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Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry

Strange Matter posted:

Any tips for The Answer before I start playing?
If you find yourself really stuck and/or just not having any fun, there is no shame in reading the LP for it (it should be in the OP).

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Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
I have only played P1-3 (all for the first time within the past 3 years) and I thought P2 was the best of the lot by a huge, huge margin. Best music, best story, I guess just "OK" gameplay though I thought it was fine.

I would go as far to say that the collective experience of the two P2 games is amongst my favorite JRPG experiences ever.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
Kishin (so you can attack twice) and something with Chaos/Evil Wave (so that you can attack from afar), both on the MC. Everyone else protects him from the other demons. Don't kill off the center demons in those other groups, instead just gimp them by killing off the ones on the right and left. That way they can't respawn, and if you place your other party members strategically you should be able to prevent them from getting close enough to heal the boss.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry

dorkasaurus_rex posted:

The really non-standard plot that kind of shucks video game tropes. And the demon fusing and capturing.
Nocturne is really hard, but I think it is the distillation of everything that is really good in the MegaTen series. It might be a bit of an ambitious place to start, but it's definitely worth playing sooner or later.

The other series are all good too as well, as everyone else has related. I think the OP has a pretty good run down on all of them.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry

Thranguy posted:

Well, I liked that, but not just that; I liked the story (specifics and depth) in general and the combat and the fusion and the general pace of the game. Whereas in 1 I didn't like the long slogs and backtracking and much-slower combat with dense unavoidable random encounters or the negotiation system that basically meant I had to 'fight' most groups twice to get past them.

So, 2 is closer to...
It's closer to 1 but the battle system and encounter rate are far less irritating, and perhaps more importantly the dungeons won't put you to sleep.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
I got the Neutral ending because the three alignments were monumentally retarded (or at least the humans supporting them were). Felt it was a pretty solid ending, all things being equal. If I play through it again I'll probably go for the TDE I guess.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
Keep beating that P1 drum Technique, you might just sucker in a few more this time.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
I prefer P2's card system over P1, simply because of the existence of Free Tarots. Free Tarots ensure that at any given point in the game, you are free and clear to make any persona you want. In fact, you should generally have way more Free Tarots than any other kind of card (I maxed out 999 at one point in IS or EP I think). And since Igor lists what personae are available, you have an easy shopping cart to peruse to find what best suits your character or the situation. And given how useful the personae straight up given to you for free by Philemon, much of this "grinding" is a moot point anyway!

In P1, you better pray that whatever random demons you have in your current area, they are juuuuuuust the right ones you need to fuse. There's a very real danger to find yourself with an inadequately constructed team, but guess what? You're hosed because the demons around you either are too strong to talk to or the cards they give are completely useless. Better hope you have a FAQ on hand to ensure you don't completely gimp yourself with no way of proceeding through the game anymore, which is actually quite easy to accomplish given how a lot of enemies are immune to all but one kind of attack (and some will straight up instant kill your whole party if you don't have a specific resistance).

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry

Xlyfindel posted:

I really liked their take on localization.
I'd love to see your rationale for this doozy of a comment.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
Justice was singing its praises when it first came out :shobon:

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry

Krad posted:

How can you say that P2's combat is terrible when P1 has the exact same system pretty much? :psyduck:
If by "exact same" you mean "so much worse than P2 in every way imaginable."

Persona 1 might have the worst JRPG gameplay I've ever experienced.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry

Law posted:

So I decided to play Devil Survivor again after getting stuck on Beldr earlier in the year. The problem is I have once again gotten stuck on this god drat rear end in a top hat, does anyone just have some tips or strategies to beat him?
Kishin + some demon with Evil/Chaos Wave on your MC. Create a perimeter around your MC with your allies to keep the other demons at bay (that way if you do kill them you'll have a better chance at taking them out again before he revives them and they heal him).

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
I could have sworn that Strength didn't actually make you deal more damage in the Beldr fight at all.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry

Law posted:

I just got Nocturne and I figured I'd better ask before I get too far in, am I going to get screwed over if I focus on magic for my main character? Are there any good general guidelines for stats?
Unlike a lot of other MegaTen games, Physical builds are extremely useful in Nocturne, especially towards the endgame when you get lots of game breaking skills. Ultimately, thanks to the fact that the magatamas can boost your stats by quite a lot (including the ultimate one which is 10+ to every one except luck I think), I believe you can overcome just about any "build" as long as you keep it balanced. What's more important is knowing what skills to keep and what to discard. There are plenty of suggestions about that (either in this thread, the previous one, or the "What should I know before I play this game" thread), but even that is still fairly flexible.

