@Ralizah Thanks for the comprehensive response, genuinely appreciate your time in putting that together!
The lack of story-driven narrative is actually a 'pro' for me... my gaming time is somewhat limited, so I would always prefer that the story:gameplay balance is heavily tipped in the favour of gameplay.
If I am hearing you right, it sounds like a much more mature Pokemon - with actual challenge and thought behind approaches to battle... with even random battles being potentially dangerous.
My largest gripe with Sword/Shield was that it felt very much on 'rails'... the gyms being incredibly easy to beat as long as you had the appropriate rock/paper/scissors to beat the opposing rock/paper/scissors.
After Sekiro, and currently playing Returnal, I really appreciate difficulty curves in games as long as they are 'fair'... and I personally take a lot of pleasure in beating them! Currently getting my ass kicked in B5 within Returnal, but I am addicted to keep trying as it honestly feels like winning is still within grasp.
It sounds also like very much SMT is a 'thinking' series, where your decisions and actions have genuine consequences? I like this concept.
I havent played many niche JRPGs in recent years, but enjoyed FF7R on PS5 and also Xenoblade Definitive and DQXI on Switch.
You seem to be hugely passionate about the series, which is great! Can I ask what exactly it is about SMT that has you so invested / hooked? Would you consider it has a specific USP that keeps you a massive fan?
@nessisonett Cheers man! My only gripe with DQXI was that it was quite on the easy side... but it would seem that SMT V poses a more reasonable level of challenge, which will be great
@CJD87 SMT games tend to be... not short, but also not 150 hours long to get through a single playthrough. A lot of it is heavily reliant on how thoroughly you play. The games are filled with side-quests, optional encounters, optional dungeons, etc., so I've taken anywhere between 40 - 90 hours in my playthroughs of these games.
Exploration factors in, too. These are not quite open world, but sort of like classic DQ and FF in terms of how the overworlds are basically open-ended enough that you never feel like the game is actively guiding you from place to the next (unlike, say, DQXI, where the environment basically funnels you down a linear path). Now, of course, it's possible that's different in this one, given how much larger the environments are, but exploratory gameplay is pretty integral to the identity of mainline SMT, and I don't really see them changing that.
Another feature of mainline SMT are the multiple routes and endings, where sometimes you'll have entirely different endgame content depending on how you played. The games feature conflicts between different ideological factions (typically, but not exclusively, chaos and law-oriented factions aligned with Lucifer and YHWH), and there will be an alignment system in place that determines which ending you end up getting. Alignments are handled differently from game to game: in some, you just make a few dialogue choices that align you with different factions, while in others, your alignment is the invisible, cumulative result of your moral choices and behaviors throughout the game (this second approach is more interesting, but also makes it harder to get specific endings without a game when replaying them). In general, my recommendation for a first-time playthrough of one of these games is to just make choices that feel right to you instead of trying to go for specific endings.
As to what it is I love about the games? I touched on it in my previous post, but they just hit the right buttons for me. The battles are turn-based, but strategic. The music KICKS (I'll link a few songs from previous games composed by the same person that is working on SMT V's music to give you a sense of their style). I love the focus on exploratory gameplay and being given breathing room to pursue side-quests/search for specific demons at your leisure. The monster designs are some of the best in the industry, and, it's worth mentioning, Megami Tensei games predate Pokemon by almost a decade (although we didn't start getting the mainline games outside of asia until SMTIII hit the PS2). I love the challenge of these games on higher difficulty settings (which used to just be the default difficulty settings, but the developer has tried to make the series more approachable without compromising their hardcore appeal for established fans). I like how atmospheric, dark, and mature they tend to be, which makes them atypical in the world of JRPGs by default. And, in general, IMO, Atlus has been making some of the best JRPGs in the industry for a while now. Mainline SMT, Persona, Etrian Odyssey, etc. are unlike anything else on the market.
