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Shin Megami Tensei IV Discussion (Nintendo 3DS) [game]
 
Shin Megami Tensei IV on the 3DS
9.08/10 from 6 user ratings

Welcome to the official discussion thread for Shin Megami Tensei IV on the 3DS!

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How many people here are taking advantage of the Fire Emblem Awakening + Shin Megami Tensei IV = $30 credit for the 3DS or Wii U?

I think it's a fantastic idea and I think this will get people (like me) who didn't initially plan on picking the game up to do so in order to take advantage of the offer. The only Shin Megami game I played before was Devil Survivor cause I love turn based games.

I'm about an hour in, the game kicked my ass, I lowered the difficulty (12 play coins to revive myself! ouch!). I'm really enjoying it so far.

I opted to pick up a physical copy because the packaging looked really slick.

URL to share (right click and copy)
07/17/13, 10:32  
 
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Just started this last night, first SMT game, and it's a pretty cool game so far! Yeah I died pretty quick, this game is unforgiving as hell. But I like the battle system. The presentation is amazing for a 3DS game. The music is great. I already spent a bunch of play coins on reviving myself, best use of coins I have seen yet. Excited to see where this story goes, I have a feeeling it's gonna be epic.
11/06/13, 18:39   
So I lowered the difficuly to "easy"... now the game seems too easy! You can run from any battle, except bosses I guess. And I get critical hits all the time. Hmm... I might bump it back up, but god damn I was dying a shit ton on "normal". The demon fusion system is pretty cool!
11/16/13, 19:39   
I vaguely recall having the same issue with one of the Devil Survivor games... there wasn't much nuance in the difficulty levels, it was either really hard or really easy, so I just sucked it up and stuck with really hard.
11/16/13, 19:45   
Edited: 11/16/13, 19:50
I had decided to give the DLC a try right off the bat. If I was going to put some trust into a DLC structure, it was going to be if Nintendo AND Atlus were offering it. I was pleasantly surprised.

SMT4 has the temptation of "Pay To Win" DLC, with the balance of "Paying won't let you win". For those people that need DLC, Atlus is happy to take your money. For those of you worried that it'll make the game too easy for certain people, you don't have to worry as much.
Example, there's a DLC quest that grants you easy access to XP-items. You can gain 20 levels, only to realize that you can still be quickly-killed by low level demons if you plan your moves wrongly. It's not like Pokémon where you can just outlevel the type-difference.
Similarly, there are DLC for other resources, and easy ways to squander or lose those resources without the proper play-experience that lets you manage it. It seems like the easy-resource-DLC is meant for 2nd or 3rd playthroughs.

Then there is actual content DLC. These are usually denoted by "This DLC pertains to the main quest, it is recommended that you reach end-game or post-game status before you attempt this quest". Again, this seems to have been planned for those who just genuinely want more SMT4 after they've completed the story.
11/29/13, 19:01   
This game really surprises me sometimes. I wanted to recruit a demon, then as soon as I start talking to it, I realize he's over my level, so it won't work even if I succeed in sweet-talking him. So I'm just mashing A through the dialogue options trying to get him to run away or something. Somehow, he accepts all my banter, and when realizes he is over my level, switches out with one of his "friends", another demon, one I've never seen before, who joins my team right away. Freaking awesome

Anyways, this game is pretty good. It's much deeper than I care for in an RPG (hey, I'm a casual, so what?), but I'm enoying it a lot by playing it on easy difficulty. I still die from time to time. I just have a hard time figuring out where to go next sometimes. But I'm playing with an FAQ close at hand now, so it's all good. Catching and fusing demons is really fun. Makes me wish you could fuse Pokémon!
01/20/14, 16:55   
@anon_mastermind

This is one of the roughly 4000000 games I have yet to get to, but I look forward to it. I, too, have gotten cool dumping most games to easy. I barely finish anything, so I like to make some progress while I am playing. I still haven't crossed the FAQ bridge, however. I imagine it's just a matter of time.
01/20/14, 17:38   
So I finished the game with 2 out of the 4 endings (the "nothing" ending and the "chaos" ending). Really cool game. I liked the story, the gameplay, the voice work and music, and mostly the demon design and artwork is just out of this world. Not gonna lie, though, I'm glad to be "done" (mainly because I want to move on to other games), can't see myself playing thru for the "Law" ending and the neutral ending. I read up on them and it seems like something I would expect. I had to vary the difficulty along the way, it's too hard at the start and then gets too easy in the middle, and goes back to being hard at the end. I guess I haven't really scratched the surface of demon fusion yet, since apparently you can fuse 4 demons into one??? Either way, I had fun with that aspect of the game, too.

