>>724991121 (OP)
Last month I started SMT I on SNES. It’s my first Megaten, and I love the story and atmosphere, that shift from normal Tokyo to a ruined world is amazing. But the menus make everything painfully slow.
At first I tried to play authentically refusing to use save states. I gave up after 10 hours. Walking back to a terminal through constant encounters was torture. I use Ensoma, but then you run out of MAG and have to dismiss and summon demons every time. It’s not even about the money, it’s just a time sink.
Combat is a chore too. Even with Auto on, you have to press A four or five times after each fight (EXP, money, MAG, items). In SMT II this is automatic, but here it’s constant button-mashing. Manual fights are worse, you mash A a dozen times per turn. The game explains almost nothing, so I always had a wiki open. Even after 20 hours I couldn’t remember which spell did what, and navigating those clunky menus to experiment isn’t fun. And sometimes you have to fight manually because your gun char suddenly switches to a sword attack or you run into a demon with a reflection spell.
I dropped the gamepad because my hand hurt and switched to keyboard. Then I discovered emulator tools (fast-forward, turbo, rewind) and started abusing them. Wrong spell? Rewind. Trap? Rewind. Fake floor? Rewind. Only then did it feel playable.
The plot kept me going until I hit the alignment split. I went to church, got lost, and started checking guides, that’s when my motivation began to fade. With guides open all the time, every dungeon started to feel the same, I kept mixing up locations, and then I accidentally spoiled the part with the good sword in the church. I did take it, and I endured all those mazes, but that’s when all the joy disappeared. I realized I was playing a guide, not a game.
And I don't want to play PS1. Even with improvements, SNES soundtrack and visuals fit better. And I can't move to SMTII because of my autism, can't skip the game.
