Shin Megami Tensei thread

You don't mess with a summoner's vehicle edition.
What mythological creature are you currently bribing, anons ?

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Your weeb trash is tasteless.

Obligatory.
Also Raidou 1 > Radiou 2

Checkened.

Also what is up with all of the robots and dead soldiers. You would think that would be more touched upon instead of being mindless grunt enemies.

We should have more patrician taste and talk about Dancing all night moon and star edition?

That scene was pretty fun.
I'll get to that when I get to that. I'm currently at episode 4. The encounter rate put me off at first, but now I do enjoy the unique take on SMT, the setting and the campy characters. I do hope the gameplay feels less like a minigame in the second one.

You have full control of your encounters with waters tho.

Just abuse the electric spell, you can even stun bosses

to further shoot myself in the foot I'm using a guide to make sure I get neutral ending.

The gun and zio are really OP. What was the original devs intention with this game? You go through huge dungeons and have tons of encounters only to spam the same kind of move. It only really changes up when you're using buffs against bosses.

Also my one advice is don't rush through the game. Don't be like "shit I need to finish this quicker so I can get to the sequel quicker".
Please don't. I was like that and I regretted it.
Take your time, enjoy the game, do some optional shit, find all cat toys.

This, there's always a time in every good video game where it's not that fun, and you wish to rush through it to get to the next game.

He got his shit fucked up, sadly.

He truly is the tragic hero of gaming. There's never been an example more extreme of someone getting so little in return for contributing so much to this industry.

Do the Raidou games have that weird vaseline motion blur that all the PS2 SMT games have?

My tolerance of these hacks who have taken over the once-great IP is at an all-time low. They better have something to redeem them at TGS.

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To be fair, the Switch's handheld mode is merely optional.

That said, I would much rather see them put the game on the PC.
Consoles hold gaming back.

Knowing they're now owned by sega and all, I don't see why HD project on PC would be off the table.

The combat in SMT didn't get good until press turn was introduced.

Friendly Reminder that Fumi is best Girl, Yamato did nothing wrong

At least he was hot when he was called Chiaki.

Like I said, modern Atlus hates the PC. If Sega thinks they can convince them to port the damn thing, let them try, but I'm not holding my breath.

Hey Hashino, if you spent more time improving yourself, maybe you wouldn't need to post lies on the internet.

I bet you side with that fag Ronaldo and his group of Commies

Is Deep Strange Journey likely to be THAT bad? SJ is one of the mainline SMTs I've been saving for myself and I was planning to play it sometime in the coming months. I don't particularly care for emulating DS games, but I don't want a subpar experience either way.

All Reason endings are trash and I'm pretty sure they're supposed to be. SMT is for sticking with humanity despite all the shit mythological forces throws at it.

From what I've seen, the remake seems to have no dramatic gameplay difference. My biggest problem with this remake is that it serves no purpose besides making money. The original game is fine and recent enough.

The only good Neutral is SJ's neutral

Strange Journey's neutral is especially compelling because Law and Chaos are a plain derailing of the story.
Whereas neutral is the actual ending to everything you have seen up until now. However, saying only SJ's neutral is good is complete nonsense since it's a stronger retread of what neutral generally is in the series, that being telling all obviously extreme paths to fuck off and protect civilization from becoming a uniform caricature. Neutral generally being the harder ending to get is simple testament of devs seeing it as the objective best path.

Nigga, Pre-Apo the Devs were Chaosfags. Pos-Apo they are.. Still Chaosfags since Dagda's ending is the best one and that is pretty much Chaos but without Lucifer.

No, Chaos is constantly given dindu nuffin arguments but at the end of the day it's still the obvious evil path of letting the world be infested by demons, it's simply in contrast of law being the obvious good path but shown to be slavery so you don't choose it. Chaos is just portrayed as it is so it can be conceived as a legitimate choice, that's all.

Fucking what.
SMT4 Apocalypse is Neutral - the game and it is absolutely upfront about that fact. Both Law and Chaos are the early bad ending, and the legitimate paths are going full on power of friendship to safeguard humanity or getting rid of YHVH's rule forever, therefore attaining true freedom. It does have some might makes right aspect to it, but it is pretty much "Neutral has had enough of this shit and is going to end it all permanently".

