So I wanna go on a Strange Journey, but the Demon Fusion system seems quite overwhelming...

The alignment system is very easy to keep track of.

If you use chaos demons or law demons in battle, your name will eventually turn red or blue (chaos, law). when that happens, you can switch to the opposite alignment demons and fight a lot.

This is how you rig the ending paths. Your name color determines what your ending path will be and after a certain point your alignment will lock.

This is the only thing I will tell you because the rest of the game will teach you as you die.

Neutral is human bro ending, Law is jackass angels ending, Chaos is dumbass demons ending.

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There is no help for you.

Fight and win.

Just like download the game and start playing nigga hahaha, like hahaha.

Just experiment, but remember to register your demons before fusing so you can get them back if the new demon sucks ass or whatever.

If your demons seem weak, fuse stronger ones. That's all there is to it. Also use buffs.

don't get attached to demons, except the fairy you get at the very beginning the value of demons are their skills and resistances

figure out what weaknesses/abilities are present in in current area and fuse the optimal party to exploit them. once you have more slots, maybe add one or two demons for grinding macca & items and a buffer/debuffer if you don't want to hold that role yourself (i also like to have an extra healer in order to prolong dungeon exploration)
you should be continually fusing your demons. if you have a full stock, you're not fusing enough. there's no real penalty for experimenting around with fusion. if a demon doesn't work, fuse them again into something better. the worst case scenario is that you have to spend a little macca to get back an earlier demon, this will quickly become trivial.

also, if we're doing an smt thread,
what's the best version of soul hackers?

Here's the fusion chart you can find in the manual

There's only one English version (the 3ds one), isn't there?

The 3ds version.

Added bosses with some really good ones in there.
Added demons from later designs like alt Odin or pixie or some real cool stuff like Lucifrost.

It is not a hard system to get used to, if you fuck up you can always resummon a demon that you have owned for a price.

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Of course…you have to remember to not throw away good D-Source..I did it, and I can never get back that Momunofu Source.

...

Pretty good feel to see people complain when you never personally had major problems with anything. Even the maze with all the teleports I just did with pure trial and error (it took a while though) fighting my way through everything.

Also superior battle music. So noble.

Oh also

LAW A SHIT

What was so hard about that?

This post reeks of Lawscum.

I wouldn't worry about which alignment path you take, all the endings kinda suck anyway.

Seriously, what is it about games with multiple endings hating giving you a good end?

checked
Technically Neutral is the good ending. At least SMT never really gets Drakengard-tier endings.

Neutral endings are shit too because its all about delaying the inevitable turn to law or chaos.

Are there any RPG's that are as good as Strange Journey or feel like it anyways? Doesn't necessarily have to be SMT.

Shadow Hearts

This game may have one of the most heinous portrayal of Law in all the SMT games, God dammit.

I mean Mastema does make for excellent wank fodder, but that other bitch…

Also OP, if you want done actual advice on what you should check before you start, go google the questions they ask you during character creation and what they do.

3DS
fastest combat in the series, feels great

Law in SMT = Total submission to Great Will

Dubs, what are you talking about?

SMT3 Neutral ending: turn the world back to normal and the world fucking up never happens.
Strange Journey: Send the demons back, God no long has a death grip on the world.
Devil Survivor: BTFO the demons and God and the world goes back to normal.

These are pretty standard "good" endings.

You got it wrong. the conception created by Hikawa never happens. But the conception is the natural order of things and eventually the world will create a new conception.

SMT3: Nocturne is also the one that reveals that all neutral endings are nothing but stalling for time because of the conceptions. Eventually through millenia upon millenia every single world in the multiverse will end up in the hands of Law in the Great Will's vision due to the inherent nature of the conception and how the cards are stacked towards it.

Basically Great Will wants to enslave everything, but as Law it has to do so by laws of reality. Therefore he stacks the deck in a system where every world in the multiverse will eventually end up worshipping him mindlessly through sheer coincidence/attrition and when a world ends up in the vision of the Great Will (like Hikawa imagined it). Since as soon as a world of stillness is born it is unable to form worlds that are not just repetitions of the old world of stillness.

The only other option is to destroy the system (and thus the world) and fight against the Great Will. Everything else is stalling for time until the next conception and the eventual enslavement of all life in the multiverses. Cry about your neutral endings in whatever form you might like, they're all completely inconsequential in the grand scheme. Your only ultimate choice is to either go Chaos or Law. As they are the only sides that have a chance of remaining victorious in the end.

