My quest through the SMT series is going well. I just finished SMT IV. It's not as bad as I feared it'd be...

One last complaint I have is the shitty demons. Endgame demons all have completely even stats (every stat is the same number) which is annoying.

But enjoy it. Then play Strange Journey.

Yeah, MP restoration really helps. I bought the app that restores MP for the whole party eventually, and never had to think about MP again.

I knew I forgot to mention something. I was trying to go for neutral, but every time I spoke to the Cynical man he told me that I was a hot-head. I made sure to do both tournaments and spare everyone when I got the chance, and made some choices that seemed like they'd award Law points during the Blasted and Infernal Tokyo sections, and made the "Preserve it" option for the last choice and I'm guessing I just made enough points, because next think I knew I was talking to Stephen in a monochrome forest.

That is rude

I'm halfway through Strange Journey ATM and am absolutely loving it.

Like I hated Persona 4 with a blazing passion. Nocturne was great, and I wanted to give mainline SMT a chance again. I thought this would just be another time-killer while I'm still on break, but oh boy was I wrong.

The "characters as vehicles for alignments/philosophies" dates way back of course, but this is old-school classic mechanics descended from Wizardry. Practically a handheld CRPG with personality that is fun.

SMT IV was decent, too fucking easy and the story to fucking pointless and retarded

For me strange journey will be always the worst SMT and record breaker the best one since I'm a SRPGfag and boobs

Those are some nice semen demons, but I don't think I'll ever play those games, because I can't get into SRPGs. I like the strategy aspect of RPGs, but SRPGs are a bit too slow for me.

Reminder

the only SMT never localized I miss is the porn one

The thing with neutral is that once you reach the trial with 3 questions you need to be aligned with either chaos or law. If you are in between them at that point you will get pushed to the two extremes because the questions give only law or chaos points.

1. Story (and everyone in it)
2. Smirk
3. Artstyle (or rather lack of)

Public Service Announcement:
Looks like the fear-mongering shils are making their appearance now.
Do not take these clowns seriously. I've got a few imported games for the PS Triple with that exact same shit on the boxes. They're region-free.

More of an SMT thread than a persona thread, but it should help some people.

Before 8/pol/ this would have been an opportunity to break down how things work so we can be sure if it's true or not and probably make some infographics to spread the knowledge. Now we just jump straight to thought-termination, which is definitely a better way of doing things and not a slow form of suicide.

Oh please. If you can't be sure of something, bring it up as a question and no one will mind. Don't get ahead of yourself and make blind statements.

If enough people here want Persona in separate threads from the rest of MegaTen, that's okay with me. But that last one just about hit 300, and isn't that the bump limit? See, I'm asking 'cause I'm not sure.

PC when?

This, plus the appallingly lazy gameplay design. A huge number of the demons have the exact same stats and growth: completely equal across the board. On top of that, Vit (and by extension) defense are no longer stats, so every single battle is a one-turn curbstomp after the earlygame. Thanks to that and mana walk, there is flat out zero resource management. If a fight lasts more than one turn, it's probably because RNG fucked you and you're likely going to die, which doesn't even matter because the only penalty for death is a minor macca penalty.

Boss fights quickly become the same, with you either locking them down and shredding their asshole in the first three turns or you're dead. Smirk is a shit mechanic because it gives a ridiculous amount of swing in your (or the enemy's) favor considering fights only last three turns max. This isn't even getting into how the alignment system works or how fucking retarded the fiend spawns are.

SMTIV made some positive changes, such as the protagonist getting KO'd not being an instant game over, and allows you to stock many more demons (but of course this snaps the game in half even more because it's not balanced for it) but the bad outweighs the good to such a ridiculous degree that it's still a shit game overall.

You legitimately got lucky. The guests you're forced to bring along are capable (and likely) to randomly decide to use a spell a boss is immune to, which causes them to smirk and one-shot your party. I have zero interest in Final because the gameplay is the exact same and the story is even more pants on head retarded. Jewish DLC is also much, much more prevalent. I highly recommend playing Strange Journey next instead.

I have a list of complaints about SMT4
I have played through the game multiple times for the 4 endings and I've got a list here.

