Megami Tensei series

The Core Video Games Forum
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Okay. I know there are some people here who have wet dreams about this series, so tell me where I should start. Wikipedia has given me no help, but I’m trying to understand the series:

So, it started out with two NES games, Megami Tensei. Then, there was Shin Megami Tensei…but there’s like, three main spinoff series? The most popular of them being Persona, but there’s also Devil Summoner and Digital Devil Saga?

So, what the hell? Which ones do I play? What’s the difference between them all? Which ones are more important? Someone clear this up for me, please. :confused:

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The Shin Megami Tensei games are the core games of the series. They’re heavy ass first person dungeon crawlers featuring pokemon with their tits out. Super brutal and it’s pretty easy to get soured on the whole series if you play these first and aren’t inclinced to dungeon crawling.

Probably the best of the SMT games to start with is SMT Nocturne, for the PS2. It’s a bit more user friendly, having a third person perspective and the interface is slightly less retardo. You will pretty much need a FAQ to keep track of what skills to get when you level up so you don’t miss anything, and all in all it’s still pretty unforgiving, but doable.

If you get a taste for it you can try out the snes games that were translated, they’re pretty good, somewhat less complex but can kick your ass all over the place.

There’s two notable spinoff series: Persona and Digital Devil Saga.

Persona is probably the most userfriendly of all the MegaTen games, it’s pretty neat. Basically it’s a streamlined dungeon crawler, less dicking around with recruiting demons and instead having consistent characters. I kind of forgot how the earlier Persona games were, but Persona 3 is some weirdass dungeon crawler/dating sim/rpg THING which is awesome. Persona 1 is a bit eh, Persona 2 is apparently great but only Eternal Punishment was translated (basically the FFX-2 to Innocent Sin’s FFX), which bugs me enough to not play it.

Digital Devil Saga again does away with recruiting demons and has you playing with the same set of characters. I haven’t been able to find a fucking PAL copy, but if I could I’d probably have played the shit out of it. It’s more streamlined than Nocturne (skills aren’t GONE FOREVER if you miss them etc) and it looks pretty nice overall.

There are also a million other fucking spinoffs, ranging from CCGs to hitler demons and I don’t even fucking know, someone else should say what’s what because christ, there’s a lot.

So to recap, my suggestions for order of playing games: Persona 3 - FES (PS2), Digital Devil Saga (PS2), SMT Nocturne (PS2), snes games.

There’s another PS2 game, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army, but that’s even more of a bitch to find than DDS. It’s apparently pretty good though.

Enjoy getting into the most confusing series ever. Also, this is handy.

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Most of these games are like fun for a week and then they get old. I wouldn’t recommend playing any of them, but I have Devil Summoner if you want it.

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I count SMT: Nocturne among my favorite RPGs. Like TD said, the difficulty level is pretty insane, especially on some of the bosses (Fuck you, Matador), and thusly a bit of grinding is required in places, and there are indeed some aspects which no sane player can reasonably figure out with out a guide, but the gameplay is top-notch. Highly recommended if you can find a copy.

P3 is similarly awesome, but overall less unforgivingly difficult, certain bosses nonwithstanding (You too, Sleeping Table). The “dating sim” aspect is very interesting, but once again, you won’t get it perfectly without a guide. Also, the game is noteworthy in that you have AI-controlled teammates that are not pants-on-head retarded.

I tried to play the first two SMT games for the SNES, but I couldn’t really get into them.

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Nocturne, Raidou, Persona 3. In that order to get, in my opinion, the basic understanding of the MegaTen games.

Digital Devil Saga isn’t a part of my religion. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Matador is easy, you just need to grind ~4 levels so you can get a full force-immune team if you want any chance of surviving the first round.

So yeah, fuck Matador.

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That plus a demon who knows either Sukunda or Dekaja, so that you can actually hit the bastard. And God help you if you haven’t fused something with Media yet.

Seriously. Fuck him.

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I suggest the opposite order, actually, if you’ve never played a Megaten and want to get into it gently. Persona 3 FES came out relatively recently, so you should have a decent chance of finding it. Try to get FES instead of normal P3, as it’s cooler and stuff. Good luck trying to find Nocturne.

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GG, ingest the Hifumi magatama. It nullifies force and can be bought from the junk shop. Get a Pixie and an Angel and fuse them into an Uzume (who’ll have Media). You’ll be set.

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Yeah, that’s what I did. The shitty thing is how you need to be level 18 to get Uzume, and I generally was level 14 or so by the time you encounter Matador.

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Yeah, so was I. I’ve got patience for this game though :stuck_out_tongue: Only boss I had trouble with after that was Ongyo-Ki (the last boss in the Ikebukuro Tunnel).

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Matador really is the only stumbling block I’ve encountered so far, I never finished the game because I got annoyed with my character build. Last thing I fought was some big boss that’s weak (or uses, I forgot) to ice in an abandoned school, or something?

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Ongyo-Ki is absolute cake if you bring a demon with Bright Might. Dekaja helps too.

TD: Was it a snake of some sort?

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I think so, yeah.

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I just waited 'til it was full so there was a shadow. That and I was under leveled >_>

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Well, he’s pretty much impossible if you don’t. But if you have Bright Might users, you’ll score a lot of crits. Lots of crits = extra turns, and if you Dekaja him a lot, he’ll waste a lot of time recasting his buffs.

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I never really could get into Raidou and I got distracted from dds, but I’ve played through Nocturne twice and P3 a time and a half.

Nocturne is really, really bad if you have any sort of gotta get it all ocd, as there’s lots of lost forever things in the game, including the entire process of building the main character. There is also a lot of grinding, especially if you go for the True Demon ending which involves many nasty bosses. Most bosses have some gimmick or another to figure out, but early on it won’t matter much due to buffs/debuffs being vastly overpowered till bosses learn to cancel them. The story is fake open ended: the world ends about 10 minutes into the game and you’re left to figure out what to do next, but most of the choices just amount to getting a different asshole npc to blab at you. Love it to death for the atmosphere and interesting setting, but it has a lot of things many people won’t want to slog through, not to mention several areas where having the wrong set up can turn a random encounter into an instalose.

Persona 3 is an interesting mix. Half the game is a randomly generated dungeon crawl with a rather boring maze generator, while the other half consists of the best characterization I’ve seen in any game. Even the useless town npcs have little stories they go through as the game progresses, in addition to the main plot and the social links (hanging out with friends and trying to get ass, basically). The combat system is fast and engaging, there’s a lot of room for creative strategies in both bosses and random encounters (most times someone brings up being stuck on a boss in the something awful thread 6 people respond with 6 different solutions). It’s not perfect, the game’s great soundtrack is horribly misused (3 songs -WITH ENGRISH VOCALS- play about 80% of the time) and the random dungeon starts getting tiresome as it blows past the hundred floor mark.

tl;dr: Nocturne’s great if you’re in it for atmosphere and face rape, Persona 3 is great if you’re in it for characterization and storytelling.