Media Shin Megami Tensei / Persona Thread (Spoilers)

[Plague von Karma]

| 2012 Thread | 2017 Thread |​

vonFiedler said the latest old thread wasn't really worth reviving, so I'm here again. SMT is an RPG series developed by Atlus, with a large cult following. It's kind of similar to Pokemon in that you control "demons" and the like, with the grand aim of beating some malevolent force. There's also a lot of dungeon-crawling. The story tends to be pretty serious, sometimes even dark, making it quite appealing to an older audience. It's been pretty popular in Japan (which makes sense with how Japanese it is), though the Persona sub-series has been of explosive popularity, with Persona 5 being its biggest break yet. With Persona 5 Royal's release and SMTV on the horizon, hell even a Nocturne remake, I thought trying to revive SMT discussion would be cool.

I have Persona 3-5, plus P4G and P5R, as well as all the Dancing games to soothe that rhythm game itch I sometimes get. I've been trying to break into mainline recently as well with the help of a close friend, starting with Digital Devil Saga. He often laments the dropping of Persona 1 and 2 content from the Persona spin-off games, and it's a surprisingly deep discussion. I've kind of become enthralled with the series because of him, though getting into it is surprisingly difficult given how large each game is. Persona 4 has been my favourite of the lot so far, there's a lot of interesting characters there and the OST is pure fire.

So, anyone else hyped for SMTV and the Nocturne remake? Anyone enjoying P5R? Would love to see anyone else interested in the franchise.

 

[Wigglytuff]

Played P5, P4, and most recently P4G when it came out onto Steam this summer. My favorite is definitely P4G. While I have some gripes about the dungeons (they suck and are very tedious to get through) and game balance, the plot is absolutely amazing.

P4/P4G spoilers

I actually think it's kinda amazing that there are three instances in the game where you can very easily get yourself a bad ending (throwing Namatame in, not figuring out that Adachi is the killer, and not noticing that the "ending" is a little off). I passed the first two but failed to realize the third, and was confused to all hell when the credits wasn't happy music & shit.

Bad endings aren't exactly uncommon in video games but P4/P4G's were very well executed in the sense that you are punished for not paying attention to the details of the plot, as opposed to having to pick between two options and finding out you picked the wrong one, or incredibly obviously telegraphed "you join forces with the devil" type endings.

I guess P3 or P3 FES would sequentially be the obvious pick for my next game, but it might have to wait until winter/summer break. It's tough to set aside the amount of time a Persona game takes during the school year.

Who else hit up kawakami as soon as courage was up to level 3?

 

[Fabulous but lazy]

Recently finish my third run in Royal (yep my main account is not american so need those free themes and avatars) and got the 100% of thieves den in my second one haha.

Of course i'm excited for Nocturne.

 

[Plague von Karma]

Finally got around to finishing Persona 5 Royal the past week, and it's such a massive improvement over the base game. I really enjoyed Maruki as a villain, especially with how some people even have difficulty believing him to be one.

I think Azathoth was, long and far, the most fitting Persona they could have given him. Maruki, well and truly, embodies "the blind idiot god". With his goofy slip-ups he has throughout the story, forcing an absurd reality on the world, everything fits together perfectly. It all culminates into his messiah complex perfectly. I adore the way the ending went, especially the bad ones. The symbolism and everything around Maruki would take ages to analyze, but he's quickly cemented himself as one of my favourite villains.

Not sure if I'll play through again given the length of the game, but hey, maybe I will next year or something. Got a lot of other stuff I need to play.

 

[Cynara]

Nocturne Remake is very exciting, I love SMT despite only playing Nocturne and the 3DS games in full. It's probably one of my favourite games out side of Pokemon, Okami, DQM. As for persona I could never get into it as much for some reason. It just feels like westernised SMT and doesn't seem to have the same appeal to me if that makes sense.

E: it's worth noting the demons in SMT are very well designed imo, with a lot of background lore, being monsters based on certain mythologies, religions, folklores etc. Which makes them very interesting, all demons also have a nice readable profile of a sorts too which is cool

 

[Coeur7]

E: it's worth noting the demons in SMT are very well designed imo, with a lot of background lore, being monsters based on certain mythologies, religions, folklores etc.

