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

So listening to the Raidou 2 OST reminded me I should finish the optional boss before Soul Hackers comes out.


Do I have to finish all the quests, or can I just fight him straightaway? I got the Chaos end last time, so I should be good there.

Chaos ending in previous cycle plus all case files finished will ensure you can fight every optional boss, IIRC.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
I'd forgotten how amazing Raidou's OST is. I can't find the Daikoku-Yu music anywhere, but boy is it chill. I hope we get more Raidou games just to get more tracks like this out of Meguro.
 

Heropon

Member
After a week long hiatus, I've been playing again and I've reached the Matador fight... and I've died, of course. At least now I know what I need to defeat it the next time: Sukukaja and Media. I suppose it will be an easy fight if I manage to get those spells, no?

Edit: The Aquans in the jewelry has Sukukaja, great! And one of the fusions I can do has Media, but I need one more level (18). It's going to be faster than I thought!
 

Heropon

Member
And Matador annihilated! Sukukaja + Media were enough to turn the tide of the battle (I already had Rakukaja and that helped too, but it wasn't enough to not die of Andalucia spamming). It was really helpful too that the demon with Media voided Mazan every time.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
And Matador annihilated! Sukukaja + Media were enough to turn the tide of the battle (I already had Rakukaja and that helped too, but it wasn't enough to not die of Andalucia spamming). It was really helpful too that the demon with Media voided Mazan every time.

Ameno Uzume is the key.

Good luck with the next road block!
Have a null lightning Magatama ready.
 

Heropon

Member
Ameno Uzume is the key.

Good luck with the next road block!
Have a null lightning Magatama ready.

Thanks for the advice.

I have a stupid question: Why is the wind element called Force in this game and why are the wind spells called Garu in the Persona series?
 

Dantis

Member
I'd forgotten how amazing Raidou's OST is. I can't find the Daikoku-Yu music anywhere, but boy is it chill. I hope we get more Raidou games just to get more tracks like this out of Meguro.

I love the Raidou OSTs. The Fated Showdown is a really amazing track.
 

CSX

Member
It took me a while but I just found out all those sample tracks that Atlus revealed for SMTIV are rearrangements of past SMT games' title themes
 

NichM

Banned
Thanks for the advice.

I have a stupid question: Why is the wind element called Force in this game and why are the wind spells called Garu in the Persona series?

Technically Force is a different element. There's not really a good word for it in English, it could also be translated as "pressure." It's not strictly speaking Wind though.
 

Heropon

Member
Technically Force is a different element. There's not really a good word for it in English, it could also be translated as "pressure." It's not strictly speaking Wind though.

I think I understand better now, thanks to everyone. The "garu" animation and Tornado being force confused me. Then it's like pressure difference between gases.
 
I didn't do every case file in first cycle. Guess I've got work to do!

I meant on the current playthrough. You already got the Chaos ending on the previous cycle, so you're fine there.

I'd forgotten how amazing Raidou's OST is. I can't find the Daikoku-Yu music anywhere, but boy is it chill. I hope we get more Raidou games just to get more tracks like this out of Meguro.

Do you mean Murmurs? Excellent track. I also love the New World/Shin Sekai music.

Technically Force is a different element. There's not really a good word for it in English, it could also be translated as "pressure." It's not strictly speaking Wind though.

I could have sworn I read somewhere that, at least in the earlier games, that "element" was supposed to represent psychic power or something. I'm probably confused though.
 

kai3345

Banned
"Everyone is dancing furiously"
"Everyone is dancing furiously"
"Everyone is dancing furiously"
"Everyone is dancing furiously"
"Everyone is dancing furiously"
"Everyone is dancing furiously"

I've got no frikken idea where I'm supposed to be going.

SMT II here in case that reference didn't tip you off.
 
I could have sworn I read somewhere that, at least in the earlier games, that "element" was supposed to represent psychic power or something. I'm probably confused though.

In the original Megami Tensei, there was a set of spells called "Psy" (Psy/Psycho/Psychic/Psyclone) that occupied the "Not Fire/Ice/Lightning-based" spell set. In the remake it was replaced with the "Zan" set though.

It makes another appearance in the original Devil Summoner, along with Zan (although they are two different elements. Psy is listed as telekinetic while Zan is the good ol' force we've become accustomed to).
 
