I finished this morning. 100% completion after finishing all the virtual trainer battles. I feel in the mood to share my final team and other thoughts.
1)
Kei Amemura (Nahobino)
Essence:
Demifiend (Null all except Almighty)
Innate:
Magatsuhi Spring
Paraselene Blur (Light/Strength)
Fierce Roar (Support)
Luminescent Mirage (Support)
Impaler's Animus (Support)
Lunation Flux (Heal)
Elusive Eclipse (Passive)
Intercalation (Passive)
High Light Pleroma (Passive)
I ran physical build through most of NG and Murakumo almighty build with Mother Harlot essence + Drain Force for resistances through much of the NG+s and Godborn mode. Those are boring, comparatively. This is the evade tank build, and it's much more fun to play.
Fierce Roar to draw aggro for the next few turns and Luminescent Mirage to guarantee a dodge next turn is turn 1 with Naho, and things play out differently depending on enemy resistances and how often I crit. Paraselene Blur is the strongest physical attacking move in the game(?) but with the obvious drawbacks of being usable only during a turn after he dodges an attack and being light-elemental, meaning a chunk of endgame enemies naturally resist or null it. After playing it for a couple days, I think those shortcomings don't detract from how fun or generally effective the build is. Intercalation is a dumb passive, you see, that gives you an extra half press turn on the next turn every time Naho dodges. 4.5 press turns lets me squeeze in 3 turns for protag-kun, which is enough to do everything I need usually. If need be, I can Impaler's Animus to get around resistances and boost damage, Paraselene Blur, and then get up Luminescent Mirage again for the next turn.
Lunation Flux is a great move and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. The MP restore is pathetic - 2.5% of your max (although hey it's something for sustain). The real benefit is that it lets you pass a press turn for free. Sometimes I'll have a full press turn available but all my setup done already when Naho gets his turn and Luna Flux lets me pass twice to Agrat again in the third slot to attack again. Cool beans.
I think if I played a bit more, I'd swap out Elusive Eclipse. An extra hit is nice but I can't say I really noticed the 'slight evasion boost'. I think the slot would be better served with Enduring Soul for general survivability or Light Pleroma for that extra damage boost.
Last comments is that this set is cool beyond the gimmick of interplaying all these moves together. The aggro draw on Fierce Roar is real and cool.
2)
Naamah (Qadistu)
Innate:
Qadistu Deception
Capitulate to Pleasure (Ailment)
Slumber Vortex (Ailment)
Donum Magici (Support)
Debilitate (Support)
Enduring Soul (Passive)
Abyssal Mask (Passive)
Boon Boost EX (Passive)
Drain Phys (Passive)
Offensive support. General strat is to Debilitate down to minimum and then support Agrat with Donum Magici boosts for Queen's Decree. Capitualate to Pleasure and Slumber Vortex are hail mary buttons if I think Debilitate won't cut it next turn and I need to gamble on disabling the enemy team (Demifiend, this is for Demifiend). Maybe I would have experimented with Makajamaon over Slumber Vortex because NG with Black Rider taught me how dumb good Seal status is.
Enduring Soul and Abyssal Mask for general survivability. Drain Phys patches her only weakness. Boon Boost EX keeps her off Debil duty as much possible so she can keep pumping Donum Magicis.
Unlike Elusive Eclipse, I want to say I noticed Qadistu Deception's evasion boost for Naamah and Agrat more but I could be making this up. Naamah's the easiest to slot out in this team as that passive's really the only practical reason I'm using her. Thumbing through the Compendium now, Mephisto's probably the
objectively better choice for this slot - a demon with good resistances, +affinities to ailment and support (surprisingly uncommon), and a strong(er) innate ability in damage boosts to ailmented enemies, buuuuut Mephisto's not a cute demon prostitute so he loses the slot. Also I don't know how effective Stagnant Air is in practice but I've heard pretty good.
3)
Agrat (Qadistu)
Innate:
Qadistu Artifice
Queen's Decree (Almighty/Magical)
Enduring Soul (Passive)
High Restore (Passive)
Critical Zealot (Passive)
Murderous Glee (Passive)
Drain Elec (Passive)
Almighty Pleroma (Passive)
High Almighty Pleroma (Passive)
Damage. The only move her highness needs is Queen's Decree. With 12 hits to the move, I'd usually get at least
one crit, which is all I need to keep the ball rolling. Even during my Godborn playthrough too, I'd usually get it.