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I really want an updated remaster of Nocturne and DDS. No new story/gameplay shit, just give me more demons.

What do you mean? Persona 5 is the best SMT game we've gotten in years. :^)

My nigga. That's the only enjoyment I get out of SMT games, becoming more powerful than God, the Devil and whatever super-anti-God figure Dagda just to tell them to leave us the fuck alone. We just wanted to play video games.

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Pretty much, if that new girl is only optional it will be pretty much the same game with characters that look slightly different.

Raidou 2 has the better gameplay.

Raidou 1 has better everything else.

Is deep strange journey going to be the English name as well.
I swear to god I fear that somehow a company like treehouse will get involved with the translation and change the name to be shorted as SJW

Wrong franchise man.

What about the law ending for SMT2? Isn't that one of the best endings or some shit?

I liked his path in the Triangulum arc. DeSu sequels for a millennia, humanity becoming more and more empowered with every reset? Even the Ticos are happy about it.

Who is the worst looking protagonist in MegaTen?

My votes go to Nanashi and Flynn. Even when IV was being teased I hated his design. I thought Nanashi was a punk girl when they revealed him. Every one else looks somewhat normal but he has a half-shaved head. I hate it

Nanashi is super ugly, I don't see anything particularly wrong with Flynn

His hair annoys me greatly. It doesn't look like it's a part of his head. It looks like a shitty hat.

What is wrong hat hair?

See, now that looks good. That doesn't look like he's strapped a helmet to his head.

What really makes Nanashi's design bad is that its a very very shitty take on Travis Bickle from Taxi Cab, where as in Taxi Cab the mohawk was social commentary but in SMTIVF it was modernized reference.

SMT1's chaos path only seems reasonable if you have a terrible memory.
The game rests entirely on the Hero being the ordinary dude facing the brunt of the typical SMT bullshit. He gets the devil summoning program from his spam folder, he runs into the invasion while running an errand, his mom gets devoured by a demon. He then survives the nuclear apocalypse purely because of a magical girl. As he emerges into a post-apocalytpic world, he sees a church proclaiming order and peace but making no secret they want death to infidels. That is reason enough to say SMT1 law isn't good.
But he also sees a district ruled by a punk himself manipulated by a demon, who uses a psychic to brainwash people into obeying his rule. He sees a district of people brought back to life by lords of hell for the sole purpose of entertaining a batshit insane little girl.
Then, as he has proven to be an extremely powerful being,.he runs into major demons who tell him they are totally in favor of letting humans and demons live in harmony. Every single demon along the chaos path seeks to guarantee you they totally fucking love humans and letting demons rule the earth will only mean humans and demons living in harmony, honest.
You saw the results of Chaos with your own two eyes. Do you believe what Chaos tells to you, who has proven to be the strongest ?

Shin Megami is pokemon for edgy gays

can confirm

I want Cleopatra to resurrect me.

Good fucking thing I shelled to resummon Yoshitsune with his combo skill unlocked.

Okay help me out here, I'm trying to get a list of all the MegaTen games that are playable in English because I have yet to learn Japanese. We've got:

-Digital Devil Monogatari: Megami Tensei (fan translated through Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei)
-Megami Tensei 2 (through Kyuuyaku)

-Shin Megami Tensei (fan translated or iOS)
-Shin Megami Tensei II (fan translated or iOS)
-Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (PS2)
-Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey (DS)
-Shin Megami Tensei IV (3DS)
-Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse (3DS)

-Last Bible I (through Revelations: The Demon Slayer on Game Boy)
-Last Bible II (fan translated)
-Last Bible III (fan translated)

-Digital Devil Saga (PS2)
-Digital Devil Saga 2 (PS2)

-Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers (3DS)
-Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army (PS2)
-Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon (PS2)

-Persona (PS1, PSP)
-Persona 2: Innocent Sin (PSP)
-Persona 2: Eternal Punishment (PS1)
-Persona 3 (PS2, PSP)
-Persona 4 (PS2, Vita)
-Persona 4 Arena (PS3)
-Persona 4 Arena Ultimax (PS3)
-Persona 4 Dancing All Night (PS3)
-Persona Q (3DS)
-Persona 5 (PS3, PS4)

-Devil Survivor (DS, 3DS)
-Devil Survivor 2 (DS, 3DS)

-Demikids: Light/Dark Version (GBA)

As far as I know that's all of them. I know If… is being worked on, and I think the original Devil Summoner is too, but that's all I'm aware of. That leaves all of the Majin Tensei games, Another Bible, Last Bible Special, Giten Megami Tensei, SMT NINE, SMT Imagine, and all the other Devil Children games. Is that about right?

