Shin Megami Tensei Series

in terms of difficulty, im having far more trouble with ds2 than nocturne.

like, its not even close.

but what you're saying is that the further along the game you get, the easier it gets?

i cant exactly say you're wrong...day 2 was way harder than day 3 and the majority of day 4, which ignoring megrez was probably about as easy as day 1.

edited 12th Apr '12 1:22:22 AM by Tarsen

Odd, I walked through DS 2. Well, until I made the idiotic mistake of taking the Kingmaker route on my first playthrough. It was... hard. I didn't have my Fate score high enough with a lot of my party members, so I got to fight with just the two of us for a while.

I also ended up missing out on Black Frost.

That said, the last boss is a jackass. Make sure that the characters you fight it with have some way to not be slaughtered by physical attacks.

Pic related, and awesome.◊

EDIT: Eh, the game spikes in places. The Septentrione can be pretty difficult (#&$@ YOU BENETNASCH) the first time you fight them, but the regular battles aren't usually too bad, though there are fewer of them than in DS 1. Also, I cracked Ziodyne and Elec Amp from Botis on Day 3 which made me an unstoppable godlike murder-machine. Alioth is the last of the Septentrione that plays nice; Merak and Benetnasch are awful.

edited 12th Apr '12 1:31:09 AM by Watashiwa

On the subject of difficulty, what do you guys think is the hardest SMT game? The hardest I've played/am playing is unquestionably De Su 2.

Either Persona 3 on Maniac or Nocturne on Hard.

And seriously, Devil Survivor 2 is in no way in the same difficulty league.

Maniacs in P 3 P is hard enough to be compared to the legendary Nocturne?

In other news, I finally got Nocturne... But now I have to wait for my friend to play it because he helped me get it.

Also, the exact same mental image popped into my head when that dialogue option popped up. I've said it before and I'll say it again: De Su 2 has awesome dialogue choices.

well i havent played nocturne on hard mode yet, mostly because my preperations became for nought when my ps2 died and i had to start playing on emulator with a new save.

nocturne on normal mode at least, is pretty easy.

the most difficulty that came from dds 1 and 2 was the various forms of grinding; the first game had several great places to grind, but the 2nd one had practically none, forcing me to be a lot more careful about the skills i got first. and then the plot deaths came in an rail roaded me into using particular characters hardest time i ever had was in the goddamn teleport maze in dds2.

persona 3 was ok. the only thing the full moon bosses have to their name is insane endurance, as per persona tradition, apparantly. although there was this one time yukari forced herself into my party against a boss she was weak to, and the ai in no way helped the situation. the tower bosses on the otherhand...they were pretty nasty. p4 was easier (less bosses to fight for one thing) but the final boss was actually fairly challenging because i took one look at the new dungeon, saw the increase in experience and went "FUCK THAT" and marched right on to the final boss at around 64, but i cant really compare it to nyx because "oh hey, new block opened up" -10 minutes later- "what, im already at 90?!"

strange journey had quite a few luck-based bosses and bomb status is absolute bullshit. id say strange journey is the hardest because of that, but for the most part is pretty basic procedure.

smt1 is pretty broken and the encounters can drag on for aaaaaaages and the map is cumbersome, with the graphics sometimes disorientating, and ginza is an absolute nightmare to navigate. its probably the only non-teleport dungeon in the series to genuinely confuse me and leave me at a loss. on top of that the negotiation system is very random, and demons, for me, have basically become meat shields rather than actually being useful.

edited 12th Apr '12 1:57:32 AM by Tarsen

Is there any way in Strange Journey to save between the infected crewman in Bootes and the demon right after?

i really wish srpgs would stop fucking using reinforcements to make a map difficult.

especially during boss fights.

its not appreciated. at all.

Wait, what kinds of S-rpgs? Like Fire Emblem maps?

as far as i know, every srpg that ive ever played has used a fucking reinforcement mechanic. its the bane of my existance and nearly as bad as fucking fog of war.

spawn points i can handle

unstoppable off screen spawning i cannot. even worse in those few games where it does not stop untill you finish the map

Ohhhhhh.

I don't recall unlimited reinforcements, but fog of war can be pretty annoying.

alioth can attack four times in a fight, from a distance, has status effects, agidyne and ziodyne, shoots out buds that are just out of reach and explode just as someone gets there, the poison takes out a huge amount of health, even characters with winged flight cant get over a poison in one turn, the map is irritating to navigate for characters without winged flight, the enemies are annoying and reinforcements. and by the time my main character was able to get to the boss to set the device to purify toxin, everyone was already dead.

