KRIMSONKATT'S PROFILE

MV is better for newcomers because it has a far better RTP. (default assets) It also doesn't require a lot of set-up to get things right like with MZ's awful animation system that practically requires that you import the MV animations if you don't want to have a bad time. Also, MZ has a very limited plugin selection to MV, and the program that made MV plugins compatible with MZ (Fossil MZ) has been delisted. MV is also more stable from the front end and is less prone to crashes and weird glitches/oddities like MZ is. MZ also has terrible UI more focused on mobile than a standard PC experience and has a lot more required loading screens than MV does. I've heard from a few plugin devs that MV's internal code is very messy compared to MZ's, but from the perspective of a game developer and not a plugin dev, MV runs a lot smoother than MZ both developing and playing games. There's also the incredible Luna Engine, which is only usable with MV and not MZ. Luna Engine costs $35, but offers near-limitless UI customization while MZ's closest thing is SRD's free UI Maker program, which isn't nearly as robust as Luna Engine. So yeah, MV>MZ any time of the week. But that's just my perspective. Most people seem to disagree and think MZ is better.

Hello. I just finished another game and I would like you to review it.
Noel and the Tower of Doom

Not competing in this sadly as I'm currently hard at work doing to final touches on Noel and the Tower of Doom and getting back in the grove of working on Chronicles Meteorfall. So I'll sit this one out so I don't get stuck on another massive project. But I'll be back when the secret santa starts next month, just you wait!

author=orochii
Sidenote, Shining Force II also has some hard spots, and it's quite grindy unless you know the game well and have a plan for your levels and so on.

Haven't played it myself but SMT:DS probably suffers from some of the same issues that other SMT games have, like the plethora of insta-kill spells that many enemies wield (some entries with better success than others, some are just plain cheap). Atlus loves these things, lol.

Devil Survivor doesn't actually have instant kill spells. Light and Dark elemental spells (Hama and Mudo) aren't a thing in that game. The reason I keep getting game overs is because the stupid NPCs keep dying and I can't get to them in time to heal them. If even one NPC dies (there are 3 per unit) it's an instant game over and most of the time enemies can two shot them if you get unlucky, sometimes one shot if you're really unlucky. It all comes down to damage RNG of which NPCs are targeted, which is completely random. It's beyond stupid. The entire game in the later half comes solely down to making sure the enemies don't reach the NPCs and if they do heal them ASAP or instant game over for you. The worst maps is when you have NPCs fighting each other and you have to kill all of them yourself as if they're killed by the other party you're screwed. Sometimes I'm just in an unwinnable scenario solely due to NPCs being stupid.

Back to the instant kill spells, they're really not a huge deal. In most games all human character resist light by default, which lowers the chance of instant kills hitting by 75%. So if a hama spell has a 40% chance of hitting, guess what? It now only has a 10% chance of hitting if you resist light, very unlikely to land unless you're severely unlucky. And then you can reduce the chance EVEN further by either buying armor that nullifies light and dark (in SMT1, 2, 4, and 4A) or putting skills onto the protagonist that nullify those elements, which only use up 1/8 skill slots each. (SMT3, 5, and DDS1&2) And in persona nearly EVERY second tier persona has either light or dark resist/null and then in the games where you can get a third stage evolution you get resist/null for both. Light/Dark spells are only an issue if you take the risk and intentionally make yourself weak to them, which in that case if an enemy uses those skills you die no matter what.

In later games starting with SMT4A and later in P5 and SMT5 light and dark spells no longer instant kill. In 4A they only have an instant kill effect when smirking and in P5 and SMT5 they only instant kill when the enemy is weak to it. Otherwise they just deal standard light/dark damage. Honestly of the SMT games I've played the only hard one was Strange Journey which was hard but completely fair. I struggled at a few fights (Oroboros, Maria, and Mem Aleph come to mind) but overall with a bit of griding and strategizing those challenges were not that hard. The only truly unfair sections were some of the dungeons like Womb of Grief 4 which was hell and I had to use a guide for along with the Empyrean Ascent which had the same gimmick.

SMT4 and 4A were the exact right kind of difficulty (though the final bosses of base SMT4 were way too easy and very underwhelming) and SMT5 seems to be similar in that regard. Nocturne from what I've heard is more similar to SJ in difficulty so I'm excided to finally be challenged again once I play that. But overall none of the games I've played were unfair like DeSu1 is. The problem in DeSu1 doesn't come down to certain skills or my own abilities, it comes down to poor AI, unfair cramped map design, unfair enemies that resist or nullify everything and can incapacitate your entire party at random, very limited healing range unless you use racial skills, low movement, and an over-reliance on escort missions. I've been loving the story and characters of DeSu1, but the gameplay is just insufferable.

SMT Devil Survivor is absolutely INFURIATING!!!! I can't STAND IT. Every single battle is a freaking escort mission with the dumbest most BS rules and if anyone dies it's instant game over. WHY IS EVERY MISSION A FREAKING ESCORT MISSION? Right now I'm stuck on the "Honda Tries to Escape" mission and angels blocked the road so I couldn't fight Honda myself so the angels just killed Honda and I could do NOTHING. Every enemy can 1 hit kill every one of my guys with some BS 250+ damage attack while blocking every element but almighty and maybe one more with skills that negate all damage with your allies blocking the field not letting you get to NPC+enemy units that you have to defeat yourself so they retreat because if they die normally it's instant game over. IT'S SO BS IT'S INFURIATING. I really want to finish this game to get it off my backlog, but I just keep getting screwed over again and again by the AI in these STUPID FREAKING ESCORT MISSIONS. WHY IS EVERY MISSION AN ESCORT MISSION! I never end up losing because of a lack of skill or because I was too weak, I only lose because the FREAKING NPCS KEEP DYING RANDOMLY ON STUPID CONDITIONS! Fire Emblem never had this problem! If an NPC died it was no big deal and you could keep playing, maybe with some small reward like a stat booster lost. For example lets say in some random fire emblem chapter there are four green unit guards that will attack enemies and generally help you. If all of them survive, you get a dracoshield, which boosts defense. If 3/4 of them survive, you get a knight's crest, a promotion item. If only 2 survive, you get 1000 gold. If less than 2 survive, you get nothing. This is how NPCs in strategy games SHOULD be done. Give you a small reward for saving them all but not overly punish you for letting some of them die. Fire Emblem even allows your own units to die perminately and continue playing, though later games (mainly starting with FE7 but more prominently in Echoes onwards) rather have characters get "badly injured" and be no longer usable but still be alive canonicly since they play a role in the story. Devil Survivor does not do that. If any character dies, even nameless NPCs with generic portraits, it's instant game over. No retry, reload from your last save, watch all the cutscenes you already went through (there's no way to skip cutscenes in DeSu) and try again. This would be somewhat fine if escort missions were rare, but no, EVERY SINGLE MISSION starting around Day 3 are ALL escort missions. Every. Single One. And remember, if ANY NPC is lowered to zero HP, it's game over even if literally nothing in the game would change plot wise if a nameless NPC died. Main characters dying isn't even out of the ordinary either since (major spoilers) I HATE THIS GAME SO MUCH THESE ESCORT MISSIONS CAN SUCK ON MY DIRTY ICE CREAM CONE! I want to finish it, I really do, but it's just too infuriating to keep playing. It sucks too because I was right near the end near the end of the second last day and now I have to stop because every time I play I just get enraged.