Everything else is a passive for support. Her innate, of course, enables crits on all attacks for Qadistu allies (crit magical almighty is cool). Critical Zealot and Murderous Glee boost crit rate and damage and Almighty Pleromas boost general damage. High Restore meant she never ran into mana problems. Drain Elec covers her only weakness. The last slot was a fight between Enduring Soul and Abyssal Mask. I ultimately went with the rez, although this was a real choice. Even after boosting her luck stat for more crits she also still gets hit with status moves more often than the rest of my team. Rez is too good though.
4)
Yukiko Amagi Konohana Sakuya (Kunitsu)
Innate:
Oath of Plenteousness
Sakuya Sakura (Heal)
Bowl of Hygieia (Support)
Enduring Soul (Passive)
Abyssal Mask (Passsive)
Drain Phys (Passive)
Repel Elec (Passive)
Heal Pleroma (Passive)
High Heal Pleroma (Passive)
Best defensive support in the game, obvs. Sakuya Sakura casts Luster Candy+effective Media/Mediarama strength HP heals+light MP heals too on the whole team and is dumb as hell. Her innate boosts both HP/MP heals after the Luster Candy effect. Bowl of Hygieia lets her overheal on the occasional turn where she or the rest of the team have literally nothing else to do or if I really do need the extra HP for something.
Passives are mostly straightforward. Enduring Soul/Abyssal Mask survivability, Heal Pleromas for even more HPs, Repel Elec for her only weakness, and Drain Phys because she has literally nothing else she needs to do or have covered and that's the best all-purpose defensive passive I could think of. I specifically ruled out Boon Boost EX, if it's not already obvious, because buff duration is not an issue because of how often she heals.
The only kink I never hammered out with her is
sometimes her turn would come up with a half press turn remaining on the bar and I'd have nothing to do but toss a Chakra Elixir or Bowl of Hygieia I guess but I'm usually winning hard already if that's a problem I'm having.
===
Top 5 tracks in the OST
1)
Demon Haunt II: I am a sucker for sentimental piano and chorus music and this hits the mark for me. Also like the electronic flourishes a lot. This track is so much better than Demon Haunt I, which sounds like bland elevator music, it's not even funny.
2)
Battle -Abdiel-: The guitar sounds so Meguro, in a good way. I also love the piano and reverb sections. I also realized this is the only vanilla SMT5 track in my top 5, and it totally deserves it.
3)
Battle -the adversary-: Favorite parts are of the techno riffing around 1:17 and then the long, heavy percussion that starts 100 seconds in. So fitting for how desperate the Satan battle is.
4)
Shakan: Best dungeon track in the game. A guitar that's winding down and the heavy choruses very clearly spell this out as an old and holy place, and the generally slow pace of the song fits how you have to pace yourself puzzling through the ceiling contraptions. The piano and other sections mix the track up well and keep it fresh.
5)
Battle -Vengeance for reclamation-: Best normal battle theme in the game by a mile. Like many good normal battle tracks across all games, this one understands coming out the gate swinging is one of the better strats because the player won't often get far into it. So just throw out fast-hitting techno immediately. Not that the guitar and chorus aren't good too, mind you.
Mixed-negative overall on the OST. 'Not as good as Nocturne'/10. A fair number of nothing or whatever tracks, and I'm really soured by how slow of a start it has and some of the prominent tracks that are bad. Early Da'at is whatever and the standard Canon of Creation battle theme is... awful? I'm a little sore that Demifiend's battle theme was hackjobed too imo.
===
Overall thoughts
Mixed-positive. Technically this is the best SMT has ever been: Mobility on the field, options and builds available, flexibility in the fusion system (so that people like me who love old-style SMT fusing and hated being forced into IV's seemingly backwards system can choose based off the situation - much better now that I can pick!). The game looks great and some of the animations I'll consistently let play out (Paraselene Blur, my beloved). OST's a mixed bag, as I touched on.
Story and presentation are also mixed. Law and Chaos choices often suck and most of them suck here too because there's so little in the way of interesting nuance and/or it's so on the nose (Canon of Vegeance,
stop, I get that Tao's an optimist and Yoko's a pessimist, please stop), and some choices are just obviously better (Vengeance Chaos is so dumb I don't even understand the final battle). It's hard to root for Law on Creation-side too when Dazai's
just evil now even if the argument itself could have some merit.
Thanks man
