Atlus Shin Megami Tensei V - It's been hurting my OCD.

[Matador]

One thing I miss in Vengeance is the dungeon crawling and resource management feeling of Nocturne and IV-Apocalypse.

The world being so open and big you can dodge encounters easily, just fighting when you want at all times, even without Estoma. Feels less oppresive.

I know previous titles had Estoma, but in Nocturne MP is a real concern for a good amount of the game, and in IV-Apocalypse you don´t swim in MP until you get the app later in the game, which is also expensive.

Exploration is great in Vengeance, but I think the level design suffers in outdoors-indoors balance and having less variety in the level locations and landmarks. You just have a big area, which is very well designed and fun to explore, but looks almost the same everywhere, it's too open and it's not dangerous.

In Nocturne you have all the distinct dungeons with tricks and gimmicks between then, which made the journey more varied and fascinating.

Still a lot of game left so maybe some of these impressions change, but this what I think of Netherworld until Nuwa boss.

 

[d1r]

While resource management in SMTVV is pretty much non-existing, resource management in Nocturne became quite easy as well as soon as you got Daisoujou. But yes, I agree, every game after SMT3 pretty much suffers under the same problem of MP being way easy to recover (even OG Persona 5 felt more oppressive in the first castle and later dungeons on HARD).

The open world, and dungeons change quite a big later on. It's not just desert.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Finished Vengeance. I liked the new content, but in the end it didn't feel like there was enough of it. Now the game feels like a finished product rather than a game with an expansion. Even then the last act of Vengeance feels, once again, rushed and nonsensical. You could start to see a lack of polish toward the end cinematics as Nahobino would summon his finger blades instead of the side scythe while he had his new form on. They just swapped the model but didn't bother / have time to go back and touch up some of the older cinematics to have parity with the new content. It's a small detail but it shows a lack of care toward the end of the project which is also apparent in the story and pacing. Speaking of the new form there were some odd design choices like it not even being a permanent change. And I finally got one of the new spells added in Vengeance, but you only get it after finishing Taito. It was an OK spell but functionally it's just Murakumo that scales off of MAG instead of STR and is still worse since you have to land it on an enemy with full debuffs for it to take full effect (it scales off of how many debuffs the enemy has). Overall I was hoping for something more transformative, like another Apocalypse. What we got was what SMT5 should've been on its initial release.

Mini Edit: The music is completely nuts tho. Might be the best in the series and if not the best then very close to it. And this is a series with very tough competition in that particular department.

 

[quixotic]

You could start to see a lack of polish toward the end cinematics as Nahobino would summon his finger blades instead of the side scythe while he had his new form on.

He can still use the sword in the new form, that’s not an inconsistency. You just didn’t know because you were using a magic build.
Otherwise I’m pretty late into the game, at the last few bosses, and I agree. It kind of fizzles out a bit at the end. I still think it’s a great game, but I’m definitely feeling a similar rushed feeling that I felt with vanilla V now. It’s nowhere near that bad, but it’s apparent.

 

[quixotic]

One thing I miss in Vengeance is the dungeon crawling and resource management feeling of Nocturne and IV-Apocalypse.

Resource management is still a thing, it’s just all relegated to the boss fights.
I don’t know why you brought up Apocalypse honestly, the game isn’t much better then V on that front, you can’t go far without finding a healing spring.
I do agree though, one of the things I miss in the post-SJ SMT games is that classic blobber feeling of making your way through a dungeon while trying to keep yourself afloat with the resources you’ve amassed.

 

[e-mailio estevez]

Most any JRPG that doesn't have random encounters, and more 'elective' and avoidable fights on the overworld are going to have issues with resource management and attrition, IMO. Modern JRPGs can feel a lot more like MMOs in that regard.

I usually just try to self-impose some challenges on myself when I'm trying to make progress to the next checkpoint. I'll normally use an attract pipe so that I'll have to deal with consecutive fights during a random encounter, and when an exclamation mark appears over a demon's head I'll force myself into an encounter. The downside of this is that it's probably easy to overlevel this way. When I'm just running around collecting minmen or fusing material I tend to avoid fights, though.

 

[Hobo Elf]

You could start to see a lack of polish toward the end cinematics as Nahobino would summon his finger blades instead of the side scythe while he had his new form on.

He can still use the sword in the new form, that’s not an inconsistency. You just didn’t know because you were using a magic build.
Otherwise I’m pretty late into the game, at the last few bosses, and I agree. It kind of fizzles out a bit at the end. I still think it’s a great game, but I’m definitely feeling a similar rushed feeling that I felt with vanilla V now. It’s nowhere near that bad, but it’s apparent.

Fair enough if that's the case. I just found it odd that in all the new cutscenes, after Nahobino gains his new form, would use the side scythe, but in the old cutscenes he'd go back to the finger blade.

 

[Jermu]

they nerfed my beloved harlot (added ice weakness and removed fire resist)

 

[Sentinel]

Niggas start blasting you with pierce shit late game so it doesn't even matter

 

[Irxy]

Angel is a downgrade, why swap a bdsm chick with a toweled tranny? Total decline.

 

[Elttharion]

Lucifer on hard is making me cry...