I'm sure SMT4:Final is going to retcon everything though and Great Will is going to be a gud boy he dindu nuffinz because ATLUS has completely fucking lost all ability to write a decent plot. SMT4's plot was retarded enough. At least SMT4:Final seems to be the actual end to the SMT storyline.

All Hikawa did was force the conception early, even Lucifer says it'll be back and you won't even have the magatamas next time.
Just think about the effects of that nuke and how the remaining crew is fucked, either through radiation or the world governments in an attempt to silence you.
Atsuro: Naoya says he'll try it again, also handing over the demons to the nihongo gov when they couldn't even handle the lockdown? What could possibly go wrong? Also Metatron says there will be consequences for using the demons so on top of all that shit there's still the angels.
Gin: Naoya will try it again, you're just handing over the only choice that matters to someone in the next generation.
Yuzu (8th day, restore the barrier): You don't get to bitchslap God but I guess things aren't so bad.

Then thing about Ouroboros is that he has a rhythm to it and if you follow it perfectly he's a cinch, but you fuck up ONCE and it's endless fucknig full heals and DISASTER CYCLE for your ass

Well I stopped playing when I got three fire-casters, managed to cast till all their mp was gone, and still didn't kill oroborous… so probably something.

Kind of like Asura, where you're supposed to know to defend on the first turn and only the first turn.

I skipped IV, can you tl;dr the plot please?

Not really, but I can try. I'm not even going to try pretending I remember half of that schlock.

And that's SMT4

fixed

It takes place on an alternate SJ world where the game didn't happen but the suits were still made and so was a certain AI. Steven released his greatest hits and so the demons were out, the angels decided to pick out the purest sheep possible, put them in a hive, and nuke the rest of the planet to start over. Some guy summoned Masakado to build a wall and save Tokyo and then died. Time passes differently within the dome and outside of it (I lean towards time slowing down inside the dome). A kid known to you as Aquilla decides his demon infested Tokyo is fucked up and climbs to the top of the Sky Tower to, 1, look for his sister, and 2, get away from the demons. He reaches the top and releases his impurities to the chosen people, and also decides that everyone else in Tokyo can fuck off and seals up the way back. This is important because he starts a caste system, makes himself king, and completely fuck up the angel's plan for a utopia.
****
Fast forward 1,500 years later or so and now the guy from Reading Rainbow is causing the once chosen people to turn into demons. You have to go hunt them down in Tokyo, shit happens, depressed whites show up and you see the consequences of your world had someone chosen to do something differently when the barrier went up during the nuclear holocaust. In the end you decide to:
let the demons out of Tokyo and be a bigger despot than Aquilla
permanently nuke Tokyo and take yourself out with it
break down the ceiling and allow Tokyo and Mikado to racemix
or just delete everything forever to finally stop the cycle of suffering because not even Law and Chaos worlds have permanence
****
SMT4 Apocalypse has you playing as that Aquilla guy. I liked SMT4, the story was fun to piece together.

That seems just as simple as picking Law or Chaos, as you can argue it's inevitable that someone will stand up for humanity again. Otherwise solid points.

I wasn't talking about the crew surviving I was talking about saving the Earth. That's a much better ending than getting it fucked.

Everything else is fairly on point.

Wow, I thought I was just missing something, but really nothing got explained? Guess I don't need to beat IV.

Oh. Thar sounds better. Neat. Maybe I will beat it.

Also, Raidou technically has different endings, but they don't change anything, really.

Are you fucking retarded? Once you reach World of Stillness mode THERE IS NO TURNING BACK. ITS UNIVERSAL UNCONTESTED BRAINWASHING FOREVER.

EVEN AFTER THE WORLD ENDS THE BRAINWASHED STATE STILL CONTINUES BECAUSE TO DO THE CONCEPTION YOU NEED A HUMAN WILL GUIDING IT AND THERE WILL ONLY BE ONE WILL, TO SERVE THE GREAT WILL.

What the fuck part of this don't you understand? Are you telling me if you roll a die unlimited times that it will never show a 1? Hell I think Nocturne even states that when you reach "World of Stillness" there will never be another conception. But I'm unsure.

