Shin Megami Tensei thread Personafags (not) welcome

DDS is a good start. Then check out smt 3, smt strange journey, and the 2 raidou games. Smt 1 and 2 are quite dated, so youll want to get familiar with the mainline mechanics before tackling the older ones.

there is no good alignment, the only winning move is not to play

Good goy.

Neutral is the canon and hardest route for a reason user

I think he got killed off screen in SMT 4F, I never once saw him outside of random encounter

This angel is most trustworthy.

Is that an evangelion reference im seeing there….

Nonsense. He only wishes to help :^)

best get on that memestema edit

I got this.

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Nanashi is Akira they literally spoil it within the opening of the game. Since Nanashi is called Akira at the start.

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I would love to replay Strange Journey but I remember Eridanus and Grus and I'm like fuck nevermind.

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Breh, the Neutral alignment is the most Trump alignment in the game.

What the fuck is going on in this game
Demon negotiation is really, REALLY whimsical and I have no fucking idea how recruiting works - I just talk to demons and sometimes I get lucky and enter recruitement conversation.

I don't mind boring games, so longs as they're mechanically fun and sound. This is a very interesting game, but I'm only up to the Astro Mueseum and it's losing me already. I really can't get to grips with this super sanic combat battle system.

raise INT
learn into demon personalities and raise their loyalty
get them drunk if you find that too difficult

good job retard

neutral for life breh, but you can't trust humans for fuck all

fuck that might have something to do with it. Does loyalty increase over battles, or by letting them act freely, etc?

But Neutral is the only alignment that isn't cucked.

Granted, he is untrustworthy but he did save your ass a couple of times.

Top kek, is god just a glorified rapist?

Depends on the demon personality. Wild ones like being told to do their base attack and physical skills, others just want to defend or support. When their loyalty is higher you can control them better, but it's better to fuse demons suited to their personality.

Getting demons drunk changes their personality so you can build loyalty a shitton faster. Certain demons only become loyal if you give them specific types of gifts.

Soul hackers is shit fam

God never wants to destroy shit, he just wants to more or less have humanity submit to his will as thoughtless slaves/servants

Is there a page or FAQ with all this info?

The demons and angels have to go back.

But that itself is destroying the idea of humanity.
Humanity would have continued just fine if God's ordeal didn't happen.

You're shit.

It's cooler if you learn the system on your own.
megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/Personality

Yeah, but the sped-up remake has the best combat system of the entire series.

kek no. The lockdown in DeSu happened because the shomonkai made a pact with Belberith and tried to summon demons and shit all over the place. Humanity would NOT have been fine if one group of cultists was freely allowed to summon a big boss demon who would then run around and do whatever it wants.

Besides, the schwarzwelt in Strange Journey wasn't even god's ordeal, it was explained in the game as being a natural counter-balance to all humanities faults; the terrible shit humans do, overindulgence and decadence, excess consumerism, reckless and uncontrolled waste production, etc.

The key point is that if either extreme is chosen, those problems are fundamentally addressed in some way. Neutral relies on humans learning from their mistakes (kek)

The demon summoning program was made by someone who was technically a human and you defeat all demons without any divine intervention so actually humanity would have done just fine.
The neutral routes in Devil Survivor aren't about humanity learning from their mistakes, one is about harnessing the power of demons and another is about returning to status quo before demons.

The schwarzwelt happends because humanity stopped loving YHWH. Sothey started acting like retards and fucked up everything.
It is stated that YHWH is the one that drove the Mother away and gave the world to manking.

Soon my friend…soon.

Neutral Master Race.

well it just so happened that the shomonkai's retarded ass plan involved sharing the demon summoning program to everyone to deliberately induce an ordeal so they could lure and kill god.

If instead they just wanted to summon their belberith and didn't spread the program around, things would have been completely different. Hell, if the MC wasn't the incarnation of Abel, being a bel and therefore eligible in the throne race then it would have been COMLETELY different.

Exactly the point I made a few posts ago - you can't trust humans. They brought the ordeal on themselves in the first place and they likely will learn nothing new. Though in DeSu's case, the ordeal only came about as a result of the retarded shomonkai.
That's why i added (kek) at the end of my sentence in that previous post.

