9thwonder said:

My biggest gripe about the game, a major step down from nocturne in the art department.

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The reuse of older artwork of the demons? Yeah, that one got me too.

Ringman said:

Spoiler

That, and the game gets on a soapbox and chastises the player every time a neutral response is chosen- It's pretty pathetic that the game has to overtly insist "hey, this is important".

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Caladrious said:

[/SPOILER]

Spoiler

Walter and Jonathan aren't meant to be especially likable, I'll give you Isabeau. EVERY megaten game has you going up against your former friends, and they try their damnedest to make you want to kill them..

The neutral route is actually the best ending. The game is just trying to deter you from searching for the "third option" to the law vs chaos conflict and is trying to trick you into thinking you have to align with the nutbar faction leaders.

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Hmm I didn't know that.

The characters look pretty stylish.

But even if you don't like them, the demons look fantastic (even if a lot of them are reused).

jaundicejuice said:

The Demonica suit was a pretty strong, direct reference to StrangeJourney, and given how IV's plot seems to

Spoiler

take place after the world changing event rather than starting with it, as Nocturne's did, I guess I just imagined there'd be a more direct connection to SJ's plot. I have Strange Journey and got fairly far into it but didn't bother to complete it.

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I just took the Demonica design as a reference rather than

Unpleasantly mediocre character art was maybe the game's biggest detraction for me, yes. I'm not sure how the Trauma artist regressed from competent low-rent Kaneko aping in New Blood to the goofy faces of SMT4, but it was very disappointing.

What makes me laugh though is that the dumb portrait art was part of a long list of things I didn't like including:

-everything in Mikado.
-an intentional but still quite off-putting law route
-encounter design based on save anywhere
-ignoring SMT3's polished resource management lessons
-new demon art that was comically off
-voice acting (both human and demon) that often just plain didn't work
-magic builds leading to levels of brokenness not seen since SMT1's use of charm bullets

And yet, SMT4 is somehow my favorite game of the year? I don't really get it but this game definitely helped me learn new things about what I can ignore and what I can prioritize in videogames. I wrote a loveletter here about one of my favorite moments in the game and I could write several more. When you are no longer banned OP, you oughtta give the game a real shot and tell us about it, just make sure you get to the bottom of Naraku!