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In honor of 25 years of Demon Summoning, GAF Plays: The (Shin) Megami Tensei series

Heropon

Member
I didn't know there has been a price cut to the P2:IS/P3P pack in the european PStore in the last days, the last time I searched it was 50 euros and now it's 30. I'm so oblivious to this kind of deals. I think this is my chance to play these games!

False edit: Oh, it's a timed sale. That seals the deal. I should visit sales threads more often ·_·;
 

Esura

Banned
Managed to beat Shadow Kanji in Persona 4 with characters at level 23. Long fight but I persevered and whooped it real good. Now I'm waiting til my next dungeon comes up so I can grind my ass off against this Shadow Rise boss a friend of mines keep talking about.
 
Wow, just ran into this thread today.

Just wanted to say a big THANK YOU - that helped me understand the series so much better, and gave me an idea of where to start.
 

Herla

Member
Just finished Raidou 1 (that final boss was dumb as hell) and started playing the sequel...man it really does feel like a different game! So glad I played the first one, now I can properly appreciate all the changes. No random encounters in city hubs and fusion actually being useful again make all the difference.
Also it seems way better optimized on PCSX2, that's always a plus. And I spotted good ol' Louis! I missed him.
 

Jucksalbe

Banned
Digital Devil Saga 1 - Final Update

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Last time I was slaughtered by Garuda, so I took another look at my video to find my biggest problem. So, I thought, actually I should be fine if I can just counter all the debuffs from the first fight. I guess they last through the second fight. Problem was, I never really learned the corresponding Mantras. So I took a bit of a detour, first I activated all the switches, so I won't have to do it again if I should fail again and then I want back to the last Large Terminal and made my way up again. This way I had some time to level my Mantras and get at least some basic ones. The screens here show my preparation right before the rematch, I spread Sukukaja, Rakukaja and Tarukaja among my party members, which I thought would at least help me a little bit.

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When the fight with Jatayu started, I realized I also unlocked the Dekunda combo skill, very nice, that's exactly what I needed (and I really got lucky, because I didn't know I would get Dekunda this way). Jatayu went down quickly and now...

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Dekunda really helped. Megidola now only hit for about ~100 damage instead of ~400.

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Sweet revenge!

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Right after the fight you find the last Large Terminal in the game. I put back all my original spells (I figured I'd do fine for the rest of the game without all those -kaja spells) and saved. Finally. No more Garuda.

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Now for the final stretch of the dungeon. It's another long walk, right after the first elevator you can see the second (and last one) in the corner, but another of those invisible walls blocks your path. Actually it took me about 40 minutes to get to the other side, they sure love to tease you.

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For this segment I decided to pick my battles and run away from the ones that seemed too risky. This is one enemy I ignored.

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And since I haven't suffered enough, Garuda turned up again as a random encounter with the usual result. At least this happened very soon after I saved at a terminal.

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On my way I found a red wall with a locked door behind it. I guess this is for another optional boss? I had to go back.

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If you look at the map you can see that I was right next to the elevator at this point. But they didn't stop teasing here, an invisible wall blocks your path, you have to go all the way around another room full of those glowing floors.

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I finally reached the other side. This could have been so much easier.

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A Life Terminal, this means a boss must be close.

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...well, alright, I will go back (of course I stayed).

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Ananta is a strange boss. He will only use status attacks and physical attacks. If you are lucky and you have skills to block status effects this fight should be very easy, if you are like me and you don't have them, at least bring a lot of items (especially Panaceas). He will always attack the same character in one round, so make sure everyone's fully healed, nothing else to say really. Oh, but one thing: every damn head gets a turn, so he has seven turns in one round, this can really screw you up.

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No more Ananta.

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So this is the final area, after this there's no way back. You can go back to the Life Terminal to heal and there's another Small Terminal in this area. Ready? Ready!

Scenes, scenes, scenes, final boss:

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The boss has three forms. The first two don't seem to have many HP, so they go down quickly. They're actually not that strong either, so you know, there has to be more.

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Second form.

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First form, again.

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And second form, again. I don't know why they did this, I guess they just wanted to screw with the player. But it really doesn't take very long to kill one form. But now, here comes the final and true form:

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This one's a bit more complex. It's surrounded by six orbs that correspond to each element of the game (so fire, ice, force, earth, elec and physical) and each orb has a repel shield for its element. Also, this repel extends to the boss itself. To make matters worse, every orb gets a turn to attack which will usually be a strong attack with its element. So as long as all orbs are there, the boss gets seven turns.