No niggah what the fuck are you saying. It's explicitly said several times throughout the game by both angels and demons themselves that the schwarzwelt was brought about as an antibody because of humanities failings.

Any other game you would probably be right but most of the endings deal with solving the source of the problem in various ways in DeSu. In Atsuro's route you prepare humanity for any other ordeal by harnessing the demons for yourself whereas in naoya's route you continue on the warpath of the throne of Bel to kill god. Even shomonkai's goal was to have an ordeal to end all ordeals. The entire conflict exists because of God's retarded ordeal which serve no purpose but destruction.
Even in Strange Journey the neutral route results in you preventing the schwarzwelt from ever happening so its not like they failed.

The schwarzwelt was brought about because humanity wasn't going on the path that mem aleph approved. When you realize Mem aleph's idea of humanity is not so much different from God's ideal, neutral route makes perfect sense.

Deepest lore

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Indeed, the Persona triology is themed around meme magic and makes some pretty clever connections throughout. Don't forget Seven Sisters abbreviates to SS

Anyone who likes the neutral routes have not played Nocturne which shows you just how shit Neutral route is.

Mastema a shit
SJ is the worst SMT game
Pretty much because that shitty maps filled with traps and bullshit, I have a game saved in the final boss zone since 2009 just ebcause I can't be bothered to redo the fucking entire zone 9 times to get to the shitty boss

The only thing I can glean from your post is that you are mentally handicapped.

All but the Lucifer routes in Nocturne are shit

Exactly, only the Chaos route makes any lick of sense.

It's also what happens when your indecisive about everything.

Except that the Rejection endings are more of a neutral route than chaos route?
Even lucifer chastises you for the Demon ending.

>just dont bother with the proper play and go savescumming all the way even though I've found a way to get myself overleveled without much troubu
>and my excuse for that is I-I j-just want t-to collect them all
>and even then(even with setting game on auto battle with 10x speed) it takes fucking forever to complete the game
I don't even know why I play it anymore, I hate jrpgs, I've hated persona 2 and my judgment on myself is "what a faggot", but smt is pretty good, 10 outa 10 its alright.
Also, compared to kmt smt has god awful irritating menu interaction.

Law and chaos are shit, both cause destruction from being too extreme at their views. And neutral barely gets any light aligned demons.

True Demon Ending you idiot. The only ending that moves towards destroying the Great Will's xanathos gambit of turning every single universe into worlds of stillness.

Have you played any other SMT game?
Defying the Great Will is neutral as fuck.

Is SMT 2 supposed to be harder than 3? Because it's not. I've started both roughly about the same time and I've died plenty more times in 3. The only hard part in 2 is the spells not having a tooltip so I don't know what the fuck anything does most of the time and managing MAG isn't that bad. I have 2 M249s on Aleph and Hiroko with charm bullets which pretty much BTFO any demon party.
Meanwhile in 3, you can't equip shit, back-attacks seem to be more common, and running away never works. Recruiting demons also seems to be harder.

Uh… ok. Sure. You go buddy.

Recruiting demons is complete shit in Nocturne. The rest I have never really had an issue with.

Magatamas are straight up better than any gear in SMT 1 and 2.

I think thats tied to your stats more than anything

I doubt that is the case since the answers in SMT 1 and 2 are straight up random. You could use savestates to choose different answers and still fail.

Overall yeah SMT3 is more challenging than 1 and 2 simply because of the press turn system but SMT 1 and 2 have more archaic things. SMT 1 has horrendous UI to boot.

So you are saying defying the Great Will is not neutral?
I ask again, have you played any other SMT game?
Where do you think the whole "punch god in the face" shit came from?

Neutral is walking a tightrope and hoping for the best, not having a hissyfit just to oppose your creator.
Probably from Cozy who's a huge chaosfag and had to push for TDE to be the coolest ending. Plus you whack YHVH in Law in SMT2.

Answers in smt aren't entirely random. They work like this
>there is also a rumor that they are tied to a moon phase though obvious from my wording, I wasn't been able to confirm this

I'd say that moreso than just defying the will of non-humans, Neutrality is specifically about bettering humanity, allowing it to grow unimpeded by the whims of Law or Chaos.

