Shin Megami Tensei Nocture Game Design

"Will I like Shin Megami Tensei if I like Persona?" - A beginners guide to Shin Megami Tensei and if you might like SMTV!

Thread starter HylianSeven
Start date Oct 31, 2021

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#101

I'm probably the only person that wants a re-release of SMTII.

Nah I was ready to buy SMTII and If on my phone but Atlus said no and then also took away the SMTI release.

#102

great OP!

yeah, IV or nocturne hd would be the best starting places imo. from my memory IV is maybe the slightly better starting place (though it's been 8? years? jfc lol) in terms of easing you into the game and its systems, and having simpler dungeons.

but the QoL bits added in nocturne hd are great and it also serves as a great starting point. you may get lost a little more in dungeons than in IV but that's not necessarily a bad thing if you're up for it.

#103

HylianSeven thanks for the incredible effort in the OP, you convinced me and others to preorder SMTV!

What pushed it over the top for me is the amazing art. The MC too, blue hair with excellent demon art in the apocalypse style environments, so good!

#104

HylianSeven thanks for the incredible effort in the OP, you convinced me and others to preorder SMTV!
What pushed it over the top for me is the amazing art. The MC too, blue hair with excellent demon art in the apocalypse style environments, so good!

Thank you! Glad to hear it, I hope this convinces more people on this game and it won't end up flying under most people's radars.

#105

The remaster is great because Nocturne is great but it did add some significant QoL improvements and some pretty good voice acting.
The opening is in 4:3 and looks like a VHS recording but other than that the game still looks really good due to it's art direction.

Play Nocturne! It's awesome.

Thank you, I will.

Also, should I pick up SMT IV and Apocalypse for $80 together?

#106

Thank you, I will.
Also, should I pick up SMT IV and Apocalypse for $80 together?

Is that a bundle or something? It doesn't sound like a sale. I'm gonna go with 'nope'.

This is just me but IV and Apoc I don't find very interesting at all.

Meanwhile Nocturne is easily in the conversation of 'best jrpgs ever', so I'd just try that for now. And/or V which is like 10 days away.

#107

Thank you, I will.
Also, should I pick up SMT IV and Apocalypse for $80 together?

I find 4 to be a lot more interesting and fun than 3. Personally I found nocturne to be dated and the world a bore.

#108

I haven't kept up much with V news, any clue on if you-know-who will be in game or be the final boss again?

By you-know-who I mean...

#109

I've been meaning to play a SMT game but the only one I've tried was the SNES one and I loved how it looked, the art direction was dark and somber and felt so good.

SMT5 feels like they just showered the game with the Persona art direction and it doesn't feel any different despite the different settings.

#110

I've been meaning to play a SMT game but the only one I've tried was the SNES one and I loved how it looked, the art direction was dark and somber and felt so good.
SMT5 feels like they just showered the game with the Persona art direction and it doesn't feel any different despite the different settings.

I'd have to disagree with that second line pretty heartily, but maybe look into Nocturne or SMTIV? Nocturne has a more minimalist, somber look, whereas IV used the limitations of the 3DS to deliberately ape the style of SMT and SMTII.

#111

I'd have to disagree with that second line pretty heartily, but maybe look into Nocturne or SMTIV? Nocturne has a more minimalist, somber look, whereas IV used the limitations of the 3DS to deliberately ape the style of SMT and SMTII.

Nocturne I definitely did not like, IV I believe it does look like it. I definitely need to pick up a 3DS at some point.

I was mostly referring to V because I was interested in the most recent one. I'm aware it might be an awesome game, it's just that the art direction annoys me.

#112

HylianSeven Thank you so much for this post. I was a bit frustrated in the preview thread because so many people were coming down hard on the Kotaku article (which is justified) but not really countering besides saying that the article was crap. As someone who has only played the Persona games and especially came to love them with 3, 4, and 5, I was hoping that someone would really lay out the differences in a way that compared the experiences of playing a Persona vs playing an SMT game.

Your post convinced me to pre-order the game much more than any article, screen capture, or video has so far. I really hope SMT captures me like Persona did when I grabbed P4G on a whim because it was the only Vita game on sale when I went to Gamestop. Multiple hundreds of hours later, Persona is easily among my favorite game series. I'm super psyched to jump into the SMT world after reading your post!

#113

Thank you very much for the thread OP! I was wondering that

Sadly, you confirmed I would definitely not like SMT lol

#114

Great OP, thanks for the effort. I'm planning to make this my next shot at an SMT/Persona game after trying Persona 3 FES and SMTIV and bouncing off. Everything I've heard makes it sound like it should be as beginner-friendly as these series get.

