Shin Megami Tensei IV

[CavZee]

Well Persona 4, a more lighthearted and story driven spin off title to the Shin Megami Tensei series has possibly the best JRPG&console RPG story of all time. I haven't played SMT IV yet (hasn't been released in EU), but generally SMT games have a more minimalistic story and a dark/serious/mysterious tone with little to no "anime BS". Might have some stuff that doesn't make sense because the games are all about demons, gods, darkness&light, cyberpunk and stuff like that. Atleast it shouldn't get too convoluted. The games can be at tiems "trippy" and mysterious (ie you don't understand what's going on around you) in a good way.

SMT is basically a series that many hardcore RPG fans who only like pen&paper and oldschool WRPGs love (or atleast like/tolerate), even if they hate all other JRPGs besides hardcore dungeon crawlers (like EO and Dark Spire) and possibly the classics. It's so different from all the other popular JRPG series. Especially SMT: Nocturne/Lucifer's Call (SMT 3) is respected on sites like RPGcodex.

Well, I generally prefer minimalism over nonsense. And though I may take some crap for this statement, I will admit to being of the belief that 95% of JRPGs made after the 16-bit era make no sense at all from a story perspective or make sense up to a point where they take a hard turn into left field and never come back. I don't know if it's bad translations, huge cultural ideas that we just don't have in the West, my absolute lack of experience/knowledge with anime/manga/etc., or what but JRPGs lost me somewhere between 1996 and 2000.

I like the game mechanics of JRPGs but often have don't have the first damn clue what is going on or why I am doing what I am doing.

If the focus of SMTIV is more on gameplay than story, it might be for me.

Edit: I really like EOIV so far and it's story is pretty minimal - just a background motivation for playing the game at this point. That and I cut my teeth on Eye of the Beholder in the early 90s and have a soft spot for first person dungeon crawlers.

SMTIV sounds good for you then. The gameplay is undoubtedly there.. The story isn't overly complicated but still deep and meaningful. There's also a good amount of choice in here, which many JRPGs lack. It also exudes such a dark and twisted tone to it's atmosphere that makes it stick out from the rest in the genre.

[Stark]

So in SMTIV every buff/debuff skill moves the appropriate stat(s) +1 or -1, to a max of +3 or -3. By contrast, in Nocturne there were buff skills that moved by +/-2, and the cap was +/-4.

This kind of stuff is not clear in this game at all. I feel like some of the training battles are good ways to pass that along, but you have to figure it out which is sometimes hard.

[Valkyrie-Favor]

I recruited a Knocker, which have Bufu and a defense buff. Then I cast Bufu seven or eight times a turn, healing with Media on the last turn if I needed. Won on my first try. All my party members survived with most of their HP left.

So much for buffs I doubt this kind of strategy will keep working for long.

Time to fight Medusa.

[ZenErik]

Maximizing your turns and minimizing enemy turns is very important. You did well.

[MrPopo]

I've found that buffs became much better later on in the game when you started to get null/absorb/repel demons, as well as multi-stat buffs/debuffs. You spend a turn enhancing the party, then the enemy attacks back and loses their entire turn from hitting a null/absorb/repel, and any damage they did do to a different demon is minimized.

[Stark]

I've found that buffs became much better later on in the game when you started to get null/absorb/repel demons, as well as multi-stat buffs/debuffs. You spend a turn enhancing the party, then the enemy attacks back and loses their entire turn from hitting a null/absorb/repel, and any damage they did do to a different demon is minimized.

War Cry is a great earlier one you get.

[Valkyrie-Favor]

I defeated Medusa at Level 14. I didn't have any demons resistant to gun attacks, but made it through with Rakukaja and some luck.

It would be pretty rare to get a demon perfectly suited to your situation. Looks like I'll need to put most of my points towards magic and collect as many buff/debuff spells as possible.

[MrPopo]

The way stats work in this game, the main character will do the most damage of anyone in your party (assuming you focus on one type of attack and the appropriate stat for it). Demon stats stay too even to really crank out the damage; the Pleroma skills make up for it a bit, but by end game my magic MC was doing at least double of everyone else in my team.

[noiseredux]

so I'm LVL 37 I believe. Maybe 38. I've just killed Koba Saburo, and am off to Roppongi. As I've been playing, I've used the guide book quite a bit for maps and in spots where I'm not quite sure how to progress the main story next. (I never use it for info on enemy weaknesses/skills, as honestly I think the most fun in the game is going up against new enemies and figuring out their weaknesses through trial and error. Something exciting about trying, trying, trying, and then realizing what the weakness is and then trying to swap in new demons to exploit that weakness). Anyway, my point was I was shocked when all the sudden the guidebook came to an end. I don't know if that means that I'm nearing the end, or that they just now feel like I can take my training wheels off.

[MrPopo]

Training wheels. You've got quite a lot of game left. I ended the game around level 95.