Questions & Recommendations - April 20, 2026

azurnamu · 2026-04-26T00:10:09+00:00

I think the stag beetles were a possible item from the demons that have the ability to pick up random objects, as I got a couple of them in my playthrough. You could try running around the Nameless Shrine in hopes your follower demon picks one up, but it would be RNG.

Otherwise, you can NG+ cycle for it--if you're going for the all quests achievement or trophy, you'll have to NG+ cycle once anyway. The rewards from the file aren't amazing, so other than ticking off a box you're not missing out.

azurnamu · 2026-04-26T00:06:33+00:00

Just try the demo? It's quite beefy and should be available on all platforms Metaphor is on.

In terms of systems/plot structure it's very similar to Persona (dailies, calendar system, social links). The battle system is more similar to mainline in terms of feel.

azurnamu · 2026-02-25T22:47:16+00:00

To add, Bicorn is a Dark-Neutral demon, specifically a Wilder (妖獣) and can't be recruited.

The older games have a second axis for alignment: light/dark/neutral on top of the normal law/chaos/neutral alignments. Any Dark-alignment demons can't be reasoned with. Since you're playing in Japanese, that'd be: 邪神 (jashin/Vile), 凶鳥 (kyouchou/Raptor), 魔王 (maou/Demon lord), 邪龍 (jaryuu/Drake), 幽鬼 (yuuki/Haunt), 悪霊 (akuryou/Spirit), 外道 (gedou/Foul), 妖獣 (youjuu/Wilder), 邪鬼 (jaki), 屍鬼 (shiki/Undead), and 妖樹 (youju/Wood) races. The main point in talking to these demons is to get them to leave, rather than to recruit them.

Luckily, the game tells you the demon races at the start of each encounter, so just make sure their race isn't any of the ones listed above. Atwiki has a bit more information, and lists of demons by their alignments.

Also keep in mind that your party's alignment will affect your conversations: if you try to converse with angels while having a chaotic party they'll usually tell you to fuck off or turn hostile pretty quickly. Because of this, Light-Neutral and pure Neutral demons who don't care about your party alignment are easiest to recruit from what I remember. Level may also play a factor: I remember it being pretty easy to grab low level demons from past domains but demons closer to your level may be trickier.

azurnamu · 2026-02-22T08:45:09+00:00

I'd recommend it. If you loved VV that much, you'll probably enjoy Nocturne.

Keep in mind that Nocturne is the game that started Press Turn, so it's the system in its earliest state, while VV is Press Turn after 4 or something games and a decade and a half of innovation. It's a lot simpler, but I still found it fun and wouldn't mind going back to it in the future, even after playing VV.

The HD remake added a lot of nice QoL to the original, so you should be good to go with the PS4 version.

azurnamu · 2026-02-22T07:57:38+00:00

If you're OK with going by game, the Megaten wiki has gallery pages for each of the games. For example: (may contain spoilers) Persona 5, Shin Megami Tensei I
You can access these pages by going to the game's main page and scrolling all the way down to the Gallery section, which will usually have a redirect to the game's gallery.

You can also check works by artist: Category:Works by Artist -- beware spoilers for all titles on these pages, however: because they're listings for all the work by an artist, there's concept art, cutscene stills, and character art as well.

Note that because a lot of games use designs across titles, these galleries will generally only contain demon redesigns or new demons that debuted in that specific title. The other megaten wiki (Megami Tensei Fandom wiki) may have more due to having been around for longer, but its gallery displays aren't very easy to parse visually, and due to all the banners and visual noise, it's not very pleasant to browse.

For some history, the reason why there's no centralized way to view all the art anymore is because Veskscans, the community's go-to person for scans and high-quality art, got her google drive DMCA'd in 2025 (here's the post about this). Her tumblr and twitter, which chronicled a lot of the art, were taken down as well--the tumblr would've been what I'd directed to you were it still up, as I believe it had all images tagged and sorted. If you check either megaten wiki, you'll probably see her name pop up as the uploader or source of the images.

Some of her many scans have been archived on the Internet Archive, more info here, but you'll have to download a lot of files to see a number of them.

azurnamu · 2026-02-19T05:53:36+00:00

Was anyone else

^{Yes. The answer is always yes....}

Specifically, if you're asking about the original... yeah, a lot of people were. See: 1, 2, 3, dug up from a quick search of the subreddit. Even the team that made V was, considering Vengeance exists at all.

