The game is too hard

[Vayne]

Belega corridor...early dungeon and enemy hit 50% of my hp, run out mp fast....did the dev test this game?

[Thirdrail]

The Persona people don't believe in throwaway battles, which is a wild switch if you're coming from any other rpg series. Every little conflict requires full attention and management. If you don't want that, set the difficulty to easy. The boss fights will still be a challenge, but the little monsters will go back to feeling like fodder, like they do in pretty much every other rpg ever made.

Don't let people who are on their third/fourth/sixth Persona game tell you the game is too easy. lol

Of course it's too easy for them, they've spent multiple Persona games being trained to overcome all these exact challenges. No one shows up to their first Persona game and just blasts through it like they're the all-seeing master of time, space, and dimension. It's a learning curve.

[Diabolical Taco]

I hate to echo it, but it's a skill issue. Metaphor is actually pretty forgiving. They do warn you to do the cathedral before Belega, ya know. Not that Belega isn't doable first, but the game basically tells you what and what not to do especially if you pay the informant. You just have to pay attention.

[prezes_08]

You can also lose on the easy level, it's better to set the story mode

[viktorhallo]

overall difficulty at hard is easier than some of their older games that had no difficulty settings. a death normally just sends you back to the fight before you died. every normal enemy can be skipped with very little effort.

i still find this on hard to be harder than shin megami tensei 5 at hard or persona 3 reload at merciless. but its not brutally hard. people who are experienced in turn based games or really want to play with the systems can start straight at hard despite never having played a atlus RPG.

[archonsod]

Originally posted by Thirdrail:

Every little conflict requires full attention and management

Not really. The main thing you need to get your head around with Atlus RPGs versus more standard RPG's is that combat isn't really just a bunch of simulated die rolls (or rather, the influence of those simulated die rolls is far less impactful than you might expect).

Of course it's too easy for them, they've spent multiple Persona games being trained to overcome all these exact challenges.

Nah, we just recognise the gameplay loop. The thing to note is that the combat is fairly formulaic; each dungeon has a limited selection of enemies. Each enemy necessitates a particular approach, often based on hitting their weaknesses as often as possible. Once you know which enemies a dungeon contains, and what their weaknesses are, you can pretty much autopilot those fights as the same approach will work for pretty much every fight - RNG can occasionally throw you a curveball with an unlucky miss or the enemy getting a lucky crit, but for the most part that's addressed via stats and equipment - the better they are, the bigger the buffer between 'that was unlucky' and 'that was a party wipe'.
It's why we can say it's easy - once you've figured out the strat the dungeon wants you to use you literally just repeat it until you reach the boss (which as you might expect, is where the real challenge lies).

The challenge in Persona has always been resource management rather than the battles. You want to complete the dungeon (or as much of it as Plot allows) in a single run whenever possible, since time is your scarcest resource. SMT is slightly different as it does tend to rely a bit more on the fights (although the same applies there too, it's just hitting the correct strategy for the groups you're currently facing has a bit more of a puzzle element) and as a hybrid the game kind of leans on both.

[Dwarvin' Marvin]

People just have different standards when it comes to difficulty in these games. Blowing enemies out or having your party blown out in return is typical for Atlus games. I've personally started playing on Normal because I don't like the SP economy on higher difficulties. I like how strong enemies are on Hard, but the bloated HP makes it so you run out of SP far faster unless you're farming with the mage passive. It's a big problem when the cathedral is as long as it is.
You either have to avoid a bunch of enemies, which I hate doing, or grind excessively on the fodder. The devs give even less ways to conserve SP than persona, outside of the mage passive which is tedious. At least for the first dungeon, you don't have much you can do in terms of build variety, so the bottleneck for bosses is how much SP you actually need to kill them.

[The Ultimate Might]

Originally posted by Vayne:

Belega corridor...early dungeon and enemy hit 50% of my hp, run out mp fast....did the dev test this game?

This game's graphics quality is great.
But the game play is focused on screwing players. So I just gave a negative review for it. Because it made me angry, mad.
It's a lot time consuming, it feels like a waste of time when I'm screwed.
You will feel the same way when the monster counters your ambush. Just once is enough, it will screw everything. You will have to load a save, you will have to do things again, you will have to consume more time.
Defeating weak monsters without turn based combats, it might be a good idea. But when the ambush is countered, players will lose a lot of time and will feel very bad. It really makes players angry. It's not challenging, it's just bad, it makes players mad.

[Takichi]

Originally posted by The Ultimate Might:

Originally posted by Vayne:

Belega corridor...early dungeon and enemy hit 50% of my hp, run out mp fast....did the dev test this game?

This game's graphics quality is great.
But the game play is focused on screwing players. So I just gave a negative review for it. Because it made me angry, mad.
It's a lot time consuming, it feels like a waste of time when I'm screwed.
You will feel the same way when the monster counters your ambush. Just once is enough, it will screw everything. You will have to load a save, you will have to do things again, you will have to consume more time.
Defeating weak monsters without turn based combats, it might be a good idea. But when the ambush is countered, players will lose a lot of time and will feel very bad. It really makes players angry. It's not challenging, it's just bad, it makes players mad.

