Shin Megami Tensei IV *SPOILERS ABOUND*

Asura's a red-encounter in the wasteland in the north. You have to take a ferry to get access and of course have talked to Nozomi in the cafe right outside of the Ueno underground.

... Hahahaha, I'm an idiot- I've been forgetting to find Nozomi first!

The Insane Hordes in Shinjuku continue to elude me, though.

I pretty much did the exact same thing because I couldn't find the cafe at first, heh. Go in heavy with ice spells, since thanks to Nozomi's "help" Asura'll be smirking more than a Dreamworks' character.

Alright, got myself to the Bookstore at last. It's been set up as a Domain- Finally killed off that horde of Lilim that embarrassed waaaay back, and found the Black Samurai in the boss room. She taunted Isabeau with Rose of Versailles's ending! What an evil monster! We managed to arrest her without incident, after a few LAW-CHAOS axis questions from her.

We come back, are issued the Third Order of Merit, and... The Monastery is scheduling a grand celebration dedicated to the Black Samurai's public execution! During which, her face is unveiled, and, well... I still don't get the resemblance to Gabby.

edited 19th Jul '13 8:56:50 PM by Pulse

Man I just found out I could get free money from David and it keeps pissing him off if you ask for more.

I suppose I should get fundraise now if other Challenge Quest/Main bosses give money.

Heh, in the opening scene of the Black Samurai's execution if you don't immediately advance the dialogue you can hear one side of an ongoing conversation in the background among the generic crowd noises. A guy goes on about some unforgettable execution in the past, and then eventually becomes quite surprised to learn that that is the Black Samurai up there on the stake.

edited 20th Jul '13 9:28:06 AM by ComicX6

I think I have a commitment problem. I'm so afraid of choosing either Law or Chaos that I blew up the world instead.

The world had it coming.

But yeah, I hear that the Neutral ending is rather hard to get, and isn't just "don't commit to Law or Chaos" like it is in the other games.

Yeah, I seem to have missed it. I assume it involves Isabeau and Hikaru. I'm also locked out of the Chaos route (I assume, since when I chose it they said "No you're not!" and booted me into working with Jonathan), and I find myself losing motivation when taking orders from angels.

It does involve Isebeau, yes.

What the requirements are...I dunno, to be honest. It involved Isebeau and isn't as simple as "don't go full Law or full Chaos".

There's apparently several Challenge Quests that need to be completed before the final alignment check in addition to working a delicate balancing act with LAW and CHAOS throughout the game.

Well, might as well finish up the Law ending before I look it up. After I get motivation to play again anyway.

Oh. Actually I was skipping most of those because I was getting tired of them.

edited 20th Jul '13 11:26:14 AM by Clarste

Reading backwards in the thread now, but this isn't really random. Different "personalities" value different things. For bestial types (which I believe the Griffon is), they value assertiveness. In general I usually choose the "End Talk" option as soon as it appears because that's way more likely to to be favorable than the alternative. Frankly, you're lucky he didn't just run away because that's what they usually do if you give them too much stuff. Exceptions are "trickster" types who you need to either appease completely or cut them off even earlier, and "honorable" types who are much less likely to run away after giving them gifts.

...and honestly it's cheaper to cut them off early anyway.

The multiple-choice questions on the other hand, are super random. That part is more frustrating to me than the gift-giving half, although luckily it usually comes first.

edited 20th Jul '13 11:34:23 AM by Clarste

Then again, blowing up the world might not be such a bad idea...

Why's that?

World kinda sucks.

Breaks off one world from the never-ending Law Versus Chaos cycle. Then again, Alternate Universe is a thing here.

edited 20th Jul '13 12:29:17 PM by phoenixdaughterAM

That's an opinion.

No, I'm pretty sure the SMT 4 world sucks objectively. That's why they even bother giving you a choice. Although frankly it's hard to argue that killing everyone at once is somehow better than killing almost everyone one at a time.

All the endings have both good and bad points. For the 'kill everything' ending to have good points the world has to be kinda crappy.

Alright, so I just realized- What the hell am I gonna do with the 32 demon slots I'm ultimately going to end up with?

That's a lot slots. I have... 13? Something like that. Seems like there are more important things to spend points on.

Well, yeah- I've got twelve for now, and won't be touching them again until there's less in the way of things to spend App Points on- But still.

I'm trying to focus on the MP recovery apps, since I'm running into the old problem of demons with greats stats and skills but a poor MP pool.

I just gave Spirit Drain to everyone. Literally. I feel like Spirit Drain is by far the best spell in the game, especially now that physical attacks use MP too.