What are some SMT or Persona games that are entry-level gameplay-wise with a cool visual style? How is pic related?

What are some SMT or Persona games that are entry-level gameplay-wise with a cool visual style? How is pic related?

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=vlCHdONvgQk
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis
youtube.com/watch?v=QVA1KYe8SPk
youtu.be/seNMCgcc0Kw?t=41s
youtube.com/watch?v=ss2q731UxQ0
youtube.com/watch?v=vNZcHrpX3eQ
youtube.com/watch?v=TB_Al8lCKKE
youtube.com/watch?v=1DM2X9eV9U8
twitter.com/AnonBabble

DDS are pretty manageable. If you're willing to go retro, SMTII is also a good entry point.

your pic is a good start, I would also recommend SMT 3, Persona 4 Golden, Persona 5, or SMT Soulhackers

Persona 4 Golden was the first SMT game i played and the only JRPG i ever beat. the first few hours are lots of talking but after that its very new comer friendly.

DDS was my entry point to the series and now I've beaten quite a few of the games.

Thanks

Pretty good as long as you can emulate it properly. The PSN version has an awful audio sync bug for every single cutscene which really torpedoes the presentation.

SMT4 is easier and with a more streamlined fusion. If you don't have a 3DS, Digital Devil Saga or Nocturne are also good, Nocturne being "the FF7 of SMT games"

Is it weird that I want to fuck Vayu? It's not actually gay right?

What Digital Devil Saga game do you guys like more? I actually prefer the first one, but the second one is still good.

That's probably more akin to bestiality.

I like how batshit crazy the plot in the second game went and how all your characters kept dying off.

It's decent but I was bored by the end of the 2nd game, and the last parts of the game were kinda dull.

First one for sure. Especially when you get to the part with this music:
youtube.com/watch?v=vlCHdONvgQk

Gale is best boy

The first one, easily. I'm not especially fond of either game, but I love the first one's setting.

Something that confuses me about the second game is (Spoiler warning because OP hasn't played the games) what exactly is DDS2's world supposed to be? They say it's the "real" world, but it's made of data, the main characters were able to go from being virtual beings to physical beings, without the need of host bodies or anything, and in the Sun, characters that died in the Junkyard are alongside characters that died in the "real" world.

>goes to Sup Forums
>sees Soul Hackers as recommended

Am I in parallel universe?
(the game is fucking great, I agree)

Probably the best spin off series Atlus has put out.

SH has some pretty advanced fusion mechanics. But the game is also pretty easy overall, if you just pump all Nemissa's points into Ma she will carry you through the entire game.

There's something about DDS's OST that both unsettles me but also makes me love it, can't put my finger on it. Games had the best atmosphere too.

>stomach pains simulator

DDS is heavy on grinding, turn based and random encounters every 20 seconds.

I liked it but mileage may vary.

I always thought they read this:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis

and then decided to meld it with karma and various mythologies as SMT does best

youtube.com/watch?v=QVA1KYe8SPk

So neither DDS1 or DDS2 takes place in a real world?

Kinda related but what is the general consesus in the Raidou games? I love them desu but i'm an easily pleased man.

Out of curiosity, how many people here have beaten Demi-Fiend

I cheesed him by making his Pixie run out of MP, but I still beat him.

>Nocturne had the perfect system where you don't need to grind and just fuse

>DDS says fuck you and makes you grind for atma for each single person to get all the skills you want
>doesn't even care if someone fucks off from the party nigga gotta grind

Also the 2nd game was blatantly worse and shitty dungeons compared to the first ones that were actually interactive

on the contrary, the idea is that even the real world is made of data

it's been a long time since i played it so my memory is hazy on the details

>Nocturne had the perfect system where you don't need to grind and just fuse

I'm replaying nocturne on hard and fuck you

I'll never understand why was Argilla so ''attached'' to Jinana. I mean, those 2 weren't lesbians. (or were they?)

Never really saw the point in wasting 100 hours doing all the side content.

Finish the story and move on to the next game. There's a long list of titles to play.

Play DDS on hard and try tell me its not more tedious

The idea is that there is no difference between the "virtual" and reality, something fairly popular in modern philosophy.
Ultimately our brains work the same way as an incredibly advanced bio-computer and the laws of physics aren't too different from a program's code. If we can replicate all that perfectly with sufficiently high technology, what's the difference?

>SMT 3

It's called Nocturne, fuckwad

You'll just confuse the guy

>>I cheesed him by making his Pixie run out of MP, but I still beat him.

