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Von Plays Kyūyaku Megami Tensei: Megami Tensei I


Von Ithipathachai
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I think asking for all series fans to try it at least once is asking a bit much. The play through is fine, but I do get a weird feeling between when you take advantage of knowing what is going on, and yet you explore fully anyway (I know it's for completion, but it feels like aimlessness at times) . Thankfully with these early games filling out the auto map isn't TOO much longer than playing only the necessary parts of the game, so I might manage to watch the rest of the series.

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I like the trimmed down video.

Couple of weird things.

You kind of give the false impression that demon party members can only be used in boss fights and not during the main part of the dungeon, which is funny. I don't think it's too much of a problem since, explaining mechanics too heavily would obviously slow the video down and most of the people interested in watching this probably know better due to at least experience with later games. 

The way you worded your sentences with the teleporter rooms didn't make it clear if they were supposed to be working but your ROM forgot to put them in or just that you hadn't activated them as plot-progression required from the other end. 

Anyway, I'm having fun. Keep up the play thorough, you are doing good work..

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I'm glad you're enjoying this.

You could totally use your demon allies in the main part of Daedalus, but the enemies there are overall easy enough that Nakajima and Yumiko should be able to reach 1F on their own just fine, so I don't really think it's worth it.

Bien onward, however, is a much different story.  Enemies in later dungeons tend to either be more numerous or carry more dangerous Skills, so in those cases it's not really feasible for Nakajima and Yumiko to solo the paths leading to the boss.  For Bien in particular, the Medusa Shadow encounters will almost certainly eat up a large chunk of Yumiko's MP for healing.

As for those teleporters, I'm going by the maps here so that I can reach the interesting places more quickly without recording more footage than I think I need.  Those maps say the rooms in question are teleporters from Daedalus to Valhalla and back, but I have no idea how to make them work.

Long story short, if you want to see me use my demons more in dungeons, then you're not going to be disappointed.

Edited by Von Ithipathachai
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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

So this is the original Megami Tensei, the game that started it all- well an enhanced port of it.

Definitely old school- too old school for me. I mean I could handle SMT I iOS, I went through it three times and it isn't too bad, but this seems to be a little too nasty in its archaic nature. The bosses seem extremely evil with how much HP and damage they pack.

The absence of MP replenishing items and double digit MP max is a shame, but the damage looks very good at least. And is there no Mediarama? I know SMT I didn't have Mediarahan and Salvation/Prayer, but the group healing seems to max out at so little. And why are there -dynes here? Before I saw this LP, I thought Nocturne invented those. SMT I nor Soul Hackers had -dyne level magic. Or is -dyne exclusive to that Hama spell?

And I'm guessing the final video will include a fight in the Lord of the Flies? I heard he is the randomly encountered "superboss" in Infini. 

You intend to follow up with Kyuyaku Megami Tensei II right? That is the game that introduced Law vs. Chaos if I'm correct. I wonder how much of an improvement it is.

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3 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

So this is the original Megami Tensei, the game that started it all- well an enhanced port of it.

Definitely old school- too old school for me. I mean I could handle SMT I iOS, I went through it three times and it isn't too bad, but this seems to be a little too nasty in its archaic nature. The bosses seem extremely evil with how much HP and damage they pack.

The absence of MP replenishing items and double digit MP max is a shame, but the damage looks very good at least. And is there no Mediarama? I know SMT I didn't have Mediarahan and Salvation/Prayer, but the group healing seems to max out at so little. And why are there -dynes here? Before I saw this LP, I thought Nocturne invented those. SMT I nor Soul Hackers had -dyne level magic. Or is -dyne exclusive to that Hama spell?

And I'm guessing the final video will include a fight in the Lord of the Flies? I heard he is the randomly encountered "superboss" in Infini. 

You intend to follow up with Kyuyaku Megami Tensei II right? That is the game that introduced Law vs. Chaos if I'm correct. I wonder how much of an improvement it is.

The version of the game that I'm playing does have MP restoratives, but they don't recover a lot, though they can recover your MP above its max.  If you've ever played Doom, the little Health and Armor bonus items you can pick up should give you a good idea of how Muscle Drinks and Magic Sources work.

Every element in Kyūyaku Megami Tensei has a -dyne Level Spell, but I only show Hamadyne because it happens to be the most useful, since most enemies that have clear weaknesses are weak to Expel.

-dyne Spells debuted in the NES version of Megami Tensei II and were re-introduced into this version of Megami Tensei I in an effort to make its spell naming system match up with that of later games.  For some bizarre reason, -dyne Spells were cut from SMT1 and 2, severely limiting the usefulness of offensive magic in the latter half of SMT1 and virtually all of SMT2 (not helped by the fact that the formula for calculating magical attack power is much weaker than the one for physical attack power).  Thankfully, they were brought back in SMTif... and have appeared in every main series game since, though the Devil Summoner games simply carried on with a better version of SMT1+2's system.