It's kind of hard to lead humanity to a better future when they're all fucking dead.

I've also found that threatening everyone and rebuking them when they chimp out works really well.

You kill Mem Aleph in Strange Journey, In most games the creator is also the one who decides your destiny. The entire ideology of neutral is based around free will of humanity which cannot coexist with providence.

You kill YHVH in all endings in SMT2

In case of SMT3 humanity is already dead due to conception. To prevent any other universe from being destroyed by another conception you have to defy the Great Will.

Well I meant random as in the dialogue options really don't matter. Even if you talk to the same demon on the same moon phase with the same stats in a different encounter you will get different dialogue and reactions with the same options.
The conversations are seeded the moment you start them and if the game doesn't want you to succeed at the conversation you can't change it no matter how many times you load your savestates.

They are more likely to run away than stay if you threaten them. Plus threatening works only on a few monsters if you are under-or-equalleveled, otherwise it's just easier to state your name through friendly attitude option.

They actually do, since every dialog option isn't tied to every other, it's like rougelikes, sure you can be locked out of stuff by RNG, but if it was completely random, then there wouldn't be any meta strategies that can consistently yield the results.
Also not true, you can move the seed by initiating a battle. Btw, you can talk again after the turn is over.

Dude just stay away from fire attacks and keep Fog Breath. use those buffs and debuffs. I kept a suboptimal build of Lightning/Thunder attacks, Fog Breath, best Phys Attack, and the spare slots changed out to something else I'd need long term. The rest was carried with irreplaceable members I carefully planned out for my team like Daisoujou.

*Lightning/Ice attacks

We really need him to come back and make MegaTen great again.

are you me?

shit I just dropped it for mana drain. I also didn't know you could learn magic in this game and started getting strength. Wasn't until I got tornado when i realized that magic does a fuckload of damage. Dunno if I should start over.
Wasn't he one of the candelabra bosses? How do you recruit him?

Magic is shit on demifiend. Keep building physical and point some points in luck too.
Physical is simply more versatile and crits make it godlike.
even if you fuck up demifiend beyond use you can still use him as an item dispenser

Oh sweet guess I'm set then. I hope there are better physical skills down the line. I had heat wave for a while but it sucked and lunge keeps missing.

Magic is good at first but on demifiend falls off hard toward the end due to a combination of poor selection and high levels making magic weaker in the damage formula.

yes he was, to fuse fiends you need a deathstone,the right phase of kagutsuchi, and the right type of result demon. Daisoujou is 7/8 and full and replaces a night demon result.

Persona

recruiting isn't that hard. Also try not to be too under leveled. I noticed the difficulty isn't that bad when you're properly leveled or remember what specific abilities enemies have, especially the fiends. Fuse a fiend when you can and always try to get focus charge on demons who have high strength and fog breathe. Landing crits on bosses were straight up the best thing to ever feel.

iirc fog breath decreases defense, i'd say a restart isn't necessary. You can probably fuse a demon with what had it and with if you can back in and out and roll on spell carry over fusions, you might be able to get, but I am not so sure in that. Focus charge or war cry are very important though if you want to do major dmg.

fog breath is accuracy I think, and since it's a breath it doesn't get waved away by most of the debuff spells.

Was just fixing to create a thread since I've been doing it for every Persona and SMT game I'm playing through, but this thread will do nicely.

Let's talk about SMT II. I just finished the Playstation version. I was surprised by how easy it was. I didn't even fuse or recruit demons nearly as much as I did in the first game (because because they seemed much more apt to tell me to fuck off or run off with whatever I gave them in this game). I mostly just autobattled my way through the game with guns, even most bosses I took down that way, throwing Tarukaja into the mix once I got Cu Chulainn. I didn't even need Divine Retribution which I've heard people say it a skill I should have aimed for. Would have made battles faster, but hardly necessary.

I think it was better than the first game in most aspects, though nothing's quite like trying to stop the world from ending, failing, and then seeing the aftermath. Also, the backtracking, holy shit that drove me crazy. I'd heard it was bad, but I didn't think it would be as bad as it was. It felt like the developers tried to stretch out the game's playtime. The non-backtracking bits were better though, and the dungeons didn't even annoy me as much for the most part.