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So, what's a good strategy? Well, I don't know, but I can show my strategy. I picked one element (in this case ice) and attacked its orb. As soon as it was gone (took me two hits) I could attack with Mabufudyne to hit all others with one spell. The only problem is, every round the boss resurrects one of the orbs and it doesn't even cost him a turn. Since I couldn't kill the orbs with one hit I had to do it twice. All this while being under heavy attack by seven parts of that boss.

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But once all orbs are gone, it gets a lot easier. It will only have two turns per round (one for the boss itself and one for the orb it resurrects at the beginning of every round) which means you won't lose as much time with healing and overall the chance to die by his attacks is very small. Close to the end he begins to cast Vanity (random status effects on all party members) which can get a bit annoying, but if you made it this far, I guess you're probably safe.

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And that's it!

*insert ending here*

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Overall it took me a few minutes more than Aeana, but ~30 hours is still not very long for an RPG. But it's enough. I like how the ending gives you the feeling that you were only playing some kind of prologue and I'm actually pretty curious how the story continues, but nevertheless I will take a break and play something else first. Maybe I should continue Persona (ugh) or play a bit more of DS Overclocked.
 

Danny Dudekisser

I paid good money for this Dynex!
I thought I was done with DDS for a while after finishing the first game, but I was curious and popped in the DDS2 disc. Watched the intro and was like "yeaaaah, we're doing this."

And it was incredible.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Had a hell of a time killing Beldr in DS:O, but I'm on Day 4 finally.

Is it wrong that I'm tempted to do Yuzu's path just to give everyone the finger? It almost seems like a True Demon thing to do.
 

Koroviev

Member
Had a hell of a time killing Beldr in DS:O, but I'm on Day 4 finally.

Is it wrong that I'm tempted to do Yuzu's path just to give everyone the finger? It almost seems like a True Demon thing to do.

Beldr was the only boss I found to be really frustrating.
 

Soulhouf

Member
I'm in the 3rd sector in Strange Journey.
How this place is made reminds me of SMT if... (
gluttony world with that creepy pig who eats everything
).
My initial complains of the game are the same:
- The story is meh
- Dialogs are ludicrous
- Event scene are goofy
- The game assists the player too much and in an annoying way.
I find the world too colorful for a megaten and that hurts the atmosphere a bit.
Also, is it me or many of Keneko's arts are more colorful now and some have been censured/softened (Mandrake for example)?
Being able to fuse demons anywhere is convenient but it hurts the atmosphere. The cathedral of shadow was that creepy place where you could do "experiments" on the demons you have. I really miss it. It goes the same for healing spots which are now a simple terminal-like...

That aside I love the gameplay and dungeon crawling in this game. There are some challenge which is good as well.
Demon source is good idea since it forces you to use demon's to get their sources. I ended up using even the ones I never used in previous megaten.
Story wise there are some intriguing parts. I finally met that girl who from her name I know who she is.
Perhaps the story will end up being good despite many goofy parts in dialogs and mise-en-scene ?
We shall see...
 

Heropon

Member
Oh, a stupid Lustful Snake in Persona 3 has used Hama in the MC and then it was game over. Instakill spells and the game over when the MC dies rule shouldn't coexist in a game.

:(
 

Heropon

Member
You just got SMT'd

Is it worse in other games in the series? Luckily, I'm not too furious because I saved just before, but I had to tell someone.

Jucksalbe was right, this is a good game to start. The only things I don't like are the evil instakill spells and being ambushed because the enemies start doing those marvelous area spells and someone is weak always, meaning even more damage.
 

Levyne

Banned
Is it worse in other games in the series? Luckily, I'm not too furious because I saved just before, but I had to tell someone.

Jucksalbe was right, this is a good game to start. The only things I don't like are the evil instakill spells and being ambushed because the enemies start doing those marvelous area spells and someone is weak always, meaning even more damage.

It's weird in Persona 4 because you can fully control the other characters and the game doesn't care if 1 has a res spell and you have items...MC dead = game over.

It's one of those things that I appreciate the history but maybe needs to change in the next persona...it seems kind of arbitrary unless they remove the direct control option
 

Kenai

Member
Persona 4 also has that wonderful implementation where your party members will take a hit for you if if would have been a deathblow. I also think they have some type of item that will 'take your place" for a Hama/Mudo but I can't remember.