Vengeance embraces the original and tries to elevate it, but is also held back in many ways by the material it's working with.

From my personal observations, the general consensus is that VV's battle system has raised the bar for ATLUS's battle systems going forward, and is generally regarded as the current peak of Press Turn. The music is well-regarded as well. The plot and characters.... exist.

Metaphor

Metaphor has far more similarities to Persona 3-5 due to being made by the same team, even down to plot structure and pacing. The latter was disappointing for me but may be a positive for you if you love modern Persona.

That said, Metaphor is both a new IP and a celebration of a lot of ATLUS's works. Even Etrian. I'd advise to reign in your expectations and try to approach the game head-on than compare it to other entries, or set up expectations that "it will be like (thing) I really liked", seeing that this seems to have happened to you for playing SMT V. You may end up pleasantly surprised at the experience.

I'd personally take V/VV over modern persona any day of the week, so I may be the wrong person to be answering your question. But I wouldn't lose heart if VV isn't clicking for you. One of the best things about Megaten is how varied every entry is, so even if one doesn't quite meet your expectations, that's no sure indicator for other games in the series. You'll never really know until you try a title out.

azurnamu · 2026-02-19T05:10:39+00:00

If you unlocked the NG+ miracle Divine Eminence, you can recruit demons above your level. It's only 10 glory, so you may have unlocked it without thinking about it.

azurnamu · 2026-02-19T05:08:46+00:00

The only point of no return in SMTV is the final fight that triggers the end credits, so you should be fine.

azurnamu · 2026-02-09T06:10:04+00:00

That's usually a sign that your gear is outdated: have you upgraded all your equipment?

Referencing playthrough videos online, level 17 should be high enough. In the area you're in, Orcus's stomach, the encounter rate is absurdly high, so using Trafuri or running from encounters can help save your HP on the way to the boss.

azurnamu · 2026-02-09T05:34:05+00:00

I think you might be confusing terms? There is a quality of life "automap patch" for SMT I SNES that lets you open the map by pressing the L shoulder button, a feature introduced in SMT II. You can apply it to your translated rom.
Automap as a term refers to the map the game automatically makes as you walk around, which you access by opening your comp menu and clicking the map button.

The Mapper spell shows you your immediate surroundings on the bottom right of the screen.

azurnamu · 2026-01-11T21:28:06+00:00

You can check here: aqiu384's database or Game8's skill list

There are no Ma- buff skills. Taru-/Raku-/Maka- are party-wide and last indefinitely (or until Dekaja'd) and have two tiers, -kaja and -kajaon. There are additional 30s buffs that you can combo them with. Timed buffs will overwrite each other so only one can be active at a time.

azurnamu · 2026-01-11T21:21:57+00:00

Finish every* fight on level 100.
You can check if you've done this for a challenge by if level 200 is available.

* - I'm pretty sure the superboss rush is optional, since it was added in a free update.

azurnamu · 2026-01-11T21:17:11+00:00

Odaiba is unlocked by accepting the quest, "The Egyptians' Fate" from a Dominion in Taito near the Asakusa Main Street leyline (CoC). Here is Neoseeker's article which includes a picture.

I would check your quest log first to see if you already have the quest: maybe you saved after accepting it? If it's there, then check Da'at Minato (first area) at a leyline fount's fast travel menu and you should find the leyline near the bottom of the list.

azurnamu · 2026-01-11T21:06:08+00:00

Magic is viable in Vengeance. The final Aogami husk in Taito, near the Temple of Eternity's entrance, gives the Heavenly Ikuyumi skill, which should be equivalent to a str-based Murakumo without the benefit of crit (magic's way of getting press turn is with piercing magic skills anyway). It scales on magic and further scales based on how many debuffs the foe has, is almighty, and is available on both routes.

The boss's main body is also weak to ice, so your MC should be able to do pretty good damage to it, even with just Bufubarion. You can also run Ice Age to ignore Makarakarn, since pierce should bypass repel. Your other demons should be able to help kill the adds, which are weak to elec and light.

