The demons each have their own personality.  You can't just say anything to them and recruit them.  You have to respond to them appealing to their individual personalities.  That's why it's hard, because the same tactic wont work every time.  Plus, you don't need to recruit every demon and get by.  I recruited a good 1/3 of my demons by nearly wiping them out and they beg not to be killed.

Also, that's why you should only try to recruit a specific demon you want after killing off the others.  If you fail, the demon you want plus all the others present will attack you.  A good way to do this is if you start with your main character going first, skip his turn and then use your other demons to either gain turns or just simply do what it takes to beat the other demons.  Then when it's the only one left, that's when you try to talk to them.

The reason battles are that way is because the demons you fight are pretty much the same as the demons you have yourself.  However, whenever you get further in the game, it becomes more difficult to beat every battle in one turn unless you want to completely exhaust your MP and items.  Sometimes it's best to prepare beforehand for a multiple turn battle and conserve MP.

If you're where it seems like you say you are, you're kind of still in the tutorial stages.

I do agree with you on this. Recruiting demons is really a pain in the ass, mostly because there's really no hint as to what to answer to them (there are some obvious ones like the Dwarf which ask me like where to go and "A cave" was one of the answer), and failing to recruit a demon can result in one's death. 

The point of battles is to figure out the demons weakness, I had to retry some bosses because without knowing there weaknesses it was pretty much impossible to beat them at the level I was, I guess this could either be fun or a pain depending on how you look at it.

But overall I'm enjoying this game a lot, I have only played Persona 3 and Devil Survivor (on the DS) before, so was already familiar with some of the mechanics of the game, which for newcomers might take a while to get used to.

Since I'm already here, how much exp does demons on your stock get? I know they don't get full exp but they don't get half either (I think).

I've been wondering the same thing.  Ever since I got to the point where I've been getting 10,000 exp or more per battle, my demons in the stock have been growing many levels (probably because they aren't level 60-70).

Not sure if anyone can answer me, but does anyone happen to know how you defend yourself against Almighty attacks in SMTIV?

I know this is probably the wrong place to ask ( I dont want to open a new thread) but which game in the series is best to make the jump in SMT IV easier ? I have nerver played a single SMT game, but I bought
Devil Survivor: Overclocked, Digital Devil Saga, Nocturne and Persona 3: Fes recently...
My plan was to start with Persona ...is this a good idea ?

My first SMT game was Devil Survivor for the DS. I pick it up because it was a strategy game similar to Fire Emblem. So if you like FE I highly recommend you start with Devil Survivor (although don't know much about Overclocked, I guess there's not that big of a difference from the DS one).

Persona is much more story heavy than the rest of the SMT games. You probably going to spend most of your time in conversations than fighting, but in general the battle system is extremely similar.

I think it doesn't really matter which game you start with. You could probably even start with SMT IV, the learning curve in that game would be same for the other SMT games.

You can change the difficulty to an easier option in SMTIV.

True, forgot about that. Although he has to die twice to unlocked it first  

Thanks for the suggestion....hmmm still undecided...
oh well, I have plenty of time until it finally releases here in Europe (19. September accorging to wiki)