Support NeoGAF

[FLD]

The latter SMT entries give you a total freedom of skill choice. In SMT4, you can even choose to delete the default skills of the demon, making room for more skills of your choice.

I'm not gonna lie, I really like the sound of that. I definitely get what you're saying about balance, though. It's something that should be taken into account and you'd need to compensate for it elsewhere.

Balance will inevitably be compromised in P4G since the game wasn't originally designed this way. But did they just throw it into SMTIV without any further thought given to adjusting balance accordingly?

Exactly because nobody will spend 30+ minutes re-rolling, leaving you with a somewhat weaker demon that was is theoricaly possible.

I'd argue that's not exactly satisfying balance, though. I mean, it's fine to ultimately have to compromise but it could've been handled in a less frustrating manner. Re-rolling is incredibly tedious, even when you're only trying to get a 2 or 3 key abilities.

 

[eyeball_kid]

Yeah that could work.
The latter SMT entries give you a total freedom of skill choice. In SMT4, you can even choose to delete the default skills of the demon, making room for more skills of your choice.

Wow. Yeah, I can certainly see how that would break game balance easily. At that point, they're practically giving you a Create Your Own Demon feature.

Exactly because nobody will spend 30+ minutes re-rolling, leaving you with a somewhat weaker demon that was is theoricaly possible.
Unless of course you actively want to break the game, but that's another matter entirely.

Well, I did spend about 30 minutes trying to fuse a couple demons who I had a strong affinity to. That's the interesting thing about SMT -- because the demons are basically party members, I always felt more kinship towards them than I have in Persona. With certain demons, I just wanted to help them be the baddest badass they could be.

I don't think re-rolling like that is "breaking" the game, because it's all just luck. Sure, those perfect mixes may be rarer, but the game still allows them and on a very rare occasion you might get that mix at the start. So to me, re-rolling is just useless tedium to make the player go through. I'm glad Atlus has abandoned that, but it seems they've gone to the other extreme now.

 

[Love Deterrence]

Just ordered a PS2 copy last week. Really excited to start, it'll be my first proper SMT game.

Welcome to the trip, man!

 

[Hugstable]

Wow. Yeah, I can certainly see how that would break game balance easily. At that point, they're practically giving you a Create Your Own Demon feature.

That's basically what happens in IV and it makes the second half of the game very easy as you can always be packing characters with everything that you ever need, including spells from all elemental classes, every buff, etc. That and the lack of dungeons are why I still highly prefer SMT: Nocturne over IV. But that's not to say that demon fusion, especially when aiming for very specific skills at times can be a huge pain in the ass in Nocturne, and at times it started to kill my hands from all the menu cancels lol. There has to be a better middleground to all this besides what they had done in IV with allowing you to basically pass on whatever the heck you wanted.

EDIT: So glad to see this topic going too, beat the game again in True Demons Ending back when the PSN release came out. Anyone who's bought the game since then, how are you guys liking it overall? What endings did you go for? I still love how every dungeon outside of Amala's hell has their own neat little gimmicks going on whether it be transporter tiles, room flips, etc.

 

[Jisgsaw]

Balance will inevitably be compromised in P4G since the game wasn't originally designed this way. But did they just throw it into SMTIV without any further thought given to adjusting balance accordingly?

There are two things to balance that:
- There is no Vitality/Resistance stat. Hence it's quite fast to die... unless you abuse the system and make your demons null/absorb/reflect a lot of elements
- The later bosses spam almighty attacks if your party is immune to ALL of his other spells. But that's easily avoidable by bringing one sacrificial lamb not immune to his attacks.

I'd argue that's not exactly satisfying balance, though. I mean, it's fine to ultimately have to compromise but it could've been handled in a less frustrating manner. Re-rolling is incredibly tedious, even when you're only trying to get a 2 or 3 key abilities.

Well, I did spend about 30 minutes trying to fuse a couple demons who I had a strong affinity to. That's the interesting thing about SMT -- because the demons are basically party members, I always felt more kinship towards them than I have in Persona. With certain demons, I just wanted to help them be the baddest badass they could be.

