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*Is neither HD nor much of a collection.  SMT1 Opening ~ Names of the LordSo, Shin Megami Tensei 1 and 2 are games for the SNES (and remade a whole bunch of times for like the PS1 and GBA and stuff). It's a JRPG made by Atlus. It's pretty good! The music is awesome too. Would recommend. Both the game and music. One of the many remakes of SMT1 was an official English one for iOS in 2014. SMT2 also had an iOS remake but that one wasn't released outside Japan. Spoilers? Eh, tag 'em if it's stuff we haven't seen. I'm none-too-fussed, because while SMT1's plot is good, it's not super-super-amazing-must-see. Do the same for things relating to other games, just in case. SMT2 stuff, uh, leave out until we get there though. It's basically the entire reason SMT2's worth caring about still. also try and keep alignment arguments to a minimum if you can okay thanks  A Day in the Life Tomorrow Comes Today Medicine A Single Moment of Sincerity Built for Sin Make A Move How to Save a Life Age of Inexperience The Middle Alone New World Order Any Other Way SHIBUYA Lost in My Mind Dead Man's Party Rolling With The Dead The Stand (Man or Machine) Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Nov 18, 2015 |
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Jul 10, 2015 13:59
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 You ever get this feeling of deja vu? Because I am getting it so bad right now. Might just be me though! Anyway, let's ignore that and just dive right in.  Dream  He who does not state his name shall not pass! Identify thyself! Okay, so, there are several possible "canonical" names for the various characters. I'm just going with the least bad ones, in my opinion, and being consistent with it. So, Stephen Report 1 it is. Also Kazuya Minegishi is the closest thing there is for a given name of the Devil Survivor 1 MC, and he was named that in reference to the protagonists of this game and Soul Hackers.   oh god so many stats Power, Accuracy, Defense, Evasion, Magic Power and Magic Effect are derived from the main 6 and your equipment. Main bunch are mostly self-explanatory, but... Strength increases phys damage, health and accuracy. Kazuya being a super-old-school MC outright cannot cast any spells ever, so he needs this to be not worthless. Intelligence increases evasion (for humans), Magic Power and ailment success rate and helps with Magic Defence too. It has an effect on demon negotiation in that a minimum amount is needed to even have a chance at succeeding with certain demons. I think the highest required is 20 for that, but I could be misremembering. Also if Kaz could learn spells, this would help determine when. Magic increases, well, Magic Power and ailment success. It's also used for determining what level you learn a spell at if applicable. Can mostly ignore for Kaz here. Vitality is for HP and physical defence. Pretty much exactly what you would expect. Speed increases accuracy and evasion. Can't completely ignore, but not a major concern early on either. Very quickly becomes relevant though. Also increases the chance of successfully escaping if you care about that. Luck is... very complicated. Increases hit rate, evasion, escape chance, whether or not you get the first strike, AND increases the drop rate to some degree. There's simple formulas for how this all works in practice, but we'll cover them as they become necessary. Hopefully never. if your eyes just glazed over i am sorry be glad we're getting it out of the way now  Beyond this door, both those chosen by God that follow the path of Law and Order... And those that rely on their power, that follow the path of competition and Chaos await you. Take care not to tip the balance between the two as you proceed...  If you call his name, he shall awaken. So, remember what I said about Magic effecting when you learn spells? At level 1, 23 Magic and 5 Int gives a Proficiency of 3.4375 which is worked out via a wonderfully simple formula: code:i promise the mechanical stuff will be over soon and then we can punch and/or stab things   I was trying to accomplish something, but I forgot what... You saved me, didn't you? I sense that if I go with you, I'll remember what it was I was supposed to do... Please, take me with you.And so Ghost Yuji joins the party. This means absolutely nothing. Moving on!   If you call his name, he should wake up. Same formula as above, but in this case actually pumping Magic is a bad idea. Mostly because it leaves little variety and Takeshi's spells are awful anyway. Speed/Str/Vit is a better option, and I will change this when you're not looking before it becomes relevant.   Rats, and I was having such a good dream... drat. Oh well, let's get out of here.Also like above, Ghost Takeshi joins the party. This also does not mean anything.  Who's there?   I've been waiting for you... as your eternal partner...And then... we just leave her to her bath. Alright, sure. Silence  Just because you have today off doesn't mean you can oversleep! Come on, get up! Just because you have today off doesn't mean you can sleep all day! Come on, wake up! Hmm, that's not at all unusual. Let's give it a once-over.   Well, that's more than a little melodramatic. Demons of legend from ages past have awakened from their long slumber. Soon, they will overrun the Earth! In order to compete with the demons and fight for our survival, we will need to utilize their power. Use this program correctly, and you should be able to! I pray that those with the courage to use it will accept it...Also those with protagonism. That always helps. To fight the demons that would destroy us, and to preserve humanity... > The connection dropped. Kazuya, how long do you plan to sleep!? Home As funny as it would be, we can't actually just go right back to sleep. I know, I'm disappointed too. Let's just reuse the computer for a moment first.  I haven't finished my next program. Please wait a little while longer. I'm sending the manual to the Demon Summoning Program. Please, look it over. Summarise it a little; we can talk to demons and get them to join us. Then we can use them like expendable dudes in a fight. Also their language is automatically translated by this thing Kaz suddenly strapped to his arm. Try not to think about the logistics of this too much. Let's just go and do... something.   Even though the police sirens were blaring at all hours, you slept right through them. I barely got any sleep at all! For that many police to be involved, it must be a huge case... Ah, that's right. Here's your allowance for this month. That's about $84.21 which I guess isn't too bad for starting money. That's all for this month. Don't waste it all too quickly! Okay, so we have our first actual objective: go buy coffee. I guess there've been less impressive openings, but I can't think of any right now.  