I love this series! Nocturne is probably my favorite but I am not positive, I love Persona 4 as well. I still have a few games I have never had the chance to play though. I figured I'd post since I happened to stop in a Gamestop (don't kill me!) recently and browsed the PS2 section since it was B2G1. I walked away with several games I didn't expect to see. Both DDS 1 and 2 were among them. I don't have the time to play right this moment but I certainly will soon.
 

MechaX

Member
I've been out of town for the weekend, so I'm a little bit behind on my Persona 2 run through. It seems like people here are winding down with their playthroughs for now, and I'm just now hitting what is roughly the halfway point of the game.

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The Taiwanese mafia yet again... Seems like we are definitely on to something here. And the "two" that Anna refers to are Tatsuya and her little sister that we met way earlier in the game, Noriko.

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You can pass a rumor to get Club Zodiac to be a maze instead of a pretty straight-forward dungeon. You get more items by going the former route. This area also has traps in the form of orange liquids that damage you when you walk on them. Odd. But like GOLD, this dungeon has the finish line pretty close to the starting point, but you need a password in order to get into the Secret Club area. Since we don't have the password, we have to find someone who does.

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Baofu goes all Batman on this guy and gets the password ("Panther"). Baofu and Katsuya squabble some more concerning Baofu beating up the club worker (and Baofu's apparent ties to the Taiwanese Mafia), but Ulala gets them both back on track.

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Baofu and Yung Pao seem to have a pretty hairy past. Katsuya is also completely confused as to why an assassin is working with the Sumaru City PD.

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His talk on a "new government" is pretty worrying. But it doesn't seem like any other kidnapped Joker curse victims are here. All they have is seemingly Noriko.

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Meh. Joker Noriko comes with backup in the form of two mafia members, but she's relatively simple with a good persona setup.

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The pattern of "Katsuya and Baofu bicker, Ulala breaks it up" is eternal. Back to the Velvet Room we go (man, I wonder if Igor is getting pretty irritated about us bringing in so many random people all the time).

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The game isn't going to tell you this outright, but Norkio was responsible for the Joker murders in Seven Sisters. It started by Noriko calling the Joker to murder the guy who hit Anna and ruined her track career. All subsequent victims were people that made fun of Anna.

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Well, that's all great, but we have absolute no other leads at this-

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Well, no use complaining over a very easy opportunity for information. We're going to Aoba Park next. Before that, we have some slight errand-running. First, we need to go to Kasugayama High.

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Kasu High is basically one hub that allocates all the demons we faced in earlier dungeons, since most earlier dungeons become closed off when you complete them. The first three floors of the school consists of cannon fodder demons. The real meat of the high school is the bomb shelter.

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At the entrance to the bomb shelter, there is this creeper who does nothing but mutter to himself about killing someone.

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The actual layout of the bomb shelter kinda sucks. There is no auto-map and you have to manually find maps within the dungeon. There are eight different areas that gradually open up as you progress through the game. At this point in the game, we can fight a rare persona demon named Shaka. He hits like a truck with his lightning spells, but eventually we beat him and get the ability to summon him.

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Aoba Park is interesting in the sense that there is no boss on this visit. However, you do have to come back to this dungeon a little later in the game. You can pretty much make a dash to the rest area of the dungeon to activate the cutscene and complete the dungeon. You can also do what I did and try to get this rare persona demon, Nata, to spawn. Nata is more of a misfortune on your first trip to the dungeon since he can cast Taru Kaja and fuck your party up. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't even get the guy to spawn until I grew from level 28 to level 36. Being that overleveled in a game that is already not quite difficult is... well... you know. That is why if you ever want rare demons to spawn, just make sure you are below their level and get the Estoma spell to eliminate all encounters below your party's average level.

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If you also passed a random rumor given by an NPC about flowers talking in Aoba Park, you can get this little puzzle. It requires you to actually know about Wang Long, so I just cheated and looked up the answer on a guide. This is the only flower that quizzes you and it gives you an Akashic Ring. Its purpose only becomes known way, way later in the game. Also, if you get the question wrong, the flower poisons you and never talks to you again.

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Flowers are apparently pretty fucking deep too.

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The party goes to the Rest Area, the specified meeting place, and encounters "Sneak."

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And with the revelation of the NWO/New World Order, we actually have an official antagonist organization to fight against. I would love to make a wrestling WCW joke about the NWO, but I'm not that funny.