-Smirk
This is busted for who ever gets it, it's RNG saying getting rewarded for the extra turn wasn't enough, now you do more damage, get hyper evasion, most likely a almost ensured crit (which in 4 Final Matador can use an exclusive skill to loop his smirk state once he gets it making him beyond broken)

-No dungeons.
There is section of the game where you're exploring an area, it's either a collection of wide rooms or a hallway right out of FF13.
It's boring because you're going from boring hall to boring hall though my next complaint.

-The hub world(((s)))
It's boring, there are no land marks and when you get a quest that states "Location: Tokyo" you know this means you have to faff about checking every seemingly useless landmark in the entire fucking game (not a joke they never specify which one so you fucking check each one) and it's obvious the effort into this empty pile of shit is where the effort for where the dungeons has gone (Especially when they make 2 more massive ones with again fuck all in them).

-Bosses
They all have weaknesses till the final boss, this might not sound like a big deal but smirking and SMT 4 favoring Ganking with a high DPS > any other tactic you'll even beat the late game and final bosses with just hitting them for major damage each turn because lord knows they'll never be able to kill you faster unless you're stupidly underleveled which I'm not sure how you can do since quests often give you enough for 2/3 level ups and enemy recruitment alone offer extreme amounts of exp

-Difficulty
Games challenge peaks at the 2 hour mark when you might the Minotaur and Medusa, after that nothing compares and you'll be chilling for another 15-20 hours till the game is done

-Stats
No longer do you get to pick your build with varied HP/MP, now you just get an above average of both for your main character and put stats only into Damaging stats or luck/dodge < Both unless you're still at 3 by end game barely change a thing, I've played with 400+ speed and early game enemies still hit me more often then not.
Like just but 3 in Dex and 2 into speed (get to 50 and then put all 5 points from now on into Dex) and that's all you need to be OP, Dex makes Physical skills do super high damage and speed ensures you have the stats to make them hit for more then any boss in the game by level 20, most demons with only have dex like you by level 50-60.
The idea of tying HP gain to a stat was to avoid things like this, now there's nothing stopping you from simply being beyond with a great HP/MP build automatically given to you, it's broken compared to anything in the game and could probably solo the final bosses with a Dex stat of 300 hitting for 3000-6000 a turn

Game to me is just a broken mechanical mess which changed things to be different but inferior to the other games in every way because of it.

Which one is that?

I can understand the artstyle thing, it was definitely not as good as Nocturne's, or even those that came before it. The story didn't seem that much worse to me. SMT stories are fine, but none that I've seen so far have been award winning.

SMT threads are generally slow as they are, so I don't mind sharing.

Yeah, the DLC in IV and IV Final sucks, but I just pirated it.

How the fuck do you skip SJ and go to pretend4?

Also,

NO MARIE, NO BUY.

Easy. SJ is considered a spin off, and I was going to save those for later. From what I've heard though, SJ was supposed to be IV, but got demoted because it didn't take place in Tokyo.

...

Sorry, Marie. Write a bad poem expressing your anger about my faggotry.

Typical modern gamer. Acting like a nigger with ADD.

Go play Titanfall 2.

Reminder.

SMT4 did to something right.

SMT4 was the final sign that Atlus has jumped the shark. They realized that dlc money is pretty sweet and pandering sells more than a decent story about demons and angels.

Where?

...

Giten or something like that

...

...

Try to actually recount SMT4 and make sense of it. Its going to get extremely retarded extremely fast. You're just not noticing it because you're not looking at it in retrospect.

Holy shit the story in SMT4 is bad.

Why? DeSu was perfect

Can you elaborate on the reasons why?
I prefer Overclocked, the story is better and that's what really makes me come back for another 7 days.

Opinions on Strange Journey seem to be heavily divided amongst SMT fans in general. I was talking to a Japanese guy yesterday who told me that Japanese fans also argue over whether it's fantastic or shit.

which SMT is this?

...

It did. It also had a different set of dialogue for each terminal guardian based on which order you fight them, even if you save the first terminal for last. It's clear somebody gave a fuck about making a good game, but unfortunately that guy wasn't the one in charge of the actual gameplay or story.

Well, I know a big reason westerners argue over it being fantastic or shit is because the first game we got was Nocturne, so it's quite a shock to people who started with that. As for the Japanese, I assume the debate is because it's fairly linear and some of the design choices for the dungeons themselves are pretty irritating (unavoidable damage floors long before you're allowed to acquire means of mitigating them, for example)

Some of that may be true, thought what I was told is it's because it deviated from tradition. I assumed he was talking about gameplay, but now I think about it, it could be because it doesn't take place in Tokyo or in a post-apocalyptic Tokyo as well.

