I did this as I went through the Persona series and some nice threads were had, so I'll try it with SMT as well

Out of curiosity, OP, what's your opinion on the recent Persona 5 info blowout?
In case you missed the stream, there was a trailer and a director video, and you can see them on YouTube anytime.
While I doubt it will even come close to living up to the old triology, the game at least seems to be taking some big steps up from P3 and P4.
Also, they've confirmed P5 is coming to E3.

I haven't been following it too much, though I did watch the new trailer. Figured, I'll play it in a few months, so I don't care to read up on it too much.

I am liking the fact that the dungeons aren't randomized though, and I'm happy to see guns and demons making a comeback. There's just more enemy diversity with the demons than there are the Shadows (taking only Persona 3 into account, I don't know if it's any better in Persona 4 or not).

Other than that I was surprised at how deep the new Igor's voice is, I figured they'd get someone who sounded something like the previous VA.

Overall, I'm looking forward to it.

Strange Journey has, in my humble opinion, perfected the first person dungeon crawler RPG.

There are "sub apps" that help deal with some of the more dated aspects of the genre - for example, apps to raise and lower the encounter rate, apps to help with demon negotiation (demons have preferences in conversation, but will occasionally differ from them) and so on.

The game did a very good job of depicting demons as incredibly fickle, judgmental and downright irrational - their logic and how they talk makes them come across as so incredibly foreign, and that does wonders for building the atmosphere in-game.
The alignment system is pretty good in that after one playthrough of answering the questions honestly, I found my character aligned the same as I would. Which is better than, say, fucking SMT4 which is bullshit but whatever.

I suggest you grab a 3/DS and a flashcart. It's a very fun game with a great campaign and satisfying ending.

By the way OP - did you say you played SMT 1 on PS1? I remember playing that on SNES emulalotor but the translators fucked the game somehow and I couldn't buy guns from the antique shop.
I might try the PSX version.

Oh hey, also try Kyaku Megami Tensei if you're a glutton for punishment, it's based off the original light novels and follows the story of Nakajima and his waifu. The translation came out some time in 2014 I believe.

This sounds fantastic.

Kind of having a hard time deciding how to play some of these. I might try to play SMT II soon after all, and then either Strange Journey or Nocturne, I've heard great things about both. Maybe I'll flip a coin.

Yeah I played the PSX version. I've heard about the translation patch of the SFC version messing with guns. Is it only the antiques shop you can't buy guns from, or do you lose the ability to ever buy guns again after a certain point? Because if it's the latter, that's terrible.

Yeah, Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei is also on the list. Maybe I should even read the books someday.

Yeah man the app system is great, and they're given to you incrementally. It works really well.

You should play them in order of release. You should definitely play strange journey AFTER the older dungeon crawlers, or you'll be spoiled and won't enjoy them as much.
I personally play the older games for their atmosphere, the games just felt different which is what I love about them.

They're mildly entertaining, but don't expect anything more sophisticated than high-school level writing. There's a translation of the first two books here.
menasepublications.blogspot.com/2010/09/reincarnation-of-goddess.html

Shame, I was hoping for some good cyberpunk with demons story. Oh well, I guess if I want Japanese cyberpunk novels, I can stop ignoring Mardock Scramble.

SJ was my first SMT game that I played after playing Persona 1 for the psp and it is probably one of my favorite games.

Download the Orden patch. It unfucks all the shit that the Aegis patch fucked up. And yes, you can't get guns from the antique shop in the Aegis patch.

It hurts

thanks man

wasn't that the game being translated by an SJW team attempting like fifty projects at the same time? or am I thinking of something else

Is Aeon Genesis an SJW team? They are the ones that made the original SMT patch that didn't allow for the law path at the end and the antique shop glitch.

i think it was them. one of them got butthurt over the whole playasia DOA thing. it was hilarious.

They're pretty much all the same. Translation groups are all fucking glory hungry douche bags that usually never finish up doing what they promised or they overhype shit that allegedly finished.

Like that one group that made a big deal about translating the Famicom version of Megami Tensei. They were going on about how they were going to release on 9/11 of I think 2014. Date came and went, then some other guy released the KMT translation.

These guys have been translating this one fucking game for 13 years now. And I still hate the fact that I bought the iOS version of SMT 1. I thought Atlus was going to translate the other two games.

alright you have my attention. I never even knew that was ported to ios.
How is it? How are the controls? Has the entire game been ported over? I might consider pirating it.

