JRPG general discussion

Correction, it was a SNES game first.

Well I can see how it could catch you out. It came on a weird cart with tonnes of memory and a special chip for decrypting the compressed data on the cart. He'll it had a full vocal opening theme, something that you don't expect from a snes game.

Both those games had the decompression chip as well. I remember it was a couple of years before they were emulated since the decompression algorithm took a while to find.

Here's an actual screenshot of Natural Doctrine.... confusing is not the word:



Apparently it's the type of game that if you have the right strategy you will destroy the enemy but the same can happen to you if you mess up. And by strategy I mean you set up your moves so you completely break the battle system. There was an easy mode patched into the Japanese version since people complained it was way too hard with too much grinding.

I'd have recommended the us version over the European one which is a very poor PAL conversion but sure you've bought it now.

You have a choice of a few clubs, once you make that choice you have to live with it. Social links are the most important things in the game so you want to maximise your links. Getting your charm up when you have free time a d bringing a matching persona to the social link you are going on will give you a significant boost in the social link.

As for combat, as a smt veteran you'll know status buffs are massively important against bosses. Spells that buff defense or agility or debuff enemies should be used a lot!

The EU version of the game runs a good bit slower than the US version. The US version is a much faster paced and playable game as a result. I didn't really notice it myself until I played Persona 3 Portable which just feels so much better. I can't believe it had a crappy PAL port, it's the same with Persona 4, in this day and age.

Buffs and debuffs will factor in big time later on. As long as you are fully exploring each floor and not running from any fights you should be properly levelled up for any boss. A lot of people get stuck on bosses and think they have to grind but really they've just come up against a boss with no elemental weakness that just needs careful use of stat buffs. Even in easier boss battles they will make things go a lot smoother.

As for plot choices there's I think another club you have to join. Just choose what you want, you can only pick one and it levels up the same social link anyway so it's not a big deal. There's another choice later on that gives you a bad ending or moves to the path of the good ending but it's easy to figure out the correct choice and if you choose the wrong one it's just a case of reloading your save file after the bad ending.

The game isn't buggy at all. I usually have two saves though. I save once I get to a boss on Tartarus and then have a second save for when I fuse my demons together in case I make a bad combination. I like to play the game living with the decisions I make as well, it's hard to really mess up a social link in the game. Just remember to go out with people on sundays and breaks when they call. Gives big social link bonuses, you'll have plenty of time to do the sunday social links.

The portable games are good ports because all portables run at 60 fps. On consoles some European tvs that are old runat only 50 fps but most games have been offering 60Hz since the Dreamcast which makes the Persona games so baffling.

The wizardry article on hg101 has a great section on how it influenced future RPGs including jrpgs.

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/wizardry/wizardry.htm

SMT4 out 30th of October. Buy it you fools!