If you actually care about story, and/or like 60s-era psychedelic art, then the ending of DDS2 is worth the money. After a rather depressing 80% of the game, it’s an amazing transformation of outlook. Anything more would be a spoiler, but I think it’s almost daring as RPG stories go.
I’ve seen others mention that they think P4 is easier and/or more accessible but I just don’t see it. Outside of some of the usability enhancements, P4 strikes me as much more difficult from the outset. SP turns out to be a much rarer resource than it was in P3, limiting your spells and your ability to replenish it unless you want to pay the Fox and arm and a leg. Analyze in P3 let you instantly see strengths and weaknesses of enemies while in P4 you have to find it through trial and error (and again using that valuable SP). Normal enemy encounters also seemed easier in P3, perhaps to account for lack of direct party control. Even shuffle time is more perilous in P4.
I think most of those changes probably serve P4 for the better since it makes the early game more balanced and interesting for P3 veterans but I think it makes it less accessible as well.
P4 is definitely harder. The SP changes alone would do it, but it’s also harder to get a surprise attack on an enemy, and a fast enemy can get some licks in before you can bring their elemental weakness to bear.
In my opinion the skill loadouts on your teammates and the strength of the buff/debuff skills is what makes P4 easier. I do need to get back to P3 at some time so I’m not completely sure of this, but I don’t remember having access to the buff skills as early as I did in P4. Also having the S links on each teammates and getting them to their max gives a huge benefit that you have control of in P4 unlike in P3 which happens through the story.
I do agree that the surprise attack can make things unfair but as a plus your teammates cannot be knocked down and lose a turn unless hit twice by their weakness not once like in P3.
But you are well into the game before you’ve built those S-Links up so by that point accessibility for newcomers is somewhat moot. But I think P3’s learning curve from the outset is much more friendly. You don’t even need most of the buffs/debuffs early on in P3 so that balances out IMO.
All you need is level 1 in a s-link to eliminate the majority of game-over screens. After that, you can still wipe if you get aoe-ed at the wrong moment, but it’s much less likely. With that one easy-to-get “take a mortal blow for you” ally ability, they made the game much easier, I think.
It may be that P3 is more accessible to newbies, and that P4 makes some implicit assumptions about your familiarity with the game system. Not sure about that offhand.
I don’t know if it’s just luck or not, but I’ve yet to be killed by a Hama or Mudo skill in all the time spent in P4. The mortal blow ability has saved my life numerious times as well as having your teammates survive a mortal blow themselves but that one comes far later.
Re: second point, that might be true. I don’t remember how effective the buff/debuff skills were in P3; P4 was the first SMT game that they seemed to be very powerful for boss fights.
Hmm. I have to disagree. I am playing P3 for the first time right now, about half way into the game. And I finished Nocturne few months ago, so it is still very fresh in my memory.
P3 a good game, but personally I like Nocturne much better. They are similar in many ways, but Nocturne is much darker, harder, and well, sexier. The story in Nocturne is better. Plus I like an art direction much more in Nocturne - P3 borrows a lot of art assets from Nocturne but for some reason the main art guy who worked on Nocturne and on all previous games was not involved in P3/P4, and you can clearly feel it.
The new P3 art is still good (in a “cute” rather than “cool” way), but not as good as in Nocturne. The music in P3 is great for the first 20-30 hours or so, after that I couldn’t stand it - there were simply not nearly enough soundtracks. Endlessly repeating battle comments after every 2nd stike were annoying. The battle mechanics is much worse than it was in Nocturne - it makes battles in P3 way too easy if you MM it. Just to give you a single example, unlike in Nocturne, in P3 regular non-boss battles provide no challenge at all, and it feels like a waste of time to me. As long as you hit target from behind when you engage the enemy, you always get 2 (!!!) free rounds for your party. And on top of it as long as you exploring enemy weaknesses you keep hiting enemies forever without giving them a chance to retaliate. I think it was a very bad design decision - makes non-boss battles way too easy (and I am playing game on “hard” difficulty).
Anyway, don’t get me wrong, P3 is a good RPG game. But IMHO Nocturne is much better, if you can handle its difficutly level.
I haven’t played P4 yet, but from what I’ve heard, it’s very similar to P3.
I agree that SMT3:N is better than P3 or P4. Despite the fact that P3 and P4 have deeper gameplay, more characters, more interactions and decision points, far better voice acting, and that SMT3:N has those damnable random encounters…
If you just break down the elements, analysis in a literal sense, SMT3:N should not merely be inferior to the other related Atlus games, it should be fundamentally bad in and of itself, but it’s just a great game despite all that.
The one clear analytical element for which Nocturne is superior is indeed art direction. Kaneko Kazuma is brilliant, especially with limited polygons. The P3/P4 guy isn’t bad at all, but KK is better.
I read a rumor someplace that he’s working on Atlus’s next-gen RPG, but I don’t know if that’s true, or if he’s even still employed there. His last credit on Wikipedia is 2005, fwiw.
