VIDEO GAAAAAAAAAAAMES.
I have SMT: Strange Journey! (Laena got it for me n-n For my birthday. Which was a month and a half ago. I got it today. Along with some photosets she bought for me in December. LAENA.)
It's interesting. It is not Nocturne IN SPACE, sadly, mostly because it's not actually in space. (It's in a giant doom portal to alternate dimensions that landed in Antarctica and is going to slowly eat the whole planet. I have no idea where they get this shit from.) It is fairly similar to Nocturne in basic gameplay, though it has some tweaked bits. And overall it isn't as hard as Nocturne, which is nice.
So, interesting things:
- You do not find items in the dungeons. You find these things called forma which are used to make items back at the base. You have to find a certain combination of forma to initially unlock each item, and then to actually get the item you have to pay in both Macca and forma. You get everything this way, consumables and equipment and Sub-Apps (which are like passive skills you can equip). It works pretty well for equipment and Sub-Apps, but I'm not sure I like it for regular items yet. On the other hand, I have yet to really run out of healing items since demons drop plenty of them, and it's stupidly easy to find the forma you need for healing items. So it's not like it's that difficult. (Forma are stupidly easy to find, in general, unless you need a specific one. That's a lot harder.)
- This means it's harder to get new items in dungeons. So you have to go back to base. So the game actually makes it not too painful to get back to base. It's rather nice.
- You do not have magic. You have a gun that can shoot elemental rounds if you equip the elemental gun. Possibly the same principle applies to the sword, too, but I almost never use the sword because the gun lets me hit multiple demons at once. And I haven't gotten the right forma to unlock new swords yet. Also the MC spends the whole time wearing a ridiculously-technologically advanced suit that does everything you would normally use magic for, and also makes him look like a terrifying space alien.
- The dungeons are first-person. This is weird, but I actually don't dislike it too much, since I spend most of my time staring at the map anyway. The map is awesome: since you have the whole bottom screen for it, you can actually see the whole floor at once without fucking up your view of the dungeon like you'd have to on the console games. It makes me happy.
- Co-op attacks: when you hit an enemy's weakness, any other demons in your party with the same alignment as the demon that attacked get to gang up on the enemy demon for extra damage. Not quite as fun as the extra turn, but still nice.
- Demon analysis. When you first encounter a type of demon, it's a giant pixellated blob because you haven't identified it yet. After you kill it once, you can see it properly. In order to see each demon's strengths/weaknesses/moves, you have to fill up the analysis bar by a) defeating it a lot, b) landing co-op attacks, or c) recruiting it. I quite like having all the analysis information on the bottom screen where it's nice and easy to see. The actual analysis bars just inspire me to be OCD and try to fill up every demon's bar.
- SPEAKING OF OCD the best way to get me to actually explore dungeons is to make me want to complete the maps. Which this does, among MANY OTHER THINGS. This game has achievements. Now I'll want to do all of them I am so fucking screeeeeewed. They make it perfectly clear that you don't get anything for achievements, they're just there. To trigger people's perfectionist tendencies. Ahahaha.
- Demon fusion is fairly simple. You can get "sources" from each demon that let you add extra attacks to any demon you fuse, which I regard as the cheating way to get the exact moveset you want. YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO DO TEN GENERATIONS OF FUSIONS FOR THAT MOVESET, DAMMIT. Also, passwords: you can generate a password for any demon in your compendium, and later reinput it and summon that demon. You can even share the passwords with other people. Meaning you can distribute them on the internet. So, demon fusion in this game is really fucking easy. I am happy and sad at the same time.
- Demon negotiation will be the death of meeeeeee. I insist on keeping charts to know how which personalities respond to which answers. And even with the charts I fail. (Leanan Sidhe hates me. So far I've determined she doesn't like people who are confident in their looks, she doesn't like me calling the battle suit a battle suit or a fashion statement, she doesn't like being referred to as "more woman than demon", she doesn't like saying people are shallow, and she doesn't like being called "sexy", but "mysterious" is okay. I AM SO CONFUSED.)
- Relatedly, I started laughing my ass off the first time I talked to Melchom. He's a devilish demon in a suit. He's of the Gentleman personality. In the first conversation, I informed him that I'm afraid of demons, sure, but not gentlemen, and he was pleased. And the next demon I run into after that is an Archangel. Which is also the Gentleman type. This would be me laughing hysterically and making really bad Good Omens jokes.