#115

Thanks for the informative write up OP! As someone who beat Nocturne this year Ive been itching for more. I need to get around to buying those PS3 cables finally and checking out Digital Devil Saga. Are those turn based as well?

From all the videos I watched on SMTIV none of what is offered in IV has ever sounded appealing to me from its characters/story and the atrocious world map apparently. But that little write up of Apocalypse has caught my interest. Would it be wise to jump straight to IV Apocalypse and just skip IV?

If anyone can offer some insight on these questions Id be very appreciative. And im so very excited for 5 and will absolutely play that before jumping into another game regardless ^^

#116

Thanks for the informative write up OP! As someone who beat Nocturne this year Ive been itching for more. I need to get around to buying those PS3 cables finally and checking out Digital Devil Saga. Are those turn based as well?
From all the videos I watched on SMTIV none of what is offered in IV has ever sounded appealing to me from its characters/story and the atrocious world map apparently. But that little write up of Apocalypse has caught my interest. Would it be wise to jump straight to IV Apocalypse and just skip IV?

If anyone can offer some insight on these questions Id be very appreciative. And im so very excited for 5 and will absolutely play that before jumping into another game regardless ^^

DDS actually has the same combat as Nocturne! They run on the same engine. You don't recruit or fuse demons, instead you have five characters that you can use three of at once, they all transform into a demon form and you use a system called the Mantra system to learn different skills for them. It's neat how Nocturne and the DDS games can have so much in common and yet feel so distinct. Also, in Digital Devil Saga 1, there's the secret superboss: Demi-Fiend, the protagonist from Nocturne, is a superboss and often considered one of the hardest if not THE hardest boss of all the SMT and Persona games.

#117

HylianSeven Thank you so much for this post. I was a bit frustrated in the preview thread because so many people were coming down hard on the Kotaku article (which is justified) but not really countering besides saying that the article was crap. As someone who has only played the Persona games and especially came to love them with 3, 4, and 5, I was hoping that someone would really lay out the differences in a way that compared the experiences of playing a Persona vs playing an SMT game.
Your post convinced me to pre-order the game much more than any article, screen capture, or video has so far. I really hope SMT captures me like Persona did when I grabbed P4G on a whim because it was the only Vita game on sale when I went to Gamestop. Multiple hundreds of hours later, Persona is easily among my favorite game series. I'm super psyched to jump into the SMT world after reading your post!

I can understand that frustration, and I think many people were blurring the line of their frustration over that article. The issue there was just calling it a "stripped down P5R". Before they actually said that, I felt the article was perfectly fine and justified, but throwing that in really threw off the whole thing. I think a lot of the complaints over the article just came from vitriol over mentioning Persona in the same breath as SMT.

I'm glad I was able to convince you on the game, I hope you enjoy it on the 12th!

#118

I haven't kept up much with V news, any clue on if you-know-who will be in game or be the final boss again?
By you-know-who I mean...

Hard to say really. I personally doubt it, particularly because in one of the trailers they said "The god you know is dead" and they haven't really alluded to him at all.

#119

If people really like SMT V or even Nocturne HD should play DDS, literally the best thing Atlus has ever done

#120

I haven't kept up much with V news, any clue on if you-know-who will be in game or be the final boss again?
By you-know-who I mean...

He's also kind of the vanilla final boss of III.

But yeah, I'm hoping we can get away from the giant head this time around.

#121

If people really like SMT V or even Nocturne HD should play DDS, literally the best thing Atlus has ever done

I said it in the OP, but I can't think of a single time I have ever heard of someone playing Digital Devil Saga and not enjoying it. I've heard people say that for Nocturne, but never DDS!

#123

If people really like SMT V or even Nocturne HD should play DDS, literally the best thing Atlus has ever done

Yeah, basically. Almost everything about DDS is phenomenal.

#124

Yeah, basically. Almost everything about DDS is phenomenal.

The encounter rate will be super off-putting if it releases as is. There are definitely some tweaks to the overall rate and the ease/availability of Estoma Sprays.

#125

Thanks for the informative write up OP! As someone who beat Nocturne this year Ive been itching for more. I need to get around to buying those PS3 cables finally and checking out Digital Devil Saga. Are those turn based as well?
From all the videos I watched on SMTIV none of what is offered in IV has ever sounded appealing to me from its characters/story and the atrocious world map apparently. But that little write up of Apocalypse has caught my interest. Would it be wise to jump straight to IV Apocalypse and just skip IV?

