#the minotaur of smtiv if you will

[queseraphita]

i have to face off the police guard puppet....Murphy

ngl i'm a bit scared

[gothamcityneedsme]

I forgot medusa assumes you work for tayama? She also doesnt realize that you came down (obviously) and thinks you are coming up the Tower

[neomedievalist]

20 and 23 for the choosing violence asks on whatever topic you want to rant about 🔥

20. part of canon you found tedious or boring

everyone always talks abt the minotaur fight in smtiv no one wants to talk abt the medusa fight and how annoying it is bc u can cheese ur way thru minotaur and ill be real its mostly annoying because the boss triggers just when you step over a line near the exit and not after you enter the door and you still dont have access to a lot of stuff and its just. Fucking Annoying

23.ship you've unwillingly come around to

fate again. i did NOT like cugil at first and the more time goes on the more im like damn. no theyre a hilarious couple actually. theyre annoying in a unique way to kotogil and i enjoy it

[tamarakkoarchive]

Megami Tensei [SNES] livetweet thread (2/2)

oh absolutely

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when npcs talked about hidden doors i panicked thinking i was gonna get into another time-consuming bullshit à la strange journey but it's pretty straightforward actually. our little friend will tell us when we walk into the right room

i'm curious what its name is in japanese because the only ruth result i'm seeing on google is a biblical woman and i don't think it's rukh from the middle eastern myth either since it's supposed to be a bird lol

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here's our OG cu. when he hid his beauty under a chunky armor

man it's funny how this perspective made the demons look tiny as fuck. pocket-size cu

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okay NOW we can finally move the fucking on

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We Have Reached ENDGAAAAAAME

you don't go outside in MT since the whole game happens inside-dungeon but they still have an overworld map (seen in the 3rd pic) where you can check which floor you're at and have an idea of how far you are progressing. the type of feature that truly makes sense in a nes game

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oh lord. there he is

MT sure had a lot of myth figures that made a meaningful comeback in smtiv/a aside krishna... minotaur, medusa (these two even exactly as the first two bosses), dullahan, izanami herself, seth, mephisto, baal and a miserably small beelzebub

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logged in SMT real quick to remember why i barely used the heroine as a healer there and oh yeah... MT is super scarce with items to the point it doesn't give you any kind of potion whatsoever meanwhile in SMT you're constantly fuming trying to get rid of them because almost every enemy drops them and the encounter rate is insane so in like 3 steps your item list reached the limit

i feel bad for yumiko because even at maximum MAG her sp only goes until 99 and diarahan is like 10. poor girl gets drained hard and can't multi-attack while the SMT heroine is living the life using beads and guns

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nakajima: hahaha yeah man xD

this feels the equivalent of playing the pacifist route of undertale right after a genocide run

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i love how even for a happier outcome than the original they still went ahead and fucked everything right at the end

and THAT'S IT for the first megami tensei folks! they don't even show the credits and instantly throw us to the sequel. very cool transition tbh

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oh so they were pretty self aware of nakajima acting ooc in the game

it's funny to imagine them not considering retouching the script even in later versions and just going "darn if you wanna see his schizo moments go read the books then"

END

[lilycovecity]

smt vv thread

more like i wanted to document this a little better than a usual twitter thread. also wanted to spend more time thinking about it.

i bought smtv on launch and started it, got a couple of hours into the first area and got freaking murked by a demon it completely shattered my desire to keep playing. which is really funny but also a testament to the smt way of saving every 2 minute because you never know when you're gonna get owned by a new moon demon.

in any case i went to target today on a journey for something else and smtvv was 20 dollars off so of course i copped it.

i think smtvv has such a strong aesthetic sense. it's peak kaneko except as interpreted by doi, which is insane because i feel like doi is doing kaneko more than kaneko has done. LOL. it's funny and cute especially when you compare smt iv/iva to smt v. i really love the school uniforms.

i was really surprised that they had like four variations on their uniform, including a sailor style and then a more preppy varsity type...i think nahobino's full gakuran with the lilies is so beautiful and i wish that we got a female character with the seifuku version because it's one of my favorite uniforms in the game.

the music in this game is also a lot of ambient noise which i love. lol. i dont know if the overworld stuff will be as strong as smtiv for me music wise but the big important scene music has been so delightful.

the first time i heard smtv stuff was at the concert and i was really floored by the instrumentals so ... i have my hopes.

in any case...

as you know obviously my favorite smt game is smt iv. so that's my baseline for comparing anything i consume re. smt. LMFAO i know the love of nostalgia blinds me but it is my everything.

so i find it really interesting that you're simultaneously painted as loser with no friends in your class but also you know the most popular girls in school. for some reason.

