I'm really digging the game so far. It's really damn hard but the lower difficulty setting seems to set things right at my pace.

As long as you've bought and registered Fire Emblem as well that's definitely the much better option.

I'm curious, how far did you get before you lowered the difficulty?

This thread makes me feel a little better about almost dying during the tutorial segment. You really can get roughed up if you're not careful.

I think me and this game are going to get along just fine.

Haven't had much chance to play yet. Only just completed the objective for recruiting demons.

I dunno, the setting itself is a giant pile of anachronisms, so the indistinct text flavor seems right in line. Who knows what this world is even supposed to be.

Oddly enough, the biggest thing that keeps jumping out at me during the dialogue is that everyone says "samurai" the way it's actually pronounced, haha.

That first part of the game before you get your demons is definitely a major eye opener. I consider myself pretty experienced with SMT and have never had excessive trouble with the series, but I died like 2 or 3 times just in that quest to get your party of demons. Without a full party a negotiation going bad or an enemy hitting a weakness makes things go very bad very quickly. Once you get your party though it's more manageable.

So what difficulty level do you like now? Is there an option to up the difficulty level after lowering it?

I've played 30 minutes of this and I feel I don't have the patience for the difficulty of this game.

I should probably go finish any number of other atlus games I have for 3ds first

If you find it too hard there is an easy mode you could try.

Is it similar to Persona 4 Golden? I just discovered this little gem, and i'm 55 hours in. If so, I might just go out and get it.

@klei: I haven't played Persona 4 but I have put 45 hours into 3 and I can say that this game is pretty different than the Persona series. It focuses less on building relationships and more on very difficult dungeon crawling (It's a hell of a lot harder than Persona at least from what I've played so far). The exploring is third person but once you get into a battle it's first person. You can't explore towns in the same way as Persona. the town is basically just a menu you navigate through to visit different areas and shops.

@believer258wrote a good explanation of the game on the first page.

This not true for the whole game.

And yes, this game does not have social elements because Persona and Shin Megami Tensei are very different things and god damn you Atlus for ever using the SMT branding on Persona

After turning on the easy mode, can you up the difficulty level later?

I just want Persona 5. So I can get way to wrapped up in the characters and their lives. Like the ER.

@truthtellah: Pretty sure you can.

@eirikr: heh. Where did those quotes come from? The Internet?

@truthtellah: So fresh off the digital press you can practically smell the ones and zeroes.

Did you make that or are there SMT fans making mocking images like that? heh.

Did you make that or are there SMT fans making mocking images like that? heh.

Glad it wasn't just me getting my ass handed to me in the tutorial dungeon. I thought I'd be fine, being an old hand at the SMT series, but they really throw you in the deep end of the pool. Once you finally get a couple demons recruited and get some skills, the difficulty finally becomes manageable.

At least you can save anywhere...although I found myself forgetting that at the start until after a few deaths in a row :P

Only played a couple hours, but digging it so far.

I like it. Really hard, but I enjoy it.

I also like that the secondary quest giver is just Jeff Bridges wearing an eyepatch.

I just tried it and yes, you can change the difficulty anytime you want.

Cool. I'm thinking of picking it up tomorrow.

Heard someone beat it in 5 hours.

For a second there I thought that K's voice actor actually was Jeff Bridges, which would have been awesome.

@eirikr: I didn't know that you were one of those people that disliked the comparisons so much.

Where is the vitriol coming from, though? Obviously those only familiar with and wanting more of Persona were going to be disappointed that this isn't that, but are there actual threads where people are dissing this game because it isn't Persona?

Regardless, this might warrant a blog post clarifying that this is far from Persona.

@jz said:

I don't really understand why so many trolls are trying to pass that around. I've spent 5 hours just in the introductory area.

The vast majority of those comments seem to be coming from straight up trolls, but I'm sure there's a fair share of Youtube commenters who are seriously dissing it for not being Persona. Although I do recognize a couple of those comments from reviews.

@zeik: A better question might be "Are there any human beings with a functioning brain behind keyboards, typing up issues they have with this game not being Persona?"

As far as I'm concerned, the majority of Youtube commenters don't really count. If the whole "SMT isn't Persona" issue is really an issue, I want to know if the guys who like SMT better are just exacerbating the issue by bringing it up all the time. I mean, it's a shame that people would just turn their nose up at a game this good because it isn't something else, but I don't think that's a reason to become bitter (though, if you're reading this and you've done that, you've made a serious mistake). That's where elitism comes from.

