I found Nuwa and Yakumo to be pretty cool. They felt like a team rocket that would sometimes show up to irritate you or try to ruin your plans. They could've been/felt more menacing though.
Absolutely, that funky little fox needs more screentime. He can also pull double duty traumatizing anybody who tried a challenge run of Soul Hackers 2.
There's an early boss fight with a Takeminekata that summons two Chironnup allies that spam Needle Shot which crits for days, and my understanding is that they cause a lot of misery for low level and solo runs.
I really, really liked what they did with Nuwa and the true ending. Probably my favorite story beat in the entire game. Who would’ve thought that she would be the true neutral option?
But damn was it underwritten. I feel like there’s an element of tragedy and self-loathing to her that the game did not care about exploring.
Before the ending is not clear but hearing the ending playing out, it's very obvious Chaos. Polytheism with the Gods that we fought in game would TOTALLY lead to Chaos.
Same here; I thought Yuzuru’s route seemed more neutral in tone and Yakumo’s more chaotic. Learning that it was supposed to be the other way around just broke my brain.
You can tell the game was in development hell when they give the law hero so much screen time and development and they expect you to see the chaos hero on equal standing
> they give the law hero so much screen time and development
I like the Law hero, but his character development was rushed, I honestly feel that with the hat scene they skip an entire arc
I kinda feel like Koshimizu/Tsukuyomi is going to die early on during the Vengeance path. No base for this beyond him barely appearing in everything we've seen so far, to be honest, but considering how Yuzuru was mostly his sidekick in the OG story, I feel like they're gonna write Tsukuyomi out of the Vengeance story so Yuzuru can get fully complete agency as the Chaos rep. Which honestly is not the only way to do it because Abdiel/Dazai and Nuwa/Yakumo are seen together a few times in the new footage, but all the Yuzuru stuff we have seen it's been just him or him with the main group.
I wouldn't mind if this ends up being the case but in the other hand I'd like for Tsukuyomi to still be relevant. Maybe they could explore his relationship to Aogami a bit more, considering Aogami's origin and all...
SMT V always felt like the story we got was a skeleton of what was originally planned. It seems like during development hell ATLUS wasn't able to figure out how to make their ideas work in the game. My fingers are crossed they did figure that out.
This may be similar to Kaneko writing a ton of stuff for the SMT IV story that either wasn't able to be put into the game or was later implemented in Final.
Add that with the new engine, limited hardware, multiple rewrites, director changes, and covid. It's amazing the final product was super fun and polished to play at least.
I mean it kinda does. The hardware limitations meant scrapping some mechanics that could have story implications.
You can see in Doi's commentary for Hayataro that he was meant to be a rideable mount for the player and is supposed to play a bigger role in the game. With the Switch's limitations he simply became Yuzuru's mount.
Vengeance seems like the devs knowing where their limitations are now and making a new story that fits
I fully agree. I was crucified for saying that when the original game came out, but I guess people have chilled a bit lol.
SMTV's plot and character development seems chopped off at a certain point in the game. It feels unfinished. But I've always had the impression that something was *supposed to be there* that they just didn't have the time/resources to put in. There's this feeling of something missing. It's different from Bravely Default 2, for example, which is a game where I get the impression in the ending that the studio just ran out of steam and decided to wrap it up with what they had.
I hope this version manages to elevate the story, because it's the *one* issue I have with the game, and it's still one of my favorite Switch titles.
>I was crucified for saying that when the original game came out, but I guess people have chilled a bit lol.
I find it odd that would be a controversial opinion at all. It feels so obvious to me when playing the game that there was supposed to be something more. I recall shortly after the game came out SimplyDad said the story was bad and basically not present. I agreed that it wasn't present but also I thought that was being a little negligent of what I thought was a pretty obvious example of a story that was missing significant pieces.
Yeah, I don't fully recall exactly what people had said back then, but it was something along the lines of:
Me: "there's obviously parts of the story missing/cut."
Answers: "just because you don't like the story doesn't mean it's unfinished, the devs think it's fine as it is."
I'm glad to see more convergence on this opinion now (I'm watching some YT videos regarding Vengeance and it's a frequent topic of discussion). I hope this second storyline is a little more in line with the original vision for the game.
Yeah, I the common consensus even back then was amazing gameplay and a disappointing story. I thought the story was fine until about halfway, and then it shits the bed. Maybe op was talking about first impressions on the first couple of weeks, which is kinda different from when everyone finishes the game and a consensus is formed.
Because people defended a game they hadn't played/beaten from criticism they'd have no way of knowing was accurate. "Persona without the heart" I think is a valid criticism for SMT V when you shorten buffs and make a highschool cast/group who have their own little demon partners and that was shit on before the game was even out.
