#matador smt

[danb0ii]

played some nocturne 2day..

[mitochondria-larson]

Suddenly remembered I had this gem saved in my phone

[septiseph]

I saw this tweet and immediately thought of them

[lord-prey]

Don’t wanna line this so woag! Marker practice with the best boy!!!

[leylinefount]

[thornytendrils]

"Buenos Dias, Fuckboy!"

Matador was pretty fun!

He was pretty difficult but contrary to how he is depicted he is very beatable, it felt really rewarding figuring out the best party and skills to bring to the fight, (the game actually has everything you need before you fight him!)

I fought him on hard so stuff in shops costing triple was a hurdle, but it's very doable

Nekomata, Uzume and Nozuchi are all immune to force which is his main move, Uzume is also a fantastic healer/mage for this point in the game.

The Hifumi magatama allows you to null force on Demi-Fiend as well, it's actually in the shop right before running into Matador!

The magatama you get for beating the first boss has fog breath on it, which is vital to being able to hit the boss. You could potentially get Dekaja to nullify his Red Capote skill, but the only way I saw to do that was through a Chatterskull (Lv20) and I got one just as I was ready to fight him.

You don't even need everything listed to beat him, but if you do it will be super easy!

Also the PS2 graphics do feel better than the HD remaster, love the scan lines from the emulator too super aesthetic.

[dailydemonspotlight]

Matador - Day 2

Race: Fiend

Alignment: Neutral-Neutral

March 21st 2024

Hailing not from mythology but rather real life bullfighting, Matador is a skeletal fiend who serves as the first major hurdle in Nocturne, as well as marking one of the first examples of a demon in the SMT series not originating in mythology.

Matador literally translates to ‘Bullfighter,’ and historically is a role played by the people in toreador bullfighting events who are tasked with fighting, subduing, and eventually killing the bull in question. Armed with a red capote with a muleta at the top, effectively just a stick with a red cape tied to it, the Matador is the star of the bullfighting show, a fierce opponent to the poor animal.

Contrary to popular belief, the red capote used by the Matador isn’t the actual way they rile up the bulls, and them hating the color red is a common misconception- bulls are actually colorblind! Instead, it’s the nigh-constant whipping of the muleta atop the capote that activates the bull’s fight or flight response, and they almost always choose fight. The reasoning of the red color is to disguise blood stains from battle, as well as tradition.

Bullfighting has been a historical phenomenon from even before Roman times, though it was popularized during the Roman empire’s reign as a form of ritual for the gods. The ritual soon became a common practice in coliseums, and eventually was used to mark the alliance between Rome and Spain circa 711 CE, thus causing it to become a rather common symbol of Spanish nationalism.

Matador in Shin Megami Tensei is an incredibly fearsome demon of the Fiend race, a race consisting almost entirely of Skeletons (and Alice, for some reason). His signature skill, Red Capote, works to raise his evasion to the maximum, a play on how Matadores in real life will drive a bull to attack their capote instead of themselves.

The style and flair Matador uses is common in real-world bullfights as well, flashy clothes used to draw the ire of the audience and make the battle with the bull appear as a performance as much as it is blood sport. The rapier wielded by Matador is a common show in bullfights as well with the intent of dispatching the bull, allowing the actual battle to occur without much contention- it wouldn’t be a fight without a weapon, after all.

Matador is typically one of the more specialized demons, one who leans towards offense and buffs above all, something incredibly fitting for the fancy style and role of a Matador in real life. His specialization in wind/force skills plays into this as well, as a Matador must use great amounts of force to battle with the bull, or, alternatively, they must ‘ride the wind’ in order to engage in a metaphorical dance of death with the animal.

His boss fight in SMT III is one of the most infamous battles in the series, and for good reason- it’s less a difficulty spike and more a difficulty spear. Due to your limited selection of demons and skills at the time you battle with him, the Menorah-desiring demon is a fierce to be reckoned with, to say the least, being one of the most absurdly difficult battles in the series, especially for how early in the game he is.

Thanks to Red Capote and Taunt, two skills which work in tandem to allow him to always hit a far weakened party that will almost never hit him back, the fight effectively communicates the importance of buffs and debuffs in the SMT series over most other JRPG games, as well as serving as an introduction to the Fiends of the series. The ability to use Matador later in the game, and his sheer strength, simply goes to show that this skeleton’s power wasn’t a mere one-off occurrence. Throughout the series, even beyond Nocturne, he appears frequently as a recurring, and incredibly difficult, boss battle.

Overall, this Skeleton, with his unique backstory, design, and skillset, makes his mark as one of my favorite demons in the series. A red flag means death, after all, and the blood shed by this demon to unsuspecting players (and bulls) should not go understated.

[hervygervy]

I got SMT III today, and everyone I’ve talked to irl about it says they all got stuck at the matador. I also nearly died at the stinking tutorial, so perhaps this is a sign of bad things to come. Wish me luck, gamers!

[silent-partner-412]

i kinda want to get more into shin megami tensei but also the fanbase surrounding those games is… a lot to deal with and i have a feeling talking about these games would be the opposite of fun

[beantothemax]

@vinegar-on-main

November 28 2023

SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI V DELUXE EDITION ON SALE GET IT GET IT NOW

[furryprovocateur]

i'm gonna fight matador in SMT IV with everyone nulling, draining, or reflecting physical

[300iqprower]

Hey guys guess who I fused Pixie into

MY DAY BE SO FINE AND THEN BAM

MATADOR

[parasitoidism]

"the hardest boss in smt iii is matador" "the tower of kagutsuchi is so difficult to get through" The biggest challenge I faced while playing nocturne was trying to navigate the shinjuku medical center absolutely delirious with a fever not having realized that there was a mini map I could look at

[d-f-phantom]

Kind of hilarious that the Dagda that's going to be in SMT V Vengeance is literally the same Dagda from IV Apocalypse.

Hopefully this means Xander Mobus will be coming back to the role (and hopefully ATLUS won't drown his voice in audio effects like they did with Kieth Silverstein's Matador in V)

[knightochan-official]

if you've played enough mainline smt you'll know why Pokemon games can't be "challenging" in the way some older fans want. In the monster collection jrpg format if the game is too precisely difficult the player loses a lot of their expression in favor of following the most accessible formula to bypass a challenge

like in SMT3 Matador is a great example of this. he mostly uses over level Force attacks and accuracy debuffs to teach you the game's two most important defensive systems, buffing/debuffing and immunity exploitation. Every team will be a little different, but the strategy that gets past him will use the same tools: one or two anchor demons that have an accuracy buff and Force immunity at that point in the game.

this isn't inherently bad, it's a fun mechanical team building puzzle, but the narrow solution space and limited player resources means SMT can't be expressive in the way Pokemon is - because in a turn based strategy game some expressions, that is, some strategies, have to be 'wrong'