I do think SMT fans make way too big a deal about it. The amount of people I've seen who go around saying "This isn't Persona, it sucks" are pretty few and far between, although I do see a decent amount of comments along the lines of "Just make Persona 5" whenever anything not Persona 5 related is mentioned, which admittedly is annoying. But commenters tend to be a good 30-50% retarded, no matter the subject matter, so maybe that's just to be expected.

I have to say the music for this game is amazing. I'm really loving it. Is all the Main SMT games music like this? I may need to check out the OST's.

SMT music often varies pretty wildly from one game to the next. The music in this game has a similar vibe to old SMT music, but it's definitely pretty different from Nocturne, for example.

I'm really not, and I'm very happy to point out the differences to people who are legitimately confused between the two series. The comments about Persona that always show up in any SMT thread here do get a bit annoying, though. And I'm not sure who made this macro, and as @zeik said maybe it's just trolls, but if it is they did a pretty good job imitating the tone of comments I actually see. For example, @pepsiman has had a wonderful series on tumblr of ignorant comments on his SMT IV trailer subtitle videos.

Oh okay, well I know for sure that this games music is awesome.

Also thanks to this game I put down an order for Nocturne on Amazon. Which means the only PS2 SMT games I'm missing are the devil Summoner games.

I've honestly lost count of the number of times a thread on SMTIV has come up in the past and some joker steps in to say how they can't wait for Persona 5 and possibly questioning why Atlus was spending time working on this game when they could be making what they personally wanted instead. I never commented on it much, but it happened so often it was like clockwork.

The SMT/Persona split is so ugly/dumb that I don't even bother with it anymore. Both are quality series and have their perks, yet everyone and their mother just wants another Persona 5. I mean, it's not like there's a shortage of Persona anime/manga/movie/side content for the fans to enjoy in the meantime.

What I'm really trying to say is this: ATLUS better keep doing their thing and avoid going down the same road that Square Enix did.

Right? I'm glad I wasn't the only one who enjoyed that.

Jeff Bridges? I mean, I guess I can see it a little bit, but it's clearly supposed to be Kurt Russell.

You shouldn't let a Joker like that distract you!

I dunno, I was definitely getting a Snake Plissken meets Jeff Bridges vibe.

So I think this game gives a super shitty first impression. I've never played an RPG where you could actually die in the tutorial battle. Didn't happen to me (came damn close though), but I've read it's happened to others. The mission where you have to recruit your first three demons is terrible. You end up just getting straight up slaughtered because you have no idea how to negotiate with these guys. Even worse they'll just take off after taking your HP, MP, Macca, items, etc. It's kind of bullshit honestly. I have to imagine there's a method to the madness, but it just seems super random thus far and I hate that. Also I know I'll catch flak for this, but I always preferred RPG's that just allocate stats automatically. The problem with assigning them yourself is that there is the very real possibility you'll make a shitty build and be fucked. For example, apparently the Magic stat is the way to go here, from everything I've read. Going for a Strength build doesn't really seem viable. Magic has already been paying dividends. Also the complete lack of a Defense stat is kind of bizarre and seeing as how the enemies hit HARD in this game, I have to wonder why it wasn't included.

I think once you get over that super brutal hurdle and get a party going the game feels much more enjoyable and manageable. Having more magic at your disposal makes all the difference in the world. Starting with only a basic idea seems kind of dumb. Why not have had Flynn start with Zio or something the early monsters are weak against to make those early encounters less frustrating?

I'm really starting to enjoy it now though. On the third floor of Naraku (really hope you get an option to warp back) and things are going smoothly

What kind of stat allocations is everyone going with? I've been doing +3 Mag, +1 Agil, +1 Luck. Seems to do fine for me. Also has anyone tried the DLC Dungeon? The monsters there are in the 16-20 something range, but somehow they are beatable and they drop items that give you EXP.

@kishinfoulux:

I agree with you, pretty much. The worst part of the game thus far has been the tutorial dungeon, mostly because it's too difficult. And this is coming from someone who really enjoys the difficulty of most of the game. Talking to demons could use some more rhyme and reason - I don't want them to give demons to me but a better way to ensure success than guesswork through repeated attempts would be nice.