Basically its the GBA version with the PS1 music. Controls are your typical buttons on the screen type thing, though they're translucent so they don't eat up as much screen real estate.

It's pretty much the whole game, though it's still SMT 1. No hint system, no in app purchases. Though I swear that it's easier. Worth the purchase/pirate.

Oh and for Android fags, no English version. I don't understand what the fuck Atlus was thinking not translating the Android version too.

This is certainly seems to be the case for groups that handle video games. I think in some cases though a lot of people simply underestimate the amount of work it takes translating a video game, especially a text heavy one. It gets tedious enough as it is translating short things that I don't have any interest in, doing that for every NPC in a game would take some real effort. Every now and then I think it'd be nice to be involved in video game translation, but at the same time, it's probably some of the most tedious translating you can do as far as the entertainment industry goes. Still beats translating manuals about batteries though.

That's one of the things I like about the game, though the second game is better, in my opinion. Strange Journey is better than either of them.

It's not necessarily bad, just bad compared to every other game. It has a lot of small problems that wouldn't be that bad on their own, but add up to something I felt was very disappointing. It feels like the devs didn't really know what the fuck they were doing, sort of. It's difficult to explain.

Also, Aleph is the best protagonist. He looks very cyberpunk.

Really the only fault i have with p3 tartarus.extremely boring and overly long. They should have just made a huge dungeon with custom floors instead of 253 random floors. The school parts werent bad, it helped contrast the darkness of the dark hour, and seeing the town get corrupted by apathy syndrome. the game felt like it had weight unlike p4. Its my 2nd favorite persona game.

I want to fuck that 2_ year old.

Are those female versions of the first two heroes?

I think so.

Aleph did nothing wrong.

I really appreciated P3's dark undertones. The whole game sort of relates to accepting and moving on from death.

Tartarus did suck dicks though, I will agree. Though I loved the tough as shit floor boss fights - the OST really perfected the experience of "gritty, difficult battle against overwhelming opponent" feeling.

Indeed, and there seems to be a gun ammo limit now, which is nice.
The fact that they're going this far with mechanics, yet still insist on limiting most party members to one persona is kind of ridiculous. There better be some skill cards for them at least.

Also, the upcoming magazine article got some leaks.

Ost was amazing, and the bosses were really fun. Probably the most actual fun ive had in a while. i think i played it back in 2015 through p3p when i get my new android, im gonna run through smt 2 and SJ. maybe p1 again too.

So the MC is still the only one that can have multiple personas, that's a shame.

That is something that annoys me about post-Persona 2. Can't understand why they'd want to do that, unless it's because of balance reasons (in which case, I'd call them lazy).

lazy balancing and to casualize the game

It doesn't bother me in the slightest. It looks more like a decision of design rather than any overarching implication of balance. P3 and 4 didn't let you have multiples of the same persona, and that rule will likely be carried over into the new game, so it's not an issue of balance (ie, having a party of 4 jack frost against fire enemy).
It seems more like it ties into character design, an elaborate exaggeration based loosely on that character's personality.

I guess, but it still makes the game just a little less good.

really? I disagree. I think it makes the game different.

now, from a design perspective, you have a very good idea of what the player's party is going to look like throughout the game. they will know which characters are available in which boss fights, know what level they will be around in that fight (and therefore what skills the player will have) and can build a challenging boss fight accordingly.

that's what I've really liked about P3 and P4, the difficulty, gritty fights where you have to chip away at the boss' life while keeping your own party refreshed. Kanji's fight in P4 (ps2 version) is one of the most challenging rpg battles I've ever played, because in that fight, both female party members usefulness was neutered, which fits in very well with Kanji's complex (story wise) and provided a tough ass challenge (game wise).

That wouldn't have been possible if the player had been able to fuse whichever demons they wanted for their party.
embrace it, and you'll see it in a different way.

its a shitty gimmick gook rpg series

I will say that the yukiko and kanji fights were really wel done, but after that, it just kind of falls apart. P1 did it well because team members had certain compatability with demons. They could do it like that, so the designers know what demons the player could be using on the team. But the mc can use all demons.

I still haven't played P1 and P2. that system sounds great, but all the same, having less flexibility in what the player's party looks like means the game designers can really tailor bosses that will challenge the party.
and I feel that the other battles after kanji's were still quite good. The faggot kid in his video game dungeon had a very difficult boss fight, and all the optional boss fights (in the final boss room of each dungeon) were all very difficult too.