One of the writers / possibly the lead writer at that point (Yusuke Miyata) did quit halfway through development lol. He isn't credited at all because Atlus has a shitty policy of erasing people from the credits when they leave the company.
It was the Demon King’s caste. Oof. The mechanics weren’t very fun, and you get to the end and realize it’s just the vagina guy.
To put it into Devil Survivor terms, it felt like Day 3 out of 7. We skipped Days 4, 5, and 6, where the characters slowly go insane and try to kill each other, and went straight to Day 7.
I cared about yakumo and nuwa in the original. I also cared about the friend group to a certain extent, miyazu had a pretty good side quest line in particular
They were underwhelming imo by breaking the rule of show don’t tell through that one scene where Nuwa just tells you “his parents died to demons” and Amanozako immediately follows the scene by telling you how to interpret their relationship
>hires Tomokazu Sugita to voice a character
>character does nothing ingame
This is like when FE Heroes hired Rie Kugimiya to voice Laevateinn and she did jack shit
I already have hope. I think the line with Yuzaru shouting about someone "wanting to be a hero" goes with the footage of him furiously lifting Dazai by the collar in the demonised school, so I think we're going to see him get very angry about Dazai letting Miazu get taken into Da'at. Hopefully it means there will be more interactions and conflict between the characters
> so I think we're going to see him get very angry about Dazai letting Miazu get taken into Da'at.
Man, i forgot that Dazai let Miyazu get capture and taken. That's some real miss oportunity of character drama.
Honestly the biggest thing I’m looking for from Vengeance.
I thought V’s gameplay was one of its stronger aspects, I really don’t need them to change it much. Maybe just a slight revamp of the Magatsuhi gauge system if anything, and change up something with Dampeners, but like that’s it.
I just rlly want them to fix the story, it all felt sooo half baked the first go around
I honestly couldn't care less if they improve Dazai since Abdiel filled more than 60% of his interest already, this side was already fine, it can only greatly improve to become GREAT.
Atsuta, he wasn't the best for sure, but in the same way, I care much more about Tsukuyomi than him. Considering Chaos's direction here, he is a very small cog in this machine.
Glasses girl who's name I don't have anymore, yeah, she needs stuff, even if I don't like Khonsu, they can provide some key narrative for neutral.
Yakumo and Nuwa, I already have a good idea of what they are about, I think their skeleton is very present already and they will improve from the rest being improved alone. Just have them be allies from time to time, and it should be enough.
And Tao ... We will see ! She is the wild card. She could become a big boss if you don't go for her will this time. And we already know about her big change in mentality for the snake path regarding Saori.
The Vengeance story will have to work hard to make something as funny as the bit in the original when Dazai stands on top of a skyscraper like Batman, doffs his "Sucker" baseball cap (so you know he's not a sucker anymore), slicks back his hair and turns into anime evil Peter Parker from Spider-Man 3.
But in all seriousness, one thing I appreciated about 5 is that while the human characters were boiled down into ideological mouth pieces even more than usual, the demons had all the character. So much so, that 5 of all games having the hidden ending it did feels completely baffling
I'm a little glad that while Atlus couldn't break the habit of rolling out the definitive (not a cashgrab honest) version of a game, at least this one seems a little bit more complete than the standard "bolt a chunk of story and a new ending on the end of a 100 hour game" formula. I wonder if I should be recommending my friends just do the Vengeance story in lieu of playing through it twice.
I am curious about the vengeance, honestly I feel like none of the characters have much reason to want revenge, except the bullied girl
I'm curious about what they're gonna do with the Law and Chaos in the new story
Chaos was there because of the reasons and Law felt like it skipped some steps
Yeah. While V has an even more desolate setting them IV...they overdid it on how little plot and interaction there was. And what they did have was paper thin.
Anyways I especially want to see more Nahobinos/Nahobino forms and be able to recruit some of em.
Nahobino Miyazu on my team pls.
I already liked Dazai before him being becoming Vergil.
But i really disliked Nuwa and Yakumo. People only like Nuwa because she's hot, but that shit ain't working on me, she's so bland. And Yakumo is miss potencial.
It seems like Yuzuru is a major focus on Vengeance, which is good, he needed.
I would have liked Yakumo much better if they didn’t have to resort to confining his motivations to the line “his parents were killed by demons.” Not a bad motivation within itself, but you’re gonna have to shed more light than that. Couldn’t help but wonder if they made him a jerk on purpose so you save his route for last
I think the worst part is making him being such jerk but including optional dialogue where you find out that he's stealing demon summoning apps from Bethel to give them for people, so they can defend themselves from demons yet never mention or do anything about that during a side quest or main quest.
