Search the Community

Haven’t played this game but it seems fun Should I plan on getting it on the switch?

To commemorate the imminent release of TMSFE, let's do a round of which SMT/Persona (or Radiant Historia/Odin Sphere, if you so desire) character should have which FE character as their mirage. (I'm not sure whether this thread should be here or in a FE-specific thread, but anyway.) For the purpose of this excercise, the Atlus characters can have multiple mirages as their personas. My round: Persona 4: Yu: Male Robin Yosuke: not quite sure...Gatrie or Inigo maybe? Chie: Leonie/Lyn Yukiko: Lilina/L'Arachel Kanji: Ike, Hector, or Sigurd? Rise: Lalum Naoto: Lute/Soren? Teddie: Fa Nanako: Maria Marie: Idenn Tohru Adachi: Narcian Persona 3 Portable Minako: Female Robin Junpei: Hinata/Caspar Yukari: Lucina/Neimi Fuuka: Florina/ Akihiko: Dieck Mitsuru: Edelgard! Shinjiro: Rutger/Jeritza Ken: Lugh or Chad Aigis: Female Byleth Ikutsuki: Nergal Ryoji: Lyon Persona 5: Akira: Maybe Leif (Thracia 776) Masayoshi Shido: Definitely one of the senators from Radiant Dawn So, what's everyone's take?

Hello everybody. I am a huge FE fan. I have beaten every FE released in the US, including FE Warriors and Tokyo Mirage sessions #FE. My first FE game was Path of Radiance and it is my still my favorite one and Ike is my boy. I've kept a list of all the kill counts throughout the FE games that I've played and made a corresponding list in excel about it that I plan on posting in the future. Other games series I enjoy include The Shin megami tensei games and Persona games. A old school classic that is among favorite game series of all time is Monster Rancher, with MR2 being my favorite from the series

Hello everyone I'm new so I hope I posted this in the right area. My apologies if it's formatted weird. So I got bored and decided to combine a bunch of SMT/Persona Elements into a possible chart. Let me know if certain things need more clarification or balancing. There are A LOT of elements so instead of the usual 8 Slots, I think increasing the slots by at least 2 would be an interesting balance. (10 Skill Slots) An Entity can be one or a combination of Main Types and/or Sub Types Main Types - Melee, Magic, Force, Blast, Bless, Curse, Almighty Sub Types - Wind, Earth, Water, Elec, Ice, Fire, Psychokinesis, Nuclear Main Types Magic/Melee are weak to each other Sub Types Wind/Earth/Water/Elec/Ice/Fire hit 4 weaknesses but have 4 weaknesses (Low Cost) Main Types Force/Blast are weak to each other and their corresponding Sub Types (Low Cost) Main Types Bless/Curse are weak to only each other (Medium Cost) Sub Types Psychokinesis/Nuclear are weak to each other and can get Technical (Medium Cost) Main Type Almighty has no weaknesses but does normal damage (High Cost) Type Element Spell Name Weaknesses Resist/Null/Absorb/Repel Category:Force Melee Force Physical Atks/Skills Magic Force Zan Melee/Magic Blast Melee/Magic Force Magic Psychokinesis (Psy) Frei Magic Wind Garu Bufu Zio Agi Tera Garu Aqua Magic Earth Tera/Magna Garu Zio Aqua Agi Bufu Tera Magic Water Aqua Bufu Zio Agi Tera Garu Aqua Category:Blast Melee Blast Gun Atks/Skills Magic Blast ??? Melee/Magic Force Melee/Magic Blast Magic Nuclear (Frei) Psy Magic Lightning (Zio) Bufu Garu Aqua Tera Zio Agi Magic Ice/Cold (Bufu) Garu Zio Aqua Agi Bufu Tera Magic Fire/Heat (Agi) Bufu Garu Aqua Tera Zio Agi Category:Bless Special Bless Kouha Curse Bless Special Bless Hama Curse Bless Category:Curse Special Curse Eiha Bless Curse Special Curse Mudo Bless Curse Category:Almighty (Normal Damage. Melee Skills use STR and Megido skills use MAG) Special Almighty (Melee) Skill No weaknesses ??? Special Almighty (Magic) Megido No weaknesses ??? Other Main Types Melee Weak to Magic(Any/All Combo) Resist/Null/Absorb/Repel Melee Magic Weak to Melee(Phys/Gun or Both) Resist/Null/Absorb/Repel Magic Opposing Elements + Reason Wind <-> Ice Wind can Break Ice. Ice can Block Wind. Ice <-> Fire Ice can Extinguish Fire. Fire can Melt Ice. Fire <-> Wind Fire can be amplified by Wind. Wind can Smother Fire. Wind <-> Earth Winds can Erode Earth. Earth(Metal) can Block Strong Winds. Elec <-> Ice Electricity Conducts in Ice(Water). Ice(Water) can Short Circuit Electricity. Water <-> Ice (Hot) Water can Melt Ice. Ice(Cold) can Freeze Water. Water <-> Elec Water can Short Circuit Electricity. Electricity Conducts in Water. Water <-> Fire Water can Extinguish Fire. Fire(Heat) can Evaporate Water. Elec <-> Earth Electricity Conducts in Earth(Metal). Earth can Ground Electricity. Fire <-> Earth Fire can Melt Earth(Metal). Earth can Extinguish/Smother Fire. Earth <-> Water Earth can Absorb Water. Water can Erode Earth(Metal). Wind <-> Elec Unexplained atm but its a Persona commonality Psy <-> Frei Opposites Force <-> Blast Opposites Curse <-> Bless Opposites Keep in mind, Earths relation to Metal, Fires relation to Heat, and Ices relation to Cold. Technicals - x2 Damage but no extra turn (Added Ailments to Wind/Earth/Water for Psy Technicals) Frei gains Blast Technical For: Psy gains Force Technical For: Fire causes Burn Wind causes Confuse Ice causes Freeze Earth causes Rage Elec causes Shock Water causes Brainwash (bad pun i know) Weakness/Resist/Null/Absorb/Repel conditions change if an Entity has 2+ Types First Type has Priority over Second Type for Skill Learning/Resistances/Etc. Second Type can cancel First Type Weakness but can give weaknesses. For Skill Learning. Examples of Multiple Types (Some combinations are alot better than others) Type 1 Type 2 Weaknesses Resist/Nul/Absorb/Rpl Neutral Melee Fire Ice,Wind,Water,Earth Melee,Fire,Elec Magic Earth Phys,Garu,Zio,Agi,Aqua Earth,Ice,Psy,Frei Bless/Curse Dark Ice Light,Agi,Garu,Aqua,Zio Dark,Ice,Earth Wind Elec Ice,Earth Wind,Elec Fire/Water Blast Psy Wind,Earth,Water Elec,Fire,Ice Frei Melee Magic Magic Melee Special Magic Melee Melee Magic Special Force Elec Ice Elec Fire/Water/Wind/Earth Blast Psy Water,Wind,Earth Psy Fire/Ice/Elec/Frei Force Blast None None All Magic Blast Melee Zio,Bufu,Agi,Psy,Frei Bless/Curse/Aqua/Garu/Tera Type 1 Type 2 Weakness Resist/Nul/Absorb/Rpl Neutral Almighty Fire No Weakness The Rest Ice,Wind,Water,Earth Almighty Force No weakness The Rest Ice,Fire,Elec Almighty Psy No weakness The Rest Frei Almighty Light No weakness The Rest Dark Almighty Magic No weakness Magic Melee Almighty Melee No weakness Melee Magic Special Combination (Almighty has no weaknesses. Special Entities such as Bosses) Possible Super-Boss Combination (Psy/Frei/Light/Dark are too OP for normal)