I'm playing desu oc right now, and i am taking a huge, steaming shit all over this game. it might be a bad example since fusing powerful demons is retardedly easy, considering how stats and skills carry over, but even discounting that, the devs can't really anticipate what kind of party I will have and can't adjust boss battles to match my party.
The first beldr fight tried to be tricky by throwing out parties of vidofnir (elec drain, force weak) and cait sith (elec weak, force st) together but i ran over them by fusing pendragons (ridiculously high ST stat, but it's a bit low in level) which completely shat on the boss strategy.
again, desu might be a bad example. it's the most recent SMT i'm playing so there's that.

Theres nothing in the world worth saving. Time ti kill everyone

Its kind of difficult until you learn the weaknesses of the 2 minions, then its just a matter of keeping them down so they dont cast their walls. was there a wall crushing spell, its been a while since i played but if you play smart, all of p3 and 4 are easy. Even p2 and p1 were kimd of easy outside of that one dungeon in p1 where they take away most of your party.

Innocent Sin was really easy. I just Fusion Skilled my way through the game. Eternal Punishment put up a bit more of a fight though.

I even thought smt 3 was easy, but i mana drained through the whole thing. Maybe its harder if i dont cheese.

You're talking about the vita version. In the original PS2 version, the minions (nice and tough guy I think) don't have any weakness. One of them drains fire and the other one drains ice or phys I can't remember.

You have to whittle away at the one that does the buffs, then the other one before finally attacking Kanji. there's a lot in the middle but it's not as simple as using any sort of de-buff. I played this one just a few months ago and I'm pretty sure they have no "wall" spells, you probably played the pleb vita version.

Meh, i only had a vita at the time, and i didnt like chie's va. Golden is supirior except for marie. Fuck marie.

Isn't the point of the games to cheese? Like FF you can get by with auto attacking and nailing elemental weaknesses, and DQ it's even more straightforward. In SMT it's like abuse these buffs/debuffs, sleep somebody, and press turn amplifies that a whole hell of a lot.

SMT's battles fun in my opinion is just all about abusing that shit.

Nope, it's just a precure crossover. They even have their own heroine mascots.

well that's good for you man, enjoy your game, but don't comment on the difficulty of the older version if you haven't played it. golden really did dumb down a very tense and difficult boss battle.

Fair enough.

From what the new videos have shown, the skills menu in combat includes a persona change option for the protag, but not for anyone else. So yeah.

Sure, but if it makes most of the party boring and barely useful like it did in P3 and P4, it'll make for weak gameplay. There's really no excuse for lacking a flexible party. SMT Strange Journey has it, and it's a more challenging game than P3 and P4. It's a matter of designing around it.
P-Studio (and its fans) like to make excuses, but at the end of the day, 3 quarters of the party in their games are effectively reduced to vending machines worse than Strange Journey's protagonist.
That said, I have hope that P5 will have some compensations in place. This title has already shown plenty of improvement over what the previous (and a half) generation offered, so the studio seems to be wising up at last.

Well, the way you've worded this
really sort of adds to my argument.
and this

I take it from what you've written that you feel the party is more or less underpowered or is weak compared to other games. I say that's a good thing because it really brings out the best in some boss battles.

I'm addressing the PS2 version of p4, as the vita version nerfed bosses and made battles easier.
Let's first off be very frank - party members are not item spewing vending machines. That is an exaggeration, and using items is usually the last choice action you consider in a boss fight.

I agree with your premise that the party in p3 and 4 are on the whole weaker than other games, but that plays into being a good thing that makes for better boss fights as I explained in an earlier post here.

take that for what you will. I enjoyed the boss fights in these games and i appreciated this aspect of them. you might not like it and that's fine too, that's what's great about SMT games - the different series play quite differently, even though they share the same underlying mechanics and concepts.

Soul Hackers is pretty great.
Wish the first Devil Summoner had an english translation.

I have a copy of Devil Survivour 1 and 2 on my 3ds and am quite interested in the series. I realise that there are differences between Persona and SMT but the latter seems the most appealing. I'm wondering if DS is a good place to start or if I should start elsewhere.

Playing Nocturne, was wondering if magatama skills backdate when you level up, like kills on demons whose level you raise by sacrificial fusion?