Recommended!
03/03/14, 21:42   
Not sure why I have been bumping so many old threads lately; however, I am finally going back to clear this out of my backlog. I just finished beating Etrian Odyssey IV and I am jumping right into this game again. I downloaded it at launch because of the deal with Fire Emblem: Awakening and made it 9 hours in. I stopped right after the major plot twist of walking all the way down in Naraku takes you to a post apocalyptic Tokyo and was amazed as to how much the game changed. That was when I stopped playing and was distracted by Pikmin 3 releasing: I never returned. I am unsure what kind of twists in the story are still left for me but I am still very intrigued in this games universe.

So, since I was only 9 hours in the first time, I decided to start over again. I am currently still getting caught up to where I was before and I am at the forest of the main characters hometown trying to save people. Looking forward to getting to that twist again and discovering the true nature of this games world.
01/22/15, 16:11   
Tokyo Theme

This, right here, is one of the best songs in any video game.
01/23/15, 04:01   
Edited: 01/23/15, 04:03


This song is more rocking.

It should be noted that the games are multifaceted and the world has two levels. Each individual game in the series tells its own story, usually on its own world, but despite not being directly related they all each have subtle kind of puzzle piece to the larger cosmology of the universe as a whole. And some parts look deceptively simple at first, but most of it is full of in depth references to world religions and philosophy. And has clever things you might not notice. Like totally casually, and not really gone into, the monastery obviously looks like a middle ages christian monastery, yet the head monk is styled in a way that obviously calls to mind Buddhist monks, showing a kind of religious Syncretism in that world. Their outfits alone hint at the world's backstory before you even get to tokyo. And if you look closely the samurai outfits are literally luke skywalker's original white clothes with a blue coat over it. Even their sword looks like a lightsaber. The only problems really are its dubious overworld map, and the fact that there's a few dubious translations like translating caution and order as status quo like 10 times. As well as often having a sunshine and daisies path that seems dubiously placed given the setting.

And the best part is probably its treating of getting to become a neostoic, which few games represent this well. But its really less of a series and more of a way of life.
01/23/15, 19:22   
Edited: 01/23/15, 19:23
I am still working my way through the game. I thought I was close to the end when I beat the boss to open the expanse, and now I am in some desert-like destroyed tokyo and am confused as to what the heck is going on...

Looking forward to beating this game soon, hopefully...
02/02/15, 02:54   
@Scrawnton Sounds almost indie rock-ish. Really sweet. I need to play this game soon!
02/02/15, 03:24   
@Zero the synth breakdown in the middle where the beat drops a bit is the best part. That rubbery synth sound is so appealing to my ears.
02/02/15, 03:32   
I beat the game, finally. I chose what is considered the "bad" ending, but honestly, with the way this games world is and how the characters act, I think the "nothing" ending is the only way to deal with these people.
02/04/15, 02:42   
@Scrawnton

Whoa, that was fast!

All the endings are "bad" for one side or the other, except for the "balanced" ending, which requires completing lots of annoying sidequests. It's really not worth it.
02/04/15, 21:12   
@Guillaume I read up on the endings and after weighing the personality of the characters and the context of the world, I felt like the nothing ending was most appropriate for this game. That's the canon for me, at least. Not sure how you feel.

Actually, I enjoyed the world in this game and the complexity of the story, but I hate games with drastically different endings like this because it's hard to say what's actually canon and what isn't. It feels like I never got closure because the ending seems pointless.
02/05/15, 04:18   
Guillaume said:
@Scrawnton

Whoa, that was fast!

All the endings are "bad" for one side or the other, except for the "balanced" ending, which requires completing lots of annoying sidequests. It's really not worth it.

> All the endings are "bad"
> except for the "balanced" ending

Sure is a lot of common stock in this thread.

But we can fix that

02/06/15, 11:07   
Edited: 02/06/15, 11:10
I was actually going to warn you guys that mentioning which ending you picked would bring down the insane ramblings of my brother but I did not realize how quickly he would get here.

OH WELL.
02/06/15, 16:19   
@Zero Hah, he is in his right to his opinion on the endings. I will replay the game again one day, but when I beat it with the worst ending, I never thought that I did not get closure. I seriously thought it was a logical ending to that world and I was fine with choosing it. It is still an amazing game though. I will definitely give it another play after the n3DS is out and I get through Majora's Mask.
02/07/15, 15:41   
You guys have no idea though. This is not just a game to him. An actual life goal of his is to teach an ethics class at a college and use SMT as the basis for it.

I made the mistake of um... what did I do, I forget now. I picked a neutral ending to an SMT game or something? And told him about it and why I picked that ending? And now HE WILL NEVER SHUT UP ABOUT HOW HORRIBLY WRONG MY LOGIC WAS AND WHY THAT MAKES ME BASICALLY HITLER?!!?!
02/07/15, 18:03   
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