Shin Megami Tensei IV

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CavZee
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Re: Shin Megami Tensei IV

Post by CavZee »

noiseredux wrote:so I did drop it to Easy for Medusa. And again, first try she was dead. On Normal I would usually get her down so she was flashing red, ready to die, but just couldn't pull it off. Anyway, got to Tokyo and killed another 'powerful' demon in the subway. Now just exploring.

This is the first time in my two weeks with the game where I all the sudden have felt a little overwhelmed. Maybe it's because at this point the game seems to really open up, but all the sudden I felt like "oh man, I still have a lot ahead of me." It actually made me have to walk away last night and just play something else for a change. I think maybe I had been so into this game and was just putting so much time into it right away - I'm guessing around 18-20 hrs at this point, though my in game clock says 9 or 10. But I think all the sudden I realized "wow, I've barely made a dent!" To put it into perspective, Raptr says that I generally spend about 12 or 13 hrs a week playing games. So if I play just this game (and nothing else!) every chance I get it should take me over 7 weeks to beat it based on the estimation from dudes in this thread that it's a 90 hr game. That's a pretty serious commitment, haha. SO I think I'm going to kind of slow down on it and play other things at the same time so I don't burn myself out.

That said, I still love pretty much everything about the game. Although I must confess, I know it's early on in Tokyo still but I don't really like the modern setting as much. That kind of makes me think though that I probably will enjoy Strange Journey, eh?
My save file was at 62 hours when I finished. 3DS Activity log says 65. so it's not THAT long.

Strange Journey has more of q Sci-Fi feel to it. It's way more about dungeon crawling though. I personally liked this game WAY more than SJ.
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noiseredux
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Re: Shin Megami Tensei IV

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CavZee wrote: My save file was at 62 hours when I finished. 3DS Activity log says 65. so it's not THAT long.
That makes me feel a lot better, haha.

You have to understand that generally speaking I'm not a "long game" fan. I'm not sure if I've ever beat a game that took me more than 15 hrs. The fact that I've spent 20-ish on SMT IV in two weeks (and recently logged 20+ in Enemy Unknown) is a testament to just how great I think this game is.
Strange Journey has more of q Sci-Fi feel to it. It's way more about dungeon crawling though. I personally liked this game WAY more than SJ.
Sci-Fi, really? Like Phantasy Star? If so, that's fine - cuz I adore Phantasy Star.

Dungeon Crawling might be OK w/ me. Is the battle system similar? I know I'm a bit weird, but often in RPG's I have far more fun battling than I do exploring.

I wonder how easy it is to find SJ w/ the box & soundtrack now at a reasonable price. Really wish I had picked it up when it came out, but I was so on the fence about it at the time as Demikids was the only SMT game I had played at that point (if you can even call DemiKids an SMT game, but I do because, uh, it says it on the box haha).
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Re: Shin Megami Tensei IV

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If you don't like long games you really shouldn't be playing RPGs. XD

I wouldn't say SJ feels like Phantasy Star. Basically you're an all star team assembled by the UN from around the world to investigate this space-time anomaly that has appeared in Antarctica. Once you get there some shit goes down and there's demons everywhere. Some weird things happen along the way and yeah, it's SMT.

Oh, and the battle system is different. It's probably easier to get into because it's less punishing than the Press-Turn system of IV, but its kind of less strategic as a result. Buffs, Debuffs, and exploiting enemy weakness are still the name of the game though.
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Re: Shin Megami Tensei IV

Post by ZenErik »

There are plenty of shorter RPGs. Like a lot of the 16 bit and even 32 bit ones are 20 - 40 hours.

Muramasa took me about 16 - 18 hours to get an ending for each character. A bit more whenever I feel like getting the true endings.

Never finished Ys Seven, but it didn't seem like it'd be that long.

The Atelier games can be completed in 20 - 40 hours, depending. Devil Survivor Overclocked is probably 30 - 40 hours.

Could try to think of a bunch more, but there definitely used to be a lot of shorter RPGs and there are still a fair amount today. Thankfully not every JRPG is 80-100+ hours.
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Re: Shin Megami Tensei IV

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CavZee wrote:If you don't like long games you really shouldn't be playing RPGs. XD
It's not that I "don't like" long games, it's that I'm often distracted by other games. I love RPG's. But I might start playing one and 10 hrs into it I've acquired a stack of new games that I'm interested in trying out. It can be hard to stick with one game for MONTHS at a time when you're also getting new games during those months.

As Erik pointed out as well, there's certainly short RPG's as well. 8bit/16bit def comes to mind. I beat Final Fantasy in around 10 hrs for instance recently. Or indie stuff like Cthulhu Saves The World, which was great fun and short.
Oh, and the battle system is different. It's probably easier to get into because it's less punishing than the Press-Turn system of IV, but its kind of less strategic as a result. Buffs, Debuffs, and exploiting enemy weakness are still the name of the game though.
Yeah see that's tricky. The Press Turn system is awesome. Either way, I'm sure I'll eventually give SJ a try.
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Re: Shin Megami Tensei IV

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I know many 16bit RPGs can be finished in about 20-30 hours, but RPGs that take less than 30 hours these days are practically a rarity. I would love to have some more RPGs that were a little more "short and sweet" as opposed to games that drag on needlessly. Chrono Trigger, Mario RPGs, and Ys all do this well.

The way the battle system in Strange Journey works is like this....
Each demon has it's own alignment (Law, Neutral, Chaos) and anytime you hit an enemies weakness you get an automatic extra attack that has demons of the same alignment attacking together. The alignment of the MC changes throughout the game depending on your decisions. So basically for maximum effectiveness you'll want to have your party consist entirely of the same alignment.
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Re: Shin Megami Tensei IV

Post by Stark »

Started doing some side quests for some reason. :) Man I had a heck of a time with the Phatom of Madness quest, that dude just wrecked me for some reason, the stupid poisoning, etc. Blegh.
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Re: Shin Megami Tensei IV

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Stark wrote:Started doing some side quests for some reason. :) Man I had a heck of a time with the Phatom of Madness quest, that dude just wrecked me for some reason, the stupid poisoning, etc. Blegh.
Some of the sidequests can get kinda tough, but alot of that was probably me just trying to do them earlier then I should.
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Re: Shin Megami Tensei IV

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Don't get overwhelmed by getting a world map; it's only an illusion of freedom. For the most part there's only one place to go, and every other place where you could proceed through is blocked off.
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Re: Shin Megami Tensei IV

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MrPopo wrote:Don't get overwhelmed by getting a world map; it's only an illusion of freedom.
I think that was what intimidated me. Like, going 10+ hrs with no map and then all the sudden I'm like "uh, what's going on here?"
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