To all the Shin Megami Tensei heads on Sup Forums, what game should I begin with?

To all the Shin Megami Tensei heads on Sup Forums, what game should I begin with?
Not interested in Persona, just the SMT games.

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youtube.com/watch?v=sdofJiz6Pyk
twitter.com/AnonBabble

Persona 3 FES so you learn the spells and get used to designs.

Then either P4 if you want more of that, Digital Devil Saga if you want a more streamlined version of SMT but with no real fusion or SMT Nocturne.

Nocturne or IV. Digital Devil Saga is a good choice too if you're not only interested in mainline Megaten.

Persona 1, 2 (consists of two games), and arguably 3 are all honorary SMT games and should be played.
SMT IV is also a good place to start.

Any one that catches your interest the most desu.

How 3 could even be considered honorary SMT game. Persona 5 had less trashy anime moments that 3 did.

OP said he's not interested in Persona

and I don't give a shit, Persona 1-3 are worth playing for SMTfags

3 has the atmosphere of an SMT game

Nocturne if you don't mind a slightly older and tougher game.
IV if you want something with more QOL improvements but a more uneven overall quality.
Strange Journey is also a good starting point if you're ok with 1st person dungeon crawling.

>DUDE, DEATH, LMAOOOO
>HEEEY, LETS GO SPY ON THE CHICKS BATHING
>WOULDNT IT BE FUN TO BE FRIENDS TO A 4 YEAR OLD LOLI LMAO.
>SCHOOL IS SO MUCH FUN.

Looks like you got meme'd into hating persona m8

>what is SMT If...

Dont you fucking compare SMT if to Persona 3.

Persona 3 has SMT atmosphere

Yes, being a popular high schooler and making tons of friends really captures the SMT atmosphere.

Your friends die, fucktard

1 of them dies, same guy that didnt spare more than two lines to anyone not named Akihiko or Ken.

Nocturne is the only right answer.

so SMT then?

>popular high schooler
This only applies to persona 4

I dont know man, all the friends YOU KILLED seem to spend more of their lines saying how much you suck.

I am gonna go out and play the devil's advocate and say DeSu.

Possesed Amane makes my dick go diamonds.

Start with P3

...

Post the updated one at least.

Hitoshura was so popular in school that his teacher invited him to visit her at the hospital.
If not for the beltandzipper faggot that came along with him, Demifiend probably would have banged his teacher while the world was ending around him.

You could start with the first SMT and use that fast-forward button on the emulator. You won't go wrong starting anywhere though. Start playing all of them if you wish.

...

>Persona3
>good
Just stop dude.

Starting with SMT 1 or 2 is a bad idea

I started with Strange Journey, been hooked on the series ever since.
DeSu 2 best game

Its truly a good narrative

Its not, game has no pacing.

And? Its still a worthwhile play

it has excellent pacing.

Amane is cute

its decent if you don't die of boredom in Tarturus. Even then I never really liked the characters, but at least the ending was handled well enough. But both narratively and gameplay wise it is far from something I would recommend to someone who wants to get into SMT.

If you are only committed to one game at a time I would agree.

I'm playing through Persona 3 right now, and anons itt are right, it's definitely an honorary SMT. The other Personas don't touch upon cutting and drug abuse.

>inb4 muh edge

I never said otherwise, but its not a SMT experience.

Yes, lets make all important shit happens in the last 40 days of the game.

>Persona 1-3 are worth playing for SMTfags
Fuck off with your weeb high school simulator, DeSu is better

A girl jumped from a roof in Persona 5, in Persona 3 they arent even real drugs, they are anime drugs.

Nocturne or Strange Journey. Nocturne is more modern, SJ is more old-school, both are stellar.

but user, that is literally edge incarnate.

The post-apocalyptic punk setting is the SMT atmosphere, not just having your friends die.

word

And they make a huge fucking cutscene out of it. Chidori cutting is just a a matter of fact.

>durrr, dealing with mental issues is edge

Jumping froma roof isnt a matter of fact?

Yo wanna punch things, go for Nocturne.
Yo wanna shoot things, go for Strange Journey.
Yo wanna slash things, go for Raidou games.
Yo wanna a normal jrpg, go for Digital Devil Saga.

No, I just explained that they made a big hullabaloo cutscene out of it. Are you literally retarded?