You forgot Jack Bros.

fuckkk is this a new Kaneko design? I still remember loading up IV and being astonished at how shitty the designs on the new demons were. At least they biffed a lot of the worst offenders in Apoc but there are still some really grody looking demons. Also, whoever designed Lucifer should have their goddam head examined.

Compare that to starting up P5 and seeing the gloious Kaneko demons cleaned up and in HD… mein gott

are there any fiends in Raidou? I've got both but for some reason never got around to playing them. Why did Atlas abandon this series? You'd think a third one on the PS4 and PC would be a monster hit with all the positive buzz they've gotten recently, provided they didn't fuck it up.

im about to fight demifiend in digital devil saga how do i beat him i have everyone at about 99 max. what is this red star method i keep hearing about and how i do execute it

FUCK you're right. Okay, Jack Bros. (Virtual Boy) too.

Not in soulless army but the wiki says they are in King Abaddon.
Change in talent. Persona clearly led to a shift in their teams, and while I don't know the details, it's all but obvious they're more cut out for anime stuff than what made SMT tick.
With IV, they tried to make SMT by the numbers, but it didn't turn out too hot because they just weren't cut out for it. And I think they know it, which is why they made Apocalypse which improved somewhat on IV's frustrating gameplay, yet said fuck it and added a big heaping dose of anime so they might feel more comfortable. Why they added more traditional SMT stuff to P5 (at least that's what I've heard, I didn't play it). And now why they're remaking strange journey with only one character and presumably ending added.
They realize they shouldn't just let SMT rot away simply because they've got persona. They could, but they don't want to. They want to learn how to make SMT great again, before going big with the HD project.
I don't know, I'm probably too naive, but it seems to me they're acting in good faith. I just hope they can pull through.

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Nope, it's going to be "Strange Journey Redux".

I don't think so. It looks nothing like his style to me.

He would be objectively better if he was a girl, yes. Half-shaved is still a bit heh but at least it fits in a tomboy motif instead of just straight fag.

Is he bald under his hat? Is that why?

That is an understatement. The only reason that Neutral is the canon ending is because there wouldn't be sequel after that.
DeSu:OC's Demon King 8th day was basically super hyper friendship ending mixed with a heavy dose of chaosfaggotry especially with Tadashi "What kind of fag does nice things?" Nikaido.

Well, no shit ?

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I don't think that that's Kaneko's style. I like some of the new designs but most are pretty terrible.

And there are fiends in Raidou, but only the second game. I think the Rider demons are classed as Fiends and appear randomly on new moons in dungeons.

Yeah, I thought he looked better as a girl, when they revealed he was a guy I started hating his design.

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Masayuki Doi. He's inspired by Kaneko and came to rectify some of the really bad designs in IV.

Redpill me on SMT, what makes it not shit compared to Persona?

Humanity sucks, I kill them every time without remorse.

Persona 3-5 is anime high school comedy simulator with dungeon crawler elements. SMT is the original series Persona derived the entirety of its combat mechanics from, and is mostly about fights between order and chaos involving mythological figures from around the world in post-apocalyptic tokyo. Persona isn't a bad game per se, but it's one of the most random derivatives of a great series that not only gained baffling popularity, but completely gutted the talent at Atlus in doing so. Imagine if Black Isle had made fallout 3 and became Bethesda as a result.

So SMT has less combat than Persona? Because I actually liked everything else about Persona (3 I've never played the other ones) but the incredibly shitty gameplay just ruined it for me.

Depends what version of Persona 3 you played. Before Portable you couldn't control your teammates, so of course it was shit. But the main gameplay difference between Persona and SMT is that instead of having the demons activate your skills, you have them in your party and fight alongside them, but to recruit them you have to negociate.

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Generally, the setting and characters are better in SMT, and some people prefer the combat of SMT's later Press Turn system rather than Persona's One More system. I like SMT for not forcing the anime High School kids meme and especially Strange Journey where you're actually an elite task force that's supposed to investigate so you essentially get dropped into a hot zone that turns supernatural very quickly.