Same. I might go back to it one day to do it "legit" but I'll have to do the NG+ from beginning cause idiot me didn't keep a save file before fighting him

>he didn't give Heat Iron Stomach first chance he got and then make him the only one to eat everything with Atma sharing abilities

Shiggy Mitama

>Playing JRPG's on hard

They're not hard, they're just... tedious.

The combat system is shit in both. Otherwise the first is okay and the second is good

I thought Apocalypse on Hard was fine aside from the increased compendium prices, which I still don't get.

DDS is one of best entry points, it's a more Final Fantasy-ish take on SMT in terms of gameplay in that you don't recruit demons or fuse them or anything like that, you've got a preset cast of characters with their own preset "classes" and skills that they learn when leveling up and focuses more on story, which is arguably one of the most well written MegaTen stories in general.

Then there's Nocturne which is another good entry point because of how completely standalone it is and as dated as the SNES and PS1 games and will introduce you to many of the mainline mechanics.

SMT4 is another good entry point, being a soft-reboot of the series aimed more at new audience than old fans, much easier than Nocturne (tutorial dungeon is the only hard part of the game and it gets easier as you go rather than harder), just don't play Apocalypse until you beat SMT4 since it's made for people that already played 4 and it's story is a semi-sequel to 4, the story basically starts at the endgame of SMT4 and branches from there into its own new story.

Persona 3 FES, Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 are all good entry points into Persona and they're completely standalone, though you will miss some callbacks and cameos if you don't play them in order. For example there's a school trip in Persona 4 where they go to the school from Persona 3, but you won't realize this unless you've played 3 before.

Soul Hackers on 3DS and the upcoming Strange Journey Redux (both are actually just enhanced ports, they aren't remakes) are a good introduction to the "2D" era SMT games and would ease your transition into the SNES and PS1 titles if you wanted to play them later.

If you want to play SMT1 and SMT2, the english fantranslated SNES versions are your only options if you don't know Japanese, otherwise the PS1 versions are straight up superior, the games are very dated though and not recommended as entry points unless you're an oldfag. Also SMT2 is a DIRECT sequel to SMT1's story.

>increased compendium prices

Are there to keep the retards who don't know what comes next out. They make ZERO impact if you're doing hard for a second playthrough, which is how it should be.

You know, when a party member fucks off due to plot, they will come back with whatever ability you had equipped for them maxed out. It's then when you give them the long ass ones.

I played on War/Apocalypse and switched to Paradise to buy from the compendium on 1st playthrough

Cont.
As such, if you want to ever play SMT2, you need to play SMT1 first.

The same goes for Digital Devil Saga on PS2, it's actually just one game split into two due to production costs and PS2 disc space issues, so make sure you play DDS1 before DDS2.

The same goes for Persona 2 Innocent Sin and Persona 2 Eternal Punishment, play IS before EP as it's absolutely story critical to do so.
Also just like in case of SMT1/2, unless you know Japanese you won't have access to best version of the game. It's better to play the PSP ports of both, but only PSP port of IS was translated, while on PS1 only EP was translated. However, for PS1 there's a full high quality fantranslation of IS, so you can go with PS1 IS and EP. I don't recommend playing the PSP IS and going to PS1 EP because all the mechanical improvements that the PSP version of IS made naturally don't exist in PS1 EP and it will feel like shit transitioning like that. There is supposedly a fantranslation of PSP EP being worked on but it's been "in development" for like 5 years now and has nothing to show for it so I wouldn't get your hopes up.

Yeah but lets say you only focused on 4 characters and then one of them fucks off, you have to grind some other fag in the meantime.

In DDS2 the fucking MC fucks off himself

...

>I don't recommend playing the PSP IS and going to PS1 EP because all the mechanical improvements that the PSP version of IS made naturally don't exist in PS1 EP and it will feel like shit transitioning like that.

I just finished PS1 Eternal Punishment a few days ago and I can attest to this. Holy fuck. And the encounter rate is disgusting.

But the story of both games is great. It was worth it. I'm never touching those again.

That's why you should've gone with the fantranslation of PS1 IS. I always tell people this, the transition will straight up make a lot of people just quit on the spot due to how much worse the gameplay will seem going from PSP to PS1.

So, anons. You buying Switch or already own one?

Some JRPGs do hard mode right, like TLR.
Then again, said hard mode should be the only mode anyway.

My sister has one.

