RaccoonTP
This review is about FF1. I had actually started the psp version before I chose to play the gba version, but I dropped it since I found the game to be boring and overall just a slog. Nothing in the game really interested me and I was really annoyed by the encounter rate.
Still, after a while I decided to give the game another chance through a different version, and the game really grew on me. I still didnt really like the intro but after finally figuring out where I was supposed to go on the ship I got the appeal. The game is just really charming, from the varied playstyles you can get from the various party combinations, to the cool little sprites of enemies, to really just how simplistic it is in both its gameplay and its story and world, though I think what really won me over was the bonus dungeons this version introduced, or to be more precise, the bonus bosses in these dungeons.
The actual dungeons themselves were whatever. I actually did some of the bosses way earlier than I was supposed to and it was exhilerating clutching victory from them despite all the odds. Even the later bosses for when I was appropriately leveled still put up a good fight, though this lead me to realize the big problem with this version... its way too easy. The reason the bosses were challenging was because they were balanced around the changes to the stat scaling and spell use system. Aside from the beginning of the game, everything got steamrolled by my party since I didnt need to bother conserving spells or healing items since I had an abundance of mp to get me through the dungeons. Even the warmech/death machine, said to be the hardest encounter in the original versions of the game, fell to me with a couple of turns without ever posing a threat to my party.
I think I'll play the ps1 or nes versions of the game someday, to experience the challenge they offered, since while I still liked the game, it felt like it really shined when I actually needed to think about it beyond "press a to win". Either way, I'm glad it really wasn't the FINAL fantasy like the game's title says lol.
Still, after a while I decided to give the game another chance through a different version, and the game really grew on me. I still didnt really like the intro but after finally figuring out where I was supposed to go on the ship I got the appeal. The game is just really charming, from the varied playstyles you can get from the various party combinations, to the cool little sprites of enemies, to really just how simplistic it is in both its gameplay and its story and world, though I think what really won me over was the bonus dungeons this version introduced, or to be more precise, the bonus bosses in these dungeons.
The actual dungeons themselves were whatever. I actually did some of the bosses way earlier than I was supposed to and it was exhilerating clutching victory from them despite all the odds. Even the later bosses for when I was appropriately leveled still put up a good fight, though this lead me to realize the big problem with this version... its way too easy. The reason the bosses were challenging was because they were balanced around the changes to the stat scaling and spell use system. Aside from the beginning of the game, everything got steamrolled by my party since I didnt need to bother conserving spells or healing items since I had an abundance of mp to get me through the dungeons. Even the warmech/death machine, said to be the hardest encounter in the original versions of the game, fell to me with a couple of turns without ever posing a threat to my party.
I think I'll play the ps1 or nes versions of the game someday, to experience the challenge they offered, since while I still liked the game, it felt like it really shined when I actually needed to think about it beyond "press a to win". Either way, I'm glad it really wasn't the FINAL fantasy like the game's title says lol.
1991
Falls off after Green Hill Zone. For the character whose main schtick is running fast theres far too many stages that make him grind to a halt, and makes the fun halt along with it.
This is a review specifically for KMT1. According to a friend KMT2 is actually good, so ill write my own review for it when i get to it. Anyway here it is:
Gameplay:
Theres no story section for this review, just gameplay, since KMT1 has as much story as a mario game, which by itself isnt bad, also means that the gameplay should be good enough hook you on the game... which I cannot say KMT1 does.
Like, KMT1 is unbalanced as all hell. Yeah this is the case for almost every ATLUS game, but unlike the usual balancing being way too much in your favor, here they balanced it in the complete opposite direction: it being balanced way too much against your favor. The MC cant use magic, so naturally you just pump the strength stat, but even maxxing it out does nothing for you. I maxed it out around the first dungeon, and still all you'll be doing is dealing pathetic double digit damage, especially against bosses, while enemies get to wreck you as hard as they can. They either made strength contribute almost nothing to the attack formula, or made enemies really tanky, which either way makes the game feel like an uphill battle.
Magic on the other hand is actually pretty powerful (in early game, felt like it fell off after midgame) but the mp pools are so small that you have to have the magic users focus exclusively on healing from the constant encounters you trudge through, burning through your mp quickly since mp caps at 99 by endgame 💀. Demons are your only saving grace here, which is a testament to how useless the human characters are in the begginning. Really wish KMT1 was in the aqui megaten fusion calculator, but whatever, eventually you figure out how to make demons with mediama and tarukaja.
After you get past the most frustrating early game in megaten, in my opinion beating even SMTIV's naraku in how frustrating and bs it is, there's light at the end of the tunnel in the form of the Markuza Corridor, the dungeon that marks the midgame point of the game. There are actual good armors and weapons there, so the game becomes not as hard, though its still not enjoyable, since you then have to deal with enemies that can just randomly decrease your level, taking away all the time and progress you've made in gaining that level in the blink of an eye, and then the next dungeon is the Sea of Flames, a dungeon whose gimmick is your party takes damage every step you make no matter what. (Atlus devs in the lab concocting the worst dungeon crawler ideas known to man: ).
Ive seen the sentiment that you should just skip the bosses, since they're actually all optional aside from the final boss, but I'd argue that not fighting them is to your disadvantage if you plan on actually beating the game. For 1, if you dont do the boss in Bien, you dont gain access to the town in it that has a casino and shops to make the game easier for you, 2, killing the bosses lets you free izanami who gives you an item that completely nullifies the damage floors in the Sea of Flames, 3, this unlocks bonuses in KMT2, and finally 4, not fighting them makes you miss out on all the exp they give, which you'll need as much as you can get because even having fought the bosses it still feels like you're underleveled for the final boss (which you are, you end the game in the lvl 50s and according to gamefaqs the final boss is lvl 128 🥹).
No joke, even with the hinokagutsuchi, the most powerful sword in the game, you deal like 40 ~ 50 damage per hit (and thats only if you have a demon to cast tarukaja) while the final boss hits for like 100+ on everyone, forcing every magic user go on healing duty every round, and thats if hes not trying to land an instakill on you. Oh another thing is he can use is diarahan to fully heal himself if you dont have the white dragon orb that disables it, though i dont know if you need to beat the other bosses to unlock it. Only way I beat the game was constantly abusing save states, cuz all in all, its a bad time.
Conclusion:
I think the stories in 90s megaten games carry them pretty hard, as the gameplay is just not that well designed or engaging, but even if KMT1 had a real story i dont think it would redeem the game. Its just too frustrating and badly designed, to the point where I would only reccomend it to megaten fans really interested in seeing how the first megaten game is like, or hard core dungeon crawler fans (and as a dungeon crawler fan myself, i think it says something that I didnt like it).
In conclusion, the OVA is better.
Gameplay:
Theres no story section for this review, just gameplay, since KMT1 has as much story as a mario game, which by itself isnt bad, also means that the gameplay should be good enough hook you on the game... which I cannot say KMT1 does.
Like, KMT1 is unbalanced as all hell. Yeah this is the case for almost every ATLUS game, but unlike the usual balancing being way too much in your favor, here they balanced it in the complete opposite direction: it being balanced way too much against your favor. The MC cant use magic, so naturally you just pump the strength stat, but even maxxing it out does nothing for you. I maxed it out around the first dungeon, and still all you'll be doing is dealing pathetic double digit damage, especially against bosses, while enemies get to wreck you as hard as they can. They either made strength contribute almost nothing to the attack formula, or made enemies really tanky, which either way makes the game feel like an uphill battle.
Magic on the other hand is actually pretty powerful (in early game, felt like it fell off after midgame) but the mp pools are so small that you have to have the magic users focus exclusively on healing from the constant encounters you trudge through, burning through your mp quickly since mp caps at 99 by endgame 💀. Demons are your only saving grace here, which is a testament to how useless the human characters are in the begginning. Really wish KMT1 was in the aqui megaten fusion calculator, but whatever, eventually you figure out how to make demons with mediama and tarukaja.
After you get past the most frustrating early game in megaten, in my opinion beating even SMTIV's naraku in how frustrating and bs it is, there's light at the end of the tunnel in the form of the Markuza Corridor, the dungeon that marks the midgame point of the game. There are actual good armors and weapons there, so the game becomes not as hard, though its still not enjoyable, since you then have to deal with enemies that can just randomly decrease your level, taking away all the time and progress you've made in gaining that level in the blink of an eye, and then the next dungeon is the Sea of Flames, a dungeon whose gimmick is your party takes damage every step you make no matter what. (Atlus devs in the lab concocting the worst dungeon crawler ideas known to man: ).