Given you can freely decrease the level of difficulty, probably the best approach is to start on whatever the game's hard mode is and then go down if it's too overwhelming.
Honestly I can't thank you enough - I'm going to take the plunge and pre-order! Atlus should have you on some form of commission structure...!
I think that Metroid Dread, SMT V + the forthcoming N64 library should be plenty to keep me occupied whilst travelling... and enough to hold my interest & time into the new year. As much as I'm loving PS5, the portability & versatility of the Switch is absolutely unrivalled - and probably one of the best consoles of all time IMO.
Your comprehensive response/s, alongside others backings, are enough to give me the confidence to buy Day #1
Will you be going for any of the forthcoming Pokemon? I planned to skip Diamond/Pearl remakes, but potentially buy Arceus in January... but definitely not confident enough to pre-order. I feel it is likely that GameFreak's effort with Arceus will still fall short of the mark, and be miles away from the true potential that the IP could/should offer.
@CJD87 Cool! I've already preordered the special edition, so I'll be there day one (assuming there aren't any shipping delays, which I'm praying there aren't).
Aside from SMT V, I'll also be playing the remaster of Fatal Frame V releasing later in the month and working on my backlog until the holidays, when I'll hopefully get to Metroid Dread and the Advance Wars remakes. Once February rolls around, though, it'll be Horizon Forbidden West time.
On my PS4. I'm not one of the chosen ones yet.
I really like the Switch. There have been some growing pains, but I really think Nintendo hit gold with this concept. Hopefully the successor uses some sort of DLSS to help bridge the inevitable hardware gap between itself and the next-gen consoles. With that said, if you'd told me Nintendo's next big piece of portable hardware after the 3DS would be more powerful than the Wii U, I wouldn't have believed you.
The great thing about Nintendo's approach is that it can thrive alongside the power consoles, since it's barely in competition with them. People aren't buying the PS5 and Switch for the same sort of games, after all, and the Playstation can't be played away from a TV/monitor, so they can succeed by covering different spaces in the market.
My nephew is a pre-teen Poke-maniac, and his birthday is coming next month, so I'll be grabbing a copy of Shining Pearl for him. I'm sure I'll probably play some of it, but the timing of the release means I'll be roundly ignoring it for a month or so, since it releases so close to SMT. I've been waiting for the next big SMT game since IV released in 2013, so I sure as heck ain't taking time off from it to play an unambitious remake of D/P, which is already one of my less favorite generations (Gen V will probably always be my favorite, although I also ended up liking Gen VI a lot, despite the flak X&Y get nowadays; for the time, the jump in visual fidelity from previous games was massive, and Lumiose City is still pretty much the Novigrad of the Pokemon universe, which is pretty crazy when you consider that was an early 3DS title and the Switch is several orders of magnitude more powerful on the hardware side).
Arceus is... interesting. We'll definitely be getting it at launch. Even if it ends up being a bit of a misfire, it does feel like GameFreak is attempting to evolve their game design, and I want to be there as it happens. Even if the series has never been particularly impressive, it's still one that has been a pretty constant presence in my life since I was little, so it's hard to let go of.
With that said, I've felt better since discovering it's less of an open world Pokemon game and structured more like Monster Hunter, where you'll go out on missions into gigantic wild areas. It sounds much more... manageable, lol.
I can confirm that the plunge has officially been taken.... rolling the dice with Amazon.co.uk, where hopefully 'Day#1' doesn't become 'Day#4'! (I've been burnt in the past ha)
Yes it definitely seems like everyone is working on a plough-through of backlog, in preparation for Elden Ring and/or HFW early next year... Honestly though I certainly wouldn't consider myself (or any PS5 owner) as a chosen being, especially since the cross-gen period has been so lucrative for PS4 owners. Since getting PS5 (March-ish?) I have essentially been playing all PS4 games - Sekiro/FF7R/TonyHawk/RE2 Remake/FFXV/RE7 etc. I only own 2 'exclusives' which are Returnal and Demon's Souls.... the former I am playing currently, and latter still in backlog. But honestly, between PS4 and Switch you more than have all your bases covered!
