|
Post by toei on Mar 2, 2024 19:13:01 GMT -5
Man, that's a major beat right there. Almost 70 hours, and it sounds like you loved it. It was always obvious that SMT as a whole had crazy potential and had something special going on, but I haven't yet played one that really lives up to it. Sounds like this one (and maybe SMT3) are it. I might even like this one better, being that it's less dungeon-like and has visible enemies. So maybe one day I'll play it. I'd like to beat at least one game in that series this year, maybe the first Persona 2 if I like the dungeons enough, or Last Bible III (though that almost doesn't count, being much more standard fantasy).
|
|
|
Post by Xeogred on Mar 2, 2024 19:24:40 GMT -5
Man, that's a major beat right there. Almost 70 hours, and it sounds like you loved it. It was always obvious that SMT as a whole had crazy potential and had something special going on, but I haven't yet played one that really lives up to it. Sounds like this one (and maybe SMT3) are it. I might even like this one better, being that it's less dungeon-like and has visible enemies. So maybe one day I'll play it. I went in optimistic and hoping I'd still like some other SMT's a ton after SMT3. But yeah this one surprised me more than once along the way and surpassed expectations. I kind of like how SMT is still a little low key too, by that I mean you can go in extra blind into this series. Now that I'm looking up some end game stuff or alternate route situations, the internet for once doesn't seem to have all the answers. I see very barren GameFAQ's posts that are like "I don't know, I never finished that quest or found out how" haha.
Especially for you well versed in DQ, this one definitely made me think of some of those games at a certain point. How it pulls the rug out from you in an awesome way.
And yeah, going backwards for me hasn't worked out too well with SMT haha. I respect the legacy and the old games have such a cool vibe. But man oh man, gameplay wise they cracked the code on turn based perfection with SMT3/SMT4. I also still think both those Digital Devil Saga games were quite good and up there among top shelf PS2 JRPG's that I've played. But yeah these two mainline entries and the whole demon recruiting/fusing stuff is on another level.
Also one for the record books, there was an English dub here and at first I was pretty bummed. But I got over it fast and the English was pretty solid for my tastes, which can be pretty picky with anime styled JRPG's at this point haha. I wonder if Apocalypse or the newer ones are dual audio...
|
|
|
Post by Ex on Mar 2, 2024 22:47:14 GMT -5
XeogredNice write up, I read it all, even though I was fearing spoilers. Thankfully you didn't do that. Sounds like SMT4 is even better than SMT3 in ways, but I really enjoyed the stark isolation, ruminating solitude vibe of SMT3. If SMT4's world is more NPC filled and busy with social interaction, that's not better in my opinion. Ultimately it's the fair and well designed challenge of SMT that entices me, and from what you wrote SMT4 sounds like that aspect remained intact. The demon fusing is fun, but I'm not as crazy about it as you. The stiff no-nonsense difficulty is what made SMT3 sing for me and if SMT4 is on that level, all for it. Also a killer OST never hurts of course! I wonder if Apocalypse or the newer ones are dual audio... I hope you play Soul Hackers before Apocalypse, I'd really appreciate your informed opinion of that one. SMT3* is an absolutely amazing JRPG, one of the top 10 I've ever played (and finished). But I doubt you would like it. I say that because it's nothing like any of the JRPGs I've seen you praise in the past. Other than SMT3 has a fast combat system (I know you like that). I'm not trying to dissuade you from playing SMT3, I definitely hope you do, but I'd be surprised if you enjoyed it. *I'm talking about the original version, not the remake version.
|
|
|
Post by Xeogred on Mar 2, 2024 22:57:13 GMT -5
Yeah, SMT3 made me think of stuff like Demon's Souls and Silent Hill. It was fairly horror adjacent and I loved that about it. Wouldn't change a thing.
SMT4 is like, Escape From New York. There's nothing pretty about it and it's a brutal world but not quite as mysterious or surreal. But I'm sure if you play SMT4 someday you'll appreciate what it goes for on its own strengths. Now that I've knocked out a few SMT's before I got to this one, the series makes me lean more and more towards chaos/evil routes because these worlds aren't fair and I'm not gambling completely on RNG/luck, nah I'm going to decimate these demons and evil humans in my path without a second thought. I might be the villain in these now. Survival of the fittest! I was already on that trajectory but I do think SMT4's setting and such helped me lean into that fully haha. There was some dark stuff in the end game indeed though.
Also the challenge could be subjective on this one and I think most people could probably easily knock it out around 40 hours. Even less doesn't seem too crazy. That said yeah if people try to burn through it faster, could be a lot tougher in spots I bet. I on the other hand had a constant influx of powerful demons, good equipment, etc...
I played some more Strange Journey tonight and can probably keep going with it even now, since it's so different. This one I might try to beat faster than my SMT norm though, but who knows. It NOT having the Press Turn system is still pretty interesting, that definitely changes a lot. Can't except to get extra turns from simply hitting enemies with their weakness. Hmmm...
