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

[Frank Capicoli]

Though this might be my second favorite. It's nice to take a break from the LOUD and FRANTIC tracks.

 

[Yuber]

Played 60 hours now and I like it, gameplay is fun, reminds me of Pokemon Arceus somehow.
But sadly it is NOT a dungeon crawler anymore -.-
Would like it much better with linear dungeon progression ala Nocturne instead of this boring open areas.
Also the Essence system is too OP. Can trivialize most bosses with it lol

 

[d1r]

Well, you get linear open areas instead of linear dungeons. Really not much a difference between these two besides a different feeling, and less FUCKING traps.

 

[Deflowerer]

Started playing it as well, fun stuff. Combat tight as always.

Also have a self-imposed rule of mandatory combat once aggroed. Otherwise traversal would be too inconsequential imo. If I had designed the game, would've had the mobs beeline like motherfuckers upon noticing you.

 

[e-mailio estevez]

Started playing it as well, fun stuff. Combat tight as always.

Also have a self-imposed rule of mandatory combat once aggroed. Otherwise traversal would be too inconsequential imo. If I had designed the game, would've had the mobs beeline like motherfuckers upon noticing you.

The game just needed dungeons. Real dungeons with random encounters where you can get fucked out of nowhere. It's what all JRPGs need.

 

[Yuber]

Well, you get linear open areas instead of linear dungeons. Really not much a difference between these two besides a different feeling, and less FUCKING traps.

It is a big different feeling for me lol
There is no sense of dread like in some Nocturne Dungeons. You can see the open sky everywhere. WAY too many savepoints to heal yourself.
NEVER did I need healing items or heal magic. In Nocturne I was so happy when I reached a savepoint terminal :D

 

[d1r]

Well, you get linear open areas instead of linear dungeons. Really not much a difference between these two besides a different feeling, and less FUCKING traps.

It is a big different feeling for me lol
There is no sense of dread like in some Nocturne Dungeons. You can see the open sky everywhere. WAY too many savepoints to heal yourself.
NEVER did I need healing items or heal magic. In Nocturne I was so happy when I reached a savepoint terminal :D

Well, I agree that item management is definitely more crucial at the beginning of Nocturne, but, as with every other SMT iteration, it gets pretty much non-existent near the midpoint. And personally, the chance of you getting fucked out of nowhere because of regular 10 second random encounters with a pretty split initiative rate is not my cup of tea, though I also agree that it certainly adds tension to exploring. Personally, I do not miss any of it.

 

[Ialda]

Did two playthroughs (one for each version of the game), beat Masako in his normal form, and I will probably stop at this point. Pretty disappointing for a SMT game, overall.

 

[Terra]

Progressing slowly but surely through the Creation route, midway through the 2nd area currently. Really hoping I find something to push up the demon skill slots above 5 soon though, having to toss away so many skills at level up is annoying. Enjoying everything else so far though, Hydra & Nuwa were cool bosses (and also bumped into my old friend Matador) money started to flow a bit easier in the 2nd area which offsets compendium costs a lot.

 

[MakenBro]

Looks like a patch is coming soon.

 

[d1r]

Guess I underestimated Godborne mode a little bit ...

This is going to be some very very rough grinding. Almost at my limit defeating three slimes.

 

[Jermu]

cant you just trivialize everything with null/reflect since pretty much nothing has pierce in early/middle game or even in late game

I would be interested in godborn but if enemy skills / resistances are the same I don't see any point in it unless I gimp myself on purpose (other than some late game fights)

 

[quixotic]

In Godborn mode

Spoiler

enemies get Pierce when they gather Magatsuhi.

 

[Nathir]

Returned to this after finishing the Elden Ring DLC. Still having fun with the battles and fusions, I've beaten the qadištu women at the end of act 3 and man, wtf is this storyline. The cutscenes went on for like 15 minutes, and things just happen while I'm just thinking what the fuck is going on? Ichiro turning into a zealot was incredibly obvious, I liked the part where he threw his "sucker" hat on the gorund. Very simbolysm! Atsuta dies, but they let me and the prime minister live, very generous. Especially since we are both lying right there next t oAtsuta. And sure enough next dungeon we already kick Abdiels ass. Yoko was a traitor, but I stopped caring about her ever since she had those "it's ok to kill higschool bullies" monologues. And to top it all of, Tao comes back in a power suit now at lvl 60 and is of the "Panacotta" race or some shit like that.