Agree fully on your take regarding Switch, and must admit it irritates me how some (not all!) PS/Microsoft elitists look down on the console. For sure, and by design, it has some power limitations... but some of the ports are nothing short of miraculous (Witcher 3 for instance, if you had no alternative platform to play it on).
My only real issue with the Switch is a lack of forthcoming big releases that excite me. BOTW2 is an obvious contender, but going into next year there isn't really much that thrills me... I'm actually quite excited about the N64 catalogue, as contentious as the pricing model discussions have been. Personally I wouldn't mind paying an additional £20-£30 per/year to get the titles advertised. Starfox/Majora/Ocarina and even Mario Tennis are all classics! And the promise of Banjo to come is great.
Yes I certainly appreciate that GameFreak is at least 'trying' something new with the IP and genuinely hope Arceus breaks new ground successfully. Would be amazing if it was a runaway success, imagine Pokemon fused with BOTW, and a sprinkling of Dark Souls ha!
I also like the comparison to Monster Hunter, as Rise is my top played (in hours) game this year. Did you buy/play Rise?
Similar to my forthcoming journey into SMT, Rise was my entry point into MH franchise. Massively complicated and steep learning curve, but brilliant once you find a weapon that 'clicks' (Greatsword for me).
Does SMT have any form of multiplayer? I assume it is more a solo pursuit?
@CJD87 I have two special editions coming in from two different places (one for myself, one for a friend), including Amazon. So, hopefully, between the two, one will arrive on time. If one doesn't arrive on time, that can be the friend's copy.
Amazon delayed my special edition of FF7R by nearly a week last year, although that was after everyone started freaking out about the virus, so it's hard to be too upset. I believe they were prioritizing the shipment of 'essential' items at the time.
I was more riffing on the fact that the only consistently reliable way to order one of those consoles at MSRP is to be selected by Sony via email for the 'privilege' of ordering a console directly from them. You're exactly right in your analysis, though, IMO, and it mirrors what I've been saying: the PS5 is going to be very unessential for a while. Until 2023, at least, if you want to play those Insomniac Marvel games. If you're like me and couldn't give a toss about licensed Marvel stuff, then it could be even longer. We'll see.
I get why Playstation-exclusive gamers are so hot and bothered about getting a PS5. If you play all of your games on Playstation anyway, why not get one early and enjoy better performance in your PS4 games? With that said, as a multiplatform gamer, I need really good reasons to buy a new console. I bought a PS4 for Gravity Rush 2, Persona 5, and Silent Hills (lol). I bought a Switch at launch because, in their launch event, they announced a bunch of games I'd want to play: Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Super Mario Odyssey, Splatoon 2, SMT V, and then, putting the cherry on top, revealed BotW as a launch game.
I haven't had that 'moment' with PS5 yet, in terms of exclusives. Horizon Forbidden West would probably have been one of those 'gotta have it' exclusives, but, as we all know, it's a multiplatform release, and even if PS5s were easily available, I'm not spending $500 for a 4K-focused console when I don't even have a 4KTV to play it on. So, I'm hoping Sony will have announced some stuff I'm interested in by the time they start revising the PS5, as I'd prefer a slim model anyway (not a huge fan of gigantic consoles). Until then, yeah, with PC for multiplats, PS4 for Sony exclusives, and Switch for Nintendo exclusives and smaller multiplats that run well, I don't feel like I'm particularly missing out at the moment.
And, yeah, people harping on the weakness of the Switch's hardware usually have no room to speak unless they're playing on really advanced PCs. Big games on PS4 last gen often struggled to hit 30fps and sometimes had to have features removed (like Fallout 4's Far Harbor DLC, where they had to remove the fog because it was tanking the framerate!), for example. At least with the Switch, I gain something for sacrificing performance: the ability to play the game anywhere I want with convenience, with is very valuable to me.
