Shin Megami Tensei Devil Summoner Raidou Kuzunoha versus Soulless Army

It was a bumpy ride but I finally finished this piece of shit.
It severely suffers from most JRPG flaws, like shitty random encounters and enemies not giving appropriate exp to their strength, forcing you to fuck with annoying additional mechanics like constantly buying repulse water or supplying your favourite demons with exp boost sacrificing something useful in return.

On the flip side however it has god tier aesthetics, design and music, basically everything that isn't gameplay.
Combat is a huge mixed bag too, since it's nice to actually play the character, and not some movie player where you select menus and watch pre-cooked animations, but it's slow, clunky and camera is absolutely terrible, in most boss fights I ended up running under huge fat lifebars or behind huge fat enemies not seeing what the fuck am I doing.
Now that I think back combat is kinda 2D really, since there is zero verticality to it. I mean even in beat em ups you can jump and enemies can get airborne, but not here, so it's purely 2D in terms of gameplay.

So yeah, can we discuss this?

Its just Raidou Kuzunoha.
Its part of Shin Megami Tensei, and also part of Devil Summoner subseries.
"versus soulles army" is a subtitle for the first game in the series.

It was fun for what is was, SMT gameplay but action-ey. What flaws it does have though are fixed in vs king abbadon. Although i felt like the battles went on a little too long sometimes, i finished it. The final boss was awesome. I would only reccomend it to an smt fan, it doesnt really do much for the beat-em-up genre.

I have it on emulation, love the concept and setting on paper but the gameplay felt more tedious than it had to be, I never went very far (first actual hostile area with the tsuchigumo) before just fully getting into digital devil saga.
I keep telling myself I'll get back to it someday, but here I still am.

Well I didn't say how much I loved demons aspect though, that's one of the things that helped me to bear with the flaws.
Not only you can give them pretty precise commands during combat, so they won't do retarded shit, but you can also fuse them to get new ones, customize their stats and abilities, it was satisfying as fuck.
In most games with summoning you just summon shit and it functions as your dps/defense boost. In this game it's an actual party member with its own AI that actually fucking listens to what you want from it.
I was amazed how I never got angered by my demons' behavior and how fucking helpful they were.
I was cornering enemies, setting up traps, fucking them up with status ailments, all sorts of fun.


So you like explaining stuff huh? Can you explain this?
Also
So it should be Demon Captor instead.


I know there is a sequel, but I dunno if I want more of this. Are demons in it just as sluggish compared to Raidou as in the first game? I mean Raidou was pretty sluggish to begin with, but when I played as my man Yoshitsune, I felt like he shouldn't be twice as slow since he's fucking master warlord or some shit. With maxed str his damage was crazy though, so maybe it was a balance thing.


I finished it in about 30 hours. I did some side content like getting Yoshitsune or saving Kaya's uncle, but skipped grindier parts like those training halls or whatever else is there.

And yeah it was on my backlog for like 10 years, holy shit.

Raidou 2 adds rolling and other moves. It makes it really fun. Like i saif it fixes most of the problems i had.

I get what you're saying, I just want details.
How are demon controls? Do humanoid demons get any new moves or movement options too?
I mean if you play as a legendary samurai you would expect it to fight at least just as skillfully as Raidou himself right?

Demon controlling is a little better. Personally i didnt use demon controlling much in raidou 1 unless i had too.

Yep. Raidou 2 is a huge improvement. Definitely one of those series where the first is the cheap feeling experimental one and the second is the one where it has been folded 10,000 times into a brilliant, refined product.

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Sequel really fixes up combat.

You know what I would really love to see?

Raidou Kuzunoha vs Army of Zin

Featuring Dante of course

There's no difference between a demon and a devil. Further, if you're being super autistic about the difference between a daemon/demon in the generic SMT sense and a devil in the classical christian sense, there are devils.

It's Shadow Hearts all over again.

That reminds me, I want to see badass scenes like this recreated in glorious HD now that they've got the models.