>Yeah but lets say you only focused on 4 characters and then one of them fucks off, you have to grind some other fag in the meantime.

Only focused on 4, out of like 5 you have in the first game? Besides, they usually aren't gone for long. Plus, finding those Mitama places kinda helped along the way, as long you always had someone with Iron stomach.

>In DDS2 the fucking MC fucks off himself

I will give you that. They even give you that Roland dude and I never even used him for fuck all, all because every single character you have fucks off.

I was slightly sad when they killed Argilla, but I was more mad cuz she has the best magic preset growth. I was left without my healer/nuke everythinger. Piss.

Only buying it once it gets hacked, I refuse to give Fatlus USA any money. If Atlus JP was doing translations in-house and the game was dual language, I'd just buy Japanese (or Hong Kong) version and call it a day, but since they don't do that, the only option is to buy the Fatlus USA ones and Fatlus USA is straight up cancer as a company.

>Also the 2nd game was blatantly worse and shitty dungeons compared to the first ones that were actually interactive
The main writer was dealing with serious health issues so the entire development was in a standstill, they had to get Satomi Tadashi (who wasn't part of Atlus anymore) who was from the original SNES/PS1 era old guard of the company to finish the game under heavy deadline pressure while still writing a story that makes sense.
The original intended story of DDS, the one by the writer that faced health issues, was later released as a series of 5 books after her health issues were resolved. Though to my knowledge only the first one is available in English.

>I want to fuck Vayu
I thought I was the only one. Good taste, user.

SMT and Persona do Hard mode right. It's your choice to say "yeah well I know how to fuse properly and I'm in the mood for some guessing and grinding on my first playthrough".

Hard modes in SMT games are only tedious if you don't know what comes next. Hell, the difficulty of every SMT/Persona game comes from that formula

>Go to boss
>Oh shit we don't have the right setup
>die
>go back fuse or farm until you have it

They just took the usual elemental weakness formula and turned it into something mandatory for progression.

Still thinkin about it. Reluctant to buy a console just for one game, but then I remember I've done so before in the past. Last time being a PS3 for P5.

Nevermind, apparently they RECENTLY finally released the second book in English. Now to wait couple more years for the remaining 3, fucking hell.

Cool shit. Now I do have an excuse to get one without feeling like the rest will never be done. Now I'll have TWO books with a conclusion that will never be done.

Specify Persona 1 and then you have an accurate post.
From 2 onwards Persona was never particularly hard.

I really fucking hope they will eventually do all of them and don't go bankrupt before finishing, since the company doing them seems to be extremely fucking small and niche.

>From 2 onwards Persona was never particularly hard.
Let me guess, you played the PSP version, so let me put it this way.
Hard difficulty in PSP Innocent Sin is easier than regular difficulty in PS1 original, and that's not just due to mechanics being improved a bit on PSP, the actual AI patterns, enemy stats and so on are just harder on PS1.

That+wear death immune armour as soon as it becomes available. If the instant death spam doesn't force you into it then the level drain definitely will

Nah, friend lent me his copy of the original.

I did that but with Serph. I always like to have at least one character who goes full world of STR, and Heat put too many points into his magic stat for my liking. I benched the fucker as soon as I feasibly could.

That's a good thing though. Low mag means fuck all magical defense, and you don't want that by the 99% magic endgame

SMT: SJ

Why don't you play a real shin megumi tensayy gayim, like knock-turn or strange journey?

> knock-turn
wat?

nocturne
youtu.be/seNMCgcc0Kw?t=41s

By the end he knew charge and ragnarok, with 99 str. Charge, pass, pass ragnarok, done. Every encounter.

Had to practically bench him for the second phase of the final boss, though...

Oh yeah, I struggled with him until he was blowing shit up with Ragnarok. But getting there was such a hassle. It sucks when any neutral magic attack is hitting for weakness tier damage, and any weakness is an instagib
gale+argilla is objectively the best party, but heat is too fun.

I just can't get into it for the life of me. The loyalty system was so annoying it made me ween off of the game really early on. I feel like I misunderstood it because there's no way it's as dumb as I think it is. I also didn't like the Demon negotiation, conversations were long and there was a bunch of recycled dialogue. It highlighted the RNG elements of Demon negotiation a lot and I don't like that.

DDS is cool as shit and not too hard.

Loyalty is easy. You can abuse the fuck out of those items that raise loyalty or allow loyalty gain from preferred actions
Demon negotiation does suck, but it is old.