Since we're currently inside, everything is in this first-person view. We also currently don't have a map, though for our home we don't really need one either. The door dead ahead is the exit. So, what about that turn to the left? Pascal's Theme Pascal is the greatest dog.  Oh, sure he doesn't do much of anything right now but his time will come. If nothing else, the sheer fact that he has his own theme should be amazing enough. Until then, let's do the coffee thing. Kichijoji Okay, so... world map is very different to everything else. If something looks different and not-grey square, there's a good chance we can do something with it so long as we can get to it. Also we're kind of stuck in the middle of a lockdown apparently. Umm... Let's start by entering the lower red building. Home Well, it's not our home. I wonder who our neighbours even are.  Ah, a doctor guy. Alright, cool.  How are you doing? My daughter's out at the moment.Yeah, there's no one else here so we'll just leave. I wonder what's up with those barriers anyway. Let's check one out next. Kichijoji  ...so the park is closed off to the general public for the time being.Can't really do much with this, then.  The tube-looking bulding you've probably seen a bunch is the mall and our ultimate destination. For now, let's check out the other buildi-  oh. So much for that, then.  We basically have no options at all. Fantastic. Arcade The mall is actually a faily big area to say we've got so little to do. There's not a particualrly large amount of things, but...  Having a map to compare it to might help all the same. We're starting at the red "E" on the left. We want to get to the orange "B," but there's other stuff to do first. Except the black X. Ignore that one.  The orange "O" is just an rear end in a top hat who kicks us out of his room immediately. Lame.  A bunch of the unmarked areas have NPCs in them that tell us some stuff. This guy's all about the antique store conspiracy. Some others are a bit more interesting, but not really.  The green letters are stores. The S is for Survival!  It's an armor store. We'll buy one of everything.  Kaz can equip the lot, and he's now better suited for fighting all these demons that aren't around.  The D is the drugstore, which sells exactly what that implies. It's healing items. Not buying anything here though.  ...I wonder if we started with anything worth selling.  Guess not. Only have the stuff we just now bought. Ah well, worth a shot I guess.  So, where did this come from? That's easy; its the reason I didn't cut down those selling images. We simultaneously have no Attack Knife and yet for the purposes of a sneaky selling glitch, infinite Attack Knives. Hold down A when you press B to cancel out of the sell menu, and the shopkeeper will offer to buy an Attack Knife. Even if you don't have one. Hello easy, infinite money (albeit slowly). Not bothering with that, though. Too much hassle and ultimately not worth it either.  K is for Knife store. If we didn't buy armor, we could splurge on the Replica Sword or have waited a little bit to get the Unnamed Katana. As is, we're stuck going weaponless. It's fine though.  Nothing else worth noting in the mall, so let's head on in to the cafe next.  Lots of people here to talk to, though some are only available if you face in a certain direction. This will never not be mildly annoying.  They say that her murderer dismembered her too. Nasty! Yeah, that's great. Look, you're in the way of the orange Y on my map. Can you move, I wanna see what that's about.  Oh, it's the lady from our dream.  It's like a dream, seeing you again in a place like this! Hehe...Bit strange that she's here, and remembers us too, but I'm sure it's not a big deal. Maybe we met her that day or something?  Anyway, what's this about a hospital? Rumor has it the director of the hospital has been acting really weird lately. Someone even said he's been performing weird experiments late at night, but that's probably just made up.That's actually vaguely interesting. But it's a rumor in an RPG, so it's clearly going to be wrong in the end. Ah well, the dude we want to see is just through that door so let's step on in.   Money? Don't worry about it, I'll bring it to your house and you can pay me then. Seriously! It's all right! Don't worry about it!And then we're kicked out and can just leave.  Or re-enter to buy a drink for real. Not doing that though; cancelling out of this lets us talk to the  He doesn't have much to say though, so we'll just leave I guess.  Yuriko's done so already, so we can't even ask her about, uh, anything useful.  But on the way out, we're told about a drunk or... something. I'm sure he's worth a laugh. And NOW we can go to that black X on the map!   Come any closer and I'll cut you to... A... Agh, Agh... AAAAAARGH! Battle Um....!   An Attack Knife is lying on the ground a few feet from the dead man's hand.  And so with his first act of Being An Adventurer, Kazuya loots a body and takes a weapon. Arcade Gonna equip this immediately, just in case.  ...And then head right on home. Not sure I want to be outside with a murderous Preta running around. Home Try not to get home too late, it makes me worry. But I suppose it's good for a boy your age to be active. Hey, Kazuya, have you heard? It sure has become a lot less safe recently. I don't feel safe walking the streets at night any more...It's cool; I have a knife. Wanna borrow it? Oh, that's right! Be sure to take Pascal out on a walk occasionally! We can walk the dog and stuff later. For now, let's just go to bed. It's been a busy ~20 minutes since we woke up. Dream Huh, our funky dream this time is blue and not red. And we're immediately thrust into speaking with Yuji...  and Takeshi, and they both force themselves into our party. For all the nothing that matters.  Don't forget that I will always be by your side...And then Yuriko turns up just to leave again immediately. Sometimes it's best not to ask, I guess.  ...At least until we get to this bit. This is new and very different. What's this weird ceremony? Do you think they're trying to summon some sort of demon? I guess we should probably just interfere or something to stop this? Meh, why bother. It's just a dream after all.  Sure, Ghost Yuji gets a bit miffed but he can deal with it. Who dares interfere with our ceremony! Kazuya! You've come to rescue me! Quickly, call my name! Yuka! What!? This girl's name is Yuka!? Oh my god! If that's true, then... Aaaargh! If I had gotten sacrificed, a terrible Demon Lord would have been summoned... Ah, i can feel the power that been drained from me returning! Much like with Yuji, the going all-in on Magic here is an intentional decision and a good one at that. It won't pay off for a while, but Yuka has so many goddamn spells that getting Magic capped by level 18 will only go so far to alleviate it.  And then it is our destiny to be separated again. Come see me some time...  The Protagonist's updated artwork.
