So...

I was going through the Library of RPG's that I've putted myself in the "to finish" list.

And I've found that quite a lot of the Megami Tensei Games that I've started and haven't finished.

For various reasons, which can go from that they've didn't really hooked me up, the gameplay was or either hard, unfair, slow, demanding of time(Tedious and boring grinding duties with non-worthy results). Or my PS2 was wrecked and I haven't taked the time to make it work again until recently.

So I tried Persona 4 today, and I was liking the characters, not seriously interested in the storyline at all, by any means. The gameplay was the regular PS2 MegaTen game with a few welcomed features combining it with the Tarot Cards stuff that was Staple in the Persona series.

But really what turned me off was the music...

WHO THE FUCK HAVE THE GREAT IDEA TO PUT VOCAL J-POP MUSIC AS THE MAJOR AMOUNT OF TRACKS THAT PLAYS IN BATTLES AND PLACES!? #Sarcasm

Yeah, I hated the music, and the instrumental music, just wasn't as good as Nocturne, DDS or P1 to make it worth sacrifice. I've turned of the speakers while hanging around in the school or the Shopping District for example. It was that horrible to me.


I really want to know why I want to like these games, they really have some certain charm that makes them attractive to me, but every single title has one particular thing that get's on my nerve really fast. And I hate Tedious and Boring Grinding Duties, I'm not cut out to invest my time on that kind of shit, because it's not worth, it doesn't pay off.

If you wish I can share with you later some thoughts about the titles that I've tried.

Which so far are:

Shin Megami Tensei (SNES)
Persona: Revelations (PSX)
Persona 2: Innocent Sin (PSX)
Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne (PS2)
Digital Devil Saga (PS2)
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Souless Army (PS2)
Persona 4(PS2)
IMAGINE(PC)

EDIT: I want you people to share some thoughts on these... Let's talk about these games.

I haven't played the Persona games (although I do want to), but out of the SMT games that I have played, Nocturne and Digitial Devil Saga pt 1, are the only ones that I feel are really worth all the considerable pain and suffering they put you through.

As you say, the games are outrageously hard by today's standards, and require much time grinding and just enduring the absurdly high random encounter rate. I just gave up on Devil Summoner, despite its interesting premise, simply because I couldn't take the constant, *constant* random battles, every couple of steps.

Nocturne is a ridiculously hard game, and is still quite challenging, even when you know exactly what you're doing. But its well worth sticking with, because its one fo the best JRPG experiences I've ever had. I love the odd, apocalyptic setting and the blackly humourous (or often simply just black full stop) tone of the game. The story is told in brief spurts, but they are well handled, and do satisfy, given the strength of the core ideas and imagery.

I really can't recommend it enough - its murderously hard and unforgiving, but like Demon's Souls, its one of those games that's actually worth putting in the extra effort for.

Digital Devil Saga is slightly more conventional JRPG fare, but its still superior to most JRPGs these days. Pt 1 is by far the better installment IMO, telling a decent story with some very interesting twists along the way. Its still got an infuriatingly high random battle rate, but it is at least generally speaking, a *much* easier game than Nocturne (though its not as good overall, IMO).

Pt 2 of DDS is pretty poor though, IMO. The game doesn't really sell its big revelations very well, and it makes some very odd decisions with most of the characters. Mostly though, its guilty of just losing its way, leading you (the player) to frequently stop and say 'Wait... remind me where are we, and why we came here again?'


SMT is an interesting series, but its one of those that's sometimes a little too incomprehensible and weird for its own good. When it gets this stuff right as Nocturne does most of the time, its fantastic, but when it gets it wrong as Devil Summoner often does, its all just a bit too odd (or too Japanese, which is kind of the same thing).

I enjoyed the j-pop music in P4. It fit, imo. But I can see why others, like you, would dislike it. If you can push through it I think you should stick with P4, because I consider it one of the best jrpg's ever made and with some actual emotional punch, unlike so many others. It's not for everybody, certainly, but if you think you can, stick to the end. (And don't even bother with 3, ESPECIALLY not on ps2)

I'm currently in the market for some free time but nobody's selling so I won't be playing any MegaTen games anytime soon (like not for the next year). Both Nocturne and DDS have been on my backlog for ages, but I never got around to them and won't soon either. I'd love to, though. I tried Persona 2 a few months ago but gave up because it was a little bit too incomprehensible and the encounter rate was INSANE.

Also, I paid a fuck ton of money to import Catherine from the US, it better be worth it... (it's not megaten but it's by the same guys)

Well Catherine is made by the team behind Persona 3 and 4, not the dudes behind the main SMT games. I am pretty sure the team who made Persona 3 and 4 weren't involved in the development of 1 and 2 either.

As for the topic, I'd say Devil Survivor is worth checking out. It's still a difficult game, but I wouldn't say you ever need to grind so long as you know what you're doing (which is basically the deal with all SMT games, really). You probably wouldn't like Strange Journey, considering the other main SMT games you've played didn't do anything for you. I found Strange Journey to be a pretty mediocre SMT game as well as a pretty mediocre dungeon crawler in comparison to what else is available on the DS (like Etrian Odyssey 3).

Persona 3 and 4 are all about the aesthetic, I think. If you don't like it there's basically no way you're going to enjoy those games.

Well Catherine is made by the team behind Persona 3 and 4, not the dudes behind the main SMT games. I am pretty sure the team who made Persona 3 and 4 weren't involved in the development of 1 and 2 either.

I did not know that. I merely assumed that the shift in aesthetic and tone of P3 and 4 were merely in response to growing trends in Japan. I'm certain that the composer and artist (Shoji Meguro and Shigenori Soejima respectively) both worked on the earlier Persona installments at the very least, if not SMT in general. Do you have any links?

That said, if we are talking about different developers, what are the guys who made previous SMT games doing?


Persona 3 and 4 are all about the aesthetic, I think. If you don't like it there's basically no way you're going to enjoy those games.

Agreed. That was kind of my biggest problem with 3. It was set in an urban environment but the actual areas you get to visit are very limited and don't offer much to do. The optional social link stories were very poor (the new ones in the PSP version are an improvement) and all of the characters are pretty forgettable. It's setting had potential but they never did much with it. I pushed myself to finish it once and I don't intend to do it again.

P4, on the other hand, got everything right, as far as I'm concerned.

As you say, the games are outrageously hard by today's standards, and require much time grinding and just enduring the absurdly high random encounter rate. I just gave up on Devil Summoner, despite its interesting premise, simply because I couldn't take the constant, *constant* random battles, every couple of steps.

I hear ya on that... It turned me off as well. But I was really liking Devil Summoner up until mission 3 or 4. Then it got a little to repetitive for me.



Nocturne is a ridiculously hard game, and is still quite challenging, even when you know exactly what you're doing. But its well worth sticking with, because its one fo the best JRPG experiences I've ever had. I love the odd, apocalyptic setting and the blackly humourous (or often simply just black full stop) tone of the game. The story is told in brief spurts, but they are well handled, and do satisfy, given the strength of the core ideas and imagery.

Nocturne was the one that I was really getting into, until I've got the point to fight Matador, that's the first time that I've quitted the game, but literally after this point the game shows no mercy. Almost literally every single boss fight after this one, is go back to recruit some other demons, train them, go try your fight again. Fucking great... You'll be investing 20 to 40 hs worth of gameplay just in grinding your demons...



Digital Devil Saga is slightly more conventional JRPG fare, but its still superior to most JRPGs these days. Pt 1 is by far the better installment IMO, telling a decent story with some very interesting twists along the way. Its still got an infuriatingly high random battle rate, but it is at least generally speaking, a *much* easier game than Nocturne (though its not as good overall, IMO).

Pt 2 of DDS is pretty poor though, IMO. The game doesn't really sell its big revelations very well, and it makes some very odd decisions with most of the characters. Mostly though, its guilty of just losing its way, leading you (the player) to frequently stop and say 'Wait... remind me where are we, and why we came here again?'

Digital Devil Saga was a really good an Interesting game, It could've been a much much better experience if the protagonist had real personality and I'm seriously speaking, I'm pretty fucking tired of Empty Silent characters as protagonist, I know the point of you the Player giving the Life to the character, but to me it doesn't work that way if you have 2 dialogue options every 5-10 hours of gameplay. How are you suppose to cope with that?.
The interesting thing about DDS, is the Hinduism Flavor. I've just watched recently the 1st opening cutscene and when I saw the "Om Mani Padme Hum" I was pretty much suprised, the game speaks a lot more for people that know and at least have some certain idea of Hinduism.
That's why probably many people got dissapointed with the Finale of the games. I know how it ends but I haven't played it fully. Funny ain't it? XD
The thing that really really got my nerve on this game was the absurdly boring and non-imaginative dungeons. And the High-Encounter rate doesn't help either...





SMT is an interesting series, but its one of those that's sometimes a little too incomprehensible and weird for its own good. When it gets this stuff right as Nocturne does most of the time, its fantastic, but when it gets it wrong as Devil Summoner often does.