- There is a lovely character named Arthur. Arthur is the ship's strategist. He analyzes what to do next and assigns missions. He's also a robot. He makes me happy :D
tl;dr so far I am well-pleased.
It's interesting. It is not Nocturne IN SPACE, sadly, mostly because it's not actually in space. (It's in a giant doom portal to alternate dimensions that landed in Antarctica and is going to slowly eat the whole planet. I have no idea where they get this shit from.) It is fairly similar to Nocturne in basic gameplay, though it has some tweaked bits. And overall it isn't as hard as Nocturne, which is nice.
So, interesting things:
- You do not find items in the dungeons. You find these things called forma which are used to make items back at the base. You have to find a certain combination of forma to initially unlock each item, and then to actually get the item you have to pay in both Macca and forma. You get everything this way, consumables and equipment and Sub-Apps (which are like passive skills you can equip). It works pretty well for equipment and Sub-Apps, but I'm not sure I like it for regular items yet. On the other hand, I have yet to really run out of healing items since demons drop plenty of them, and it's stupidly easy to find the forma you need for healing items. So it's not like it's that difficult. (Forma are stupidly easy to find, in general, unless you need a specific one. That's a lot harder.)
- This means it's harder to get new items in dungeons. So you have to go back to base. So the game actually makes it not too painful to get back to base. It's rather nice.
- You do not have magic. You have a gun that can shoot elemental rounds if you equip the elemental gun. Possibly the same principle applies to the sword, too, but I almost never use the sword because the gun lets me hit multiple demons at once. And I haven't gotten the right forma to unlock new swords yet. Also the MC spends the whole time wearing a ridiculously-technologically advanced suit that does everything you would normally use magic for, and also makes him look like a terrifying space alien.
- The dungeons are first-person. This is weird, but I actually don't dislike it too much, since I spend most of my time staring at the map anyway. The map is awesome: since you have the whole bottom screen for it, you can actually see the whole floor at once without fucking up your view of the dungeon like you'd have to on the console games. It makes me happy.
- Co-op attacks: when you hit an enemy's weakness, any other demons in your party with the same alignment as the demon that attacked get to gang up on the enemy demon for extra damage. Not quite as fun as the extra turn, but still nice.
- Demon analysis. When you first encounter a type of demon, it's a giant pixellated blob because you haven't identified it yet. After you kill it once, you can see it properly. In order to see each demon's strengths/weaknesses/moves, you have to fill up the analysis bar by a) defeating it a lot, b) landing co-op attacks, or c) recruiting it. I quite like having all the analysis information on the bottom screen where it's nice and easy to see. The actual analysis bars just inspire me to be OCD and try to fill up every demon's bar.
- SPEAKING OF OCD the best way to get me to actually explore dungeons is to make me want to complete the maps. Which this does, among MANY OTHER THINGS. This game has achievements. Now I'll want to do all of them I am so fucking screeeeeewed. They make it perfectly clear that you don't get anything for achievements, they're just there. To trigger people's perfectionist tendencies. Ahahaha.
- Demon fusion is fairly simple. You can get "sources" from each demon that let you add extra attacks to any demon you fuse, which I regard as the cheating way to get the exact moveset you want. YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO DO TEN GENERATIONS OF FUSIONS FOR THAT MOVESET, DAMMIT. Also, passwords: you can generate a password for any demon in your compendium, and later reinput it and summon that demon. You can even share the passwords with other people. Meaning you can distribute them on the internet. So, demon fusion in this game is really fucking easy. I am happy and sad at the same time.
- Demon negotiation will be the death of meeeeeee. I insist on keeping charts to know how which personalities respond to which answers. And even with the charts I fail. (Leanan Sidhe hates me. So far I've determined she doesn't like people who are confident in their looks, she doesn't like me calling the battle suit a battle suit or a fashion statement, she doesn't like being referred to as "more woman than demon", she doesn't like saying people are shallow, and she doesn't like being called "sexy", but "mysterious" is okay. I AM SO CONFUSED.)
- Relatedly, I started laughing my ass off the first time I talked to Melchom. He's a devilish demon in a suit. He's of the Gentleman personality. In the first conversation, I informed him that I'm afraid of demons, sure, but not gentlemen, and he was pleased. And the next demon I run into after that is an Archangel. Which is also the Gentleman type. This would be me laughing hysterically and making really bad Good Omens jokes.
- There is a lovely character named Arthur. Arthur is the ship's strategist. He analyzes what to do next and assigns missions. He's also a robot. He makes me happy :D
tl;dr so far I am well-pleased.