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Jul 10, 2015 13:59
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Dragonatrix posted:One of the many remakes of SMT1 was an official English one for iOS in 2014, but I think its been removed and doesn't work any more? SMT2 also had an iOS remake but I don't think that one was released outside Japan. Actually, I checked and the translation's still up (although there's no translation for 2's iOS remake)! I'm pretty excited to see this LP, partially because I've never beat either game. I'm pretty curious about how the official translation compares with the fan translation and the original script, too, because I definitely recall one instance of something being added to the fan translation that wasn't in the original script.
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Jul 10, 2015 18:15
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The earliest SMT I've played is Nocturne, so it'll be interesting to see how the earlier entries play out. Calling it now, the dog is the true villain behind everything.
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Jul 10, 2015 18:30
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waiting to see how you go with this after the slight disapointment of the Strange journeys post. Looking forward to it
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Jul 10, 2015 19:24
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Real nice, hoping this doesn't fall off the wayside, so to speak.
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Jul 10, 2015 22:33
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moonlightshadow13 posted:waiting to see how you go with this after the slight disapointment of the Strange journeys post. Looking forward to it I stopped following the SJ LP awhile ago, did something happen?
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Jul 10, 2015 22:36
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Let me recap it for you: "Blah blah this game sucks. Blah blah loving Eridanus!" "Blah blah I gave up here, do you hate yourself blah blah?" "Blah blah LAW IS THE ONE TRUE PATH I AM ALWAYS RIGHT BECAUSE I AM INSUFFERABLY GAY FOR LAW!" *15 page alignment derail ensues, no updates are posted during this period* *two months later, A Wild Update Appears!* "Blah blah this game sucks. Blah blah loving Eridanus!"
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Jul 10, 2015 22:52
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Oh OK, I think I gave up before the cycle looped.
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Jul 11, 2015 00:14
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 So, as soon as we wake back up, that STEVEN fella sends us another message. Some form of auto-mapping program is going to be nice, I am sure. Kazuya, how long do you plan to sleep!? HomeSame options as the previous day, but there's nothing new on the computer so we'll just leave.  I think it was a woman's name... The girl next door, Yuka, was it? Eh? Why are you turning all red all of a sudden? It can't be...So, Yuka lives right next door, huh? That's... very, very convenient I must say. Let's go see if she's actually in today, shall we? Pascal's Theme My daughter's in her room at the moment. Hey, Yuka! Kazuya's here to see you! Okay, I hear you!Oh, good, she actually is this time. Let's go say hi and do that thing she mentioned in the dream. Home  Eh? A dream? I didn't have any strange dreams like that. Argh... I was going to go on a date today, but with those stupid police around, I can't go anywhere. This sucks! Eh? Who am I going out with? That's none of your business. I can go out with whoever I please, yeah?Yeah, sure. So much for that then...  I guess we're stuck wandering around without much direction right now and... why's the screen dark? Demon Appears Oh NOW we get into fights. So, we're currently level 1. Unlike what you might expect, there are actually 2 demons that are level 1. This is neither of them. Also its race is Spirit. This isn't important right now, but it will be later. For the moment, let's just stab a ghost. Battle Or not. Goddammit. It even got the first turn and hit Kaz for 4 damage, which doesn't sound like a lot but that's a fifth of our max HP right now.  Conversely, we can hit it for a very consistent 11 damage a pop. That also doesn't sound like a lot, but that would almost one-shot most things here. Not a Ghost though. Gotta stab this thing three times to... kill it? Unkill it? Rekill it? One of those. Level Up The good news is, Ghosts are actually level 4. One of a few things we can run into at this stage that are level 4 in fact. Between that and the fact that there's a degree of EXP scaling we get an immediate level up out of this.  And one of the very nice things is that levelling up gives us a full heal as well. By far the best way to heal if you can do it, and its the easiest way for Kaz to heal when running solo like this. Demon Appears Now that we're level 2, we can actually talk to some things. Like this Pixie. She's also level 2 and we have way more than enough Int to actually stand a chance at succeeding.  One of the more complained about aspects of negotiation is that you just pick attitudes and then more specific responses to what they say. Also its random.  Even if we say something THIS Pixie likes, one we run into later might decide that she doesn't like it and attack us for it. I don't think that's inherently a bad thing, but I can understand the complaints. It makes more sense for them to, y'know, have unique mindsets because they're not a hivemind or anything.  