What do you think about SMT II, Holla Forums? What's the best route? I've heard many people say Chaos had a great ending, so I went with that this time just to see what it was like. Does Tokyo Millennium get destroyed in the Neutral route too?

And after this, I can finally get to SMT III, which I've been looking forward to for awhile now since most people seem to like it so much.

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oh shit my bad, yeah you're right. Fog breath is accuracy. Which is good for fiends and dante or raidou which ever version you're playing. Taunt is what I was thinking about.

Whelp trade mana drain for the best group heal you can get asap Demi-Fiend will fight many battles where he can't do jack and shit most of the time without party wipes so he needs to be support for your better fighters, Daisoujou is the only one with a drain attack worth anything. Drop boost if you aren't keeping Tornado you don't need it but keep it until you don't need Tornado anymore. Stick with Phys but work up your Vi and Agi and stop boosting Lu. Magic attacks are for phys immunity and weakness exploitation each magitama has skills you can learn and right now you've got your path set out for wind which is best early-mid game but lightning is superior late game, if you want the best passive discard/learn all the original magitama skills and don't powerlevel to 80 before beating the Amala Labrynth (if you want the best Chaos ending) otherwise ignore it. And for god sakes get rid of Lunge you need guaranteed Phys attacks Lunge is too innacurate heat Wave is better and late game stuff is Deathbound, Deadly Fury, and Freikugel. Oh and get Resist and Null passives for one slot with Phys Repel being end game. Lastly get Rakukaja that's the next best thing to Fog Breath and War Cry.

Fog Breath is two Sukundas in Noctourne that is really powerful. Luckily he still has War Cry he should keep that one at least.

I ended up with 99999 Mag toward the end of SMT II. I didn't use my demons except during boss battles, so it piled up. That was the same strategy I used for the first game as well, but I think I only ended up with 20000ish Mag.

*Oh man I just remembered you don't have Heat Wave because you got rid of it. Alright get Divine Shot and drop Might for something listed above or an all target Phys attack like Tempest the upgrade to heatwave or Hades Balst /or Oni-Kagura. One last thing Freikugal is the number one best Phys attack because it is an almighty attack.

Damage formula has magic get weaker every time you level up; by the time you hit level 99 you're gonna be hitting spells weaker than if you were level ~35, because your stats can't keep up with the shit formula.

Funnily enough, somewhere around level ~140 the formula flips and magic suddenly becomes strong as fuck. Protip, you're not going to hit that level in a casual run unless you're ludicrously autistic

Also RIP, Fog Breath is literally the best thing Demi-Fiend learns for the majority of the game and is something that usually ends up in your skill list until at least endgame.

It's actually been so many years that I've forgotten most of SMT II. I'm currently doing a backwards run through the franchise (starting with SMT IV) so I'll get to it eventually. I might end up dropping SMT IV, though, since it's so fucking shit. I wanted to skip it outright, but I figured I'd give it one final chance to make me not completely hate it. 10 hours in and it's currently failing miserably.

Ironically, I consider Nocturne to be relatively mediocre compared to it's peers, because of the dumbed down fusion mechanics and extremely mediocre level design. It gets remembered especially fondly because it was most peoples' first SMT (as it was the first one we got in English) so that's to be expected. It's not a bad game, in fact it's really fucking good, but it's not the best in the series like some would lead you to believe. If you're playing in JP (which I assume you are because you said you played PSX SMTII) I recommend the Raidou Kuzunoha rerelease version of Nocturne Maniax.

Yeah I figured that was probably the case. Nostalgia's a hell of a thing.

Yeah, that's the plan. Though it sounds like the biggest difference is Raidou being in the game instead of Dante, and neither character is that important anyway. Though I've heard Raidou has some useful pierce skills.

Neither character is important, but while Dante is worthless, Raidou is helpful. It all boils down to a single skill Raidou learns but Dante doesn't, and you'll know it when you see it.

I don't remember if the rerelease has the difficulty select, but Normal and Hard are American Normal and Japanese Normal respectively.