Megami Tensei II fixes some of its predecessor's issues (such as the lack of good healing spells).  Despite the fact that it's still kind of archaic and has a difficulty curve a lot like SMT4's, I find it to be a much more interesting game.

I would love to do a Let's Play of Megami Tensei II, but my current life situation just isn't right for it.  My schoolwork has been absolutely relentless, so I barely have any free time to play video games or work on my spreadsheets or Fire Emblem: Ascension concept.  On top of that, I also need to play my Nintendo Switch games more, and I recently got Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers for the 3DS despite the fact that I haven't even finished the first Devil Summoner yet.  Finally, as the cherry on top, I've started to become dissatisfied with Windows Movie Maker and would like to upgrade to something better, preferably something that lets me make videos like this:

Spoiler

 

So while I have do have plans to do a Let's Play of Kyūyaku Megami Tensei: Megami Tensei II, you probably won't see it for a long time.

(By the way, did you like that gag thumbnail for Part 7?  I'm rather proud of it.)

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16 hours ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

-dyne Spells debuted in the NES version of Megami Tensei II and were re-introduced into this version of Megami Tensei I in an effort to make its spell naming system match up with that of later games.  For some bizarre reason, -dyne Spells were cut from SMT1 and 2, severely limiting the usefulness of offensive magic in the latter half of SMT1 and virtually all of SMT2 (not helped by the fact that the formula for calculating magical attack power is much weaker than the one for physical attack power).

Interesting. Magic was pretty useful for SMTI's first half though. On my second and third runs of the game, pretty much all in one summer, I saved as much Yen as I could and splurged it all on one of those machine guns to have a third before it's off to the Diamond Realm. Besides three machine guns for random fights, for bosses when the Law and Chaos Heroes were around I more or less relied on their attack magic because it was so powerful. When it was just the Hero and Heroine it was Mazio stun lock (why doesn't she have plain old Zio? It would be so much more efficient) combined with Tarukaja and Rakunda buffed physical attacks. Then at Ikebukuro I reject Yama every time for more EXP, and if I needed to I would just heal at Gaean Temples to shift alignment. Traport doesn't work in Ikebukuro until after you kill Yama, but you can still cast it and waste 2 MP, so it's actually the best place for this method. I only kill Niue though, I saved Yama for until I was done with Echidna and or Aniel because he seems to be very high leveled and hence I could in a way get more experience out of it. Anyhow, with Niue, perhaps the hardest part for me, gone, I went about obtaining the sword and taking the time to fuse the demons needed for the Kagutsuchi, which alongside a Lotus Wand for the Heroine, makes the final third/quarter real easy. But still, the first two thirds of SMTI is magic heavy.

If I ever get to doing another run of Nocturne, I'm going to overhaul my Demi-Fiend build, which was lopsidedly Strength and Vitality with a few Agility. I heard constant complaints of magic being crappy in III, but you're shooting yourself in the foot if you don't bother with making the DF magical at all. Pierce and Freikugel are around for 6% and 1% of the game respectively, so they're massively overrated. The ideal DF gameplan to me seems Vit and a little Str in the Hospital for early survival and damage. Once out, shift to Magic boosting, between 10-20 should suffice, and grab Tornado and Force Boost for the long haul, Fire and Ice Breath and Shock are all okay for variety's sake too. Once you get to the Manikin town (Ikebukuro?), you can obtain the Nirvana Magatama for Divine Shot and this plus Charge from the Magatama buyable in the Sewers will suffice for phys damage until Deadly Fury or Deathbound (but there is nothing wrong with DS and DF/DB, since the first is single target and the others all hitting). This is when you really start buffing Str, with a few Vit as necessary. Agility- well it seems to play no role in hitting things and attacking before the enemies is guaranteed with Press Turns, so it's ignorable. Luck is a dump stat as it typically is. Even after Divine Shot, keep Tornado and grab maybe Magma Axis or replace it with Wind Cutter or one of the other powerhouse spells, since Grimekhala boss and random Rangdas still lay ahead and Pierce is still very remote. A carefully constructed Dual Cannon Demi Fiend is the best around.