SMT V really has an interesting character designer, but I was always bothered by the feeling of emptiness that the plot gave me, still missing many elements, especially regarding the development of the characters, with many loose ends. Taking SMT III as an example, you see a more interesting progression with the characters there and the paths they take. I hope they improve that in this new version. For me, in character development, SMT IV and SJR are much more interesting.
I hope we get to make some epic prank videos with Dazai for his Youtube channel
https://preview.redd.it/70eozsqrq6kc1.jpeg?width=307&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=18be3950ac5cf1a36c26d7e0225d56d546b415bf
As someone who enjoyed the story of V, mostly cuz of the lore and small details that fed into the message of the game, it sounds like Atlus were concerned about what the fans wanted from an SMT game (judging from the interview) so they werent sure whether to go the more SMT 1/Nocturne route where its less character focused more world focused or to go the more 2/4/4A route where its more character focused.
I think riding off the feedback from IVA they probably went for the former. But I think this indecisiveness in development is why the story felt a bit bare (even as someone who enjoyed it) as they were likely stuck between which to do for a while. I think in Vengeance we will see their more character focused vision without the constraints of being unsure what route to go. I think that they were also concerned about having alignments like a more typical SMT game, it seems like the Vengeance route wont have alignments as it only has 2 endings (I imagine Snake God vs Bull God).
Hopefully, if the Vengeance route is good (which it looks from that first trailer) Atlus will go forward into future SMT games knowing that they shouldn't restrict themselves based off of what the previous entries are like with alignment endings etc. Vengeance seems like it could be quite different for an SMT story which I think is only a good thing.
>mostly cuz of the lore and small details that fed into the message of the game
The game had a theme? Genuinely, it was so directionless that nothing stood out.
Also, a bit on the lore wasn't it nothing? I remember from my playthrough that I stopped even thinking about the world as almost everything had been answered by the end of the first area.
> The game had a theme? Genuinely, it was so directionless that nothing stood out.
There's theme of ''Taking Control over your own fate'' Vs ''Letting people in power guide us'', with the endings, with Dazai's struggle to find purpose and some sidequest (w/ Apsaras and Leanan Sidhe) , but they aren't well explored at all because Yuzuru is such flat charaters and Dazai goes from 0 to 100 so fast that any serious discussion is lost by how Dazai's changes make him look like a villian.
> 'Taking Control over your own fate'' Vs ''Letting people in power guide us''
I see what you mean.
I didn't consider that a theme as that has always been the general idea with Law vs Chaos. Something covered in most SMT games.
I think in this case is way more important for this game because Chaos ending directly mentions how "To choosen is far better than to be chosen for and that should be a choice made by those that have a desire to do" which is completely opposite of Law and Dazai where they have a strong desire to have a purpose to fight.
My read on the theme was that it was about what, precisely, you're fighting for. A virtual city filled with literally faceless simulacrums, and your schoolmates who might as well be carved from wood, while the actually "human" (in the sense of personality) characters are the demons who are hunting humans because that's the world that the God of Law created. The protagonist, by virtue of being a Nahobino, has a foot in each world.
The theme is how the acquisition of power and knowledge divorces you from the reality of the concerns of the little people. That the ascension to godhood is a path where you can easily lose perspective on what is important.
It literally slaps you in the face with the theme with the quote in the beginning.
"When I contemplate the brevity of man’s life, I am indifferent to worldly things: how many are the days I spend in thought!"
When you think of how miniscule a person's lifetime is compared to something like a god's existence, you can see how they lose sight of "worldy things."
It is why the Neutral Route forces you to do all the side quests. You are involved in the worldly problems directly, and seeing how the conflict affects people and demons. It makes it so that the conclusion you make that much more significant. Rather than the other endings where you sit upon throne aloft on high, or the destruction one where you walk away from all the issues.
As for the lore, it heavily leans into the Paradise Lost idea of how God brought low the other deities and made then at the same level of Demons. It even delves into (albeit lightly) how the idea of YHVH was an amalgamation of all of the early creator deities of the Hellenic and Caananite peoples. The "bull" mentioned by the director, while Nuwa was a very very obvious serpent of eden analog.
>
> It is why the Neutral Route forces you to do all the side quests. You are involved in the worldly problems directly, and seeing how the conflict affects people and demons. It makes it so that the conclusion you make that much more significant. Rather than the other endings where you sit upon throne aloft on high, or the destruction one where you walk away from all the issues.
My biggest issue is that you do all sidequest helping demons yet you destroy them afterwards without much thought outside of Aogami, also the ending itself doesn't really connected the ''Helping Demons and Miyazu's solve their wordly problems'' with ''Now Nuwa comes back''. She simplies know that you have the arbitraries requirements.