If anime doesn't bother you, you'll probably be less inclined to find SMT better though I still argue that many of the themes in SMT games are better done than in Persona.

Thanks for the answers, really appreciate it. One last question though, which SMT should I start with?

That's a hotly debated question since there are many angles you could go with.
Digital Devil Saga.
SMTIV.
SMTIV Apocalypse.
SMT III Nocturne.
Devil Survivor.
Shin Megami Tensei 1 on SNES.

SMT III Nocturne sounds cool. I think I'll start that, thanks.

It has better gameplay, since you're not just fighting all the time.

I forgot to mention, if you'd like a game that has direct fighting rather than turn-based combat, then go with the Raidou Kuzunoha duology. And my personal recommendation is DDS, but Nocturne is never a bad way to start. It is, after all, the first SMT that got out of Japan.

P3>P5>SMT>P2>P4>P1

If you have a 3DS, Soul Hackers is also a great entry point because of how different the demons behave in that game. They're overall the same style of party building as other SMT games, but they have personalities that affect how likely they are to listen to certain orders, depending on loyalty, and they don't level up which also makes it way easier to be colder about fusing them away to get new shit. I always held onto demons for too long because they were pretty useful and I liked some better than others. Soul Hackers was super easy to dump demons that became remotely useless.

I just started it myself, and I'm loving every second. Matador will definitely curbstomp you the first time around, but the rematch is incredibly satisfying.

Not at least Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei?

Same, I still haven't actually beaten Raidou 2.

They are both past their prime thanks to this guy.

Still many glitches to fix…

Is it worth finishing SMTIV? I've made it past the bridge in Ueno and I'm losing a little steam. I wanted to see what the game was like for myself but I think it might just be time to go on to another game.

Not really, no. It gets retconned by Apoc.

How about Apocalypse, then?

SMT4's best point is its story, which is pretty good. Definitely rush through for the story.

Ignore the memester above me, Apocalypse continues from a point right before SMT4's neutral ending (which was the best ending)

apocalypse fixed a lot of annoyances in SMT4 and the story is much more tense.

I enjoyed both of these games, but SJ is miles better gameplay wise.

What's the news on this? Someone making a private server or something?

I suppose it's not going to be half as long as P5 anyway so there's no reason not to push through to the end.

No disagreement there

What? The story is probably one of the poorest in the series, second only to some of the bullshit in apocalypse.

It is, but I'm just teasing out these pictures on occasion because I figure I'll let 8/v/ know about it. Can't share the team group and http link just yet.

because it doesn't you nitwit
playing 4 gives you a lot of background story, as to why everyone calls Flynn a hero, etc etc. literally every part of the story except the final climax is intact. ur a meme arry

If you're on CFW, pirate all the DLC. The DLC missions expand a lot on the lore of the game, like Akira's story etc.

bretty good description
include strange journey there with something like 'polished as fuck dungeon crawlan'

Yes but it didn't needed to be Persona 4 tier friendship conquers all bullshit.

What is with Nip developers nowadays dressing up in faggy suits?

I just finished both the games in Kyuuyaku. The first one is pretty garbage relative to the second game in the pack.

On that note, does SMT1 build on Megami Tensei 2 (the Kyuuyaku remake) or is it just another MegaTen 1 (which is awful) ?

SMT and MT are not the same games if that is what you are asking. That is to say, SMT 1 is not a remake of MT1.

I'm actually not a fan of strange journey, but if you're going to make a guide picture about first SMTs, SJ should probably be in there, yeah.

Alright, tried making a flowchart with Kyuuyaku and SJ added. Anything I should change/add?

I know. I'm just asking if SMT1 is more like MegaTen1 than MegaTen2. MegaTen2 had a much better plot and an overworld you could travel on.

It's more like MT2

I'll take it

This is why I loved Imagine, they made 3D models for so many demons.

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It still weirds me out that Imagine committed to making an accurate 3D model of Kaneko's Tsukuyomi so late in, when their model geometry was already becoming obsolete and they knew it'll probably never be used again in the series. I suppose they did it for bragging rights. Atlus will never mention it though.