I haven't played a lot of Devil Summoner to come with a good reason to say what it "Failed" or "got it wrong", the main issue of Devil Summoner is that it get's repetitive and the absurdly high encounter rate breaks the patience really fast.
The setting is pretty amazing though.



its all just a bit too odd (or too Japanese, which is kind of the same thing).

LOL, agreed. XD


I enjoyed the j-pop music in P4. It fit, imo.

I won't argue with that, I agree that it fit. But I think less toxic music could do the job as well as the Vocal J-Pop music. Think of the Touhou Series, I know that they're SHUMPS but the music is astounding and it's instrumental, and it doesn't lose the Anime Styled Flavor.



But I can see why others, like you, would dislike it. If you can push through it I think you should stick with P4, because I consider it one of the best jrpg's ever made and with some actual emotional punch, unlike so many others. It's not for everybody, certainly, but if you think you can, stick to the end. (And don't even bother with 3, ESPECIALLY not on ps2)
I really want to know why it's one of the greatest RPG's the storyline from what I've played so far was really not as good as I expected, in fact, when you reach to the first murder, I was hoping to play as the uncle detective instead of the high school kid.
The Idea of the Dimension of the Perversion of the personality of the victims is great plot device that can be worked pretty well if done properly, take the first 4 Silent Hill games as an example, they've presented the Idea so well, that they've nailed it.
But here on P4, they've presented it in kind of a silly way if I say so myself. I'll probably stick with the game If I can survive through the music. But what do you know...

I've skipped P3, because I read and listened all around that it's hardcore game that the story really starts at the 30 hours of playtime.



I tried Persona 2 a few months ago but gave up because it was a little bit too incomprehensible and the encounter rate was INSANE.


Incomprenhensible yes, the controls are as uncomfortable as they can get, the auto-battle based system is rather dull and booooring. And the Encounter Rate is as high as you say, but it's not as high as Devil Summoner.

The Interesting Fact, is that I've read all around that Persona 2: Innocent Sin has the best storyline out of all the MegaTen games.



As for the topic, I'd say Devil Survivor is worth checking out. It's still a difficult game, but I wouldn't say you ever need to grind so long as you know what you're doing (which is basically the deal with all SMT games, really). You probably wouldn't like Strange Journey, considering the other main SMT games you've played didn't do anything for you. I found Strange Journey to be a pretty mediocre SMT game as well as a pretty mediocre dungeon crawler in comparison to what else is available on the DS (like Etrian Odyssey 3).

I've heard that Devil Survivor is a great title, I've heard that the story and gameplay is really great. I haven't seen anything yet, but I'll probably try it. The thing is that the game is on the DS, I don't own one, and the currently existing emulators haven't corrected the sound and FPS issues.
Same with Strange Journey, I think that game was mean't to be the SMT IV title. But Hell if I know.



Persona 3 and 4 are all about the aesthetic, I think. If you don't like it there's basically no way you're going to enjoy those games.

You're probably right, It is hard for me to dig the whole being the High School kid unraveling Urban Legends...


So...

Shin Megami Tensei: I was playing this game with a friend of mine, we were enjoying the highly customizable type of gameplay. The First Person Dungeon crawling is something that I will never get used to. But in this game could bear with it, the storyline, setting and characters were pretty bizarre. I've never got to see one of the 3 endings, we've quitted the game at half way more or less, mostly because we got bored and got busy with other stuff. The Pacing of the story was really hard to follow if you didn't payed attention. The game has it's difficulty, but it's not as hard as Nocturne at all...

Persona: Revelations: I started this one, and I was really interested on the whole Psychological focus of the game, that pretty much will be inherited in the future Persona games, this one had some good characters, great music, a good but nonetheless bizarre battle system. But the game really sucked at exploring the areas, scrolling through the city was suffering, you didn't know where you are or where you gotta go. Of course they've fixed that in the latter games. I've heard that the Localization on the PSX was pretty butchered too, so much that they've even went to change the skin color a character. I will try the PSP version when I've get one.

Persona 2: Innocent Sin: This one had horrible characters, good music, a boring battle system, a horrible control scheme and it's said to be the best SMT game, why? Hell if I know. From what I've played the game was adolescent issues after antoher. A few good characters appear in the Middle such as Maya and her friend, which I can't remember her name. It appears to be the kind of game that will get interesting after you suffer the long and annoying beginning. A PSP remake will be released in september I think, if you give it a try, let me know how it turned out. The PSX version wasn't good enough to me.

I will complete my opinion regarding the rest later... Kinda tired XD.

I love the series, have so since the PS1.

Personally I enjoy the J-Pop vibe of P3 and P4.
It's not for everyone, but I think it fits well with the stories.

The older/main series can get pretty weird though.

Like for the SNES.
Not ten minutes in you met with Jesus...and...yeah...

I've only played Persona Revelations on my PSX, and I have to admit I did enjoy it (even to the 'traveling' as well (After playing a heap of SSI RPG's back in the day, was nice to go back to a similar style)). The music fit the game well imo, and I did like the characters and how they interacted with each other.

I did play a SMT game on the PS2 (The one with Dante from DMC)... but there was something about it I couldn't get into... that and I hate cell shading in games >.< (Robotech Battlecry was a good game, except it had cell shading too...).

Matador is an absolute bastard, and for the time you meet him (he's essentially the first real boss, as Forneus is just a tutorial boss), he is one of the hardest enemies in the game. To beat him, you really need someone with immunity to Force (i.e Wind) or at least not have anyone who is weak to it. The best choice is one of those furry things with the big snout, because they can use Fog Breath on him to get his agility/dodge down to the point where you can actually hit him.

And just a quick point on something Fight said, you might not need to grind once you know what to do, but the games kind of force you to do it anyway, just because of the ludicrously high encounter rates. Its near impossible to go anywhere without fighting tons and tons and tons of battles.

The only megaten game I have not finished is the 2nd one (and those not available in english).
I just love them all. Not a huge persona fan though (though I loved Persona 4).

About Nocturne being hard, it is not true at all! Once you learn a few tricks and how to fuse demons right, it gets really easy!

I also enjoyed DDS1/2, but the grind in that is so bad I had to use a Gameshark to double my EXP gain to make it bearable.

Nocturne is never really easy though, is it?

You can get to the stage where you will probably be alright against most normal enemies, but until you have the skills and/or Magatama for Void Death and Void Expel, because without those, you could just die against any opponent who uses them, and there's nothing you can do about it.

And the fact is, you always have to be on your toes. Anytime you have a team member who is weak to a certain attack and no-one is immune, your team can get floored double quick, regardless of how tough you are. Particularly against bosses, if you are weak to their main attack (and there is no way of knowing ahead of time what attacks they use), then you're screwed, simple as that.

You can get better at the game, and eventually you'll be as comfortable as you are in any RPG, but only because you've accepted the fact that sometimes you'll get pasted by an attack you couldn't have prepared for (because with the constant changes to your demon roster, you can't cover every weakness all the time, and still have demons who are powerful enough to compete with the locals).

You just have to trial and error each section, see what attacks the local demons have, and shore up your roster to stay in the game - constantly. That's just the way it is in this game.

You just have to trial and error

I think you've just answered everything by just saying that...

Trial and Error gameplay in RPG's is one of most frustating things I can ever Imagine... The sheer time lost only on watching the animations of every skill you have available to use so that you can just see the weakness, because in this game if you did not start well, you're gonna likely see the Game Over screen just by the end of the second round...

You see, this is why it get's on my nerve really fast, the game obligues you to rely on whoring weaknesses and not being weak at least to the attack of your oponent. Reducing the strategic options to just that.

That can get me pretty bored really fast.

Moving on...

Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne: I think we've already spoken what's so horrible about this game... I don't feel that just going through all that will be as rewarding as people say... And I really want to finish it, it's fucking frustrating...

Digital Devil Saga: I've started this one again, I can tell that I'm more hooked up that the first time. The Story is pretty damn good. I remember that I've quitted this one, because it the dungeons got boooring and the PS2 got wrecked just after I've reached, the part where you have the puzzles with the mirrors and stuff. Atlus needs to get a team with some good level designing, in fact, many PS2 games need a good team for level designing...
But I totally dig the presentation of the storyline and the whole Hindu themed type of flavor with some seriously Buddhist messages. It spoke to me a lot more this time.

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Souless Army: I was digging this game really, the whole over the top and bizarre cases with the ambience combined with the music got me really into it really fast, I was liking the new battle system for the first hours of gameplay. Then the down right absurd encounter rate ruined everything.

Persona 4: This one, Teddy, the Music and the silly presentation of the storyline pretty much did all the job for me to not like it. Although, the characters are really something, they're actually pretty great. I'll probably give it a second chance waay later. But right now I don't think that I can do that.

IMAGINE: I loved the presentation of an MMORPG having the storyline as major part of it, it was nice to see that. The music was amazing! Listening to the old tunes of the first SMT of the SNES arranged for the PC was really something!. Although the gameplay is something you don't have to do. It felt like a Korean Grind Fest but with clunky and horrible controls. And the whole talk to demon's stuff almost doesn't exists. I mean it does, but it poorly executed. If you like MMO's, you can give it a try, but I certainly wouldn't reccomend this game.