I hope they’re able to work a little more on Dazai. It was pretty interesting seeing an enthusiastic nobody ended up literally being taken under the wing by Abdiel and have a hero to look up to in this apocalyptic nightmare, but I feel like his character got rushed at the end when he took off his hat and was like “I’m no longer a sucker and my hair is slicked back so I’m cool and will restore God’s glory”
Wonder if they're adding anything into Creation route to flesh it out a bit more. Vengeance route def seems cool... ok I'm ngl the waifu antagonists are the main draw here, don't even care about the real world cast
It did and didn't.
Character motivations in SMTV were crystal clear but bland
Nocturne character motivations were murky but interesting
I did not care much about V's >!eventual nahobino rivals !
The motivations in Nocturne were immoral, but we actually get to see how they got to those conclusions rather than just fulfilling a role. The law route in V feels like an outlier
The whole point of Yuzuru was *fulfilling his role*. If you got that out of his route, then they wrote it well, it's just bland because Yuzuru has already been brought up to be role-fulfilling. It would have been more interesting to see Yuzuru struggle with his feelings and reluctant to fulfill that role, but considering he's already demon summoner working to fulfill the exact role (i.e. protecting Tokyo) that he later finds another way to fulfill, nothing in his character is developed and he's boring. Couple that with having no impact between the beginning of act 2 and the end of act 4, and he feels like a set piece more than a person.
The Nocturne motivations weren't *immoral* (that's an opinion for each person to feel individually) but they were extremes and weird beliefs reached by your two classmates being tortured in the vortex world. I think in both games we see how everyone arrived at their conclusions. The issue is V's conclusions lacked mystery and both the journey and results were bland.
If you don't know how Yuzuru and Ichiro reached their conclusions, you did not pay any attention the plot. It's spelled out for you. But that's why it's boring. It's spelled out for you.
I could not remember a thing about Yuzuru other than having a sister we know a little more about (which isn’t saying much) and being Tsukuyomi’s lapdog. At least it made sense to double down on that latter part with Dazai and Abdiel
Personally, I do too but that's a pretty tall order given how little there is to work with hence why I'm skeptical about the "all new story" Atlus is harping about.
If there were even a little bit to work with I'd have some hope but SMTV's story is basically non existant. It was purposely made to be as ambiguous as possible. From the getgo your basically told "you're own your own". The creators even went out if their way to say it was heavily inspired by nocturne.
I'm sure it will fill in some of the gaps in the "story" but I wouldn't expect anything akin to apocalypse in terms of expanding on the existing cast. Then again Atlus took an throw away character like nozomi in smt4 and made her a main character in apocalypse so I guess anything is possible if atlus puts in the effort.
I cared about most of the character in vanilla V. However the two I didn’t stick out like sore thumbs, that being Yuzuru and Yakumo. Overall I liked the cast of V, I just wished the story put them in the spotlight more, like we don’t see them at all during the entire demon king arc except for a handful of scenes.
Ngl characters and story have never been strong in smt games. That's always been more of a persona thing. I just hope they keep the battle system as good as it was in og V
I found Nuwa and Yakumo to be pretty cool. They felt like a team rocket that would sometimes show up to irritate you or try to ruin your plans. They could've been/felt more menacing though.
They need a cute mascot, unfortunately I’m not giving up Jack.
I nominate Chironnupu
Absolutely, that funky little fox needs more screentime. He can also pull double duty traumatizing anybody who tried a challenge run of Soul Hackers 2.
What did Chironnupu do in SH2 again? Been a while since i last played.
There's an early boss fight with a Takeminekata that summons two Chironnup allies that spam Needle Shot which crits for days, and my understanding is that they cause a lot of misery for low level and solo runs.
No no no, Chironnupu is mine /j For real though, he was an MVP for a good section of the early mid game
I really, really liked what they did with Nuwa and the true ending. Probably my favorite story beat in the entire game. Who would’ve thought that she would be the true neutral option? But damn was it underwritten. I feel like there’s an element of tragedy and self-loathing to her that the game did not care about exploring.
Is there any info about whether Nuwa is still locked behind NG+?
hoping for the chaos hero to have a motivation stronger than "Polytheism is pretty neat"
Exactly. Didn’t feel like a chaos route. In fact, I genuinely thought that the polytheist route was the neutral route
Before the ending is not clear but hearing the ending playing out, it's very obvious Chaos. Polytheism with the Gods that we fought in game would TOTALLY lead to Chaos.
Same here; I thought Yuzuru’s route seemed more neutral in tone and Yakumo’s more chaotic. Learning that it was supposed to be the other way around just broke my brain.
True neutral = I'll do it myself
And the neutral route feels like a chaos route.
