard mode behind story completion.

I feel like a lot of unfinished story elements actually relegated to NPC dialogue and sidequests.

One example is King Ahazuya from Mikado, I believe him being exiled by the Church is not even mentioned in main story and you need to talk with Mikado NPCs to get this information. And his story's closure is in one of the sidequest.
 

MudoSkills

Volcano High Alumnus (Cum Laude)
Combat and balance were a broken mess too, and the game had the audacity to lock hard mode behind story completion.

The game had ways to punish you if you were too cheesy. I had a whole squad of demons with repel/drain skills, Antinchon and concentrate - first time I ran into one of the four horseman fiends they just cast Antichthon back at me every turn and wiped the entire squad.
 
4's cast is bad because they're designed to be Alignment Avatars but the game doesn't put in the work to get then from Cool Pals to Huge Assholes, it just sort of flips a switch when the endgame starts and suddenly they're like "Yep I am all in on crazy alignment bullcrap"

SMT1 avoided this by not having the characters go completely crazy until they undergo their metamorphosis, in 3 they spend enough time away from the player that you can infer their experiences in the Vortex help shape their Reasons (and also they don't go full asshole until the metamorphosis). Same with Strange Journey. In 4 though, they're pretty much always with you, seeing the same events you see, giving their opinions and so forth, and so the sudden personality shifts are really noticeable.

In Apocalypse, most of the characters have even less of a reason to be in the game and seem to only exist as part of a checklist of Shonen tropes, which the game does nothing with.
 

Dascu

Member
The thing is most of the comrades falls into cliched anime archetype and played straight without any twist or subversion.

Asahi : Childhood love interest.

Navarre : Mascot comic relief characters (basically Teddy of SMTIVA)

Nozomi : Team mom. (Mitsuru and Makoto)

Toki : Mysterious Yandere love interest rival.

Hallejujah : Best bro (basically Yosuke, Junpei, and Ryuji of SMTIVA)

Gaston : Tsundere

That being said, you do can subvert the power of friendship tropes in one of the ending lol.

I usually hate these tropes but I thought they were pulled off pretty well in SMT4A. Except maybe Toki that had some grating stuff at the end. I enjoyed some of the character development, Navarre and Gaston in particular.
 

marmoka

Banned
HD is just a word for it being the first HD SMT game. It's literally just a codename, the same way "3DS Project" was a remake of Strange Journey. The game's name is not gonna be "SMT HD."

But still the codename is very ambiguous. As "3DS Project" explicitly means the game is 3DS exclusive (this could change in the future), "HD Project" does not explicitly say if the game is Switch exclusive or not.

We only know it's in HD, but that could mean the game is for any HD console out there, from 360 to PC. Time will tell if the game is Switch only, or multiplatform.
 

Eolz

Member
Toki was a lot less annoying/animu than Asahi.
The whole narrative was definitely done to try something else and to be more attractive to some audiences anyway...

Edit: I really hope that after the new trailer, if it's definitely an exclusive, we won't have some "but maybe..." in every thread.
 

Viale

Member
If I remember correctly... don't you fo through some kinda torture building in IV? Like you see people who are in alotta pain? Jeez. Lol I'm trying to remember...

Yup, there was some weird brain harvesting segment thing I think . I found it really interesting, and it's what started smt4 getting some real interesting moments iirc.


HD is just a word for it being the first HD SMT game. It's literally just a codename, the same way "3DS Project" was a remake of Strange Journey. The game's name is not gonna be "SMT HD."


I agree it won't be called SMT HD, but it's still kind of weird to not have it called "switch project" or something instead if it was exclusive when they had no problem calling the sj remake the 3ds project. Could still be exclusive though. It just seems like a strange wording choice imo.
 

Delio

Member
The game so far has only been announced for Switch. Switch is a success worldwide and in Japan.

I still think the likelihood of it being on another system(PC/PS4) is rather high - unless Nintendo wants it as an (timed)exclusive. Especially if there are also plans to bring Persona to Switch at some point, it would be weird to play favorites right now.

Def. can see it launching first on Switch and maybe get a PC/PS4 release down the line.

I still dont think Persona will come to the Switch. As much as it makes sense i doubt it. I also think this game will be exclusive but we will see.
 

StereoVsn

Member
Psyched.

Hope the localization wait isn't too long. Sorry EU, I know you guys got it bad from Atlus.
Localization seems to have been getting worse even on Atlus USA side though. I would expect ~8-10 months on a pessimistic side. The good thing is that since Switch is region free the import or just US eshop are easy. That doesn't get you anything but English though.
 

Mediking

Member
Take your bets now.

Will our main lead look like a edgelord? Or a conservative and simple look like Flynn from IV has?
 

sinonobu

Banned
I'm not sure if this has been discussed before, but the official website mentioned hd game as, "Brand New Entry for SMT Series" (Nintendo Switch).

So is it likely going to be Switch exclusive or did they just say that because it was only announced for Switch right now?
 
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