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I appreciate Katsuya's forward thinking, but Sneak has a point. Even Tatsuzou's power, Sumaru PD is pretty much expendable. And no, we don't figure out what happened to Katsuya's father for another few dungeons.

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And with that bit of info and these off-focus photos of a man and a woman, Sneak takes his leave. Slowly but surely, the party is starting to unravel this conspiracy.

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It's funny how Katsuya talks about the man's voice.
For a comparison to Resident Evil 1, it's like Jill Valentine not recognizing Wesker's voice, despite serving under him for years, while Wesker and Barry talk about a massive conspiracy while in Jill's earshot. In other news, Ulala actually has a plan.

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We're forgetting that Baofu is a pretty prolific wire-tapper (and maybe hacker) and can probably get us to meet with the people without alerting everyone in the damn city. This plan is stupid, Ulala!

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Yeah, we're not getting out of this one.

So here is the score; you can spread one rumor out of two possibilities; a male will appear or a female will appear. Both routes are pretty heavy in Revelations: Persona/Persona 1 references. This makes for two different routes for the next story arc of the game. Both routes do end up converging for the last arc of the game, but even then, the routes still share a majority of dungeons. However, this will influence a few things, including the next party member you get, the next one or two dungeons you will do, and what main antagonist will be the main focus for the rest of this story arc. Personally, I find the female's route more memorable for several reasons (including the atmosphere of the dungeon and one pretty interesting Persona 1 reference), but the male path has a really interesting antagonist for Persona 1 fans (hint hint). I'll probably think over it some more, but if the readers here want to see a particular route (since I don't actually know if I'm going to play through the game a second time or what), don't hesitate to suggest it.
 
I vote female route because 1) I like her better than the other character and 2) hilarious Ulala line before one of the boss fights.
 

Danny Dudekisser

I paid good money for this Dynex!
Is it worse in other games in the series? Luckily, I'm not too furious because I saved just before, but I had to tell someone.

Jucksalbe was right, this is a good game to start. The only things I don't like are the evil instakill spells and being ambushed because the enemies start doing those marvelous area spells and someone is weak always, meaning even more damage.

One thing I've always thought was kinda funny is that in an SMT game where the main character dying means game over, one always clenches their butt whenever an enemy casts an insta-death spell.

That is tension. It is a beautiful thing.
 

Psxphile

Member
My vote would be for the male path, if only because the main antagonist who directly opposes you for the next few dungeons is far more interesting, from a Persona 1 player's perspective, than the alternative. And the new party member is a bad-ass.
 

Heropon

Member
I'm really enjoying playing Persona 3 so far, and I haven't been wiped out since yesterday. I'm trying to max all the social links I have available evenly. Is there some king of disadvantage to this?

I'm at the start of July, the finals are coming!
 

Jucksalbe

Banned
I'm trying to max all the social links I have available evenly. Is there some king of disadvantage to this?
Depends, since every S-Link corresponds to a certain class of Personas, it makes sense to do it if you switch Personas often. If you stick to a class you should try to focus on that S-Link.
But really, since it's your first playthrough, just concentrate on which sidestory you like best. I mostly choose them by what character I was most interested in and never really looked at what class of Personas they represent (and had no problem beating the game).
 

Heropon

Member
Depends, since every S-Link corresponds to a certain class of Personas, it makes sense to do it if you switch Personas often. If you stick to a class you should try to focus on that S-Link.
But really, since it's your first playthrough, just concentrate on which sidestory you like best. I mostly choose them by what character I was most interested in and never really looked at what class of Personas they represent (and had no problem beating the game).

Thanks for the advice.
I like to switch personas a lot in the random battles and spam ma- spells with the protagonist (Money is so easy to get that I don't mind using the clock a lot). In the bosses I use a persona that has lots of debuff/buff spells and I concentrate on gimping the enemy while Mitsuru does the damage. The heart boss couldn't hit me with those charming attacks!

About those killer Lustful Snakes of yesterday, I swept a floor full of them today for easy EXP. Take that!
 
As a SMT and Persona fan, am I missing out if I skip Persona 2? Asking 'cause it's on sale.

P2's combat has...not aged gracefully. If you've played any Megaten before, even Hard is a joke (this is my guess as to why it has such a thorough autobattle featureset).

The characters, setting, music, and dialogue is A+++ gold, though. It's like the anti-ToGf.
 