Anime was a mistake.

 

[Yuber]

I think I am near the end of the game in this Eternity Temple.
I must say I am disappointed with the difficulty, I play on hard but it feels like Normal mode for me. Wish it would have been more challenging, the magatsuhi skills and the essence system are too OP

 

[MakenBro]

The original release wasn't much better difficulty-wise: past the second area, it started to feel too easy. The new additions in Vengeance made things worse in this sense. Most bosses really needed more than just 2 press turn icons, and I'm not a fan of the weakness to phys they added to some demons, either.

 

[the mole]

interesting, I found a secret fusion

https://imgur.com/k3g4yBi

also I'm too retarded to directly post pictures unless that's like some secret priviledge

 

[Yuber]

wtf, just finished the canon of creation and the ending came out of nowhere. I did not even know i was fighting the final boss (tsukoyumi).
A very weak ending, did I got the bad ending or something :D
Also there is no post game? I am only LV 82, how am I suppose to get Lv 95 for Beelzebaal

 

[d1r]

wtf, just finished the canon of creation and the ending came out of nowhere. I did not even know i was fighting the final boss (tsukoyumi).
A very weak ending, did I got the bad ending or something :D
Also there is no post game? I am only LV 82, how am I suppose to get Lv 95 for Beelzebaal

You got the (Bad) Neutral Ending.

And there is no post game besides killing the really nasty super bosses. You can easily get to high levels by grinding for some Grimoires and Gospels near the Egyptian Branch leyline at the bridge.

 

[Nathir]

So I finished this the other day... story and characters are pretty bad tbh. After the last area unlocks everyone is talking about the throne of creation and how you are one of the gods in the running to claim it. It was never mentioned before this act. Beelzebub is one of the fights for the keys and his first thing to say is "so you're the one lord lucifer pins his hopes on" or something like that. What? I haven't even met him, nor did he appear in the story except in 1 flashback before you fight hydra. You press forward and things just happen one after another. At the end Yoko reappears and the game makes the choice between Yoko and Tao for you. Based on I guess responses you made while you were traveling together I guess... 30 hours ago.

In the meantime Tao ressurected and was with you the whole time, while Yoko was revealed to be a traitor working with the main antagonistic force you've had to deal with throughout the game. Sorry but just because I was agreeing with Yoko that angels can be bad too it doesn't mean I want to kill everyone and that I would side with her over Tao who's been with me for way longer, and is always talking about how we'll create a better future etc. Naive? Maybe. But from a highschoolers perspective why would I ever side with Yoko? The final fight is Lucifer for some reason, and his design sucks. Why is the demifiend brought back? Is this a shared universe with Nocturne? Why does lucifer even need you? The monk that didn't do anything also appears here just to say he is dissapointed and leaves. Ok bro, earn that paycheck.

Aogami reappears and Tsukuyomi sacrifices himself for Yoko... Why? It diminishes the death of Aogami, and Tsukuyomi was fighting the Quadištu the whole time to protect Tokyo. Same as the MC. Again, not only is Yoko a horrible character, siding with her in any way makes no sense based on how the story progresses.

This game commits every sin a lot of modern japanese "anime styled" media does. A lot of exposition and a lot of explanations about systems and things that ultimately don't matter. While the actual characters and plot just progress randomly from scene to scene with not much ryhme or reason, with childish and juvenile characters.

Gameplay is fun enough, but even here I think the game does not innovate in any meaningful way over lets say Nocturne from 20 years ago. You still have the same press turn system, but the magatsuhi skills feel tacked on and unnecessary. The base critical skill is the best one most of the time and it just gives you extra power at no cost. Enemies also always use the same skill after critical omagatoki. So you can just use the dampener and nullify their whole critical turn. The only enemy that switched it up was Mastema, the penultimate boss... and I died when he did wind criticals while I used light dampener... Still got him 2nd try though. Lucifer also died on like the 3rd or 4th try. And I was playing on hard.