All in all, the series has some very very interesting stuff that work well and it also has a lot other stuff that I personally don't like but they work as well(see Persona 4 for example).

If you wanna share some other thoughts and shed me some more light into these games and not only these ones, any other in the series, feel free to talk about them.

My only counter would be that against *most* normal enemies, you're still going to be okay even if they can exploit a weakness. The battle will be much more dangerous than it needs to be (because they could use all their extra attacks to pile on your main guy), but its not like rubbish enemies suddenly wipe the floor with you.

The trouble is that against certain foes (and most bosses), a weakness in the party can kill you in absolutely no time at all. If you go into boss fights with a weakness they can exploit (particularly if its one of the Devils, like Matador), then you're dead and its as simple as that. No amount of crafty play, clever use of items etc will save you, you're just D. E. A. D.

And even then, that might not be such an issue if save points were more plentiful and the bosses inhabited obvious 'This is a Boss Room - prepare thyself or DIE' areas. But some bosses (again like Matador) just teleport into the middle of a fricking corridor that looks exactly like every other corridor you've been travelling down for the last hour or so!

The first time (well, the first 10 times actually) that I faced Matador, I was like 'What the hell... oh, a boss. Wow, he looks awesome!

...

HOLY SHIT! I can't... he's too... I'm dead.

Again and again and again, until I finally gave up and went off to grind some appropriate demons. And that's something that you just have to make your peace with. Later on, you'll get into the rhythm of trying to make sure you're covered from as much as possible (particualy Dearh and Expel on your main man, because that is by far the most dangerous thing to leave open), but it still requires constant concentration.

Not least because you're always wondering 'Should I fuse this demon, because this new one looks pretty cool, but I've gotten used to relying on this demon, and what if I can use it with another demon later to make something even better etc etc'.

Like I say, a hard and emotionally taxing game. Its the hardest RPG I've ever played, for sure.

I take it you haven't had a whole lot of time with P3 or P1/P2 or any of the older games?

Also, may want to try 'DemiKids'.

Fog breath makes Matador a pussy.

The thing about having 9999999 demons available to you is that you can easily counter any boss with pretty much anything. If you are using a demon weak to zan against a boss who uses mazan then it is you own fault.

The formula for most bosses is:

Warcry/Fog breath him
Tarukaja/Rakunda if possible
Focus/Your most powerful physical attack.

Doing this will make most bosses fights end in 5~6 turns.

Yes, but Matador is the first boss, and is your first real suggestion of exactly how hard this game will be.

Up until that point, the game is fairly easy, as there are only low level enemies about. Most people aren't crafting ultimate demons at this point (because you lose them when you fuse, and people always get twitchy about that sort of thing, fearing they are doing something wrong and messing it up etc). So they just pick some demons they like the look of, and decide they'll just stick to recruiting demons they meet in battle.

Plus, there are so many skills and aspects to consider, which most gamers won't look too heavily into (because its very intimidating to begin with). Matador is simply the most brutal way of kicking off the training wheels ever devised. He practically screams 'Play the game properly, or F*** off!'

And whichever way you look at it, Matador is a very tough boss. Fog Breath isn't just useful - its mandatory! I don't think any other demon in the game has Red Capote, and its such an amazing skill, especially at that early stage. It makes Matador a decent choice for your party too later on, even when you've passed by most other demons of his rank. Red Capote is simply an awesome skill.

In my Freetime at Work I'm playing the 1st Shin Megami Tensei game of the SNES. Yes I can safely say that this game is a lot more easier than Nocturne, something that should not happen if I say so myself...

TBH Matador is an exceptional hard boss, you won't find a boss as hard as him until much late in the game (though Dante can be an ass if don't have a proper party too).

I agree with topopoz, SMT 1 is a lot easier than Nocturne, which in turn is a lot easier than Strange Journey and a bit easier than Devil Survivor IMO.

Is it so bad for a game to be hard, though? Nocturne offers a tough challenge and a decent running time, which you don't get that often nowadays. Lord knows we have more than enough short and easy games in modern gaming.

Sure, it has the potential to put off a lot of people, but chances are that they wouldn't have liked the game anyway (it was never going to be a mainstream hit). But for others, the harsh difficulty is the Unique Selling Point. Because you just don't expect to see games this hard anymore. Same with games like Ninja Gaiden and Demon's Souls etc.

Some may argue that Hard games are fine, but they should at least be fair. I'd agree with that (and I certainly think that Nocturne is often an extremely unfair game), but let's not forget that whilst its easy to bandy about phrases like 'Hard but fair', very few games have ever managed it. Most games don't get even remotely hard until you crank it up to the very highest difficulty setting - which is then usually so brutally unfair, that no amount of skill will save you.

Nocturne will always be a game I remember for many reasons - but as with Demon's Souls, its the difficulty that you really remember. And seeing as how finishing games like this feels like a real accomplishment, that means the pain and suffering eventually leads to some very fond memories.

I had never played a Megami Tensei until recently when I started playing Persona 3 by recommendation. The story is cool, I really like most of the characters (might be weird, but I like being a "regular high-school student" :P), but the gameplay is somehow meh. And I find it to be extremely grindy especially because of the fact that there is absolutely no real reason to go fight monsters in tartarus other than leveling up. And something I hate is mindless grinding, I mean I don't mind it if I have an objective, but just killing things just because is not my style.
Anyways will probly finish it in the next few days, and I guess I'll try Persona 4 after that.

It's Hard Only because it's Unfair, that's more than enough reason to me to say that a game has a severe design Issue.
Press Turn System is a nice concept, but with further analysis the choices that you have at hand in combat with this system are reduced to whore weaknesses and not being vulnerable to your enemy. To me that's boring, I don't like that a game obliges me to use that single form of strategy to cut my path through the game, moreso when they involve tedious grinding duties, because even contracting demons is such a chore considering that you need to have Random Number Generators at your favor to encounter the demon that you actually need.

If a game gives me tools at disposal I want to use them and create my own way/style of play, think of Final Fantasy XII, VII, KotOR, Fallout, Vagrant Story. were the difficulty can be created and gauged by the player's choice, depending on how he wants to configure whatever are the tools at his disposal.

Vagrant Story for example is a game that manages to keep you on your feet all the time, even when you know how to cut your path through the game with the several big pile amount of choices you have at disposal, such as weapon crafting, chaining attacks, spells, counter measure abilities, a boss battle can be resolved by a single hit from the enemy if you're not paying attention to what are you doing, it requires the player to develop some certain skill an be mindful of what are his choices.

In Nocturne you play by the game's conditions(Which of course they are against you by definition), gives you a taste of the Talk system giving some illusion to the Player that you could try to talk through the game and explore the reactions of the demons, but of course that's an Illusion.

It's nice to find every now and then in a game enemies that you have to defeat them if you play by their rules, like any boss in this game.

And we also have the aformentioned Trial and Error Gameplay, that by definition that doesn't necesarily means that it's hard, it just requires you to execute several trials to check which option is the one that works and also of course if you have all the necessary tools and you still have issues with the battle, the most common and estadistically correct answer to address this kind of problem of course is. Load Game, Grind some Levels, try again.

I don't like tyranny, Nocturne is one of the epitome's of tyranny at gameplay, you don't need to be "skilled" or be somekind of RPG Snob to beat the game, you just need to go through all that I've said before until you find the right way to fight through your enemies.

If a game takes time to finish because you need to grind or you need to go through a process that involves Random Number Generators and of course takes time. Then the game is flawed, it has a flawed Curve of difficulty.

Nocturne Curve of difficulty sky rockets at the moment you have to face Matador and then the curve starts to reach to more tolerable levels, until you reach the Ikebukuro Tunnel and you have several Bosses there that are as hard as Matador.

Yes, but JRPGs have always done this. Star Ocean, Final Fantasy, SMT, Tales etc all have dungeons and bosses where the difficulty spikes so hard, it takes your roof off. And that's without even counting the games like Demon's Souls and Nocturne which are just rock hard all the way through.

And that in itself is a distinguishing point from the WRPGs you mention. Yes, the play style often seems more customisable in those games (I say seems because most JRPGs have much more depth in their systems than most people give them credit for), but ironically enough WRPGs are so much easier than JRPGS, that you never really need to master their systems.

Dragon Age: Origins is the only WRPG of recent times that actually is a hard game, and even better than that, its a fair game too. If you learn how to play properly and craft your characters with care, taking useful skills and managing your tactics, you will do well - and if you don't...

But instead of taking that as the way forward, EA and Bioware caved to the whingers who complained it was too hard, and so we have the 'Practically plays itself' system of Dragon Age2.

Its like I was saying - developers almost never make games that are genuinely tough, but that are also fair. JRPGs are routinely unfair, and especially in the less mainstream titles (Valkyrie Profile et al) are extremely hard. WRPGs meanwhile are made with mass market consumption in mind, so they are (DAO excepted), never difficult.