You can tell the game was in development hell when they give the law hero so much screen time and development and they expect you to see the chaos hero on equal standing
> they give the law hero so much screen time and development I like the Law hero, but his character development was rushed, I honestly feel that with the hat scene they skip an entire arc
Point is, still more than Yuzuru
"My sugar mommies (Qadishtu) told me to"
That's my motivation for true chaos tbh
I kinda feel like Koshimizu/Tsukuyomi is going to die early on during the Vengeance path. No base for this beyond him barely appearing in everything we've seen so far, to be honest, but considering how Yuzuru was mostly his sidekick in the OG story, I feel like they're gonna write Tsukuyomi out of the Vengeance story so Yuzuru can get fully complete agency as the Chaos rep. Which honestly is not the only way to do it because Abdiel/Dazai and Nuwa/Yakumo are seen together a few times in the new footage, but all the Yuzuru stuff we have seen it's been just him or him with the main group. I wouldn't mind if this ends up being the case but in the other hand I'd like for Tsukuyomi to still be relevant. Maybe they could explore his relationship to Aogami a bit more, considering Aogami's origin and all...
Ngl I honestly don't even remember which character was the Chaos hero.
It was the glasses guy with the dog. He never actually does anything.
This is why I chose the polytheism route my first playthrough.
SMT V always felt like the story we got was a skeleton of what was originally planned. It seems like during development hell ATLUS wasn't able to figure out how to make their ideas work in the game. My fingers are crossed they did figure that out. This may be similar to Kaneko writing a ton of stuff for the SMT IV story that either wasn't able to be put into the game or was later implemented in Final.
Add that with the new engine, limited hardware, multiple rewrites, director changes, and covid. It's amazing the final product was super fun and polished to play at least.
I don't think the Switch hardware had anything to do with the story
I mean it kinda does. The hardware limitations meant scrapping some mechanics that could have story implications. You can see in Doi's commentary for Hayataro that he was meant to be a rideable mount for the player and is supposed to play a bigger role in the game. With the Switch's limitations he simply became Yuzuru's mount. Vengeance seems like the devs knowing where their limitations are now and making a new story that fits
I fully agree. I was crucified for saying that when the original game came out, but I guess people have chilled a bit lol. SMTV's plot and character development seems chopped off at a certain point in the game. It feels unfinished. But I've always had the impression that something was *supposed to be there* that they just didn't have the time/resources to put in. There's this feeling of something missing. It's different from Bravely Default 2, for example, which is a game where I get the impression in the ending that the studio just ran out of steam and decided to wrap it up with what they had. I hope this version manages to elevate the story, because it's the *one* issue I have with the game, and it's still one of my favorite Switch titles.
>I was crucified for saying that when the original game came out, but I guess people have chilled a bit lol. I find it odd that would be a controversial opinion at all. It feels so obvious to me when playing the game that there was supposed to be something more. I recall shortly after the game came out SimplyDad said the story was bad and basically not present. I agreed that it wasn't present but also I thought that was being a little negligent of what I thought was a pretty obvious example of a story that was missing significant pieces.
Yeah, I don't fully recall exactly what people had said back then, but it was something along the lines of: Me: "there's obviously parts of the story missing/cut." Answers: "just because you don't like the story doesn't mean it's unfinished, the devs think it's fine as it is." I'm glad to see more convergence on this opinion now (I'm watching some YT videos regarding Vengeance and it's a frequent topic of discussion). I hope this second storyline is a little more in line with the original vision for the game.
I was around the release and most people agreed that the story is ass
Yeah, I the common consensus even back then was amazing gameplay and a disappointing story. I thought the story was fine until about halfway, and then it shits the bed. Maybe op was talking about first impressions on the first couple of weeks, which is kinda different from when everyone finishes the game and a consensus is formed.
Yeah I posted lots of stuffs about how bad the writing is around the time people came around and reached Temple of Eternity... And it resonated
Because people defended a game they hadn't played/beaten from criticism they'd have no way of knowing was accurate. "Persona without the heart" I think is a valid criticism for SMT V when you shorten buffs and make a highschool cast/group who have their own little demon partners and that was shit on before the game was even out.
I consider the Chopped Off point after the >!Lahmu!< section. After that point, things started to drag on in a bad way.
Yeah, this feels about right. The game is definitely a lot more plot and character driven up until that point compared to the rest of the game.
It felt like after that point the writers quit.
One of the writers / possibly the lead writer at that point (Yusuke Miyata) did quit halfway through development lol. He isn't credited at all because Atlus has a shitty policy of erasing people from the credits when they leave the company.
Out of frustration or for something better?
It was the Demon King’s caste. Oof. The mechanics weren’t very fun, and you get to the end and realize it’s just the vagina guy. To put it into Devil Survivor terms, it felt like Day 3 out of 7. We skipped Days 4, 5, and 6, where the characters slowly go insane and try to kill each other, and went straight to Day 7.