My own personal recommendation of skills is that you should keep Focus throughout the whole game, and Fog Breath and War Cry for as long as you feel like it (eventually they become unnecessary if you get Debilitate on a lot of demons). Endure can save you some headaches, and Mana Walk (I think that's the name, it's the one where you gain MP as you walk around) makes long dungeons a lot easier. Beyond that, I'd supplement your slots with whatever sounds most useful. I liked having an all enemy high damage physical, a single enemy high damage physical, and the best Almighty spell I could muster. That was more in the endgame though.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
It's not really an exact science, and there really isn't a "you must do it this way or else" sort of approach to it. I wouldn't neglect any one particular stat. Keep in mind that your stats are going to wildly fluctuate anyway as you ingest different magatamas, so your overall makeup is going to be changing a lot no matter what you do. Maybe go Strength-Vitality-Strength-Magic-Strength-Agility-Strength-Luck for a while?

Just don't get any one stat past 30 (I believe that's the number), because the ultimate magatama is +10 to most stats and you'd be wasting points (as I believe the maximum is 40). And also keep in mind that you are not going to really reap the benefits of a high-Strength build until towards the end, so for a while you are going to want some points in Magic as well anyway. It's a fluid process, you might go through a period where you feel like you could really use some more HP and thus pump Vitality for a bit, or maybe you're tired of having the slowest character in your party be your demifiend and thus give some Agility for a bit.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry

Nighteyedie posted:

I thought Yukari was fine, until I played FES.
This was me as well.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry

Law posted:

Kanji is the least popular character in the series? gently caress you Japan.
Maya isn't even on the list :psyduck:

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry

HarkToTheLoons posted:

I'm surprised at Yosuke's popularity mostly because I took the first opportunity to get him out of my party.

Also: I have a class called Game Culture next semester, and from what I understand, I have to play a game 10 hours a week and blog about it for part of my grade. I figure this is a good excuse to knock off another Megaten. So my options are:

Persona
Persona 2: Eternal Punishment
SMT: Nocturne
Digital Devil Saga
Devil Summoner

I've already beaten Persona 3 and 4, so those are out of the way.
Well, Nocturne or Persona 2. But if you're doing Eternal Punishment, you really should do Innocent Sin first. So, ultimately, what I'm saying is that you should play Nocturne.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
I'm not sure if I interpreted your post correctly (I'm assuming that you never beat the original?), but I picked Naoya's the first time through the original version of DS and I got through it fine. I would say that the only endings that have a different difficulty are Yuzu's (the easiest) and Gin's (marginally the hardest). The rest are about the same. Not sure how much this has changed in Overclocked.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
Sometimes the games will telegraph fairly strongly what's coming up (Devil Survivor comes to mind) and you can prepare accordingly, but more often than not I find it just helps to have a very balanced team. One not weighed down by the same weakness, one able to dish out all kinds of types of damage. That way, though you may have some trouble in the fight at first, you'll be able to recover and find a way through. Inevitably, sometimes you will die! Pretty much the only thing required in a lot of the games is to emphasize buffs/debuffs (Nocturne especially) as much as is feasible.

Fusing new demons constantly is almost always a good strategy. In most (all?) of the games, demons will level very slowly, so more often than not it's better to just fuse stronger ones. This is less true in my opinion in the Persona games I guess.

Every person is obviously different with regards to guides; I tend to use them for the super hard optional bosses that a lot of these games have for example.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
You can easily get away with like, 8 Strength tops in Devil Survivor. In fact I recommend it because the faster you pump Magic the faster you can switch to a Holy Dance/Drain build.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
I think the best balance is (from the start of the game and in the following order): Get everything up to 8 evenly, get Vitality/Agility/Magic up to 16, max out Magic, max out Agility, and put whatever points you get after this into Vitality.

For some very specific skills you will need higher Strength, but the only time I ended up doing this was for the optional boss on my 7th playthrough.

Nate RFB fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Feb 8, 2012

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
Agility also helps you get more extra turns.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
I think we're at a point now where it's just better to try to get PS2 games to work on PCSX2, if at all possible.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
The only reason I feel 8 is the max needed is because that's the minimum needed for Holy Dance. Pretty much any skill requiring higher Strength than that is not worth it. And any point put into Strength after that could have been put into Magic instead.

"But", some of the Null/Repel skills require as high as 16. On six of my seven playthroughs, I didn't care. On my seventh when I fought the optional boss? Such skills were pretty much mandatory.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
Tyrants! Tyrants are the best. The highest level Tyrant and Megami demons available at any given time were always mainstays in my party. The really high end Divine and Kishin demons were also immensely useful.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
DDS1 is a lot easier / more manageable than Nocturne, but I still overall found Nocturne more enjoyable.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry

X_ThePerfect posted:

So I've picked up a vita today. Being completely new to the series, would it be worth me purchasing the P2IS/P3P bundle on EU PSN? My friends raved about how much they enjoyed P3P, but I know very little about Persona 2. I have absolutely no issue with dungeon crawlers if that is a sticking point, I played a lot of Etrian Odyssey when I had my DS.