Anyway, Kaz gives the Pixie a couple hundred yen to prove he loves her and then she joins immediately. Sure, okay. Kichijoji So, there's a couple of obvious differences between demons and humans. First off, demons gain no exp so they cannot ever level up. What you see is what you get. Second, they have a "CP" stat. This is a cost of a resource called Magnetite that depletes by the amount listed there every 10 steps. We have like 2 Magnetite right now (thanks to the Ghost) so we can't really use anything. Now, demons also have their own alignments and these are just told to you straight up. This is based entirely on their race, not the demon itself. Fairies are Neutral-Neutral, though their Tendency is not listed on the stat screen. This doesn't mean anything right now, but keep it in mind for later. Also, hello there Zionga at level 2. There are no -Dynes in this game, so the usual mid-tiers are actually the best. Pixie is good because she can heal, blast a fucker with the most powerful ST electric spell and inflict Happy. Happy makes whoever is inflicted with it just straight up skip that turn, it is pretty good. Also only around in the early-game so you won't see it often, if ever; problem here is that Pixie is too slow to be able to really use it against things you would want to use it on. It's chance of success is based on her Magic Effect stat, which in turn is determined via Intelligence+(Magic/8). Arcade Now that we have the auto-mapper, we can see the map of inside areas once we explore a bit. It doesn't show us where we've been before we got it though, so we need to re-explore the entire mall to get it to be useful.  While we're here, let's just talk to a couple people I guess. Like this guy who tells us all about an old man who wants to see us. But not tell us where said old man is. Thanks for nothing, Guy.  So I guess we'll head back to the Whatever it was, it was serious enough to shut it off from the rest of the city. All the trains have been stopped until further notice! So we can't go anywhere... we're stuck here! What a drag! Ozawa...? I've seen that name somewhere before, I'm sure of it. Eh, probably just imagining things.  The Echo building, huh? We've walked past that like twice, but couldn't get in. I guess "abandoned" is a word for it.  Also this guy tells us something we already know.  The bartender sort of does as well, but adds a little extra. They closed down the whole place because of it, but I hear they're going to reopen it. Even after it as closed, there was some strange old man that was hanging around the entrance. Maybe he's a homeless guy?An old man's hanging around the park. An old man wants to speak with us about... something. Meh, I'm sure these two things are unrelated. Battle So let's just see what other demons are in the area. Brownies are also level 2, but we'll just kill these two. That they have Sukukaja is less intimidating than it seems, since their accuracy and evasion are pretty low to begin with.  There's also Kugutsus/Puppets, which are literal mannequins that are robotic. We have a free shot, so let's say hi.  ...Unfortunately, being a Machine it is one of very, very few races we actively cannot ever use. Its alignment is Dark-Law, which doesn't sound like a problem but its Dark tendency makes it impossible for negotiation to succeed. In this case particular case, we cannot even START negotiation.  Also it can inflict Panic on multiple targets (chance to do nothing rather than whatever action was chosen). Fortunately, we're alone right now and the Kugutsu is so slow that it hits after Kaz goes and wears off immediately. It has a better chance of succeeding at doing something than normal because it resists Phys and only takes 5 damage from Kaz's knife.  This thing outside takes way more. 12 damage means its gets 2-shotted very consistently.  We're out of options, so let's go see the old man at the park. It's just south of here, so we can get there easy enough.  Unless we run into one of the level 1 "demons." Yes, this guy counts as a demon.  We also have to kill him. Entirely because there's a full moon out. Full moons make demons act aggressively and we can't talk to any when it's the current moon phase. Not even Dark demons, because that mechanic hasn't been invented yet.  Anyway, we beat him up and steal his knife.  His yellower, meaner older brother is just hanging around as well. It's no longer a full moon so we CAN talk now...  And he is so intimidated that he jut gives us some money and then runs away. I wanted something else but the money will do for now I guess. So, anyway. Old man in the park. Neutral  Yes, yes, I see. Yes, you are quite spcial indeed. Maybe you don't see it now... But it is quite possible that one day you will wield power beyond your wildest imagination. Light and Darkness, Law and Chaos... The delicate balance that this world rides on is beginning to tip. While the forces of Law and chaos that are in motion now are still weak... There will come a time when they shall gain power and momentum, vying for supremacy over each other. If you were in charge, which, if either, would you choose? Be mindful! No matter which path you take, there is no turning back once the decision has been made. Why don't you show me what you're capable of, for the time being?Sorry, I'm not fighting an old ma-  Where the hell even are we?  But Yuji and Takeshi are both here and in our party now. I guess it's just another dream? Embassy Anyway, this entire segment is, once again, completely on autopilot so we just sit back for a moment.  ...this is new It's dangerous ahead! Don't any of you go a step further! ...I know I can't stop you, but if you die what will I do?And then she just... leaves or something. I'm sure that's not important though.  Right behind her is a... Terminal? Awesome, finally got a save point other than our bedroom. Chaos Or not. Hrm. My bretheren! Come forth from the depths of the Abyss! As you have seen our ceremony, I cannot allow you to leave this place alive!!And then we get pushed outside, for... Demon Appears So, Douman's a Meta racial enemy. This basically means he's a human, as it has been translated as here. So the game already makes me out to kind of be a liar because Meta/Human enemies have no fixed alignment. More importantly... Boss Battle He's our first boss and he's fast enough to go first. Naturally being a summoner and all, he's a spellcaster at heart and so will blast us with magic.  