http://www.siliconera.com/2017/03/26/shin-megami-tensei-deep-strange-journey-announced-3ds-japan-fall-2017/ So wasn't expecting this, Strange Journey is a very interesting mainline SMT game, however this is only confirmed for Japan so far. Hopefully we get a confirmation of a localization. The Original came out in 2009, and was more marketed towards the western audience (having an American MC among other things, it was referenced a few times in IV, with stuff such as the Black Samurai armor, and as a side note, some SMT fans are like "Finally a new hardcore SMT game" despite the fact that IV:A's Apocalypse mode was pretty hardcore lol, but they are mostly doing it for memes at this point.

I am so hyped for this. It was just confirmed in the Switch presentation after Fire Emblem Warriors (which will of course get more hype on this forum), and although it didn't say SMTV, it is totally SMTV. So, thoughts? I know there's not much to go on, but still. It seems like it will be in 3D, so we'll get some nice demon models, hopefully seen in action during battle like Nocturne.

So, I've tried getting into both Shin Megami Tensei and Persona previously with Persona 4 and the 3DS port/remake of Soul Hackers, but I didn't really end up getting far in either of them. I am to give both series an honest shot, though, so I'm curious if any fans of them on here have any recommendations for a good "first game" in each series, as well as things like what to expect from the gameplay, common newcomer pitfalls to avoid, what general sort of mindset to have when getting into each series, etc.

Alright, general SMT/Megaten/Persona thread. I've generally never really had a chance to make a thread due to me trying to juggle awakening's DLC and The entirity of SMT4 (All routes, DLC, FIEND HUNTING, fashion and making the most bulls**t demons that i can make) but due to Persona 5 and SMT4: Apocolypse (oh whyyyy do you do this to me ATLUS why) coming around the corner, i think right now is the PERFECT chance to have sit back, have a glass or 2 liter of nice cold soda and play some of the old SMT games. How about you guys? Do you have any relationship/hate with the series? Have you beaten any of them*? Post a reply below and let's just take this brief interlude to talk. *You can talk about persona here, but since we have a thread already dedicated to Persona 5's hype train it might be redundant. Frost Ace is best Hee-Ho.

I just saw that there is an official English translation for the original Shin Megami Tensei that was only available on the iOS devices from the Apple Store. But, I just wondered that, does anyone actually know it works on iTunes program or is it not? (It's just for clarification since I do know that Miitomo wasn't compatible for iTunes back then) But, the only available iOS devices that I have at my house are my mother's iPad and iPhone, but I can ask my mom that I can might download the game on her iPad if the game doesn't work on iTunes.

Although I should be experienced in the SMT series by playing Persona and Devil Survivor, this game is a mess for me so far. It took me 20 attempts to beat the second tutorial mission. The enemies one- or tworound one party member. If they get my weakness they can even kill multiple times. The random as idiotic demon recruitments make this game even harder for me. Each failed demon recruitment means an auto death of one of my demons or the protagonist because my team loses the turn. Also losing items is the last thing I need. This game is just savestating so far and kills the fun. I'm really considering to quit this game once for all. But before I do it, maybe someone could give me tips to survive this game without saving and resetting all the time?