Speaking of difficulty, the game was way too easy. You just get too much free stuff. I never had money problems, it's easy to get demons and to fuse them around. You can buy dampeners for really cheap. You can choose which skills to give demons at fusion or modify them via essences. You have all the balms, sutras and incenses to improve your demons and mc. You have the statues that level up your whole stock for free, you have grimoires... It felt like instead of a few select demons, my whole stock was super strong and if anyone died, I could easily swap in a demon just as strong. In dungeons you could just run past everything, there was like 1 puzzle section which flipped the floor and ceiling around and that was it... no environmental danger at all. The game was just... easy. Even on hard.

There is also a lot of sidequests and stuff to pick up on the map. After a while it felt like padding and tedious. The minimap was stuffed with icons all the time. I did like the affinity systems. Helps to differentiate demons a bit from one another, but sadly undermined by the essence system. Also the soundtrack was fire.

 

[Aruil]

In the meantime Tao ressurected and was with you the whole time, while Yoko was revealed to be a traitor working with the main antagonistic force you've had to deal with throughout the game. Sorry but just because I was agreeing with Yoko that angels can be bad too it doesn't mean I want to kill everyone and that I would side with her over Tao who's been with me for way longer, and is always talking about how we'll create a better future etc. Naive? Maybe. But from a highschoolers perspective why would I ever side with Yoko? The final fight is Lucifer for some reason, and his design sucks. Why is the demifiend brought back? Is this a shared universe with Nocturne? Why does lucifer even need you? The monk that didn't do anything also appears here just to say he is dissapointed and leaves. Ok bro, earn that paycheck.

Just want to answer this part. Though I haven't seen it everywhere mentioned as such, I think it's fairly obvious it's a sequel to Nocturne

Spoiler

what with the destroyed Tokyo, and Lucifer killing God.

As for the monk it kinda makes sense he's disappointed

Spoiler

since his role is to aid with the creation of the new world and you "decided" to destroy everything.

 

[quixotic]

The final fight is Lucifer for some reason

He’s the one that took the throne and YHVH’s Knowledge, the world can’t be changed without the throne. That’s why his design’s different.

Why does lucifer even need you?

He wants to suicide by cop. He learned that he’ll never truly be free once he ascended because of the way the Mandala system works, and decided to sit around and wait for somebody to come and kill him instead of actually using the throne to remake the world. He sent Aogami to you in the beginning so you eventually could take the throne from him.

 

[Nathir]

In the meantime Tao ressurected and was with you the whole time, while Yoko was revealed to be a traitor working with the main antagonistic force you've had to deal with throughout the game. Sorry but just because I was agreeing with Yoko that angels can be bad too it doesn't mean I want to kill everyone and that I would side with her over Tao who's been with me for way longer, and is always talking about how we'll create a better future etc. Naive? Maybe. But from a highschoolers perspective why would I ever side with Yoko? The final fight is Lucifer for some reason, and his design sucks. Why is the demifiend brought back? Is this a shared universe with Nocturne? Why does lucifer even need you? The monk that didn't do anything also appears here just to say he is dissapointed and leaves. Ok bro, earn that paycheck.

Just want to answer this part. Though I haven't seen it everywhere mentioned as such, I think it's fairly obvious it's a sequel to Nocturne

Spoiler

what with the destroyed Tokyo, and Lucifer killing God.

As for the monk it kinda makes sense he's disappointed

Spoiler

since his role is to aid with the creation of the new world and you "decided" to destroy everything.

Yes, I get it that it's a sequel to Nocturne, but... why? Why does the game have to reference TDE? It gains nothing by it, except some cheap fanservice. It isn't properly explained or built up and if someone hasn't played Nocturne it might aswell be an irrelevant bit of trivia. Honestly, remove demifiend and any references and the story could still function on its own. Lucifer defeated god but didn't get the desired outcome and needs a Nahobino to kill him. That's all. You don't have to reference the fiends or anything. It would be the same story for everyone who hasn't played Nocturne. Honestly I think they knew how lame this setup was and wanted to reference Nocturne just for cheap nostalgia points. And why is a Nahobino required to kill Lucifer? They just throw this 1 line out there to justify his actions but it's lame as hell. Lucifer is literally just waiting around to be killed by the "special one".

