SMT IV

>>380705685
In a way

>Smirk doesn't buff evasion, just nulling the effect of hitting weakness
>You can remove Smirk reliably with a skill (you learn about this in the first boss)
>Smirk gives skills extra effects
>More Pierce stuffs for the enemy in late game making the -karn spell less OP
>More unique uninheritable skills. Skills affinities in fusion

>>380705982
I guess that's one thing.

The other RNG dependent thing was demon negotations, as the responses aren't even consistent among the same demons. Unless it's bribery. Having different choices (or not) seems pointless when it's as usual totally random.

>>380706368
Demon negotiations in IV:A, for most of the time, you can guess the answer from the demon type, and there's stuff like demon recognizing you and joining you after too many failed negotiations (which is a bit casualized to be honest). On the other hand they get angry and downright refuse negotiation from damage more frequently than IV

Also Charm sometimes affect negotiations and cause them to join instantly. Status ailments are more useful for dungeon crawling too since it prevents Smirk

I had to put this game down last week after getting to blasted Tokyo. I just wasn't having any fun.

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>Character balance? What's that?

>>380706882
I suppose that's somewhat better, I dlslike the notion of "failed negotations = ambush" considering how often it happens. I feel like just losing Flynn's turn would be enough. but thank god they got a handle on smirking; it was just insane.
>>380707120
despite the elitism EO has never had particularly good class balance. EO is a ways ahead of that title but not Q isn't all that terrible imo.

>>380705685
>Hey! you got Persona in my SMT
>Hey! you got SMT in my Persona
>And no one was happy ever after
The end.

>>380707779
Nah you still get ambushed from failed negotiations depends on reaction. But there's a new reaction that's basically a reset where you don't lose turn

Then again demons chase you less than in IV aside from the some scripted moments that you can ambush them first, drop some ailments and then negotiate

>>380705685
4 is by far the worst smt of them all and I'm not exaggerating.

It had a nice rhythmic pace that complimented smirking up until you defeat Medusa. Everything else goes apeshit broken halfway in. They mechanically wrote themselves into a corner that apocololypse had to clean up.

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>>380708481
This, I liked it and even then I think the game is busted

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>>380708770
I think we can all agree it gave us some fantastic memes though

>>380708481
4 feels weird to me

Artstyle and OST are great, as evident in the overworld, but the textures are so shit that dungeon crawling and walking into town feels weird and mediocre. Not to mention the obvious lack of decent dungeons

Routes are decently explained and expanded compared to other games thanks to Blasted and Infernal Tokyo, and Walter and Jonathan are at the least decently written, but forcing route onto the player through a hidden alignment stat is just shit. There's also the unbalance in content between Neutral and Law/Chaos. Isabeau is almost an non-character too

2D battles are fine for me, but on the other hand textual descriptions and mid-fight dialogue make me wish it was 3D instead. Stuff like Minotaur roaring and suddenly jumps out in front of the gang would be better off in 3D

>>380709598
Its a shame that it's a mainline to say the least.
The chaos route ending makes no fucking sense to me at all and really showed how low brow their writing was.

What really sealed the deal for me though was the demiurge battle.

>>380705685
arent most RPGs braindead? You just hit a over and over

>>380705685
>Does Apocalypse really fix any of this?
It does actually. It's not as piss easy as IV was. But still not really challenging until the final boss.

>>380712182
Apoc on War is decently challenging. Sometimes it just feels a bit cheap though, like several consecutive bosses where you have to reapply bosses at the beginning of each.

>>380712841
*reapply buffs

>>380712841
I played on war and did every boss on the first try, except the big Y himself. Including the triple boss rush at the end of the ether quest. I even fucked up once and gave Maitreya a free smirk, but still managed to pull through. It wasn't as tough as some people made it seem. I'm starting to think this whole "hardcore SMT difficulty" is a meme. I had way more trouble with EO, in which pretty much every boss required a few tries to take down.

>>380710554
Aren't most shooters braindead? You just left click over and over.

