#Strange journey redux full#
#Strange journey redux series#

In the case of Etrian Odyssey, the series is designed to evoke a unique emotional cocktail that's part fear, part wonder, and part curiosity. The dungeon-crawling gameplay is a mere vehicle to convey the player to a certain sort of experience. Thu 18th Aug Etrian Odyssey is only superficially similar to other first-person dungeon crawlers, which tend to lean hard on grindy gameplay and meaningless gimmicks to drive interest.It's so strange that TMS ended up so different. But that's the weird thing, this is two of the 3 producers/directors from that, but the two of them were also from Strange Journey, Nocturne, and SMTIV (personally I still feel that was the best mainline SMT.) The missing director from TMS not present on SH2 is the producer of Devil Summoner (The SRPG.) So all these producers/directors have top SMT pedigree behind them. I know it's controversial and bubbly but that's half of what's fun about it, and the combat and themes were great. This still sounds like it should be your I absolutely adored TMS. SMTV I knew within an hour I was massively disappointed.īut you're an EO superfan, and SH1 shared a lot in common with EO IMO. We'll see next weekend when it launches if it works for me better than SMTV.

#Strange journey redux full#

SH2 may end up feeling sterile and bland if it's just blank corridors, but I don't even order full priced games anymore and ended up preordering this. Even before it launched you thought it looked so ambitious and amazing and I thought it looked kind of meh.and then playing it, we definitely have very different takes on it. Though you love SMTV and I still can't stand it for some reason, so you're definitely looking for something different in an SMT game than myself. But combat sounds like it borrows a thought from Xenoblade's Chain/Full Burst design which isn't a bad I'd have thought a combat focus would be in your wheelhouse. The vibe and theme is all wrong here but it sounds like the core game design is more Soul Hackers than it seemed. Soul Hackers 1 was also a dungeon crawler, anything outside the dungeon was still images and graphic novel presentation, and navigation was dots on a map. Reach a high Stacking count and it's possible to wipe a full lineup of foes in one go.Ĭonsidering Devil Summoner is the pure dungeon crawler, this sounds like it largely does exactly what a Devil Summoner game should do, and is not as much of a Persona fetish as the pre-release made it look. This adds a new layer of strategy to the experience whereby you can nick stacks off a stronger enemy - even if it hardly does any damage - in order to drain the HP of every demon in front of you. Instead of gaining an extra turn after targeting an enemy's Achilles heel, you'll build up stacks that form one almighty attack once your party members have had their go.

Something the game does differently from the rest is a new mechanic called Stacking. While not quite as difficult as a Shin Megami Tensei V, a number of challenging encounters await - particularly boss fights with unique abilities. Exploiting enemy weaknesses is the key to winning fights, which are discovered by experimenting and reading into the sort of skills they throw back at you. So too are items, using your turn to block, and attempting to escape the scene.

The usual selection of magical abilities and physical attacks are at your disposal. It's a neat story typical of a JRPG, but it's unlikely to go down as a particularly memorable one. The motivations of the antagonist are compelling too, with cool character design making them a real focal point for the plot as it unfolds. Much of the story is character-focused, detailing how the various Devil Summoner factions relate to one another and crafting plot twists around them. While you start the journey alone, you’ll quickly assemble a party of four, filled with oddballs and contrasting personalities. Something known as the Great One is being called upon, and the twosome must put a stop to it by preventing objects of power called Covenants from falling into the wrong hands. This artificial intelligence is designed to observe humanity from afar, except it must intervene when it learns the end of the world is nigh. That narrative focuses on Ringo and Figue, two humanoids created by an AI named Aion. Maybe you'll miss out on one or two minor references (we haven't played the original game either), but this is a standalone story that introduces itself as if it's a new IP where everyone is a newcomer.

However, you needn't fret because Soul Hackers 2 assumes no prior knowledge whatsoever.