I don't think re-rolling like that is "breaking" the game, because it's all just luck. Sure, those perfect mixes may be rarer, but the game still allows them and on a very rare occasion you might get that mix at the start. So to me, re-rolling is just useless tedium to make the player go through. I'm glad Atlus has abandoned that, but it seems they've gone to the other extreme now.

As I said, I'd prefer the solution of eyeball_kid with the "skill points" during fusion.

But if you think about it, this randomness completely agrees with everything else in Nocturne, where Death spells are decently effective, and surprise attacks can devastate even the strongest party. Both of which are totaly random.

And I do see re-rolling during 30 minutes to be braking the game. You can quite easily get 2 out of 5 skillslots with what you want. Three is reasonably doable. More is just pushing your luck. And, to be frank, really unnecessary, the game isn't that hard.

But as I said, I'd really want to see these "fusion skill points" into action, I think that'd be the best compromise between the to fusion systems.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Spoiler

Ahriman/Hikawa

. Managed to beat him last night after a slight party change. I'll try to keep going today and see if I can get the next one as well.

And thanks for the Black Frost tip, I'll look into it.



Well, yeah, I don't think I would've made it this far if I didn't realize that. What I meant was that I know I'm close to the end and would like to finish the game sooner rather than later. I googled a bit but couldn't find any clear "get xyz, it's massively useful" kinda hint you usually find for an RPG.

I'd just rather avoid a situation like when I finally got to the end of Persona 3. After a few failed 40+ mins attempts at the final boss, I said fuck it and went to grind and it was mind-numbingly long just to get that little extra bit of power I needed.

You're still partially stuck in that mentality, though; you just said so with the "get xyz" bit. You must roll up on a lost fight and go "I know what I need from this and I know this cuz I know why this loss went down". SMT games tend to be heavily "how and why" games, and Nocturne is the one that hews to that the closest.

There are two things to balance that:
- There is no Vitality/Resistance stat. Hence it's quite fast to die... unless you abuse the system and make your demons null/absorb/reflect a lot of elements
- The later bosses spam almighty attacks if your party is immune to ALL of his other spells. But that's easily avoidable by bringing one sacrificial lamb not immune to his attacks.





As I said, I'd prefer the solution of eyeball_kid with the "skill points" during fusion.

But if you think about it, this randomness completely agrees with everything else in Nocturne, where Death spells are decently effective, and surprise attacks can devastate even the strongest party. Both of which are totaly random.

And I do see re-rolling during 30 minutes to be braking the game. You can quite easily get 2 out of 5 skillslots with what you want. Three is reasonably doable. More is just pushing your luck. And, to be frank, really unnecessary, the game isn't that hard.

But as I said, I'd really want to see these "fusion skill points" into action, I think that'd be the best compromise between the to fusion systems.

It doesn't help there's no restrictions (Inherent skills, harsh restrictions on what demons a skill can go on, a fee or sacrificial demon is required for each carry over, etc), but it doesn't and has to find those restrictions elsewhere.

 

[eyeball_kid]

As I said, I'd prefer the solution of eyeball_kid with the "skill points" during fusion.

But if you think about it, this randomness completely agrees with everything else in Nocturne, where Death spells are decently effective, and surprise attacks can devastate even the strongest party. Both of which are totaly random.

And I do see re-rolling during 30 minutes to be braking the game. You can quite easily get 2 out of 5 skillslots with what you want. Three is reasonably doable. More is just pushing your luck. And, to be frank, really unnecessary, the game isn't that hard.

But as I said, I'd really want to see these "fusion skill points" into action, I think that'd be the best compromise between the to fusion systems.

Well, I wasn't spending that long trying to fuse a demon in order to "break the game". I just wanted to make my particular demons unique. I often wasn't even necessarily choosing the perfect/best setups, but just a set of skills I thought were interesting together. Creating a particular fiction and backstory for the demon, so to speak. But I think my skill points idea would solve this, letting us customize our demons without tedium and without doing anything game-breaking. Glad you agree. Any Atlus reps on NeoGaf...?

