Shin Megami Tensei Series

Metatron's theme is exactly what you'd expect from a giant robot angel

I do have to say, while it is probably the better game, and I appreciate the voice-acting in SJR, every time I see demons in it that were also in Nocturne, it just makes me miss their Nocturne selves.

Like Thor. I love Nocturne Thor, his look and his voice. And Clotho? I wanted her in my party always for "Elegant!"

Mother Harlot was prety great, too with the cup drinking animation.

I never did finish my run of Nocturne Hard Type... I should get around to that.

Edited by Nikkolas on Apr 3rd 2019 at 11:46:31 AM

I wonder if they will make Stephen the villain in SMTV? Apoc gave us an evil Neutral route and I for one got the distinct impression Stephen was an evil, or at best, amoral, being. Everything about SMT makes me think of FFXII for some reason and SMT Neutral is basically championed by Dr. Cid and Vayne:

Cid: And lo! How brightly burned their lanthorn! Casts it back the shadow of Occurian design! Testament that Man's history shall be His alone!

Balthier: You made your nethicite for this. You mimic the Occuria's Stone for what? To become a god yourself?

Cid: On whose shoulders better to stand than those of the would-be gods!

Vayne: Ivalice will know a new Dynast-King, and Man will keep his own history! The Tyranny of the gods is ended! We are their puppets no more! The freedom for which we have longed is at hand!

So long as Humanity flourishes in some form, Stephen doesn't seem to much care about what happens. Unlike Venat, he'd be totally okay with a human tyrant replacing a nonhuman one. He could totally support a more high-end Jack's Squad for example with them being the apparent villains most of the game but Stephen is of course the puppetmaster because, so long as humans are in charge, they can do whatever they want.

Gotta say, while it was insanely frustrating at the time, the final Alex fight was the first challenge in a long time. Also it was a real challenge unlike Pillar Zelenin. I thought it was BS how Apoc Merkabah can just instakill one demon when he feels like it but Zelenin can kill the entire party if she feels like it and not a damned thing you can do about it. I only won with pure luck. She gets one random weakness after this BS move and she got a Phys weakness so Thor and Madness Crush pretty much depleted half her healthbar so she had only a sliver left.

Alex meanwhile, despite me being Level 77 when I challenged her, was a nightmare. I grinded up to Level 78 so I could get Huang Long. Even with Life Surge and something like 850 HP Alex seems to do over 700 damage with her move. She kills everyone but him in one hit unless debuffed and you are buffed. Good luck taking that move right after the other guy uses Megidolaeon. Two unblockable, irresistible attacks right after each other. You die. I finally learned why that one annoying demon existed, though. So he could buff her and be my primary target when I start this boss fight. I knew if I could just kill him I should win and I did. It just took so many attempts to do this because my buffers/debuffers had no goddamn HP. I had neglected this and just focused on offense with my best demons. So with Huang Long I made sure to give him Luster Candy and Debilitate. Helps he's also decently fast, which was another reason I kept dying be cause my demons were all too slow.

Again Space Marine proved to be worthless as a fighter. I forwent a healer demon for much of t he fight , just using my huge store of Bead Chains, Chakra Pots, etc. Team was Kartikeya who had Debilitate and was my only fast demon, Thor with Madness Crush and Long. Oh and Volvo once the debuffing was done I think I brought out Lakshmi later on when I had killed the annoying demon just to be safe and avoid dying .... She had Life Surge and Enduring Soul.

I wanted a near full team of Chaos demons though because I refused to buy the app that lets you do Co-Ops with demons of any alignment. That's dumb and defeats a core mechanic of the game. Which brings me to a sort of criticism of SJR. You get apps to warn you of traps, to tell you where teleporters go, etc.. Am I grateful? Absolutely. But isn't it a bit...shameless? You neuter your own gimmicks and basically admit "we fucked up." I dunno.

Overall thoughts are I never gave SJ enough credit for its writing. It has a lot more effort put into its world and characters than either Nocturne or IV. Jimenez and Zelenin are certainly better than Walter and Jonathan. My biggest complaint is you have no interactions with them outside of plot. Why can I talk to Kato all game but not Jimenez who I am supposedly very tight with? Jimenez is the true benefactor of SJR. A great voice really helped. Same for all the demons too, actually. Horkos, Asura and Tiamat were my favorite. I had Tiamat in my party right up to the end.

My current rank of SMT/Persona games:

IV Apocalypse > P4 Golden > P2 Innocent Sin > Devil Survivor 2 > Strange Journey Redux > Nocturne > Devil Survivor 1 > P3 FES > P2 Eternal Punishment > P5 > DDS 1

Edited by Nikkolas on Apr 6th 2019 at 2:02:58 AM

So, your Space Marine was an Item Caddy all this time? That's a bummer. My character on New Chaos path was a fairly good damage dealer with Chaos gun from Mara, despite me having Luck growth module.

If you decide to go for new endings, there is something you should know - new final boss uses a shield that reflects damage from a specific alignment. For example, if it uses a red shield, Chaos-aligned demons and Space Marine can't damage it. The key of defeating it is perseverance and variety of demons (in terms of alignment).

I also had Luck Module. SM is best as an item caddy because using items has absolute priority so you have 100% guarantee of getting off whatever you need to get off first. I initially tried using my own Gun Attack on the annoying demon but that strategy got me killed a lot so I just settled on healing while letting Volvo and Grand Piercer + Co-Op do the rest. She did way. way more anyway. (I was using Reaper Colt, I never met Mara)

I was some help against Zelenin. I have the sword the Devas give you that can hit several times so I got Crits and subsequent Co-Op attacks.