Fuck, I remember when I took that quest to kill Beelzebub without even knowing it was him. Kill some guy in red armor and bam a bunch of fucking flies out of nowhere. Got bodied and fucked right off.
Same with Mastema, I had a pretty good party set up going and dominated most of all the main story bosses but when Mastema started spamming Megidolaon, which somehow works against the magic reflection spell. Fuck those bosses.

Go play your autistic anime VNs, I'll be here playing actually good games

So is SMT IV Final/Apocalypse any good, or is it shit?

Look about the same. Story looks a bit more interesting, gameplay has been tuned up a bit. Still lots of DLC. Probably worth the pirate.

it's shit.

The true ending is also locked behind a 2 dollar "map pack"

SMT4 is pure garbage. If you want something concise play the first two.

Yeah you got a real great track record buddy.

Same with SMTIV. The archangels and Masakado fights were clearly the original Neutral endgame.

4 wasn't as bad as most people say certainly a fair bit better than Persona's gone after 2 but it was also a let down after Strange Journey. I really need to get around to FINAL myself, I've heard it's better in basically every way.

I should've seen it coming. We're not halfchan, after all.

You know exactly what would happen if you mixed them.

Better dead then dead inside

I haven't beaten IV yet solely because I got into the neutral route and now I'm stuck doing side quests until I become numnah one huntah in Tokyo and unlock Masakado and the last part of the game but I've done basically all the side quests minus some obscure fetch quests and complicated bullshit quests and now i only have one real quest left and it's to beat Beelzebub but I don't have a demon that knows Salvation.

It's such fucking bullshit and it's put me off 3DS games entirely now.

Yeah, that part sucked, I don't know what they were thinking.

You have to beat Beelzebub? I don't remember having to do that… You only have to do

Eggs for One Hundred
I Want to Make the City Bright
Deliver the Film
Samurai and Hunters United
Hunter Tournament Prelims
Phantom of Madness
Shelter Inspection
Ikebukuro Free District
Demon Guarding the Shrine
Hunter Tournament Finals
The Great Drunkenness
Serial Kidnapping + Arson
I Will Give You My Black Card
Mysterious Story of Tennozu
Multi-Demon Fusion
Rebirth of the Lady
Take A Picture of Ginza for Me
Tokyo Cosmos

I didn't like it because the story was so shitty. It had a terrible setting, terrible premise, probably -the worst- characters since Persona 2, and to be honest it is a little too difficult. It would be much easier to get through if the gameplay was even a little bit enjoyable but its not. You go straight from "Nightmare Mode" to listening to some faggot (who somehow has a styled perm in ancient Japan) talk about how he just "gets" poor people. Then you do that fifty times over, sometimes switching from Permfag to Mr. "I am stereotypically angry and poor."

I am a huge nerd for anything SMT. I wanted to believe that this game would be good but the plain fact is that it just isn't, bros. And I am sickened by all my fellow SMTards acting lile this game was okay in any way shape or form. Hold them to a standard or this will continue to happen, stop trying to pick the gold flakes out of this pile of shit.

Well, I've analyzed the current Persona thread, and unfortunately it's fucked beyond redemption. No way I'm boarding that sinking ship. Gonna have to be this thread then.
That said, there isn't much to post about P5 right now, but a livestream is coming tomorrow, so buckle up.

I'm not sure what to think of Persona 5. I liked 1 and both 2s, but 3 was awful and 4 was slightly better than awful. 5 will probably be the same way, but I'm hoping the apparent paradigm shifts and the actual hand-crafted dungeons make it better than its predecessors.

Fuck off m8

Though to be fair I still need to actually play Caligula, been sitting on it for months now

I guess I hold the unpopular opinion as someone who has pretty much played all MegaTen games that are available in english that I absolutely loved SMT IV.

I really liked the world and the story and I didn't mind the smirk system that much. Yeah the game has its flaws such as being too easy and those atrocious Fiend encounter rates, but I think the game has enough pros to make up for them.

I'm really looking forward to Final/Apocalypse.

