How hard is this game?

[SilverieLeaf]

I downloaded the demo to check it out. Been playing in normal mode. Besides the blatant persona ripoffs and constant grunting, it seemed fine. Then I ran into the first real boss in the mines. I had fought every enemy up until this point, but that giant bird literally killed my whole party at near full health with his wind attack. Tried a couple more times but always died before even getting half his health bar down. Found out he was weak to ice, but realized I had no mages. So I swapped the main character from seeker to mage and backtracked to gain exp until I learned blizz. Got that bird first try after.

It feels like I'm being punished for not choosing mage after unlocking academia. Is the only way to beat him by abusing his weakness with blizz or ice blocks? If so, I'm a bit worried about the rest of the game. Would you say this game focuses more on tactics like equipping the proper archetype instead of level grinding and using brute force?

[Blunette]

"Blatant Persona Ripoff" coming from the same studio that made Persona, which is Atlus. Gehehe~.

Anyhow, it's tricky in certain spots but you've basically got the gist of it. That's how SMT games work: Get blown up by a boss, overhaul your strategy, slap it in the face, get blown up by the next boss, repeat. The game did incentivize you to pick Mage by giving you not just the Mage itself but also the ability to choose it for yourself or your squad members. My advice for if you get the full game? Make Grius a Mage instead of a Warrior and use his naturally high MP pool to help coast through until the Human Chicken, then swap him to Warrior to beat up the Dragon since Warrior resists Fire and that'll cut down on possible healing time. As a side note, Chicken blasts only the front row with that fire spell (it gives you a prompt about targeting front row) and it will miss 100% of the time with the attack if you move everyone to the back row (like you were taught when fighting your first pair of soldiers before you even walked into the mine).

Level Grinding can help if you're really strapped but you're going to be hard-strapped for it since EXP gains are reduced if you outlevel the enemies. 90% of the time, it's about team setup. Swap your Skills when you earn the right to Skill Inheritance, change your Archetypes, swap your equipment, tailor your party to whatever threat is going to be next and counter it.

[birthbysorrow]

You most certainly can get through the vast majority without grinding on the Hardest difficulty.

The early game is a bit unforgiving since you only have 3 party members (3 turn icons) and are lacking skills, including not having coverage for all affinities. Once you get a fourth party member and thus have had time to unlock some more skills the difficulty balances itself out.

The most important thing is to absolutely, without question hoard MAG until you hit a wall. This way you will always have enough MAG to unlock the Archetypes/Skills you need for that "wall" (usually a boss). Enter the fight and get a feel for what it does, it's weaknesses, etc. then (unfortunately) reload a save and use the MAG you have hoarded accordingly. You can even mess up and unlock the wrong things, then just reload the same save if it doesn't work out. There is also an NPC in every hub city that will give you information on side quest dungeons/bosses.

This will minimize, if not entirely make grinding unnecessary until the very end of the game. And even then, I've found some strats/gear after the fact that probably would have made it so I didn't have to grind at all. I just found them too late.

[Marigold]

I've only had real trouble with one dungeon and one boss in the whole game so far. I'm coming up on the end of the game and will be at the final boss pretty soon. This is my first "persona" type game but I played the whole game on hard difficulty. The game is quite easy when you understand the mechanics it's very much like Pokemon.

There isn't really "close" fights in my experience either you safely win or you swiftly lose in two turns thanks to some AOE attack. Much like Pokemon you kind of just sweep or get sweeped. I'm fine with the game being easy as the companion stuff and story kept me engaged enough for me to keep playing. However what happens is that the game systems get in the way to stop you from clearing everything so easily. The biggest issue is MP, then AEXP, then MAG. Feels like the game systems were designed to slow you down first and foremost.