Also I neat Alice and it said I unlocked her but she never showed up in my Special Fusions list at all.

Oh, crap! I accidentally gave you the right recipe for Alice, but from Apocalypse! Apologies. You need an app called Fiend Converter. Here, let me give you something to help you fuse her: https://aqiu384.github.io/megaten-fusion-tool/smtdsj/demons/Alice/fissions .

Oh well that makes sense. I only ever fused Matador but I remember Fiend Converter. Makes Genma into Fiends. The only Fiend I never beat was the Rider before Trumpeter. I forget who that was.

Thanks for the link though, I'll keep it in mind for future runs.

Out of curiosity, what was the best skill mutation you ever got in SJR? I got Debilitate and Big Bang both around Level 60 or so. It was crazy. I got Salvation a little later.

But my next goal is to play Apocalypse again on the eponymous difficulty. I'm nervous since there is no going back but I'm gonna try. Here's h oping NG+ helps, even though I of course chose New Life instead of Reincarnation. I also wanna go ahead with my plan to be a...I guess you could call it specialist, only using certain elemental attacks and armors.

Also I had an idea when I first played the game but never did it. In order to max out skill levels, down-fuse a high-level demon with that great skill you share into a low-level demon who will level up after just one fight or something. This seems like a quick and easy way to raise power and lower MP cost.

luster candy on a bufuidyne for king frost around eridanus. I'll let you process around whatl evel it probalby happene, cause I don't remember myself.

Ishtar getting salvation was pretty good too.

Second form of Babel kicks my ass. That's what I get for relying too much on MC. Grinding a bit to level up the rest of the party and fuse better demons.

That's a lot of stuff to do over again. The first form and fights to get to him then all the Bels? Ugh, I can't imagine it.

Salvation on Ishtar is pretty amazing.

Edited by Nikkolas on Apr 6th 2019 at 4:22:00 AM

@ Arctic Dog 18 and Nikkolas: Another thing about the new final boss of SJR's new alignment endings is that it has two phases and it only uses that alignment-specific shield during the second phase. The boss also gains enormous resistance to all attacks including Almighty during phase two, but also gets a crippling weakness to Demon Co-op attacks. The alignment shield can also be bypassed by having Space Marine use his turn to use the Spearhead command skill, which lets your demons ignore all physical resistances for that turn. The forma that grants you it is a worthy reward for completing the Demonee-Ho Boot Camp sidequest.

Edited by CybranGeneralSturm on Apr 6th 2019 at 4:28:15 AM

For both of my SMT 4 and Apocalypse, I always went for Gun/Support build (Mediarahan, Luster Candy or Debilitate and sometimes Doping). It was fun, especially in Apocalypse. Turned Trumpeter in Twisted Tokyo into Swiss cheese in no time.

I was thinking about that, yeah. I think a big problem I had on my Apoc run was I was all Phys damage. If I had some buffs or debuffs of my own, it might have been easier.

Spearhead is pretty great. Shame I was never high enough level to summon the actual d demon testing you or the final Womb of Grief Wardens.

Speaking of which, they never explain what the Womb of Grief is and what the Fruits do. Random demons in it say it's a prison, and they're all Chaos-aligned, but that's not really anything. Maybe it's explained in the new routes.

Do new routes get the Alex fight and then Mem Aleph then the Three Wise Men? Is it the same two forms of MA from the regular game? Do you still fight Pillar Zelenin too in New Chaos?

Also, random question. Is there a Dark equivalent to Anubis' Judgment Light? I didn't find one in SJ but I mean just in general, in any game.

I think Die For Me! is the closest.

Edited by Cross on Apr 6th 2019 at 9:32:28 AM

In New Chaos, you fight Mem Aleph (both forms), Pillar Zelenin and the new final boss, which is Fusion Dance of Three Wise Men. Won't spoil it what the fusion is named. Also, you get a new dungeon to get through (you fight Zelenin there).

I know about Sheknah. It's all very confusing, Mastema, Zelenin and the res t constantly talk about YHVH and doing what he tells them but he's not around in SJ as far as I know.

Also in Apoc, can you learn unique demon skills? I'm guessing not but I can't remember.

You cannot get unique skills exclusive to certain demons, but I think you can inherit Desperate Hit.

Nope. You can't learn Desperate Hit from Demonee-ho in Apocalypse. I tried. The same goes for Blank Bullet.

Well then, I stand corrected. That is odd since Flynn could get Desperate Hit from Demon Whisper, but not Nanashi.

Edited by CybranGeneralSturm on Apr 6th 2019 at 7:44:13 AM

Shekinah is YHWH in all but name

Yeah. Much like Yaldabaoth IS YHVH in SMT NINE which is where P5s use of him comes from, as it takes place between 1-2 and they constantly refer to him as Lord and God.

So Sheknah is the God Mastema and co. follow in SJ?

What of the Demiurge subplot and EX Mission t then?

Pieces of Shekinah.

She got restored to full power by absorbing the demons guarding the gruits.

Also my current SMT/Persona game rankings are:

Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse

Persona 4 Golden

Persona 2 Innocent Sin

Strange Journey Redux

Devil Survivor 2

Nocturne

Devil Survivor 1

Persona 3 FES

Persona 2 Eternal Punishment

Shin Megami Tensei IV

Persona 5

Digital Devil Saga 1 (the only one I just quit)

It's best to think of them in tiers; I like the first three quite a bit more than the next three but SJR, De Su 2 and Nocturne are still great. I also liked De Su 1, P3 and P 2 EP. It's the last three where I would say my dislike outweighs my praise.

Edited by Nikkolas on Apr 6th 2019 at 9:53:25 AM