Well, the choice was between 3 and 4, so I made it accordingly. I have a much less clear opinion on where Nocturne stands, since for me the game was a non starter. When I tried to play it, I was already at a point in my RPGs where unless very specific conditions were met, I needed more control over my encounters. Random was just a boring deal breaker for me, where everything else in the game should have been enough to overcome it.
P3 and 4, as well as other games I’ve played since, only confirmed that. I may at some point dig up Nocturne from my storage unit along with the guide and try again, but that’s about it. It’s not that I don’t think it’s a great game for other people, it just doesn’t factor into what I want to play or can recommend to others without a big caveat.
I hear you Lizard_King. If there was one thing I really disliked about Nocturne it were random encounters. Unfortunatly most of concole JRPGs have it. At least in Nocturne there was some measure of control over it (sliding green/red danger indicator, plus a bit later in the game you will have few spells/items to manipulate it). Also non-boss battles in Nocturne were usually very vast (once you become familiar with new enemies), and not too frequent. The frequency factor is relative of course but for example in a very similar (in combat mechanics) game Digital Devil Saga1/2 the random battles frequency was about 3 times higher, which was way too much for me, forcing me to stop playing the game). Also unlike in P3/P4 there was no need for me to MM battle to make sure my character would get the last strike. (I hated this design decision in P3 - what was the point of it? Although I kindof liked “shuffle” minigame in P3 - I never saw such reward system in RPGs, I thought it was reasonably interesting and original)
But all this is a matter of personal preferences of course. I would suggest give Nocturne a try when you will have time and would feel like it. For me it was one of the top 3 console RPGs I’ve ever played. (and RPGs is my favorite genre in computer game)
Agreed. Although I would not say that P3 has deeper gameplay than Nocturne. The whole social thing in P3 is just a school life simulator that gives you certain bonuses. I guess it does add another layer of strategy to the game but it feels rather disconnected from the rest of the game mechanics. In P3 you have more options to customize your characters with equipment which is a nice feature. But on the other hand in Nocturne you have complete control over 4 party members instead of just one in P3. (why the heck devs did it?!? ) And demon fusion system was more complex. Not to mention all demon negotiation/recruitment/conversation system that was completely missing from P3. Finally in Nocturne you had that large system of demonic parasite (what was its name?) that you could swallow and learn from it when you level.
As for more choices in dialoges in P3 - it seems purely superficial (at least as far as I’ve seen). In P3 100% of storyline choices I’ve seen were completely meaningless. I’ve tried many times to trace down consequences of choosing different answers in storyline events. They all lead to the same outcome. It was really irritating. For example, why would they even give you a choice of either agreeing to something or not, when if you choose one of the “wrong” answers, one of your team member will always say someing along the lines of “C’mon, you didn’t really mean it”, or “Don’t be silly, that’s what you are really going to do”.
Does P3 even has multiply endings?
Anyway, I agree with you that although Nocturne is a better game, P3 is quite enjoyable game as well.
It does have multiple endings (well, at least two significantly different ones, IIRC), but as you say they don’t really have much connection to the dialogue choices, especially with respect to the S Links. The dialog choices there mainly affect how much further along you move towards the next s link level with that person, with less effective responses netting you less or no progress. Compounded by gifts and all that other crap, of course.
I have tried 3 times now to get into Nocturne, lots of people just love it, but whatever it is I can’t get into it. If I had to pick one thing it would probably be the random battles, but I don’t think that’s true since I loved DQ8. The story and artwork are all very attractive to me, hence the three attempts, but I still get bored after 4-5 hours with it.
Random battles are the main reason why I stopped playing a lot of RPGS, it just wears me down to the point that I don’t even feel like playing the game anymore. With Nocturne at least you have easy to see goals for fighting, getting new skills for your demons and for yourself.
It’s good to know, thank you.
Kaneko just directed the Devil Summoner sequel that released in Japan a few months ago (which hopefully will be localized soon since it sounds like it fixed most of the issues with the first game).
I think Kaneko’s style works well for Nocturne and DDS but I’m happy he didn’t do P3&4. Kaneko’s style has a sort of alien, creepy vibe to it that doesn’t work well with the otherwise familiar world of high schoolers in Persona.
Actually P4 would seem to address quite a few of your complaints. It’s much harder to get an advantage in battle, enemies often move before your characters, hitting a weakness doesn’t necessarily stop someone from acting the next round, and you have direct control of your characters, S. Links also have more impact on the combat since doing S. Links for your main party provide additional combat abilities (and everyone is now available for Links instead of just the girls).
Hmm, you are right, that does sound interesting, and all you have mentioned sound like changes in the right direction. Perhaps I should give P4 a try, when/if I will finish P3. What about plot and cast of characters in P4 comparable to P3? Are they better or worse? There seem to be conflicting opinions about it from different posters.
I think the characters are better developed in the sense that they actually feel like people who like to hang out together. In P3 there was this strange separation where you lived in this dorm with your SEES team but outside of a few S. Links and some story scenes, you pretty much hung out with an entirely different group at school. P4 feels more cohesive because the team S. Links are beefed up and they even show up in some of the other supporting S. Links from time to time.
Too early for me to make a judgment on story though. The murder mystery angle is neat.
Fundamentally though, the story and characters are of similar tone and quality as P3.