 

[FLD]

You're still partially stuck in that mentality, though; you just said so with the "get xyz" bit. You must roll up on a lost fight and go "I know what I need from this and I know this cuz I know why this loss went down". SMT games tend to be heavily "how and why" games, and Nocturne is the one that hews to that the closest.

Eh, not really? I mean, I feel like you're reading way too much into what I said. I was simply in a position where I could see the finish line but felt stuck and outmatched. So I looked for tips about useful endgame stuff that I might've otherwise missed in an effort to get unstuck faster. Doesn't mean that I don't realize that powerful tools still need to be used intelligently in this game. Like I said, I definitely wouldn't have made it this far if that wasn't the case.

Anyway, it's all moot at this point. I got the last magatama today and started working towards getting Masakados. But after losing to one of the bosses there I went back to the tower and ended up beating

Spoiler

Noah, Thor and Baal Avatar

without too much trouble. With some luck, I'll be able to wrap this up tomorrow.

EDIT: Lol. Well, this was a bit underwhelming. I stopped there last night because it was already 3 AM and I didn't want to stay up too late playing but there was much less left than I anticipated. Just a quick and easy battle with

Spoiler

Kagutsuchi

and credits rolled. Ended up getting the neutral ending, I'll probably look the others up on youtube.

But yeah, I really loved the game overall. It was my first proper SMT game and it didn't disappoint. The story was less interesting than I'd hoped but it was alright.

I'll be getting a 3DS soon in anticipation of Persona Q and I'll definitely be getting SMTIV along with it. I'll also have to play the other PS2 SMT games at some point, Digital Devil Saga being at the top of the list.

 

[Out_Of_Ammo]

Playing this game for the first time and encountered Matador. My MC died in the 2nd turn after 2 hits. I'm starting to think playing on hard was a bad decision...

 

[Field]

Question about Magatama. Do I only get more of them from vendors? And should I try to buy all of them? Or is it waste of money?

 

[SweetTeddie]

Question about Magatama. Do I only get more of them from vendors?

No, there are optional dungeons and bosses you can beat to get some of the most powerful magatams. Probably the best one comes from beating the Amala Labyrinth.

And should I try to buy all of them? Or is it waste of money?

I'd say buy the ones that fit the type of character you want. If you're making a physical damage hero, you can probably skip some of the magic based ones. Some of the tougher boss fights are made easier by using the resistances associated with certain Magatamas (Death resist is great for example).

 

[Field]

No, there are optional dungeons and bosses you can beat to get some of the most powerful magatams. Probably the best one comes from beating the Amala Labyrinth.


I'd say buy the ones that fit the type of character you want. If you're making a physical damage hero, you can probably skip some of the magic based ones. Some of the tougher boss fights are made easier by using the resistances associated with certain Magatamas (Death resist is great for example).

Thank you. I've been focusing on strength and vitality so far.

 

[Jisgsaw]

No, there are optional dungeons and bosses you can beat to get some of the most powerful magatams. Probably the best one comes from beating the Amala Labyrinth.

There are also some (at least one I can think of) laying around in treasure boxes in dungeons.
The best one you get from a lentghy side quest, that I'd say is pretty hard to complete without a walkthrough.

I'd say buy the ones that fit the type of character you want. If you're making a physical damage hero, you can probably skip some of the magic based ones. Some of the tougher boss fights are made easier by using the resistances associated with certain Magatamas (Death resist is great for example).

Yeah, what he said. That said, it's good to have a wide variety of Magatama for affinities' sake, it helps agianst bosses. For instance, the best physical magatama is just horrible to put on, as it has death and light weakness. Which usually equals a sudden death in a span of a few minutes after putting it on.

 

[CambriaRising]

Starting playing this yesterday for an article I'm writing, I'm about 6 hours in. I'm plugging around Ginza, but I had a question about fusing. Does this game have a compendium like SMT4 and Persona? If so, when will I get access to it?