At the end of the day, though, a lot of the crying about performance online is meaningless. Games look and play better at 60fps, sure, but they also almost always play well at 30fps. Games at lower resolutions don't look as crisp, but, more often than not, they're still fine. As long as I'm enjoying the game, it doesn't really matter how it performs or where I'm playing it. Which is why a lot of the tribalism in the community annoys me: it's a hobby, so all that matters is having fun.
As for next year, there are at least a few Switch games that I'm interested in. Sunbreak will probably add on 50+ hours of unique content to Monster Hunter Rise. Mario + Rabbids is one of my all-time favorite tactical RPGs (I liked it more than XCOM, actually), so I'm excited that we're getting a full-fledged sequel. Splatoon 3 is an obvious one for me: it's the only multiplayer shooter I care about, but I've gotten a ton of playtime out of the first two, and I expect this to be no different. Triangle Strategy looks like the Tactics Ogre/FF Tactics successor people have been wanting forever. In that same vein, we're probably getting the HD-2D remaster of Dragon Quest III next year, which I'm looking forward. And, of course, BotW2 is an immediate GOTY contender, although I have my doubts that it's releasing next year at all (Zelda games always get delayed, and given how little of it they've shown off, I'm guessing it'll be delayed into 2023, and perhaps even launch as another cross-over title with Nintendo's next console. Arceus: Legends is obviously a big release, although we'll see how successful that actually is. The 3D Kirby may or may not be good, but I'm not traditionally a fan of those games, so we'll see how it fares as more trailers are released. I don't personally care about Bayonetta 3, but that's another big release that'll excite a lot of people. It's a pretty good selection of titles considering we traditionally don't know much about Nintendo's lineup until mid-way into a given year, so if they have a few big reveals like usual, it'll be a really successful 2022 for them. ESPECIALLY if I'm wrong and BotW2 somehow manages to launch next year.
It's also worth mentioning there's a heavy possibility that Ace Attorney 7 will launch next year, and there are credible rumors of a Switch-focused Resident Evil game. It could be an even better year for Capcom games on the system in 2022.
All that being said, I way overspent on games this year, so I want to slow down with the purchases going into 2022. Some games are must-buys regardless, but I think I'm sticking purely to big releases I'm excited for. Otherwise, it'll be a very backlog-oriented year for me. Which unfortunately means stuff I'm only halfway interested in, like Elden Ring, Kirby, etc. will probably have to wait for sales down the road.
Considering you're a Playstation gamer (at least partially), I'm surprised you didn't jump on board with Monster Hunter World. I started with Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate on 3DS and loved it, and have wanted a portable follow-up since then. Generations didn't really do it for me, and World was PC/home console only (I bought it, but have never worked myself up to playing it; MH is fundamentally interesting to me as a portable experience, given the heavily grindy nature of the gameplay), but Rise has mostly been what I've wanted from Capcom for a while now: an exciting, ambitious new portable entry in the series that develops on the very vertical nature of 4U's environmental design. The fact that your character swings around environments like they're Spider-Man makes it even better. It's a little light on the endgame content, but, afaik, that tends to be the case with MH games before they get their expansions a year later, so I'm defo looking forward to that.
I mained longsword in 4U, but this time around, I've focused on the Hunting Horn and Light Bowgun (with a heavy preference for the former, since I prefer close encounter brawls).
And... no. SMT never has any multiplayer content (the mobile game might, but I don't play that). If it has any online interactivity, it might borrow from the mechanic in Persona 5 where you can perform an online fusion (fusing one of your monsters with one derived from another player on the internet), but that's the most I'd expect.
@nessisonett Indeed. Been also playing it more lately and I'm absolutely loving it, especially the boss fights. I just beat Kraid and it took a lot of tries, but it was so satisfying when I finally defeated it.
A general tip: the faster you mash the Y button, the faster Samus will shoot and it's very useful in a lot of situations, particularly the aforementioned boss fight.