while i was typing this i went to go google what his canon name is and i guess it's kei amemura? which is cute. kei-san...

i'm already ready for the yuzuru/kei yaoi. a good demon hunter x demon set up.

i also think kei in general seems so...detached? there's something about him that's really whatever about the entire ordeal. kind of just being pushed along vs the other members that we've met so far.

also aogami/kei is kind offffff (pleasepleaseplasepleaspelaseplaese) lmfao

GUESS WHO DIDN'T LEARN THEIR LESSON ABOUT SAVING EVERY TWO MINUTES AUGHHHHHHHHHHHHI JUST LIKE LIKE HALF AN HOUR OF PROGRESS BECAUSE I WAS AUTOBATTLING TOO HARD FUUUUUCKASJDFKLASJDFLASKJDFLASJDFASLDFASDJFASLK;DFASLJ FMAN IM PISSED

ok. we are back again. finally at my first demon fusion and i got cait sith :) my kitty cat. i love the demon fusion for smtv lmfao. sick organ moment.

one of the things that sucks about smt in general is the inability to like. teleport to ur quest marker. like for sidequests. i grabbed what u needed dont make me go trek all the way over there

ok. finally at the first boss fight (tokyo tower) the minotaur if u will. after this we will see if i continue for the night...

[animatedapostasy]

i am so sorry to smtiv fans but i'm giving up on it. like i beat Minotaur and Medusa but i can't beat the monster that is Tokyo. i am eternally lost in that place and i hate challenge quests.

i still love the trio though you're in my heart. i'll just watch you on youtube or whatever.

[lordfluffyvoice]

Funnily enough, i did my previous voice acting of the minotaur on a whim, but i was actually commissioned to do this part. Thank you @yarrayora for the commission This Part contains the minotaur’s Defeat quote, as well as the quote when you fuse him

[maiamaiden]

i’m also playing megaten 1 rn i just haven’t really been posting about it bc. there’s honestly not much to say. it’s a first person dungeon crawler. it has the classic “walk into walls for a thunk noise”. i finished daedalus tower and now i’m working on valhalla. minotaur was there

[eirikrjs]

Honestly, I have to wonder: do you think we'll ever see Chemtrail again? It's far and away the smartest pick (and, hell, the most demon-y design - love the smokestack/soldier/skull motif) of the SMTIV originals, but it was conspicuously one of the things that got dumped for Apocalypse instead of getting a Doi redesign. Which has me worried.

I think what we saw in 4A was both a response to the negative reaction the SMT4 designs received (in Japan; remember, we baka gaijin don’t matter) and an attempt to salvage only what was absolutely necessary. Serving the story was more important than popularity, and I can respect that.

As a result, we saw reappearances of story critical demons like Lucifer and Merkabah, but not the demons people actually liked such as Minotaur and Chemtrail. Centaur only reappeared, according to Doi, because it paralleled the first demon you get in SMT4. Well….whatever. Doi also said that redrawing Tenkai was a last minute job and that they almost reused his original artwork; he has some bearing on the plot, so I think it was deserved. Napaea…dear god why didn’t they just use a pixie or something.

But if I had to guess, I doubt we’ll see the guest artists’ demons again in the future. Doi’s redraws? Maybe. But, honestly, I hope we don’t. Let’s just start fresh and pretend SMT4′s designs didn’t happen. Atlus is already more than halfway there!

[raykit]

Hi! Can you summarize the story of smt iv prayer? I cant find any chapters translated anywhere and at this point I'll be happy just knowing a summary ;;

Hmm, unfortunately even though I have copies of Prayers but my Japanese knowledge is quite very beginner. By looking at the pictures only, I can summarize 2 volumes as below. However, I may have made mistake in story since I cannot read full Japanese.

———————–

The story is about Jonathan and his befriended fellow samurai named Asuma, they’re friends since young. In Jonathan’s young age, there was a demon appearing to attack people of Mikado, sadly his babysitter, Nicola, got killed by the demon. After all later Flynn (who has this sun-like cloth on his face) appeared and killed this demon.

When they grew up, they both now samurai. However there is another character named Eis (I guess? I cannot know how exactly I can call him in English. It’s ii-su [イース] Voice pronounce in English should be similar to Eis), who is also samurai. Apparently turn out that this guy was the one who control the demon that killed Nicola. He fought Hope, killed Minotaur and also cut Naraku to open way to Unclean Ones country (Tokyo).