Not sure what went on their minds, but I'm thankful for it, glad to see they still kept trippy demon. You could say the same for the Pentalpha demons (Indra, Indrajit, Kresnik, Kudlak), or Yuki Jyorou, or Bai Shuzen; Cave didn't give two shits, they just kept on making demons. Now here's to hoping that someone else can do the 3D model of Sedna.

Is that Anubis a grill?

No. Anubis is a male god. His female counterpart is Anput.

It's the clothing he's wearing, the angle of that model looks like he had breasts because of the top part, but that's not the case.

Please tell me their animations are preserved.

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The game files are floating around, so yes, their animations are still preserved. Keep in mind it's using the gamebryo format and an older type with nif animation files, so you'll have to convert them if you want to use them for newer engines.

Definitely a cool design.

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New SMT announced !
I'll give you one guess as to the platform.
archive.is/o004V

Neutral is the only acceptable route to take, law and chaos are the routes if you want to be someone else's bitch.

Neutral was also the economically optimal alignment because it allowed more sidequests and balanced summoning costs across the board.

I fear the whales will put 10x more money into this than the Imagine player base did with Imagine.

It's fucking nothing.

You mean like how I still have not finished Person 4 because I lost my save game due to a bug. Or how I got board with Persona 5 and haven't finished it? Or are you talking about that Part in Persona 3 where they go on vacation to the hot springs and it's like an hour long of cutscenes/dialogue without a save point and its so boring that you fall asleep while playing and you wake up to find out your TV and console went into rest mode meaning that you need to sit through the sleep inducing cutscenes /dialogue again? Also why was my favorite Shin Megami Tensei game the first one on SNES despite it not having the very fun "1 More" system?

I give your bait a 4/10, go into further detail how you tried several SMTs and settled for 1 as your favorite and I might upgrade you. Try to entertain.

user the only SMT games I've played was the first NES game, the SNES games and the Persona series. Not bait, just not a hard core fan.

No, I'm sorry, where's the logic in playing only Persona 3-5 and the oldest SMTs in the book and only them ? For what conceivable reason wouldn't you have emulated the PS2 games or even SMTIV ? This is sloppy work, user. I can't let you go with bait this flimsy.

user, chill, I just haven't had the time to play them. I still need to finish Persona 4 and Persona 5 before I even bother with starting another Atlus RPG. I never own a PS2 back in the day because I couldn't afford one. Instead of getting so triggered you should just see it as a slight against the boring quality of the Persona series in general and not as an attack on the SMT series as a whole.

For some reason I really like this theme.

guys I'd like to play SMT but I don't know where to start. I only have a PC so emulation is fine. I played Persona 3 and I didn't like it - the whole highschool grinding bullshit was boring.

Just play Nocturne

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thanks, that's what I wanted to do but I wasn't sure, appreciate it

lol thanks bro I kind of scrolled over that

This is a bit worrying. I hope the franchise won't go down the same path Okada went.

Finally beat Raidou 1, and going straight to 2.
It's good to see Pixie again.

So don't play on a fucking PS3, you underaged shit.

What's okada?

You're probably joking, but I'm going to post a serious answer for the benefit of lurkers:

Okada was the lead director of the development team that adapted Nishitani's novels into the MegaTen RPG franchise we know today, thus inventing the moncolle genre.
Also, Okada was one of Atlus' co-founders. Sadly, he left the company (after SMTIII Nocturne's release) in pursuit of mobile gaming business, and it didn't work out for him.

Not everyone cares about the names behind a game. To put it lightly.

Are you SMT vet or it is your introduction to the series?
I really wonder how you like demon capturing mechanic of Raidou 2 compared to 1.

Please don't.

I wouldn't call myself veteran, I wanted to get into SMT by the time the #FE shit happened, started very first thing with Devil Survivor due to what I had available at the time, but did DDS and Nocturne next and knew I was definitely into the series.
I played a number of titles since then, but for some reason always put off Raidou, until I finally got motivated to go through the first, and now I'm playing the second. So, obviously I'll take demon negotiation over some mashing minigame.
The raw gameplay is just unquestionably better in King Abaddon, as is the supernatural detective aspect, but the pacing is really kinda fucked and the level design got too labyrinthy. The 1 luck curse is getting old fast too.