You aren't rolling a die, you fucking idiot. The people that keep getting the important choices are clearly above average people with the ability to change fate. Seemingly, they keep choosing neutrality if all the games are actually connected. Getting to the World of Stillness is an asymptote in those cases, where you perpetually should be there, but something is preventing you from actually reaching it.

You are aware that we are only talking about Nocturne now, right? None of the other games do the whole Conception thing. And Nocturne was about a bunch of random high school kids who got thrown into some serious shit. One of them being saved by Lucifer in a gambit to create a powerful demon to oppose the great will?

The other games just showcase that World of Stillness isn't necessarily something that has to be created by a conception.

You really are retarded aren't you?

How much of an insufferable faggot can you be? Can't you comprehend that, including Nocturne, there seems to be a shocking number of "coincidences" getting the right people at the right time? Where did I keep talking about the conception? You only keep bringing that up because you're a fucking inbred nigger who can't extrapolate any further.

There are many games leading up to these choices, with the Law routes all ending in a World of Stillness scenario. My point is, unless they are unconnected, it seems that humanity does not ever choose the Law route and reach the World of Stillness, and they struggle onwards. But if you can't get that, you should drink bleach and clean out the genepool.

That is the only thing being discussed here since . The unstoppable Conception and the eventual victory of law or chaos. We are not talking about endings to the fucking games here. Learn to read literally any one of my replies in the reply chain about this.

Come back when you learn to read you retarded faggot.

>that feel of utter despair when SHE has a second form
>that good feel when your reform your team and destroy her

THIS FUCKING GAME

That's cause he's insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Also he works for a lawfag, Yatagarasu. Not that all lawfags are bad but they're all pretty content in guiding the world back on track to it's proper path and ultimate end.

You should finish SMT4. There's a major plot point that the alternate worlds you visit are actually real where your previous incarnation chose Law or Chaos instead of setting the barrier up. Even the comrades you have by your side during that are both from alternate universes where you decided to go along with their plan. The White are a collective from many universes that realize there is no end, no matter what path you choose. All endings for every game are probably canon and send them off into their own separate world. Except maybe White End.

I say the multiverse thing confirms it. And since its been in a few games now we can safely state that its the case that all endings are technically canon. Even possibly white end as long as it only ends that dimension instead of the multiverse.

It all comes down to the Conception. At the Conception all law routes choose World of Stillness. All neutral routes are likely to repeat the cycle, but can end with Stillness and a miniscule chance of destruction. All Chaos routes have a bias towards destroying the system, but there is no guarantee that the system will be destroyed after a Chaos route.

All routes of Nocturne are likely canon too.

I went Shijima myself. Hard mode probably affected that, the sense of fatigue in the Vortex World translated very well.

Let it overwhelm you bask and writhe in it

Holy shit, what part of I was talking about the endings didn't you get? The conception is directly tied to the endings, and you're a massive faggot to think otherwise. You decided to talk about something else and be a retard, all of my posts are still about the endings and what happens at the Conception and otherwise. I don't know why you have such a huge boner for only talking about the Conception, when it's just used as an example of how to get to the World of Stillness, as said by you:
This is why I made the point of "right place, right time" for each game. You get someone in a position to make the choices for the different routes, and it looks more like they start as a neutral route.

Fuck, I don't have the energy to deal with a retard like you.

This sounds dumber and dumber the further I read. It'll probably fit better when I play, but this whole thing just seems a bit silly.

So you literally admit that you don't read what you're replying to? Because the post I linked explains exactly why they're irrelevant in the grand scheme. If you claim to have read it, then you are saying that the post I made that was posted 3 hours ago is still something you have yet to understand the second paragraph of. Any other option is literally just "I ignored what you posted".

Either way, you're retarded.

Actually scratch that about the second paragraph the whole post should be read to fully understand the gravity and scope. I'm just tired and going to bed now.

Still doesn't change a thing. Either fe47f1 doesn't read the posts he has been replying to or he is actively ignoring what the posts he is replying to has written in them.

SMT games tend to be pretty fun but what I don't like about it is the fact that they tend to push the alignments way past the line sometimes. Like lawfags being unbearable holier than thou faggots to the point where it makes me kind of ticked off

Or course you can take that with a grain of salt considering ive only ever played devil survivor and SMT 4 to completion really. And partially the SNES game but I never beat it

both sides are supposed to be flawed and encourage neutrality
law is welcoming but strict and oppressive
chaos is designed to be attractive but at the same time you'll be working for quite a few known evils

...