Neutral > Chaos > Law

The demonica's helmet design is really awesome, glowing red eyes really give it all a feeling of being as much of a monster as any demon, and the golden mask gives it a majestic look to trump any angel.

It's a metaphor for human persistence. :^)

I mostly agree with the only different one being Devil Survivor
Neutral =Chaos = Law

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Persona 5 is going to be good, anons. Can't wait.

Neutrality is about beating back the night so people can return to normalcy.

You know, I'm actually considering playing SMT III and IV in English. Playing games in Japanese isn't nearly difficult or arduous as it used to be. I don't have to think too hard about what I'm reading unless the text gets too complex, and I generally just look up words here and there as opposed to every other line like when I first started studying Japanese. Still, the tedium of playing games, mostly JRPGs, for nearly two years builds up. At least for me, anyway. Trying to play through so many, so fast is a huge contributor to that, if I was just talking my sweet time is have few issues with it. Anyway, if I know Japanese, is it a bad idea to play SMT games in English? Or are the localizations fine? If they're not that great, then Nipponese it is.

It's kind of odd. I'm a translator, I try to be accurate, but not at all literal. I translate meaning, not words, and I'm not afraid to change something if it doesn't work in English. I like examining other translations and appreciate good choices. Yet, I have a near-autistic desire to play games in Japanese. The more text heavy they are, the more I want to play them in Nip. Though I know a guy quite a bit better than me who doesn't give a shit if he plays a game in Japanese or English, or how big localization changes are. Maybe I'm just a nut.

No you fucking spout memes instead of doing your job kill yourself :^)

I actually did that once, but that's because there was a 2chan meme in the story. And I don't translate video games, so I don't get paid for shitting all over everything.

I'm not sure whether that's stupid or smart.

Either way, if taking half a year to localize a game is the norm for AUSA now, they can go fuck themselves 'cause there are better alternatives.

The next Persona 5 live event is 12 days away. Just a heads-up.

It hurts to live

A very small minority of people have played those games in both english and japanese and post on 8ch.

As an english speaking pleb who is reliant on localisation, I enjoyed SMT4. The characters were voiced well and the script had no errors in it from what I could see (bad grammer, mis-spelling, etc).

I'm trying to learn jap myself. Started learning from the learn nipponese thread last week, so I'm at a very elementary level. Learning a language all over again is daunting - especially going from university level english to caveman level grunting.
Any advice for learning Japanese? How long did it take you? and why don't you swing by the learning nipponese thread to help out anons who have questions?

Make sure to read a lot. Anything you read will kick your ass at first, but you have to persevere. You were able to learn English before you knew what any words meant at all, so learning Japanese isn't impossible (though your brain doesn't work quite the same it did as a baby and a child, but still). I assume you've got Genki or are going to read Tae Kim's site. Don't push off listening practice like me. Try to write now and then too, on a place like lang-8. Knowing how to write can help with understanding more than you might think. Penpals are nice too, there's a plethora of websites out there for them. I use Japan-Guide, but you can use whichever you want.

Well I'm still learning, and will be as long as I live. I'm also not even close to native level, but I know enough to be able to enjoy a decent amount of Japanese media comfortable. I started playing games in maybe 7 months. Started being able to play them well, that is, without having to look stuff up constantly around two years in (or maybe less, I'm really not sure. It just gets easier and easier over time, I have a much easier time now than I did a year ago). How long it takes to reach that level depends on you though.You might reach it faster than me. Maybe later.

I do on occasion.

thanks for the advice.
I was a lonely kid, so I would always read, as soon as I learned how. One day a relative gifted me pokemon, which was full of text to read, and I loved the TV show, so that's really how I learned a lot of my english as a boy.

Then maybe you're better off playing them in JP. There was no big, blown up scandal over SMT3 and 4's translation, but then again there was no such thing over FE7, which had radically altered the script of the main characters.

Or just play both. We have piracy on 3DS and emulation for ps2, so give both versions around 30 minutes and see what you like best.

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Why?
I don't see anything wrong with Eridanus and Grus.
Pic related, my favorite map. I especially loved the teleport maze, it was really good and not confusing at all.