KOTOR, Mass Effect Fallout et al, don't have levels and bosses that become infamous because of their toughness. To many, that's a good thing, but to me, its always made levelling up seem pretty redundant - why power my team up when I never get any competition worthy of my team's mightiness?

At least in Nocturne, I felt I always had to concentrate, and if I wanted to succeed, I had to learn the system properly and learn how to make it work for me. That kind of investment in gameplay is something I don't get from WRPGs, because as I say, you just don't need to.

Press turn is what makes the game easy. If an enemy attacks you and you void/reflect/drain the attack he LOSES a turn (and almost all bosses have only one type of damage, like fire, zan, etc). Also, you can remove demon's weakness through magatama fusion (in fact you can even make it immune to his former weakness).

The game is NOT hard (not in normal anyway), it's just intimidating for newbies at first, level is not that important because what really matters is your team composition, and you can carry ANY skill through fusions to stronger demons.

Yes, but JRPGs have always done this. Star Ocean, Final Fantasy, SMT, Tales etc all have dungeons and bosses where the difficulty spikes so hard, it takes your roof off. And that's without even counting the games like Demon's Souls and Nocturne which are just rock hard all the way through.

Not in my experience talking from Final Fantasy and Tales, the only FF games that I can name that did this are the ones on the NES, the rest play rather logically. And Tales fortunately has a battle system that requires some skill to master it and it involves the player it's not all menu based, to me Tales of Phantasia isn't a hard game, though some dungeons can be some suffering, mostly because the monsters are hard to kill, but you don't get killed in that game unless you are doing something stupid.



Its like I was saying - developers almost never make games that are genuinely tough, but that are also fair. JRPGs are routinely unfair, and especially in the less mainstream titles (Valkyrie Profile et al) are extremely hard. WRPGs meanwhile are made with mass market consumption in mind, so they are (DAO excepted), never difficult.

Heavy Grinding games are not hard, they are just Heavy Grinding, and Valkyrie Profile is one perfect example, I've reached to Ragnarok in that game Underleveled, and I've quitted the game because the fight there were long, not imposible to beat, they were so long and with a lot cost of resources, by the 3rd screen I was without magic to heal my party.



KOTOR, Mass Effect Fallout et al, don't have levels and bosses that become infamous because of their toughness. To many, that's a good thing, but to me, its always made levelling up seem pretty redundant - why power my team up when I never get any competition worthy of my team's mightiness?

This is probably truth, but I managed to make some battles memorable. You want to know how I killed Malak? Consider that I made my hero party dependent. So of course Malak handed my ass like a boss (*drums* tu tum pst! *drums*). I killed him with 15 thermal detonators, it was the only resource effective enough to keep him at distance, because at melee. DAMN. xD
Darth Traya was a very fucking difficult boss, even if you've builded your hero appropiately, that fight is hard.



At least in Nocturne, I felt I always had to concentrate, and if I wanted to succeed, I had to learn the system properly and learn how to make it work for me. That kind of investment in gameplay is something I don't get from WRPGs, because as I say, you just don't need to.

That solely depends on your playstyle IMO, in KotOR II for example the captains with Repeating Blasters by the 3rd half of the game they can easily fuck my party if I didn't know what I was doing.
In my experience WRPG's are more demanding of attention to what are you doing compared to most of the JRPG that I played.


Press turn is what makes the game easy. If an enemy attacks you and you void/reflect/drain the attack he LOSES a turn (and almost all bosses have only one type of damage, like fire, zan, etc). Also, you can remove demon's weakness through magatama fusion (in fact you can even make it immune to his former weakness).

The game is NOT hard (not in normal anyway), it's just intimidating for newbies at first, level is not that important because what really matters is your team composition, and you can carry ANY skill through fusions to stronger demons.

No, it's not hard, it's unfair, which they're completely different things. And the Press Turn plays a big role on this aspect the game, because if you get a critical hit by your enemy, chances are that you've lost the battle. Random Number Generators at your favor or against you.

It may or may not make the game easy for you. Of course It will make it a lot easier for you, if you know beforehand the things that you're going to confront, which is bullshit, trial and error crap duties.

And Level DOES MATTER, you wanna know why? Because you make the demons learn the skills by LEVELING UP!.

Another thing that I fucking hated about this game, the way to learn the skill sucks, because you even had to discard skills to not have them anymore if your slots are full. So now the game expects you to know beforehand which skills are the ones that you actually need for the next stage in the game.

But again, the Tales series is extremely easy. You can just button bash your way through those games (I know I do!). The moves your characters have are so powerful and the enemies never seem to have any chance at all. I like the Tales series, but I certainly don't play them for their gameplay.

And let's not kid ourselves that Namco Bandai make easy JRPGs. Yes, the Tales series is pretty forgiving, but the rest of their games? Eternal Sonata has the fight against Count Waltz and his Dragon on Mt Rock, Cross Edge is frequently harder than hades, Demon's Souls (published by Atlus oversees, but by Namco over here) is the definition of Hard...

And as for Atlus, they have their own special section in the 'That One Boss' Trope website, because they have a track record of including incredibly overpowered and difficult bosses into their games. There's no such thing as a free lunch at Atlus Towers - you pay for every bite!

With regard to FF7, there are several sections in FF7 and FF8 that can trip up an unsuspecting gamer. If you haven't been levelling up Barret and Red XIII, the fight against Dyne, and the Gi Nattak cave section are both extremely difficult. On my first playthrough, I wasn't using either character very much, and both only had Lvl 1 Limit Breaks - the fight with Dyne took me forever, and I was grinding in the Nattak cave for hours and hours, before Red was good enough.

But yes, as you say its only really the early ones that are very hard. Although saying that, FF13 does have several moments like this, the most infamous being the first fight against Barthandelous in Chapter 9 and against a former ally in Chapter 10 (which is more favourably received, because its a really enjoyable fight, probably the best in the game).

But even if we accept that only the early FF are all that tough, that just goes back to my point about mass market consumption and easy games. When FF went mainstream, the games got much easier - and many old fans have never forgiven the series for this.

You've expressed distaste for grinding many times, and you've also criticised some of the hardest games around for being hard, having poor controls etc (Nocturne, Forbidden Siren etc). Now, there's nothing wrong with holding those views, but it does mean that you were hardly likely to get on with a very hard JRPG that requires lots of grinding as Nocturne does!

Your examples from KOTOR are very telling though - Malak and Treya are the final bosses of those games! And I would argue that neither are hard, as they are made artificially tougher, because they both have exploits (ways to kill them without just attacking them). Malak can be beaten by simply using 'Throw Lightsaber' at those pods in the room - you don't actually have to lay a finger on him to kill him.

Whilst you can beat them by just engaging them, the games don't really expect you to beat either of them by just wading in, as their stats are *much* higher than the other enemies you face. With Traya as well, simply leaping in to try and tackle 3 floating Lightsabers (again, the best weapons by far in the whole game) at once, is an unwise move to say the least.

And its not like the other bosses were anywhere near as good, was it? Darth Sion and particularly Darth Nihilous are an absolute joke.

I just couldn't disagree more about needing to concentrate more in WRPGs. The skills and powers your guys get are so outrageously overpowered that the games are only really hard if you deliberately disarm and/or don't use your best skills. The Lightsaber is so potent, that even if your character is completely unskilled in melee (as my first character was, as I liked the look of twin blasters), it just slays everyone.

Melee in general is so massively overpowered in that series, there is no point at all in taking guns. They fire at you, get a few shots off before you close in, then get ripped apart. And when you have the lightsaber, you deflect all those shots anyway.

And the force powers are if anything, even stronger. Force Lightning is so incredible in KOTOR 2, it *will* kill any amount of enemies (and at the same time too!) You don't even need to be facing the enemies! In KOTOR 1, the Force Choke is just as outrageous. Its so powerful and paralyses opponents as it kills them, that even bosses just die to it. At the very least, it holds them in place, as your team mob in and dice them.

There's just no challenge. Sure, some sections may be harder than others, but there's sure as hell nothing as severe as Matador in any WRPG!

Look, I think that underneath all the specific issues we can debate, this is really a case of Nocturne being a Giraffe that shows up to your 'Polar Bears Only' football club - i.e, its just not what you're looking for. The game is about as hardcore as you could ask for, but as you can clearly see, there are people who like this sort of thing, who managed to play and succeed at it, whilst enjoying it.

So the game clearly has the right appeal for some people, but its just not your kind of game. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, and I'm certainly not having a go at either your skills as a gamer or your taste in games (but I hope you already know that). I mean, you like Super Castlevania 4 and that's a) an awesome game and b) f**king hard as hell, earning all who complete it, much applause.

I really enjoyed the relentless challenge of SMT: Nocturne, and that was only one aspect that I loved (the atmosphere is the real reason to play). Most of the points you make are technically true, but I simply don't believe they are as poisonous to the gaming experience as you say. The constantly evolving and changing roster of demons keep things fresh, I constantly had to adapt my tactics for the new skills that were entering my group and compensating for decent skills I had to lose.

The only problem I have with the game is the same problem I have with all SMT games - the utterly insane encounter rate. That is literally the only thing I would change about the game. Everything else, I can live with.