Then we get to SMTIV, where Magic is just so much better than Phys by having so much more variety. Only when the bosses stop packing weaknesses, which is more or less DLC and the finals (and maybe a few Fiends? Never got to fighting them), does Phys replace Magic in damage potential. But at that point, you can just leave the attacking to demons (how does Uriel even Kannuki Throw?) and convert the Hero into a buffer or healer, which ain't too bad. A good Gun with cheap elemental bullets can admittedly hit weaknesses, but it still isn't as good for randoms where you might want to pack multiple elements. Or just Concentrate-Megido to 1 turn some weaklings and not have to worry about a Phys/Gun null/drain/repel getting the way of this.

The Devil Survivors are more or less the same as IV (well DS1 original is probably less Phys friendly), but Phys gets better much faster and becomes bonkers with Multi-Strike, Deathbound not being bad either. Although Demons being able to run multiple Pierce and Leaders stuck with one copy to share makes more than one Phys-oriented Leader harder to use and hence more of a Demon thing. Because Pierce is so readily available though, it makes outside of a few enemies, a weakness of Phys in the post-Nocturne world, being resisted/blocked easily by virtue of having so few elements vis a vis Magic, much less of an issue. 

 

16 hours ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

On top of that, I also need to play my Nintendo Switch games more, and I recently got Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers for the 3DS despite the fact that I haven't even finished the first Devil Summoner yet.

I've played Soul Hackers to the end, a little antiquated, but good and you'll certainly enjoy it. A few quality of life updates in the 3DS version, like being able to adjust the difficulty at any time, even when in battle! On Down, your chance of escaping battles is 100%, so that can be hugely useful if you get tired of fighting.

Hope you have Play Coins! The Nemechi demons can be useful if you spend for them. Evolving the Nemechi the first time has one result, but after this there are 3 Male and Female splits to the Nemechi evolution, which you get is random at each stage. But to unlock all demons buyable from Nemechi, you have to get the ultimate forms of both Male and Female at least once (having a certain gendered form will unlock all of those from any lower forms of the same gender if you didn't get them). And before you reset Nemechi growth, be sure to trade more Play Coins for D-Souls for the gender's ultimate demons. For ultimate Male, you have Odin, Mada, and Izanami to unlock. For Female, it's Thor, Albion, and Lucifrost. Once you get all three, then it is safe to reset Nemechi.

More importantly you are aware that when you have to describe Hitomi at the start of the game, whichever of the three choices you pick determines the magic she learns? The path of each choice is:

Spoiler

Upbeat:

  • Agi magic. (Because "upbeat" is warm and energetic.)
  • Hama magic.
  • Gets a Fire spell as her "ultimate" from this line.

Calm:

  • Bufu magic. (Because a synonym for calm is cool.)
  • Mudo magic.
  • Gets a Almighty spell that deals more damage to Neutral enemies as her ultimate.

Sexy:

  • Zio magic.
  • Marin Karin. (What? She is just showing off her sexiness.)
  • Megidola.
  • Gets an Almighty spell that deals more damage on a Full Moon.

All of her spell lines get the Dia line (except Mediarahan) and Recarm (but not Samarecarm). Megido and her true ultimate are also obtained on all paths.

 

Which to choose?

Ice is a little worse than the others, since Death isn't as common a weakness as Expel. Otherwise Fire and Elec are more or less equal, Fire being a bit better for most of the game, but having line targeting Almighty (Megido is single target, -dola row, -loan all) is a neat little edge at the end for Elec. Don't get unhung up on the Megido line (50 for Megido on Elec, 52 for the same spell on the other two paths) or any of the ultimates though, since they come really late (75 for the path ultimate, 80 for the shared ultimate), you'll be doing without them for most of SH.

And regardless of which path you pick, load your heroine up on Magic with enough Agility to go first consistently, and you'll be asking why the Hero isn't taking orders from her. Her damage is just stellar.

Loyalty- techniques when a demon is a maxed Loyalty are said to do the highest damage of their respective element.

You will be told heavily at one point to pick between two bosses with a consequence of which you pick, the consequence is:

Spoiler

Determining what the Final Boss specializes in. The final boss will take on the traits of the slain boss.

One of the two options is considered harder than the other, but I got through the harder choice just fine with sufficient preparations. Maybe if you get unlucky in what skills it chooses on given turn or two you could get Game Over'ed, but that didn't happen to me on my first run.

 

16 hours ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

(By the way, did you like that gag thumbnail for Part 7?  I'm rather proud of it.)

Good old Indiana Jones, correct? Not bad. As a side note, the famed Raiders of the Lost Ark ark opening scene with face melting is very SMT worthy (done before the modern day of easy CGI).

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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...I'll try to keep all this stuff about Soul Hackers in mind when I eventually get to it.

Also, forgot to say this earlier, but if you're expecting Beelzebub in Megami Tensei I to be some kind of ultra-powerful superboss, then I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed.

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