Megaten megathread

christoffing

Dang, @Auberji said everything I said much more succinctly

LeFish

kory Out of those two I would definitely start with Nocturne. SJ Redux is a bit more welcoming than the original but is hard as balls whereas Nocturne, whilst hard is also a bit easier to digest at the start.

My biggest tip for all SMT games but especially Nocturne is that buffs/debuffs really matter so use them. One of the earliest bosses was infamous for being extremely difficult if you didn’t use them (oh, hi subtle tutorial) and a lot of people gave up on the game without engaging with the battle system properly. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still difficult even if you engage with it and use the correct counterskills, and you will probably die / curse when it happens but it’s at that moment for me when everything just clicked.

They’re all hard games no matter how you look at it but my other tip is to use your magatamas (collectable/ equippable passive buffs/debuffs + skills - only one equippable at a time) wisely as they will often save you in areas where there are enemies with instakill skills. I think that the remaster has a save-anywhere feature so this should be less of an issue than the original but worth bearing in mind. Similarly its important as the game goes on to build an MC and party that can passively counter as many elements as well as dish them out in order to exploit the brilliant press-turn system (exploiting a weakness / critical hitting gives you an extra turn and missing / countering an elemental weakness makes you / enemies lose a turn).

Also no spoilers but keep the pixie that you get at the start, and keep track of which demon(s) you fuse them into (and their descendants) for a cool, missable reward.

Karasu

kory I think Nocturne might be a good choice because they’ve added in more difficulty levels. I’d recommend being open to drop the difficulty down if you run into a wall (or just to start with) because this whole series tends to be pretty punishing. I’m pretty sure you can change difficulty at will on most of the more modern games.

Creekgrin

I’ve played Nocturne and IV, of the two I ended up liking Nocturne more, though I’m glad I played IV first because it had a better introduction and smoother on-ramp into the series’ tougher mechanics. The new Nocturne remaster has some of those I heard (manual skill assignment in demon fusion and easier difficulty) so I can’t wait to see so many people new to the franchise experiencing the melodramatic myth with the rest of us!

P.S. post your favorite demon designs in this thread

yeso

kory echoing recommendation for nocturne. And everything everyone said about buffs/debuffs, exploiting weaknesses (and avoiding being vulnerable yourself), and item use and mgmt being critical

treefroggy

Persona 5 Royal with Cheese

thebryanjzx90

Reading on The GIA that Sony was unilaterally canceling the English release of Soul Hackers was probably the angriest I’ve ever gotten over a video game.

But at the end of the day somehow I think I was more of a Revelations: Persona fan than a megaten fan or even a Persona fan. I think it was just a combination of being young and enjoying the cachet of playing the last major JRPG series to come out in English, but with all of this unexplored territory still remaining. We didn’t even get the whole game! They took out the snow queen quest! They totally changed the setting!

As it turns out for me it’s a lot of fun to imagine how great the thing you’ve been denied is, less so to actually play it later on. After the games started getting sporadic releases I never ended up beating Eternal Punishment, or Nocturne, or Strange Journey, or even Innocent Sin, Soul Hackers, or the Snow Queen Quest when they were finally released a decade or more too late.

PS Brandon I still remember some really cool screen shots of a Necrosoft game that looked to borrow heavily from the art style of the first Persona.

wickedcestus

I’ve been really looking forward to jumping into
this remake of Nocturne ever since my last playthrough of Persona 4 when i realized i liked the demon fusion a lot more than the school life sim aspects. I liked SMT IV but i can’t play long games on handhelds. I probably won’t buy this right away but it will likely be the next game I buy. very excited. going to have a fun time

yeso

happy for people playing nocturne for the first time…

treefroggy

yeso looks sexy, can’t wait to play this on my PS2 after I beat SMT1 and SMT2 on my fuper samicom, lol

2501

Waited literally a decade for Atlus to put out Nocturne on a handheld console and now finally, finally, I am vindicated… except I’m also disgustingly behind in the writing class I’m taking so idk when I’ll get the chance to actually play it

whatsarobot

Is there a more aesthetically beautiful-looking game than Nocturne? I think maybe not!

The distorted vocals and drudgery of Strange Journey’s soundtrack rocked my world when I first experienced it. SJ on the DS was my first SMT game, so swayed was I by Jeremy Parish’s 1Up review.

Big shout out to Soul Hackers. For me, that game shares a special place in history and thesis statement with Serial Experiments Lain: what if the early, 90s-era internet was a haunted and terrifying place? Again, the aesthetic and 世界観 (fictional world feel?) of that game is chilling and captivating.

Shin Megami Tensei IV is one of my favourite games ever. I’ve said it elsewhere on this forum, but I feel like it’s a punk rock nightmare of a game, and I love it for that.

There was a time when I thought Persona 3 and 4 were great, but I’m feeling that less and less, the more time passes. P3 still has a fun, spooky vibe that I appreciate, and the soundtrack is nuts.

Persona 5 has the best dungeons and gameplay in the series, hands-down. Looks real nice, too. Unfortunately the plot and writing are an insufferable slog.

2501

whatsarobot Man I’ve tried to get into Soul Hackers over and over again because textually and aesthetically it really is super cool, but the actual game mechanics are so arcane and unintuitive and just not fun. Every time I try I again I feel like I’m doing it wrong, and then I just get bored and lose interest entirely. Wish the 3DS version had been less of a port and more of a remake tbh.

IV is also one of my fav games of the 2010s and especially one of my fav game soundtracks. Ryota Kozuka’s droning electronica is so startlingly grim and nightmarish compared to Shoji Meguro’s rock style it made me really wish for a future game that doubles down on horror elements with (somewhat) less numbery abstract gameplay, bigger deeper 3D environments and more graphic imagery channeling the series’ already evident Devilman and Berserk influences. Like some kind of psychedelic horror Xenoblade with Atlus’s catchy strategic hooks and Kozuka’s indelibly creepy industrial acid rock(?) tunes. That’d be my dream MegaTen.