If anyone can offer some insight on these questions Id be very appreciative. And im so very excited for 5 and will absolutely play that before jumping into another game regardless ^^

I don't remember IV's world map being any worse than Nocturne's. They both use the pointer to travel and don't give much direction, so they're annoying to new players, but something you'd already be used to.

#126

I don't remember IV's world map being any worse than Nocturne's. They both use the pointer to travel and don't give much direction, so they're annoying to new players, but something you'd already be used to.

IV's was particularly cramped and had enemies in it that were basically impossible to avoid. It was hard to tell what roads you could actually walk on and which ones you couldn't. Apocalypse addressed most if not all of the world map issues. Nocturne's map was pretty open and you could clearly tell where you could and couldn't go.

That music though on IV's map though...

#127

IV's was particularly cramped and had enemies in it that were basically impossible to avoid. It was hard to tell what roads you could actually walk on and which ones you couldn't. Apocalypse addressed most if not all of the world map issues. Nocturne's map was pretty open and you could clearly tell where you could and couldn't go.
That music though on IV's map though...

On the other hand, we couldn't see much past the zone we were in in Nocturne and the only clue we had to how to get from one to another was a pointless globe in the corner of the screen.

IV had its navigation issues, I'm not denying that, but I don't think it was so much worse than Nocturne.

#128

gimme that dark, demon, devil shit

#129

I'd add a bit about Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE into the OP - it feels like a bridge between Persona & SMT in that it has a heavy emphasis on dungeon crawling like the SMT games, but it still has some sidequest content with party members a la Persona. Also, unlike many of the other games listed in the OP, it's easy to find these days since it's on the Switch (don't play the Wii U version - the load times are a pain).

Yeah TMS doesn't get enough respect for how much of a middle ground it bridges between Persona and SMT. People say what they will about the writing, characters, and censorship, but God damn does that battle system still hold up till this day. Dungeon exploration is pretty engaging as far as I'm concerned. Side quests are rewarding. Sooooo gewd.

#130

Yeah, basically. Almost everything about DDS is phenomenal.

I'm looking forward to playing this after I beat Devil Survivor. Loved Nocture and this looks to be in the same engine. One thing I'm curious about is it looks like there's no fusing, so your party remains somewhat static. Does the skill tree do enough to keep things fresh?

#131

I'm looking forward to playing this after I beat Devil Survivor. Loved Nocture and this looks to be in the same engine. One thing I'm curious about is it looks like there's no fusing, so your party remains somewhat static. Does the skill tree do enough to keep things fresh?

Yes, and there are like five or six party members you can switch out. Anyone can learn basically anything, though obviously you want to aim for some amount of specialization. The duology itself also loves to force you to change your party all the time (so don't make a party with only one person with healing skills lol).

#132

I'm looking forward to playing this after I beat Devil Survivor. Loved Nocture and this looks to be in the same engine. One thing I'm curious about is it looks like there's no fusing, so your party remains somewhat static. Does the skill tree do enough to keep things fresh?

There's a system that's like a skill tree called the Mantra system. Basically when you go the terminals you save the game at, you can access the Mantra system. You pay money to start a Mantra for each character, and these Mantras include a handful of skills. In battle, you earn Karma Points (experience points basically) and Atma Points. The latter are what makes progress on your Mantras. You can use a special skill called Hunt skills to devour enemies and that nets you a lot more Atma Points. Once you master a Mantra, you are free to swap out any skills that character has learned into their available slots at any time. You do NOT have to have all skills from the same Mantra, mastering the Mantras just gives you those skills in your library. It's generally suggested to invest in the Mantras of the element that character is weak to, because eventually you'll get resistance passive skills that cancel out that character's weakness.

DDS1's Mantra system is more like a skill tree, DDS2's took a more interesting approach where it's a hex grid, and you don't have to always take the same path across Mantras to get to ones you want. There's a mechanic of unlocking the "hidden" Mantras, by mastering the Mantras surrounding the "hidden" hex, but these can be across multiple characters.

In short, there's ways to customize your party in the game. One thing DDS does differently than Nocturne is Void, Repel, and Drain skills. Instead of Tetrakarn/Makarakarn, you have these skills that affect one particular element for one turn. It's usually pretty useful and essential against bosses.

