Shin Megami Tensei Series

To be honest, yeah, they're a really bad throwback to the first two games in IV.

They get better in Apocalypse, at least.

Indeed. They're fixed fights like in SMT Nocturne, but they're all in a Bonus Dungeon where you cannot run away from Random Encounters.

I'd say try for them: Red Rider and Trumpeter in particular are quite useful.

Thankfully, the Fiends in Shin Megami Tensei IV weren't a complete throwback to Shin Megami Tensei I, since their drops can be gotten 100% of the time, as opposed to having only a 1/256 chance of dropping the ultimate weapons.

Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse handled the Fiends quite a bit better, though using the Eternal Torus basically turns Twisted Tokyo into something like Demon's Souls where every cycle is permanently more difficult, with no way to reset things back to initial difficulty.

Yeah, there's a ton more demon-exclusive skills in Apocalypse, ala Nocturne, and all the Fiends have at least one each. They also are the only source for most of the Pierce skills.

Right. What's the verdict on the skill Silent Prayer (Negates stat buffs and de-buffs for allies and foes).

I assume that means it undoes any debuffs on allies and buffs on enemies then?

It completely resets stat changes for both allies and enemies. It's actually useful if you plan to fight Merkabah in SMT IV because Merkabah likes to spam Chariot (lowers agility of all enemies and deals Almighty damage), Luster Candy, and in his second form Shall Not Resist (random-target Almighty attack that decreases defense).

So if you don't do any stat changes to allies, it's pretty useful then, but if you buff yourself a lot (which you're supposed to be doing alongside de-buffing enemies) then it's an issue I take it?

I think Silent Prayer is most helpful against enemies that likes to buff themselves up a lot and frequently uses debuffing moves on you as well.

Correct. Merkabah, as I already mentioned, likes to do this.

Hmm.

I might get it, but keep it in reserve so I don't mess up my buffs.

Estoma works fine though,

As for silent prayer, I'd skip it, since you want to be spamming buffs and debuffs in pretty much every major fight.

Silent Prayer is one of those skills that's really unbalanced in favor of the enemy.

Alright. I'll leave it out then. Thanks.

Anniversary festivities are planned!

edited 13th Dec '16 10:38:51 AM by HamburgerTime

So until such time as I have enough money to both buy a 3DS and mod it to get the display on a bigger screen, SMTIV is beyond me.

In the meantime, I am wondering what SMT games deal most heavily with "Alignment"? I have some friends elsewhere who want to see me play the games to see what choices I make but the only SMT games I know about besides IV don't seem to deal much with alignment. Like, the Nocturne FAQ I glanced at says alignment is irrelevant and your choices don't effect it at all.

So...does that leave me with Strange Journey and that's it? Unless I want to get a translated rom of SMT 1 or 2?

edited 22nd Dec '16 4:45:46 PM by Nikkolas

You will not be disappointed by the alignment work in SJ. Do it do it do it do it!

You can also try a few of the spin-offs.

Oh hey, Atlus will announce a new game tomorrow, with art by Soejima, the character designer for Persona. It's a medieval fantasy, which apparently they're doing because they've made so many RPGs with contemporary settings that doing a classic Middle Ages one would be a twist for them! Here's what I presume is the heroine◊, who reminds me of Aigis a bit.

So it's not an SMT game?

Well, they haven't said it isn't but considering they seem to want to do something completely fresh, there's possibility.

Man. I better see this shit on the Switch.

It's apparently a completely new IP, unconnected to any prior projects.

Cool.

Again I say, they better Switch that shit.

edited 22nd Dec '16 5:57:11 PM by HandsomeRob

Inb 4 it's Last Bible 4.

Somebody in the discussion thread on r/megaten said that Team Maniax (does mainline SMT games) is rumored to be working on something too, but I'm not sure "Some guy on Reddit said so" is good enough for me.