Did you keep up with Digitial Devil Saga, by the way? That's definately the most user friendly of the series, and the first part at least is pretty good.

But again, the Tales series is extremely easy. You can just button bash your way through those games (I know I do!). The moves your characters have are so powerful and the enemies never seem to have any chance at all. I like the Tales series, but I certainly don't play them for their gameplay.

And let's not kid ourselves that Namco Bandai make easy JRPGs. Yes, the Tales series is pretty forgiving, but the rest of their games? Eternal Sonata has the fight against Count Waltz and his Dragon on Mt Rock, Cross Edge is frequently harder than hades, Demon's Souls (published by Atlus oversees, but by Namco over here) is the definition of Hard...

I can't speak a lot of that considering that the only Namco RPG that I played is, Tales of Phantasia, and it's the first Tales game.



And as for Atlus, they have their own special section in the 'That One Boss' Trope website, because they have a track record of including incredibly overpowered and difficult bosses into their games. There's no such thing as a free lunch at Atlus Towers - you pay for every bite!

Yeah know that, I use to browse through that website a lot XD.



With regard to FF7, there are several sections in FF7 and FF8 that can trip up an unsuspecting gamer. If you haven't been levelling up Barret and Red XIII, the fight against Dyne, and the Gi Nattak cave section are both extremely difficult. On my first playthrough, I wasn't using either character very much, and both only had Lvl 1 Limit Breaks - the fight with Dyne took me forever, and I was grinding in the Nattak cave for hours and hours, before Red was good enough.
You know I didn't have any issue with that fights you mention. To me 'That One Boss' or the hardest boss in FFVII is Carry Armor. That SOB got my ass handed and it took me quite a few tries to kill him. It was an amazing fight.
The other fight in FFVII that still it's challenging to me It's the Demon Wall at the end of the Temple of the Ancients, both of this fights are quite well positioned in the game IMO.



But even if we accept that only the early FF are all that tough, that just goes back to my point about mass market consumption and easy games. When FF went mainstream, the games got much easier - and many old fans have never forgiven the series for this.

All RPG's were like this in the NES days, in the SNES they got a lot more tolerable difficulty, the 1st SMT game on the SNES is lot more easier that the first one released on the PS2 and this is before the mainstream RPG design type of game.



You've expressed distaste for grinding many times, and you've also criticised some of the hardest games around for being hard, having poor controls etc (Nocturne, Forbidden Siren etc). Now, there's nothing wrong with holding those views, but it does mean that you were hardly likely to get on with a very hard JRPG that requires lots of grinding as Nocturne does!

It's because these games really have some certain essence that makes the INTERESTING!. Yes I fucking hate Grinding and poor control schemes. I LOATHE grinding activities, specially if they are related to Level UP your characters.



And its not like the other bosses were anywhere near as good, was it? Darth Sion and particularly Darth Nihilous are an absolute joke.

Nihilous was as dissapointing as hell. Sion was a little hard in the beginning, but if you catch up the rythym of the fight you can finish it pretty easily.



I just couldn't disagree more about needing to concentrate more in WRPGs. The skills and powers your guys get are so outrageously overpowered that the games are only really hard if you deliberately disarm and/or don't use your best skills. The Lightsaber is so potent, that even if your character is completely unskilled in melee (as my first character was, as I liked the look of twin blasters), it just slays everyone.

Melee in general is so massively overpowered in that series, there is no point at all in taking guns. They fire at you, get a few shots off before you close in, then get ripped apart. And when you have the lightsaber, you deflect all those shots anyway.

And the force powers are if anything, even stronger. Force Lightning is so incredible in KOTOR 2, it *will* kill any amount of enemies (and at the same time too!) You don't even need to be facing the enemies! In KOTOR 1, the Force Choke is just as outrageous. Its so powerful and paralyses opponents as it kills them, that even bosses just die to it. At the very least, it holds them in place, as your team mob in and dice them.

Mind you that I didn't used Dark Side powers to fight my way through these games, so it was harder for me to take on the "normal" stuff. I know that Force Lightning is a gamebreaking ability, but I didn't used much characters that specialize on these skills unless the game obliged me. Because I didn't like to use them.



There's just no challenge. Sure, some sections may be harder than others, but there's sure as hell nothing as severe as Matador in any WRPG!

Now look with which example you are comparing here, Matador, a boss fight that comes out of nowhere just when your characters are underleveled because you have no warning before this, your party rooster of course will be anything but balanced or effective enough for this encounter. That's no challenge, that's insulting. Now translate this situation in a more realistic way for just a minute. Imagine yourself being the hero of the game and having to face this Evil entity, of course if it's real, there's no Load Game prepare yourself appropiately and try again with the correct tools.
By the end of the storyline, how is supposed to make sense that our hero JUST HAVE THE CORRECT ALLIES AND SKILLS to kill this monster.

You see, that's why I hate these kind of things, I can't enjoy the storyline.



Look, I think that underneath all the specific issues we can debate, this is really a case of Nocturne being a Giraffe that shows up to your 'Polar Bears Only' football club - i.e, its just not what you're looking for. The game is about as hardcore as you could ask for, but as you can clearly see, there are people who like this sort of thing, who managed to play and succeed at it, whilst enjoying it.

I don't understand this... O.O
I don't understand what are you trying to say. xD



So the game clearly has the right appeal for some people, but its just not your kind of game. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, and I'm certainly not having a go at either your skills as a gamer or your taste in games (but I hope you already know that). I mean, you like Super Castlevania 4 and that's a) an awesome game and b) f**king hard as hell, earning all who complete it, much applause.
FUCK YEAH THAT GAME IS AWESOME!, by the way a little of topic here, did you checked the video that I've posted on the Castlevania Thread?
You're probably right that this is not my kind of game, but from all the RPG library of PS2 is the most interesting. Sadly for me.



I really enjoyed the relentless challenge of SMT: Nocturne, and that was only one aspect that I loved (the atmosphere is the real reason to play). Most of the points you make are technically true, but I simply don't believe they are as poisonous to the gaming experience as you say. The constantly evolving and changing roster of demons keep things fresh, I constantly had to adapt my tactics for the new skills that were entering my group and compensating for decent skills I had to lose.

The only problem I have with the game is the same problem I have with all SMT games - the utterly insane encounter rate. That is literally the only thing I would change about the game. Everything else, I can live with.

Changing the Demon Rooster constantly may keep things fresh, from a certain point of view. You have to take care after that to train them to have the skills you need and to suffer through the encounter rate.

The encounter Rate is something that I think we all hate and I still don't understand why with games such as Chrono Trigger all the RPG's should have adapted that method of encounter enemies. I rather explore than lose time fighting, SPECIALLY IF THEY'RE FUCKING DULL AND BORING DUNGEONS.



Did you keep up with Digitial Devil Saga, by the way? That's definately the most user friendly of the series, and the first part at least is pretty good.

No I didn't, because I'll probably force myself through Nocturne so that I can enjoy all the issues that they addressed with Digital Devil Saga, if I finish Digital Devil Saga. I'll never play Nocturne ever

The Darkside powers are extreme, but the Lightside ones are great too - especially the final 'UberBuff' spell you get in KOTOR 2 (the one that applies all the buff spells at once - that's a disgraceful power!) And let's also consider that it hardly fair of the KOTOR games to let you have a party throughout the game, build your strategy around having party members with skills that complement your weaknesses, then make you tackle the final boss (and whole final level in KOTOR 2) on your own, and with no warning.

The point I was making with Matador, is that he is not indicative of the game's general difficulty - he is listed as one of the most infamous examples of 'That One Boss', precisely because he is so unusually difficult. It speaks volumes that people hate him so much, because the game is already hard, so how hard must he be to annoy people this much? Well, we both know exactly how hard...

When I speak of liking the game's challenge, I'm not talking about Matador (in fact, my first comments about him on this thread made that pretty clear!) But despite his unfairness, I do like a game that can surprise me. Bosses like Matador in Nocturne, Robin Wind in Star Ocean 3 etc are outrageously overpowered and come out of nowhere (Robin Wind is the most powerful wind based boss in SO3, and you meet him... in a fire dungeon?!)

But unless these bosses, dungeons etc are actually so powerful that you cannot defeat them, I can look back at it afterwards and see it as an achievement, that I was able to take all the crazy curveballs the game threw at me.

I'm guessing that with the Dyne fight and Gi Nattak cave, you had been using the relevant characters though, yes? I rushed through the game, because I was enjoying the story and didn't want to waste time grinding etc. So I had barely used Barret when I got to Dyne, and just didn't have enough HP to be able to defeat him on my own. And in the Gi Nattak cave, you get locked in, so with a completely unused Red XIII, I was losing him all the time.

The Carry Armour's not too hard - you just need to have gotten into the rhythm of using Elemental Attack materia. Pair it with a Lightning materia in everyone's weapons, and the Armour goes down in no time.

The Giraffe and Polar Bears thing is an old joke from Blackadder (a British comedy). Basically the idea is that if you want something, you should go to the place where it is, not the place where the exact opposite thing is. If you want a game that lets you enjoy storyline, doesn't have much grinding and isn't too hard, stay as far away from Atlus games as you can!