I dunno. I didn't follow mainline SMT, but wasn't 4 shit? Meaning if they did Raidou 3 it would be shit as well? Especially with Kaneko gone, generic anime designs wouldn't help.
There is something special about his style, even if he doesn't try to be gothic.

It's a dream, user. There will never be Raidou 3.

I was thinking that those ties do not look good with those shirts but, apparently, yellow does complement purple.

I don't really get complementary colors. I don't think orange looks good with blue at all and I think blue-violet would look good with green (just not that shade of green on pic related; too much teal. It would need to be more of a natural forest green).

I really wish for a Raidou 3, the second one really showed that the series has a ton of potential, the combat wasn't very deep but again, it showed that it can improve.
Now that they have all the demons reworked for next-gen consoles they might start pumping out other SMT games. So who knows, maybe we might get something, at the very least a cameo. Raidou's universe can really go anywhere.

We already know where it goes. Raidou 1 -> Raidou 2 -> …if -> Devil Summoner -> Soul Hackers -> Persona 1 - > Persona 2:IS -> World Ends/Reset -> Persona 2: EP -> 3 -> 4 -> 5

Worst meme pushed by lorefags.

Despite knowing it's the truth, of course. Blind yourself with your own retardation, fam.

Complementary colors are just the strongest possible contrasts you can get. If you want to put a lot of focus on one thing, putting a complimentary color behind it will make it pop a lot more. Colors that are next to each other on the wheel will blend together more.

The yellow tie and purple shirt might look better if the colors (or one of them) was more muted. I'm not a fashion designer so I don't really know what rules there are for that.

The Other Side is a place that physically exists, user. That's how IS Tatsuya goes back. However, unlike most resets, this didn't actually wipe out any continuity, as EP shows that P1, …if and the Devil Summoner games happened unchanged from their original plots. The changes from IS are confined to Sumaru itself.

Let's just hope the SMT on switch sell well. Last time normalfags played one it didn't end well

Let's hope it is smothered in its sleep.

I've been going on about this for years and I'm not going to stop until it happens even if I don't have anyone to play it with anymore.


It's definitely very flashy, I don't think he could get away with it he weren't anime. Especially in the first example where his skin is really light but the purple is still rich and dark.

Persona after 2 is shit, sorry you autistic niggers.

How does Raidou 2 connect to …if?
I haven't finished the second game yet. But it is pretty clear that Raidou can travel through timelines as seen in nocturne and Soul Hackers, is it really that conclusive that they can't shove a third game before …if?

I've never even played the game, I just wanted to talk about color theory.

Bleh.

The villain of Raidou 1 went back in time from SMT2 to stop SMT1 from happening. As a result of that, …if's timeline occurs, because Raidou wipes out most of the nationalists in the military, which prevents Gotoh from starting the war with Thorman.

fuck im troggered

The one comparing it's weak ass law vs chaos plot to Nocturne's Eliade-fuelled exploration of cosmogony is entirely correct, though.

Japanese rpgs can barely be called games

You'd only get static images. That style has too much shadowing to be properly animated into anything but generic moves. And they won't use kaneko style

Yes.
Atlus died in 2009. SEGA buyout was the nail in the coffin.
Please for the love of God, if you insist on playing Atlus' new fucking garbage, at least buy it used. Even giving money to GameStop would be better than giving money to modern Atlus.

The normalfags are right. SMT IV is very pokemon-esque. They've both got equal anime cliches and anime archetype characters, and the difficulty is exactly the same: non-existent. Pokemon has multiplayer so it's actually superior to the piece of shit that is SMT IV.
if you bought that piece of fucking shit new, i hate you.
fuck modern atlus

I'm not sure how to feel about this. I want face of Raidou 1 back.
But yeah combat is definitely improved. I like how dodge roll doesn't have invincibilty frames and isn't free god mode button. But controlling two demons at once feels hectic as shit.
Not only that but now they won't use magic and special attacks on their own, which is troublesome.
Previously demon with healing would heal you or itself when on low health, but now it's manual/constant spamming/nothing.
Not sure if I want THAT much of micro managing in there.