The samurai (Jonathan, Asuma, Walter, Isabeau, Navarre) went to Tokyo try to pursue Eis. They met the black samurai who mocking Asuma about power (at this rate to my opinion, Asuma is hungry for the power of strong like Walter in game). After the black samurai left, Eis appeared and attacked them. They got beaten. Once again Flynn appeared in Jonathan’s vision and let him borrowed the power. However that was not enough to beat Eis. Both Jonathan and Asuma got beaten, Eis was killing Jonathan in the process while Asuma somehow awaken to his hunger of power before passed out. Eis did not kill Asuma because he is important to Eis’ plan.

In his dream, Jonathan met Flynn. Who tried to help Jonathan get stronger by making him faces the situation whereas Nicola was killed over and over.

After that day, almost 2 months passed, at the outside world, Eis created cocoon. Suddenly one large demon appeared, who later Walter found out it was Asuma. After the demon exploded, Asuma’s figure appeared to be floating in the air, demon-like figure, who hungers only power and no reason can reach him. (During his disappearance, he was in cage and Eis feed him with demon.).

In the midst of hopeless situation, Jonathan was back to help them. They fought each other, Asuma tried to drag Jonathan to the darkness. But he won over Asuma and can helped him back to his own self.

Cocoon was changed shape, it was demon Eis. He attacked the samurai with darkness, however Flynn appeared and helped them all. Giving power to Jonathan and Asuma to fight Eis. Hope and Isabeau help broadcasting to both Mikado and Tokyo asking people to send power to Jonathan. And the battle was over.

Jonathan, after the won, saw a vision of Nicola thanking him.And scene was back to peaceful Mikado, who has samurai to protect its people.

———————–

To my personal opinion, comparing to 2 comic versions of SMTIV, I’d prefer Demonic Gene. Especially I love Ikumi Fukuda sensei’s art. The core story is based on SMTIV game better than Prayers. Less original characters, and yes, mostly because I’m big Walter’s fan XD;;

I hope this helps more or less, and I agree I’ve never seen full summarize of Prayers anywhere even though the comic was released since 2014.

Also thanks to you, I just found out Demonic Gene got completed translation (I’m so slow). Orz

[auberginenasu-blog]

Shin Megami Tensei IV

A bit of a primer first for those not familiar with yours truly. I was born and raised in the house of Nintendo. The very first game I ever played on my own was Super Mario RPG. I say this because my first and most personal home console gaming experience was with a JRPG. You can look forward to a post about the joys of that game some other day, but today I would like to talk at you about the game that rekindled my love for the genre after so many others failed: Shin Megami Tensei IV. If you are not familiar, then you must have some demons in that belfry of a head of yours. So let’s exercise our brains and dive into what makes this game so special.

To give you a better idea of where I am coming from, let me express the climate, the...landscape if you will, surrounding my encounter with SMTIV. Imagine your favorite amusement park, one you go to often and know very well, Six Flags or Disney for instance. Upon your first visit, this park had a foundation of rides and attractions that are fresh, shiny, and new that you become familiar with and come to love. Over time, this park adds in new things, building upon that familiar foundation. You as a patron who craves both the old and the new continue to offer your continued support. However, at some point or another one section of the amusement park begins to lose its charm for many patrons, so at times sections are torn down and something completely different is built in its place. The park continues to operate as normal, and indeed perhaps this new section of the park is something so fresh and new that you start to not notice the absence of that section that once meant something to you as it functioned bringing the amusement park together as a whole. However sometimes a new attraction holds nothing for you at all. This is the analogy I came up with to try and understand my own sometimes hectic likes and dislikes when it comes to games in certain genres. You see, each section of the park represents a genre, and for me some sections of the park don’t need to be updated as often to feel fresh. Platformers are like wooden roller-coasters. An old standby that may not be as fast or exciting as some of the newer rides, but nonetheless their construction is sound. I think we all have a genre like this, maybe for you its the FPS genre or MMOs perhaps. What people like is as different as people are themselves. Of course, you can’t make an amusement park of just wooden coasters, which brings me to the “stage-shows” portion of my Univershawn Studios™ metaphor. Depending on the show, those can be lots of fun, but most of the the time they feel like a waste of one’s time at an amusement park. When I look at 30 minutes at an animatronics show compared to riding 2 or 3 rides, for me its clear that the rides are going to give me a more enjoyable time unless that show is called Hall of Presidents: Royal Rumble. What I wouldn’t give to see a robo-Lincoln and mecha-Garfield duking it out when a Stone-Cold stunner comes in as James K. Polk-a-tron rushes to the ring. When a JRPG fails to do much new or exciting, I find myself unable to justify the time requirements inherent in the way that genre handles progression. For me, this means that in the Univershawn Studios Amusement Park of Genres, JRPG land must do a lot more to get my attention...otherwise I’ll stick to the parts I know will give me a good time for the price of admission.