This is only really noteworthy because that ruins Kaz completely. With 5 Magic, we're not good at the whole defending against it thing either. The other two guys are fine despite still being level 1.  Conversely, despite being a spellcaster himself, Douman gets hurt really hard by our spells.  Both of them, in fact. His lack of Fire or Force resistance despite those being the elements he also uses is a nice bonus. So, yeah, the two of them are able to deal ~70 points of damage a round. He only has 398HP so we should be done in no ti- Neutral wait hang on what we so could've taken him effortlessly what the hell man If fate so decrees, you shall meet that one again. Ready yourself before you rush ahead... Kichijoji I mean, sure, Kaz was kinda useless in that fight as both a tank and damage dealer, but that's not the point. The other two could've easily taken the guy. Hell, Yuji could probably have solo'd him. But, fine, whatever. Let's see what's in here now that we can enter it. Castle of the Four Gods There's actually quite a fair bit in here to say that it's a super-small, super-linar area.  We'll start at the back and work our way forward. In the very last room we can find some Medicine. Basic healing item, quite standard etc. etc.  Next room forward is the Healer. If we felt like paying money to get healed, we could do it here. Also sells some items we won't buy ever.  Another cardboard box with a good amount of Magnetite in it next. Now we can actually summon a demon or two for more than like 20 seconds. And we'll see what the "Mansion" room can do for us later. For now, let's just go home. Home There's no one here but the dog, I guess. Unlike before, we can go to sleep but that just now serves as free healing. It doesn't give us another dream or plot advancement or anything. Kichijoji At the barricades, the police have now been replaced by... the military... Yeah, definitely not getting through there now, I guess.  And Yuka's gone walkabouts as well. Great. Kazuya, if you have any idea where she might be, do you think you could go look for her? I could really use your help. Yuka left saying she was going to go to Shinjuku, but......that's kind of meant to be impossible.  Only way to get there now is by train. If we go down from here, we can enter the station at least. She might still be there.  Or not. Great, so much for that idea then.  I suppose now we'll just go tell the doc that we can't find Yuka, then go home and rest. Everything should be fine in the morning...  You're under arrest for murder! We found your bloody fingerprints at the scene! Restrain and handcuff him, boys.Yeah, so remember how that Preta did this thing to that guy in the mall? Turns out Kaz picking up his knife was a Bad Idea after all. Now we're the ones culpable for that.  After all, who's going to believe that we didn't do it. The only alternative is that it was Buddhist/Hindu demon and I don't think trying to aruge that is really going to work out well for us.  What doesn't help is that we're still carrying out that knife which will have that guy's blood on it. And we have several other knives that generic thugs just gave us too.  Douman original art.
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Jul 11, 2015 15:46
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If anyone's played Persona 4 but not this game and some of the text seems oddly familiar, it's because one of the dungeons (Void Quest) references the beginning of this game at the start-of-floor dialogue. It's a neat detail. SMT1 is a neat game to play once, even if it's pretty primitive compared to later entries. The series has come a long, long way.
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Jul 11, 2015 17:51
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For an early 90s JRPG this game comes across like it holds up surprisingly well so far.
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Jul 11, 2015 20:09
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Junpei Hyde posted:For an early 90s JRPG this game comes across like it holds up surprisingly well so far. I still have a soft spot for SMT1. It's a weird game with a lot of humps, but it genuinely had a ton of fresh ideas at the time and the plot's actually pretty neat.
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Jul 11, 2015 20:22
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Its still quite the testament to how well built SMT1 is that the series still uses the same base mechanics.
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Jul 11, 2015 21:37
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SMT1 is a genuinely good game, albeit one that hasn't aged very well. It's rough, but still good fun if you can get used to the clunkiness. Also the best alignment is Frost, and anybody who disagrees is totally uncool.
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Jul 11, 2015 21:44
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Also did pokémon style monster collecting before Pokémon. I can only imagine what SMT Digimon woulda been like...
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Jul 11, 2015 23:20
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Frost is fun yes, but i'll stick with neutral because i'm to much a humanist( even if it makes me an idiot :})
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Jul 11, 2015 23:24
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My favorite alignment is Gun.
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Jul 11, 2015 23:27
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You pick the alignment that gives you the most gameplay, which as I understand tends to be neutral.