Why do P3fags try so hard to latch onto the idea that P3 is as elitist and obscure as other SMT games? It's the game that shot Persona into the spotlight and it has just as much waifushit and anime tropes as the two games that followed, if not moreso. If someone's interested in SMT and not Persona then there's no reason to recommend them Persona because P3 is pretty far from SMT. I like Persona and SMT for different reasons and there's no reason to act like P1-3 are "honorary SMT games" and there's certainly no reason to make the completely arbitrary distinction between P3 and P4 and 5 when none of them resemble SMT that closely, which is why they're spinoffs.

So trying to kill yourself isnt a big hullabaloo, gotcha.

Fucking edgelord

Cutting and drug abuse are really all I play SMT for, so I'm glad to know that Persona 3 has the two most notable traits of the entire SMT series.

they're now on suicide watch because of fear of irrelevancy
all thanks to the P5onlis

>one has an animated FMV devoted to it
>one is mentioned a couple times in passing
>find the difference
Yep, retarded.

Why twist my argument like this? Are you proud of yourself?

They've done this since long before P5's release, I don't think that's what it is.

IV has tons of quality of life improvements. IV:A improves on the mechanics of IV.

SJ is probably the best of the mainline plotwise.

DeSu is just the overall best, but it's technically a side series.

>tfw playing nocturne and suck ass at it because p5 was my first smt game
am i just a casual pleb?

I swear to good that all P3fags came on full force after P5 came out, they werent so obnoxious when P4 was king.

P5 isn't any more difficult than Nocturne. Literally the only challenge in Nocturne is Matador and Daisoujou.

Might as well wait for May to play SJ.

Yes

What is your argument then? Because all you've said in your post is that Persona 3 is an honorary SMT, and then you followed it up by saying that other Persona games don't touch upon things like cutting and drug abuse, so you were either suggesting that those two elements, despite having nothing to do with anything in SMT, made it more of an honorary SMT game than other Persona games, or you just said it for no reason at all and gave no explanation for why P3 is an "honorary SMT."

The only true challenge in Nocturne is Puzzle Boy.

Your mind is so fucking small, holy shit. Have you ever heard of this thing called an 'example'? Those two things I mentioned are 'examples' of shit they don't touch on in the other Personas. Don't respond to me anymore, you're too fucking stupid for me to bother doing the Captcha anymore.

They're examples of thins that have no relevancy to SMT. Persona 4 touches on people living in blissful ignorance, it's not a sign that it has some association with SMT though, it's just an irrelevant comment because that doesn't tie SMT and Persona together at all, just like cutting and drug abuse don't tie P3 and SMT together at all.

The thing that ties them together is 'edge'/dark imagery. SMT is chock-fucking-full of 'edge'/dark imagery (it's about goddamn demons), and you cannot deny that as a fan. P3 is the most full of dark imagery, so it is the most like SMT. Now I say again, please stop responding to me, you worthless fucking brainlet.

Persona 3 fans everyone.

Devil survivor.

>muh ___fags
Did you have an argument, or are you just a hopeless brainlet?

Yes, we get it, playing you need a really high IQ to really understand what Persona 3 is about, fisting the robot its a deconstruction of British industrialization, I wouldnt understand.

If being dark is all that defines SMT then I suppose Mother 3 is an honorary SMT game too, it's a videogame and it's dark, and seeing as this is apparently enough of a correlation to call Persona 3 an honorary SMT game then surely it's enough for Mother 3. Not Persona 4 or 5 though, they may have children dying and people attempting suicide to escape sexual abuse, s well as P5 having more mechancis from mainline games like Demon negotiation, but it doesn't reach that trademark SMT darkness you see in P3 when the characters shoot themselves with pretend guns and hit on girls at the beach in classic SMT fashion.

yup

Dark souls is a honorary SMT game, crash too since its a souls game.

>all that defines SMT
I'm not saying that, you hopeless moron. You keep constructing strawmen. Can't you see how fucking stupid you're being? Seriously, last response you're getting.

What you did say is that being dark and having dark imagery is enough to tie P3 and SMT together here If that alone is enough to call P3 "an honorary SMT game" then the dark imagery alone is obviously a defining factor in SMT for you, despite the fact that it's not a defining feature at all.