Yep, that's it. I love the guitar strumming after the horns fade out. That's the stuff that screams Meguro to me.

Yeah, I'm glad they used it more in Raidou 2.

In the original Megami Tensei, there was a set of spells called "Psy" (Psy/Psycho/Psychic/Psyclone) that occupied the "Not Fire/Ice/Lightning-based" spell set. In the remake it was replaced with the "Zan" set though.

It makes another appearance in the original Devil Summoner, along with Zan (although they are two different elements. Psy is listed as telekinetic while Zan is the good ol' force we've become accustomed to).

I'm probably confused though.

Figured that.
 

Soriku

Junior Member
Raidou's OST is soooooo amazing. Adventure is the best forest theme ever. Even my mom liked it. The funny is that that the statistics at one point for Adventure on Youtube had one of the top demographics at women age 45-54 I believe, which is hilarious because my mom is around that age, and also because it's weird that women at that age would be listening to Raidou music lmao. I guess everyone's moms looked it up?

Raidou 2's credits theme is one of the best ever and I think only Catherine's credits song compares.

I didn't do every case file in first cycle. Guess I've got work to do!

Hope you have enough loyalty for the Gimme a Demon case file. 13,000 loyalty. And you need to give a Pixie with Megidolaon, which is easiest to do if you have a Metatron. But if you're playing on King Mode and Metatron is one of the demons you use, it'll cost a lot of money to get him back...

On King Mode
Lucifer
isn't so bad actually for the super optional boss. The hardest boss is definitely
Asura
...


If it costs a crapton of money then maybe just getting a game over will be more beneficial lol. Depends on how hard money is to come by in the game.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Raidou's OST is soooooo amazing. Adventure is the best forest theme ever. Even my mom liked it. The funny is that that the statistics at one point for Adventure on Youtube had one of the top demographics at women age 45-54 I believe, which is hilarious because my mom is around that age, and also because it's weird that women at that age would be listening to Raidou music lmao. I guess everyone's moms looked it up?

Raidou 2's credits theme is one of the best ever and I think only Catherine's credits song compares.

I'd say Digital Devil Saga 2's is top-shelf, Nocturne's too.


And that SMT IV thing is a neat throwback to If and SMT I/II, since you see Charon in those too.
 
I'd say Digital Devil Saga 2's is top-shelf, Nocturne's too.


And that SMT IV thing is a neat throwback to If and SMT I/II, since you see Charon in those too.

It is also a neat throwback to SMT:Devil Summoner because they are just straight up resuing Kaneko's Charon drawing from that:
kZJH9J8.jpg


Wait, I meant "neat" rather than just plain ol' neat.
 

Ratrat

Member
I'm playing SMT3: Nocturne for the first time. Pretty great looking on pcsx2. Anyway is there an overworld map somewhere? I'm trying to find Yurakucho Station and have no idea how to get there.
 

Heropon

Member
Good luck with the next road block!
Have a null lightning Magatama ready.

Were you talking about Thor? I suppose not, because he wasn't that difficult and he gives the first lightning Magatama.

I'm observing that the suku spells are even more important in this game thanks to the press turn battle system, and how it punishes missed attacks. Talking about accuracy with spells, I think I won't use Mudo/Hama too much in this game, too risky for my tastes.

EDIT: Wait, MISS doesn't waste another turn but EVADE does. Then Hama and Mudo aren't as bad as I thought.
 
Charon is a dick, and takes alot of macca. Unfortunately, you need that macca to summon up demons to fuse to get past, so you're stuck grinding!

I'm playing SMT3: Nocturne for the first time. Pretty great looking on pcsx2. Anyway is there an overworld map somewhere? I'm trying to find Yurakucho Station and have no idea how to get there.

It's past and north of the old Nihilo building, over the bridge and past the tower.

Were you talking about Thor? I suppose not, because he wasn't that difficult and he gives the first lightning Magatama.

I'm observing that the suku spells are even more important in this game thanks to the press turn battle system, and how it punishes missed attacks. Talking about accuracy with spells, I think I won't use Mudo/Hama too much in this game, too risky for my tastes.

EDIT: Wait, MISS doesn't waste another turn but EVADE does. Then Hama and Mudo aren't as bad as I thought.