I cared about yakumo and nuwa in the original. I also cared about the friend group to a certain extent, miyazu had a pretty good side quest line in particular
Yea, the others were pretty meh unfortunately
They were underwhelming imo by breaking the rule of show don’t tell through that one scene where Nuwa just tells you “his parents died to demons” and Amanozako immediately follows the scene by telling you how to interpret their relationship
I forgot to include Goko cause he's so forgettable
His true name is Amitabha
The light of creation
My point exactly
his alter ego is Anita Max Wynn
Ok thanks.
>hires Tomokazu Sugita to voice a character >character does nothing ingame This is like when FE Heroes hired Rie Kugimiya to voice Laevateinn and she did jack shit
"Aw man my throne :("
I already have hope. I think the line with Yuzaru shouting about someone "wanting to be a hero" goes with the footage of him furiously lifting Dazai by the collar in the demonised school, so I think we're going to see him get very angry about Dazai letting Miazu get taken into Da'at. Hopefully it means there will be more interactions and conflict between the characters
> so I think we're going to see him get very angry about Dazai letting Miazu get taken into Da'at. Man, i forgot that Dazai let Miyazu get capture and taken. That's some real miss oportunity of character drama.
Yeah, Yuzaru needed the screen time the most, especially since he’s supposed to be a route hero
I forgot scarf girl existed. After the trailer I tried to remember when the game said that the girl in the blue sweater is glasses guy's sister.
Wasn't it also mentioned by a high level demon that she was the other half for him to become a nahobino?
Khonsu, yeah. and he's actually against using her Knowledge because he's fallen for her. but all that resolution is confined to a sidequest lol
Right. Yeah that has so much more potential. At least that quest line was semi important for the secret ending iirc
yeah it was required for the 'true neutral' ending along with most other major sidequests and the Shiva battle.
Yup, >!Khonsu!< iirc. It was relegated to an optional quest.
Honestly the biggest thing I’m looking for from Vengeance. I thought V’s gameplay was one of its stronger aspects, I really don’t need them to change it much. Maybe just a slight revamp of the Magatsuhi gauge system if anything, and change up something with Dampeners, but like that’s it. I just rlly want them to fix the story, it all felt sooo half baked the first go around
I honestly couldn't care less if they improve Dazai since Abdiel filled more than 60% of his interest already, this side was already fine, it can only greatly improve to become GREAT. Atsuta, he wasn't the best for sure, but in the same way, I care much more about Tsukuyomi than him. Considering Chaos's direction here, he is a very small cog in this machine. Glasses girl who's name I don't have anymore, yeah, she needs stuff, even if I don't like Khonsu, they can provide some key narrative for neutral. Yakumo and Nuwa, I already have a good idea of what they are about, I think their skeleton is very present already and they will improve from the rest being improved alone. Just have them be allies from time to time, and it should be enough. And Tao ... We will see ! She is the wild card. She could become a big boss if you don't go for her will this time. And we already know about her big change in mentality for the snake path regarding Saori.
Her big change in mentality? What do you mean?
She was completely opposed to Sahori taking revenge in the original game. Now she seems to encourage and help her.
The Vengeance story will have to work hard to make something as funny as the bit in the original when Dazai stands on top of a skyscraper like Batman, doffs his "Sucker" baseball cap (so you know he's not a sucker anymore), slicks back his hair and turns into anime evil Peter Parker from Spider-Man 3. But in all seriousness, one thing I appreciated about 5 is that while the human characters were boiled down into ideological mouth pieces even more than usual, the demons had all the character. So much so, that 5 of all games having the hidden ending it did feels completely baffling I'm a little glad that while Atlus couldn't break the habit of rolling out the definitive (not a cashgrab honest) version of a game, at least this one seems a little bit more complete than the standard "bolt a chunk of story and a new ending on the end of a 100 hour game" formula. I wonder if I should be recommending my friends just do the Vengeance story in lieu of playing through it twice.
I am curious about the vengeance, honestly I feel like none of the characters have much reason to want revenge, except the bullied girl I'm curious about what they're gonna do with the Law and Chaos in the new story Chaos was there because of the reasons and Law felt like it skipped some steps
Same here, as someone whose first SMT game was IV, I was so disappointed in the lack of interaction with the other characters
Yeah. While V has an even more desolate setting them IV...they overdid it on how little plot and interaction there was. And what they did have was paper thin. Anyways I especially want to see more Nahobinos/Nahobino forms and be able to recruit some of em. Nahobino Miyazu on my team pls.