The demons you fuse often don't need levelling up very much - the better demons tend to come with their best skills already unlocked. The ones you recruit in the field are usually not very impressive though. The trick is to fuse demons and have them carry over the better skills from the two you are losing (you are given a screen that shows what skills will be retained, so if you don't like it, you can just back out and try again for a better combo).

But you have to accept that you are going to have to lose some decent skills from time to time, to keep moving up the power ladder of demons. The better demons have more than enough benefits to make up for the loss of a useful skill, and you'll find another demon with that skill eventually, anyway. As for your character, people get too hung up on his loadout - the skills that are *really* worth having are on the later Magatamas.

So just because you've replaced early skills, there's no need to worry, as most of what you really want isn't available until later anyway (by which time, you know how the game works, and what is useful). All your main character really needs is Void or Null Death and Expel (and you will always have access to one of these, simply by equipping the appropriate Magatama).

You should obviously try to plan your character out in general terms (i.e if you're putting his magic stat up, don't give him lots of physical attack skills and buffs etc). Just common sense stuff, really. Your guy is excellent for his level, because he gets lots of points to spend each time, so he's never useless - its just a case of *how* useful you've made him. A strong unit of demons will always be able to carry even the sorriest of main character builds.

On the subject of Super Castlevania 4, anyone who has completed the Torture chamber level, should have no problem with hard games! I swear that level is just rows of instant death spikes, death drops, disappearing floors, respawning flying enemies and acid pools... A real gamepad crusher! Easy boss, though...

What's all this about a video? A video of what? Hopefully its one of Simon Belmont backbreaking Alucard in half - take that, you overrated half vampire hero!

I also don't know why it took JRPG developers so long to ditch random battles (and yet people still clamour for their return, even now). The encounter rate on Devil Summoner was worse though - making your way to and from your office in town was the biggest chore ever! Sooo many battles, just to walk down a couple of streets!

I agree with pretty much everything Vrykolas says. I really enjoy the "nothing is safe" feeling from Nocturne.

Also, you DO get a warning about Matador right after you enter the room ("your candelabrum is flickering"? Can't remember), but obviously someone who never played pays no attention to that until it is too late, but then the next time you see that warning (against Hell Biker? not sure), you get all "holy shit! back to the save point!!".

I think Atlus learned from its mistakes, as the encounter rate in Strange Journey is waaaaaaay lower than in Nocturne (though the game is the hardest megaten IMO).

If you are like me and really just care about story in a RPG despite gameplay's flaws, trust me, beat the game and get all five endings and you will not regret, I promise you!

You may get a message about the candleabrum, but you still don't expect a boss to appear in the middle of an otherwise featureless corridor! And certainly not one like Matador! Considering he holds one of the keys to the optional dungeon, he reallly should have been an optional boss, or at least shouldn't have been as hard as he was.

Because whilst we both appreciate the game for what it is, Top's case is hardly unusual - Matador has put off plenty of gamers from continuing, and anything that does that, has to be considered a serious issue IMO. I'm not saying he shouldn't be in the game at all (because he's an iconic 'never forget this guy' boss, but this is one of those situations where companies sometimes release 'Director's Cut' versions of hard games, where issues like this are tweaked a bit (if it ever came out on PSN for instance).

Or they could do what Tecmo did, when responding to complaints of Ninja Gaiden being too hard. I.e, release a version like Ninja Gaiden Black - which was even harder than the original. lol!

The point I was making with Matador, is that he is not indicative of the game's general difficulty - he is listed as one of the most infamous examples of 'That One Boss', precisely because he is so unusually difficult. It speaks volumes that people hate him so much, because the game is already hard, so how hard must he be to annoy people this much? Well, we both know exactly how hard...

But unless these bosses, dungeons etc are actually so powerful that you cannot defeat them, I can look back at it afterwards and see it as an achievement, that I was able to take all the crazy curveballs the game threw at me.

Matador to me is the indicative of how it is the game from that point foward. Like I said, I left the game in the Ikebukuro Tunnel, because there was a boss there that I couldn't defeat, I can't remember which of all the bosses outhere.
And that Boss was more of an SOB compared to Matador.



I'm guessing that with the Dyne fight and Gi Nattak cave, you had been using the relevant characters though, yes? I rushed through the game, because I was enjoying the story and didn't want to waste time grinding etc. So I had barely used Barret when I got to Dyne, and just didn't have enough HP to be able to defeat him on my own. And in the Gi Nattak cave, you get locked in, so with a completely unused Red XIII, I was losing him all the time.

The Carry Armour's not too hard - you just need to have gotten into the rhythm of using Elemental Attack materia. Pair it with a Lightning materia in everyone's weapons, and the Armour goes down in no time.

Well, I rushed through the CD2, so I did exactly the opposite of what you did. And I was a fucking amateur at RPG back in the day, so you can expect that my Materia Management was Flawed to no end. But still, I still consider Carry Armor as the Hardest Boss of the game, mainly because it's "Lapiz Lazer" attack can wipe your entire party if you're underleveled or with little HP. Also the Mothafucka can Disable a Party Member.
And the Demon's Wall is the other boss that was still remains challenging to me on FFVII.



The Giraffe and Polar Bears thing is an old joke from Blackadder (a British comedy). Basically the idea is that if you want something, you should go to the place where it is, not the place where the exact opposite thing is. If you want a game that lets you enjoy storyline, doesn't have much grinding and isn't too hard, stay as far away from Atlus games as you can!

I see...
I would stay away from Atlus. But they're the only ones offering at least interesting and Out of the Box RPG storylines. Specially in the years following the PS1.



The demons you fuse often don't need levelling up very much - the better demons tend to come with their best skills already unlocked. The ones you recruit in the field are usually not very impressive though. The trick is to fuse demons and have them carry over the better skills from the two you are losing (you are given a screen that shows what skills will be retained, so if you don't like it, you can just back out and try again for a better combo).

But you have to accept that you are going to have to lose some decent skills from time to time, to keep moving up the power ladder of demons. The better demons have more than enough benefits to make up for the loss of a useful skill, and you'll find another demon with that skill eventually, anyway. As for your character, people get too hung up on his loadout - the skills that are *really* worth having are on the later Magatamas.

So just because you've replaced early skills, there's no need to worry, as most of what you really want isn't available until later anyway (by which time, you know how the game works, and what is useful). All your main character really needs is Void or Null Death and Expel (and you will always have access to one of these, simply by equipping the appropriate Magatama).

This is probably truth...



You should obviously try to plan your character out in general terms (i.e if you're putting his magic stat up, don't give him lots of physical attack skills and buffs etc). Just common sense stuff, really. Your guy is excellent for his level, because he gets lots of points to spend each time, so he's never useless - its just a case of *how* useful you've made him. A strong unit of demons will always be able to carry even the sorriest of main character builds.

Speaking of Character Build, I was building to be extremely Physical, what kind of reccomendation can you people give me?. Bignic or Tanis?. I know that you are kind of pro's at this game.




On the subject of Super Castlevania 4, anyone who has completed the Torture chamber level, should have no problem with hard games! I swear that level is just rows of instant death spikes, death drops, disappearing floors, respawning flying enemies and acid pools... A real gamepad crusher! Easy boss, though...

What's all this about a video? A video of what? Hopefully its one of Simon Belmont backbreaking Alucard in half - take that, you overrated half vampire hero!

That level is pain and suffering! The bosses of that Castlevania are the only thing that I consider a little bit lacking, though they all look awesome. The second portion of bosses in the game are amazing fights. And it has the best Castlevania Final Battle Hands Down. And the most Frantic and Dynamic Death Fight!.

http://forums.ffshrine.org/f17/all-purpose-castlevania-thread-73392/5.html

We can continue there!



I also don't know why it took JRPG developers so long to ditch random battles (and yet people still clamour for their return, even now). The encounter rate on Devil Summoner was worse though - making your way to and from your office in town was the biggest chore ever! Sooo many battles, just to walk down a couple of streets!

Yeah, I don't know why, Japs and Korean gamers love grinding heavy games...



Also, you DO get a warning about Matador right after you enter the room ("your candelabrum is flickering"? Can't remember), but obviously someone who never played pays no attention to that until it is too late, but then the next time you see that warning (against Hell Biker? not sure), you get all "holy shit! back to the save point!!".

Yeah right, you really considered that a warning the first time? Oh, please... I won't believe you no matter what you say in that regard.



If you are like me and really just care about story in a RPG despite gameplay's flaws, trust me, beat the game and get all five endings and you will not regret, I promise you!

I'm really trying, but to playthrough that game 5 times? Spare me the suffering, Youtube will do the Job.


You may get a message about the candleabrum, but you still don't expect a boss to appear in the middle of an otherwise featureless corridor! And certainly not one like Matador! Considering he holds one of the keys to the optional dungeon, he reallly should have been an optional boss, or at least shouldn't have been as hard as he was.