Ive seen the sentiment that you should just skip the bosses, since they're actually all optional aside from the final boss, but I'd argue that not fighting them is to your disadvantage if you plan on actually beating the game. For 1, if you dont do the boss in Bien, you dont gain access to the town in it that has a casino and shops to make the game easier for you, 2, killing the bosses lets you free izanami who gives you an item that completely nullifies the damage floors in the Sea of Flames, 3, this unlocks bonuses in KMT2, and finally 4, not fighting them makes you miss out on all the exp they give, which you'll need as much as you can get because even having fought the bosses it still feels like you're underleveled for the final boss (which you are, you end the game in the lvl 50s and according to gamefaqs the final boss is lvl 128 🥹).
No joke, even with the hinokagutsuchi, the most powerful sword in the game, you deal like 40 ~ 50 damage per hit (and thats only if you have a demon to cast tarukaja) while the final boss hits for like 100+ on everyone, forcing every magic user go on healing duty every round, and thats if hes not trying to land an instakill on you. Oh another thing is he can use is diarahan to fully heal himself if you dont have the white dragon orb that disables it, though i dont know if you need to beat the other bosses to unlock it. Only way I beat the game was constantly abusing save states, cuz all in all, its a bad time.
Conclusion:
I think the stories in 90s megaten games carry them pretty hard, as the gameplay is just not that well designed or engaging, but even if KMT1 had a real story i dont think it would redeem the game. Its just too frustrating and badly designed, to the point where I would only reccomend it to megaten fans really interested in seeing how the first megaten game is like, or hard core dungeon crawler fans (and as a dungeon crawler fan myself, i think it says something that I didnt like it).
In conclusion, the OVA is better.
1st review! (Im also the one who added this game in the first place). I'm not going to bother avoiding spoilers for the game since its mostly just the original game's story which I assume you'd already know. I will spoil some stuff thats new to this fangame though which I highlight so you could potentially avoid. Anyway, even being a fangame, its quality rivals that of the official game's and is pretty faithful to it too. Not to mention, they fixed probably the biggest issue with the game: the difficulty.
Like, the game's actually challenging now. No more spamming gun and pressing auto to win. Now bullets are expendable, weaknesses and resistances matter, buffs are key to winning fights, intelligence affects magic defense so you need to level that up, etc. Theres pretty good quality of life changes as well, like the magician shop that lets you give demons skills, summoning and returning demons doesnt take up a turn so you can quickly reorganize your team, and theres an item that lets you save anywhere (they also only cost 10 bucks each so its on you if you dont stock up on them). All of this comes together to turn smt1 into a fun and challenging dungeon crawler... though its not executed perfectly.
The general reception ive seen to this game is that while it makes smt1 hard now, it makes it too hard, which i can see certainly see. Some of it i think is just theyre not used to the gameplay, but to be fair to them, the difficulty can get pretty bullshit, specifically the bosses. They rely on instakills far far too much, making it luck if you even survive them without a tetraja/pentagram/magic reflect shield, their hp feels far too high, and most of all their attacks are far too powerful.
I would say this only becomes a huge problem endgame, but you have to cheese bosses with -karn spells to win. You wont even feel cheap for it since you literally wouldnt be able to survive without them, what with the bosses being able to act up to 4 times in a turn and using almighty attacks (especially the alignment based ones) that hit like trucks. I don't think its good design when the enemy has a chance to one shot some of your team, even your partner, because theyre just that strong. However, long as you move before the boss and have a good variety of items (its crazy that this game has an itemized version of luster candy that only costs 1500) you can find a way to beat them, albiet with some difficulty.
Another pet peeve of mine is only demons who are summoned can be healed/revived. I personally got softlocked by this on my overlord playthrough since most of my demons were dead after a boss and I didnt have enough money to both summon them and pay for their revival. The original game made it so that demons can be healed regardless of if theyre summoned or in your COMP, and I really see no reason for why this was changed.
Regarding the added story to the new routes, theyre mostly pretty neat. They all explore and flesh out the world even further and make the routes actually feel different to play, which official smt is pretty bad at. Yuriko's route for example is you get to fight demon lords in the demon world, while you get to go to heaven in Yumiko's route, and you can just go insane and fight every boss in the game on the Overlord route. Even after you escape the demon world/heaven on the new heroine routes, they remain a presence in the story and you feel connected to the sides like never before.
I did find myself being disappointed with one aspect of them though... the heroines are pretty lame. Well not Yuriko, shes great, hell i suspect the dev had a bias towards her because of how fleshed out her route was. Yumiko (law heroine) and the original Heroine do suck though. Ironically heroine only gets a personality if you don't choose her route, that being literally just the original game, which no one is choosing unless they're aiming for the friendship ending. Shame because the developer could've taken the opportunity to flesh her out and make her an actual neutral rep like she is in the new routes.
In some ways Yumiko might be even more disappointing since while she does have a bit more personality compared to Heroine, its not that much. Shes only really here to have a distinct law heroine to contrast Heroine and Yuriko since no law heroine existed in the original. Her definining character moment is when (Spoilers) Tokyo is flooded and she becomes disillusioned with the messian cause, and then proclaiming she doesnt believe in them anyway and instead will follow you... you who are following the messians... so nothing has changed. (End of spoilers) I get its hard to write for completely new characters compared to existing ones but c'mon, this sucks. Yumiko's route doesnt even get an extra final boss like yuriko, overlord, and friendship route get. Law getting the short end of the stick even in a fan-game... sad!
Some of my megaten friends have called this the definitive version of smt1, and while im inclined to agree, I'd still say play the original before this. Despite how impressive the quality is, at the end of the day its still a fangame, which is a very different experience than the intended one. Most people also find it really hard, so having the first game beat would get you a little accostomed to the base gameplay. I'd also reccomend making an alternate save at Shinjuku and then picking what route you want, and if you find it too hard, choose Yuriko's route (if you didn't already choose her at the park) since from my experience and research, its the most balanced and fun comparatively.
If you're having a ton of trouble against bosses, someone made a hp balance patch that makes the bosses less bulky, so try that out and see if it works (for me it made my game crash, but im not sure if its because it wasnt compatible with my already existing save files of the defualt game or if it was because i was playing on my phone through the joiplay app, so test it out on a fresh new game or on a computer). Here's the link for that: https://www.reddit.com/r/Megaten/comments/17gptr6/shin_megami_tensei_vx_yumiko_route_and_general/k9aj4zf/
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did! :)
(Pro tip: get the dolphin helm. It nulls ailments which enemies love to use and unlocks after you beat roppongi).
Like, the game's actually challenging now. No more spamming gun and pressing auto to win. Now bullets are expendable, weaknesses and resistances matter, buffs are key to winning fights, intelligence affects magic defense so you need to level that up, etc. Theres pretty good quality of life changes as well, like the magician shop that lets you give demons skills, summoning and returning demons doesnt take up a turn so you can quickly reorganize your team, and theres an item that lets you save anywhere (they also only cost 10 bucks each so its on you if you dont stock up on them). All of this comes together to turn smt1 into a fun and challenging dungeon crawler... though its not executed perfectly.
The general reception ive seen to this game is that while it makes smt1 hard now, it makes it too hard, which i can see certainly see. Some of it i think is just theyre not used to the gameplay, but to be fair to them, the difficulty can get pretty bullshit, specifically the bosses. They rely on instakills far far too much, making it luck if you even survive them without a tetraja/pentagram/magic reflect shield, their hp feels far too high, and most of all their attacks are far too powerful.
I would say this only becomes a huge problem endgame, but you have to cheese bosses with -karn spells to win. You wont even feel cheap for it since you literally wouldnt be able to survive without them, what with the bosses being able to act up to 4 times in a turn and using almighty attacks (especially the alignment based ones) that hit like trucks. I don't think its good design when the enemy has a chance to one shot some of your team, even your partner, because theyre just that strong. However, long as you move before the boss and have a good variety of items (its crazy that this game has an itemized version of luster candy that only costs 1500) you can find a way to beat them, albiet with some difficulty.
Another pet peeve of mine is only demons who are summoned can be healed/revived. I personally got softlocked by this on my overlord playthrough since most of my demons were dead after a boss and I didnt have enough money to both summon them and pay for their revival. The original game made it so that demons can be healed regardless of if theyre summoned or in your COMP, and I really see no reason for why this was changed.
Regarding the added story to the new routes, theyre mostly pretty neat. They all explore and flesh out the world even further and make the routes actually feel different to play, which official smt is pretty bad at. Yuriko's route for example is you get to fight demon lords in the demon world, while you get to go to heaven in Yumiko's route, and you can just go insane and fight every boss in the game on the Overlord route. Even after you escape the demon world/heaven on the new heroine routes, they remain a presence in the story and you feel connected to the sides like never before.