To my mind this series is popular and beloved enough to deserve an own thread. You can discuss or ask questions about everything related Shin Megami Tensei including the related series like Persona, Devil Survivor or Devil Children. Since I only have played a couple of Persona games and the both DeSu parts it's a good way for newcomers like me to get to know more about this franchise. Each week I'll ask you a question to give a bit food for a discussion. Question #1: What's your favorite Shin Megami Tensei game and why? A lively and nice discussion is appreciated. Have fun! PS: Idk if it should be sent to the videogame section or here. It depends how this thread develops. I just put it there not to do any mistake.

I’ll Burn my Dread and Then Face Myself It’s 12 o’clock midnight and it’s time to get wild. *Entering the Dark Hour* Not that wild, please no. *Survives the onslaught* Perhaps it’s best to never stay up past 12AM, unless you’re playing a game as good as Persona 3 perhaps, it’s your responsibility in the end, but be wary of those shadows, they will not hesitate to finish you off. Hey guys, I had many suggestions to play Persona 3 and after playing it for an entire month, I’ve seen it through to the end, so comes my review for it, I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing. Here's Yuriofwind's video review of it if you wanna see how the game works. Dreamless Dorm, Ticking Clock Persona games, at least the ones I played are fixated on this “Midnight” thing, Persona 3 more so than 4. The story of Persona 3 takes place in a small town in Japan and focuses on the Special Extracurricular Execution Squad. (SEES for short) They are high school students who live on the same dorm, all with the same special power Persona which I’ll elaborate on later, their goal is to restore peace to the world by defeating the evil creatures known as shadows. As the opening song states, this is indeed a dorm that rarely gets decent enough sleep. The only way to face the shadows is via the Dark Hour which takes place right when the clock hits 12AM, you know that time when people are usually asleep. The story takes place over little less than a year, the characters must defeat strong shadows every full moon so there’s a very important boss every month to advance the story. One of the many things that make Persona special is the character development, almost every character in the game is three dimensional and flawed, they may have special powers but they’re just high school kids, they get tired in battle, they face difficulties in real life tasks, but most importantly, they face themselves (No pun intended) Junpei is a video game nerd who could care less about his grades and finds his Persona ability to be the only important thing he’s proficient with, Ken is a 10 year old kid despite being mature about it, and Aigis is a bloody robot. Every character in the game have very clear and well thought out story arcs and the resolution for those story arcs not only change the character but also changing gameplay, as they literally unlock a new Persona better matching to their current state. (Except the OP as hell MC he has access to multiple Personas) Akihiko is my favorite character, I mean he’s just too badass besides developing a relationship with his old friend Shinji. But the story and plot are also interesting in their own right and have a lot of twists and turns like any good story has, the theme of the game is facing death, its inevitability and questioning life. The characters are very suited to the theme, as almost all of them have personal issues to deal with on top of being placed with the burden of saving the world. It’s a well written story filled with intriguing villains and grey morality. On par with that of Persona 4. The Arcana is The Means by Which All Is Revealed Persona 3 is a game that is very similar to Persona 4, or should I say the opposite, but it’s a very different game at the same time. A lot of the combat and gameplay aspects remain similar, there’s of course the Personas which are the series’ equivalent to Pokémon or Yu Gi Oh in a way, and they are spirits summoned from one’s heart into battle, each of them are related to the Tarot cards major arcana if you’re familiar with those cards. The game’s combat system is similar to that of a typical turn based JRPG, each party member takes turns followed by the enemy (Unless the enemy has higher speed) and the battle pretty much continues on until one of either party is dead. Don’t die though, just like in most JRPGs boy do you lose progress and you get to watch that lovely 5 minute boss intro scene which thankfully didn’t happen to me all that much as I almost never died against the major story bosses, only once during the Wheel of Fortune/Strength boss. The tower bosses are a different case, we’ll talk about those in a while. The only thing that makes combat in Persona different than other JRPGs are, well, Personas. These Personas each have different traits to them, different skills, strengths and weaknesses. And really one of the most fun parts of the game is Persona Fusion, fusion does what the name suggests, it literally fuses all different Personas you have to give you a single Persona that’s usually stronger depending on your fusion choice. Near the beginning, you get to fuse two or three Personas in a single fusion operation, and later on, you’ll be able to fuse even more than that. The cascade of synergy is the most exciting part of the game’s combat, managing a team of Personas on top of managing party members in battle adds flavor to the game. A Different Twin But what makes it very different to Persona 4? Well, it’s two major things among others, two of my biggest problems with this otherwise fantastic game. First of all, Tartarus. The game has only a single dungeon if you don’t count the very short pre major boss areas in which you mostly don’t do much, and that dungeon is Tartarus, a 264 floor tower that’s procedurally generated, just like Persona 4’s much more diverse procedural dungeons. You can progress in it a specific amount of stairs in each block, you’ll be able to explore it further every months, as blockades will disappear and allow you to progress further. And every now and then, you’ll reach a non-randomly generated floor that has a boss in it. Tartarus is a very boring dungeon, it’s visually repetitive, it’s repetitive in its exploration and it’s just tedious. Persona 4 was able to hide it’s repetition under the mask of its diverse settings in those dungeons and the reason why you pretty much rarely feel the dungeons in Persona 4 is that they are on average 10 floors long, not 264. Alright, every block in Tartarus has vastly different aesthetics and slightly different music, but they’re mostly pretty boring in my opinion, the game’s combat system and trying out different Personas/Party members make it not as painful as it sounds but when your core central part of the plot, this insane tower that’s a labyrinth of death is really just a 264 floors with variation in about every 40 or so of them. That’s never a good thing to have in your game. I have to at least commend the developers for trying to be different, but you can do better than that, even if you wanna be different. It doesn’t help that the tower bosses are