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Jul 11, 2015 23:35
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I havn't played any of the Shin Megami games, i just go by which of a choise is the least bad of the (ususally) three choises. 'shrug'
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Jul 11, 2015 23:42
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Junpei Hyde posted:For an early 90s JRPG this game comes across like it holds up surprisingly well so far. It can be pretty rough around the edges, which was made a lot worse for people because the fan translation is ridiculously buggy and shite and broke a lot of things for English speakers but a cool fanpatch to unfuck the various mistakes made now exists which I presume Rath is using for this LP? It was made by the same dude who translated both the original SMT's into Spanish by himself, he's a pretty cool guy. Give it a try if you haven't, it's pretty good. I like the game but mechanics wise it can still be broken fairly easy. I have high hopes for what Rath could accomplish with this one.
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Jul 11, 2015 23:53
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Deceitful Penguin posted:I can only imagine what SMT Digimon woulda been like... Talking monsters turning into computer data? Oh wait...
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Jul 11, 2015 23:54
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Deceitful Penguin posted:I can only imagine what SMT Digimon woulda been like... Go watch the third season, Digimon Tamers. It'd basically be that. Rigged Death Trap posted:Its still quite the testament to how well built SMT1 is that the series still uses the same base mechanics. And art: there's a fair few demons you'll see in this that are easily recognisable from the modern games. And it rarely ever feels like a cheap reuse of assets, which is impressive. As for the gameplay, I think the only other series' that have refined elements with each iteration are the Dragon Quest series and the Pokemon games. Elements like Magnetite have been sidelined as the games progress, but you can still trace a lot back to this (and Megami Tensei, to a degree).
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Jul 12, 2015 02:05
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Deceitful Penguin posted:Also did pokémon style monster collecting before Pokémon. The Cyber Sleuth game plays up the Digimon = "Supernatural beings possessing things," and the Digiworld = "Spirit world encroaching on physical reality" possibilities.
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Jul 12, 2015 02:37
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This thread reminded me I should give SMT4 another go and actually figure out what I'm doing this time
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Jul 12, 2015 03:22
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SuccinctAndPunchy posted:It can be pretty rough around the edges, which was made a lot worse for people because the fan translation is ridiculously buggy and shite and broke a lot of things for English speakers but a cool fanpatch to unfuck the various mistakes made now exists which I presume Rath is using for this LP? Ayup, it's so much nicer than the Aeon Genesis one for both not introducing game ending bugs, letting you get stuff when you're actually meant to and actually translating things. It's still not exactly perfect, but my only quibbles with it are mostly just quality of life stuff that don't even really matter in the grand scheme of things. Well, and one very small thing that will come up in the next update. Speaking of which!
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Jul 12, 2015 22:45
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Shibuya So, uh, we were thrown into this cell and can't exactly break out.  I also remember at this point that, hey, we found hundreds of Magnetite earlier. Pixie can remain summoned for, uh, a very, very long time with that alone so we'll bring her out now. This also costs a small upfront Yen fee, but it's very small and basically never ever matters. Law Anyway, we have a cell mate so let's go say hi!    Kazuya, you won't believe what happened to me. My girlfriend just sort of disappeared. While looking for her, I was attacked by demons and when I killed them, the police arrested me! I need to find her.... I'm worried about her! Will you help me? No. I see... I'm sorry to have imposed. Shibuya...Okay, fine we can't really do much unless we talk to Yuji more anyway.  O-oh dear. That poor text box. A few lines here and there are just badly spaced and so break the text box. This one's a bit special even for that, since the elipsis which goes beyond the border sticks around until we get a screen transition. I, uh, I'll just edit it out of the few images where it would get in the way. Will you help me look for her? Yes. Really!? Thank you!! Now he joins us for real and this time it actually does mean something.  Eh? You live next door to her? Wow, that's a coincidence... Anyhow, let's try and think of a way to bust out of here.I agree with this, but first!  Yuji's already nice and kitted out. He even has a couple things we can't get for Kaz until we're done here (i.e. a gun). Since that Machete is a nice upgrade for someone who needs it, we'll trade a spare Attack Knife in for it. There's no way to remove the Beretta though, but that's fine since it's damage is independent of stats anyway. Oh right. Dia, Zan and Mapper are the three spells Yuji starts with in this case. Mapper just displays the map when walking around; it actually kinda looks like poo poo to be honest so I won't use it much.  Now when we go to the front of the cell, this guy appears.  Come on, now's our chance! Let's go! Demon Appears So, this place is our first actual proper dungeon. With it comes some new demons, like this guy. Undead demons are, of course, Dark-Chaos so we can't negotiate with them ever. We CAN use them but it takes some work.  Let's take this opportunity to talk about the one big failing with the battle system in these early incarnations. You see those 3 grey icons at the top? Those tell us how many demons there are, and their relative HP status. The problem is, when there are multiple demons like this there's no way to target any specific one. If you want to blitz one down so that it's dead, guaranteed, you need to hope the random targetting is kind enough to let that happen. Not an issue right now, no, but it will be later I am sure. Level Up On the plus side, since Yuji's level 1 to start with he'll catch up to Kaz pretty quick. And thanks to his boosted Proficiency, at level 2 he gains Mazan which mitigates the above issue. That's what I was after super quick for obvious reasons. Shibuya Now that we're out and about, and not being accosted by Zombies, we can look around a bit. We'll take our first right to check out these 3 rooms. Start with the furthest one I guess.   