I did find myself being disappointed with one aspect of them though... the heroines are pretty lame. Well not Yuriko, shes great, hell i suspect the dev had a bias towards her because of how fleshed out her route was. Yumiko (law heroine) and the original Heroine do suck though. Ironically heroine only gets a personality if you don't choose her route, that being literally just the original game, which no one is choosing unless they're aiming for the friendship ending. Shame because the developer could've taken the opportunity to flesh her out and make her an actual neutral rep like she is in the new routes.
In some ways Yumiko might be even more disappointing since while she does have a bit more personality compared to Heroine, its not that much. Shes only really here to have a distinct law heroine to contrast Heroine and Yuriko since no law heroine existed in the original. Her definining character moment is when (Spoilers) Tokyo is flooded and she becomes disillusioned with the messian cause, and then proclaiming she doesnt believe in them anyway and instead will follow you... you who are following the messians... so nothing has changed. (End of spoilers) I get its hard to write for completely new characters compared to existing ones but c'mon, this sucks. Yumiko's route doesnt even get an extra final boss like yuriko, overlord, and friendship route get. Law getting the short end of the stick even in a fan-game... sad!
Some of my megaten friends have called this the definitive version of smt1, and while im inclined to agree, I'd still say play the original before this. Despite how impressive the quality is, at the end of the day its still a fangame, which is a very different experience than the intended one. Most people also find it really hard, so having the first game beat would get you a little accostomed to the base gameplay. I'd also reccomend making an alternate save at Shinjuku and then picking what route you want, and if you find it too hard, choose Yuriko's route (if you didn't already choose her at the park) since from my experience and research, its the most balanced and fun comparatively.
If you're having a ton of trouble against bosses, someone made a hp balance patch that makes the bosses less bulky, so try that out and see if it works (for me it made my game crash, but im not sure if its because it wasnt compatible with my already existing save files of the defualt game or if it was because i was playing on my phone through the joiplay app, so test it out on a fresh new game or on a computer). Here's the link for that: https://www.reddit.com/r/Megaten/comments/17gptr6/shin_megami_tensei_vx_yumiko_route_and_general/k9aj4zf/
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did! :)
(Pro tip: get the dolphin helm. It nulls ailments which enemies love to use and unlocks after you beat roppongi).
1998
You know, usually I really like story focused games where the gameplay isn't really that good (games like Shin Megami Tensei 1 and 2). Xenogears is especially infamous for this, so I thought I'd hop aboard the fan train seeing how so many praise it. The reality though, is a lot more complicated.
Gameplay
Ok so... everything involving gameplay is a mess. Usually as long as the game is easy I can tolerate it for the story, and while this game is pretty easy outside of some bosses, I found it particularly egregious in this game. First things first, combining platforming and random encounters is a match made in hell. Its super annoying when you're in the middle of platforming and about to make a jump when a random encounter loads, fucking up your jump, and thrusting you into the tedious and dull gameplay, and expect that to happen multiple times thanks to the high encounter rate. They would've been much better off approaching this like the Mario & Luigi rpg games where enemies are present in the over-world so you can choose to fight them instead of being forced in the middle of parkour. As for the actual combat, like I mentioned, its tedious both in gears and when you're on-foot. 90% of the time you're spamming your strongest deathblows/combos, and thats it.
Theres no other strategy apart from a few enemies that punish you for using them, in which case you just spam magic instead lol. If I had to choose, I'd say on-foot combat is better than in gears (though the distinction means little when both still suck). You still do the same stuff, aka spamming deathblows, but you need to keep in mind your fuel and health which you can't restore unless at a shop (you can get an accessory that restores hp later in the game but it uses up a lot of fuel 💀), which serves to make it even more frustrating coupled with the high rate random encounters and platforming. One final complaint, dungeons are rarely good, especially the final dungeon. Don't have anything else to add, just think they're not fun (just like the rest of the gameplay.)
Story
Now here's the reason people actually like the game. It takes a little while to draw you in, but I can say that the hype of the story is warranted, though because of the over-ambitiousness of it far exceeding the budget, the game feels majorly unfinished in a lot of areas. First off, most of the characters that arent Fei, Elly, Citan, Bart, the antagonists, have nothing going on after their arc. Rico's backstory gets dropped after Kislev aside from a one-off mention in disc 2, Maria is completely irrelevant after Shevat, Billy is kinda the same but he interacts with the party a lot more, and Chu-Chu is chu-chu. Emeralda would be the same but at the very least she has her (optional) sidequest which was really cool. And speaking of the infamous Disc 2, even with how badly the budget cuts affected the presentation of the story, I'd still consider it better than Disc 1, because it focuses on the actual good part of the game, the story, while the shitty gameplay takes a complete backseat. Sure, it's nowhere near as impactful to see characters sit in a chair summarizing events instead of actually playing through those events firsthand, but how good the story beats are make up for it in the end.
Conclusion
This game really would've worked better as an anime or movie. Gameplay from the combat and overworld movement is poorly-designed and dull, with the highlight being the story, and even then the unfortunate budget slashes hinders it from reaching the creator's full artistic vision. However, in a way, all these flaws served to make the experience all the more memorable in the end, and that's (probably) the most valuable thing you can get from any piece of media. Would recommend (if you really hate the gameplay though just watch a youtube cutscene walkthrough or something).
Gameplay
Ok so... everything involving gameplay is a mess. Usually as long as the game is easy I can tolerate it for the story, and while this game is pretty easy outside of some bosses, I found it particularly egregious in this game. First things first, combining platforming and random encounters is a match made in hell. Its super annoying when you're in the middle of platforming and about to make a jump when a random encounter loads, fucking up your jump, and thrusting you into the tedious and dull gameplay, and expect that to happen multiple times thanks to the high encounter rate. They would've been much better off approaching this like the Mario & Luigi rpg games where enemies are present in the over-world so you can choose to fight them instead of being forced in the middle of parkour. As for the actual combat, like I mentioned, its tedious both in gears and when you're on-foot. 90% of the time you're spamming your strongest deathblows/combos, and thats it.
Theres no other strategy apart from a few enemies that punish you for using them, in which case you just spam magic instead lol. If I had to choose, I'd say on-foot combat is better than in gears (though the distinction means little when both still suck). You still do the same stuff, aka spamming deathblows, but you need to keep in mind your fuel and health which you can't restore unless at a shop (you can get an accessory that restores hp later in the game but it uses up a lot of fuel 💀), which serves to make it even more frustrating coupled with the high rate random encounters and platforming. One final complaint, dungeons are rarely good, especially the final dungeon. Don't have anything else to add, just think they're not fun (just like the rest of the gameplay.)
Story
Now here's the reason people actually like the game. It takes a little while to draw you in, but I can say that the hype of the story is warranted, though because of the over-ambitiousness of it far exceeding the budget, the game feels majorly unfinished in a lot of areas. First off, most of the characters that arent Fei, Elly, Citan, Bart, the antagonists, have nothing going on after their arc. Rico's backstory gets dropped after Kislev aside from a one-off mention in disc 2, Maria is completely irrelevant after Shevat, Billy is kinda the same but he interacts with the party a lot more, and Chu-Chu is chu-chu. Emeralda would be the same but at the very least she has her (optional) sidequest which was really cool. And speaking of the infamous Disc 2, even with how badly the budget cuts affected the presentation of the story, I'd still consider it better than Disc 1, because it focuses on the actual good part of the game, the story, while the shitty gameplay takes a complete backseat. Sure, it's nowhere near as impactful to see characters sit in a chair summarizing events instead of actually playing through those events firsthand, but how good the story beats are make up for it in the end.
Conclusion
This game really would've worked better as an anime or movie. Gameplay from the combat and overworld movement is poorly-designed and dull, with the highlight being the story, and even then the unfortunate budget slashes hinders it from reaching the creator's full artistic vision. However, in a way, all these flaws served to make the experience all the more memorable in the end, and that's (probably) the most valuable thing you can get from any piece of media. Would recommend (if you really hate the gameplay though just watch a youtube cutscene walkthrough or something).
2009
Persona 3 (FES) is one of my favorite games ever. It basically ignited my interest in jrpgs, and introduced me to megaten, for better or for worse. Since I liked FES so much, surely the version that has even more content, and is on a portable console, would be even better, right!?
:clueless:
Spoiler: No, it wouldn't.
Story
Since the male route is quite literally the same as in the original, I'll focus on Femc's route (the reason why anyone would play this over the other versions). In short... its complicated. While the story itself is the same (MC's gender isn't important to the overall conflict) the small changes and additions can be seen as either charming, or they just suck. For example, finally having another female protagonist is great, some of the new social links are actually good, and now all the male party members have them so you could get to know them better than even in the main story... But on the flip side half of them are about their crush on you, which is really lame and uninteresting. You can also groom Ken (yuck), and one of them gives you something that you can use to save [spoiler], disrespecting the main theme of the game and killing the impact their death usually had on the story.