usually cheap and uncreative, there are a lot of bosses in Tartarus that will just make you wanna throw the controller across your room, and others that are pathetically easy. The cheap ones have incredibly unpredictable attacks that stomp your party, sometimes in one hit if they’re weak to the ailment or are under leveled. If it weren’t for Akihiko and his debuffs, the battles would’ve been other levels of ridiculous, a couple of the bosses are just a case of having a good team and good Personas, but some have insane difficulty curves like the Sleeping Table which is a higher level boss than the ones after it in the freaking next block. But really the biggest problem I have with this game and the other major difference from its sequel is the fact that party members cannot be manually controlled, and the AI is so stupid, the only way to make them semi-reliable is going to the tactics menu every now and then and order them to change their behavior, but that’s not nearly as efficient as controlling them yourself like you can in Persona 4. There were a lot of times when I lost a battle just because of a party member’s dumb actions like waking a downed enemy up that I was setting up for an all-out attack, and there were a lot of cases where I would’ve loved if they could’ve used items from my inventory but guess what? They can’t, they only use items through their stupid infinite magical supply inventory that only has two or four crappy items. And there are times when I wanted them to use a different buff, having Akihiko only debuff an enemy on Heal/Support instead of healing an ally that barely took any damage. The final boss in the game was very good and very symbolic but it would’ve been much easier if I could’ve controlled party members instead of rotating the wheel every turn for different tactics that aren’t as reliable as manual control. There are other smaller differences like the stamina system, fight too many battles and you’ll eventually be too tired and suffer penalties, and eventually have to head back home. At first I thought it was a cool system because it brought a sense of urgency and gave a makes players choose their battles wisely, grind too much, and you’ll be too exhausted to keep fighting. But since the game required too much grinding, I just disliked it later on. The overall UI and Menus are much harder to navigate, it’s tedious having to talk to each specific character in order to change their inventory, in Persona 4 there’s one menu that has all of those options, but it’s a slow and tedious process in this game. In terms of technical differences there aren’t that much, the game uses the same engine as Persona 4 so nothing notable in terms of graphical, animation quality and sound differences. One major difference to the visuals is the 2D portraits, every different expression isn’t just a different facial expression but the whole body stance changes, dunno why they left that out in P4, too much work and drawing, I guess? The voice actors are just as excellent as they were before and the soundtrack is great, albeit less memorable than Persona 4’s. The game’s flaws frustrated me a bit, mostly the AI one with Tartarus as a close second, but the other parts of this game are its saving grace. Meaningful Choice This is one of the terms that game designers love to use, immersion is a word that both gamers and game designers love using but meaningful choice helps with that, greatly. Getting immersed in the game is greatly amplified if the game offers meaningful choice. If you’ve studied game design, or you like watching Extra Credits or read some of Gamasutra’s articles, then you’re probably familiar with the term. If you aren’t, I’ll quickly elaborate since I didn’t in my Persona 4 review. Meaningful choice is when a game gives you different choices that have unequal outcomes, those choices can be either gameplay related or story related, or even both. But they must have different results, one could be good or bad, good and better, bad or worse. These meaningful choices help immerse the player in the game’s world and sometimes the Illusion of Choice can be used instead in different games which isn’t as great but also effective. The Persona series has meaningful choice built onto its core, every day you can do a single activity, you can’t possibly do all since it’ll be late and you have to sleep, everyone has to sleep eventually. But what you do with your time is your choice and yours alone, whether you’re developing your social stats or hanging out with your friends is your decision, and you can’t hang out with all of your friends, only with one at a time. This game introduced the social link system that has become prominent throughout the series, and those different social links and different friends you get to hang out with will make certain arcanas stronger for you, making fusion offer more experience points and overall better results with more skills and such since they’ll level up further. A strength and an admirable quality in the Persona series, here it’s slightly weaker than in Persona 4 since you only have 3 social skills as opposed to 6 which means if you’re playing like me you’ll probably max them all out less than halfway through, which means you gotta rely on hanging out with your friends as your sole time killer and they’re not always there, and there are less of them than in P4. But otherwise, it’s an amazing part of the series, very amazing and I always look forward to see the results and fruit of my work. As a player, it empowers me emotionally, immersing me further into the world and making me care more about its characters. As a designer, it inspires me. I think it’s very clear to see that the strongest component of the series is still very much alive in this game, what’s the final verdict? Final Verdict: Persona 3 is an epic video game. It has its fair share of flaws and I wish I played it before Persona 4, or hell I wish I played Persona 3 Portable which had party control. But still, this game laid the foundation when Persona 4 polished it greatly, and there are a lot of suggestions I have for Persona 5 that can make it the perfect Persona game, and I’m pretty sure many others have such suggestions. But I digress, Persona 3 is a very good game and its final chapter was definitely better than Persona 4, while I still think Persona 4 is the overall better game, I still can find lots to appreciate here. Despite Tartarus and Lack of AI control, I’m still gonna give it a better verdict than you may have expected, a nine. The good outweighed the bad for me. Especially after how masterful some of its moments were. Final Score: 9/10 Excellent If you're interested, my Persona 4 review is here. The next game may be Okami, I still haven't beaten Dragon Age Inquisition and don't have the patience to restart it, I lost my save. But yeah, there's a good chance that I'll play Okami soon. And I have not played the extra chapter that came with the FES version of Persona 3, I may play that but I need a break from it. And yeah, new review style, even though I've been writing reviews as an on and off hobby since early 2011 I'm still up for making changes. Thank you for reading, feel free to post your thoughts on Persona 3 and tell me which one you like better, Persona 3 or 4? And why?