Because whilst we both appreciate the game for what it is, Top's case is hardly unusual - Matador has put off plenty of gamers from continuing, and anything that does that, has to be considered a serious issue IMO. I'm not saying he shouldn't be in the game at all (because he's an iconic 'never forget this guy' boss, but this is one of those situations where companies sometimes release 'Director's Cut' versions of hard games, where issues like this are tweaked a bit (if it ever came out on PSN for instance).


The game doesn't even care to handle the level of Difficulty and there are many, MANY times that you will die in ridiculous ways. A critical hit from an enemy will render you dead in no time. That's bullshit.

I've said it once and I'll say it again, if getting your balls ripped off and forced up your ass isn't your thing - a GameShark or Action Replay work nicely.

You don't have to 'fully' cheat - extra EXP, less encounters, or just something that just makes the grind go faster - is your friend.

Well, I can't even remember any bosses in the Ikebukuro tunnel (its been a long time since I played the game), so I can't help there. What was his/her name? There's a chance its one of the optional bosses, as there are several bosses like Matador that you can fight, but you don't have to fight (Matador is the only one of the Devils that the game forces you to fight, unless you are exploring the Labyrinth of Amala. If you don't complete the various levels of the Labyrinth, you can skip all the hardest bosses and still finish the game).

Honestly, I've beaten everyone in that game, and for me at least, only Matador and the final, final, final boss (the one at the bottom of the optional Labyrinth of Amala dungeon) were so hard that I really doubted I'd be able to beat them.

The sections in FF7 are really dependant on how you've been managing your team. If (like me) you didn't even really use Materia the first time (I was a real RPG novice too at that time and I just couldn't be bothered learning about them, and so hardly used them - making certain bosses *really* hard). That obviously didn't help my fight against Dyne, but even without that, any fight where you have to use just one character, who (as happened with me) you may not have used at all really, can be very tricky.

I also didn't maintain a balanced team (i.e I just picked 3 characters I liked, and always, always used them). Since one of those characters was Aeris, I had no problems at all with Demon Wall (Seal Evil paralyses him, making him the easiest thing ever). But because Aeris dies later on, it left my team crippled. This was actually a blessing in disguise, as it forced me to learn how the game is played properly, just to stay afloat in the game.

So when the Carry armour came along, I was fully schooled in Materia use, had made sure to buy weapons for every character, and had worked on making sure my whole team was decently levelled. It was useful, because it meant even when Carry Armour pinched one of my guys, the others had the stats and I'd spread the Materias about sufficiently, that they could still compete.

A Physical main character in Nocturne, should probably have Focus (no need to worry if you don't have it though), and I'd say its mandatory to have Void Death/Void Expel. I'd recommend using him as the dumping ground for useful skills that you might not always be able to keep on your demons (if your character has some combination of a decent healing spell, Fog Breath, War Cry, maybe some of the buffs etc, then it frees you up to concentrate on just fusing mighty demons, without worrying about needing to keep your essential spells).

For me, that was the main characters primary strength - he's always in your party, so any skills you really like the look of, you can slap on him and keep them forever.

I'm not against grinding when it comes to secret or extra stuff. If there are secret dungeons that you need to put in some time to prepare for, that's fine with me. There's nothing quite like getting completely flattened by the basic monsters in an area, to make you realise your uber-team still has a long way to go! And grinding for special items and such is also fine with me, because you don't have to do it, but if you want to do it, so you can get the best weapons etc, then the option is there.

It makes the old RPGs much longer and much deeper than modern RPGs. There is simply more to do, more places to go, and the challenge is such that you can't simply steamroller in with your all conquering team and beat the dungeon in 10 minutes. Contrast that with the DLC for modern WRPGs, which across games like Dragon Age, Fallout, Mass Effect etc provide dungeons that your game completing team can and do polish off in seconds.

The old JRPGs had all this content in already (no need to purchase it after the fact), and it was deeper and more satisfying content. When people speak of the various difficult and rarely seen by most sections and boss of RPGs they have done, the conversations are dominated by JRPGs. Because WRPGs with their focus on the mass market, are so short and easy, that everyone has done everything.

But comparitively few people have finished the Labyrinth of Amala in Nocturne, killed Ruby and Emerald in FF7, defeated all the Dark Aeons in FF10 etc etc etc. Depth and volume of content, and particularly their 'extra' content (because something like Fallout etc does have a lot of content, but nothing that really requires much extra effort) is still something that JRPGs do far better than WRPGs IMO.

While I remember, I noticed your comment about SMT 1 being easy, and this was before RPGs went mainstream etc. My answer to that is that Atlus is not some supernatural entity that creates games - its a company filled with workers who are writing and producing games. SMT 1 was released decades ago, and the staff will have changed signifiantly by the time Nocturne et al was released. Different workers have different attitudes and values.

Even when the main man behind the project stays, all the little people working under him, put their individual stamp on a game. When those people move on, the new team will do things slightly differently, even if working for the same creative producer. A lot of game writers, people who come up with the core ideas etc, actually have very little to do with the nuts and bolts of the game itself - SUDA 51 infamously wrote the story and worked on the graphics and general look for Killer7, whilst having absolutely no idea what kind of game it was going to be, because he didn't really care much about the gameplay!

And I still don't accept that it is as bad as you say in Nocturne. I am by no means a Gaming God, but when I worked out the things I had to do in that game, I was able to make decent progress, and not die in cheap ways. By far the thing that got me, was when basic enemies would suddenly cast a Death Spell or an Expel on my leader. You can protect against them, but you need to know such enemies are about.

And that's unfair, no doubt about it - but it is also the only thing that really annoyed me. Once you know, you can just equip the appropriate Magatama, and if you're sensible, you'll work towards getting Void Death/Expel on your guy, so its not an issue anymore. Everything else can be managed by making sure you're staying adequately levelled up, and constantly evaluating your Demon roster to make sure everyone is still pulling their weight.

BTW has anyone played Imagine? It is kinda fun (for a mmo anyways). When you start a fight it plays the battle song from megaten 1 (sooo nostalgic :'( )

Well, I can't even remember any bosses in the Ikebukuro tunnel (its been a long time since I played the game), so I can't help there. What was his/her name? There's a chance its one of the optional bosses, as there are several bosses like Matador that you can fight, but you don't have to fight (Matador is the only one of the Devils that the game forces you to fight, unless you are exploring the Labyrinth of Amala. If you don't complete the various levels of the Labyrinth, you can skip all the hardest bosses and still finish the game).

Whatever I can't remember, but I think it was one of the optional ones.




A Physical main character in Nocturne, should probably have Focus (no need to worry if you don't have it though), and I'd say its mandatory to have Void Death/Void Expel. I'd recommend using him as the dumping ground for useful skills that you might not always be able to keep on your demons (if your character has some combination of a decent healing spell, Fog Breath, War Cry, maybe some of the buffs etc, then it frees you up to concentrate on just fusing mighty demons, without worrying about needing to keep your essential spells).

Thanks for the tip. What do you say about stat distribution?



I'm not against grinding when it comes to secret or extra stuff. If there are secret dungeons that you need to put in some time to prepare for, that's fine with me. There's nothing quite like getting completely flattened by the basic monsters in an area, to make you realise your uber-team still has a long way to go! And grinding for special items and such is also fine with me, because you don't have to do it, but if you want to do it, so you can get the best weapons etc, then the option is there.

I agree with you on a 75% degree here, xD. While I don't think it's bad that grinding should be somekind of pre-requisite to beat this optional stuff. IMO there are always better ways to increase diffculty avoiding this kind of time-consuming duties. I did beat Ruby and Emerald Weapon for example with only cloud at 99 and the rest of the team at 89-95 lvl's. I beat Omega Weapon with my party at lvl 30, give or take VIII's battle system is broken. You still need to pay attention to what you're doing to beat the guy at such low level. Asura from Vagrant Story is a pain in the ass, but if you're skilled enough on chaining you can beat her. And the Whole Deep Dungeon from FFT can be done at lvl 50, if you prepare your team appropiately, and I'm saying without the broken Calculator Job.



It makes the old RPGs much longer and much deeper than modern RPGs. There is simply more to do, more places to go, and the challenge is such that you can't simply steamroller in with your all conquering team and beat the dungeon in 10 minutes. Contrast that with the DLC for modern WRPGs, which across games like Dragon Age, Fallout, Mass Effect etc provide dungeons that your game completing team can and do polish off in seconds.

I think that isn't the point of DLC. The point of DLC is to make more money with the same product, adding some extra stuff. Not to give challenge to the player.




The old JRPGs had all this content in already (no need to purchase it after the fact), and it was deeper and more satisfying content. When people speak of the various difficult and rarely seen by most sections and boss of RPGs they have done, the conversations are dominated by JRPGs. Because WRPGs with their focus on the mass market, are so short and easy, that everyone has done everything.

But comparitively few people have finished the Labyrinth of Amala in Nocturne, killed Ruby and Emerald in FF7, defeated all the Dark Aeons in FF10 etc etc etc. Depth and volume of content, and particularly their 'extra' content (because something like Fallout etc does have a lot of content, but nothing that really requires much extra effort) is still something that JRPGs do far better than WRPGs IMO.