The biggest issue with the stuff related to the story though, and this extends to both routes... is that the presentation has been entirely gutted. Scenes that hit hard in the original fall completely flat because of the visual novel format P3P has adopted. Even the anime cutscenes are just made in the lame ass vn format, losing most of the impact the scene has and sometimes making it unintentionally goofy when they change the portraits to attempt to look like the cutscenes in question. Like what do you think is impactful? Seeing things happen in real time 3d, or needing to read all of it being described to you? The answer should be obvious. Yeah it's not really the game's fault that they had to cut back on so much to make it fit on the PSP, but regardless it's still a con that I think outweighs all the pros.
Gameplay
Now we get to the gameplay... which is worse. They replaced the whole battle system with Persona 4's, including the controllable party members. This has the effect of making the game pretty damn easy since the game isnt balanced around you being able to directly control them, and even if you try to play only using the AI party tactics, since its the P4 system they cut half of the options that were in the original, so you're stuck with act freely, full assault, and heal/support, and the AI is worse to boot. There's no "standby", so they will always be trying to attack even when a reflect shield is thrown up, you need to apply all the buffs and debuffs yourself since the AI will never, and I mean never, ever use their buffs or debuffs, and theres no "assign target", so you're just left hoping they hit the ones you need to hit, among the various other tactics. Of course, this will only annoy you if you want to only use tactics the whole game (which I did), but tactics are good so grrrrrr.
Aside from the bastardization of tactics, they made some other stupid ass changes, particularly the MC not being able to use multiple weapons anymore. This is such an unnecessary thing to do and restricts the customization freedom you once had. Like for example, Akihiko is the only character that can use strike as a default attack, but even if you didn't use him you could still have that by equipping yourself with gloves, then P3P threw it out the window and forced you to only use a one-handed sword/nagitana that only does slash damage. LAME! Also fusion spells are now items you need to buy at the antique shop... so they're not even fucking fusion spells anymore. I shouldn't need to explain why that's dumb.
Conclusion
I don't think P3P is necessarily a bad game, and I actually enjoyed some of it enough to give it 3 stars rather than 2.5 stars (please don't tell my r/megaten friends, they'll bully me 🥹), but with the unnecessary to downright baffling gameplay changes, strange story additions on femc's route, and the heavily gutted presentation, it's certainly the bad version of Persona 3, even with all of its positives. If you decide to play this at all, play FES or even the original P3 before this, so you can at least know what the game is supposed to feel like.
:clueless:
Spoiler: No, it wouldn't.
Story
Since the male route is quite literally the same as in the original, I'll focus on Femc's route (the reason why anyone would play this over the other versions). In short... its complicated. While the story itself is the same (MC's gender isn't important to the overall conflict) the small changes and additions can be seen as either charming, or they just suck. For example, finally having another female protagonist is great, some of the new social links are actually good, and now all the male party members have them so you could get to know them better than even in the main story... But on the flip side half of them are about their crush on you, which is really lame and uninteresting. You can also groom Ken (yuck), and one of them gives you something that you can use to save [spoiler], disrespecting the main theme of the game and killing the impact their death usually had on the story.
The biggest issue with the stuff related to the story though, and this extends to both routes... is that the presentation has been entirely gutted. Scenes that hit hard in the original fall completely flat because of the visual novel format P3P has adopted. Even the anime cutscenes are just made in the lame ass vn format, losing most of the impact the scene has and sometimes making it unintentionally goofy when they change the portraits to attempt to look like the cutscenes in question. Like what do you think is impactful? Seeing things happen in real time 3d, or needing to read all of it being described to you? The answer should be obvious. Yeah it's not really the game's fault that they had to cut back on so much to make it fit on the PSP, but regardless it's still a con that I think outweighs all the pros.
Gameplay
Now we get to the gameplay... which is worse. They replaced the whole battle system with Persona 4's, including the controllable party members. This has the effect of making the game pretty damn easy since the game isnt balanced around you being able to directly control them, and even if you try to play only using the AI party tactics, since its the P4 system they cut half of the options that were in the original, so you're stuck with act freely, full assault, and heal/support, and the AI is worse to boot. There's no "standby", so they will always be trying to attack even when a reflect shield is thrown up, you need to apply all the buffs and debuffs yourself since the AI will never, and I mean never, ever use their buffs or debuffs, and theres no "assign target", so you're just left hoping they hit the ones you need to hit, among the various other tactics. Of course, this will only annoy you if you want to only use tactics the whole game (which I did), but tactics are good so grrrrrr.
Aside from the bastardization of tactics, they made some other stupid ass changes, particularly the MC not being able to use multiple weapons anymore. This is such an unnecessary thing to do and restricts the customization freedom you once had. Like for example, Akihiko is the only character that can use strike as a default attack, but even if you didn't use him you could still have that by equipping yourself with gloves, then P3P threw it out the window and forced you to only use a one-handed sword/nagitana that only does slash damage. LAME! Also fusion spells are now items you need to buy at the antique shop... so they're not even fucking fusion spells anymore. I shouldn't need to explain why that's dumb.
Conclusion
I don't think P3P is necessarily a bad game, and I actually enjoyed some of it enough to give it 3 stars rather than 2.5 stars (please don't tell my r/megaten friends, they'll bully me 🥹), but with the unnecessary to downright baffling gameplay changes, strange story additions on femc's route, and the heavily gutted presentation, it's certainly the bad version of Persona 3, even with all of its positives. If you decide to play this at all, play FES or even the original P3 before this, so you can at least know what the game is supposed to feel like.
I bought this game over Mario & Luigi Partners in Time. I regret that decision every single day.
Gameplay
The gameplay is fun. Since its an SRPG ofc there's a lot of importance placed in positioning your units (though compared to something like fire emblem its a lot more important since depending on where enemies hit you, (your back, front, or side) you'll take more or less damage), stats, classes, attack types, yada yada. There's an extra addition of equipment having weight which affects your turn order but that aside its pretty standard SRPG gameplay.
That being said there are two big flaws. For one, balancing, especially with how offensive magic is handled. Like, it never misses. Unless its an L-sized character or a random-hit magic attack, the spells ALWAYS have a 100% chance of hitting you, and usually they hit like a truck, making magicians and sirens pretty op. Yeah their defense is weak but when they can murder you miles away its not a problem for them. This makes battles at times a rush to kill the magicians before they kill you. Ofc this applies to your magicians as well so you can turn most strategies into just bombarding whole groups of enemies with magic.
The other flaw is that grinding is basically mandatory if you want your units to survive in the game, since enemies jump in level a lot and the game has permadeath. While thankfully you can recruit new units at any town, they always start at level 1, so if you find yourself needing a new unit, get ready to spend a few hours grinding (or you could persuade an enemy to join you but its hard to do). The grinding singlehandedly boosted my playtime by like 12 hours. You can sorta cut the feeling of tedium by setting both teams to CPU in training mode so you don't have to play through leveling up your characters for a few hours, but the fact you need to resort to having the game play itself for you isn't fun.
One last thing I want to touch on is loyalty. It's a really cool idea that you need to maintain a units loyalty in order to keep them serving you, especially if you make a choice that conflicts with their individual alignment, because otherwise they'll just up and leave you if it gets low enough. I do think there could've been more ways to raise it since the only reliable way is to raise their level in a real battle (grinding levels in training mode doesnt count), but that aside its a good system that helps immerse yourself in the world.
Story
Maybe its bias on my part since the only similar games with the alignment system and politics I've experienced is the SMT series, but this game more than satisfies me with how they handled it. For one your choices have an immediate impact, drastically changing how you experience the violent world this game takes place in each chapter. The choices themselves also feel properly weighed and offer interesting moral questions given the situation you're placed in. It not only makes for great replay value but also in seeing how it reasonably affects the story... except for one aspect where this falls short.
I don't like to spoil stuff in my reviews so I wont say who it is, but there's one character who drastically changes their personality and attitude between the routes. Its not even from a natural progression of their character they straight up become a different person in the split second you make the defining route choice. One commenter on an online forum put it best: "It doesn't make me feel like I am playing the same exact world just with a difference in my decision and exploring how the story will unfold one way or the other. Instead, they act completely opposite and make it feel like a different universe".
