Together Retro: First-Person Dungeon Crawlers

[Exhuminator]

The flip side is that it is much easier to create a terrible party in EO through bad class and skill selection

And that right there folks is why it took me 115 hours to beat Etrian Odyssey Untold on Expert.

[Sarge]

Strange Journey and SMT4 and 4:A are both pure first person.

Unless there's an option to go first-person in SMTIV and SMTIV:A, both of those are third-person like Nocturne. Well, at a minimum, I know that's true for SMTIV. You even have an attack during dungeons that lets you hit enemies before going into battle.

[nullPointer]

Haha ... yes admittedly the sum total of my previous knowledge regarding the Shin Megami Tensei series goes a bit like, "something, something ... religious overtones too much for U.S. audience ... something, something ... catch demons as if they're Pokemon ... something, something ... which of course led to Persona" As a result I've been really looking forward to finally playing this title. I'm sure I'll discover plenty more of my previously held misconceptions as I go along.

Hey in other news, I just discovered the auto-mapping feature! Yay!

[MrPopo]

Strange Journey and SMT4 and 4:A are both pure first person.

Unless there's an option to go first-person in SMTIV and SMTIV:A, both of those are third-person like Nocturne. Well, at a minimum, I know that's true for SMTIV. You even have an attack during dungeons that lets you hit enemies before going into battle.

Wow, I completely blanked that part out of my memory. I'm still right about Strange Journey.

[Sarge]

Yeah, Strange Journey is definitely a throwback title, and purely first-person. There's a remastered version coming out... this month? I know it's soon.

As for SMTIV, I had to look it up to be sure, though! I played about 20 hours and ended up dropping it; pretty sure I got lost in that confusing overworld map.

[pierrot]

For some reason I was mistakenly under the impression that this game was a mix of overhead RPG segments and first-person dungeon crawling segments. I'm not sure why I might have thought that, but it's definitely not the case.

So, Megami Tensei II actually has an overworld, and you guide your party around in third person on that overworld, and in a few of the towns. Otherwise, everything is in first person. SMT I also has a faux overworld, that's basically just a map screen, with an icon that the player guides around the city, and into city locations and dungeons. It is otherwise first person. SMT if... has, technically, no overworld, and is purely first-person, like the original Megami Tensei. Basically it transitions the player through realms on a mode 7 screen, automatically. I haven't actually played SMT II, or Devil Summoner, but I would assume they're very similar to SMT I in terms of FP vs TP.

Due to the featureless nature of the dungeon, it definitely seems like it could be easy to get disoriented without employing some means of cartography.

It looks like you already figured this one out a bit, but you can pull up the floor map at any time (I don't believe this was a feature of the original Famicom release). There's also a spell Yumiko will get called 'mappa--' (no idea how it will read in the translation; maybe "mapper") that gives you a little window that shows your location on the map, and a number of tiles around you. I didn't realize it for the longest time, but that spell wears off during a new moon, and can't be cast again until the next moon phase. For the longest time, I thought it was a bug that prevented me from recasting it.

Putting more points into intelligence will give Yumiko access to more spells, more quickly. This is pretty consistent in the series, from what I've played. Nakajima can't use spells, but if I remember correctly, I believe increasing his intelligence will have some minor effect on negotiating with recruitable monsters.

I'm tickled pink that someone is actually playing Megami Tensei. I'll just say that in the SFC version, there's a hidden Momma Frost in the first town that will bless your party with 10 free levels. I won't lie: I definitely did this. I've since gotten used to the early parts of MT/SMT games, but it can be a tough start. Normally you would have to import a completed save from Megami Tensei I, into Megami Tensei II, and find a hidden Jack Frost in MT II to learn about the Momma Frost, but if you think you might want to know how to find her, I can spoiler it for you. I also usually start consulting a mixing guide around half-way through these games. Usually, by that point, it's just a little too much for me to keep track of. I know a lot of tricks with the elementals now, but it's still just a lot more efficient to consult a list of monsters, and a mixing table.

Sounds like you're off to a good start. Hopefully the Minotaur doesn't make you rethink your choices too much.

[...M]y mage knows some spells that can make short work of them (though I still feel pretty limited by how many times I can cast them considering how frequent combat can be).

This is something that kind of bothers me about video games heavily based on D&D styled pen and paper RPGs. The tabletop variety of RPGs usually have much less frequent combat, so a more limited magic pool makes sense. On the flip side, something like Baldur's Gate, for instance, where you can go into a gnoll fortress, and fight probably hundreds of gnolls, it feels a little absurd for the ability to cast spells to be so limited.

[Exhuminator]

both of those are third-person like Nocturne

Just in case I didn't make it clear before, you can play all of Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne in first person view. However, it's only available as a New Game+ feature unfortunately.

I did totally forget about the SMTIV and SMTIVA games being third person!

[MrPopo]

[...M]y mage knows some spells that can make short work of them (though I still feel pretty limited by how many times I can cast them considering how frequent combat can be).

This is something that kind of bothers me about video games heavily based on D&D styled pen and paper RPGs. The tabletop variety of RPGs usually have much less frequent combat, so a more limited magic pool makes sense. On the flip side, something like Baldur's Gate, for instance, where you can go into a gnoll fortress, and fight probably hundreds of gnolls, it feels a little absurd for the ability to cast spells to be so limited.

That's the fundamental problem with the D&D ruleset (especially the AD&D ruleset). Different games are better or worse about it. But the fact that you don't have a DM arbitrating and deciding how frequent combats are based on your current status means that they tend to be combat heavy. The Gold Box games are fairly good about letting you rest frequently enough to not be super gimped at early levels. I recall having to mod Baldur's Gate to allow for easier resting to make my low level magic users usable.

[pierrot]

The Gold Box games are fairly good about letting you rest frequently enough to not be super gimped at early levels.

That's good to know. I played a little bit of Eye of the Beholder a number of years ago, and I felt like it still kind of had that problem, but obviously not to quite the same extent.

[Ack]

The Gold Box games are fairly good about letting you rest frequently enough to not be super gimped at early levels.

That's good to know. I played a little bit of Eye of the Beholder a number of years ago, and I felt like it still kind of had that problem, but obviously not to quite the same extent.

In EotB, I recommend creating safe zones where you can store excess stuff near stairs and moving back up to easier, previously cleared levels when you need to rest. It decreases the likelihood of encounters while resting and gives you ample opportunity to heal. The bigger issue in EotB is food, because unless you have a cleric with the necessary spell, you are effectively on a time limit.