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I've had Shin Megami Tensei IV for a while now, but I still haven't played it. I hope it's not too hard... I don't do extremely hard games any more

I've just completed Majora's Mask. It's the first time I've ever completed it, despite having owned it for God knows how many years. The updates on the 3DS (the saving system, especially) made it much better and more accessible for me to play. Playing through it though (and maybe part of it is I've played through a lot of it [although never quite finishing it] so many times before), made me realise I really don't enjoy it as much as I used to. Parts of it are really quite annoying.

Tanooki wrote:Maybe it's just a sadist game to start until you can bank a few levels killing junk just in the training area before proceeding to finding the item in Naraku area 2 after the 2 basic first quests? At least I got the LE guide to have some maps of the areas.

Wait... you don't just automatically grind out levels at the beginning of any rpg ever? That's like rpg 101!

Tanooki wrote:Maybe it's just a sadist game to start until you can bank a few levels killing junk just in the training area before proceeding to finding the item in Naraku area 2 after the 2 basic first quests? At least I got the LE guide to have some maps of the areas.

The game never stops being sadistic. It just ends up feeling more like it was your fault as the game goes on for not having a well balanced team covering all the contingencies. Then the only utter bullshit is when you die to an instant-death attack yet again.

If you had to rate them based on difficulty from hardest to easiest, how would you rate the following Mr.Popo?:

Nocturne
Strange Journey
SMT IV

Nocturne is hardest, especially if you go for the True Demon Ending.

I'd say Strange Journey and SMT IV are approximately equal in difficulty. Strange Journey might get the nod for having overall larger dungeons than SMT IV, but they're both fairly close.

Thanks for the info. Well I've beat Nocturne so I guess I'll be alright with the other two when I get around to them.

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In other news a dude bought a new Majora's Mask New 3DS XL and microwaved it to death:

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/ebay-s ... 0-6425429/

Personally I find that hilarious, because it makes me shake my head in disdain how fervent and upset people are to obtain a "special edition" 3DS, when it is little more than the normal New 3DS XL, except with a mere custom decal on it. I know there are people here who rushed out to get this thing though, so I'll just leave it at that.

Reprise wrote:I've had Shin Megami Tensei IV for a while now, but I still haven't played it. I hope it's not too hard... I don't do extremely hard games any more

I've just completed Majora's Mask. It's the first time I've ever completed it, despite having owned it for God knows how many years. The updates on the 3DS (the saving system, especially) made it much better and more accessible for me to play. Playing through it though (and maybe part of it is I've played through a lot of it [although never quite finishing it] so many times before), made me realise I really don't enjoy it as much as I used to. Parts of it are really quite annoying.

I'm almost done with it too I believe. Just finished bottom of the well and Ikana Castle. I didn't remember those bits at all, though it's been 15 years since I've gone through it. There are some tedious parts, like all of the build up to get to the dungeons. It's a fairly straightforward formula:

Get item to go to the next area.
Enter next area.
Do sub-quest to get song.
Activate owl statue.
I usually reset time and go back at this point.
Do dungeon.
Rinse, repeat.

There are a few bits that are tedious, if you just hop from dungeon to dungeon. I like breaking it up though with doing some of the side-quests. The game is pretty enjoyable, I think I'm enjoying it more now that I'm not a freshman in high school and grasp some of the deeper, darker themes. I will probably not 100% the game by means of bottles or heart pieces, but I will go after the Fierce Deity Mask. I only need the Giant Mask and then it's on. I think I'll be sitting on 14 or 15 hearts.

8bit wrote:I'm still bummed I wasn't able to get new MM 3DS after best buy canceled my order... but now I can't use the $50 credit towards a red or black model right now because best buy is currently sold out... I hope they get one back in stock before the coupon expires on the 23rd.

Well I went ahead and emailed BestBuy customer service yesterday since my promo code was about to expire and there was still no systems in stock. I wasn't expecting much but this morning I received an email back with an offer to send me a $50 gift card. I gladly accepted and received a followup email confirming the gift card has been ordered and would be received by mail in the 10-15 business days. All said and done I think this was a very fair resolution for the inconvenience and for canceling my preorder. Good job taking care of this customer BestBuy.

Blu wrote:It's a fairly straightforward formula:

Get item to go to the next area.
Enter next area.
Do sub-quest to get song.
Activate owl statue.
I usually reset time and go back at this point.
Do dungeon.
Rinse, repeat.

There are a few bits that are tedious, if you just hop from dungeon to dungeon. I like breaking it up though with doing some of the side-quests.

Yup, that's the formula...

And I did nearly all the side quests and got all the masks (bar the very last one you can get just before your final battle at the end of the game... The Fierce Deity Mask? I knew I could have got it, but I really couldn't be arsed by that point). Generally though, I did the same as you to try and break things up a bit.

I still kinda got bored with the game though. I don't know, years ago I once thought it was perhaps my favourite Zelda game, but now after having replayed/played quite a few Zelda games over the last few years, I'd probably rank it below most of them, even though I do love the fact they tried something very different with MM.

8bit wrote:

8bit wrote:I'm still bummed I wasn't able to get new MM 3DS after best buy canceled my order... but now I can't use the $50 credit towards a red or black model right now because best buy is currently sold out... I hope they get one back in stock before the coupon expires on the 23rd.

Well I went ahead and emailed BestBuy customer service yesterday since my promo code was about to expire and there was still no systems in stock. I wasn't expecting much but this morning I received an email back with an offer to send me a $50 gift card. I gladly accepted and received a followup email confirming the gift card has been ordered and would be received by mail in the 10-15 business days. All said and done I think this was a very fair resolution for the inconvenience and for canceling my preorder. Good job taking care of this customer BestBuy.

Wow that was pretty cool of them. I've heard stories in the other direction over the years, so it's nice seeing them take care of you like that all things considered.


...and to the posts about SMT4, man that game starts out aggressively difficult until you can get the option to set the difficulty to normal down from hard(default.) Even then you can get whacked badly quite easily even in the opening dungeon. I've got a nice rounded little party going currently and 3 hours into it, but I'm liking it so far, but it's no Final Fantasy (fairly easy) or whatever in the difficulty department.