Also, I dream of an SMT set in New York turned into an RPG overworld map just as lovingly detailed (and destroyed) as Atlus’s Tokyo.

Syzygy

whatsarobot

Is there a more aesthetically beautiful-looking game than Nocturne? I think maybe not!

Maybe killer7, but not coincidentally it shares a similar style.

Nocturne was one of the first games I played after a hiatus from console games lasting a couple years, love it to death. Same with the DDS duology and the defunct Megaten Online. Too bad about Raidou because aesthetically it should be just my thing.

sabertoothalex

christoffing I also really never got the impression that it was! I always saw SJ heralded as the most hardcore SMT game, with the fandom using it as some ultimate example for how Brutal And Cool the series is(the series has a weird reputation for this kind of this unfortunately). It’s great though, loved the DS version and want to try the 3DS version eventually. The last game Kaneko was super involved in!

whatsarobot Soul Hackers to me is just the ultimate vibe game. I love the aesthetics, love it thematically, love the characters. The art gallery in that game is just incredible. I wish the 3DS version went a little further with options to just make it more palatable nowadays, it would be such an easy recommendation.

Syzygy I’ve been playing the first Raidou and I might agree with you. It’s definitely cool so far but I find it to be really muddy looking in a way none of the other PS2 SMT games are, and the combat sorta feels like a few good ideas not executed on well enough. Still early though but my initial impressions are pretty mixed. What do you think about it?

whatsarobot I doubt SMTV is coming this year anymore and I’m not really worried about it turning into Persona 6. The last trailer they showed felt very, very purposely trying to evoke Nocturne, and I think that points to them still keeping it distinctly mainline. I do think they will probably take UI notes from P5 though and we’ll have something similarly stylish but maybe more restrained.

LeFish

2501 SMT IV soundtrack is also one of my favourites. I still remember the wowee that I had when the boss battle music kicked in.

whatsarobot

Syzygy Goooood call. I do also love Killer7 for style reasons, and they are similar.

LeFish Heck yes. Awesome soundtrack. If you ever get a chance, try listening to it while walking around real-life Tokyo at night. That is a trip.

Here’s my pick for single best SMT music track (also great for walkin’ around in Tokyo at night):

BY THE WAY, what is everyone thinking about the status and supposed existence of SMT V? Will we see it this year? Next year? Is it secretly just Persona 6, as I fear it will be? I’m guessing it’ll lean waaaay more in the direction of SMT IV Final/Apocalypse (lame anime) than in the direction of Nocturne (so cool).

Is everyone else optimistic, even cautiously so? Or what?

christoffing

whatsarobot Oh was that was Apocalypse was? I never bothered to play it cause no-one explained to me how it was different from the original SMT IV, which I on the other hand really liked and didn’t overdo the anime thing I thought!

Syzygy

I still haven’t played one minute of SMT4 or its sequels so I’m not in any hurry, lol

Though if not SMT5, what else is Atlus doing? Their only other announced new game is Project Re Fantasy, which is supposedly nearing completion. That’s directed by the Persona 3-5 director, who previously said he’s stepping down from the Persona series, so I expect Persona 6 will be at least slightly delayed by onboarding new staff.

hellojed

Auberji

oh I guess to add to my minimal post “what applies to enemies, applies to you”. You can be hecked up too.

whatsarobot

christoffing To clarify just a little: I think SMT IV Final/Apocalypse was an attempt to sand down all the rough, prickly edges of SMT IV and make it palatable for Persona fans. A sensible business strategy!

But in so doing, it took a manic, punk rock nightmare of a game in which themes of class-based warfare and historic/ethnic conflicts took center stage, and introduced a cartoonish blue comic relief ghost, a cute anime girl who calls the protagonist “onii-chan,” smartphones as plot devices, and Matsuko Deluxe.

It’s not a sequel. It’s set during the events of SMT IV, but told from the point of view of a teenaged fan boy of the protagonist from SMT IV. It’s a tonal mess. Soundtrack slaps, though, and the battle system is more well-balanced and smoother than SMT IV.

2501

christoffing Apocalypse was horrible amd embarrassing in the setting/writing department but it was also developed by the B-team and not the guys directly responsible for IV and V so I have some hope. Atlus didn’t try to add waifus, J-pop and a new Objectively Correct Ending to the Nocturne remaster so that also gives me a little hope that maybe they’ve chilled out on trying to make every single other game they release into Persona.

beets

Should I play one of the mainline SMT games? I’ve beaten 3 Persona games but fusing demons is likely my least favourite part of Persona which I hear they’re all about. Are there any where SMT games where you’re not constantly adjusting your party becuase I’m a freak for the battle system.
What’s the core loop of the games like? Strange Journey has always interested me so I’d likely start with that or maybe Nocturne. I have a 3DS, PS2 and Switch so hardware isn’t a problem.

Syzygy

beets
The modern SMT battle system both originates in and was already perfect in Nocturne. I wouldn’t call it “constant” by any means, though if you just dislike the party management itself, I can’t be sure how you’ll feel about it. Digital Devil Saga has the least of that while still playing like SMT: you have a set party of characters instead of recruiting demons, though you still manage their growth.

On a range of grid-based dungeon crawler to JRPG:
Strange Journey <-> Nocturne <-> DDS

LeFish

beets You’d probably like the Digital Devil Saga duology on PS2. They’re both structured like more traditional JRPGs in that your party members are fixed and that their growth is, MC aside is pretty much fixed too. The only decision you really have to make is which skills to learn / keep / dump when you level up.

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