Yeah, anything with a baked-in chance to miss doesn't count towards that.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Were you talking about Thor? I suppose not, because he wasn't that difficult and he gives the first lightning Magatama.

I'm observing that the suku spells are even more important in this game thanks to the press turn battle system, and how it punishes missed attacks. Talking about accuracy with spells, I think I won't use Mudo/Hama too much in this game, too risky for my tastes.

EDIT: Wait, MISS doesn't waste another turn but EVADE does. Then Hama and Mudo aren't as bad as I thought.

Yep, I meant Thor. He terrified me on my first run at Nocturne.
 

Heropon

Member
Yep, I meant Thor. He terrified me on my first run at Nocturne.

I could defeat him in my first try thanks to the time he gives to prepare for the battle and how knowing a bit about Thor, it was obvious that carrying a demon weak to lightning was a bad idea, so I had to bench poor Izume. Sukukaja, his tendencies to use multi-target spells and the MC with Media learned did the rest.

The one that was more difficult for me was
Dante
: An unlucky critical and the battle ended immediately. Unlike in the Matador and Thor fights, Rakukaja ended being more important and it taught me about the importance of Focus. I feel lucky for having a demon with it in that battle.
 

randomkid

Member
Man I have no idea what's going on with my alignment in SMT1. Doing the Tokyo Destiny Land minigame didn't seem to do anything to switch me from Law back to Neutral like I'd wanted. So I went and defeated Haniel and that did the trick. And then when I defeated Echidna it was back to Law again. So now I've got two saves going as I head into the cathedral. I tried out the events as both Neutral (having not defeated Echidna) and Law (having beaten her) and it didn't seem to make any difference at all in terms of dialogue and events. I guess I have to decide which path I should stick with, neutral is my preference of course but it feels weird leaving Echidna behind undefeated, am I really neutral still? So confusing.
 

Soriku

Junior Member
About Nocturne, I have to ask: why was the battle music so badly compressed? It's literally the worst part of the game. It's way too muffled. It's probably the worst sound compression I've heard in a game besides Infinite Space. Space couldn't have been an issue so why? It does a real disservice to the music (the world map battle theme especially which is probably my favorite of the battle themes :/) and I can't imagine them going "LOL yeah this is fine, ship the game."

EDIT: Also WTF, did Meguro compose for Bleach?
 

brinstar

Member
I kind of like the sound in some of the more guitar-based songs, like the world map battle theme. Gives it a low-fi garage rock sound.
 

SteeloDMZ

Banned
I'm done with Devil Survivor 2. Fucking amazing game! My favorite SMT game behind Persona 4.

Fire Emblem will take all my gaming time starting tomorrow, but in March I'll try to play P3P and finish it before Soul Hackers comes out.
 

Jucksalbe

Banned
Ah, crap. Seems like I got the bad ending in Persona 4. Luckily you get a warning right before it and the option to save, so I guess I just have to try again.
 
What are the best game of the series on the DS/3DS? Id like to learn more about the franchise before playing it, never played one Shin Megami Tensei game =/
 

Soriku

Junior Member
What are the best game of the series on the DS/3DS? Id like to learn more about the franchise before playing it, never played one Shin Megami Tensei game =/

All of them are the best :p I thought Devil Survivor 2 was better than the first and Strange Journey though. Devil Survivor Overclocked (3DS) is an updated version of Devil Survivor 1 with new content so you'd wanna get that. There's also Soul Hackers out soon, and SMT IV is coming as well.
 

Persona86

Banned
Well I'm playing SMT: Nocturne, and it's taking a lot of time and focus to play it haha, yet I still love it.

Right now I'm at Asakusa where the manikin are rebuilding a new life, can anyone tell me how far I am now? Am I at least half way?

I like how the game makes me think what ending I will have, making me be careful what I do and who I trust.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Well I'm playing SMT: Nocturne, and it's taking a lot of time and focus to play it haha, yet I still love it.

Right now I'm at Asakusa where the manikin are rebuilding a new life, can anyone tell me how far I am now? Am I at least half way?

I like how the game makes me think what ending I will have, making me be careful what I do and who I trust.

I'd say that's around the halfway point.
 

Data West

coaches in the WNBA
Anyone think a Strange Journey x DDS crossover would be possible? The series seem the two most similar to one another. Bring back the cannibalism.
 

randomkid

Member
I did it! It took nearly four months but I beat SMT1.