It's only a matter of time before I become his next guinea pig...Okay, so we're in a hospital and the director is a Bad Guy doing mad science things. Next! Neutral Well, this is... a bit different. And also clearly important.  A long time ago, I was working on a teleportation device. But in the middle of one of my experiments, I accidentally opened a portal to the Abyss and summoned a demon. The demon seemed like it was trying to communicate with me, but I couldn't understand it and so it eventually became hostile and attacked me. The experience motivated me to develop a computer program that would allow people to speak with, and befriend, demons, making them into minions... Thus, I wrote the Demon Summoning Program. Knowing that the demons would be coming in large umbers, I sent my Demon Summoning Program to as many people as I could. By increasing the number of people that have the ability to control demons... I was hoping to balance things out and keep any potential revolts from getting totally totally out of control. Unfortunately, the program itself is harder to master than I had hoped and very few people were able to become full-fledged summoners. Do you understand me? Yes. It will scan and analyze any demons that you should meet and record their data into your computers memory... So that you can refer to it whenever you need to.That's not completely true but we'll get to that later.  If there is anything I can do to help you, please come back here and see me. There should be another switch inside. If you hit it, it should open the gate outside so you can get out of here.Now that he's done expositing, a lot, STEVEN will function as an immediate, free full heal and a save point too. How generous. Now what about cell #3?  That is a good question, and the answer is one we sort of know now. It's pretty safe to say Mad Science. Battle So, the little analyzer program we just got from STEVEN doesn't do much for when we run into a demon for the first time. So, we'll need to murder this Weredog (or recruit it but we're not a high enough level yet) before it can do anything.  Even though STEVEN's right there, I opt to save some MP occasionally now too and just shoot the thing. It's functional enough, and Weredog is weak to Gun too. Shibuya With that done, we can check out his stats even without having one on hand. Hybrids are Neutral-Neutral, of course, and Weredog is actually pretty good. He can buff defence, heal a lot and is the first demon who can do Charge damage with that Feral Bite attack. Oh and like the map, the analyzer does not contain info on anything we encountered before we got it.  Now that we've met STEVEN, gotten the analyzer and had a security lock cut, we can continueo onwards. First up, that door right in front of us.  Or, uh, not. This is the exit. Good to know!  Right past there, we can turn right and follow a path to who knows where or continue east. Let's do the latter first.  And in the process we can learn that Ghost are immune to Guns.  This is a very linear path that just leads to a new room.  ...And inside is nothing. At all. Why is this even here? What is the point?  Hey, it's these things. And, uh, Haunts are also Dark-Chaos. Lots of Dark tendency demons early on, I'm noticing.  Anyway, not as threatening as you might expect. Yuji casts Mazan and they all die instantly.  If Yuji didn't come with a Machete, this would actually be a minor upgrade of sorts. It's the same base power as the Attack Knife but a whole 1 point more accurate. It also sells for 1000 Yen more which is way more useful.  So we'll head back to the fork and take the other path, which leads us to some stairs. Well, we want to go upstairs anyway, so...  Oh, uh, this floor is actually really linear. We come out up here, turn right and follow the path around.  And around...  And take a detour to meet this guy. He'll get his wish, I'm sure.  Around the next corner is another room. This one much more useful. Strength Incense adds 1 to someone's Strength and fully restores their HP (but not MP). Probably never gonna use it but it might have a use later I guess!  And around the next is the Director's Office. Wait, uh, hang on a minute.  Okay, NOW we're ready to go through there.  Knocker's the second Jirae and is basically going to stack Tarukajas until I specify otherwise and he somehow manages to get a fight that lasts long enough to stack all 6 he can cast on Kaz. Chaos No. Oh, I see. Then that means you're still evil humans who won't listen to my commands yet. Very well then, if you refuse to play along... I'll have to alter your bodies myself, until you're nothing but mindlss drones that follow my every whim! Boss: Fallen Orias First actual proper boss, and it's against a Marquis of Hell. A move that would later be replicated in Strange Journey, but done a bit better. One of the few times I can say that and mean it. Boss Battle Orias, uh, isn't a threat at all. Ever. He just casts Pulinpa a lot and the occasional Hapilma. Kind of weird, really.  Pixie's magic isn't stellar so she can't utterly decimate Orias with Zionga but 39 is still pretty respectable all things considered. For reference, Orias is level 10 and has 120HP. So, uh, that's a third of it gone already.  And this happens which would be a nice bonus, if Orias didn't go first all the time. It just means Orias can't do anything this turn, and all our attacks are guaranteed to hit. No guaranteed crits or anything here unforunately.  Knocker is our offense buffer here. Since there's no Makakaja available yet, this is all we can do to increase damage and it's only 4MP too. Who could say no?  Also fun fact: despite being a boss who uses nothing but ailments, Orias himself is very susceptible to ailments. Shame that the ones we have don't matter.  So, uh, yeah. Orias is kind of a gigantic chump. Go figure. End Shibuya Now that we've done this, we can just leave.  Not much in the room if we turn around and go back in to search for other stuff, unfortunately.  And we can also take this opportunity to point out that STEVEN's analyzer is worthless for bosses. Which is a shame, because bosses are flatout unusable on our side.  More important is that by cutting the auto-lock, everyone's left since they could do that.  No point sticking around now, I guess we'll follow them out now that we've completed our map of this place:  Which looks something like this. I swear I'm making these for a purpose, other than because it's fun and good for reference. It just... won't come up for a while.  Anyway! We're free from the hospital and rescued like 4 other people in the process. The only problem, really, is that we're still inside Kichijoji and have no clue what to do next! Umm...   Orias's original (left) and Strange Journey onwards (right) designs. Original's way better to me; the second one just looks dumb. 
Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 01:25 on Jul 15, 2015 |
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Jul 12, 2015 22:46
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The original designs tend to stay (mostly) true to their description from the Ars Goetia.quote:"The Fifty-ninth Spirit is Oriax, or Orias. He is a Great Marquis, and appeareth in the Form of a Lion,26 riding upon a Horse Mighty and Strong, with a Serpent's Tail; and he holdeth in his Right Hand two Great Serpents hissing. His Office is to teach the Virtues of the Stars, and to know the Mansions of the Planets, and how to understand their Virtues. He also transformeth Men, and he giveth Dignities, Prelacies, and Confirmation thereof; also Favour with Friends and with Foes.
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Jul 12, 2015 23:00
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I usually don't get nitpicky about this sort of poo poo, but I kinda have to question why they'd let someone in jail keep his machete and gun.
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Jul 12, 2015 23:13
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Bishonen Anime Steven Hawking is the best character.  Cerebral Bore posted:I usually don't get nitpicky about this sort of poo poo, but I kinda have to question why they'd let someone in jail keep his machete and gun. But they're not in Jail, this is a Hospital! Okay, The real answer is probably that they don't respect their human captives and therefore don't think the humans being armed will actually pose a threat to them. As we'll come to find out, our characters are kind of unique in this regard. Junpei Hyde posted:Calling it now, the dog is the true villain behind everything. God Dog, Best Friend. RickVoid fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Jul 13, 2015 |
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Jul 13, 2015 00:12
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Rigged Death Trap posted:The original designs tend to stay (mostly) true to their description from the Ars Goetia. Ars Goetia posted:He also transformeth Men And it's not just the designs, given we just had Mad Surgeon Orias.
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Jul 13, 2015 01:12
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I'm somewhat amused by the definition of evil human is not listening to me.
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Jul 13, 2015 03:13
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moonlightshadow13 posted:I'm somewhat amused by the definition of evil human is not listening to me. To be fair, that statement is essentially TheHumanCondition.txt.
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Jul 13, 2015 04:28
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SMT 1 and 2 were the games that got me into the franchise. I played the first back when I was a college freshman, and I thought it (and later, the sequel) were the awesomest things ever. Much later and after playing most of the other Megaten games, I came back, but I could never really "get into" the first two games again. Probably because the alignment divide feels so much more hamfisted than it would in the later installments.
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Jul 13, 2015 05:26
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Gonna watch this one like a hawk. Another LP right after a. Devil Survivor 2, b. Digital Devil Saga, c. Digital Devil Saga 2 and d. Dungeon Digger 1...something tells me Dungeon Digger was your 'break' out of the four of these.
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Jul 13, 2015 06:08
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Seyser Koze posted:Much later and after playing most of the other Megaten games, I came back, but I could never really "get into" the first two games again. Probably because the alignment divide feels so much more hamfisted than it would in the later installments. SMT1 is actually relatively decent about the alignments. It does the best job out of all the games of giving you the sense that all of the alignments are reasonable choices given the situations at hand (though, it goes without saying that Law tends to be the most reasonable if you think about it). Only Devil Survivor 1 comes close, but it was messed up by Overclocked. It only starts going terribly off the rails in 2. Oh yes, as a comment: Humans and Metas do have an alignment, depending on the game. In Strange Journey, they are all Dark-Neutral. Here, it depends on the person. Tallgeese fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Jul 13, 2015 |
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Jul 13, 2015 07:10
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I'm used to Atlus first bosses being much harder than this. They were clearly still learning at this point.
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Jul 13, 2015 08:51
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Junpei Hyde posted:I'm used to Atlus first bosses being much harder than this. They were clearly still learning at this point.
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Jul 13, 2015 12:10
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BFC posted:I'm assuming OP isn't going to cheese the game so we might not see it, but a large portion of this game can be made trivial very easily. Well yeah that's most Atlus games outside of superbosses (sometimes), it's just usually the first bosses are super hard precisely because you don't have access to that sort of stuff yet. If I don't have an appropriate point to post  I'm disappointed.
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Jul 13, 2015 12:21
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| # ? Apr 29, 2024 03:22 |
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So, Megaten. I've wanted to get into this series for so long, but it constantly appears on the surface to be absurd micromanagement, combined with deliberately obfuscated plot. Eyes glazing over indeed. Also, because I get way too into the idea of seeing how series progress, I always wish someone would do the original NES games, and there rarely seems like major western interest in them for no apparent reason.
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Jul 13, 2015 12:25
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