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Morgana BTFO
Kuma BTFO
Jack Frost is still dominant, bitches

People who don't read credits are missing out. It's the BEST possible way to gauge your expectations from one game to the next, and the only way to know who to blame when something goes wrong.

What is your issue with that sentence, user ?

Good, Jack Frost is a cool mascot.

I like that High Pixie design so much better than the usual one.
Also assorted screenshots.

We're having a real pun time here.

Imagine had it too.

Man, they should keep her instead of the disgusting dyke High Pixie in most games.

Kimono Pixie is one of my favourite designs.

The only positive thing I can say about the SMT mobile game is that it's bringing Sega and Atlus even closer in their relationship.
Between this and Sonic Forces getting a Joker skin, I won't be surprised if we get an actual Sega/Atlus IP crossover game in the near future, and I welcome that.

I wonder if the average MegaTen protagonist could beat Infinite in a fight

Seeing as to how they can kick the god/gods of every religion's ass, I would have to say yes.

True demon demi-fiend should be able to do it, other version probably too, not the first he's killed a god.

True enough. I just wish Sega would make their own Smash Bros. or something. That would be a ton of fun to play.

Hee ho is the one true mascot, every other mascot character cannot even compare

Happy 9/11, the 30th anniversary of Atlus' franchise is finally here.

I wish Okada were here to celebrate it with us. But who knows where he is now? I'll bet even Kaneko doesn't know.

Morgana's a faggot. I wish I hadn't forgotten to romance Ann so I could cuck him.

Is there a counterpart of that picture for the girls ?
I'm starting to understand why Kyouji wanted to send him to hell now.

Onw owuld think a pokemon - SMT crossover would be easy to do.

- Pokemon are demons
- Types are races

Perfect for one of those cash-grab spinoff games.

What?

"One would think"

That's every Japanese company.
Does anyone have the image where the company director is lamenting the fact that his people can't tell the stories they want to because it doesn't sell and then cuts to an artist showing off his collection of figurines while he talks about how much he loves drawing cute girls?

JUST

Will we get anything like this in the US?

it's entirely possible. didn't atlus do the full boxed set release for pQ?

From thumb left angle dude looked like Lord Zedd

Is that supposed to be a character from that mobage?

I take it back

The worst looking protagonist in MegaTen is that pile of trash.

Well, maybe I wouldn't go that far. Nanashi is still easily the most tranny-looking SMT protagonist, while this new guy simply looks like the average effeminate anime boy plus plaid wear (which is still terrible of course).

Judging by these scans, this phone game looks bad all around. But that's not a surprise.

I can't believe we've reached a point where SMT looks more pozzed than Persona.

I think #FE still holds that title, and it was pretty much persona from what I've gathered.

I finished Apoc and still don't know if Nanashi was supposed to be male or female. The design was bizarre. But look how far we've fallen from the Kaneko characters to generic looking cast offs from Persona, rejected for being too bland.

but, why?

You could take an average anime boy and make him look decent with the art style. It's the style that hurts it the most.

All the other characters look terrible. I'd rather be playing the school girl, though. Considering it's a phone game, why not have a gender select? Seems a bit weird not to.

#FE looked like fun. I haven't played it. No WiiU and since Treehouse pissed on it I'm not interested. I'm honestly a fan of both mainline and spinoffs including Persona, but I really want mainline to get back on track.

Can't you emulate #FE anyways ? I haven't tried CEMU at all since I have the damn brick, and I certainly wasn't going to buy the game. I've been playing the series so I never felt the need to emulate it but I know I will someday.

What's the matter, Walt? Was he too big for you?

It will. But I guess they haven't shown her design yet for some reason.

#FE feels like knockoff Persona and it feels even worse than I would have originally thought. The retranslation patch made it bearable to read though a bit dry (so good if you like phrases used in different contexts translated the same way, rather than minorly changing them to variants of "I understand" or "Gotcha"), the actual battles are eh. The weakness system is frustrating since there's no way to block your own weakness to prevent an enemy session and only having 3 active party members at a time was really annoying. Battles also took forever with the animations for sessions. Being able to make class changes for minor stat boosts is a nice touch and weapons changing affinities and strength as well a teaching skills is an interesting balance but it gets annoying quickly.