I assume this is what you mean

Yes.

I'm just curious how bad the dialogue is, so if someone that knows moon can translate those DLC pics I would be grateful

Well the good thing is that with CFW if you don't feel like this is a game you can support you can just pirate the base game and only get the DLC you think adds to the game.

Yeah probably, Monster Hunter Generations and Zero Time Dilemma are releasing soon so it's not like I have no shortage of games to look forward to.

classy taste. that's easily my favourite battle theme.

but trial and erroring your way through the maze is just a straight up pain int the ass. you need to remember where each teleport leads you, and from memory there are at least over 15. It's impossible without a pen and paper or some other kind of guide so I don't blame people for getting frustrated with it.

This is the greatest part about the game. These big ass plots usually fly over my head, but this one was subtle enough to require me to play all endings, and informative enough for me not to need to read any wikis or explanations of the story.

It's still a step back from SJ gameplay wise though.

I really enjoy that there's no "right" answer. I suggest you play DeSu 2, where the game gets a bit philosophical without having its head up its ass.

regardless of whether I buy the game, I am definitely pirating all its DLC. I was stupid enough to buy a couple of extra missions of SMT4 DLC and was profoundly unsatisfied - the clipped wings ones are literally just extra boss fights. Stupid. but it does reveal good plot

this is a chill fucking thread. here's my current (and favourite) vidya wallpaper

Here's a chart for you, user. Ready?

Have you played Nocturne?

not yet. i bought the game years ago, but i get horrible input lag on my tv from my ps2 so i never bothered.
all I know about it is
once i build a decent PC i plan to emulate that shit

It will change your entire perspective about alignment. Since you haven't read the rest of the thread you should play through it without getting spoiled by discussion.

yeah, I saw people discussing the ending so i skipped over it. i'll take your advice. one question though, is the encounter rate in that game as bad as it is in DDS1?

Its been a while since I played it, but I remember plenty of random battles. Probably? I don't think more gameplay is a problem though.

cheers. i havent played in years, but i distincly remember hating DDS1's absurd encounter rare, in that you could barely leave the room without running into an encounter. i hope smt3 isnt the same.
have a nice day user

Heretics.

I don't think the encounter rate is THAT BAD. Nice day to you too.

Plebeian.

fuck you man

If the game is good, you may as well just buy the game and pirate the DLC

You're a dummy m8.

Navarre actually dies in this DLC doesn't he?

I bought the SMT4 DLC too, do I feel stupid especially because I STILL never got around to playing any more of that game since looking for Red Rider.

It's revealed in the first 10 minutes of SMT4F, it's not actually that big of a spoiler.

Lilim is the best. Why can't I use him all the time?

So which games are harder than SMT4? I felt as though 4 was pretty easy even on hard mode so im kind of looking for one with a challenge to it.

is expert mode in smt iv worthwhile for ng+? i heard that escape doesn't work, does that include trafuri? having to just grind through meaningless encounters sounds pretty hellish

smt 1 and strange journey are harder, or at least less forgiving, i've heard nocturne and dds are pretty tough

I believe from what I remember that trafuri still works for escapes but i dont believe escape works, or just doesn't work as often. I tend to fight all random mobs anyway for exp grinding

Nocture was pretty easy aside from one boss at the very end.

FUCK. Is she like the one from Nocturne? How about the Knocker who also joins?

What made SJ gameplay the best? If we mean battle system then fuck outta here because Press Turn was so fucking cool when I first tried it in Digital Devil Saga, best SMT spinoff EVER and it's still a pretty gud system.

In terms of exploration and shit, definitely agree. From the major stuff like the areas, to the minor stuff like first or third person view, SJ was better.

Also, people hated the encounter rate that much? It was definitely a pain at times but I always loved to get AP/JP/points that get you new skills/spells in RPGs, so it didn't feel that bad except when I wanted to backtrack.

I should replay it.

I would say that SMT 4 is the easiest SMT game,its pretty easy to break the difficulty by giving pretty much all your demons luster candy and other high tier abilities since you can choose what skills pass on.

All of them

Except Persona

Already did its stated that the Great Will got tried of YHWH shit and got Nanashi/Akira and Flynn to go kill him. YHWH went crazy because he was lonely and had no one which is the official reason why he's an asshole. Demifiend in the Stephen DLC canonically loses to Lucifer and has to get his jobber ass bailed by based Stephen.