How difficult is it really?

[Godzhilla]

Always heard SMT was a difficult series. My question is just how difficult and in what way?

Does the game do a good job at explaining its mechanics? Can I get through the story without a guide?

I'm comfortable with jrpg's and have played Persona. I enjoy Hard difficulty in Persona but haven't been interested in trying the difficulty above that.

[icantsee]

Persona is a walk in the park compared to SMT

[ShadowSkill11]

This game isn't difficult at all but it does require slightly more resource management than a Persona. If you are looking for a challenge go back and play SMT Nocturne. SMT 4-1, 4-2, and 5 were Nintendofied so the least talented gamers could play the game. Espicially if you leave the deluxe edition magatama cheats on.

[Sylph]

If you can't beat Persona 3, 4, or 5 do not play this

[🎃 Claire 🎃]

The hardest part of nearly any of these games is near the start, where you have extremely limited options and resources. Effectively, all of the difficulty of these games comes from what your strategies and compositions are, and grinding is going to not have as much of a place (though it can still be bruteforced if absolutely required.)

With V specifically, you should be perfectly fine since you enjoy hard difficulty in the persona games. You've pretty much got yourself covered, there. Yes, SMT is almost always harder than persona, but no, it's not to the extent a lot of people will try to say it is.

[Sejman22]

It's harder than most of jrpg's on market, due to how to Press Turn works. Unlike in Persona games, enemy can abuse Press Turn like player (for example in Persona 5 enemy can't use All Out Attack like player, but in SMT V enemy can use Magatsuhi Skills or earn extra turns like player) . They can critical hit on you, then get extra turn, and after that cast Mudo or another critical attack and kill you, before you even get a turn. It's more game about preparation, like in any dungeon crawlers, but instead of pick right class in team, you must pick right demons for team to cover own weakness and exploit enemy weakness. Once you get learn how effectively play this game, is not that hard, especially in late game. Also SMT V is easiest game in series due to nearly lack of dungeons (they replaced them by open world areas) like in previous games, but still harder than any Persona game.

[COCAINE BEAR]

Been years since I played it but iirc the game is a cakewalk apart from some bonus bosses

[HRHV87]

I mean, once you have a grasp on the mechanics you should be able to breeze through any SMT. Games like Nocturne used to be more unfair than "hard" because in Nocturne fights happened like in OG RPGs, you'd get ambushed at random times and you'd suddenly find yourself flanked (meaning the enemies get the first move) and on the harder difficulties getting ambushed was pretty much a "gg, shake my hand" scenario.

Some bosses require substantial preparation, with specific demons, resistances, items and abilities via fusions just to circumvent a particular, bs, 1 shot mechanic.

Something that happens in a lot in SMT games is that, in some tough fights you get fooled into focusing on an enemy just for it to heal itself to full health or for an ad at the back of the room to drop a massive full heal on the main boss out of the blue. Those are certified SMT hood classics.

[xxVoicELeSSxx]

It's a pretty easy game

[Emerald Lance]

Nocturne was kinda hard. And SMT 1 and 2 before that were fairly difficult and somewhat obtuse. I feel like this game isn't all that difficult, at least compared to the older ones.

[Lukja]

It's exactly like Matador says in that meme:

"Use buffs regard"

[Stoibs]

Bare in mind also that ATLUS 're-release' games tend to have soooo many crutches and caveats and borderline cheats to them that kind of skewed the balance significantly (P5R and P3R basically made the player into superheroes)

While that might not necessarily carry over the same here for SMT, my money is on it being even easier than the Vanilla Switch game.

[TSVStriFe]

Persona 3 (FES) wants to have a word with you on Hard. That game can be quite unforgiving, especially when the AI controls the characters :P

[Seagal]

Not everyone will have the same feeling on difficulty, but it's not bad. The vanilla game was harder than modern Persona though. There could be a few trap spots that will get you if you're unprepared / ambushed, but that's part of the fun.

If you're really struggling you can buy the Mitama DLC to easily farm gospels and grimoires and feed those to your Nahobino and Demons to get easy levels. I wouldn't recommend doing that, but you can catch up that way if you feel really behind and struggling.

[Part-Time Prick]

Originally posted by Godzhilla:

Always heard SMT was a difficult series. My question is just how difficult and in what way?

Does the game do a good job at explaining its mechanics? Can I get through the story without a guide?

I'm comfortable with jrpg's and have played Persona. I enjoy Hard difficulty in Persona but haven't been interested in trying the difficulty above that.

SMT V was originally razor tuned with harsh level scaling meaning you'd scrape by bosses in Hard mode. Deeply satisfying experience. They've kicked that out of the window in Vengeance so it's gonna probably be a comparatively pretty easy SMT, which is to say it'll still kick your ass if you make major mistakes early on where you have exploitable weaknesses, and some bosses will just hit very hard and you can get screwed by RNG if they repeatedly target your main character.

[Nalzir]

it can get up there in difficulty for sure but would recommend starting the game on hard since there is no reason not too and if you don't like how difficult it is you can always go down but not up to hard once leave hard difficulty.