Overall, I'd say it's a 6.5/10. It's not a particularly bad game, no bugs that I found and it's not horribly broken difficulty one way or another. But the writing still leaves something to be desired and combat feels dull. I actually enjoyed some of the acting/musical bits as neat side stories but otherwise, it's only good if you need something to play on WiiU and have exhausted everything else. Far better off playing normal Persona, especially P5.

You know, for all the beef between pure Personafags and SMTfags, and with me favoring mainline by a long shot, I have nothing against Persona in tone. It's mainly the school year format I don't like. I played about half of 3 before just being fed up with the snail's pace, even though the story was shaping up to be interesting, sort of.
That being said, I have a PS4 so I have looked into trying Persona 5, but everything I've read and watched just doesn't click.
Like, what the hell is with this atrociously tacky UI? The ear-grating main battle theme even by Persona standards ? The ebin thief getups? The premise of running around brainwashing people? It's not that I hate it, per se, more like I can't believe this was greenlit, let alone made a killing. Feels like Twilight Zone shit.

It's funny because everything you said that doesn't make sense is part of the reason this setting is alright. I mean, it's still weird but it's not much weirder than a TV world/Dark Hour. If you don't like the school aspect enough to drop the game, don't buy P5. It's still the same slow school stuff but the dungeons are way better. The characters are hit and miss. Some of them get exceptionally boring Social Links so if you weren't a fan before, you'll probably immediately drop it now. The UI's really not atrocious though, it flows and fits the the theme of the game. And you're not brainwashing people, you teleport to a dimension that represents their view of the world and kick the shit out of them to make them change. It makes sense if you play it but if you're not a fan of Persona, fullstop, I don't think this one will particularly change your mind.

And Last Surprise is great, I don't know what you're talking about.

Yeah I'm pretty content with saying this stuff isn't for me and leave it at that.

This is a taste thing not Persona's fault, the main appeal is VN like elements without having to admit you're playing a VN, the same reason Mass Effect is disproportionately popular.
While certainly not standard they made sure to unify all the menus in a similar style so the flow is good as well. I also believe that a tiny bit of it is making it feel less like you're navigating menus in a turn-based RPG. This will be a common theme, hiding things behind flashyiness so normalfags don't feel off put by what they are doing as much.
100% taste.
Did you prefer it when everyone was running around in school uniforms? Or is shirtless MC covered in tats from Shin Megami Nocturne make any more sense stylistically?

Buckle up, boys. We're in for a whole lot of disappointment this month.

I'm a little surprised to see they're not talking about SMT Switch yet, unless that's grouped under that Game Stage headline

Well, it's not like I'm trying to say persona 5 is shit because I didn't like what I've seen of it without playing it. I was just blogposting about my personal reaction to the stuff. But I'm sure if it was that much of a success it has to be doing something right, it's simply not worth a 60€ gamble when I already know for a fact I'm not that into the schoolyear format.

Honestly, I just doubt it's in any presentable state yet.

Let's keep this thread alive for TGS at least.

What are the best ways to transfer saves? I was thinking of dumping my save somehow and finish a playthrough for once using turbo on a PC emulator. I really don't want to drop this again.

unless you're using emulator savestates then the save file should work on any emulator

Does anyone in this thread actually like any SMT game?

Digital Devil Saga is pretty great. I really love Ardha's design, as well as the general aesthetic of the main character's demon forms.
Persona games are nice but I think I like mainline better. Nocturne is good, haven't tried Raidou yet though.

I haven't played that one yet. Why is it great aside from amazing aesthetics of 2 characters?

Well it should be stated first off that Nocturne, Persona 3 and 4, and DDS all use the press turn system and are incredibly similar in combat. The few differences that exist are mostly just story and part set up as opposed to how the game plays. Moving on, DDS has a nice story that I like, features a Futa, and interesting themes in regards to survival and karma. It's also set up as a more traditional RPG where you're team members are all set from the beginning but you get to decide how they grow and acquire skills as opposed to the demon fusion system.

Is this a trick question? Of course I like them. There are hardly any better JRPGs out there.

was being a slight bit rhetorical since much of this thread seemed to be just complaining about the direction of the newer games rather than discussing what they actually like; I've rarely hung around in the SMT threads

...

I just really liked the style of how it looked and the idea of cute idols with personas. I've heard it's battle system was similar to Strange Journey's but never more detail than that. I wouldn't have minded if it wasn't that good. It just looked like fun.