I'd put Soul Hackers right behind/right next to SJ. It's a decent atmosphere and the demon system in that game is my favorite. Demons don't level, so you just fuse as soon as possible without missing skills. Plus, it has the loyalty system like old SMT which I'm not sure if SJ has. Can't remember anymore. And not only that, but demon personalities actually matter for what attacks they'll use when you command them. It's really neat.

Nemissa a best, too.

DeSu is completely different from standard SMT, so if you want a dungeon crawler, pick up SJ or 3 or 4. DeSu is a SRPG which is still good, but just not the same style as the other SMT games.

Backdate?

he's not the main character, and there seems to be an option for him to change his persona. Unless someone has something more definitive where they definitely can't.

disregard, just realized it was a skill menu.

That's going to fuck me over the first of couple battles

I've heard the first Devil Summoner had some great ideas, but most were poorly executed, resulting in an overall bad game. The loyalty system sounds interesting though.

As in, when I level up, will all the skills that had lower level prerequisites be acquired all at once, or do you have to master magatama one skill at a time?

You have to master all he magatama one skill at a time, but there is no level cap so you dont have to worry about not mastering them all.

Thanks.

Yeah, I know what you said. What I'm saying is that good developers can (and do) design challenging games without limiting versatility. That includes boss fights, of course.
If you thought P3 and P4 were anywhere near hard enough to warrant their poor excuse of a formula, you must've merely scratched the surface of RPGs.
Though at least you're not talking about Golden. I'll give you that.

Anyway

Full scans are out

There's more of them out there, but they won't fit all in one post.

Nice. But I swear to YHVH, if they turn her from 2ch into reddit/tumblr in the US, I will gut something.

The worst part is if you fuck up, you have to go through that long ass 1F maze just to start over.

Who cares about the U.S.?
We can import if we want to.
We can leave your pubs behind.

I care. I don't speak moon, and I don't want another series I mildly enjoy to be fucking ruined. Golden was pretty close to ruining it for me, but given what I've seen of 5, I've let myself have hope.

Any chance an user who can speak moon can tell us what are the newest things to come out of these scans?

Characters

Futaba Sakura

Sakura goes through a major change after she meets the protagonist. Hashino explains that her situation has special circumstances related to it and that she plays a pivotal role in the story

Makoto Niijima

Hashino explains that Makoto becomes a focus to the main story after the first incident at Syujin High School, where she begins to keep an eye on things. Due to her righteous nature, she doesn’t appear to be a person who would associate themselves with the Phantom Thieves.

Haru Okumura

Despite her elegant nature and great communication skills, she does not value human relations, and thus avoids forming relationships with other people.
Okumura appeared to have a very close relationship with her mother, a president of a restaurant company, but through her experience with other adults her views have been warped.

Personas

Johanna is Makoto Niijima’s persona and is based off of Pope Joan, a fictious female pope from the Middle Ages in Europe
Necronomicon is Futaba Sakura’s persona and it symbolizes an unknown force
Milady is Haru Okumaru’s person and is based off of Milday de Winter of the Three Musketeers

Story

The beginning of the game consists of the protagonist confronting a man who harasses women, and is thus detained by the police for inflicting injuries on to the man. He is then sentenced to probation and soon afterwards becomes a Phantom Thief.
A woman in a suit appears with the name of “Sae Niijima”. We have no idea if she is related to Makoto.
The activities of the Phantom Thieves attract the attention of both the goverment and the police, with mysterious incidents occurring in the streets.

System

Like in past articles, the main cast use the mysterious “Isekainabi” app in order to infiltrate the mysterious world called the “Palace”. The Palace represents the distorted minds of adults, and our main casts goal is to steal a hidden treasure from the world in order to reform their targets.
Much like the previous two entries, Persona 5 takes place over a year, and will have many events like in previous games such as swimming, festival, social studies tours and school trips.

Interview With Katsura Hashino

The Picaresque elements will be present throughout the entire game in a way that players will find enjoyable.
Each persona is designed to resemble an outlaw, reflecting characteristics of the Palace. Each persona will require completely different ways from one another for them to evolve.
One of the big mysteries of the game will be why the Velvet Room resembles a prison.
The twin Velvet Room attendants, Justine and Caroline, act as the protagonists correctional officers. There is a reason behind their existence.
The game’s story has multiple “structures” that are difficult and expansive, allowing for a better feeling of immersion in the game’s world.

the more i hear the less interested i am

"localizers" are going to have a field day with these characters

Real exciting stuff. Tumblr will like it.

Thanks user

I had to write an essay this year on a feminist play called "Top Girls" that featured this Pope in particular. I hope all the female characters in this are strong empowered womyn too.