I hold the unpopular opinion that Persona 1 was trash, and was in fact so fucking awful that I only picked up the series again when I was told that 3 had deviated from its gameplay in its entirety.

Literally the only thing I wish 3 had copied from the earlier games was the ability to assign your teammates Personas and control their actions.

Every single other fucking thing about the original Persona was ass.

I heard there was some bug patch for SMT1. Is it required to beat the game, or does it just fix minor flaws?

Yes but the translation is usually pre patched it also adds a hotkey for the map which you'll learn is a god send

But that's the opposite of true, since that's by far the popular opinion which is terrible, because it's why Persona 3 was so successful and killed off the actual Persona series for good. I want another Persona 1

Is that patch available without a translation?

I meant unpopular HERE. Everyone here seems to adore Persona and I just don't fucking get it.

Pretty sure that's the most common opinion. At least, it seems to be. I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum, I think it was the best one.

I guess but I don't know where to get it.

-Better dungeons
People like the feeling of exploring so having like a SMT style dungeon crawler with slightly different combat is fresh

I honestly think the combat in persona 1 is a bit too busted to be fun.

Fair enough

>Everyone here seems to adore Persona and I just don't fucking get it.

This is me and Persona 3, to be honest. I've tried to play the game on five separate occasions across both platforms, and I simply can't like it at all. It has zero redeeming qualities to me, nothing about it is enjoyable or makes me want to keep playing, there's just absolutely nothing to like about it for me.

Thanks, mate.

If you played the bad localization on PS1, I could kind of understand.
Other than that, though, Persona is a masterpiece.

Playing ANY MegaTen or Persona in English is a really bad idea to be fair.

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As someone who enjoys old school dungeon crawlers a la dungeon master and eye of the beholder, Persona 1 was fucking amazing.

Even the botched translation.

To this day still my favorite persona, I love setting formations, having diverse tactics to use in persona setups, the personas themselves all being really strange and out there rather than the same old 3D enemies that have been around since nocturne.

I love the mazes, even the snow queen mazes that I accessed by game shark in the PS1 era. They were tortuously amazing while still feeling somehow cozier than normal earlier SMT first person dungeons.

and I actually loved the plot too.

Persona 2 dumbed down the combat while focusing it all around persona combos that restricted your persona choices.

Persona 3+4 just went full retard with the awful press turn system. If you have the weakness it's a breeze, if it's resistant to your best attack you're hosed. Hope you know what enemies are going to be ahead of time. Oh, and leader death = game over, on a system with frequent instant death spells.

I played all the Persona games in Nip, as well as SMT I and II, but III I played in English (because I felt like shit at the time and just wanted to have fun. I didn't realize how little text was in the game, so it wouldn't have mattered anyway), but SMT III seemed fine in English.

So, there's a lot of speculation going around on who the secret boss is going to be this time.
The pattern so far makes the VR attendants the safe bet.
The Igor Co-op suggests it could possibly be Igor himself, and/or perhaps even Philemon.
The 20th anniversary suggests it could be prior protagonists and/or antagonists.
The Tokyo setting suggests it could even be someone from the mainline or other branches of MegaTen.

You know who I think would be the best secret boss for P5? And they just might be crazy enough to do it.
Noctis

Imagine taught me that the hard way. The English localization actually repelled me from giving the Japanese version a fair shot for some time. Thankfully, I changed my mind before it was too late. Best decision I ever made.

Can't speak on individual titles to be fair, but Atlus USA has been godawful at their job for the most part over the years, only outdone by worst-of-the-worsts like NISA or Treehouse.

SMT III seemed fine. I compared the localization to the Nip for awhile before deciding to go with the English, and it was pretty well done. That might have been before they went bad? If they did. I've seen people bitch about Persona 4's localization as well, and while I haven't played it in English, I've seen a good deal of the English version, and aside from everything to do with honorifics, it was generally solid.

Looks like the Sega stream starts in about an hour and a half.

Unrelated note, I wonder how well this handsome devil has aged in these 20 years. Wish I could see what he looks like now.

I made it to the Manikin city before I got bored with SMT3. The gameplay is too simple and the story isn't enough to convince me too slog through it.

How was the stream?

Here's a recording of the P5 stream. They demoed the same parts as before, but played them a bit differently.
So far the guns look quite exploitable, but that's just the way I like them.