 

[Jisgsaw]

Starting playing this yesterday for an article I'm writing, I'm about 6 hours in. I'm plugging around Ginza, but I had a question about fusing. Does this game have a compendium like SMT4 and Persona? If so, when will I get access to it?

Of course.
You should get it very soon.

 

[CambriaRising]

Of course.
You should get it very soon.

Thanks, I just got to it.

 

[vocab]

Black temple boss. Wow. The most laughable boss in the entire game. Auto battled him.

 

[Splash Wave]

When should I be expecting the next useful Magatama for a physical MC? I have Anathema, and with each time I level up I'm choosing not to learn skills because there's nothing in any of them that I want to learn. Here's what I have now:

Lunge
Life Bonus
Heat Wave
Tornado
Focus
Force Boost
War Cry
Counter

 

[Nap1400]

When should I be expecting the next useful Magatama for a physical MC? I have Anathema, and with each time I level up I'm choosing not to learn skills because there's nothing in any of them that I want to learn. Here's what I have now:

Lunge
Life Bonus
Heat Wave
Tornado
Focus
Force Boost
War Cry
Counter

Nirvana has a special single-target physical skill called Divine Shot that basically wipes out the entirety of the mid game when buffed and focused. As soon as you get to Asakusa, buy it. I don't remember the rest though.

 

[Splash Wave]

Nirvana has a special single-target physical skill called Divine Shot that basically wipes out the entirety of the mid game when buffed and focused. As soon as you get to Asakusa, buy it. I don't remember the rest though.

Thanks, I'm currently on my way there.

For as much as I love this game, does anyone else feel it's a *tad* relentless? The pacing is such that the game never gives you a break; Kabukicho Prison, which was a long dungeon, transitions right into the tunnels into Asakusa. And when you're there, you have to beat five bosses. I need a breather!

 

[Jisgsaw]

Thanks, I'm currently on my way there.

For as much as I love this game, does anyone else feel it's a *tad* relentless? The pacing is such that the game never gives you a break; Kabukicho Prison, which was a long dungeon, transitions right into the tunnels into Asakusa. And when you're there, you have to beat five bosses. I need a breather!

Yeah the game is quite relentless, and the long and complicated dongeons reinforce that.
For me, it's not really a drawback though, it reinforces the atmosphere of the game. You're in a destroyed world after all, it'd be strange to have breather spaces.

 

[Splash Wave]

Yeah the game is quite relentless, and the long and complicated dongeons reinforce that.
For me, it's not really a drawback though, it reinforces the atmosphere of the game. You're in a destroyed world after all, it'd be strange to have breather spaces.

Right, I completely agree that it works thematically; I like their decision, and I think it benefits the game overall.

I just wish I could play for longer stretches of time! The game is wonderful.

 

[Tizoc]

Maybe I missed it from the first page, but what is the recommended stat point distribution, and what are the must have demons to make the Matador battle less uh...'suicidal'.

 

[Jisgsaw]

Maybe I missed it from the first page, but what is the recommended stat point distribution, and what are the must have demons to make the Matador battle less uh...'suicidal'.

Depends on your build for the stats.
For Matador, anything with Fog Breath/Sukunda/Sukukaja and force nullify.

 

[Tizoc]

Depends on your build for the stats.
For Matador, anything with Fog Breath/Sukunda/Sukukaja and force nullify.

What's good for the late game? Magic build or Crit-like build?

 

[Jisgsaw]

What's good for the late game? Magic build or Crit-like build?

Well, by far the more powerfull combo is Freikugel+Focus(+Pierce for the ultimate boss), so a strength build (Freikugel has a high crit rate, but high luck helps too).
But up till late mid-game, a magic build is much more powerfull.

If you want to do the ultimate boss though, you more or less have to use the combo above. Else you have to set up your demons to be able to do significant damage to the boss, and that's long and tedious.

 

[Tizoc]

Is it worth letting Pixie Level up to become Queen Mab or should I fuse her?
Early game seems easy enough. I'm gonna go for a magic build and I put all my points into Magic. I like the Magatama concept. Just waiting to get to the Catherdral and then grind for a bit and fuse my first demon so it will have buffs/debuffs.

