SMTV beginner’s guide - Polygon

Shin Megami Tensei 5 brings us again to the world of the Megami Tensei sequence (together with the Persona spinoffs). SMTV combines parts of earlier video games within the sequence together with introducing totally new ideas.

On this Shin Megami Tensei 5 beginner’s guide, we’ll allow you to by your first few hours with the issues we want we understood earlier. We’ll allow you to perceive the sport’s quick journey, saving, and varied vendor mechanics that you simply’ll discover at Leyline Founts, explain how combat works, and speak a bit about Essences and Demon Fusion.

There’s loads occurring at Leyline Founts

No, critically: There’s loads occurring at Leyline Founts. They’re the place you quick journey, buy groceries, flip in Miman and Relics, heal your celebration, study new Miracles, carry out Demon Fusions, and so forth. Like we mentioned, there’s loads occurring.

The choices obtainable develop rapidly over the primary few you go to. They embody:

Chronicle Deeds. That is the way you save.
Leyline Crossing. This lets you quick journey between Leyline Founts you’ve beforehand visited.
Cadaver’s Hole. Gustave’s store, the place you should purchase and promote consumable objects. That is additionally the place you’ll promote Relics and obtain rewards for locating Miman.
World of Shadows. Sophia’s realm, the place you study Miracles (everlasting, passive buffs), handle Essences (a option to study new Abilities and Resistances), and carry out Demon Fusions. More on this below.
Restoration. Pay cash (Macca) to revive your celebration’s HP and MP.

Don’t neglect to save lots of at Leyline Founts

Leyline Founts are your solely save factors. With all the things else you do there, it’s straightforward to neglect to save lots of — “Chronicle Deeds” as the sport calls it. In case your protagonist falls in battle, you’ll be dropped again at your final save, so you possibly can lose numerous progress. With save factors so few and much between, it’s necessary to save lots of each time you possibly can.

Don’t get distracted by all the things else. We’re very distractible, so we’ve made a behavior of saving very first thing, after which saving once more as soon as we’re performed on the Leyline Fount, simply to verify.

Avoid wasting money (Macca) for therapeutic

The Restoration possibility at a Leyline Fount fully heals a celebration member’s well being and magic swimming pools (HP and MP), but it surely prices you money. For characters beneath degree 10, you’re about 75 Macca or much less every.

As tempting as it’s to spend the cash on consumables and therapeutic potions (Medication), the Restoration possibility at a Leyline Fount additionally totally restore’s a personality’s magic — one thing no early sport merchandise does.

Save extra Macca for recruiting

Your protagonist just isn’t alone of their struggle towards the demons. You’ll fill out your celebration with as much as three different demons by recruiting them.

Recruiting might be as straightforward as speaking to them properly or as troublesome as forking over massive quantities of Macca, HP, and objects. It’s nearly at all times price it, although, as a result of extra allies make fights simpler. And people new allies could have new Assaults and Abilities, which is necessary as a result of …

Fight is about exploiting weaknesses and getting free turns

For each spherical of fight, either side of a struggle has plenty of Press Flip Icons — principally, the variety of actions that celebration can carry out per spherical.

Combat is about exploiting weaknesses — Mandrakes are Weak towards Hearth and Proof against Electrical harm.

SuperLayer Raises $25M With Backing from Polygon — Mandrakes are Weak towards Hearth and Proof against Electrical harm.

Each enemy demon has a sequence of weaknesses and resistances to varieties (Affinities) of assaults and expertise. These are proven as icons beneath the varieties of damages. Each enemy has a line (no change), exclamation level (Weak), defend (Immune), or half-defend (Resistant) to melee, Hearth, Ice, Electrical, Drive, Gentle, and Darkish harm Affinities.

While you carry out an assault that the goal is weak to — just like the Agi (Hearth) Talent within the picture above — the assault doesn’t eat a press flip icon.

This implies you may get a free motion as soon as per celebration member per spherical of fight. Ideally, you’ll string collectively a sequence of assaults from every celebration member that exploit weaknesses so that everybody in your celebration goes no less than twice per spherical of fight.

Importantly, the identical mechanic is true for enemy demons, so in the event that they exploit your celebration’s weaknesses, they’ll get further assaults, too. In case you’re scuffling with a weak point to a particular assault or enemy, you’ll want to make use of Essence.

Essences are important

All through Shin Megami Tensei 5, you’ll be amassing Essences. (The truth is, you’ll most likely decide up one or two earlier than you possibly can even do something with them.) Essences are like a distilled model of a demon’s assaults, expertise, weaknesses, and resistances.

Essence – Shin Megami Tensei 5 guide — A Kodama Essence lets you train Zan, Dormina, and Dia to a unique demon.

Contained in the World of Shadows at a Leyline Discovered, you can also make use of those Essences by Essence Fusion. Utilizing this, you’ll have the ability to train your self and the demons in your celebration new Abilities and Assaults with new Affinities.

It’s also possible to use Essence Fusion to switch Weaknesses and Resistances from the demon Essence to your protagonist. This can be a nice assist when going up towards enemies with sturdy elemental (Affinity) assaults that you simply’re weak to.

Don’t get too hooked up to your Demons

All of that mentioned, your demons are disposable. They’ll fall in battle, otherwise you may simply discover higher ones as you progress. These aren’t members of your celebration a lot as they’re instruments that present further assaults.

Don’t hesitate to swap them out.

Extra importantly, the World of Shadows additionally lets you perform Demon Fusion. This takes two of your recruited demons (or a demon out of your Demon Compendium) and combines them into a brand new kind of demon, often of a (a lot) larger degree.

This can be a nice option to achieve highly effective allies. It’s even price it to consistently recruit low-degree demons simply to make use of as Fusion fodder.

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