FuJa8pU.png


I sure did. Well, sorta, rumors of the game's brokenness were definitely not exaggerated. Charm Bullets and a decent gun meant Autobattle was sufficient for just about everything in the last half and Zionga and a focus on speed meant that many bosses never even landed a single hit. Somehow the game was still very fun though.

Anyways, some scattered thoughts, and some vague little spoilers near the bottom:

The interface issues in this game are killer and I wish I could have played the PSX or GBA version cuz I'm sure my enjoyment would have increased by an order of magnitude. It's a testament to how much I liked everything else that my impression of the game is still very positive. This game has the worst inventory management of any game I've ever played, even taking into account its peers at the time I really learned to dread buying, selling, sorting and discarding.

I mean look at this portion of my endgame haul:

cjYu3MX.png


Yes I picked up some weapons along the way but that's 8 slots taken up by jewels after I'd already spent the rarest ones, and a major opportunity cost of getting the best sword in the game if you don't hoard these gems all game long. Coupled with a drop rate that felt almost Odin Sphere level and you end up spending way too much time slowly picking at menus.

Speaking of which, I'm not sure if this was an emulation issue or not, but the short loading times in status menus combined with poor cursor memory and rotating unmarked map caused JUST enough working memory load to make getting lost in all the game's labyrinths and shopping areas a given, which was a little refreshing at first but annoying by midgame.

And my final interface woe, fusion is one of my favorite parts of this franchise and the lack of flexibility or even the vaguest indications of what you could get were a major downer. It would have been okay to deal with if the English documentation was up to snuff but that was sadly not the case. Trying to figure out how to fuse a salamander was not an option given the lack of resources or in-game options. Thank YHWH I stumbled upon this helper randomly:

co8GrbB.png


Because Estoma sure does make the endgame much more manageable.

Speaking of which...

The cathedral was probably my favorite part of the game, gotta love the tenseness in the atmosphere. I had been led to believe this dungeon was super devious but it felt quite tame compared to Eridanus or Grus. In any case, cool looking demons and angels giving mini-speeches and sermons before and after defeat is one of my favorite things for real so the endgame felt designed for me. Also, the escalating factions/villains felt kinda FFIV-like in a way, "looks like that boss was following orders from this even BADDER boss," but handled with a little more class.

So yeah, the thoughtfulness of the cathedral design really impressed me, I loved loved loved how the chaos "town" was disorganized and haphazard in terms of shop locations and general layout, while the law "town" was ordered and safe from random battles, and nobody really points this out to you explicitly, it's just something you naturally observe.

Also: hey I remember this guy from a Raidou game!

LzcOx4v.png


Okay, some references can be kinda neat, I admit, and traveling across the world map looking for side dungeons on this guy's shell was just as fun as the opened up portions of any other RPG.

In the end, I'm really happy I finally got to play. Emulation was not the route I wanted to take, but my game was thankfully glitch free and I'll admit my cheating-ass save states were really helpful. The game's a definite classic and though my heart wants me to dive straight into SMT2 so I can wrap up my mainline series experience and feel safe reading through spoiler filled threads and articles, my brain is telling me to avoid burnout before Soul Hackers.

In any case, feels great to have beaten the game even though I have no idea how to figure out my total playtime. Ni no Kuni, you're up next.
 

Jucksalbe

Banned

I finally managed to beat Persona 4! Only took a new version for me to finally get through it. And damn, it's a great game, about on the same level as P3, which already means much. But despite all the new bonus stuff of the Golden version (though I'm not sure what exactly was new) it still took me 40 hours less to complete than P3.

There were some really annoying characters, though (like Teddie, Kashiwagi and Hanako). I could have done without some scenes, but it's not like it matters much, they're done fast.

One more thing: I loved all the bonuses they put under "TV listings"! I wish other ports would add this much content.
 
I'm cross-posting from the Persona4Golden thread:

I'm wondering what persona I should be shooting for. Right now I'm level 58 and making my way through the laboratory dungeon dungeon. I've got:

d5yqpQsl.jpg


I've been going thought the fusion search and I don't see anything too impressive that I can do right now. Am I missing something? Is there a godly persona or skill I should be fusing for? In the other thread, they mentioned doing a quad fusion. In the velvet room, I've done all the 4+ fusions that are available to me at my level.
 
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