#133

Thanks! Sounds like another awesome entry to the series

#134

Man I hope we get Strange Journey, IV, and Apocalypse Switch ports. The talk of the difficulty made me too scared to try SJ and I sold my 3DS by the time Apocalypse came out.

#135

I guess my question is whether I'll like SMTV if I didn't really like Persona but I love the Etrian Odyssey series.

Hard to explain why but I found dungeon crawling in P5 to be a bit tedious and exhausting, while dungeon crawling in Etrian Odyssey is really fun and kind of chill actually.

I think a part of it is I thought P5's battle system was too simple. If you didn't know an enemy's weakness you would just try random attacks until you found it. If you did know their weakness you could usually just chain knock downs, then all out attack and win immediately. Didn't seem like there was much thought required from the player beyond that.

#136

I guess my question is whether I'll like SMTV if I didn't really like Persona but I love the Etrian Odyssey series.
Hard to explain why but I found dungeon crawling in P5 to be a bit tedious and exhausting, while dungeon crawling in Etrian Odyssey is really fun and kind of chill actually.

I think a part of it is I thought P5's battle system was too simple. If you didn't know an enemy's weakness you would just try random attacks until you found it. If you did know their weakness you could usually just chain knock downs, then all out attack and win immediately. Didn't seem like there was much thought required from the player beyond that.

If it helps the director of Etrian Odyssey is the lead director for SMT V. Also it's been said but people acknowledge that SMT has better dungeons than Persona.

Plus the battle system is a lot more complex imo.

#137

I guess my question is whether I'll like SMTV if I didn't really like Persona but I love the Etrian Odyssey series.
Hard to explain why but I found dungeon crawling in P5 to be a bit tedious and exhausting, while dungeon crawling in Etrian Odyssey is really fun and kind of chill actually.

I think a part of it is I thought P5's battle system was too simple. If you didn't know an enemy's weakness you would just try random attacks until you found it. If you did know their weakness you could usually just chain knock downs, then all out attack and win immediately. Didn't seem like there was much thought required from the player beyond that.

I have zero experience with EO outside of playing Persona Q2, which is kind of both an EO game and Persona game.

I think you'll like SMT. It does seem at least near the start of the game, there's more focus on exploring the world, which can kind of be considered a dungeon. Combat is tougher where one mistake can turn the whole thing. Press Turn is less forgiving than the "1 more". You have a number of turns equal to members of your party, if you hit a weakness or get a critical hit, you only use half a turn (makes icon flash). If you choose to pass to the next member, that also only uses half a turn. You want to try to be efficient. Enemies can use this too, also if you strike a nullification, drain, or repel, you use two WHOLE turns off of it. Same thing goes for the enemy. You'll find some battles where the best defense (even just one demon that blocks the thing the enemy uses) is the best offense.

From what we have seen of V so far, there's things like vending machines, and finding the Miman in the world which give you special things, as well as finding treasure in general.

#138

I guess my question is whether I'll like SMTV if I didn't really like Persona but I love the Etrian Odyssey series.
Hard to explain why but I found dungeon crawling in P5 to be a bit tedious and exhausting, while dungeon crawling in Etrian Odyssey is really fun and kind of chill actually.

I think a part of it is I thought P5's battle system was too simple. If you didn't know an enemy's weakness you would just try random attacks until you found it. If you did know their weakness you could usually just chain knock downs, then all out attack and win immediately. Didn't seem like there was much thought required from the player beyond that.

You might want to look into Strange Journey or the Persona Q games, both of which combine their series with the Etrian Odyssey trappings. PQ more directly; Strange Journey more a mid-ground that doesn't work exactly like EO, but still has a ton of clear influence.

#139

I was mostly referring to V because I was interested in the most recent one. I'm aware it might be an awesome game, it's just that the art direction annoys me.

Do you mind me asking what it is about the art you don't like so far?

#140

I guess my question is whether I'll like SMTV if I didn't really like Persona but I love the Etrian Odyssey series.
Hard to explain why but I found dungeon crawling in P5 to be a bit tedious and exhausting, while dungeon crawling in Etrian Odyssey is really fun and kind of chill actually.

I think a part of it is I thought P5's battle system was too simple. If you didn't know an enemy's weakness you would just try random attacks until you found it. If you did know their weakness you could usually just chain knock downs, then all out attack and win immediately. Didn't seem like there was much thought required from the player beyond that.

It's possible, but hard to say before we get the game ourselves.

SMT has more of a focus on the dungeon crawling, and less on the story, so that will be familiar.

