Shin Megami Tensei IV

[MrPopo]

SMTIV uses the same battle system as Nocturne, complete with "another group of demons ambushed you". Nocturne uses standard random encounters, rather than the attackable overworld guys. The fusion system in Nocturne isn't as good; you don't get much freedom in passing down skills. It's random selection like Persona 3, but I think it's even harder to get specific skills on a demon. And for your MC, you'll really want to look up a guide to figure out how you want to develop. Not necessary to read a guide of "uses these skills", but a guide of how you learn the skills. You equip an item on your MC which gives a stats bonus and resists/weaknesses, and then at specific levels you'll learn a skill off of it. You can only learn each skill once, and you have to overwrite if you fill up. Each skill is learned at a specific level (or the first level you get after being high enough), so you'll be changing around your equipped Magatama (the item that teaches skills) frequently until you have your skill setup.

Strange Journey is a straight first person dungeon crawl. Your main character is mostly physical attacks, but can gain some elemental skills from his gun. The way the battle system works is if you hit an enemy weakness, all other demons in your party that share an alignment with the person who hits the weakness will do a follow up attack. So you're encouraged to have demons of all the same alignment, and of the alignment your character goes down.

DDS also uses the same battle system as Nocturne, but it's got the wrinkles of having the devour attacks to be able to level up your skills faster. And it removes the demon negotiation, obviously.

[ZenErik]

Thanks for the info. My main issue with DDS was not being able to get into the characters or feel of the game. Should I give it another go whenever I have a chance? I only played for maybe 3 or 4 hours. Nocturne I definitely liked more but for someone just never really played much.

Devil Summoner I just didn't like the combat at all. Seemed up there with Ni no Kuni for being some of the most un-fun combat.

[Stark]

Was trying to get a couple of demons with Bufu last night and got straight up jacked by some low level demon with sickness and a couple of spells. Lost about an hour of progress.

[ZenErik]

Was trying to get a couple of demons with Bufu last night and got straight up jacked by some low level demon with sickness and a couple of spells. Lost about an hour of progress.

Save anywhere is the best new feature in SMTIV compared to other ones I have played. IMO. I literally save every 10 min or so. May seem excessive, but it has saved me a lot of headaches. Plus saving is so quick in this game. Not really much of an inconvenience.

Posted in the RPG progress thread earlier, but I am lvl42: St 27, Dx 86, Ma 27, Ag 90, Lu 90.

[Stark]

Was trying to get a couple of demons with Bufu last night and got straight up jacked by some low level demon with sickness and a couple of spells. Lost about an hour of progress.

Save anywhere is the best new feature in SMTIV compared to other ones I have played. IMO. I literally save every 10 min or so. May seem excessive, but it has saved me a lot of headaches. Plus saving is so quick in this game. Not really much of an inconvenience.

Posted in the RPG progress thread earlier, but I am lvl42: St 27, Dx 86, Ma 27, Ag 90, Lu 90.

Yeah I got in a lull, because I was just trying to get to 15 to fuse Jack Frost and was auto-battling everything. Thought I had saved at the entrance to Naraku before the latest run, but, nope.

[Phades]

I'm a little over 5 hours in so far and hit level 11. I haven't really played one of these games since the original Persona on the PS1 (which I loved) but am pretty addicted. Maybe I'll even finish this one!

[MrPopo]

Level 25, and I managed to beat the Domain with Grendel in the northern part of the main map. He's level 43, but I managed to pull through with judicious use of Rakunda and Tarunda.

[Stark]

Level 25, and I managed to beat the Domain with Grendel in the northern part of the main map. He's level 43, but I managed to pull through with judicious use of Rakunda and Tarunda.

Damn dude!

I finally got the boss I was stuck on. Level 15, used Jack Frost and two other demons with Bufu and just nailed him to the wall.

[ZenErik]

Haha. Glad you finally did it. I'm so over leveled that I've been wrecking all the bosses even without hitting their weaknesses. I also mainly go with demons with no weaknesses.

[MrPopo]

Level 25, and I managed to beat the Domain with Grendel in the northern part of the main map. He's level 43, but I managed to pull through with judicious use of Rakunda and Tarunda.

Damn dude!

I finally got the boss I was stuck on. Level 15, used Jack Frost and two other demons with Bufu and just nailed him to the wall.

Yeah, buffs and debuffs are HUGE in non-Persona SMT games. And even fully debuffing his defense and offence it still cost me half my force of demons. The nice thing about his domain was he had a ton of demons level 25-30 in it with weaknesses, so I was able to level up my entire party until they taught me all their skills, giving me a chance to fuse some more.