So I've gotten about 10 hours of Strange Journey in and...

It's good, however it's not without its flaws... duh.

It starts off very eventfully unlike Nocturne which took almost half of the game to become interesting. The Demonica suit is a nice concept and they even surprised me with an early death for an important character and this totally threw out my suspicions for some of the others. Jimenez is one of the best male MegaTen characters ever... seriously, this guy is so fucking awesome I wait in anticipation for his dialogue in every scene. Here's a summary of some of his reactions...

"So we're gonna catch demons eh? AIN'T NO PUSSY DEMONS GONNA BE ON MY GROUP!"
"Fusing demons? I'LL FUSE THEM LIKE THE FIST OF THE NORTH STAR!"
"Diversions? Shit, fuck your diversion, I'll just kill all of these demons!"

This guy is awesome. The combat was... well, a change was made that I'm a bit indifferent to. Know when you hit weak points other characters do an extra attack afterwards instead of you getting another turn to do stuff. Also the fusion is a bit... well now the fusion is just bizarre. Instead of the demons being able to gain abilities from the previous ones, it seems to just be a bit random on what they'll inherit and after it's decided what they'll inherit, THAT'S IT. You can't redo it like before and get what you want eventually, that's saved for the next thing, the sources. The sources are used in the middle of fusion to add abilities to the demons and you can do that over and over if you want to set it up but the only way to get these is b leveling up the demon that they correspond to, which is a fucking nuisance, especially for one's you don't want.

Then comes the fucking music, it's been good so far now that I've gotten out of the two areas whose music I had trouble with, but those were terrible. The first dungeon you're in is an Ice Cavern and the second one is a Warzone, guess what they chose? OMINOUS LATIN CHANTING! Are you kidding me Meguro? Do you really ominous latin chanting when you stroll through these two locales? I don't fucking care if I'm in a dimension of demons, these songs suck and are boring! Oh the Demonica suit was a good touch. You open locked doors using it, find hidden paths, items and battles. ...Wait a minute that last one was a horrible idea. This game already has random battles and among the random battles you decided to add more battles and these ones are actually seeable?

WHAT KIND OF FUCKING LOGIC IS THAT? I'm already dealing with annoying random encounters, why would you give me these too? Then comes my next and the worst problem with this game, UNRECOGNIZABLE ENEMIES! I don't give a fuck what the story says, Story and Gameplay should stay separated. I don't know who the enemy is, I don't know what level they are or even if I should be afraid of them, just that it's an enemy AND THIS ADDS EVEN WORSE FAKE DIFFICULTY TO THE GAME.

Oh well, for all of these complaints I'm still enjoying the game in the story even though I know the two other humans are going to turn on me.

Eh, I'm done with SMT.

Their games are really starting to blow. I'm not saying this sucked because I haven't actually played it. I probably won't ever though (Looks boring).

My problem is that it shouldn't have been on the DS. A main series gets on a handheld console while a sequel of a spinoff gets a console release? C'mon that's retarded.

Also, if you've played more than one SMT game you'll start to notice all the stories are the same recycled shit. That's including all the other series too.

personally im liking the unknown enemies thing.

it makes you have to learn about the area and it's inhabitants before you can really work on a battle plan--though it was very nerve-wracking in the beggining, it grew on me fairly quickly and it DOES make sense, given the context (that and they're only unknown until you gain the basic scan level after one or two battles with them--it's helped me grasp that i NEED to use their weeknesses after i figure them out, or i could seriously get killed).

though, the kappa-things in world 2 (the red light distirct) that spam that multi-hit attack ('rampage' i think) that are resistant to physical hits can go burn in hell.

Quote :

given the context

That's the problem though, the story shouldn't combine with the gameplay, that is a recipe for disaster.

Imagine if Devil May Cry's story combined with the gameplay, Nero would never die against regular enemies and Dante would be invincible to pretty much everything.

Alright, I'm at the third hour and I can definitely say...

THIS GAME IS BORING THE HELL OUT OF ME. The only things keeping me interested are Jimenez and the Schwartzweltz becoming the human world. Although I already have a guess of how this ends.

Really it feels like I'm playing Nocturne, although this started out interestingly and now... it's... kind of declined. The music is the worst part of it all, the only things that are good are that battle themes and the scene music. Everything thing else is DRAMATIC OBNOXIOUS OMINOUS CHANTING IN CASE YOU DIDN'T KNOW WHERE YOU WERE! Yes, music, thank you for trying to create dramatic tension while I'm navigating myself THROUGH THE FUCKING RED LIGHT DISTRICT YOU OBNOXIOUS fuck!

It may be the music ruining it for me but the whole unrecognizable enemies thing is getting even worse now with enemies who are several levels above me and I'm getting killed constantly because I don't know what I'm fighting! And the fucking source system is only becoming more and more inconvenient, it'll probably get to the point where I make an all-powerful demon BUT CAN'T GIVE HIM OTHER USEFUL ABILITIES BECAUSE I HAD TO WASTE THEM ALL TO MAKE THE WEAKER ONES USEFUL!

Christ, I was so hyped for this game but now it's turning back on me. Even Nocturne didn't do this, sure it was boring for the first half but fuck it got awesome in the second half. This is just annoying not entertaining.

I'm not done with the game yet but I'm just gonna give my full opinion of it right now seeing as nothing really seems like it's gonna change much.

THIS GAME... is a badly designed game. Not only are the dungeons (For the most part) terrible, the story takes past the halfway point to get interesting and stay that way, the game is easy as hell, the demon fusion is a bit fucked now with them using sources now to actually determine your skills and seeing as it's very hard to get a source of the same type that just makes for more pointless grinding, the soundtrack is... bad. Only the battle tracks and Eridanus (Ironically) and the last dungeon's tracks are good, the rest range from Meh to Terrible (Anything with chanting that isn't a battle track), the demon designs are pretty cool and the sheer amount will keep some people playing who have patience, unlike me. Gore, Arthur and Jimenez are pretty cool guys but Zelenin can go jump right off of a cliff for all I give a shit, Mastema is obviously evil, the Law side still has no semblance of moral balance behind it unlike Chaos and Neutral and the battle system's follow up being decided by alignment's is a change for the worse.

Oh and the first-person view gives me a sense of inertia.