I absolutely adored Persona 5.

Last Surprise is fantastic compared to BABY BABY BABY and Reach out to the Truth. Mass Destruction got grating in Persona 3, but eh, that's mostly opinions.

The thief getups are basically because of the theme of the game. Rebellion. The characters' outfits are fashioned in that way, same as their Personas. The main character's fashioned after a gentleman thief so he gets a tuxedo with a split coattail. His Persona is Arsene, based on Arsene Lupin. Ryuji is a wild and rowdy troublemaker, so he gets a suitable delinquent outfit, and his persona is Captain Kidd, based on the pirate, Captain William Kidd. Ann wears a catsuit and wields a whip similar to some villainesses she might have admired. Her Persona is based on a character, Carmen, from an opera; a woman who is depicted as a femme fatale and "will never be bound to the will of another" etc etc.

Fuck yeah. Nocturne, Digital Devil Saga, The Raidou Kuzunoha Devil Summoner games. I love the Persona games too. I think there's worth in all of the mainlines and the spinoffs.

I have a love/hate relationship with SMT IV and Apocalypse, because the writing and character designs aren't great, but the music, the combat, the setting (for Apocalypse especially) etc just feel good.

I really think SMT IV could've used more time to flesh out its samurai setting. And thinking about it now it'd be neat to have a game that takes place during something like the sengoku period with SMT gameplay (demon negotiation/fusion/battle system) mixed in.

As in, the battery save (.sav), right? I was under the impression that those were also emulator specific.

it's just the binary content of the cart's NVRAM that the game program writes
some emulators may expect a specific file extension (.srm for example) but that's about it

Mainline MegaTen's Twitter page congratulated Persona on its 21st birthday

From what you said, it sounds like P5 is basically about a teenager's idea of being cool, aware and mature. Which I suppose has its place, especially in Japanese society. But can it avoid coming off as cringeworthy? P3 was pretty much all about self-doubt, while everything about P5 seems to permeate extreme self confidence.
Again, it's just from viewing extraneous material and I accept I might be wrong.

Nigger they're both cringeworthy as fuck
P3 protag is cringe as fuck in the complete opposite direction. It's a teenager's idea of what beinga dark, aloof, mature and above it all. It's in the middle of the awkward transition from the dark apocalyptic tones of mainline to the cheery high school setting that Persona has thrived on. Persona 3 definition of dark is equivalent to an edgy teenagers. Pesrona 3 is not as popular it's later parts because as you'll notice the trend has been constantly uplifting the mood of the games.
Persona thrives more then Mainline games because Mainline games aren't a power fantasy even if the main character is super fucking strong (see Nocturne), the tone is mostly "the world's fucked, demons are everywhere, we're doing our best" if you like this tone, good for you. Persona games are more popular because overtime they changed the tone into "we can make the world better than it was". People tend to like that feeling more. If you don't like it, it's a matter of taste. This might possible be because you're a cringe nihilist

Fuck meant for

Go back to your trailer park with your wifebeater and basketball shorts you white skinned nigger.

Are there any mods that swap the alignments of demons?
Because most of the Order demons are the best looking and have the cleanest and most orderly designs, but actually playing an Order ending feels like losing.

How come we never got a Raidou 3? did the first two not sell well?

Of course, I agree both P3 and 5 are cringe. But it's natural for an edgy, apocalyptic sort of story which still goes for a school life setting and invoking personas through a fucking gun to the head. It's not as natural for something that aims to be lighthearted. Lighthearted kind of implies not taking itself seriously, which P4 definitely is.

How many souls do I need to sacrifice to Beelzebub to get SMT4 to emulate decently? Citra makes me feel like Aleph

You need to wait for few years.
Development of Citra is very slow.

Only Persona and Mainline series sold well.

Real classy, Atlus. I stayed up watching that long-ass stream just to get an announcement of an announcement at the end.

Ah well, they've done shit like this before and worse so I can't say I'm completely disappointed. At least this confirms they're still actually working on the damn thing, and we'll soon see if their 8-month progress has been any good. Well, it'll be 9 by then.

At least it's not too far away

Hope to god they show off gameplay but I feel like it'll probably be like the first Persona 5 trailer after the cryptic reveal