Patient Gamers

11396 readers

269 users here now

A gaming community free from the hype and oversaturation of current releases, catering to gamers who wait at least 12 months after release to play a game. Whether it's price, waiting for bugs/issues to be patched, DLC to be released, don't meet the system requirements, or just haven't had the time to keep up with the latest releases.

^(placeholder)^

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

cod@lemmy.world

briongloid@aussie.zone

BurntWits@sh.itjust.works

Question: Megami Tensei - Where to start? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 5 months ago by M500@lemmy.ml to c/patientgamers@sh.itjust.works

16 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've been passingly interested in the Megami Tensei series for a while.

I've been a little intimidated by the number of games that may or may not have been translated and all the ports.

I was hoping someone could give me a rundown of the series and where to start, if I should play with fan translations, or whatever else I should know.

I grew up with the nes and snes, so I'm OK with older RPGs and their nuances.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] shikitohno@lemm.ee 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The mainline SMT games all take place in post-apocalyptic Japan

Almost all, except for the oddball that is Strange Journey, taking place in post-apocalyptic Antarctica, instead. It has a lot of elements that differ from other Mainline entries, but Atlus treated it as such and acknowledged it with the recent Mainline 25th anniversary celebrations. I really enjoyed it and think it's worth a playthrough, but it may not be the best starting point. I also don't know how the remake holds up, I've read complaints about changes online, but SMT fans can be a bit touchy about their favorite games.

SMT 4 is… odd. It starts out looking like a much more generic fantasy setting, but it most assuredly is not. It’s good, but it also very clearly is straining against the limits of the system it’s on. SMT 4 Apocalypse is also extremely good, and I would suggest playing SMT 4 just to play SMT 4 Apocalypse. I won’t say too much about SMT 5 except to note that it’s also good and I recommend it strongly.

I'll disagree on this one and just add that not everyone who enjoyed 4 found Apocalypse to be that good. From what I saw, people that really just love the battle system and doing things like building out the perfect team for tackling boss rushes and insanely challenging super bosses really enjoyed it. If you go in expecting more of SMT IV's world and story, you may well be disappointed by it. I found the characters to be unlikeable, personally, and it seemed like an unnecessary rehashing of the story. I also recall some unavoidable boss rushes in the main story that made certain areas really grindy and killed my enjoyment for a good while.

Otherwise, I would say a pretty decent write up here.

[–] Eccitaze@yiffit.net 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

For what it's worth, this was largely my own opinion, and on a personal level, I found 4 to be enjoyable, if vaguely bland, while Apocalypse was the first mainline SMT game whose story and characters I legitimately enjoyed and found engaging, even while I was insulting Asahi every time she opened her goddamn mouth. Yeah, the game falls victim to the whole "this entire mess would have never happened if the main characters weren't fucking idiots" syndrome, but at least I felt something while the plot was happening, which is more than I could say about SMT 1, 2, & 4 and their cardboard cutout characters with the depth of a sheet of paper. (Not to say that I didn't enjoy SMT 4's story at all, I found the world and overall plot engaging. But the character writing and dialogue is some of the weakest I've ever seen, and I've read bad fanfiction. I've written bad fanfiction.)