Idk I just place a lot of value in characters and them acting consistently with their personality but this person acts completely ooc just to facilitate the story instead of having a good in-universe reason for it. Some people have said its consistent because the one defining trait is their need to oppose you no matter what but they put that aside and join you in one of the routes anyway so even that's not consistent. The writers should've just chosen one personality and stuck with it, though I do think that the route where they join makes more sense for their character before the route split. It's not enough to ruin the story, but it's nonetheless disappointing.
Conclusion
Great game even with its balancing problems. If you enjoy SRPGs and choice based games then you should definitely play this. On a side note, I played the PSX version which is known for its odd translation, and tbh its not that bad. Its a bit funny in some places, like there being typos here and there, and exudes very 90's energy like quoting popular media from the time or saying the r-slur, but its nowhere near bad enough to be immersion breaking. Personally I would recommend it, though you're likely to just play the PSP or Reborn versions since they streamline the gameplay issues and change the translation to be more serious.
The gameplay is fun. Since its an SRPG ofc there's a lot of importance placed in positioning your units (though compared to something like fire emblem its a lot more important since depending on where enemies hit you, (your back, front, or side) you'll take more or less damage), stats, classes, attack types, yada yada. There's an extra addition of equipment having weight which affects your turn order but that aside its pretty standard SRPG gameplay.
That being said there are two big flaws. For one, balancing, especially with how offensive magic is handled. Like, it never misses. Unless its an L-sized character or a random-hit magic attack, the spells ALWAYS have a 100% chance of hitting you, and usually they hit like a truck, making magicians and sirens pretty op. Yeah their defense is weak but when they can murder you miles away its not a problem for them. This makes battles at times a rush to kill the magicians before they kill you. Ofc this applies to your magicians as well so you can turn most strategies into just bombarding whole groups of enemies with magic.
The other flaw is that grinding is basically mandatory if you want your units to survive in the game, since enemies jump in level a lot and the game has permadeath. While thankfully you can recruit new units at any town, they always start at level 1, so if you find yourself needing a new unit, get ready to spend a few hours grinding (or you could persuade an enemy to join you but its hard to do). The grinding singlehandedly boosted my playtime by like 12 hours. You can sorta cut the feeling of tedium by setting both teams to CPU in training mode so you don't have to play through leveling up your characters for a few hours, but the fact you need to resort to having the game play itself for you isn't fun.
One last thing I want to touch on is loyalty. It's a really cool idea that you need to maintain a units loyalty in order to keep them serving you, especially if you make a choice that conflicts with their individual alignment, because otherwise they'll just up and leave you if it gets low enough. I do think there could've been more ways to raise it since the only reliable way is to raise their level in a real battle (grinding levels in training mode doesnt count), but that aside its a good system that helps immerse yourself in the world.
Story
Maybe its bias on my part since the only similar games with the alignment system and politics I've experienced is the SMT series, but this game more than satisfies me with how they handled it. For one your choices have an immediate impact, drastically changing how you experience the violent world this game takes place in each chapter. The choices themselves also feel properly weighed and offer interesting moral questions given the situation you're placed in. It not only makes for great replay value but also in seeing how it reasonably affects the story... except for one aspect where this falls short.
I don't like to spoil stuff in my reviews so I wont say who it is, but there's one character who drastically changes their personality and attitude between the routes. Its not even from a natural progression of their character they straight up become a different person in the split second you make the defining route choice. One commenter on an online forum put it best: "It doesn't make me feel like I am playing the same exact world just with a difference in my decision and exploring how the story will unfold one way or the other. Instead, they act completely opposite and make it feel like a different universe".
Idk I just place a lot of value in characters and them acting consistently with their personality but this person acts completely ooc just to facilitate the story instead of having a good in-universe reason for it. Some people have said its consistent because the one defining trait is their need to oppose you no matter what but they put that aside and join you in one of the routes anyway so even that's not consistent. The writers should've just chosen one personality and stuck with it, though I do think that the route where they join makes more sense for their character before the route split. It's not enough to ruin the story, but it's nonetheless disappointing.
Conclusion
Great game even with its balancing problems. If you enjoy SRPGs and choice based games then you should definitely play this. On a side note, I played the PSX version which is known for its odd translation, and tbh its not that bad. Its a bit funny in some places, like there being typos here and there, and exudes very 90's energy like quoting popular media from the time or saying the r-slur, but its nowhere near bad enough to be immersion breaking. Personally I would recommend it, though you're likely to just play the PSP or Reborn versions since they streamline the gameplay issues and change the translation to be more serious.
This rating is for Puzzle Kombat. Ultimate Mid Kombat 3 is 1.5 stars.
1992
Just finished the PSX version on the Law route after already beating the SNES version on Neutral. Before I really go in depth into this review I gotta say, play the PSX version. The quality of life improvements may seem small but they go a long way in smoothing out some of the flaws in the gameplay. So much that it boosted the game's score from 3/5 to 3.5/5 for me.
Gameplay
The easiest jrpg, hell one of the easiest games, that I've ever played. If you've played some of the other megaten games, probably persona, you'll know what autobattle is, and how you should never use it unless you're confident you can brute force the enemies to death. Here, thats all you'll be doing. While there are outliers the vast majority of the time you will be autobattling every encounter to easily decimate the whole game. Like all the endgame bosses can be beaten solely with autobattle. Thats how easy this game is. As long as you pump all your points into strength (the main character cant use magic so why wouldnt you do that anyway), equip nerve bullets for your guns or spam zio to stun lock enemies indefinitely, you've won the game. Though you should also put a significant focus on intelligence since it increases the success rate for negotiations with demons.
Speaking of demons, they sure do exist. While it would be a lie to say they arent useful, ironically they are far outclassed by human characters. Humans can level up, learn more spells, equip guns and (nerve) bullets to make enemies sleep and wail on them, and are just inherently stronger. The only thing demons have over them is that humans don't learn buff spells. The mechanic for summoning and keeping demons out is also kinda annoying. First, to summon a demon it costs money, and to keep them out you need to have a lot of magnetite, else they take damage each step. Sure the game's so easy you wont even need demons most of the time, or at least multiple out at once, but if it were any harder it would be super frustrating.
The quality of life improvements drastically improved the game for me like I said. You can now see the immediate vicinity in dark spaces, you can use suspend saves, automap is a button click away, items/spells actually have descriptions, etc. I wanna focus on the save terminal placement for a second though. I played this as a psp eboot so i couldnt use save states, and tbh its not that bad. Some dungeons shouldve had multiple terminals but overall it doesnt feel miles away like it would in SMT2. The main gameplay loop is still mediocre tho 🚬.
Story
The story is great!!!... Until you get to the first point of no return. Then it goes from great to fine. After the first section with all the building tension as the situation gets worse and worse before finally climaxing you kinda just lose a definitive goal and just wander around the place just doing random stuff until the 2nd to last dungeon where you actually choose a side and the story becomes really good again, not to mention the way you get out of the situation before the point of no return feels like an ass-pull.
The characters are good for their time (aside from the heroine), though Law Hero shouldve had more development as he goes into extreme law. Heroine is really disappointing because she stops being a character after the point of no return and just becomes your mindless sidekick that follows you no matter what. Chaos hero is the most developed character in the game even if he is an asshole.
Speaking of sides the Law and Chaos sides feel, uneven? I hear the sentiment that smt1 portrayed the alignments the most equally and I just gotta lol at that cuz if anything Law is portrayed the worst in this game. Spoiler I guess but they're behind most of all the bad things that happen in the story. Chaos is portrayed as victims fighting back against law though they're not much better since rule of the strong is a shitty ideology no matter what. Neutral is obviously treated the best as you don't side with any extreme side, and you get unlimited access to demons as if you're law or chaos the opposite alignment demons wont join you, and as a result neutral is the one everyone wants.
Conclusion
Good game even if its age shows in its mediocre combat and mechanics. PSX best version even if the demon names are goofy compared to the other translations.
Gameplay
The easiest jrpg, hell one of the easiest games, that I've ever played. If you've played some of the other megaten games, probably persona, you'll know what autobattle is, and how you should never use it unless you're confident you can brute force the enemies to death. Here, thats all you'll be doing. While there are outliers the vast majority of the time you will be autobattling every encounter to easily decimate the whole game. Like all the endgame bosses can be beaten solely with autobattle. Thats how easy this game is. As long as you pump all your points into strength (the main character cant use magic so why wouldnt you do that anyway), equip nerve bullets for your guns or spam zio to stun lock enemies indefinitely, you've won the game. Though you should also put a significant focus on intelligence since it increases the success rate for negotiations with demons.