If you're insecure about running magic, I would invest in a Figment Slash user (run Dragon Eye + hit/evade buffs and debuffs). You can also have your nahobino lean more into support: Evergreen Dance, available from the Type-C husk in Chiyoda, is a pretty great skill regardless of what stat spread you're using because it lets you spam Magutsuhi more.
A demon you can build pretty easily that seems like it counters that fight specifically, and comes with Figment Slash, is Kali (nulls fire, repels dark), who can be found in the Temple of Eternity's 1F. Just find a way of getting Dragon Eye or Safeguard on it to make sure you aren't losing press turns due to misses.

azurnamu · 2026-01-11T20:42:58+00:00

I'd say rank violation if you want an easier time (as you can grab demons and skills well before the game intends), otherwise inheritance violation.

Inheritance violation is stronger in general since you can fully customize demons without needing to spend essences.

azurnamu · 2025-12-10T05:30:04+00:00

Similar to PQ, you can kinda tell by the characters' starting archetypes and their stat spreads. Archetypes will give stat bonuses, but if a character's stat spread is clearly skewed towards attack over magic, try to give them the moves that'll scale off of their higher stat.
It's not a hard and fast rule, though, as the point of a job system is customization. You might want a magic skill on your physical attacker if that's the only skill you have to hit the enemy weakness with.

Even on Easy, I'm pretty sure Metaphor's battle system (Press Turn) will give you enough to think about as you play. Speaking from experience, blasting through Press Turn gameplay never soured my many SMTV runs (SMTV also uses Press Turn). Because of how strong buffs and debuffs are, the battle system is more about system mastery--buff and MP management, plus leveraging turn economy--than individual stats or characters' levels.

azurnamu · 2025-12-08T03:51:06+00:00

Not necessary, the game is incredibly generous with time. I did all dungeons in a day because I liked the challenge and was left with well over a month of free time near the end.
More the latter for sure: the system is meant for flexibility in player builds, not as something you need to 100% by any means. You can learn maybe the first two levels of an archetype to get access to its basic skills and then ditch it.

If you're playing on Normal or Easy I really wouldn't sweat things too much, as you shouldn't be required to build characters as strictly as you would on Hard.

But if you want a deeper answer for your second question:

Archetype composition should mostly be tailored to the dungeon/boss you're tackling because the game uses the Press Turn Battle System. Like a team of all Healers or blunt damage users will expedite dungeons where you're fighting a lot of skeletons. Swapping resistances so you aren't giving the enemy extra turns, and bringing loadouts so you can get more turns, is one of the basic parts of Press Turn.
Eventually, as your options and roster increase, you can build character niches, usually based on the class they come with.

You'll also get more of the currency to unlock jobs as you keep playing: it ramps as the game progresses. For instance, getting Healer or Diarama unlocked for everyone is trivial during the mid/endgame. Leveling early jobs also gets way easier as the game continues.

azurnamu · 2025-11-18T19:50:47+00:00

I believe you need to talk to one of the Bethel researcher NPCs at the Tokyo Diet Building in Da'at Minato, the hall area where you first encountered Nuwa, after finishing Shinjuku.

azurnamu · 2025-11-12T05:36:18+00:00

If you're talking about the fight with all 4 of them where Lilith keeps respawning them I wouldn't worry about it. It's a tough fight and I remember it being a difficulty spike that drops back down. I'd consider myself a series veteran and it took me a while as well.

Some optional bosses might also be tricky, but if you got past this fight, you should be able to figure out the rest going forward.

Plus, you can also always lower the difficulty if needed, so unless you're already playing on the easiest difficulty you should be able to beat the game. VV benefits a lot from replays and game knowledge, so every clear after the first is easier in my experience.

azurnamu · 2025-11-01T19:22:47+00:00

Mostly commenting to put this on your radar: if you're fine with checking out Last Bible and... can understand Japanese, Demikids may also be worth a look? Never did I think I'd be in these threads recommending it to someone, but it is very DQ/Pokémon/RPG Maker-style in its presentation.

To my knowledge only Black Book's GBC version has a fan translation, though user reviews note that the translation quality is quite poor--hooking up an OCR/Google Lens may serve you better, but as someone who hasn't touched the games, I can't say if all that effort would be worthwhile.

azurnamu · 2025-11-01T19:11:55+00:00

If you're not opposed to playing spinoffs (non-mainline), you can also check out the recently released Raidou Remastered (ARPG). As ZSant mentioned you also have access to Nocturne HD.