 

[Jermu]

just finished it anarchy ending, early game was a lot more enjoyable difficulty / exploration wise
mid/end game was way too easy even without optimizing much or using stat/level boost items
played original magic build and now phys, both were fine but phys feels better since you have more slots for passives
essence system is not great too easy to make perfect demons, should be limited to mc

also I dislike how they don't let you fight

boss name

shiva

before level 80

last boss rush was braindead easy since:

they don't use much pierce lol reflect/absorb trivializes all of those fights

I might kill nocturne boy later if I feel like setting party up but probably skip it this time

story was somewhat better than original but kinda retarded, 80% of boss fights are pointless (either I'm gonna test you or lol sorry did not know u were with x gang)

at mid point I had 9.5/10 vibes, now I would say 9/10 game for me

 

[frajaq]

erm... how in the sigma do I reach this spiral area

 

[Sentinel]

erm... how in the sigma do I reach this spiral area

The bridge that runs perpendicular to the entrance has a fence that you can jump to reach the path.

 

[Elttharion]

Lucifer on hard is making me cry...

Done, fuck that guy

 

[Sentinel]

How do I get up there? Moirai Sisters quest

 

[d1r]

How do I get up there? Moirai Sisters quest

From the left side where you are standing. You are able to jump on the rooftops from top of the mountain.

 

[Matador]

The student bullying story arc was pretty annoying and boring. I´m not liking story and characters in general, except Yoko Hiromine, which has some interesting moments. Starting to have temptations to skip cinematics.

I don´t understand people criticizing SMT4A for the anime characters and plot and giving this a pass. I didn´t found that game that offensive in that regard, and the story bits were shorter.

Luckily, combat, party building and exploration are great in this game.

 

[Frank Capicoli]

Just a few more boss fights before I reach the ending of Vengeance. Thanks again to the kindness of d1r for the gifted copy of Vengeance. I had a delayed start in gathering thoughts on 5V because shortly after it came out I had a seizure that left me in the hospital for an entire day.

First off Every music track in this game is amazing. I'll probably be listening to these tracks more frequently than 3 or any other title. Much better than IV or Final.

Coming from Final, seeing all the demons in a new 3d game space has been amazing. Glad we didn't get the IV/Final angel adaptations though.

Overall the game feels less like a dungeon crawler and more like... The Hobbit SMT adventure edition. The game really lacked a strong atmosphere that 3/dds oozed or IV had to lesser extent. The Shekinah Glory Tokyo and Armageddon going on in the background made the story feel a lot less impactful compared to the past few mainline titles. I did however enjoy the increase in focus we got on demon interactions they were all great especially the Nahobeeho navigator quest. Really liked the addition of the demon haunt dialogues as well.

Too tired to think of anything else maybe more later.

 

[d1r]

I don´t understand people criticizing SMT4A for the anime characters and plot and giving this a pass. I didn´t found that game that offensive in that regard, and the story bits were shorter.

Luckily, combat, party building and exploration are great in this game.

Because 4A was completely over the top anime (with your 10-13 years old children cast) with awful character writing and dialogues, while V stays grounded and inoffensive. And on top of that, personally, 4A's cast was even more insulting to me because it went completely against original SMTIV's more serious tone, where interaction between your companions didn't feel that forced, respectively weren't that fucking gay.

I wasn't a fan of the whole school segment in SMTV either (there probably could have been better ways to characterize Tao), but I rather replay that segment 100 more times than hearing anything coming out of Hallelujah's or Gaston's mouth again.

 

[Matador]

SMT4A is juvenile, stupid and somewhat light hearted for SMT usual tone. It´s bad but bearable.

SMTV is trying to show itself as thematically serious while giving boring sermons at the level of sensationalist trash TV shows, and falling short at atmosphere and tone with their also anime and pseudo Persona characters.

Depressed and identity crisis teenagers with stupid conflicts. They tried a weird mix of Persona and SMT, probably to sell more copies.

It´s a great gameplay fag game, which I support, but let´s not kid ourselves. Tone quality is low, and much closer to SMT4A than Nocturne.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Developers be trolling

 

[d1r]

SMT4A is juvenile, stupid and somewhat light hearted for SMT usual tone. It´s bad but bearable.

SMTV is trying to show itself as thematically serious while giving boring sermons at the level of sensationalist trash TV shows, and falling short at atmosphere and tone with their also anime and pseudo Persona characters.

Depressed and identity crisis teenagers with stupid conflicts. They tried a weird mix of Persona and SMT, probably to sell more copies.

It´s a great gameplay fag game, which I support, but let´s not kid ourselves. Tone quality is low, and much closer to SMT4A than Nocturne.

Well, I didn't say that it's on the same level as Nocturne or SMTIV. Nor would I ever pretend to. For a SMT game, it's definitely more "light-hearted", and yet, way more tolerable because it doesn't get too goofy with the character designs and anime tropes. While the pretty oppressive atmosphere from Nocturne is gone, it still manages to create a fantastic mood with it's world building, IMO.

 

[Jermu]

heard there was a superboss I missed

name

satan

which I had unlocked but missed 1 new dialogue option

hard fuck still not sure how to kill it, nocturne boy was np beat him first try

also need to find somas somewhere

 

[HoboForEternity]

I like the demon haunt. Tickle the trails fan inside me the right way. So far every demon i have, at least has 1 unique dialogue line that adds to the personality and lore of said demon. The amount repeating dialogue i can count with one hands honestly, that is pretty impressive with how much demons in this game