Hiku said:
I don't hold on to the demons for too long. The only exception really where I kept one for the entire game was Pixie in SMT 3, but in that game demons could evolve into several new forms so she lasted for a while. I keep fusing them into newer stronger ones. But it's usually into ones I like.
If I can chose between Samael who happens to be weak to one of the elements the current monsters use,
or Jueyuan, who happens to be strong against an element they use, then I will always go with Samael. In some cases I still remember when I used certain demons at certain portions of the games, or the story behind them. And I like that, and the reason I do is because they were memorable in some way. Which makes it interesting seeing them again in the next SMT game I play. Especially if they have a bit of a story behind them.
As for "intentionally making the moves they learn worse", that's not really an issue. If I want a certain move, I'll likely get it on some of my monsters. I've gotten Maragidyne (I believe it was) on Gabriel in SMT III, by going back several generations through her family tree and fusing it into Persona made to create her. Both of the ones neccesary to create Gabriel in fact, to increase the likelyhood of it happening, because she was resistant to learning Fire skills. I believe there was a 4% chance of Maragidyne appearing on her list, on top of the already random factor of being one of the skills randomly selected out of the bunch. And Gabriel herself was just made for the purpose of carrying along that skill to Metatron along with 4 other Archangels neccesary for the fusion, where I repeated that process.
So in this game where every monster not only can seemingly inherit any skill, and you even get to chose which skills are carried over, it's not going to be a problem. I'm quite used the fusion system.
Another thing I do when I see a skill I want to use even though it's not on a demon I want to use is that I go ahead and fuse that demon into something stronger, or somethign that can be fused into something I like, to keep that skill around until that demon I like can be fused. I've already done that with a few buffs in SMT 4 that I have ready to incorporate into my team.
I don't only fuse magic demons, but I do always give them each of the elemental attacks, yeah. Physical demons have lower MP, but Tam Lin for example can attack 1~2 times and has high Str, so he tends to make up for it that way, so I can conserve some mana with him as I usually don't always need to use magic every single turn with every character. Exception being boss battles.
As for Makarakarn and Tetrakarn, I'll keep a lookout for them. Queen Mab (an old favorite, as it was Pixie's final evolution in SMT III), Lorelei as well as Xi Wangmu learn Makarakarn. Haven't looked into Tetrakarn yet but even if it isn't learned by any demon I like, I'm sure they can be fused into something I like. You can even fuse demons backwards through the family tree by fusing them with lower level demons.
And yeah, I do keep fusing my builds into new monsters. That's what I've always done. But onto monsters I like, when available.
This enemy encounter system is a useless mechanic that goes against the core of what SMT demon fusion has been about all these years. You could always move your builds to the monsters you wanted, with some limitations. But in general, you could always create the team you wanted with all, or most of the skills you wanted. Now however, this system is limiting which monsters are viable to use, forcing you to play with some specific monsters unless you want to have an unplesant time. I don't like that, and that's not what I expected from a game with such a diverse monster history.
The 5% HP reduction you gain from a premptive strike on an enemy, I can't even say with confidence that it's ever affected the outcome of any fight so far. Basically what it is is either get a normal fight, or risk getting wiped out. For something with such a heavy impact on the battles, I would have appreciated it if they at least made the enemy striking system a more fleshed out mechanic. But it's as barebones and simplified as it could possibly be, besides getting different swing animations for different weapons.
I just noticed the App for lowering the price for re summoning demons from the compendium, now that you mentioned it. I'll be getting that right away.
Anything else that's good? I got MP recovery, which is pretty useful for healing. And I've been focusing on increasing the skill slots for my main character and the monsters.
By the way, I heard you get more money later in the game. What changes to make money more easy to come by? I'm in Tokyo right now, and while I'm getting more relics, the prices of gears seem to have gone up rather proportionally to balance this out anyway.
As for the difficulty, if it lowers their levels to the point where the team doesn't get wiped out, that would be something that could get me to ease up on the saves and resets. However if it doesn't then it would be pointless. I guess I'll have to test it and see. I was hoping something else would change in the game to make enemy first attacks less devastating.
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Coming from Pokemon, I get the desire to play favorites, but what was so refreshing for me was just running through demon after demon, choosing what was strongest until it wasn't anymore. It felt like it meshed with the theming present in the game.
I look at the preemptive strike more as a defensive tactic than an offensive one. You attack first so the enemy can't. That's why the little payoff in attacking never bothered be. I always move first anyway, which means that I'd always waste the opponent the first turn. I like it. It keeps the world dangerous and the stakes high in a simple way. Like I said, eventually you get used to it and it becomes second nature. Though like I said, team balance matters and no matter what your reasons are, you're deliberately handicapping yourself by intentionally skipping better situational demons for ones you like. That's the biggest reason you're getting so slammed by this. It's not that punishing by itself, but it is punishing of playing "wrong." Regardless of past SMT games, you are playing this one wrong by doing what you're doing. Can't blame the game for that. You need to at least gear your favorites to have better defensive typing synergy.
I never got the MP recovory item as all my demons were magic users with high MP and my MC was also a magic build, so I never really needed it. Lowering the compendium price (Summon Discount) and raising the level cap (Fusion Booster) are the two most useful ones in my opinion. There are obvious ones too, like Skill/Demon Skill Expansion and the like. I wouldn't waist too much on expanding your demon stock. I never used all the ones I had. I wouldn't by any of the Demon Enhancers, as you should be fusing to often for their benefits to matter, and I'm pretty sure they aren't passed through fusion. Don't waste points on Multilingial either. Any demons you can't recruit now, you can fuse later.
As for money, a lot of it is just through sellable items. Equipment doesn't matter too much so sell everything you don't need and spend whatever you can get on fusing. Don't waste your money on buying expensive equipment. I played most of the game with the Black Demonica Suit and was fine. Seriously, 90% of your money should go to demon fusion. 99% of your app points should go to making demon fusion cheaper and more powerful.
As for difficulty, yeah. I'm sure the devs hardly factored the preemtive strikes into the equasion when introducing the lower difficulty.
EDIT: Let me be clear, though. I'm by no means an SMT expert. I've only played (beated) one game, IV. What I am good at is unearthing complex mechanics. So you probably know more about the franchise as a whole than me. I researched the mechanics of SMT to play SMT IV. I'm probably not even an expert at the mechanics yet, but I did beat the game and I did have a relatively simple time, difficulty wise, because of that understanding.