Looks like this issue's focusing on sidequests and NPCs

Attack on Celebrities Intro: Can you imagine real life at its most basic form being a good game? No! Not at all, Sims is a boring game. But if what if you took some elements of real life, cut down on some of its most mundane parts and make it into a JRPG? Thats what Persona achieved. And while I havent played Persona 3 or any of the others, I can safely say that Persona 4 does it in Spades, and heres why. Story: Persona 4 fools you at the beginning by making you think that its story is going to be about normal school kids doing their everyday lives. But like any story that follows the Heros Journey structure (AKA most stories out there) There will always be that inciting incident that forces the hero to leave their ordinary world and cross the threshold to the extraordinary world, Persona 4 takes that concept very literally. The game starts with the player character who I shall refer to as Yu Narukami from now on as thats his canon name, leaving his city life to study in Yasogami High School in Inaba. When he arrives there, he meets with his new friends Yosuke and Chie, and some people he didnt want to meet like Mr. Morooka AKA King Moron (Yes, they call him that). At that point, it doesnt take too long for Yu to adapt to the new environment and consider Inaba like its his home But then, you guessed it, the inciting incident happened! A big one, too. An announcer called Mayumi Yamano was found dead with her body hanged on a streetlight. The cause of death is unknown, no physical signs on her body, nothing. Before that was when a rumor about the mysterious Midnight Channel was spread, and after the death of Yamano occurred, Yu and Yosuke decided to check it out. When they did so is when they found one of their friends called Saki trapped inside, Yu tried to reach out for her and weirdly enough, he got sucked into the TV, but not all the way since it was too small. Its not too long after when the fog appears on Inaba and Saki being found dead, now is when Yu and Yosuke come to the conclusion that something fishy is happening, and somebody out there is killing those people by throwing them in the Midnight Channel. So Yu and Yosuke decided to use the mysterious power of entering TVs to investigate the murder mystery. When they entered, they encountered a bear named Teddie and some evil beings called shadows, thats when Yu unleashed the power of Persona and a spirit of his soul called Izanagi appeared and killed all of the shadows. This power was later given to Yosuke after he faced his shadow self. With this newfound power, Yu, Yosuke and Chie promised to help Teddie return the TV world to order. And from that point is when the real journey begins, people get kidnapped and your goal is to save them in the TV world before the fog lifts and they die. Along your journey, most of the characters you rescue will join your party, and they are mostly exceptionally written, three dimensional characters. The side characters are also interesting, throughout Yus journey, he will forge bonds that allow him to create new and more powerful Personas to use. The story and characters will always be there to keep you engaged and excited to see what happens next. And the murder mystery is one of the most intriguing Ive seen in fiction. There are a lot of mysterious plot elements presented such as the velvet room, Igor and Margaret. But they are all part of the world and get enough explanation in the plot. Every plot element comes together in the end to present the truth to you. I wont give it away, but when you piece it together near the end, itll blow your mind. Especially when you see the true ending. Graphics and Presentation: For a PS2 game, Persona 4 looks alright, its not a technical masterpiece by any stretch, but its visuals get the job done. Its 2D anime art is where its at, the characters look good and have facial expressions that fit them perfectly. As for the environments, half of the game looks like an ordinary world and the other half looks like a twisted manifestation of ones imagination of the real world, sometimes worse. But the most impressive thing about thee visuals is that they never feel repetitive, the first dungeon is a castle, and then the second one is a steamy bathhouse? The third one is a striptease? I dont want to give anything away but this dungeon crawler action RPG will never run out of new things to make you look at, and theyre all very creative. The animations look pretty cool, too. The how the players break their persona cards is always in a way that makes sense with their character. And the battle animations as a whole are pretty impressive. Every persona has different animations based on their personality. Its all epic stuff. The sound design is superb! From the haunting ambience of the dungeons to the regular worlds traffic sound, to the attacks the player performs, it all comes together to create this cohesive world that makes sense. Immersion is pushed further by the games phenomenal voice acting, the characters feel like they are real people, thats how good it is. The dialogue rarely feels cheesy or forced and its always there to keep the player engaged and immersed in the games world. Gameplay: Gameplay, gameplay, gameplay. Most modern JRPGs rely on their narrative to hide how shallow their gameplay is, there are exceptions, this one is one of them. Before I talk about how good the gameplay is, theres this pet peeve I have with a lot of modern JRPGs, its intro sequence is sooo slow. It feels like theyre ordinary school kids forever, this one is even slower than the average JRPGs because you could potentially spend 4 hours before anything cool happens. Kingdom Hearts 2 was similar in that regard, but it at least had activities that were exciting enough to keep the player going until the real game starts. And with that out of the way, lets talk about how the basic game works. Persona 4 is first and foremost a dungeon crawler. Your primary goal is to finish every dungeon before the due date. But what sets it apart is the social links system. In a day, you could spend your time either hanging out with friends and party members, make a girlfriend if you so desire, take part-time jobs, read books, have dinner or of course, go to the TV. On weekends and holidays, you have double the time you usually have to do what you