@Ralizah - Funnily enough, I did actually jump on MHWorld upon getting me PS5 (this game was 1 of 20 'free' PS4 games for signing up to PS+).
However, after ploughing nearly 200hrs into Rise (my entry to the series) I found World to be nearly unplayable. Objectively speaking, I can see that in many ways World would be considered the 'superior' entry of the 2.... but I was already completely institutionalised in the rapid 'pick up & play' nature of Rise, and its almost arcade-ish setup. Whilst I can see how many seasoned veterans might chastise Rise, for me as a newbie it was/is perfect in many ways and exactly what I would want from a portable MH. Sunrise is actually the Switch game/expansion I'm most looking forward to next year - will have to join you for a few hunts upon release!
On a separate note, it astounds me that Amazon did not re-categorise your purchase of FF7R as an 'essential' good.... someone needs to be sacked for that decision!
Metroid Dread is strangely better in handheld mode than on the TV. I thought I’d be glued to the TV but it sounds better with my headphones in. Might not be massively comfortable since I use my Pro Controller off TV but it sounds and plays great. Graphics are seriously impressive too for a Switch game, framerate buttery smooth except for one notable exception and cutscenes. It’s just a proper old school fun time.
Well that price point announcement for the NSO + expansion pack ruined my excitement completely. I'm not paying €40, i.e. twice as much, just for N64 games. I was hoping for €30 but €40 is a bit too much for my taste, especially since the only thing I really need from the service is access to online multiplayer.
@LtSarge It's a laughable hike, given the extremely limited amount of content on offer. And I don't like this idea of renting a single piece of DLC. There's no value for someone who buys the Animal Crossing DLC separately, and then later subscribes to the Switch Online expansion. Which I guess from Nintendo's perspective is the point.
@mookysam Yeah, I also don't really have any use for the AC DLC either since I don't even have the game, lol. I thought it'd be fun to try out N64 games online but not for twice the amount of the original price. You just gotta love the people defending this, saying stuff like "but it's only roughly €3 every month". Well right now, I'm paying roughly €1.5 every month, which is much cheaper!
And here's the thing, Nintendo Switch Online isn't anything to write home about either. It's not like the online infrastructure is on par with Xbox Live or PlayStation Network. When your pricing is getting up there with PS+ and Xbox Live Gold, then I feel like something is wrong. I'd rather pay that amount for a year of PS+ or hell, even Xbox Live Gold for that matter. This month Microsoft is offering Resident Evil: Code Veronica X if you have Gold and previous months have seen titles like Zone of the Ender, Conker and so on. Nintendo just can't compete with that, which is why they should've stuck with a cheap price point.
Fortunately, the base plan isn't going anywhere. But if this is how much they are going to charge for N64 games, I'm afraid to even ask how much they would charge for GameCube games...
Nintendo can screw off with that pricing. I went from an almost guaranteed upgrade + an N64 controller to nothing.
If they decide to be reasonable and drastically lower the price of the expansion pass for people who don't want AC DLC, I might upgrade, but otherwise, they won't be getting my money.
I dunno, it works out at about £3 a month. Which imo isn’t bad considering the competition, although they provide a much better service of course. I’ve pre-ordered my controller and I will subscribe to this thing but it is more than I was expecting.
I’ve also gotten to the point where I can absolutely understand why Metroid Dread has been given 10s. It’s gotten really really good and actually has a plot. So it’s a shame to see even more horrible stories coming out about MercurySteam after the previous one about staff not being credited. I know there’s no such thing as ethical consumption but it does make me feel a bit scummy for pre-ordering Metroid.
Probably worth mentioning that anyone who wants this but doesn't like the price can join a family plan, and if everyone pays their share, it won't be nearly as expensive. Might be good for friend groups if everyone is interested in the N64 games.
I won't pay on principle until it comes packaged separately from the Animal Crossing expansion.
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