Speaking of demons, they sure do exist. While it would be a lie to say they arent useful, ironically they are far outclassed by human characters. Humans can level up, learn more spells, equip guns and (nerve) bullets to make enemies sleep and wail on them, and are just inherently stronger. The only thing demons have over them is that humans don't learn buff spells. The mechanic for summoning and keeping demons out is also kinda annoying. First, to summon a demon it costs money, and to keep them out you need to have a lot of magnetite, else they take damage each step. Sure the game's so easy you wont even need demons most of the time, or at least multiple out at once, but if it were any harder it would be super frustrating.
The quality of life improvements drastically improved the game for me like I said. You can now see the immediate vicinity in dark spaces, you can use suspend saves, automap is a button click away, items/spells actually have descriptions, etc. I wanna focus on the save terminal placement for a second though. I played this as a psp eboot so i couldnt use save states, and tbh its not that bad. Some dungeons shouldve had multiple terminals but overall it doesnt feel miles away like it would in SMT2. The main gameplay loop is still mediocre tho 🚬.
Story
The story is great!!!... Until you get to the first point of no return. Then it goes from great to fine. After the first section with all the building tension as the situation gets worse and worse before finally climaxing you kinda just lose a definitive goal and just wander around the place just doing random stuff until the 2nd to last dungeon where you actually choose a side and the story becomes really good again, not to mention the way you get out of the situation before the point of no return feels like an ass-pull.
The characters are good for their time (aside from the heroine), though Law Hero shouldve had more development as he goes into extreme law. Heroine is really disappointing because she stops being a character after the point of no return and just becomes your mindless sidekick that follows you no matter what. Chaos hero is the most developed character in the game even if he is an asshole.
Speaking of sides the Law and Chaos sides feel, uneven? I hear the sentiment that smt1 portrayed the alignments the most equally and I just gotta lol at that cuz if anything Law is portrayed the worst in this game. Spoiler I guess but they're behind most of all the bad things that happen in the story. Chaos is portrayed as victims fighting back against law though they're not much better since rule of the strong is a shitty ideology no matter what. Neutral is obviously treated the best as you don't side with any extreme side, and you get unlimited access to demons as if you're law or chaos the opposite alignment demons wont join you, and as a result neutral is the one everyone wants.
Conclusion
Good game even if its age shows in its mediocre combat and mechanics. PSX best version even if the demon names are goofy compared to the other translations.
Gameplay
Ok first things first, the gameplay is kiiiiinda mid. Mid bordering on just being bad. You have like 3 moves, normal sword slash, rushing sword stab, or a circle attack. You can also block and shoot bullets but that's it. Granted you get different kinds of bullets to either stun or capitalize on weaknesses but that doesn't make it much more fun. Really boring and can be even frustrating because this game has random encounters, so you're forced into the same boring gameplay every few seconds. Had a friend drop the game because of this lol.
The other half of the gameplay is where the devil summoner part of the title comes in. You can recruit demons and summon them in battle, and while I don't really mind how they work in battle, the recruiting is really lame.
Instead of actually negotiating for their help like other megaten games this game uses a pokemon-like approach and just has you hit their weakness then mash circle button to capture them. Not that engaging but whatever at least it doesn't rely on rng bs like other negotiations in the series. The actual demon controlling though is kinda cool.
The ai is actually smart so if it knows a certain move won't be effective against an enemy it will try something else, or will prioritize healing when needed, and in case you absolutely need them to fill a specific role there are demon commands. Its essentially party tactics from Persona 3, with you being able to either tell a demon to use a specific move, tell them to focus on support and healing, to conserve MP, or just letting them do whatever they feel like doing. It makes you feel like you're an actual demon summoner working with his demon subordinates.
I like how they handled magnetite in this game. Before in the old games if you wanted a demon out you first needed to spend money to summon them and then every step with one of them in your active party some magnetite is wasted. If you ran out of it then every step your demons will take damage. Now in Raidou magnetite is expended just to summon a demon and thats it. Much more preferable. Especially because you'll need to be summoning demons out for investigations. Since you're a detective naturally you need to utilize them to find information for the cases, ranging from reading people's mind to forcing heavy objects that are in the way to move. I think this is a good way to combine detective work and demon summoning, even if it may seem basic.
Finally, we move onto fusion. Meh. Its okay. Theres either normal 2 demon fusion to give you another demon or sword fusion which you fuse it with a sword to gain extra affinities and strength. Its standard fusion you'd expect from the series, but with an extra restriction, demon loyalty. Demon loyalty accumulates each battle for the demon that you end the battle with until the loyalty meter is full, allowing you to fuse it. It's actually pretty annoying if you just want to use the demon as fusion fodder but need to grind the loyalty for it. You can increase it quickly with a few items but in general it's a very lackluster way to include such an interesting idea.
Story
Here's the actual good part of the game. I don't think it's deep or anything but it's a very cool story, especially if you're an SMT fan who's played SMT 1 and 2 (I suggest you go and play SMT 1 and 2 before this cuz you then you'd understand the connections implied in the game). You're simultaneously a detective and a devil summoner and I love the way the situation goes from relatively grounded to completely bonkers as you investigate. The cast of characters are funny and nice, though I think Kaya could've been more present, though maybe I'm just biased cuz I think she's cute. I also think they could've actually done something more in the situation for episode 9. Instead its just a fetch quest and then its over. Just sending you to some deep part of the dark world and doing the fetch quest there would've had the same plot significance.
Conclusion
Anyway a very mixed bag of a game, and you'll likely find it to be more of a bad bag if you actually play it, because of the very lackluster gameplay. I'd still recommend giving it a try just for the story, I really enjoyed it along with the feeling of being an actual demon summoner, but if you value gameplay highly... yeah just skip lol.
Actually I changed my mind, Pixie isn't in this game. 0/5 stars. >:(
Ok first things first, the gameplay is kiiiiinda mid. Mid bordering on just being bad. You have like 3 moves, normal sword slash, rushing sword stab, or a circle attack. You can also block and shoot bullets but that's it. Granted you get different kinds of bullets to either stun or capitalize on weaknesses but that doesn't make it much more fun. Really boring and can be even frustrating because this game has random encounters, so you're forced into the same boring gameplay every few seconds. Had a friend drop the game because of this lol.
The other half of the gameplay is where the devil summoner part of the title comes in. You can recruit demons and summon them in battle, and while I don't really mind how they work in battle, the recruiting is really lame.
Instead of actually negotiating for their help like other megaten games this game uses a pokemon-like approach and just has you hit their weakness then mash circle button to capture them. Not that engaging but whatever at least it doesn't rely on rng bs like other negotiations in the series. The actual demon controlling though is kinda cool.
The ai is actually smart so if it knows a certain move won't be effective against an enemy it will try something else, or will prioritize healing when needed, and in case you absolutely need them to fill a specific role there are demon commands. Its essentially party tactics from Persona 3, with you being able to either tell a demon to use a specific move, tell them to focus on support and healing, to conserve MP, or just letting them do whatever they feel like doing. It makes you feel like you're an actual demon summoner working with his demon subordinates.
I like how they handled magnetite in this game. Before in the old games if you wanted a demon out you first needed to spend money to summon them and then every step with one of them in your active party some magnetite is wasted. If you ran out of it then every step your demons will take damage. Now in Raidou magnetite is expended just to summon a demon and thats it. Much more preferable. Especially because you'll need to be summoning demons out for investigations. Since you're a detective naturally you need to utilize them to find information for the cases, ranging from reading people's mind to forcing heavy objects that are in the way to move. I think this is a good way to combine detective work and demon summoning, even if it may seem basic.
Finally, we move onto fusion. Meh. Its okay. Theres either normal 2 demon fusion to give you another demon or sword fusion which you fuse it with a sword to gain extra affinities and strength. Its standard fusion you'd expect from the series, but with an extra restriction, demon loyalty. Demon loyalty accumulates each battle for the demon that you end the battle with until the loyalty meter is full, allowing you to fuse it. It's actually pretty annoying if you just want to use the demon as fusion fodder but need to grind the loyalty for it. You can increase it quickly with a few items but in general it's a very lackluster way to include such an interesting idea.
Story
Here's the actual good part of the game. I don't think it's deep or anything but it's a very cool story, especially if you're an SMT fan who's played SMT 1 and 2 (I suggest you go and play SMT 1 and 2 before this cuz you then you'd understand the connections implied in the game). You're simultaneously a detective and a devil summoner and I love the way the situation goes from relatively grounded to completely bonkers as you investigate. The cast of characters are funny and nice, though I think Kaya could've been more present, though maybe I'm just biased cuz I think she's cute. I also think they could've actually done something more in the situation for episode 9. Instead its just a fetch quest and then its over. Just sending you to some deep part of the dark world and doing the fetch quest there would've had the same plot significance.
