Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne starts off slow but gets awesome later on. Digital Devil Saga is even worse in that regard, the entire first game is a complete Mind Screw and any legitimate answers have to wait for the second game. Raidou Kuzunoha Vs The Soulless Army is somewhat of a black sheep because the combat system is more action-oriented. If you can look past that and the sometimes intentionally campy plot, it's nice as well.
Nocturne was my first SMT game, and it's one of the best dungeon crawls ever made. DDS is quite good, too, but I think I prefer the Mons-style party building in the core SMT series than the limited pool of party members you get in DDS.
That isn't to say that DDS doesn't allow you to customize; you will forever be tinkering with your mantras until you make Serph into an unstoppable monstrosity that shoves every enemy into his craw. Mmmm.
"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." - E. Gary GygaxThe PS 2 Devil Summoner's action system is very awkward. I did stick with the game and actually quote enjoyed it, but the combat system didn't start working until the second game.
Yeah, the best things about Devil Summoner are its atmosphere, music, and (to a lesser degree though Im not far) story. Battle system is eh.
Oh, and the bathhouse fight was great too.
Taking a break from FE1, for the FE8 draft insteadKind of a new Persona player here.
Played 3 for a while until I reached, I dunno, I forgot.
Currently playing 4 and I'm a few days before the fight with Shadow Yukiko and I'm trying my best to balance Social Links and actual grinding.
Any advice for a newbie like me? Oh, and I mostly bought 4 because I heard good things about it and the parody webcomic by Hiimdaisy, thus ruining my ability to take things seriously without thinking about that comic. :P
edited 11th Oct '10 10:43:22 PM by MrPastry
It's more frustrating waiting for the asskicking than the asskicking itself.Which is a shame, funny as the comic is I found Persona 4 to be one of the most thought provoking games I've ever played.
Big tip: when the Fox social link is available you'd better be all over that shit...really.
Taking a break from FE1, for the FE8 draft insteadI was joking about the lack of ability to take Persona 4 seriously. My mind just kind of flashes back to that comic when it comes to the familiar scenes.
Useless note: I did like Teddie's voice from the comic dub better than his official voice, but that's useless crap no one cares about.
edited 11th Oct '10 11:02:36 PM by MrPastry
It's more frustrating waiting for the asskicking than the asskicking itself.^^^^Shadow Yukiko is ridiculously hard for a first major boss, so don't get discouraged if she nails you a couple times. You should be a bare minimum of level 15 before you fight her (and if it's your first playthrough, your Persona collection won't be the greatest, so you might want to try for ~lv. 18-19). An Orobas or Senri is a good choice for a Persona against her. See if you can find something with Red Wall, it'll prevent S.Y. from exploting Chie's weakness constantly with goddamn Burn to Ashes.
If you want to max as many S. Links as you can, you'll want to minimize the time you spend in the TV; if you're doing a "normal" run and want to max most but not necessarily all of the S. Links, you probably want to spend 3 days in the TV per level; two for advancing and grinding, and one for fighting the boss.
Shuffle Times are your friend and you should always accept them (unless you get a terrible hand with something like 4 Penalty Cards and 1 Persona Card). If you don't want new Personae, just aim for the blanks. Getting a Persona Card or Blank Card may qualify you for an Arcana Chance, which are great (though risky) ways of restoring your SP.
Judgment will restore all your SP if you get an upright and reduce it by half if you get reverse. Death is riskier; reduce to 1 HP but gain max SP if upright, and vice versa if reversed, it'll also transport you out of the dungeon in each case. These are both great effects, but you should obviously only use them when your SP is starting to run low.
Remember to register Personas when you leave dungeons if you like their moveset but want to fuse them. Also remember that if you don't like the skills a Persona will inherit through fusion, you can always back out and re-select to shuffle the abilities.