After Strange Journey I think I'd check out Soul Hackers next.
|
|
|
Post by toei on Mar 3, 2024 6:24:15 GMT -5
I'm also interested in another take on Soul Hackers... out of the '90s SMT, I'm still rooting for that one to be good. What little I've seen of its story and setting are really appealing to me. But if it just gets tedious like SMT 1 & 2 after a while, I won't bother.
|
|
|
Post by Ex on Mar 3, 2024 12:01:47 GMT -5
It was fairly horror adjacent I agree SMT3 is horror adjacent. Never thought of it like that, but upon retrospection absolutely. if it just gets tedious like SMT 1 & 2 after a while I loved the first third of Soul Hackers, started enjoying it less the second third, and the final third was just a grindy boring slog. The one constantly good thing it had going was its OST.
|
|
|
Post by toei on Mar 3, 2024 13:00:43 GMT -5
The whole Megami Tensei franchise absolutely started as horror-adjacent. Some of them kind of normalize the whole demon aspect (within their fictional worlds) to the point that it doesn't feel that way anymore, but yeah, there's some horror imagery in all the older games for sure.
|
|
|
Post by Xeogred on Mar 3, 2024 13:49:17 GMT -5
Funny enough I watched the Demon Slayer anime recently. The demon stuff it does is pretty similar to SMT. But it was amusing to go through that while playing SMT4 and ultimately, SMT4's story/world is a lot better and has me wishing something like it existed in anime form. I know there's some weird OVA's and I've seen one or two, but yeah.
It's kind of a dynamic I like that DQ leans into every once in awhile. Not all demons are bad and how they have settings where humans and demons have to coexist usually. More of a co-op existence in the SMT worlds, seems like the dying human civilizations just have to accept that demons roam the land. That said they always seem to use the player avatar as being like the first human who may or may not befriend demons and understand them more. With DQ I think the demon stuff is a bit simpler, it's just some big bad trying to take over the world and rule everything haha.
Kind of funny to say all that when I'm ultra sick of the "gray line" stuff in modern Hollywood/entertainment. But in games it's cool when SMT/DQ kind of lean into that stuff.
List of games I think would be cool to have anime installments of: - Front Mission - Armored Core - Xenosaga/Xenoblade (the Xenosaga OVA is pretty solid actually, but it only covers a mere fraction of the first game) - Shin Megami Tensei
This reminds me the Zone of the Enders anime was actually kind of awesome. The main character was like a middle aged space trucker. I probably got more fun out of that than the two games...
|
|
|
Post by toei on Mar 3, 2024 14:28:16 GMT -5
Yokai and so on in Japanese mythology have always been like that, so it's natural for series like DQ and SMT to do that. They range from horrible demons to just mischievous or even friendly. Like the foxes that transform into humans to play tricks on people. It's just a game to them.
Reminds me of the Oni in Shiren 2 - they periodically come round to destroy the human's village because they think destruction is the height of fun, and obviously they're inconsiderate of the humans' feelings... but their malice ends there. They're bad, but they could be worse, and some of them are even capable of understanding that there's better things in life than destroying stuff.
|
|
|
Post by toei on Apr 8, 2024 6:10:44 GMT -5
In 2021, I dropped ...iru! after making it pretty far into the game. Iru (or "they're here") is '98 PSX horror adventure game that had then just been fan translated, in which a small group of Japanese high school students staying after classes to prepare the School Festival find themselves trapped in the building along with a few staff members. Pretty soon, the lights go out, people start acting strange, and monsters even appear from other realms to devour people. While I liked the first-person 3D aesthetic then, I think I like it even more now. It's great, and it works to make the atmosphere creepy, despite danger of death being low (there's a few points where you have to hide, but they're very easy and far between). What I hated on my first attempt was that I seemed to have to run all over the place and check every room just to trigger every little event to move the game forward. I ran out of patience and dropped it, but for over a year now, I think, I sort of had in mind that maybe I could finish it. The game is pretty short - HLTB says 3 hours, but that's a lie (not without a guide!), it's more like 4h30 to 5h00 - so I just started over from the beginning. And this time, it clicked. I didn't find progress so tedious at all; in reality, the handful of NPCs that can be found at any given time tend to stick to a small number of specific rooms, so most of the time you just have to check those rooms and you can mostly guess who to talk to next. When that's not the case, whatever event you need to trigger is most often in the nearest unlocked room. I don't know why I sort of didn't get the way the game is supposed to flow last time, but I've played several Japanese adventure games since, so I'm sure it helped. There was only one occasion where I really had to search the whole place, late in the game, which granted was annoying. In the beginning it's mostly just walking around and talking to people or triggering story scenes, but in the later half the focus switches to exploration and simple puzzles. While the story is nothing wild on paper (the whole Lovecraftian Japanese high school thing), I like the multi-character approach, where you can piece things together through witnessing various little scenes throughout the school. It's really the story of what happened at that school that night, rather than the story of the protagonist. I got the bad ending at first, which is honestly quite stupid as it hinges on missing a door right before the end and obtaining the right items from that room. They might as well not have included it, but I guess "multiple endings!" is a selling point for some people.
So yeah, my mind has changed about this game - it's actually a pretty cool little horror game. I'll give ***.
Coincidentally, the game takes place on the night of a Lunar Eclipse, and we're getting the big Solar Eclipse today.
|
|