World reset occurs inside the fucking game and the second part of that game is dedicated to the results of said world's reset. And that is self contained to persona 2. Are you baiting or retarded? You're arguing with yourself at this point.


It's like you don't root for LA Lakers brother.

At least EO is still good. EOU2 was a hiccup by EOV is good as shit, sadly it is NEVER EVER at this point.

Kill yourself lore-tard.

why does this reminds me to Under World Incidents? i guess its the Aesthetics.

Oooooooooph, and you know they're not talking about Humans fighting off interfering beings.

Well, game set in japanese industrialization period. Prolonged taisho era.

Its actually a student's outfit.

Fucking fly as shit.

Have you ever paid attention to how the release cycle for the EO games? We always get them almost any where from 6 to 12 months after japan, usually with a spontaneous announcement. We'll probably get an announcement at E3 since sega is beefing up atlus' e3 presence

Is that korra?

I hope you are right, scheduling user.
Welcome to the joke everyone was making in 2011.

That's one way of making sure students will always wear their uniform and be proud of it.

I might replay these games today. I think it does the small town constrained setting (especially the second) better than the more recent Personas. However, I'm not far in 5 and thus can't comment on it.

Wish someone could tell this to people in the West.

I think all the games are a big missed opportunity. Half the charm of the mysterious small town is in letting the player go around and explore at their leisure, do their own detective work and piece together its past, bear witness to its culture and traditions and interact with a cast of memorable local characters.

And for that to be possible you need a fully realized small town environment the player can explore, not just a few choice locations, leaving the rest to a stale overworld map.

you're missing nothing by skipping ZOE1. The world is just 'fly around in a box, and duck into alleys sometimes'. ZOE2 surpasses it in all ways.

The sequel fixes almost every gameplay complaint about the original, and even gives you an extra demon on the field…but in return it has one of the worst fucking stories and worst presentations of said story that I've ever seen.

Most of those complaints are spot on. If they keep making garbage like SMTIV, they deserve to fail.

Bump

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So it's a shit game then.

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Style>Gameplay tbh.

The second game improved a fuck ton and made the gameplay actually good
FUCKING DUAL WIELDING DEMONS

The context of the word demon as used in SMT is rooted into it's original meaning both the latin daemon which means spirit, and greek daimon which is basically a catch all for deities and souls of the dead. Devil Summoner sounds cooler then Demon Summoner, even if it doesn't look like Raidou is one. If your beef is it's like pokemon the only difference between Raidou and most SMT protagonists is that they keep the demons inside a computer (COMP).

Pokemon people don't beat the shit out of their pokemons themselves.

I want to go back

Well, I watched only two minutes of the gameplay and I'm downloading it right now. Thanks OP.

I want to go back too

Weird, never heard of this one.

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Enjoy your game with no substance.

Anyone else play this on PCSX2? I'm getting this weird shaking of the screen vertically from time to time. If I save a state, it stops for a moment, if I load, it starts again and vice versa, tried fiddling with settings but to no avail. Not a big deal but if anyone happened to have the same issue and fixed it, would be nice.

Post specs and OS.

Except the park where you chuck rocks at them.

They really do, SMT4 was pure garbage and Apoc only compounded on the issues that 4 had. Really if this is the future of SMT let it die.

Why do you think they dropped the Safari Zone?

all of those words actually contribute meaning though. fightan titles are just strings of words that sound cool to disguise how iterative each update is.
50 percent of that title is just additive gibberish
i wanna play raidou, i just need to finish some other megatens first


4 was flawed and way too easy, but it was pretty decent overall

No 4 was not decent, the horrible story, the removal of a defense stat, MP being used for physical attacks, the entire Smirk system.
I could go on and on about how basically every choice they made for SMT4 was fucking horrible and how they needed to stop, but for the sake of brevity, I'm just going to say this.