Conclusion
Anyway a very mixed bag of a game, and you'll likely find it to be more of a bad bag if you actually play it, because of the very lackluster gameplay. I'd still recommend giving it a try just for the story, I really enjoyed it along with the feeling of being an actual demon summoner, but if you value gameplay highly... yeah just skip lol.
Actually I changed my mind, Pixie isn't in this game. 0/5 stars. >:(
Story
School shooter sends school to the demon world and you go beat him up. Thats it. Thats the ""story"".
Gameplay
The gameplay consists of the classic SMT battle system but with tighter restrictions like guns costing ammo and allies in the bottom row not being able to attack with some skills including the normal attack, along with trudging through dungeons riddled with gimmicks like forcing you to walk back and forth through 8+ full moon cycles to progress the game or requiring you to work through teleport mazes, dark spaces, and holes all in one place. Oh and there's a mechanic that requires you to kill your characters to get a bit stronger. How fun 😑.
Conclusion
As you can tell my lack of enthusiasm and my rating, I think this game is utter garbage. The only reason I completed this game was to get it off my "Megaten games i haven't completed" list, but even now I kinda regret cuz frankly its a waste of time. There's absolutely 0 substance to anything in this game. There's no actual story or themes or characters to latch onto like there is in SMT1 and 2, only leaving you with the same gameplay but even worse with the changes they added, and lets be honest, you only really play classic SMT for the worlds/story, the gameplay is nowhere near satisfying enough to carry the games. Which is made worse since not only is the combat mediocre, the dungeon crawling is downright terrible.
As mentioned in the gameplay section you have to deal with garbage gimmicks the developers thought of when they were high, making for two of the worst dungeons (World of Sloth and World of Envy) the world has ever seen. The rest of them are either still annoying to progress through (like World of Greed, though the gimmick was actually pretty interesting. Doesn't make it any less annoying to navigate) or just forgettable and okay (the first dungeon that I don't even remember the name of). Maybe some of this could've been alleviated by having a centralized towns in some sort of hub area between the worlds, but of course they don't, the towns are smack down in the middle of the dungeons so you have to go half way through them just to get items, which on the way you can and probably will just die to some enemies, making you lose your guardian and getting you sent to all the way to the beginning of the dungeon.
I feel sorry for everyone who fell for the Persona 0 stuff. While yeah there's similarities like the presence of a school and guardians are basically prototype personas (which gives you just a stat boost and some spells for your partner which you need to die for. What a great mechanic 😒) the games are nothing alike. So what if the personality-less silent protagonist makes a cameo in Persona 1 and 2, it means nothing to the actual overall story.
So in conclusion, don't play SMT if... Unless you're a hardcore dungeon crawler fan (and even then I doubt you'd enjoy the gimmicks this game has in store for you) this has nothing of any value to offer to you, even if you're a Megaten fan, except being a waste of time.
School shooter sends school to the demon world and you go beat him up. Thats it. Thats the ""story"".
Gameplay
The gameplay consists of the classic SMT battle system but with tighter restrictions like guns costing ammo and allies in the bottom row not being able to attack with some skills including the normal attack, along with trudging through dungeons riddled with gimmicks like forcing you to walk back and forth through 8+ full moon cycles to progress the game or requiring you to work through teleport mazes, dark spaces, and holes all in one place. Oh and there's a mechanic that requires you to kill your characters to get a bit stronger. How fun 😑.
Conclusion
As you can tell my lack of enthusiasm and my rating, I think this game is utter garbage. The only reason I completed this game was to get it off my "Megaten games i haven't completed" list, but even now I kinda regret cuz frankly its a waste of time. There's absolutely 0 substance to anything in this game. There's no actual story or themes or characters to latch onto like there is in SMT1 and 2, only leaving you with the same gameplay but even worse with the changes they added, and lets be honest, you only really play classic SMT for the worlds/story, the gameplay is nowhere near satisfying enough to carry the games. Which is made worse since not only is the combat mediocre, the dungeon crawling is downright terrible.
As mentioned in the gameplay section you have to deal with garbage gimmicks the developers thought of when they were high, making for two of the worst dungeons (World of Sloth and World of Envy) the world has ever seen. The rest of them are either still annoying to progress through (like World of Greed, though the gimmick was actually pretty interesting. Doesn't make it any less annoying to navigate) or just forgettable and okay (the first dungeon that I don't even remember the name of). Maybe some of this could've been alleviated by having a centralized towns in some sort of hub area between the worlds, but of course they don't, the towns are smack down in the middle of the dungeons so you have to go half way through them just to get items, which on the way you can and probably will just die to some enemies, making you lose your guardian and getting you sent to all the way to the beginning of the dungeon.
I feel sorry for everyone who fell for the Persona 0 stuff. While yeah there's similarities like the presence of a school and guardians are basically prototype personas (which gives you just a stat boost and some spells for your partner which you need to die for. What a great mechanic 😒) the games are nothing alike. So what if the personality-less silent protagonist makes a cameo in Persona 1 and 2, it means nothing to the actual overall story.
So in conclusion, don't play SMT if... Unless you're a hardcore dungeon crawler fan (and even then I doubt you'd enjoy the gimmicks this game has in store for you) this has nothing of any value to offer to you, even if you're a Megaten fan, except being a waste of time.
Basically the whole reason DDS1 exists. I say that because if you compare the two DDS1 is essentially just an introduction for the main characters while DDS2 holds the actual meat of the story. Before I get more into the story though imma talk about gameplay real quick.
Gameplay
Basically the same as DDS1, with a few additions. For one they added berserk mode, which is a pretty meh inclusion. It makes battles very "high risk high reward", but the increased exp you get from it isn't really worth the coin flip of getting a game over, especially if you haven't saved in a while. At least it gives you 100% retreat chance even on hard mode. The other thing they added was good though, that being karma rings, which include passive effects and stat boosts, giving you an extra advantage in battle.
You can use some items to enhance stats you get from the ring but tbh, I only ever ended up using them like once, I sold the rest for money since Mantras are still expensive. Speaking of mantras, the mantra grid here is so much better. Instead of needing to move across a static line from mantra to mantra, here its much more open and just allows you to skip some mantras that'll be useless on the respective character in favor of getting straight to the good stuff, provided you have the money for it + mastered one of the mantras around it.
Not necessarily an addition to gameplay, but affecting it, is characters leaving the party for some sections of the game. Personally I never had a problem with this, as I was constantly making use of all of my party members so when one left I was relatively okay. In fact I kinda like this, as their departure leaves an impact on not only the story but the gameplay, but at the same time it happens very frequently so if you're building your party a certain way and a member with important skills or high level leaves that can fuck you over for sure. Just build Serph around magic, Gale around Phys/buffs, Cielo around Healing/Buffs, Argilla around Healing/Magic, and Roland around Magic/Phys, while keeping them appropriately leveled (Or just use Serph, Gale, and Cielo exclusively, but that's kinda boring) and you should be fine.
Oh and one last thing, aside from 2 dungeons, the dungeon design sucks. If you've seen any screenshot that's not combat you'll see Serph just walking around boring ass office buildings or laboratories or other mundane buildings you see in everyday life. Like they don't look interesting at all, though I didn't mind them mechanically.
Story
Picking up where I left off, DDS1 feels more like an intro for DDS2's story rather than its own big chunk of story. It introduces the characters and a mystery that needs to be solved, which DDS2 quickly solves and then shows you the REAL conflict. You get important lore revelations, far more characters are present and relevant, not to mention pretty deep, and the story actually feels like you're doing something different as you progress cough unlike DDS1 cough cough. I really don't wanna spoil anything here but I really love what they did with Heat and Serph, it completely changes your perceptions of them. I'm not doing it enough justice here, you should just play it yourself and find out how good it is... though its not without negatives.
For one the pacing is kinda weird. Like its kinda hard to believe the whole game takes place in the amount of time it takes, since so much happens. In particular with how and why party members leave and come back so fast with barely any breaks between them, it kinda lessens the impact of their departures and returns, especially when you reach the final dungeon. I still stand by the idea that this could be solved if ATLUS did a few cuts and edits while combining both games so it feels like a more tight experience, but I don't think it detracts too much from the story. Also, I recommend you play Shin Megami Tensei II before you play this. Its not required in any way to understand the story but there's a LOT of parallels and references to it in this game for some reason.