That being said, let me tell you exactly why SMTIV represents one of the best renditions of JRPG Land my mental Amusement Park of Genres has ever seen. Right out from the gate, the opening to Shin Megami Tensei IV belies a brooding, moody atmosphere. Don’t just take my word for it, take a look at this trailer.

I’ll tell you one thing, Ryota Kozuka is an absolute musical genius. As a person who grew up going to church, I can tell you first hand just how oppressive the choral and organ sounds can be. It’s no coincidence that the mythos of the SMT games is so inspired by gods and demons. What holds more power over the minds of the masses in history than that of religion? So going in, this game immediately sends a message that its all about darkness, not so much in the literal sense but rather in how it obfuscates the unknown. The heavy synth throughout the game creates a complimentary sound while furthering the mood. The point I want to make here isn’t about that though, its about how quickly this game tells the player it means business. At first glance, the prologue seems to usurp this idea, starting in a hazy dream that de-mists into a rather unassuming tale of tradition and old-style culture talking about kingdoms and Samurai. However that sense of security fades just as soon as it arrives as the game thrusts you into the literal underbelly of society. On that path is the biggest roadblock in the game...the first boss.

The Minotaur is infamous among those who tried their hand at this iteration in the Shimmy Gimmy Tensei franchise. If you don’t believe me, just search “shin megami tensei 4 minotaur” and you’ll find that many believe it to be an impossible fight. Hey, I’ll even admit that I had tremendous difficulty with this boss. This was my first SMT game so I found myself completely unprepared for a massacre so swift it made the Battle of Wolf 359 look like the Hundred Years War. Just why would the developers of a game series so critically acclaimed as SMT construct such a high barrier of entry to the remainder of the game so early, especially when the rest of the game is such an amazing experience? The answer is quite simple...to make sure you understand how to play the game. I cannot tell you how many JRPG games I have played that spend so much time telling the player about every minute detail of game mechanics, yet spend so little time actually assessing that their star pupil actually understood what they learned. As an example, I played Xenoblade around the same time in my life as I played SMTIV. I loved both games’ style, music, characters, and story. Both played well and felt excellent to control. They are both excellent games that are not only loved by me but by many others. However, only one of the two actually succeeded in teaching the player how to actually use every mechanic at their disposal to the best effect. I had no idea that changing my party configuration was necessarily beneficial to my prowess in battle in Xenoblade and was punished for that in a very late game boss. This ultimately led to my realizing that I had been playing the game wrong since the very beginning. Essentially, the game handed me easy battles from the beginning that could be won without using everything at my disposal. The Minotaur does not afford this. You have to take all the mechanics as they have been introduced to you and combine them in order to overcome this obstacle. Getting back to Xenoblade, as the game wore on I actually forgot I could switch to other characters, and I grew rather attached to only team dynamic I knew. When faced with a boss that countered that team, I was not equipped at all to handle it, and it was too late to fix the mistake having passed a certain point of no return. I had passed the quizzes and tests, but failed the final exam and would have been forced to retake the class. On the other hand, SMTIV takes a less spare the rod, spoil the child approach and gives you a test up front that immediately lets you know what all future tests will require of you.

In all my years trying to find something fresh and new from the JRPG genre, I have never come across a game that actually teaches and assess the player so well. The journey to the first boss in most JRPGs can be a cakewalk, and as a result forgettable. However, Atlus wanted to make sure the first boss was memorable, but not out of some sense of vanity. Oh no, they did this all for the sake of the player. Often JRPGs can hand hold the player too much, giving them a small challenge with an equally small feeling of accomplishment. SMTIV on the other hand demands so much more of the player, and in turn this gives the player all that much more satisfaction in knowing that their victory over that boss (and perhaps subsequent ones) wasn’t just a result of luck, but rather a result of putting ones skills to the test. Knowing that I had the proper skills to use the in game tools to take on any challenge made my journey through Tokyo a confident one that inspired me more than any other JRPG game that I have played to date.

[uzume-giveaways]

Lmfao I remember the first time I got into smt. It started with Tokyo mirage sessions fe. Sort of. Lol I preordered TMSFe and then like a week later i think smt IV went on sale and I was like hey cool let’s try this out and see how SMT is like. Let me tell you that stupid Minotaur was so annoying. Anyway I beat the game before TMSFE came out and it was a completely different experience lol

TMS and SMTIV are sooo different in tone. I can’t imagine what you thought TMS would be like after IV lol. They are both good games though imo, and I hope you enjoyed playing through them both! What were some of the things you liked about the games?