SMT4 is dogshit and you should feel bad for liking it.

I'm not playing this but I am emulating Nocturne. I remember having a slight picture bounce in the beginning but I think I fixed it via the interlacing settings.

Switch to OpenGL, Enable Basic Mipmapping and set Blending Unit Accuracy to high.

user, pls.

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What lore? Original one? Nocturne one? Persona/Devil Summoner one? Whatever the fuck other games were ones?
There is no single lore to SMT.

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What?
I'm not protecting smt4 if you're implying that, I haven't even played it.
But lore argument is retarded, because shit like cameos and references aren't lore.

All the SMT games are tied directly with eachother in the same multiverse, so yes lore everywhere.

Well I guess you can use that argument.
Then how exactly smt4 shits on it, if it's just another parallel world?

SMTII already established all the shit SMT4 overwritten, everything from where demons come from to god himself. SMTIII or Noctourne establishes the multiverse (note the camera guy is the protagonist from SMTII reincarnated to suffer forever) and how they're all connected.

What if demons appeared differently in different worlds? Why can't that happen?

Demons are eternal and in stasis, they are unchanging and forever when they die they simply reincarnate. Since they're in stasis they never learn, and they can travel to whatever world they want to that's connected to. The bigger stronger demons are essentially the same person, as in the very same person and not just an alternate version.

Those might be rules of a couple of worlds.
That doesn't mean it's universal.

You'd probably get more out of the Fist of Mars SRPG on GBA. There's also the anime series, which is tonally different from the games, but that's what makes it worth the watch. Dolores a cute.

Thanks for reminding me that I made this.

The one who decides the rules of a given world is someone chosen by God to create that new world, you can see this process in SMTIII although you being a fiend kind of breaks the loop a bit. This God is the same guy whose ass Aleph kicked in SMTII Lucifer is also the same guy throughout all the games. All of them, the demons all come from the same place the primoridal sea. The Demi-Fiend is a big deal because he is both eternal and not in stasis like demons.

The one who decides the rules of a given world is a developer, user.

You think I'm talking meta here user? You think I say "multiverse" in the same sense that a marketer does? When I say multiverse I mean multiverse in a literal sense, God destroys worlds and when they die he begins the process to make a new one and he chooses from a small batch of candidates. All the SMT games are directly connected through this consistency and is the lore you say that doesn't exist.

I think you have autism.

The feeling is mutual.

Lucifer in smt 4 is not the same ones from the other games which are the same just in a different form. smt 4 really fucked up

Lucy in SMT4 is actually different then the one in SMT4 Apocalypse

In SMT4, it's basically just an avatar or a mock up of Lucy using Walter as the base, and in SMT4A, Lucy is a fragment of Satan who's acting under the evil aspect of god's orders.

In every other SMT game he's portrayed classically, as a being who works to undermine god and take over instead of being an aspect of the dude's will, which is why you can team up with him since you're fighting the big G when he's been corrupted by evil.

SMT4A did have an accurate and to the point YHVH that matched up with SMT2's depiction almost exactly, but it fucked up everything else as a result.

The main issue with SMT4 and it's sequel is really just the gameplay, though.

The shitty character writing is a huge problem as well.

Atlus should bring the series back and have SEGA put the Yakuza team in charge of the gameplay.

the reason being is so that dagdas offer is more tempting. if the characters were too likeable then people wouldnt take him up on his offer

the only thing that changes from 4 to apocalypse is nanashi dying or not so those 2 lucys are the same

Dagda's ending was totally included just to placate edgelords like us. Worked though, as he did absolutely nothing wrong and totally redeemed the tone of the game, but only on that ending.