Given that it costs only about £12 more for the bundle on PSN than it would just to buy P3P alone it seems the better purchase, but I'd appreciate input from somebody with better knowledge of the games in question.
Persona 2 is slightly clunky and outdated (but still leaps and bounds better than Persona 1), but the story, characters, music, and overall presentation more thank make up for it all. P2 remains my favorite SMT title, and I don't think that's rose tinted nostalgia because I played Innocent Sin & Eternal Punishment for the first time only a couple of years ago.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
I honestly can't remember the last video game I bought at a brick & mortar store.

E: Seriously, under $30 for DS2 on Amazon, plus free shipping, why would you even bother with gamestop?

Nate RFB fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Feb 28, 2012

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
Excellent news!

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry

Douche Bag posted:

How difficult is Nocturne? I've been playing Persona 4 and loving the poo poo out of it so I grabbed Nocturne on a whim only to find out it's supposed to be hard as gently caress :ohdear:
It's just harder than most JRPGs, there's not quite as much difference between it and other SMT titles. You'll want to pay more attention to team construction, and yeah there are some roadblocks here and there.

It's so much fun, though.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
I liked Persona 3, but I honestly was a bit disappointed in the plot/cast. I was fresh off of a full P2 run though, which is probably why. P2 is by far my favorite SMT story and cast.

P4 is coming up soon in my queue though!

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
P2's gameplay is fine, if a little grindy. I was in it more for the cast/story/music, but I still found myself pretty compelled to min/max poo poo which I always take away as a good thing to have in any JRPG. I felt pretty happy about being able to create an essential perpetual dungeon crawling team since by balancing negotiations and battling you could grind for experience and cards forever. I wish more JRPGs had regenerating SP like P2.

Persona 1 is the game where no amount of good story can save itself from its obnoxious gameplay. Even "better" when that story is buried under a legendary horrific localization.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
What we really need is a Persona game that uses the Press Turn system.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
P2 has such a great cast, but it definitely requires the full IS+EP experience start to finish to really have it all come into perspective. What I liked most about IS particularly is that the entire plot (indeed, the entire conflict) is deeply personal to the characters themselves. You think of pretty much any standard JRPG, and most of the time the story is some incidental external problem that the cast gets roped into because destiny says so. This wasn't the case in P2, and I really felt it added a much needed layer of personality and direct involvement on the part of you, the player. And this was just the first game, EP followed it up with a nearly fully adult cast (!) which closed it out in a really neat way.

The only character bit they dropped the ball on was keeping a silent protagonist, in EP especially it made no sense at all.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
Haha, what?

Anyway, the collective Persona 2 experience is probably my favorite SMT title(s), or at least extremely close to the top. One of my all-time favorite PSX JRPG titles. Yes I would say it's worth it, just know you're getting into a more grindy PSX-era JRPG sort of game.

As for playing IS with its ending spoiled, there are some people in this thread (or the previous one?) who insisted that it was actually better to play IS after EP. I think that's mostly because that's just how they played it personally since EP of course came out "first" in the states, but it might add an interesting perspective none the less.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry

Krad posted:

How can you guys bear grinding for those tarot cards? I hated that part about P1/2 and still can't get over it.
Tarot card grinding was great since if you balanced it between regular battling you could hang around in a dungeon forever.

For me it was less about getting stronger peronae than it was about getting personae that had specific bonuses. Tech, for example, was always in hot demand, so I tried to balance a team that would constantly boost Tech (as well as offer good Fusion combinations, healing spells, etc.).

I did stop bothering once I got the Greek set though.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry

Amppelix posted:

So I got the Megaten bug and ordered P3:FES. I got the impression it's relatively easy to screw yourself out of social links in that game, especially with dating multiple girls. If I just barge in without any plan, will I miss out on some awesome content? Essentially what I'm asking is if I should just use a guide or if that would take the fun out of it.
Rather than max out all the links, it's better to know which are the best ones to max out in the first place. It's just too difficult to do them all without a guide.

By the way, these ones are in my opinion the following: Emperor, Chariot, Strength, Star, and Aeon. This isn't including arcana that will be maxed out automatically like Fool and Judgement of course.

Otherwise have fun, go crazy. Just try not to juggle too many girlfriends at once, lest you want a link to get reversed.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
Well, the ones I listed were for gameplay reasons. For example Emperor's final persona, Odin, makes the secret boss a lot easier. Or Star's final persona being one half of the duo necessary to cast Armageddon.

Nate RFB fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Apr 11, 2012

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Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry

Pierce posted:

Persona 2 Innocent Sin is fantastic. As a fan of dungeon crawlers I prefer this to P3P. The difficulty is a little lacking but the story and setting more than make up for it. I just got through a cave when mecha-nazis raided the city :wtc:

Is Eternal Punishment a fitting sequel?
Yes. The two go hand-in-hand wonderfully. A lot of people seem to prefer EP over IS even, though I am not one of them. I think it's mostly because Eternal Punishment is the only P2 game we had in English for the longest time, where as I started with IS once the translation patch came out.

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