>>380713125
>I'm starting to think this whole "hardcore SMT difficulty" is a meme

It is. It's a low hanging fruit that smtdrones like to pick to attack personafags.
Smt has hardly evolved gameplay wise to really be accusing it to be better than it's other 'variations'

>>380705685
The game is too easy (after Naraku) but use buffs retard.

>>380713769
To be fair though Persona is objectively easier except for the superbosses

And SMT isn't hard. It just requires you to think a bit more than most other JRPGs. IV A on Apoc is mainly hard because of its -100 Ag penalty, and that's the hardest that it has been

Why is SMTIV:A so much better then SMTIV? The jump in quality is really jarring.

>>380708032
Except Persona 5 was exactly that and it was a perfect synthesis of the two.

>>380714354
SMTIV:A was far more fun to play then Persona 5. Only thing 5 has over SMTIV:A is production value.

>>380714167
>To be fair though Persona is objectively easier
They're literally the same.
>exploit enemy weaknesses and end random encounters in a single turn
>spam buffs/debuffs during the boss fights

>>380714354
P5 is more like P2 IS, but with an anti-control theme instead of an overall good vs evil theme

>>380714473
In Persona you end random encounters even faster with All-out-attacks, which you can do by hitting weakness over and over again since bonus turns applies until all enemies are down, and in P5, Baton Pass buffs, none of which is even available in boss fights because of how broken they are

Press Turn is a bit overpowered, but it's balanced enough to the point that both sides can use it

Basically yeah it's the same principle, but the difficulty is different, and it's possible to compare because of that

>>380715001
Sure, they're technically different combat systems, but the results are effectively the same, since the difficulty is too low to notice the difference.

>>380708481
How is it worse than SMT I where you can stunlock the first 1/3 of the game with zio and bufu and auto-battle the rest with ailment bullets?

>>380715231
To be honest, using difficulty as a metric is a bit stupid. Souls's PC release make it a huge meme

>>380715889
It's not me who using it as a metric, but the mainline fans. They're making a big deal of how supposedly hardcore mainline is supposed to be compared to Persona. But they're in fact the same, except mainline doesn't have the time management meta-game.

>>380705685
i beat this game like 3 weeks ago after having the actual copy for years, selling it, then hacking my 3ds and downloading it again later. there were many many bullshit times where the game just says fuck you whatever. but that is just part of the series i guess. it was also my first smt game besides persona

>>380715523
I can forgive it because it was the first of it's kind. it was gimmicky and new at the time

But we're talking 4 here. Literally dozens of smt games that's shaped a foundation for the gameplay and yet they still managed to fuck it up hardcore.
If you truly want a highlight on how fucked 4 is, just fight the shitfest that is demiurge.

>>380716292
>first of it's kind
Megami Tensei 1 and 2?

>>380716975
Didn't play those so I can't give any w cents on that. I'd imagine their identical to smt1 or perhaps have less features for being earlier installments.

You're missing the point though. I liked 1 and every other smt after that better 4 because 4 was quite literally a steaming pile of shit.

give me one good reason a game needs a defense stat

>>380705685
The thing that really annoyed me about the gameplay was how whether or not the enemy got a preemptive strike seemed to be so much larger a factor in whether or not you would survive a battle than anything you could do in the battle itself.
Success in a turn-based RPG shouldn't depend more on the player's reflexes than anything else. Being able to pass your turn to an ally is far more useful than any defend command has ever been, though.

>>380718037
>Being able to pass your turn to an ally is far more useful than any defend command has ever been, though.
>charge with MC
>pass turns until he gets to act again
>shit out 2.5x damage per turn
And there are people who complain about all-out-attacks in Persona, which don't even matter during boss fights.

>>380705685
>Can beat half the bosses by spamming the magic counter and the phys counter
That was a bit of an issue. It felt cheap, but I tend to pick the easiest winning strategy when it's that obvious.

>>380705685
> No defend command
Use better armour/Rakukaja/Tetrakarn/Makrakarn
>You could get wiped in one battle
Welcome to SMT, expect deaths, git gud casual.