He means more from the way they were written than the retconned stuff that is now canon.

smt 4 was a pretty nationalistic game while apocalypse is not. wonder what happened at atlus to change their mind on that?

oh fuck that would work so hard

4 wasn't decent, by the time you leave for tokyo you're a walking nuclear bomb with a magic/dex stat of at minimum triple of any encounter or boss you'd encounter and final pushes this more by making magic also crit on top making magic too fucking strong.
YHVH had to be fucking damage capped to actually ensure you went through the entire fight.
How do you take a system that worked since the original and only improved from there on the SNES and replace it with something that trash for a battle system, how do you have more resources available in both games then what SJ got and have not even a 10 of the dungeon scale.
How can a game be called decent when in it's own series that for a majority are programmed with tape and wire it's the weakest in every regard.
Literally worst stat management, worst exploration, worst combat (INB4 retards thinking it's fine because muh press turn is in it), worst dungeons (all like 5 between 4 and 4A) worst bosses (At least 1 boss should feel like a challenge) worst characters (lol lets force the totally not P4 cast on you for a majority of the game) and god damn worst designs, like Minotaur is cool but he's not worth the rest of those shit designs especially when they replace perfectly functional good ones.

Can you link the game you posted please? Google returns nothing.

Op here. I'm 20 hours in Raidou 2 and lemme tell you one thing.
FUCK CONVERSATION MECHANIC
Just fuck it. Fuck it completely. I hate it so fucking much I don't have appropriate reaction image.
I want Raidou 1 style of demon capture back.

Thanks, my solution was to set Interlacing to "bob tff" and the shaking stopped.

Shouldn't that gpu work with OGL plugin?
Try using OGL plugin regardless of your problem being fixed, it's considered the best one.

Never played Devil Summoner but I'm playing the original SMT on Snex9X and I love the story, aesthetics and thematic atmosphere. I like P5 but I really wish Atlus would make a new SMT game and get back to the roots. Kazuma Kaneko art is nice too. imagine if they make a SMT 1 remake in the P5 engine and Kazuma Kaneko art and they didn't manage to fuck it up.

What would be better is if they actually made a good SMT game.

make up your mind kiddo. Also reported for failing this hard to bait the hook.

Personas 3-4-5 are not SMT.

try harder

look again retard. the games full titles are "Shin Megami Tensei Persona #: (subtitle in case of remake)"

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I'm a pretty religious fellow but enjoy Strange Journey quite a bit. Are there any other games where you don't face off against God?

wew

its probably on the back of the cover. i cant find pictures of the legit full covers stretched to see both the back and the front.

also

Persona games are not SMT, atlus added the SMT to the names for brand recognition. P1 was Megami Ibunroku Persona and the Duology were Persona 2 Tsumi and Persona 2 Batsu. IN japan, they don't have SMT, just Persona X.

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yeah but pokemon became more popular so its used as the point of reference, and thats a fact. don't blame me for it.

also YHVH is a faggot

I can blame you for being a dipshit.

too bad that doesn't change the irrefutable fact that Persona games are SMT games

Dunno about 3, but what I hated in Persona 4 and 5 is the fact that everything supernatural happens in some imaginary world that may or may not affect the reality, might as well kiddies having a trip, while in P1 and 2 everything was happening right fucking there.
Also take it to persona thread.

That's because the writers are hacks.

Oh God, all this pointless arguing for the millionth time. Yes, the series are separate in the same sense that immediate families are: They don't all carry the main family name but they are on the tree. It's kind of like Mario and Donkey Kong. It's such a stupid non-issue to argue about, Kaneko never should have dignified it with a response, but he did.

What do you think Holla Forums is for?

Fair enough. It's a time sink.

Anyway, pic related is a gold mine for interviews and info dumps. Whenever you have any curiosities about MegaTen games and the people behind them, it's probably best to look there before asking.

Yes sometimes you have access to the internet, but not video games.
What to do?
Shitpost here.

I really can't disagree with the second pic. Persona games are certainly Megami Tensei games but not SHIN megami tensei.

Correct. That's why I don't even play that shit.