And that's how they get you. Publishers have a legal monopoly on whatever localization they fund. So they usually face no repercussions for doing a bad job. All we can do is vote with our wallets.
I don't know Japanese yet either, but I'll take a cryptic source over a butchered port anyday. Hopefully it won't come to that, though.

Whoops, forgot to post more scans.

Well, if she spouts 2ch memes, she should spout 4chan memes or something in the localization, 2ch memes won't make sense to most English speakers. Even being able to read Japanese most Japanese memes go right over my head.

Honestly the Velvet Room is the thing I'm most interested in so far. They could have gotten some sound-alike to voice Igor, but they went out of their way to make him sound intimidating as hell and give the whole Velvet Room a prison theme.

I've heard that Atlus games generally have good localizations (but bad dubs). I can't comment on that too much though as I've had little exposure to them. From what I've seen, they seem generally solid, though they have some really bad ideas. The honorifics situation was handled pretty terribly.

P3 and 4 had generally ok dubs. It was compitent except for fuuka. I trust atlus to not fuck up this dub. Hopefully it has dual audio, but i might just use the dub anyway.

They have had a good track record with their localizations, there are JRPG series that have had rougher localization records

futubas spaceship persona is called necrinomicon

Neat

Yeah, AtlusUSA are fortunately good most of the time. They were fucking retarded in the 90s, but that was a long time ago.

Of course, #FE is gonna be full of censorship, but that's Nintendo's fault. And that game is cancer to begin with anyway (probably also Nintendo's fault.)

Yeah, but we've known that before the scans.

Digital Devil Saga was my favorite. I'm going to get to that game eventually, but I don't like the idea of paying money to summon demons and having to spend mag to walk around with them summoned. I liked soul hackers and it had the magnetite to walk around feature, but I fucking hated it. The atmosphere and story made up for it.

In the first game? It sounds bad, but it really isn't. The cost of summoning is so small I didn't even pay attention to it except at the very beginning of the game. The Magnitite drain isn't bad at the start, but later on it can drain pretty fast. Even then though it wasn't a problem because I had so much saved up since I usually only summoned demons before boss battles as I found that status inflicting bullets worked well enough for most normal fights.

Mag drain really isn't that bad, especially in Soul Hackers/Raidou. I haven't played SMT1 and 2, though so I can't comment. And you can usually get a huge amount from grinding anyhow, so it's less of a problem.

Fingers crossed, eh?

Thanks for the translation, user. The personae sound a bit dumb, but still.

Still better than quoting tumblr or reddit. I don't want her referencing the patriarchy, 'literally', or pepes. She should just act like a typical imageboard/textboard user.

Necronomicon REALLY bothers me. It makes me feel like the designers are just tossing ideas around senselessly just because it seems "cool"

A generic cartoony UFO stereotypically abducts things but the Necronomicon is ALWAYS represented as a means to summon horrors and demons and it feels like a clash of intentions, like the designers don't really know what they each represent, apparently the designer thought the little gargoyle on top was enough to represent the grimoire's lovecraftian theme.

I'm sure the game won't be terrible but this is pounding against the back of my head so hard after I found out the name.

I'm really glad I'm not the only one who thought that. It's really not a good name, she should have had a huge grimoire, possibly one that came to life and was extra creepy. But ayylmao is basically the same as Lovecraftian horrors, right?

ironic

Eh. I'd classify that as extradimensional horror, even if it's technically from the moon or whatever.

Fair enough.

I don't like Milady either, though probably just because the "guns inside skirt" thing already feels pretty dry.

I'm on the fence. On the one hand, it's neat. On the other hand, I don't really care about it. I dunno, just nothing extra appealing to make me have strong feelings one way or another.

SMT Imagine implemented magnetite perfectly. It was useful in many different ways, but it was not spent passively. Frankly, Atlus should be taking notes from that game 'cause there's a lot they could learn from it.

On a side note, the dungeon in this P5 screen reminds me of the Nakano Stone Site.

It's probably just another case of P-Studio falsely hinting at Nyarlathotep. They do that all the time for shits and giggles.
There's also the fact that the Phantom is codenamed "Joker". Though that's probably because of his Fool card.

Also I do not like SMT 3

Man P4A's mysterious voice gave me some dam hope
then P4AU happened
Now i only expect shit from persona

Yeah, I understand it can be a bit confusing at first sight.
This is what I meant.