 

[Tizoc]

I take it back the Amala Network kicked my ass...

 

[jgminto]

I started playing recently too and I just got to the Matador. I'm definitely not equipped for this fight yet. I have a good magatama and one demon that absorbs zan but I don't have good damage capacity yet or any increase/decrease agility skills.

 

[Tizoc]

How do I UNLOCK the demon compendium btw? I've searched in the game's menu but I don't see it.

 

[Inquisitive_Ghost]

How do I UNLOCK the demon compendium btw? I've searched in the game's menu but I don't see it.

The Compendium is only accessible via the Cathedral of Shadows, not in the menu.

It's unlocked when you find the Cathedral in one of the early regions. I don't remember which neighbourhood it is, though.

 

[Tizoc]

How much time passed from when Tokyo is destroyed to the part the protag becomes the Demi-fiend?

The Compendium is only accessible via the Cathedral of Shadows, not in the menu.

It's unlocked when you find the Cathedral in one of the early regions. I don't remember which neighbourhood it is, though.

I found the Catherdral first in the underground area where the save point lets me access the Amala Network but I've fused a dmeon and the compendium still doesn't show up. I guess it shows up later on since I just got Sacrificial Fusion.

So far I put all my Points int MAG but need to read up on which Magatama offer me magic spells like Zio etc :V

 

[jgminto]

How much time passed from when Tokyo is destroyed to the part the protag becomes the Demi-fiend?



I found the Catherdral first in the underground area where the save point lets me access the Amala Network but I've fused a dmeon and the compendium still doesn't show up. I guess it shows up later on since I just got Sacrificial Fusion.

So far I put all my Points int MAG but need to read up on which Magatama offer me magic spells like Zio etc :V

I've been able to get three of the four magatamas with different elemental spells. Though they're the "do 1-4 hits to random enemies" not single hit so far. The first you get from beating Forneus, the second from the shop in Shibuya and the third from a shop near Ginza. They're pretty big on mana drain though so I'll be trying to replace them with the ga/lao/la/ma spells asap.

 

[Jisgsaw]

How much time passed from when Tokyo is destroyed to the part the protag becomes the Demi-fiend?

I don't think the game ever answers that question.
I always assumed almost none, as the powers of the post-apocalyptic world are just getting in place. Time doesn't seem to be that great of a notion in that world either.

I found the Catherdral first in the underground area where the save point lets me access the Amala Network but I've fused a dmeon and the compendium still doesn't show up. I guess it shows up later on since I just got Sacrificial Fusion.

So far I put all my Points int MAG but need to read up on which Magatama offer me magic spells like Zio etc :V

Yes the compendium comes later (Ghinza maybe?).
For the magatama, I seem to rember that's it's planly stated in its description which gives spells of what type.

 

[squadr0n]

Helping my brother out with Nocturne after he finished the Persona games and its been years since I played it. Were stuck on the first Dante boss fight atm. Up until now we havent had an issue. Lost once to Matador but that was just because he wiped everyone with one attack. Are there any tips we should know? Were using -nda each turn so he wastes one move hopefully. Trying not to resort to a FAQ

Edit: just realized he is healing MP and not HP towards the end of the fight

 

[Stereogatari]

This is the thread that influenced me to give SMT3 a try all those years ago.

I chose normal, got up to Matador and quit.

After beating the beautiful magnificent game that is P5 on Hard, I decided it was time. Since my last foray into SMT3 and since I beat P4 which was just before then, I have improved in my skills as a gamer. Working an office job with intense pressure and deadlines to meet has actually helped me become better at games weirdly enough. Life is a game, so perhaps it makes perfect sense.

So I return to it, this time on Hard. I have reached Matador once again. Now I know what needs to be done. I will ensure my party is resistant to force as much as possible and get all the debuff and buff skills I need. Will require a bit of grinding.

You are mine this time Matador. I am older and wiser now.