Stats in this game are kind of weird. I would like to see a defense stat, it feels like a glaring omission from the game, especially when it comes to pieces of armor. I do kind of wish that stats all around were automatically assigned, like in Strange Journey, instead of saying "here, allocate skill points". I haven't decided where I should start putting the majority of my points in yet, but I'm keeping Strength and Magic high. I think I'll start dumping more into magic, though, as it seems to be doing good things for me. If Nocturne is any indication, though, you should definitely keep Strength and Dx at a reasonable number.

As far as a way to teleport back goes, I just got to the first one and I'm 6 hours in. It's not too deep into the dungeon, but it is longer than I'd like, and it comes right after a particularly tough boss. Unlike Nocturne, though, it seems like you'll be able to teleport to any terminal instead of just the main ones.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand I haven't yet figured out how to access the DLC dungeon.

@believer258: Highly not a fan of the attack enemies on the field to get advantages or disadvantages in battles, especially with a wonky attack swing and tie that in with the piss poor monster spawning right on the other side of a crawl hole or down a hole you have to jump in to get through the dungeon and you have a equation for getting killed in the first monster preemptive move. I mean that gryphon in the tutorial dungeon can 1 shot with the move he spams and you can get into a fight with it before you have the proper number of people to even deal with it. God forbid the random recruit system doesn't fuck you over and it gets pissed at you making you lose your turn and he just tears into you.

Besides that the games is okay. Really annoyed already with the demon recruiting like I was with P1 and the two P2 games. Forgot how Nocturne did enemies recruits.

I honestly don't think the tutorial was that difficult. I died once when I fought the Disaster Horde. It was three levels ahead of me so I had to level up a bit before I took another shot at it. There were a few close calls, but nothing that made me pull my hair out.

AGI is the defence stat no? It increase your evasion rate, and misses removes 2 turn press... so it's the better defence you can wish for in this kind of game, a straight up DEF. stat wouldn't really change much if the enemy can multi-hit your weakness to almost infinity. The best defence in SMT games are elemental RES/Null and evasion. Having high HP doesn't do much either, so yeah... the VIT stat was kinda useless IMO.

@yadilie Nocturne was the same. You had to barter your way to recruit them.

Exactly. The best defense is to not get hit in the first place or to nullify elemental attacks. Anyway, I'm curious to see what Tokyo is like as everyone says that's when the game really comes into its own.

My copy finally showed up last night. You guys weren't kidding about the first three training missions, I had several times where I had to reload a quick save. The difficulty really evens out after that, so changing the difficulty right of the bat probably isn't necessary (for all you sissy-dicks that have been doing that).

I'm really impressed by the number of new demons I've encountered so far. I'm only a few hours in and have seen more new designs than the past several SMT/Persona games combined.

@nights said:

Is there anyway to do that early on in the game? I've mainly upgraded the Agility stat for this reason, but still end up getting hit with things I'm weak to, which often means game over.

You spoiler out the boss name but not that? Sheesh.

Whoops, good catch. Brain fart.

You people are worrying too much about stat allocation. Stats are super abundant in this game. It's not like some previous games where you only get 1 point per level, you get 5. Every stat has its uses too. Yes, Mag is good, and it's what I've focused on more, but I've actually been spreading my points around to all the stats, even Str, because your basic attack is actually very useful.

I'm pretty sure the reason there is no defense stat is precisely because you get so many stat points, which I think would make it too easy to pump tons of points into and make you nigh unstoppable. I also think it's to make sure you can't just lol your way through encounters. Even low level enemies will still hit hard if you let them, so it keeps you on your toes.

@yadilie: Your weakness is determined by your armor. It sounds like you have armor that's weak to Gun. You should probably change that for the early parts.

Nocturne's negotiation system was mostly just throwing a bunch of items at the enemy until they joined and occasionally answering a question. It was garbage.

A useful thing to keep in mind when it comes to negotiation is that if you try to scout an enemy that is currently on your team it will automatically make all enemies leave battle, while occasionally gifting you free stuff like Macca or healing. Negotiation is not just for recruiting allies.

The funny thing is, this game is way more like Persona than I thought it'd be.

(I know it's really the other way around. So sue me.)

@donutfever: You can't do a fool proof build or party setup, but try to have diversity in weaknesses / resistance in your team, if one dude on your team nullify or reflect a spell, I'm pretty sure the enemy skips 2 turns.