Not only directed at you --

If you're interested in that, few places have more information/research on the apparent inspirations behind Kaneko's work than this one: https://kanekocribs.tumblr.com/ -- to date, nobody knows what a "Stonka" is, but these people did solve the mystery of e.g. "Tenong Cut" last year three years ago because time flies past me. (It's Tingkat / "Tyngkatt".)

 

[Rei]

I just finished P5R today since I wanted to finish the game on my birthday and overall found myself disappointed with how Kasumi turned out and how little screen time she had before the third semester, however, I am glad to have closure on Akechi due to how vague it was if he actually died after what he did in Shido's palace, and got to play with him in the last palace. The third semester final palace boss Maruki by appearance gave me Aizen vibes from Bleach with how similar they looked, esp when he slicked his hair back and was expecting him at some point to break his glasses LMAO! I was so afraid of an Aizen 2.0, but it turned out it wasnt, thank god. The phase two and three of the boss fight was rather disappointing since it was first beating the Maruki up while getting nearly killed by his evolved persona attacks. The third and final phase was pretty much guard till Futaba found a way to beat the boss and the boss is defeated after a cut scene that was cool ya, but took out the sasification of being him up the third time in what was his final form since he fused with his persona. The new mechanics and changes to the older stuff was awesome, but I really distasted and got bored with the replaying the first two palaces again with hardly any change other than introducing new mechanics and I believe a few scenes with Kasumi and introducing Maruki after the the first palace since I did play the OG Persona 5. I did, however I did enjoy my time playing this game, seeing the cast I loved so much again and the third semester that was really fun other than how the final boss fight went. My favorite character and husbando is Akechi, while my waifu is Futaba. Akechi just reminds me of me, and I understand his character a lot and felt him with what he said. I might replay this game in the future after getting though Persona 3 FES, Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 1 PSP game that I got 2 summers ago for cheap 30$ at a secondhand store that was a steal despite it being disc only as I seen the prices on ebay and boy, it might be awhile before I can add Persona 1 + 2 PS1 and Persona 2 + 3 PSP to my collection.

 

[Plague von Karma]

SMTV got shown off at E3, thought I'd share the content here for any who missed it.

The release date is November 12th 2021, with preorders live on the 21st of June. Very excited.

 

[Candy Corn]

SMTV got shown off at E3, thought I'd share the content here for any who missed it.

The release date is November 12th 2021, with preorders live on the 21st of June. Very excited.

I wonder if it will be a challenging game. Old SMT games like the original Devil Survivor are pretty tough. Games these days seem to be getting gradually easier and easier. I hope this game has moments that kick my butt and push me to try harder

 

[Havi]

i played some persona (3FES, 4G, 5R, 5S, Q2, currently playing Q) and quite a bit of SMT (Nocturne, IV, IV: A, V, SJ Redux, Devil Survivor, got Digital Devil Saga on hold). i started megaten at a weird place, P5S w/o knowledge of the og P5 story, and continued to binge the series since. it's definitely my favorite video game series atm and it's always cool seeing people enjoy them!

I wonder if it will be a challenging game. Old SMT games like the original Devil Survivor are pretty tough. Games these days seem to be getting gradually easier and easier. I hope this game has moments that kick my butt and push me to try harder

i played it few months ago and cleared the true neutral route. think the games pretty much like other megaten titles where it's rough at start and way easier at endgame, but the DLC battle for demi-fiend is definitely the hardest one i've seen yet. sure they got all sorts of way to cheese him now but jfc it rlly was a rage inducing and suspenseful experience

painful demi fiend battle spoilers

..yeah

anw i'd like to shill Strange Journey Redux - it's a bit different from the other titles (no press turns, dungeon crawler, demon sources, etc etc) but it's pure agidyne. they handled your alignment where it actually matters in battle (!!) and IMO they also have the best overall story, atmosphere and representations for the law/chaos faction. just be prepared for very frustating dungeons but hey it's not a SMT game without one or some innit. you should get it before the eshop closes n_n

other cool megaten tracks