This goes depending on what type of gamer you are, The Extra Challenging content is something that I like, but the game has to be really damn good and primarily fun for me to take the time and explore the challenge. I've still haven't completed all the extra bosses from XII for example, but I had real fucking good time doing all of that until the point where I am.
And the Reward is something Important too... I don't like the Reward to be a fucking secret ending or some shit like that. Because in that case at least this is how I can react.
1- I feel obliged to go through that to see what's possibly the REAL outcome of the storyline.
2- I can hate this secret ending and feel that the whole suffering and time wasted on the dungeon was... a waste...
So a secret ending as reward is something that I loathe, it makes me feel obliged to do it and I have the possibility to find that this secret ending sucks so hard. Moreso in a game that you can die in cheap ways such as a critical hit and a missed hit can turn the battle to a game over. Frustrating Trial and Error gameplay and such.
I prefer 10000000000 times a fight like Omega Weapon, that there's no more achievement there only you feel triumphant and awesome for beating the hardest battle in the game. I prefer that to a fucking secret ending.
Because if it's a secret ending the reward, I didn't do it for the challenge, I did it to see the secret ending.
On WRPG's it goes for me in how much storytelling or fun quests they've added. I'm not a fan of WRPG's, only KOTOR II, I do admire some WRPG's because of the sheer depth in storytelling such as Fallout 1 & 2 and Planescape:Torment. But in terms of gameplay I've always been more of a Console player, and JRPG's Dominate the consoles.


BTW has anyone played Imagine? It is kinda fun (for a mmo anyways). When you start a fight it plays the battle song from megaten 1 (sooo nostalgic :'( )

I played it for a little while, I liked the fact that they took storytelling as on of the primary aspects at least for the tutorial. The music is fucking fantastic.
But the gameplay :shrugs:, I wouldn't say that it's the worst MMO, but there are many others that are really good. Like Granado Espada for example. And the Music is as good as fucking Classical piece.
It's amazing how awful is the way you talk to the demons on that game.

Myself, I don't bother with Magic, Luck etc. I try to keep a decent amount of Agility without going overboard, and instead go all out for strength and endurance etc. My reasoning for this is that very few enemies are completely immune to physical attacks, so a bruiser main character should always be of some use.

If you go with magic, you are always left in that awkward spot of deciding which element to use. Ideally, you would either have 2 elements at your disposal or have a non-elemental spell (because you meet so many different varities of enemy that you will encounter ones that are immune to specific elements). But of course, the better non-elemental spells are hard to come by early on.

I'm a believer in dropping vastly more points in important stats than you technically need. Even if it means leaving myself weaker in certain areas for a while, I like to bulk my strength up constantly, until I have a truly mighty attack. I just find that if you even your points out too much, your character can underperform and not deal as much damage as you'd like. Not for me - when I hit people, they know about it!

Dante is a prime example of trying to be good at everything and ending up not really that great - when (and if) you recruit him later in the game, he's level 80. Now, that sounds absolutely ace, doesn't it? The problem is that he has spread his points out very evenly across all the stats, and so he isn't that impressive in any one area, despite his huge level.

I've never liked systems that scale monsters with your party. Because as with FF8 and Oblivion etc, it actually pays to keep your party low level and thus deny the monsters their best attacks (and even not allow certain monsters to appear at all in Oblivion). That's just wrong IMO, and I always make it a point to play 'properly' in those games (i.e level up as I normally would). But I'm not blaming people who don't - its the game's fault, not theirs.

DLC should present some challenge though, surely? One of the chief complaints in RPGs particularly (west and east) is that once you unlock the best skills and reach the highest levels, there is no competition. FF12 is infamous for only giving you the Wyrmslayer Sword, after you've beaten all the hardest bosses in the game, for example. Given that DLC comes out (usually) anywhere up to 6 months to a year after release, the average gamer's team will be uber hard, and will walk any but the hardest dungeons and monsters.

So even if the content is fabulous, story and character wise, it will feel like 'just another day at the office' gameplay wise, which is a real shame, when the DLC could taken the opportunity to craft enemies that would tax a really hard team (as the secret bosses and dungeons in JRPGs do).

FFX-2 was the best example of rewarding effort with extra challenges *and* extra content. Particularly because the alternate ending could be refused (Tidus resurrected - I don't think so!) That game seems so lightweight when you first play it, but explore carefully, do all the quests and extra dungeons, and the game is an absolute motherload of really good extra content (and the gameplay is probably my favourite of any FF).

And sad as it is for me to say this, I think the time when JRPGs dominated consoles is over. You hardly get any these days (and believe me, I'm always looking!) Its getting so bad, I'm actually considering buying a Wii or a PSP just because they are actually getting some JRPGs still.

I've never liked systems that scale monsters with your party. Because as with FF8 and Oblivion etc, it actually pays to keep your party low level and thus deny the monsters their best attacks (and even not allow certain monsters to appear at all in Oblivion). That's just wrong IMO, and I always make it a point to play 'properly' in those games (i.e level up as I normally would). But I'm not blaming people who don't - its the game's fault, not theirs.

In the case of Omega Weapon does not apply for me, the NTSC-U version of the Playstation, the guy is always at lvl 100 regardless of your characters.

But I agree though that the lvl of the monsters scale with your party is wrong, and it's even worst in FFVIII, you can draw the best magic and run away from every battle and stay at low level and the game becomes a literally a cakewalk.



DLC should present some challenge though, surely? One of the chief complaints in RPGs particularly (west and east) is that once you unlock the best skills and reach the highest levels, there is no competition.

Yeah, it should present some challenge but dude, the concept of DLC IMO does not require for it, if it's just for the sales, whatever it works.
At least that's how I see DLC's, it's just some snacks to for the player until the sequel comes later.



And sad as it is for me to say this, I think the time when JRPGs dominated consoles is over. You hardly get any these days (and believe me, I'm always looking!) Its getting so bad, I'm actually considering buying a Wii or a PSP just because they are actually getting some JRPGs still.

I think the PSP has some crack JRPG's. At least it has some remakes of the good old SNES/PS1 classics. It has remakes of the first 2 star ocean games and the Remake of Tactics Ogre.

All this talk with mentioned FFgames and Extra content. I've returned to finish the stuff I've left to complete on XII, FUCK THE RANDOM TREASURE SYSTEM BY THE WAY.

I think Persona 2 Eternal Punishment is awesome!
I actually have yet to play Innocent Sin, I have it, but have not gotten around to it yet, so many more JRPGs I need to finish.
But I would have to say that Eternal Punishment is my favorite in the Persona series, but I like Nocturne and also DDS too.
I personally like the Persona sub-series better than any of the other SMT games.

Persona 2 Eternal Punishment and Persona 3 FES are the only ones I have played.
I don't remember much about Eternal Punishment because that was a long time ago, so I am going to play the Persona series from the start to finish when I get the chance.
But Persona 3 FES, man once I started playing that game I couldn't stop. You don't realize you have been playing that long until you look at the clock!
I love the story and characters so much in that game. The music is incredible too.
I have Nocturne but I haven't gotten around to playing it.

I hope Atlus re-releases all of them so myself and newer games can experience all the games.

*It's still on the first page, not necroing.



I wonder if Atlus is planning on any kind of HD Collection for the SMT series.
Thus far they've been kind of spastic on their console releases.

Don't get me wrong...
Demon's Souls was pretty good, but they lost the publishing for Disgaea which was weird, and there hasn't been ANY news of Person 5 or SMT# in FOREVER.


But I REALLY wish they'd get the cash together and release something that's not on handhelds, or at least not the annoying 3DS.

Don't Really know. They're making quite the money with P4 merchandising. And before that there was Catherine. Probably they are working in the next Persona game.
They also anounced that they'll be releasing a localized Remake of Soul Hackers for the 3DS.

Just purchased Persona 3 FES recently actually. Haven't got around to playing it as of yet, but once life settles down I will give it a crack. Wanted to get Persona 4 originally, but found this on the cheap and couldn't resist. Will give thoughts when I have some.

Persona 4 is one of my very favorite RPGs. The story is pitch perfect, even if some of the twists in the mystery can be seen well in advance by those with even a small diet of police procedurals. Yes, the game is unforgivingly difficult and will kick your ass at the slightest provocation, but that's half the fun. Few games have the balls to be this hard anymore. In terms of difficulty, I'd put it somewhere in the neighborhood of the 2012 X-Com Reboot and Fire Emblem: The Blazing Sword.

Once you finish P4 though, Persona 3 will feel easy in comparison. The only thing in P3 that really challenged me was the bonus boss "The Reaper." He will kick your ass until your pants are on your head, and then kick it some more because you need at least a lv 75 range party to even come close to surviving his fight. (This is on EASY, I might add.)

To get the most out of P3 and P4 I highly recommend playing at lower difficulties first to get used to the combat system and juggling Personas and weaknesses. It will also allow you to appreciate the story more, because this way you won't be throwing your controller through the screen after getting ambushed by a Wonderus Magnus two hours into grinding your way up a dungeon that TPKs you within three turns.