In Megami Tensei I you don't fight God, only Lucifer. Pretty much all the other MegaTen games outside of Persona and Devil Summoner (as far as I know), either have fighting God or his servants as an option or a requirement. The God of the Digital Devil Saga universe is different, though, so maybe that one wouldn't count as "facing off against God" for you. I'd say look into it more yourself.

Not in P1 it wasn't.

wew
e
w

There's nothing incorrect about that statement. Devil Summoner, Digital Devil Saga, and Devil Survivor also aren't mainline Shin Megami Tensei. Megami Tensei I and II also aren't SMT. Anyone saying Persona games aren't Megami Tensei, despite how they feel about them, is wrong, but it's completely accurate to say they aren't SMT games. Persona 3 and the like were labeled "Shin Megami Tensei" outside of Japan for marketing/brand purposes, but I don't think that's a compelling argument for Persona 3 and the like actually being SMT games.
The fact that Final Fantasy VI was originally called Final fantasy III in America wouldn't be a compelling argument for saying Final Fantasy VI really was somehow intended to be the third entry in the Final Fantasy series. Same basic principle here with Persona 3 being called "Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3" in the West.

user you are investing way to much autism into this. Shin means "New" or "True" and Megami Tensei means Goddess Reborn or Reincarnation of the Goddess. Shin = New or True MEGAMI (Me+Gami) = Female God Tensei =Reincarnation. Weather its has "Shin" in the title is pedantic.
As in Shin Chan could mean "the New Child" or "Truly Cute"

I know what the words mean. The "true" part makes SMT distinct from other games in the MegaTen franchise. The creators called the different games different things for a reason.

Calling someone autistic because they recognize distinctions exist doesn't make those distinctions go away. I have nothing against the modern Persona games, I'm just pointing out they're a distinct branch of the MegaTen tree. They're clearly different from the mainline SMT games and were created as a sub-series of MegaTen.

* shin or jin also could also mean god. As in KISHIN which would be Oni God or Oger God or Ryuujin as in Dragon God. But usually its Kami for male god and Magami is female Godess.

I find your stance rather strange, Shin Megami Tensei being slapped on everything is brand recognition, however Megami Tensei I+II are SMT games with only the first game's story being very different, in fact SMT I is just a retelling of Megami Tensei II and a refinement of it's mechanics.

*only meant for

The labeling can be oddly loose sometimes. They seemed to have no problem with placing SMT on Devil Children. On the other hand, Megami Tensei Imagine had "Shin" added to it one year post-launch. Very strange.
And then there's Giten Megami Tensei. Why did they name it Giten Megami Tensei? Fuck if anyone knows.

Would sacrifice lives for this.

Probably because they were experimenting with making something low budget for kids.

Megami Tensei II is very similar in tone and structure to SMT I and II, but I'd say it's not an SMT game, but the progenitor of the SMT series. I think of it in the same way I think of the original Wasteland's relation to Fallout. In this case, I think Megami Tensei II and Shin Megami Tensei I are even more similar than Wasteland and Fallout, but I think its the same kind of relationship, fundamentally.

I think SMT starts with Shin Megami Tensei I because that's when Atlus decided to formally exercise complete control over the story and setting and that's why they called it SMT I rather than Megami Tensei III.


This is interesting information. I'd think of the Devil Children and Imagine instances as being anomalies, probably due to thoughtlessness or maybe a marketing strategy in the case of Devil Children. Still, though, this shows the naming conventions (in Japan) aren't as clear and distinct as I thought. Thanks for sharing.

That would be Megami Tensei II, again, Megami Tensei both the PSX (the true Wasteland equivalent) and the NES version are based off the novel as source material and have a very different story from Megami Tensei II onwards and it doesn't have many if any Atlus trademark stuff in it. All of the Atlus trademarks can be traced to Megami Tensei II.

Megaten 2 is a sequel spinoff to a licensed videogame, SHIN Megami Tensei is its own thing.