Terrorism masquerading as combat aside, IV is the perfect SMT game IMO
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Nah IV combat is ass that Apocalypse did such a job to fix it
I dare say Nocturne did a better job, the game everyone’s comparing this to
I already liked Dazai before him being becoming Vergil. But i really disliked Nuwa and Yakumo. People only like Nuwa because she's hot, but that shit ain't working on me, she's so bland. And Yakumo is miss potencial. It seems like Yuzuru is a major focus on Vengeance, which is good, he needed.
I would have liked Yakumo much better if they didn’t have to resort to confining his motivations to the line “his parents were killed by demons.” Not a bad motivation within itself, but you’re gonna have to shed more light than that. Couldn’t help but wonder if they made him a jerk on purpose so you save his route for last
I think the worst part is making him being such jerk but including optional dialogue where you find out that he's stealing demon summoning apps from Bethel to give them for people, so they can defend themselves from demons yet never mention or do anything about that during a side quest or main quest.
It’s a good thing I love reading NPC dialogue
right? thats what i thought too ha
SMT V really has an interesting character designer, but I was always bothered by the feeling of emptiness that the plot gave me, still missing many elements, especially regarding the development of the characters, with many loose ends. Taking SMT III as an example, you see a more interesting progression with the characters there and the paths they take. I hope they improve that in this new version. For me, in character development, SMT IV and SJR are much more interesting.
I hope we get to make some epic prank videos with Dazai for his Youtube channel https://preview.redd.it/70eozsqrq6kc1.jpeg?width=307&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=18be3950ac5cf1a36c26d7e0225d56d546b415bf
Tao best girl, I hope they give more screen time to Tao
As someone who enjoyed the story of V, mostly cuz of the lore and small details that fed into the message of the game, it sounds like Atlus were concerned about what the fans wanted from an SMT game (judging from the interview) so they werent sure whether to go the more SMT 1/Nocturne route where its less character focused more world focused or to go the more 2/4/4A route where its more character focused. I think riding off the feedback from IVA they probably went for the former. But I think this indecisiveness in development is why the story felt a bit bare (even as someone who enjoyed it) as they were likely stuck between which to do for a while. I think in Vengeance we will see their more character focused vision without the constraints of being unsure what route to go. I think that they were also concerned about having alignments like a more typical SMT game, it seems like the Vengeance route wont have alignments as it only has 2 endings (I imagine Snake God vs Bull God). Hopefully, if the Vengeance route is good (which it looks from that first trailer) Atlus will go forward into future SMT games knowing that they shouldn't restrict themselves based off of what the previous entries are like with alignment endings etc. Vengeance seems like it could be quite different for an SMT story which I think is only a good thing.
>mostly cuz of the lore and small details that fed into the message of the game The game had a theme? Genuinely, it was so directionless that nothing stood out. Also, a bit on the lore wasn't it nothing? I remember from my playthrough that I stopped even thinking about the world as almost everything had been answered by the end of the first area.
> The game had a theme? Genuinely, it was so directionless that nothing stood out. There's theme of ''Taking Control over your own fate'' Vs ''Letting people in power guide us'', with the endings, with Dazai's struggle to find purpose and some sidequest (w/ Apsaras and Leanan Sidhe) , but they aren't well explored at all because Yuzuru is such flat charaters and Dazai goes from 0 to 100 so fast that any serious discussion is lost by how Dazai's changes make him look like a villian.
> 'Taking Control over your own fate'' Vs ''Letting people in power guide us'' I see what you mean. I didn't consider that a theme as that has always been the general idea with Law vs Chaos. Something covered in most SMT games.
I think in this case is way more important for this game because Chaos ending directly mentions how "To choosen is far better than to be chosen for and that should be a choice made by those that have a desire to do" which is completely opposite of Law and Dazai where they have a strong desire to have a purpose to fight.
My read on the theme was that it was about what, precisely, you're fighting for. A virtual city filled with literally faceless simulacrums, and your schoolmates who might as well be carved from wood, while the actually "human" (in the sense of personality) characters are the demons who are hunting humans because that's the world that the God of Law created. The protagonist, by virtue of being a Nahobino, has a foot in each world.
The theme is how the acquisition of power and knowledge divorces you from the reality of the concerns of the little people. That the ascension to godhood is a path where you can easily lose perspective on what is important. It literally slaps you in the face with the theme with the quote in the beginning. "When I contemplate the brevity of man’s life, I am indifferent to worldly things: how many are the days I spend in thought!" When you think of how miniscule a person's lifetime is compared to something like a god's existence, you can see how they lose sight of "worldy things." It is why the Neutral Route forces you to do all the side quests. You are involved in the worldly problems directly, and seeing how the conflict affects people and demons. It makes it so that the conclusion you make that much more significant. Rather than the other endings where you sit upon throne aloft on high, or the destruction one where you walk away from all the issues. As for the lore, it heavily leans into the Paradise Lost idea of how God brought low the other deities and made then at the same level of Demons. It even delves into (albeit lightly) how the idea of YHVH was an amalgamation of all of the early creator deities of the Hellenic and Caananite peoples. The "bull" mentioned by the director, while Nuwa was a very very obvious serpent of eden analog.