Eh what? xD

You can beat every Enemy simply by choosing the Right Archetyps....All you need to do, more or less, is understand or find out which Enemy Requieres which Archetyps or Strategys.

Take the Baby in the Sewers for Example, its pretty easy to beat with a Healer and a Knight, perma reducing his accuracy and evade, while healing your Party. AND thats BEFORE the Actual Boss Fight, thats the "Harder Sewer Fight, in which you are supposed to run away".
Also these Dungeons arnt meant to be done in 1 Day. They are meant do be done in 2 or 3 Days. Meaning you go into up until the First or Second Save Room (deping on your Play Style, Class Choice, Mana and HP Reg and so on) save there, port back to the Entrance, go back into Town, stock Up on possible Items you might need, sleep, ress to Full HP/MP, come back to Room 2 via Port the Next Day and Continue.
The Dungeons only truely get Hard if some of these 3 Things are true:
1) You are suverly underleveld.
2) You inssist on using the Wrong Arcgerypes on each Single Party Member, for the Dungeon you are in.
3) You go to the Dungeon on the absolut last Day, and you get Forced to do the Whole Dungeon in 1 Day. Since Espacialy Story Dungeons are comparably Long.

If 3 and 1 Combine, or 3 and 2 or 2 and 1.... You are more or less Screwed, because you get Forced to either ignore 80% of the Mobs on the Dungeon (to save HP/MP) which screws you more in the Next Dungeon or you use way to Much Items to restore your HP/MP because you need to take more or less every Fight.

Espacialy 1, is a very Brutal Dungeon Killer, if you arnt used to handle and Manage HP/MP, dont use the Sorcerer Class, level a bit at Days off and so on.

[混合メッセージ]

Originally posted by Vayne:

Belega corridor...early dungeon and enemy hit 50% of my hp, run out mp fast....did the dev test this game?

I would descripe the first dungeon as weirdly balanced and say they didnt tested it.
You dont have many classes unlocked and if you uses melees the flying telepoter guys with relect your dmg XD ggwp alt+f4 or the gargyls they block physical dmg XD

ya and you cant buy much mana portions either, the first dungeon is so weird if you dont hav a prebuild you wanne play.

ppl telling you to "gid gut" most likely cheated.

I had mobs i pew pew with just hitting them without the turn based part, thats good cause you wont spend mana or HP (if you dont get hit and forced into turn based) but then while you go farther in ur like ggez and then you get enemys that are far beyond that xD

And that continues farther into the game either.

[BLAZE]

Oh no, the game that allows you to pay guys to get information in advance about bosses, and which constantly tells you that you have to prepare yourself before entering the dungeons requires preparation? I would never have imagined...

[archonsod]

Originally posted by Dwarvin' Marvin:

You either have to avoid a bunch of enemies, which I hate doing, or grind excessively on the fodder. The devs give even less ways to conserve SP than persona, outside of the mage passive which is tedious. At least for the first dungeon, you don't have much you can do in terms of build variety, so the bottleneck for bosses is how much SP you actually need to kill them.

There's more ways of preserving and gaining MP, though none of them are available until later. To be fair though, most of the enemies in that first dungeon are weak to bash damage. Mage, Healer and Brawler all do bash with their regular melee. Assuming you can stun them before engaging you can usually just beat them down with melee without too much trouble; up until the point you can just kill them in the overworld. MP abilities can be preserved for the trickier fights and boss.

[Ichika]

Originally posted by 混合メッセージ:

Originally posted by Vayne:

Belega corridor...early dungeon and enemy hit 50% of my hp, run out mp fast....did the dev test this game?

I would descripe the first dungeon as weirdly balanced and say they didnt tested it.
You dont have many classes unlocked and if you uses melees the flying telepoter guys with relect your dmg XD ggwp alt+f4 or the gargyls they block physical dmg XD

ya and you cant buy much mana portions either, the first dungeon is so weird if you dont hav a prebuild you wanne play.

ppl telling you to "gid gut" most likely cheated.

I had mobs i pew pew with just hitting them without the turn based part, thats good cause you wont spend mana or HP (if you dont get hit and forced into turn based) but then while you go farther in ur like ggez and then you get enemys that are far beyond that xD

And that continues farther into the game either.

I mean, it's definitely skill issue, but that's understandable if it's their first SMT/persona game, i did the goblin dungeon at level 9/10 on hard, and the first story dungeon in one day at lv16 with barely any issues, just have to play smart (and use the mage passive)

[SKINLESSHEAD]

I love these threads that boil down to "i don't understand the game mechanics, and it's the game's fault" The game is actually easy.

[Valth]

I actually think this game is a bit on the easier side since there is a built in reset button to redo a fight.

[Kraehe]

I play on normal, beat the dragon in the first dungeon and beat every dungeon in one day so far (i'm at 22. august).Wouldn't really call the game hard.