Moreover I think the writers do not understand Nocturne at all and cheapen it in this way. TDE was never supposed to be the "cannon" ending. It was added as a sidequest with a rerelease of the game for starters... And while you could roleplay as an edgy fiend that gets enthralled by Lucifer the primary story beats definitely revolve around the human characters and their reasons.

As for the Monk, yeah I got that. He exposition dumps this info before he leaves. My problem is that he doesn't do anything through the game. Remove the character and nothing is lost. He is just a time waster.

 

[Nathir]

The final fight is Lucifer for some reason

He’s the one that took the throne and YHVH’s Knowledge, the world can’t be changed without the throne. That’s why his design’s different.

Why does lucifer even need you?

He wants to suicide by cop. He learned that he’ll never truly be free once he ascended because of the way the Mandala system works, and decided to sit around and wait for somebody to come and kill him instead of actually using the throne to remake the world. He sent Aogami to you in the beginning so you eventually could take the throne from him.

Yeah I know. I explained myself poorly there but for the first point I wanted to say how it doesn't matter for the story who sits on the throne. Anyone could be there, and the story would be the same. He is just shown once in the hydra flashback and then at the end he appears and you fight him and that's it. It could be anyone on the throne, it just had to be lucifer, because that's what the writers think SMT is all about.

As for the seond part it's incredibly poor storytelling that you are the only one that can "free" lucifer. The last boss just sitting there and his motivation being to die by you (remember, you've never interacted with him before the last battle) is incredibly poor storytelling. You are telling me Zeus, Odin, demifiend etc. can't do shit, Luicfer just has to be killed by a japanese highscooler fused with a super sentai?

 

[Aruil]

In the meantime Tao ressurected and was with you the whole time, while Yoko was revealed to be a traitor working with the main antagonistic force you've had to deal with throughout the game. Sorry but just because I was agreeing with Yoko that angels can be bad too it doesn't mean I want to kill everyone and that I would side with her over Tao who's been with me for way longer, and is always talking about how we'll create a better future etc. Naive? Maybe. But from a highschoolers perspective why would I ever side with Yoko? The final fight is Lucifer for some reason, and his design sucks. Why is the demifiend brought back? Is this a shared universe with Nocturne? Why does lucifer even need you? The monk that didn't do anything also appears here just to say he is dissapointed and leaves. Ok bro, earn that paycheck.

Just want to answer this part. Though I haven't seen it everywhere mentioned as such, I think it's fairly obvious it's a sequel to Nocturne

Spoiler

what with the destroyed Tokyo, and Lucifer killing God.

As for the monk it kinda makes sense he's disappointed

Spoiler

since his role is to aid with the creation of the new world and you "decided" to destroy everything.

Yes, I get it that it's a sequel to Nocturne, but... why? Why does the game have to reference TDE? It gains nothing by it, except some cheap fanservice. It isn't properly explained or built up and if someone hasn't played Nocturne it might aswell be an irrelevant bit of trivia. Honestly, remove demifiend and any references and the story could still function on its own. Lucifer defeated god but didn't get the desired outcome and needs a Nahobino to kill him. That's all. You don't have to reference the fiends or anything. It would be the same story for everyone who hasn't played Nocturne. Honestly I think they knew how lame this setup was and wanted to reference Nocturne just for cheap nostalgia points. And why is a Nahobino required to kill Lucifer? They just throw this 1 line out there to justify his actions but it's lame as hell. Lucifer is literally just waiting around to be killed by the "special one".

Moreover I think the writers do not understand Nocturne at all and cheapen it in this way. TDE was never supposed to be the "cannon" ending. It was added as a sidequest with a rerelease of the game for starters... And while you could roleplay as an edgy fiend that gets enthralled by Lucifer the primary story beats definitely revolve around the human characters and their reasons.

As for the Monk, yeah I got that. He exposition dumbs this info before he leaves. My problem is that he doesn't do anything through the game. Remove the character and nothing is lost. He is just a time waster.

I don't really disagree. The whole game always gave me the impression that it wanted to recreate the success (or at least the fan reception) of Nocturne. The demifiend is a DLC so yeah he doesn't serve any narrative purpose, he just sort of fits to the Nocturne theme they were going for.