Combat is very similar to Persona's One More, you'll still run into that thing of trying to find weaknesses to overpower enemies before they can attack, the big differenceis that we gain turns the whole team uses for hitting weak points instead of the knockdown. Party building is different though since the party members are the demons and are more customizable. But it's not going to be like EO where we build up a team with characters filling in roles, instead we constantly cycle out demons as needed and their strength eventually falls off.

So you may enjoy the party building more even if it doesn't have the depth of EO's, along with a less intrusive story. If you enjoyed the persona fusion then you might enjoy SMT more since that has a much bigger impact on your team.

#142

This is an evergreen recommendation. Devil Survivor Overclocked made me an SMT devotee.

#143

This is an evergreen recommendation. Devil Survivor Overclocked made me an SMT devotee.

Haven't checked the extra 3DS content , let's see if I can squeeze a new playthrough before SMTV!

#144

I guess my question is whether I'll like SMTV if I didn't really like Persona but I love the Etrian Odyssey series.
Hard to explain why but I found dungeon crawling in P5 to be a bit tedious and exhausting, while dungeon crawling in Etrian Odyssey is really fun and kind of chill actually.

I think a part of it is I thought P5's battle system was too simple. If you didn't know an enemy's weakness you would just try random attacks until you found it. If you did know their weakness you could usually just chain knock downs, then all out attack and win immediately. Didn't seem like there was much thought required from the player beyond that.

I think you'd probably like SMT then. Maybe SMT V's dungeons will be different, but at least in the case of previous SMTs I'd say their dungeon crawling definitely has a more Etrian Odyssey feel to it.

In Persona, the social link/time management stuff feeds into and informs the design of the dungeon crawling side of things and is why it might feel tedious for you. I don't think you can simply imagine "Persona but stuck in dungeons 100% of the time" and have a good idea of whether you'd like SMT, I think it's more enjoyable than that makes it sound.

#145

Yes. The 3DS port epilogues are great challenges. Also, if anyone plays it go for the Demon Ending, amazing ending

#146

Also, I want to mention that SMT feels more like a classic Jrpg than Persona imo. Why I say that well it's because Persona incorporates a ton of micromanaging with social links and the calendar system. In that aspect, Persona feels like a visual novel dating sim more than a classic Jrpg.
SMT has npcs, settlements, traditional story progression, and etc just like other Jrpgs. The only oddball is Nocturne, but that game was always the experimental title in the franchise with it's abstract storytelling and minimal nature.

This is good to hear. When I tried SMT3 back in the PS2 day I wasn't really fan of how the storytelling seems not really traditional JRPG and story seems very vague which made me quit the game early on. I was wondering if all SMT was like that but if SMTV does have more traditional JRPG sense of story telling and progression I might be more interested.

#147

Yeah, basically. Almost everything about DDS is phenomenal.

Eh, there's way too much padding and random encounters. It burned me out faster than any other JRPG I've played, and I've played a lot of JRPG.

#148

Eh, there's way too much padding and random encounters. It burned me out faster than any other JRPG I've played, and I've played a lot of JRPG.

Yeah the one big flaw in DDS is that the encounter rate is really high. If it ever gets remastered, it would be nice if they turned it down just a little bit.

(They won't).

#149

hmm as someone who doesn't like persona perhaps i should try SMT and/or the first 2 personas

#150

Do you mind me asking what it is about the art you don't like so far?

It's extraordinarely and aggressively trendy. Like, characters are drawn with strong lines and are incredibly fashionables.

Let me put images to words:
This is Shin Megami Tensei

This is dark, sober and suitably horror like.

This is Persona 5:

This is incredibly chaotic, an agressive art direction and UI that seems to try very hard to invoke massive dynamism (sp?). This is fine, this isn't bad at all, it's actually really cool and well designed, but I very much prefer the darker, more subdued designs of SMT. For the record, this was also considering SMT 4:

While still looking for dynamism, it's not as overwhelmingly so. I know Persona games are rather more lighthearted than the SMT games, so I guess the art direction is completely fine for it, but now let's seem SMT 5:

While more subdued than P5, it's still rather chaotic, with so much info, poses and the design of the characters feels much less horror and more fantasy than sci-fi.

As a side note, the art for Persona 2 still calls to me so much:

It's still very stiylized and focused in very attractive and somewhat zany character designs, but it's incredibly evocative of the name. Can't say much more as I haven't played it, but i'd rather have seen the games stick to this rather than the more juvenile actual designs.

As I said: I don't consider any of these designs to be bad. It's just not my preferrence.