want because you spend half the day in school on weekdays. Every activity you do will have benefits and some cons. That presents the player with a lot of meaningful choice, and meaningful choice is one of my favorite things in a game. Having the player choosing between good and bad is not nearly as interesting as making them choose between different choices that have different benefits. Going to the TV allows you to progress further in a dungeon, grab loot, experience and money but the huge drawback is that after finishing a day after TV, your character will be too tired to do any evening activity whatsoever, he just hits the bed when he comes back home. Doing any of the other activities will allow you to still have enough energy to do evening activities but you wont go any closer in solving the murder mystery. Choosing between the characters to spend time with is also a meaningful choice in its own right. The player gets different arcana levels from them that offer different Personas each. That brings me to the fusion system. It allows you to craft personas if you will, you fuse different Personas together to create one stronger Persona. This is a masterful system since it cuts down on tedious grinding that JRPGs are infamous for. It lets the player get stronger by doing relaxing activities. It still doesnt replace grinding in a dungeon because Yu still needs to increase his level in order to get stronger Personas, but it at leasts makes it minimal in a way where its not too powerful or too weak. The games exploration in the real world allows them to go to different locations in Inaba to do different activities, and it always has a fixed camera with the exception of Yasogami High School. The TV world mostly offers free camera, though. It allows you to go to current dungeons or dungeons previously visited. If you go to dungeons previously visited, they have a new boss thats sometimes tougher. Most kidnappings require you to ask questions and investigate in the real world in order to get enough clues to get to the new dungeon, which kinda slows down the gameplay, but it makes sense with the narrative. The games battle system is turn based, an improvement over Persona 3 is that it allows you to command every party member separately if you wanted to. Thats very useful considering that the player mostly makes decisions better than the AI will. Or you can leave them on specific tactics if you feel like its too much for you. Different Personas have different strengths and weaknesses to specific elements, and the same goes for enemies. The tutorials are mostly taught by NPCs rather than having giant text boxes appear which they sometimes do, but they dont feel overwhelming. Theres also Teddies commentaries that allow you to know quickly if youre facing a tough or weak enemy, he also keeps track of the enemy's strengths and weaknesses for you. There are a few issues I have with the gameplay, but not enough to ruin the game at all. First of all, the animations are quite slow, which is a problem that some modern RPGs such as Bravely Default and Fire Emblem: Awakening solved easily by allowing you to speed up animation. The rush command in Persona 4 makes it bearable but still not fast enough for me. Its not that I always want animations to be fast but when I spend a lot of time grinding or fighting the same enemy over and over again, I get the point. Another problem is that theres quite a bit of RNG BS like enemies getting critical hits, they generally speaking have more health than the player, so they can afford getting critted more than the player does, I had this very same problem with Bravely Default, but the difference is in this game, getting critted will make you fall until your turn comes, leaving you vulnerable to dizziness and preventing you from dodging attacks. I get that its a huge part in the game since having items that cure that will be useless then; but Im frankly not a fan of it. Another problem is that theres no solid SP restoration items, SP are spirit points, this games equivalent of mana. Theres soul drops, snuff souls and soma. And in the mid to late game, somas are the only ones that are useful in restoring mana, and theyre super rare, I mostly keep them for really tough bosses. Another problem is that the checkpointing is horrendous like most JRPGs up until today. Its not as big of a problem with dungeon crawling since you can always use Goho-Ms to get you out of the dungeon to save, but its annoying with pre-boss battle save points since you have to watch the cutscene over and over again all the time, but this ones more of a nitpick since Im used to it at this point, but Xenoblade spoiled me since it mostly restarts the game right next to the boss with no cutscene thanks to landmarks. But oh well *Sigh* I guess this isnt the last JRPG to pull this move on me. And with all of that out of the way, lets get to the final verdict. Final Verdict: Persona 4 is a masterpiece despite anything bad I said against it. Fire Emblem 7 and Awakening showed me how much meaningful choice the Fire Emblem series has, and its a huge reason for its popularity. And that is why I love Persona 4 as much as I do, because it has an insane amount of meaningful choice. And while in the events of the story in this game dont change as much as Mass Effect or Dragon Age, I still prefer it. in the end, its all about the overall experience. And Persona 4 delivered one of the most enthralling stories, some of the deepest and most engaging gameplay, and one of the most immersive, believable worlds that Ive ever had the pleasure of experiencing. But its also one of the greatest video games I've ever played. Final Score: 10/10 Masterpiece Kirbys Platinum Medal of Approval ;) Update on Upcoming Reviews: Im sorry, a lot of change of plans happened since I got my gaming PC and Playstation back to me. So I played Persona 4 instead of Okami, and as you can tell, I loved it. It looks like The Witcher 3 will be my next game, a game that also has its fair share of meaningful choice. Though I will probably only post that review on the other sites that I usually post on. Well, it's been fun everyone, but I have to go for a while. I'll come back for the occasional Nintendo game or JRPG review and of course, Fire Emblem discussions. Can't forget dem Fire Emblem discussions. And I will play Okami sometime in the near future.