I don't know, but that part where she cries on to her tear Atma Brand was hilarious with how cheesy it was. Heat coming up a second later talking about eating her just made it funnier.

I'll probably but one, but there's still plenty of time before I actually have to make that decision.

devour her

>Demon negotiation does suck, but it is old.
SMT1 is older and the Demon negotiation wasn't nearly as annoying. I'll probably give Soul Hackers another go some day, but what I did play of it was dull at best.

awesome. DDS2 has the best normal battle filed music in all of JRPGs.

>want to replay DDS
>remember all the griding i would have to do to beat all extra bosses
>remember the tower

the fairy hallway makes grinding for atma less of a pain but fuck me, it took its sweet time.

I'm playing through Persona 1 right now and i'm at the Black Market. This fucking dungeon holy shit. Every other dungeon took a maximum of 45 minutes to figure out but Kandori Palace or whatever it's called is taking fucking hours.

DDS is proof you can still make evil, evil dungeons in 3D too

DDS1 has very subdued and "sleepy" moody instrumental feel to it. Even with boss battles, the riffs are holding back, especially noticeable since Persona 3, SMT3, and DDS were done by the same composer in around the same time period.

While I appreciate and see what he was doing, DDS2 smashes DDS1's boring soundtrack. DDS1's biggest problem is you can fuck yourself over with skill leveling, grinding is nuts for skills if you didn't future proof (hunting skills raise AP), and the plot is extremely low and drops sequel hints way before it reaches the anti climatic ending.

DDS2 was done by a different author, the original author was outsourced and had health issues. DDS2 shares a lot with Xenosaga 1 and 2, in that the creators of the original game; mostly the writer staff, were shuffled about and key points or characters were lost in transition.

I would not recommend DDS1 to a newcomer, nor DDS2. The combat system is extremely harsh and doesn't give you a lot of ways to deal with issues unlike SMT3 or Persona 3, which allowed for far greater party customization. DDS1 is a love letter to SMT3 fans and its difficulty was pushing the press turn system.

I played the North American PS3 versions of all SMT Atlus games without issues. The audio desync thing was only in the first hour for me, there was a weird visual bug for 1 minute in the middle of DDS2, but that was it for me. I remember at the time both of these games costing 35 dollars, way after the PS2 was dead, so buying them on PS3 for 5 dollars was a steal.

Hope you're playing the PSP version. If you're on the PC, better fast forward and grind. When you reach a garden, a fuck, what....a plaza with a little girl asking questions, that happens early on and decides the ending so pay attention.

Buying a Switch for SMT5 and a couple others. Maybe this year, maybe not. Depends on the price.

Last dungeon is 100% BS.

I beat him straight up. Was one hell of a time but I got lucky and didn't really get fucked over by Gaea Rage or waking up so it actually only took me two long long tries.

>DDS2 smashes DDS1's boring soundtrack
not when Hunting-Compulsion is a thing kid
youtube.com/watch?v=ss2q731UxQ0

>DDS1's boring soundtrack
Just because it was atmospheric doesn't make it boring.
youtube.com/watch?v=vNZcHrpX3eQ

>not giving the characters you're not using/all the characters the exp share ability
From the moment you get someone new it makes it pretty obvious that you might want to have everyone ready to tag in with how weaknesses and skills work.

Is there a vidya track that gives off the "Home" feel more than this? youtube.com/watch?v=TB_Al8lCKKE
Probably not.

youtube.com/watch?v=1DM2X9eV9U8

END and LCK is what you pump in the protag. I got away with so many negotiations because my luck was sky high iirc.

You have to grind that skill

>DDS2 smashes DDS1's boring soundtrack
nigga are you high on drugs?

DDS2 has the real world, but Adult Fred straight up says everything is made out of data. So even data from computer programs can be brought into being when you add some mysticism into it.

I had balls and beat him fair and square. His fight is genuinely fun and not luck based, Satan is boring as fuck but it's kinda fitting since he's an autist.

I'll have to. If they have a SMTV designed LE, hopefully it looks good.

You can get it fairly early on and DDS2 makes it even easier to get. I didn't grind anything until I aimed for the secret bosses and I had it shortly after Gale showed up.

You ever wonder why DDS2 soundtrack is always compared with IV?

Because DDS1 tracks were forgettable trash

>You ever wonder why DDS2 soundtrack is always compared with IV?
not really since that's the first time i see someone bring up DDS2 and IV in one sentence.

Is there a compilation of those images?
I missed the threads, even when I knew they were going on I still gave them a pass