Right, that's why I said SMT I is when Atlus formally started doing their own thing without adhering to the Digital Devil Story material. They had already begin doing that with Megami Tenseil II, but they made Shin Megami Tensei I in order to have a (more or less) completely blank slate to start with, I'd think. Otherwise, I'm not sure why they didn't just keep calling it Megami Tensei.


I basically agree, but Megami Tensei has referred to the overall series for a long time.

I'm emulating Raidou 2 and don't understand your concerns. Not only it runs at 60 fps, but also plays perfectly fine with keyboard only since there is no camera control whatsoever. And game designed to not need it to boot.
Just try it.
Same for Raidou 1 really, it worked perfectly fine.

Was the original Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei based on a Manga? If I'm not mistaken, Megami Tensei II had nothing to do with the original game and was based in post Apocalypse. SMT on Super Famicom was the first time to try to tie the stories together into one coherent new story but it wasn't a retelling of Megami Tensei II. Thematically they have the same aspects but otherwise it wasn't coherent until SMT.

It's a young adult novel.

Nah, a novel. Look up ddstranslation on blogspot if you're interested.

Because of brand naming, that's it. Brand recognition is the entire reason they chose and stuck with the name. For all intents and purposes it's a Megami Tensei II remake, and the developers made the game with this mindset. Since it's popularity blew the previous two game's success out of the water the rebranding name stuck.

Speaking of SMT.
I absolutely love nocture's aesthetic and music, are there games similar to it outside of SMT franchise?

I don't think that explains why they chose the name. It explains why they would have chosen to stick with the name following SMT I's success, but not why they decided to call it SMT I in the first place.

Calling it Shin Megami Tensei instead of Megami Tensei III makes sense if you think of SMT I as a remake of Megami Tensei II, rather than a continuation of the first two Megami Tensei games (which obviously it's not), but that doesn't somehow retroactively make Megami Tensei II an SMT game. It'd still mean that Megami Tensei II is the progenitor of SMT.

The artificial intelligence responded immediately.

Just so we're clear they didn't call it SMT I, they called it "Shin Megami Tensei", I am adding the "I" to distinguish it when just using initials.

The "shin" is added to make the brand stand out and make it seem new and fresh even if it isn't this is exactly what every franchise does, if giving a new spin on the name has a reasonable chance of success to make it more memorable then they'll do it. Especially when it's a remake.
That would make it an SMT game, there is no "prototype" thing going on here SMT is a remake with it's name given a new spin instead of just slapping a number on it for a new console system and it hit off. Because it's more recognizable then Megami Tensei by itself they kept the name as is for brand recognition.

My eyes have been opened!

Yeah, I'm aware, but thanks.
Sure, it could have that effect. Since that's plausible I'll concede that point.
I'm sorry, but everything you said, even if someone accepted all of it, doesn't mean Megami Tensei II is an SMT game. It isn't called Shin Megami Tensei and it preceded Shin Megami Tensei. I don't know why you think a game having a remake which becomes the basis of a new series somehow makes the original game a part of that new series as well. Not trying to be an asshole, I just don't understand it. I wasn't implying Megami Tensei II was some kind of planned prototype for a game they knew they'd make in the future called Shin Megami Tensei, either, if that's relevant.

Because the "shin" is meaningless. I'm telling you it's the japanese equivalent to this if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck then it's a duck. It should be noted that when Atlus refers to the series as a whole they call the whole thing MegaTen, a shorthand for megami tensei.

I think this is a baseless assertion. Atlus don't call every game in the MegaTen series an SMT game. Devil Summoner and Devil Survivor have distinct titles because they're separate from the SMT games. If Atlus wanted to retroactively categorize Megami Tensei II as an SMT game, they could have done so when they released Kyūyaku Megami Tensei, but they didn't. Megami Tensei II is not labeled as an SMT game, it came before SMT, and they had a chance to re-categorize it as an SMT game, but didn't. Being the basis of the SMT series by being the subject of a remake doesn't mean it's an SMT game.
Yes, I'm aware of this, see:

P1 had demons invading both worlds, which was pretty awesome.