I'm sure we all have characters we would like to see in the crossover. Are there any characters you guys hope ends up in the finished product of the game? IMO, I would like to see a character like Ninian in the game; after all, the game revolves around show business. It only seems appropriate that at least one FE dancer is a mirage. Ninian (or any of the FE dancers) could be the mirage of a character who's either a backup dancer or an idol.

So I found out yesterday that Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem has been listed on Bestbuy.com (for those not in the US, Best Buy is a popular tech retailer). The listing does not include any information, not even a release date. However, I think this definitely means the game is happening and we should expect news about it soon. Link to the website here.

So SMT4 came out today and... Wow it's hard. Harder than I expected even with my previous franchise experiences. Strange Journey is like a hand-holding frolic through the flowers. The Persona series is like baby's first RPG.(edit: near the beginning at least. The difficulty of the bosses has kinda eased off) Normal enemies often have the ability to 2HKO your main character. Bosses will often wipe most of your party in one round. If your weakness is exploited, it is absolutely brutal. Your main character might even be 1HKO. Makka (your currency) isn't won from battles but must be scrounged for in dungeon loot, which isn't exactly common. Want to fuse some demons and hire back the pieces? You probably can't afford it! Need to buy revival items because your demons keep eating the dirt? You probably have a hard time affording those too. Want a new demon in stock? Demon negotiation is just as much of a crapshoot as before. However, you no longer get game over by having your main character defeated. Fusion demons and successful negotiation nets you exp. While bosses hurt like a freight train, successful exploitation of their weakness will smack them down almost just as fast thanks to the Press Turn system. After all, it's not just enemies who can take advantage of strengths and weaknesses. Demon fusions now keep track of grandfathered demons, allowing you to carry over more skills through fusion chains than ever before. There is no more random skill inheritance. And once a demon learns all its skills, it'll allow you to pass on its abilities to your own character at your choosing. You can save anywhere and healing back in town is free. Man, this game is a whole lot of fun. It's just very sadistic at times and I've only just started.

I'm thinking of getting into the SMT stuff, but I want to know if my stomach and heart/mind can take it. To put it into perspective, anything coming close to what can kinda, vaguely, be called a jump scare scares me at least a little. I get scared really easily, and my mind keeps on going back to even slightly disturbing things, even after a few days. I mean, for Pete's sake, the mummy/ghost/Ramses thing from Courage the Cowardly Dog still freaks me out. I guess this is mainly for the DS/3DS ones, but it could extend to any PS2 ones if I can get my old PS2 working. And yes, I know about Mara before it is brought up, and it does kinda rub me the wrong way. (no pun intended)