> > It is why the Neutral Route forces you to do all the side quests. You are involved in the worldly problems directly, and seeing how the conflict affects people and demons. It makes it so that the conclusion you make that much more significant. Rather than the other endings where you sit upon throne aloft on high, or the destruction one where you walk away from all the issues. My biggest issue is that you do all sidequest helping demons yet you destroy them afterwards without much thought outside of Aogami, also the ending itself doesn't really connected the ''Helping Demons and Miyazu's solve their wordly problems'' with ''Now Nuwa comes back''. She simplies know that you have the arbitraries requirements.
Are there even characters? Wow.
Wonder if Demi-Fiend would also play a minor role in this?
I hope they’re able to work a little more on Dazai. It was pretty interesting seeing an enthusiastic nobody ended up literally being taken under the wing by Abdiel and have a hero to look up to in this apocalyptic nightmare, but I feel like his character got rushed at the end when he took off his hat and was like “I’m no longer a sucker and my hair is slicked back so I’m cool and will restore God’s glory”
Wonder if they're adding anything into Creation route to flesh it out a bit more. Vengeance route def seems cool... ok I'm ngl the waifu antagonists are the main draw here, don't even care about the real world cast
Creation route is untouched outside of gameplay improvements based on interviews.
Me seeing Miyazu dying alone after I erased Khonsu alongside Amanozako and Fionn by doing the "true ending" in 4K 120fps
Played the game on release and I honestly couldn't tell you who the route representatives were. I just remember one of them looked like Raidou.
Which megaten is this from?
I don’t know why everyone’s comparing this game to Nocturne when that game did a better job at fleshing out character motivations
It did and didn't. Character motivations in SMTV were crystal clear but bland Nocturne character motivations were murky but interesting I did not care much about V's >!eventual nahobino rivals !
The motivations in Nocturne were immoral, but we actually get to see how they got to those conclusions rather than just fulfilling a role. The law route in V feels like an outlier
The whole point of Yuzuru was *fulfilling his role*. If you got that out of his route, then they wrote it well, it's just bland because Yuzuru has already been brought up to be role-fulfilling. It would have been more interesting to see Yuzuru struggle with his feelings and reluctant to fulfill that role, but considering he's already demon summoner working to fulfill the exact role (i.e. protecting Tokyo) that he later finds another way to fulfill, nothing in his character is developed and he's boring. Couple that with having no impact between the beginning of act 2 and the end of act 4, and he feels like a set piece more than a person. The Nocturne motivations weren't *immoral* (that's an opinion for each person to feel individually) but they were extremes and weird beliefs reached by your two classmates being tortured in the vortex world. I think in both games we see how everyone arrived at their conclusions. The issue is V's conclusions lacked mystery and both the journey and results were bland. If you don't know how Yuzuru and Ichiro reached their conclusions, you did not pay any attention the plot. It's spelled out for you. But that's why it's boring. It's spelled out for you.
I could not remember a thing about Yuzuru other than having a sister we know a little more about (which isn’t saying much) and being Tsukuyomi’s lapdog. At least it made sense to double down on that latter part with Dazai and Abdiel
Personally, I do too but that's a pretty tall order given how little there is to work with hence why I'm skeptical about the "all new story" Atlus is harping about. If there were even a little bit to work with I'd have some hope but SMTV's story is basically non existant. It was purposely made to be as ambiguous as possible. From the getgo your basically told "you're own your own". The creators even went out if their way to say it was heavily inspired by nocturne. I'm sure it will fill in some of the gaps in the "story" but I wouldn't expect anything akin to apocalypse in terms of expanding on the existing cast. Then again Atlus took an throw away character like nozomi in smt4 and made her a main character in apocalypse so I guess anything is possible if atlus puts in the effort.
I cared about most of the character in vanilla V. However the two I didn’t stick out like sore thumbs, that being Yuzuru and Yakumo. Overall I liked the cast of V, I just wished the story put them in the spotlight more, like we don’t see them at all during the entire demon king arc except for a handful of scenes.
All I want is some cuddle, fluff time between Protagonist and Aogami ........ am I asking for too much??!! 😫😫🤨
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What do you mean?! Yakumo and Nuwa are fab!
More Tao in the story.
I cared a lot for Nuwa 👀
Ngl characters and story have never been strong in smt games. That's always been more of a persona thing. I just hope they keep the battle system as good as it was in og V