Topic: Shin Megami Tensei... a most interesting game franchise

Posted under Off Topic

i've got 2 games right now from gamefly. Digital Devil Saga 2 and Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon (that title certainly is a mouthful)

and while the music is...well, it gets pretty annoying after a while (why are these BGM tracks so annoying? ESPECIALLY in DDS2!).

on the other hand, i find it quite interesting how pretty much all of the demons you encounter throughout the various games tend to be from actual mythology and religion (yes yes, i know touchy topic here but bear with me). pretty much, any name of a demon or fiend or angel or whatever else you find in the games, you can google and find a good bit of info about them.

this one i just encountered in Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon for example.

Binbou-Gami, it turns out that not only is he a fiend but hes also a spirit of poverty and when he possesses a person or their house the inhabitants would suffer terrible luck and misfortune such as the residents becoming ill.

which makes sense too, since in the game these 2 guys wearing masks literally drain the luck out of the protagonist which in turn gets Binbou-Gami's attention. that is NOT a good fight since all your attacks miss in that fight and comes down to luck...either you run around and dodge his attack (when he eventually decides to attack, the lazy...so-and-so) and survive or he hits you and you lose.

oh and this particular SMT game even features the 4 horsemen (white, black, red, and the pale rider). yeah...those fiends are gonna be tough when i eventually get to them.

so yeah, aside from the annoying music they're pretty good games.

...thankfully neither these 2 nor the previous 2 games have you fighting something like YHVH as the final boss. ಠ_ಠ now THAT is a battle of luck. though...i doubt the super boss of DDS2 (satan) will be any different from YHVH. those aren't just super bosses, they are literal no-win luck based fights.

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My only SMT game experience has been Persona 3 Portable and right now Persona 4 Golden. And those both have some really good music with lyrics that is super easy to misshear.

Personas outside of your first did seem like they weren't made for the game specifically, but them being mythical creatures which artwork and models are recycled from SMT games it starts to make sense.

Updated by anonymous

I played SMT:I(the mmo game) when the English servers were up, it was hella fun and got me interested in the series.

Also this thing is a canon demon thing which amuses me:
post #72133

Updated by anonymous

Chaser said:
I played SMT:I(the mmo game) when the English servers were up, it was hella fun and got me interested in the series.

Also this thing is a canon demon thing which amuses me:
post #72133

who in their right mind would make figurine of that thing?

me, i've got my eyes set on a certain knight in shining armor in that devil summoner 2 game. but hes probably high lvl so hes still a ways off (maybe via fusion?). ah, here he is. Tam Lin

and Cu Chulainn wow, squareenix really let you go. your nothing like the big green fatty of FF games. or maybe i'm missing a part of his background.

that aside...i never actually got to try the mmo while it was out. :( such a shame but that's life, only fair in that we get to exist. beyond that we're on our own.

Mario69 said:
My only SMT game experience has been Persona 3 Portable and right now Persona 4 Golden. And those both have some really good music with lyrics that is super easy to misshear.

Personas outside of your first did seem like they weren't made for the game specifically, but them being mythical creatures which artwork and models are recycled from SMT games it starts to make sense.

yeah, i've got some of the tracks for persona 4 and it has some good music. though that's likely due to them being actual songs and not just BGM set to a short repeating loop.

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hmmm...kageboushi... O.O that's what comes once the 4 horsemen have been defeated? this is the fiend, Kageboushi? http://megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/Kageboushi a doppleganger? well...i suppose...yeah, it's dangerous and all but...i kinda thought it'd be something worse. i mean, it appears after the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse have fallen. how could i not expect something truly horrifying?

still...it'll be lvl 75 with just a tiny bit over 7k hp with some pretty high lvl abilities as well as coming as any of 3 different forms. sure, that's powerful and all but...dopplegangers don't frighten me tbh. it's little more than fighting a mirror in cases where such a creature would mimic you in every possible way.

if you know yourself well enough to beat yourself in a fight and the copy uses no extra powers then what have you, the presumed victim, to fear of a mirror? especially if said mirror is wielding no special abilities beyond your own.

OR i could just grind till lvl 80+, fuse and call forth Lucifer and bring forth a hellish smackdown onto the mirror. that'd work too.

Updated by anonymous

Mario69 said:
My only SMT game experience has been Persona 3 Portable and right now Persona 4 Golden. And those both have some really good music with lyrics that is super easy to misshear.

Personas outside of your first did seem like they weren't made for the game specifically, but them being mythical creatures which artwork and models are recycled from SMT games it starts to make sense.

Ah, I remember beating the boss of the penultimate section of Tartarus.

And then my PS3 died while I was playing.

Yeah, next playthrough was on Easy.

Oh by the way while it's relevant by Peachifruit

Updated by anonymous

Well damn, I only played the Persona sub-series (P4Golden, Arena Ultimax, and... -Thump thump- P5 when it releases~).

I freaking love the series and I feel bad for missing SMTIV when it launched on 3DS. JRPG's are my shit! Especially since it sabbles in mythology. :3

Updated by anonymous

*enters random battle in DDS2* YAY! it's another round of Omoikane quiz time! :) wonder if i can get one or more correct this time. got 3 correct 1 time and came out of the fight with a nice 90k money.

aw...nothing this time. :( but at least it's not like the first DDS game where you actually had to kill him to win. this time it's more a game of chance.

Updated by anonymous

I've never play'd the actual SMT series besides two spin-offs.

I took a liking to the Persona series, even though the ally AI was a little lacking on Persona 3 that was fixed on golden. I didn't have any complaints for Persona 4.

Besides the Persona spin off one that really surprised me was SMT Devil Survivor series. Even though it was a rather side project of theirs it turned out to be a rather fun game even though it gets rather repetitive and there's not a whole lot of soundtracks. Devil survivor overclocked and Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker were pretty fun to play.

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Just_Another_Dragon said:
I took a liking to the Persona series, even though the ally AI was a little lacking on Persona 3

The story never really accounted for how fucking stupid Mitsuru was in-game

Always trying to romance the monsters instead of actually helping

Updated by anonymous

i wonder what the final bosses were like in the persona games. in DDS2 it's Brahman from the buddhist hierarchy of deities and stuff. with the final super boss being Satan

not sure which is worse tbh, satan or the demifiend from the 1st DDS game.

5 different forms...Brahman won't be that easy either. still, it beats fighting the likes of satan, the demifiend, or YHVH. any fight with those guys is a battle of luck largely since every turn has a risk of them pulling an instant death move that can nuke the whole party instantly. in the case of the former 2 of the 3, you can't use any "Null" skills or rings as that will trigger said death move instantly as a pre-emptive strike when the battle begins.

yeah...Atlus made the super bosses of the DDS game extremely OP and VERY hard to beat. the demifiend alone is claimed by some to be the hardest super boss ever. http://megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/Demi-fiend you can see his stats down at the bottom of the page. that gaea rage is the killer move i was talking about.

...actually, comparing the stats and whatnot...satan might be the worst. 4 forms with 30k hp each and each form has a ton of skills, voids some damage types, and even reflects some damage. O_O wtf atlus? and hes only on NG+ hard mode which means you take more damage than in normal mode...gonna need a LOT of data items before trying him.

oddly enough though, you CAN Null the sleep status effect and as long as he doesn't use Calm Death, your characters will dodge anything he throws at them and i mean ANYTHING. it's some freaky sleep related skill that gives a 100% dodge rate on all but 1-2 attacks.

Updated by anonymous

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