Indeed, Okada and Satomi were incredible storytellers, and Kaneko's art rules. I would give anything to see a reunion.

Now I think you're just pulling at straws here.

The vast majority of those games has SMT as part of it's title pay attention to the cover art of physical copies, especially if you can read moon runes.
SMT is just branding and all Devil Survivor main titles has SMT as part of it's title, and only Raidou's Devil Summoner games drops SMT.
That's both because Shin Megami Tensei was already taken by Shin Megami Tensei and would create confusion since it is a NES port to the SNES soi it needs a name to differentiate it from the other SNES titles and because Megami Tensei I+II was made by Atlus but published by Namco first.

If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck it's a duck. Megami Tensei II is an SMT game in all but name.

This would be news to me. I'll look into it. I think we'd agree those games are distinct and should be recognized as sub-series, but your point that the SMT label isn't necessarily specific to "mainline" games is noted.
Makes sense. I didn't think about that.
It definitely has the DNA, so to speak, of mainline SMT and if we're just talking about the nature of the game itself, I'd class it with SMT I and II rather than Megami Tensei I so you're right. I've spent a long time arguing about categorization technicalities, which in hindsight I think was foolish. I'm going to bed now so this will be my last response, for today, at least.

Glad we could come to an understanding.

Same. Goodnight.

Atlus' employees came from Namco.

for shame

Shadow Hearts 1 & 2, dunno about 3

I've never played an SMT Game. Where should I start?

3 is a good game but its story is fuckall retarded. The villain is the Penguin.

You are so fucking stupid it hurts. SMT is a subseries of MT.

Nocturne is both self contained and newfag friendly, while being quintessential SMT game. Just remember to use buffs.

I know ti's kinda late, but it depends on what you want. Do you just want to dip your toes in the combat system and demon fusion but also want to do other stuff outside of dungeon crawling? Try Persona 3 or 4. Do you want more complex dungeons that aren't randomly generated, but without the demon fusion and still has lots of story and good voice acting? Try Digital Devil Saga 1 followed immediately by 2(think of them as two parts of the same game). Do you just want dungeon crawling, demon fusion and negotiations and a more minimalistic story, at least compared to the others listed? Try Nocturne as recommended. Do you want something different, but still has the spirit of a SMT game? Try the Devil Summoner games.
Also there is pic related.

Is there an updated version with the 3DS games? I thought about picking them up on Freeshop but I don't have the space.

In order from best to worst.
Soul Hackers
DeSu1
PQ
DeSu2
4:A
4

I have friends who liked this piece of shit.

Also, should I care about finding undubbed versions of the games?

Nah don't bother.

Isn't there a Persona thread for people like you. V on Switch will be ass too.

Who is this semen demon? I don't feel like trawling through vndb's shitty character search function to find her. There must be hundreds of pink-haired highschool students listed.

...

The normalfags are right though, SMT IV is awful.

I really hope he appears in the next SMT game as a Fiend-race demon

Honestly, fuck off.

SMT on the Switch will probably have the same old problems.


But at least the demons will look great.


It was just my 2 cents bro

Magnetite was always needless. The only justification I could see for it now would be to use it the same way as 1/2/…if, but also have it be the currency you use for the compendium.

My argument for magnetite is that SMT games are about summoning. Summons are supposed to be somewhat of a luxury that come at a price, not some unconditional party members to be taken for granted (which too many RPGs already offer).

The problem with that is it's what, three or four gates to actually use a damn party member? You need to be the appropriate level, the appropriate alignment, find/fuse it and then pay for it on top of all that work? The way it's done previously is also really poorly balanced, after the first two hours you will never run out of Magnetite ever again.

I hear you. The MegaTen franchise is a neverending story of balance issues. Thing is, that used to be a byproduct of innovative design. Now, it just comes from laziness.

Speaking of alignments, it's sad that they barely matter anymore.

Did summoning recruited humans in SMT1 cost magnetite? It's been forever.