Finally, once you get into the late 30s-early 40s, start training a Pazuzu or Yatagarasu—they learn Cool Breeze, which is an immensely useful skill that restores 8% of Brotag's HP and SP after every battle. Then start fusing Cool Breeze onto every Persona that you possibly can.
edited 12th Oct '10 1:33:07 AM by PsychoYoshi
^^^^^^ I've been playing Strange Journey on and off recently. I'm preparing for Ouroborus right now. I'm gunning for the Neutral ending at the moment.
Black Frost is a bit of a Game-Breaker at the moment, I find.
My Megaman and MegaTen RPG Liveblogs^^
seriously? lvl19? iirc, shouldnt you only be around lvl10 at the end of the first dungeon without unnecessary grinding? she's not that hard.
just get any persona which nulls fire and then just make chie guard. takes less preparation, may take a while if you cant figure out when guarding isnt necessary, but if you're actually having trouble still, you should only need to grind 1 or 2 levels...
edited 12th Oct '10 8:21:59 AM by Tarsen
^I think monsters max out at around 14-15 in Yukiko's Castle, so I'd think your party would at least be around there, especially considering P4's scaling EXP gain. I'm also out of the Dragon Warrior school of RPG gaming, so I'm one of those weirdos who doesn't have an issue with grinding, but to each their own.
^^Black Frost is indeed great; pretty much any of the Cross/Pentagram/Hex fusion Personas are god-tier, especially Trumpeter and Yoshitsune. If you manage to do a cascade so that you can fuse Reflect Physical onto Trumpeter, he's capable of wiping the floor with pretty much any of the end-game bosses, especially with Debilitate/Mind Charge/Cool Breeze or Invigorate 3/Ziodyne. Yoshi can take down pretty much anything that isn't immune to physical with Hassou Tobi; Arms Master makes him even more powerful. There's also Victory Cry, but I personally think it makes the game quite boring.
edited 12th Oct '10 1:45:45 PM by PsychoYoshi
decided to go back and continue persona 2 innocent sin...from the beginning (im slapping myself as i type), and something has started to bother me...
in this game rumors become reality right? well, in the beginning theres several mentions of rumors, like hannya remarking about how tatsuya is the rumored problem student, theres a rumor concerning his father (and you hear it from someone who obviously dislikes tatsuya, so it wouldnt be that hard to believe he just made it up), and then theres the less important stuff like rumors of eikichi pulling down underpants in elementry school, which is how he became the leader of his gang, and i think there was one concerning lisa...
its kinda making me wonder if those rumors affected the protagonists backstories and maybe personalities by the start of the game
I still need to finish SJ. The Final boss is a bitch (going for law). I've also been playing Persona 2: Innocent Sin, and I'm in the bomb shelter. Friggen bomb shelter...
Taking a break from FE1, for the FE8 draft insteadi got to the part where hitler invades japan, at around lvl39 before quiting cause fighting got really slow...
the part im dreading most of all on the way back is getting 3 fool tarot cards, which is hard even with save states, and then theres the whole "win at bingo just once and win more money than you'll ever need" affair...
eikichi is awesome.
edited 16th Oct '10 2:03:00 PM by Tarsen
I got to mid-January in P 3 P two months ago and I haven't been able to bring myself to finish the game. Yeah.
I also got a used PS 2 just for Persona 4. I'm open to trying some of the other SMT games, but they all seem to be impossible to buy used. I still have to order Persona 4 first.
edited 24th Oct '10 3:19:06 PM by Jace
Biophilic bookworm by day, gentleman adventurer by night.Yea, that's the unfortunate part of Mega Ten. I got lucky with a handful of them in the past, but sometimes I've had to really hunt to get games in the series.
@Hashil: Yeah, the drinks at the bar give you a temporary boost to your stats until the next New/Full moon (I forget).
http://www.last.fm/user/BlueGhost60

I've properly completed Persona 4, then 3. I am about halfway through Episode Aigis. Are there any other good PS 2 SMT games?
Requiem ~ September 2010 - October 2011 [Banned 4 Life]