Koroviev

Member
P2's combat has...not aged gracefully. If you've played any Megaten before, even Hard is a joke (this is my guess as to why it has such a thorough autobattle featureset).

The characters, setting, music, and dialogue is A+++ gold, though. It's like the anti-ToGf.

Yeah, I've finished both of the Devil Survivor games and a good portion of P3 and Strange Journey.

So...I could watch a walkthrough? <_<

Kind of want FFT, but I feel like a bad Atlus fan, lol.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
P2's combat has aged just fine. It's no different from any other turn based RPG, and has great sprite work.

You are doing yourself a grand disservice if you skip it.

Also, for the OP or anyone new to P3P:

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Esura

Banned
I'm such a dirty dog. I got Chie and Yukiko in a relationship. Imma see if I can get them all in a relationship School Days style.
 
So, I'm finally ready to play the Raidou games again to see if I still enjoy 2 as my favorite SMT game. Started 1 and I really feel like just skipping it haha, 2 was such a huhe improvement in so many ways.
 

Esura

Banned
I was all like "WHAT?!!?!" and then I realized that's not what you meant. :(

Wishful thinking, eh? lol


Right now I'm at Void Quest, actually getting close to finishing it off at level 42. How long do I have left in Persona 4? I'm trying to finish it within this month before the end of July so I can play Persona 4 Arena. I started around the end of June and just been playing only this non stop during my free time after work.
 

MechaX

Member
I vote female route because 1) I like her better than the other character and 2) hilarious Ulala line before one of the boss fights.

My vote would be for the male path, if only because the main antagonist who directly opposes you for the next few dungeons is far more interesting, from a Persona 1 player's perspective, than the alternative. And the new party member is a bad-ass.

Man, usually when it comes to route splits in games, there is often a clear victor over another. But P2 really loves to split the hairs on that.

Anyway, I'll think I'll start playing P2 tomorrow, since I was preoccupied with Dragon's Dogma today.
 

Jucksalbe

Banned
Switched to the download version of Persona PSP. It really shortens the load times (and of course no spinning disc sound everytime a battle starts). Also finally took a look in the manual and found out how to skip battle animations.
This all really helped me to enjoy the game a lot more.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Is it just me or is the music on Overclocked REALLY turned down? Some sound customization options would've been nice.
 

Koroviev

Member
Is it just me or is the music on Overclocked REALLY turned down? Some sound customization options would've been nice.

Yeah, the music volume plummets whenever the VA comes in to play. I kind of prefer it that way, but then again, I'm not a fan of the game's OST, Soul Survivor notwithstanding. The tracks are too short :(
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Yeah, the music volume plummets whenever the VA comes in to play. I kind of prefer it that way, but then again, I'm not a fan of the game's OST, Soul Survivor notwithstanding. The tracks are too short :(

It has its charms, I really like the 'da da, da DAA' guitar BGM.
(The one without the stupid chants.)
 

Young Magus

Junior Member
Got my account activated recently and I just want to say thanks for all the information and knowledge regarding SMT. I just finished Persona 2 IS and now I'm waiting (or hoping) for EP to be announced.

In the mean time I have Persona 1, Nocturne and DDS 1 left, all with very early saves. Which one should I play next?
 

Koroviev

Member
Got my account activated recently and I just want to say thanks for all the information and knowledge regarding SMT. I just finished Persona 2 IS and now I'm waiting (or hoping) for EP to be announced.

In the mean time I have Persona 1, Nocturne and DDS 1 left, all with very early saves. Which one should I play next?

Nocturne.

Also, where's your anime avatar? Do you want to be cool or not?
 

Soulhouf

Member
Got my account activated recently and I just want to say thanks for all the information and knowledge regarding SMT. I just finished Persona 2 IS and now I'm waiting (or hoping) for EP to be announced.

In the mean time I have Persona 1, Nocturne and DDS 1 left, all with very early saves. Which one should I play next?

Nocturne
 

Finalow

Member
Got my account activated recently and I just want to say thanks for all the information and knowledge regarding SMT. I just finished Persona 2 IS and now I'm waiting (or hoping) for EP to be announced.

In the mean time I have Persona 1, Nocturne and DDS 1 left, all with very early saves. Which one should I play next?
you should play Nocturne and DDS 1 - 2, start with Nocturne first.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Day 7 of DS:O, Naoya/Kaido route.

I love how unapologetically 'we will rule the world' this path is, but yikes, it makes the AO route look easy.
 
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