Conclusion
So yeah, DDS2 is basically DDS1 but better in every way. Better story, better gameplay, only thing it has against it is dungeons look bad, but I find that pretty forgivable since everything else is so good. Oh and I forgot to put this in the gameplay section, but choose hard mode when starting a new game. I think its one of the most balanced megaten hard modes of all time. Granted you need to have completed DDS1 and import the save data from there to unlock it on a fresh playthrough (otherwise you need to have already beaten DDS2 once to unlock it, which is a really weird choice) but you should already have that, since why would you play DDS2 without playing 1? lol
Gameplay
Basically the same as DDS1, with a few additions. For one they added berserk mode, which is a pretty meh inclusion. It makes battles very "high risk high reward", but the increased exp you get from it isn't really worth the coin flip of getting a game over, especially if you haven't saved in a while. At least it gives you 100% retreat chance even on hard mode. The other thing they added was good though, that being karma rings, which include passive effects and stat boosts, giving you an extra advantage in battle.
You can use some items to enhance stats you get from the ring but tbh, I only ever ended up using them like once, I sold the rest for money since Mantras are still expensive. Speaking of mantras, the mantra grid here is so much better. Instead of needing to move across a static line from mantra to mantra, here its much more open and just allows you to skip some mantras that'll be useless on the respective character in favor of getting straight to the good stuff, provided you have the money for it + mastered one of the mantras around it.
Not necessarily an addition to gameplay, but affecting it, is characters leaving the party for some sections of the game. Personally I never had a problem with this, as I was constantly making use of all of my party members so when one left I was relatively okay. In fact I kinda like this, as their departure leaves an impact on not only the story but the gameplay, but at the same time it happens very frequently so if you're building your party a certain way and a member with important skills or high level leaves that can fuck you over for sure. Just build Serph around magic, Gale around Phys/buffs, Cielo around Healing/Buffs, Argilla around Healing/Magic, and Roland around Magic/Phys, while keeping them appropriately leveled (Or just use Serph, Gale, and Cielo exclusively, but that's kinda boring) and you should be fine.
Oh and one last thing, aside from 2 dungeons, the dungeon design sucks. If you've seen any screenshot that's not combat you'll see Serph just walking around boring ass office buildings or laboratories or other mundane buildings you see in everyday life. Like they don't look interesting at all, though I didn't mind them mechanically.
Story
Picking up where I left off, DDS1 feels more like an intro for DDS2's story rather than its own big chunk of story. It introduces the characters and a mystery that needs to be solved, which DDS2 quickly solves and then shows you the REAL conflict. You get important lore revelations, far more characters are present and relevant, not to mention pretty deep, and the story actually feels like you're doing something different as you progress cough unlike DDS1 cough cough. I really don't wanna spoil anything here but I really love what they did with Heat and Serph, it completely changes your perceptions of them. I'm not doing it enough justice here, you should just play it yourself and find out how good it is... though its not without negatives.
For one the pacing is kinda weird. Like its kinda hard to believe the whole game takes place in the amount of time it takes, since so much happens. In particular with how and why party members leave and come back so fast with barely any breaks between them, it kinda lessens the impact of their departures and returns, especially when you reach the final dungeon. I still stand by the idea that this could be solved if ATLUS did a few cuts and edits while combining both games so it feels like a more tight experience, but I don't think it detracts too much from the story. Also, I recommend you play Shin Megami Tensei II before you play this. Its not required in any way to understand the story but there's a LOT of parallels and references to it in this game for some reason.
Conclusion
So yeah, DDS2 is basically DDS1 but better in every way. Better story, better gameplay, only thing it has against it is dungeons look bad, but I find that pretty forgivable since everything else is so good. Oh and I forgot to put this in the gameplay section, but choose hard mode when starting a new game. I think its one of the most balanced megaten hard modes of all time. Granted you need to have completed DDS1 and import the save data from there to unlock it on a fresh playthrough (otherwise you need to have already beaten DDS2 once to unlock it, which is a really weird choice) but you should already have that, since why would you play DDS2 without playing 1? lol
Story
The DDS duology as a whole I think is really great, but after you've played both of them you realize a problem in how they're structured, especially in DDS 1's case. Both of the games are supposed to be 2 parts of the same whole, the exact same story carried between them, but they split them up unevenly. DDS1 is like 10% of the whole story of DDS, with DDS2 having the other 90%, and as a result it doesnt feel like much happens at all, not to mention the story feels repetitive as every dungeon the characters go in with the intention of just killing the boss then leaving to repeat that until the end. That being said I did really enjoy the characters and their interactions (though I think Heat and Sera should've had some more interaction after THAT scene) along with the setting and premise of the game, its just a shame that it takes a whole other game for them to be expanded on.
Gameplay
DDS uses the normal press turn that mainline SMT games have been using since SMT Nocturne, with a few twists to make it more challenging, like reducing your active party member slots to 3 characters while having 5 characters in total you can use, so you can switch in characters that are on the bench if you feel like they're better suited for the battle than a character you currently have active. Another fun addition is combo skills, allowing you to mix and match different skills and increase your skill coverage. Now here comes the premise of the game, devouring your enemies for more skills. DDS uses the mantra system which is basically just you buying skill packs for characters.
Each mantra has a meter for AP (Atma Points) which fills up a little each time you finish a battle or devour an enemy with a hunt skill, and when full you unlock the skills in the mantra that you can equip and unequip any time you want. This system has its pros and cons, on one hand this allows for massive customization for the characters allowing them to fit mostly every role provided their stats are good for it, but on the other if you dont plan out characters the right way you can end up going out of your way to grind for mantras, which is never preferrable.
Also I think the way hunt skills were implemented was a mistep. Every character starts out with a basic hunt skill, but unless you keep giving them hunt mantras you're never getting more for them. I think its kinda weird that the game about eating your enemies has the eating mechanic be kinda optional, especially when it gives more AP for mantra than the amount you get after battle without using it. Think it would've been better if as the game progressed the characters updated the power of a devour skill thats permanently on them, not a skill that needs to be bought and grinded for only for you to switch out for better skills.
Conclusion
So given all I said I think the game's good if not severely flawed as a result of how ATLUS split up the games story. It probably deserves only 3 or 3.5 stars but I personally enjoyed it too much to give it anything less than a 4 stars. DDS2 better tho.
The DDS duology as a whole I think is really great, but after you've played both of them you realize a problem in how they're structured, especially in DDS 1's case. Both of the games are supposed to be 2 parts of the same whole, the exact same story carried between them, but they split them up unevenly. DDS1 is like 10% of the whole story of DDS, with DDS2 having the other 90%, and as a result it doesnt feel like much happens at all, not to mention the story feels repetitive as every dungeon the characters go in with the intention of just killing the boss then leaving to repeat that until the end. That being said I did really enjoy the characters and their interactions (though I think Heat and Sera should've had some more interaction after THAT scene) along with the setting and premise of the game, its just a shame that it takes a whole other game for them to be expanded on.
Gameplay
DDS uses the normal press turn that mainline SMT games have been using since SMT Nocturne, with a few twists to make it more challenging, like reducing your active party member slots to 3 characters while having 5 characters in total you can use, so you can switch in characters that are on the bench if you feel like they're better suited for the battle than a character you currently have active. Another fun addition is combo skills, allowing you to mix and match different skills and increase your skill coverage. Now here comes the premise of the game, devouring your enemies for more skills. DDS uses the mantra system which is basically just you buying skill packs for characters.
Each mantra has a meter for AP (Atma Points) which fills up a little each time you finish a battle or devour an enemy with a hunt skill, and when full you unlock the skills in the mantra that you can equip and unequip any time you want. This system has its pros and cons, on one hand this allows for massive customization for the characters allowing them to fit mostly every role provided their stats are good for it, but on the other if you dont plan out characters the right way you can end up going out of your way to grind for mantras, which is never preferrable.
Also I think the way hunt skills were implemented was a mistep. Every character starts out with a basic hunt skill, but unless you keep giving them hunt mantras you're never getting more for them. I think its kinda weird that the game about eating your enemies has the eating mechanic be kinda optional, especially when it gives more AP for mantra than the amount you get after battle without using it. Think it would've been better if as the game progressed the characters updated the power of a devour skill thats permanently on them, not a skill that needs to be bought and grinded for only for you to switch out for better skills.
Conclusion
So given all I said I think the game's good if not severely flawed as a result of how ATLUS split up the games story. It probably deserves only 3 or 3.5 stars but I personally enjoyed it too much to give it anything less than a 4 stars. DDS2 better tho.
Great gameplay, atmosphere, artstyle, and interesting themes. The story is kinda mid tho. Same with the characters. Most will say its because of Le Minimalism, but eh, I don't think so. You can have good and developed story and characters while being minimalistic, and I just don't think Nocturne does it that good. To me minimalism is supposed to show more than tell, and nocturne tells way more than it shows. However if you don't really care about that and just want to be immersed in atmosphere, addicting gameplay, and fasinating ideology, this is the game for you.
It has Uber Pixie and Dante too so that's a huge plus.
It has Uber Pixie and Dante too so that's a huge plus.