Not him but you’re being ignorant on purpose. A lot of people no doubt attribute SMT with having a heavier and more morbid atmosphere, along with its demons and spells. Its not a stretch to say P3 is honorary SMT.

Fucking thank you.

SMT IV is pretty much designed as an entry point.

By that logic every Atlus every persona game is SMT honorary since they use the same spells and demons.

Persona 3 only has one thing in common with SMT: some demon designs. The way the plot is structured, the exaggerated anime moments and the lack of alignments makes the game completely divergent from the Mainline.
It's an edgy grimdark highschool simulator. (I still like it tho)
OP, if you are still here, i reccomend you Nocturne. I started with it and it is my favourite

SMT IV is the best place to start.
It is just the definitive SMT experience.
From there, you can play Devil Survivor, or Nocturne, or Digital Devil Saga or IV Apocalypse, your choice.

While we're on topic, I was chillin in town with my bros before, and I heard about the "Divine Powers".
They were talking about some nice things, like a BETTER universe for mankind.
And all it takes is to trust a VERY nice guy, whose name is Lord Krishna (may praise always be on Him).
So, I think we should give these guys a chance, I mean, the actual universe we live in is pretty shitty because *record scratch* is a false god.

It is a stretch. I'm not suggesting that SMT is light-hearted, but it's still tonally nothing like P3 and saying that dark imagery alone is enough to call a game an honorary SMT game is total nonsense. There's much more to SMT than some dark imagery and reducing it to that alone and saying it makes P3 an honorary SMT game makes no sense. It's like saying GTA is an honorary fighting game because people fight each other in it. It's honing in on one facet of the game and then acting like that common ground alone is enough of a defining factor to tie the two together when fighting people alone doesn't define the fighting game genre or GTA. It's only made more ridiculous when you suggest that P4 and 5 somehow aren't honorary SMT games but P3 is when the three of them have about as much in common with SMT, which is not a lot.

Hey... I think I have seen you before. Is that a flute in your hand?

>Hitoshura was so popular in school
Where was this implied in the game?

How can you believe that comparing a spinoff title to it's mother series is like comparing an open world game to a fighter? Do you realize how ridiculous you're being? It's a matter of degrees, and you're too autistic to see that.

SMT is so fucking overrated. It's literally just a worse Pokemon.
Persona is miles better.

This guy gets it.

Persona is literally the same shit but it forces you to follow a very specific and tight fucking schedule if you want to see everything.

Flute? Oh no, this is just... a pen. I use it to write down... things. Yeah.
fuck you dagda stop showing everyone my flute you peace of shit

>No real decisions to get different endings
>No demons ,just recolored shadows
>Calendar
The "all humans have a secret desire of dying " is retarded too

Play in this order
>Soul Hackers > SMT > SMT II > Strange Journey > Nocturne > IV > IVA
After that, play the spin offs in whatever order. Definitely play Persona at some point, they’re all good. Even if you don’t care about modern Persona, 1&2 are basically just SMT games with a heavier story focus. 3 is the best of the modern ones and 4 is the most “anime”.

>if you want to see everything
You're not supposed to do that in one playthrough. Sorry for your autism.

Persona is a spin-off, it's not like SMT and it's not supposed to be like SMT, it's why it exists in the first place. In a sense every Persona is an honorary SMT game, and if you want to look at that way then that's fine and I understand that, but when you call P3 an honorary SMT game for it's content of having a dark tone, rather than for the fact that it's a spin-off of SMT, then it just becomes nonsense. Calling Persona as a series honorary SMT because of the association the two games have in being part of the same series makes sense and is not comparable to comparing GTA to fighting games. Calling Persona 3, but not P4 and 5, an honorary SMT because it has "edge/dark imagery" and touches on things like "cutting and drug abuse" is nonsense and is comparable to calling GTA a fighting game because they both involve fighting people, which is an equally nonsensical claim.

Don't remind me

>You're not supposed to do that in one playthrough
If you're not supposed to do that then why can you do that?

youtube.com/watch?v=sdofJiz6Pyk

You can, but you would almost certainly require a walkthrough. And why would you want to use one the first time?

>replaying games that require dozens of hours to complete right after finishing them just to see a couple of things you missed
Sorry for your autism.

Do not start with IV or IV:A

Being able to pick your fusion skills is so convenient it will undermine your experience going back to older games.