Shin Megami Tensei – Strange Journey

10.06.10 / RPGs, atlus, nintendo ds, reviews, shin megami tensei, strange journey, video game / Author: admin / Comments: (1)
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I didn’t finish this, I watched the ending on Youtube. But I was going down the neutral route so I was right outside Mem Aleph’s door when I got into Summon Night and forgot all about this. In fact I went in and fought her once, but she kicked my ass hard so I left to regroup and never did come back. IIRC I was level 78, so with a bit of grinding I should have been able to level up a bit and teach her who was who, but somehow the spirit just wasn’t in me.

Did I enjoy the game? Hmm, it’s complicated. Like most SMT games I’ve played, it went up and down regularly. Sometimes the story was fast-paced and the action was cracking and everything was really interesting, couldn’t wait to get back to it. Other times it was so dreary, slow and boring that I literally fell asleep behind the DS. The repetitive “fetch-questy” style of play didn’t help at all: go to this sector, explore it, kill this guy, get this item. Repeat for next sector. Repeat for next sector. I mean the details of who to beat and what the dungeon looked like differed quite a bit, but the core was exactly the same. So the story parts were good, but since each piece of plot progression was surrounded by 10 hours of only fairly-interesting dungeon-crawling it was hard going sometimes.

On the plus side I liked having tons of demons to fuse and summon, I really like the creepy soundtrack, the characters didn’t exactly piss me off (not even Zelenin, who I thought I’d hate), and I enjoyed making new items and weapons out of monster parts, Atelier-style. Not to mention my favorite fiends from Nocturne are back, and the difficulty of the game was just right so I didn’t die too often, and all around it’s a very solid game.

Would I play it again? …Uh…I dunno… Gee… I think i’d have to let some time pass between replays. And it really depends on what you get to carry over and what you don’t. I don’t mind if I don’t carry levels or items over, but I insist on my compedium, etc. etc. Then again I got the only ending worth getting, ‘cos chaos is stupid and law is downright insulting, so I don’t know exactly what I’d be playing for. Short answer, no, I won’t play it again. But it’s not a bad game at all.

Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne

10.02.10 / RPGs, atlus, impressions, persona 3, shin megami tensei, video game / Author: admin / Comments: (0)
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I finally finished Digital Devil Saga 2, and it was a complete disappointment (more on the whole game if and when I can ever be bothered). Also finished one round of Lina no Atelier, though I didn’t get a good ending it wasn’t that bad after all. More on that as well later.

However, I just picked up SMT: Nocturne, I’m only 2 hours in and I’m having a great time! I missed fusing personas/demons from the later games, and the Magatama system looks remarkably fun. It’s not that hard either, so far anyway. I’m guessing part of the legendary difficulty comes from the fact that it was the first SMT game for a lot of people. That, and if you throw a skill away it’s gone forever. I’ll have to be careful of that, but Fire Emblem Path of Radiance was kinda like that and I managed it just fine, so I think I’ll be okay.

But I like the post-apocalyptic landscape so far, and the relative lack of NPCs is fun too, especially the lack of dumbass party members slowing you down, whining, bitching, moaning, leaving your party at the worst time. This game is awesome! Well, 2 hours of it is awesome anyway. So if you don’t see any posts for a while, you know what I’m getting up to.