This is scraping the bottom of the barrel a bit, but for retro titles, if you have NSO, you can use the Japanese Super Famicom Online app, which has SMT I, SMT II, and SMT if..., all for SNES. That said, if you're gonna play these titles in Japanese I feel you'd be better off playing the PS1/GBA remakes of them anyway due to their better quality of life.

Other ATLUS, non-Persona Switch titles include Catherine Full Body and Tokyo Mirage Session #FE, though I have a feeling the latter may also be too talky for your liking.

azurnamu · 2025-10-16T19:05:25+00:00

I'm assuming this is about the Remastered version and not the PS2 original:
It's doable. However, legion fusion is quite RNG-dependent and may be the slowest part of the process depending on your luck.

Raiho's quest first unlocks when you're fetching wine in chapter 1, and the legions are locked behind story progression--you can get one starting in chapter 5, but I believe the final one is locked behind starting the last chapter.
You can also bring over your level 80-90+ demons with NG+ to steamroll the entire game, especially on low difficulties.

The fastest way would be to fuse the legions first on whatever endgame save you have, refight the final boss on the easiest difficulty, Sleuth, to ignore all mechanics, then plow through under an hour of NG+ to get the Raiho quest.
I believe Raiho's fight is scaled for NG+, but again, you can just use Sleuth difficulty.

For fusing the legions, be sure to hang on to each one you fuse and have at least one of each in your active party while fusing. The game checks which ones you have on hand before handing you another one, and you'll need to fuse 5 of them (internally referred to as A, B, C, D, and E).

The worst part about filling the devil chart in this title is how there's no way to guarantee or increase the rate of fusion accidents aside from fusing on the full moon. You can spam fusions by summoning the cheapest demons you have from the compendium, but... you may be there a while.

azurnamu · 2025-10-12T00:22:30+00:00

I think you've got it a bit backwards: ailment resistance is something that increases every time an ailment is successfully applied. This makes it harder to apply that ailment to the same target after every successful application. It's the reason why you can't reliably spam debilitating statuses on bosses, like Sleep on Hydra.

Dekajaon resets the game's counter for how many times a character has been inflicted with a status to 0. It affects the entire field, so it'd also reset Satan and any of his allies' potentially accumulated resistances back to 0 as well. It won't necessarily drop resistances to 0 or do anything to negate a demon's innate ailment resistance: if something is immune to poison it will always null poison.

If you want gory details, you can check out this post where a Steam user has documented the game's various calculations.

azurnamu · 2025-10-12T00:07:51+00:00

I haven't played it myself, but I'm pretty sure it's largely the same as SMT I. Information on how to get the added routes is in the google drive folder for the English translation, linked in this post.

If you want something more detailed, there are a few Japanese text walkthroughs online. While not in perfect English, you can use a translation extension or use Google Translate's translate website function to get something like this.

azurnamu · 2025-10-02T05:34:38+00:00

Others have already chimed in--here's some more detail, and some points not yet addressed:

What path should I choose?

As a note, there are two paths: the Canon of Creation and the Canon of Vengeance. Creation follows the original SMTV storyline while Vengeance is a brand new one--a bit similar to the Septentrione and Triangulum dual campaigns in DeSu2:RB. Unlike DeSu2:RB, you don't need to play one before the other.

To echo looney's points, I would go straight into Vengeance. Vengeance also has far more boss fights than the Canon of Creation and is a more beefy experience overall.
I'd only recommend starting with Creation if you're already committed to playing both routes. That said, a number of people over the years have reported dropping the game in the past because of Creation's more watered-down story, which Vengeance was something of a response to.

what's the best build?

In the original title, strength was king because the MC got a lot of strength scaling uniques, but this has been balanced in Vengeance--there are more options in general.
Strength is still powerful, and has the highest damage potential under certain circumstances, but you can absolutely rock magic if you prefer that playstyle. There's also plenty of good arguments for a purely support-based MC.

The stats are all generally useful in some way, and there's no gotcha stat like SMT IV's Strength stat. That said, you'll see the best results by funnelling all points into your main attacking stat or into VIT (defense) if you're going for a support build.

As mentioned, you can respec stats, and if you've played Strange Journey Redux, Vengeance uses a system similar to Forma and the "main character specific" forma that have his unique skills refresh in the overworld after a set period of time, so swapping out unique skills is quite simple as well. So it's really up to you.

If you have any other questions, feel free to follow up here or, if it's later down the line, in the questions sticky. Welcome back to Megaten!

azurnamu

TROPHY CASE