Okay, so, I toyed with the idea in the main SMT4 thread started by Samias, and after a few days of deliberation, I decided to go ahead and go through with it. So here goes, I'll be walking you through my take on how I play SMT4. First things first, let me explain what happens on a NG+. The things that carry over to a new game are the following: Your Demon Compendium Burroughs Apps increasing your MC # of skills Burroughs Apps increasing your demons' # of skills The amusing but useless collection of facts recorded in the Playlog area of Burroughs Nothing else Fusion level limit is not lifted, like in many other entries in the franchise, you can still only fuse demons appropriate for your game position (modified by any Burroughs apps you can purchase). A few note about hard mode: Run % from battles is locked to 0% (as far as my experiences indicate) If you do not get a pre-emptive strike, 90% of the time (pulling numbers out of my ass, but ones that seem to support my experiences), the enemy will get a pre-emptive against you. Enemies will attempt to strike weaknesses a lot more, meaning your team can be wiped or near wiped before you even get a chance to act, especially early game when you are limited in demon variety and resistances That said, a 2nd cycle will still be a lot more tactically manageable. Why? Presumably on your first run, you collected a wide variety of demons in your compendium, which means that you will have a full log of their weaknesses, and possible fusion paths, and can effectively plan counters to bosses before you meet them for the first time, have to experiment, revise, grind, etc. This will help considerably, IMO. That said, let's get the first major sections wrapped up and reported on here: The Tutorial is somewhat rough, as enemies hit harder, and like I mentioned abuse weaknesses. If you don't save after every encounter, you are going to fail a negotiation at some point, and get wiped on the enemy phase. It will happen, I guarantee it. The first main quest after the tutorial segment are to complete the 3 quests from K's Tavern. 2 of these are gathering quests, and easy peasy. Defeating Orthrus will rock your world for two reasons. Fire Breath, and Bouncing Claw. At this stage in the game you cannot survive multi-hit attacks, as if your dudes have somehow become sturdy enough to avoid OHKO's they'll surely be 2HKO. When you lose demons, you lose press turns, and things spiral out of control in a very bad way, very fast. Oh, and in case you forgot, your starting armor has a fire weakness. Joy of joys. You have to spend most of your hard-earned Macca in getting Mikado Sand. My counter Orthrus strategy was the following: Fuse myself a Peri (with Ice Resist as a bonus, to cover her weakness and extend her longevity). This is accomplished by utilizing a fully trained Napaea with a Lham Dearg (also fully trained, because that's how I roll, it is kind of an OCD flaw of mine). This will provide heals, and Fire Null, which will be important. Next, I fuse myself a Melchom with a variety of useful attacks, and importantly, his Fire Repel. You could just catch one, but that will be far inferior in my opinion, as with only Agi, his utility will suffer greatly. My prefered fusion path for Melchom was a little convoluted, but IMO very worth it. First you fuse a Centaur and a Mokoi into an Angel. This provides important Bufu, Zio, Dia and Rakukaja skills. Then you fuse a Centaur and a Griffon into a Heqet, which will not providing much new in the way of skills, is a necessary prerequisite to fuse a Heqet with a Mokoi to get a Dwarf. Dwarf gives you Tarukaja, but more importantly will let you fuse with Angel to get the Melchom to begin with. Finally, I had planned on fusing myself a Fomorian and training it up to get Fire Resist, but it was taking too long, so I put that on hold. However, I still did acquire the ingredients, a Tangata Manu (which will give Sukukaja), and a Strigoii (made from fusing a Centaur and a Lham Dearg, again for Bufu access). I forgot how long it took for Strigoii to learn Light Resist, but it's a damn long time, and it may not be worth learning for passing on, in the long run, so I should have just aborted. But still, even grinding up the Fomorian for a Resist would have taken more time than needed. What I ultimately used in the team was a caught and trained Chagrin, for its Rakunda, to help take the beast down a little quicker. At the time of beating Orthrus, my stats were as follows: Fighting Party MC Lv 9: ( 7/18/16/20/14 ) (Agi+1/Bufu+6/Bouncing Claw+1/Zan+1/Zio+6/Dream Fist+3/Dia+3/Dream Needle+2) [samurai Sword:Samurai Hat/Mikado Sand Top/Samurai Bottom/Samurai Earring) Pele Lv 8: (Agi/Posumdi/Dream Needle/Resist Ice/Critical Wave/Scratch Dance/Dia/Healing Knowhow) Melchom Lv 7: (Life Bonus/Tarukaja/Rakukaja/Bufu/Agi/Zio/Dia/Posumdi) Chagrin Lv 8: Needle Shot/Zio/Rakunda Reserves: Strigoii Lv 8 Slime Lv 6 Tangata Manu Lv 5 Dybbuk Lv 5 This is still a fight where you're more than likely to lose up to half of your demons, without a little bit of lady luck smiling on you, unless I just suck at strategizing. Still, a Smirk here, or a Miss there, and somehow it is possible to make it out fully intact too. The next questline is the Missing Navarre string, and luckily enough, all of our current demons will still serve us well. Our first encounter with a hooded man will face us against 3 Naga. Weak to Fire, we can melt them with triple Agi. Our second encounter with a hooded man first faces us against a Wendigo, Weak to Fire. Then a swarm of Wendigo/Naga, curiously enough weak to Lightning. This is a little more dangerous to keep Melchom in, but you can still risk it. Finally, in the domain, we face off against Alraune, Weak to Fire. Her gun attack will pretty much OHKO anyone, but you do have guests so maybe you're lucky and she'll target them. Alternately, you could fuse up the lv 9 Drake Zhu Tun She using your Chagrin and Dyubbuk (which was made by using Fuxi and Myrmecolion), but that doesn't really grant many new skills, so I held off on it. In hindsight it would have been a really great idea, nulling both Gun AND Ice, making it pretty much an ideal demon for the questline... Live and learn, I guess. At the time of beating Alraune, my stats were as follows: Fighting Party MC Lv 11: ( 7/21/18/23/16 ) (Agi+1/Bufu+6/Bouncing Claw+1/Zan+1/Zio+6/Dream Fist+3/Dia+4/Dream Needle+2) [samurai Sword:Samurai Hat/Mikado Sand Top/Samurai Bottom/Samurai Earring) Pele Lv 9: (Agi/Posumdi/Dream Needle/Resist Ice/Critical Wave/Scratch Dance/Dia/Healing Knowhow) Melchom Lv 8: (Life Bonus/Tarukaja/Rakukaja/Bufu/Agi/Zio/Dia/Posumdi) Strigoii Lv 10: (Life Drain/Mudo/Bufu/Critical Wave/Gram Slice/Needle Shot) Reserves: Chagrin Lv 9: Needle Shot/Zio/Rakunda Bilwis Lv 8 Slime Lv 7 Tangata Manu Lv 6 Dybbuk Lv 7 I have yet to spend any of my App Points, because lazy and unsure, but I think I'm about to go on a spree imminently. I will keep you posted on that situation as it develops. Anyway, that's about as far as I've gotten, as I'm going at a much more relaxed pace this time around. Feel free to comment and questions, but as I'm doing my best to keep spoilers to a minimum, and to focus on the gameplay aspects (especially what I love most, fusing demons), I would ask that you too try to refrain from anything spoilery.

http://club2.nintendo.com/30/ Probably as a promotion to the upcoming crossover game. If you register Fire Emblem: Awakening and Shin Megami Tensei IV on the US Club Nintendo by August 31, you'll get $30 eShop credit (which is redeemable on either the 3DS or Wii U). Feel free to move this thread to the more apt board, or lock if repeated (I didn't find anything).