Eridanus was actually fun and enjoyable I think. It really felt like a fuck-huge dungeon to conquer - except for the retarded teleport maze. Seriously, if they had at least included a way to put markers on your map so you didn't have to remember where every single teleport took you, but lolno you're left completely in the dark.

Just use an FAQ for that bit. Grus was only shit because the invisible floors weren't marked on your map, meaning you had to commit everything to memory but again, completely doable with a map or FAQ

Zelenin did nothing wrong, fellow Lawfriend.

She just wanted to play Angel rap to mind control the stupid masses. It was the only way they'd be saved, the poor, lost sheep.

Nah user the entire game was fun as fuck and every dungeon was enjoyable, and personally not hard.

It's just that I don't feel like replaying it because the trial and error and backtrack punishment can be tiresome. maybe I'll replay it but i need to cooldown. I'll save it for an internship abroad

wew lad

indecisive about what? you get to fight every boss. If anything its the "why not both?" option

Reading all the free hunter notes dlc which explains the backstory of the game all the routes are canon in SMT 4 are canon, Whites had their ending but Flynn's soul travel back in time and talked to Walter and Johnny as seen in the manga.

My point was, you never stop learning. You'll still be learning new things about English until the day you die.

Is it because of summer or because Holla Forums has turned more casual over time?

Both.
Plus it's hard to have a good SMT thread when there hasn't been a good game in years and there's not a lot coming up.

If your muddle around and not really going for any route deliberately you just get booted into the neutral route.

I don't see this anywhere in the thread, so I'll post it. English Apocalypse voice clips.

youtube.com/watch?v=Ktlodvp_NZ0

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what's the best offshoot of SMT and why is it Giten

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I'm still mad at that game about the Chaos ending. Classic case of what your character decides to do ABSOLUTELY NOT being what you the player had in mind when you made the choices the game presented. Which if you ask me, is worse than having no choices in the first place.

This. Were other paths better? I'll probably never know.

scrub

P1 was kind of a test run for that, laying out an alternate world and molding it from a single person's beliefs. Then in P2, it was full-blown rumor magic involving the human collective in the real world.

Did anyone ever translate that xbox SMT game that came out?

There's no translation patch as far as I know, but this youtube guy translates the game manually as he plays it. Better than nothing.

Nigger it's a third choice.

How about fuck you both, kill you both, this is our fucking planet and you can get the fuck out.

I like choosing my own fucking life and I like not stepping in blood every 5 seconds.

It's more a "how about fuck both of you, we're kicking your moochy asses off the earth" choice

SMT 1 involved killing both parties so you can rebuild the earth,
SMT 2 involved doing the same goddamned thing,
SMT 3 was about basically paying all sides a visit and telling them to fuck off and you get to keep your cool ass demon powers
and SMT 4 was about getting this cool old fuck spirit dude to get his ass and his Kamen Rider peeps back in gear because everything went to shit, while also killing both parties.

If you're such a pussy bitch that you're bowing to some arrogant fucks because you think they have something to offer, then you're just some sycophantic pussy who can't carve his own path.

I mean, fuck, the original hero's outfit is fucking green, the color of Neutrality, which doesn't mean indecisiveness because Law, Chaos and Neutral line up with D&D sensibilities.

If you're Law, you're a fag who adheres to the laws even if those laws come from a shitty culture, if you're Chaos you basically shit around and piss on the king to create chaos or just start shit for the hell of it, but if you're neutral, you're not only out for yourself, but you're out to fulfill a goal, be it getting a fucking cookie or saving the human race.

This is what neutrality means in this game, to make your own path and not give a fuck about those impedeing it.

Be an individual or be subserviant.

The best and hardest ending, the one with the most bosses and playtime should tell you they are rewarding you for choosing to carve your own path.

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Bump

don't be such a fucking bitch boy

Fuck Messian architecture

the truth

I'm always cautious of translation videos, but this one seems to be trusted enough.

Man this game never ceases to amaze me at how shit it is.

Does anyone have that screencap of a post detailing how Kaneko&co are actual occultic nuts who believe what their games say about demons/angels.