...i hate this game. so, so much.

-or not? weird. alioth went down really quickly when you finally get there. guess i kinda jumped the gun there. (still hate the game tho, but for unrelated reasons)

edited 12th Apr '12 10:30:02 AM by Tarsen

Why do you hate the game?

every other boss. i believe ive been pretty vocal about that so far.

and some particular normal battles. like the first one against yumi, the bullshit get to the otherside mission which turned into a "wait around for 6 turns" after you ignored every enemy and alerted the 3 strongest teams on the map to your presence (and you're right next to them) to get to the otherside only for the exit to disappear.

and then that weird escort mission with yamoto at the beginning of the 5th day with 2 incorrect objectives.

i'll ignore dubhe because he's technically beaten in a cutscene and you're just left picking up the pieces, but the 2nd day boss was irritating (it turns an huge area of the map into a dead zone, then sends out bombs to 2 specific places on the opposite side of the map from it, so you have to send out at least 2 of your 4 characters out there away from the boss to avoid a game over, since one char destroying a bomb let alone all of them is impossible. the enemies are particularly bad here and actually harder than the boss because of their movesets, and of course they have reinforcements)

day 3 boss was a gimmick where the boss was invincible unless it split in two, but it split in a very confined space in the map, and if you couldnt kill both parts in the same turn (because the confined space made it impossible to reach the right part with the right characters) it would fuse to invincible form for 2 or 3 turns again while it picks off your group from afar.

day 4 boss was elaborated on earlier, with the only reinforcements being the easily dealth with spawn portals and the impossible to deal with earthquake machines.

edited 12th Apr '12 10:44:19 AM by Tarsen

Oh.

That sounds like it'd be super frustrating.

also above all else hinako's dancing animation is horrendous and stiff.

how very dare they.

Amusingly enough, that was one of my problems too.

Honestly, a lot of the bosses in this game are actually pretty cool. Seeing as it's a strategy game, you're supposed to leverage the abilities your demons have to get the missions done. I'm guessing that you've either been not using them at all and trying to accomplish the objectives that are not "kill everything that isn't you or a civilian" or have not been using the demon abilities at all.

i would not have made it to friday if i hadnt used demon abilities at all.

winged flight is practically necessary for megrez, animal leg and devil speed are necessities for any stop the enemy from escaping missions, i refuse to leave the MC's party without a unique demon with Tyranny on it, and i make sure any team without a healing spell on it for whatever reason has a demon with a healing racial skill. particularly devotion.

honestly, ive never been all that smart when it comes to srpgs, and my first response is always to brute force it. my only saving grace are my preperations. but De Su has always made that a little harder for me, what with a shared skill pool n all. also, something that always bothers me is that you can have duplicates in your party. i dont think any other games in the franchise allows you to have 2 of the same demon at the same time. its so...easy to forget.

yes, i often try to accomplish the alternative objectives besides killing everything first, and i dont really see the problem with that- problem is both objectives often amount to the same thing because of the way the battle is meant to play out, and for some reason, i always enter these missions not expecting it to turn out that way. cue me being very exhausted by the end of the fight because of how easily things go wrong.

as for the stragetic bosses...i dont necessarily disagree there, but day 3 boss can screw you over just if you're unlucky, and i certainly wasnt expecting to immediately going from fighting ronaldo to fighting the day 3 boss with no break. the only concession the game makes is the ability to save scum. and thank god it retained that from the first game.

edited 12th Apr '12 11:45:48 AM by Tarsen

I'd like to mention that Lucifer has Anti-Almighty as a resistance in De Su 2 as well. So there is never a need to add one to him.

so almight resistance is an official thing now?

Look again. SATAN has almighty resistance, and is the only demon to have the skill naturally.

It also appears that Lucifer has an undisplayed innate resistance to Almighty attacks

Lilith and Satan both have Anti-Almighty via skills. Lucifer has it naturally.

edited 13th Apr '12 1:38:30 AM by OmegaRadiance

Haven't seen that anywhere, and I sure haven't seen that in game. Not that anyone's ever killed my Lucifer.

It mentions it on the very page you linked to.

blargh I learned that to get the Jumping Geezer rumor spread, you have to go back down Mt. K, spread it, fight it, and then go back up and fight the Longinus.