Some ideas: -Nocturne with only your initial Magatama -Any SMT no exploiting weaknesses -SMT but you're a Pokemon Trainer (Only your demons can attack and your protag can only use healing items or support items, kinda like the X Stat items in Pokemon)
@@La-Machina I actually found it easier to skip battles in P4G, because of the way shadow movement changed. The fact that they couldn't pivot in place to hit you and had a turning radius let you run behind almost every shadow. Once you got the movement down and the feel of it, you can even run past some shadows in perfectly straight hallways.
@@nihiluna I see, but what I meant was that it was too easy to skip fights unintentionally. The way that Tartarus is made makes it entirely possible for you to be able to skip many floors at a time. In P4G, skipping fights when you want to is very easy, but skipping fights when your only goal is to just make it to the top in P3 is even easier, since you could go up like 5 floors without a single enemy if the stairs are close enough to you.
Actually, P1 probably would have the easiest "only initial persona" challenge because you can make Seimen Kongou basically the best persona in the game. You can buff his stats with the revive secret ability plus Kongou leveling up all the stats (all 100 stats Kongou baby). And you can fuse him to get some stronger attacks if you can deal with P1 inheritance
I’ve actually did this challenge, and excluding some parts being annoying, the only real challenge was pandora, which I honestly just ended up spamming magic mirrors on (or whatever these were called) to win. I didn’t try sqq but I think that Thanatos tower would be too much, at least for me.
Nocturne, every time you die play until you win a fight in Strange Journey Redux. Every time you die in Strange Journey, look in the mirror for 2 minutes
@@funninoriginal6054 every time you die before recruiting a demon, play a new game of persona 4 until you fuse a new persona Edit: just play Persona 4, not necessarily a new game
@@roy-cyber I played both games like that and Innocent Sin was a lot of fun like that honestly, EP was a little tougher but still could be done, fusion spells are too good.
When I first heard of tarot cards system of two I thought it sounded interesting... But boy is it slow, boring and you basically just run in one place trying to collect enough blank (or however they were called) tarot cards from a single room to fuse new personas for all party members at once. I think in IS I fused less then 10 personas 'couse it was really a chore.
I wanted to do a low level Persona 2 EP run. I might try that. Initial Persona run in P2 is possible because they can be mutated to get 99 of every stat. Maia Custom might be broken.
@@chrisk3824 my thoughts exactly, especially since in Innocent Sin you get 2 different upgrades to your original persona through the story so fusing wasn’t all that needed
I had a thought for Nocturne. Why not make a rule that your three party slots must contain a Law, Neutral, and Chaos demon. It you don't have one of that alignment, then you must leave the slot empty. Another idea was "You may fuse demons at the Cathedral, but you are not allowed to reroll for the skills you want." Once you've decided on a demon you want to fuse, you must take whatever the game gives you for its skills. Once you commit, that's it.
An idea i had few months ago was a "normal human" challenge in persona 3/4 Rules : - MC can only use weapons and items - Other party members can still use their persona (or maybe not) - any actions that requires the "skill" input is off limits - you can still equip persona for their resistances, or you can limit yourself by using only your starting persona.
I think that's impossible, I'm pretty sure you have to select the skill menu in the last battle to use the Great Seal... other than that it might be just grind a lot to kill everything with normal attacks
@@door-chan If no one is allowed to use their Persona, it's actually impossible to complete Persona 3, because Rampage Drive (the third boss) nulls all Phys forms
There is one challenge that I came up with that I call the “Reload Challenge” that should work for most games. Basically, it is like Nuzlocke with a twist. Each new “dungeon,” you are only allowed to recruit persona or demons in the first 3 fights that you encounter. If you fail to recruit them, then you cannot try again. You must go through the dungeon with the characters you recruited until you beat the dungeon boss. Once you do, all characters must be deleted before or once you enter the next dungeon. If you cannot delete them all, then you must fuse them until only one remains. When and if you recruit the next character, the old one must be deleted. Rinse and repeat until the game is done. It helps keep combat interesting and also prevents over-leveling to win.
Persona 3, 4, 5 challenge: only AI party members participate in combat. The main character does nothing but issuing commands obviously except direct commands.
Actually impossible in these without a few asterisks. P3 has the forced solo battle on rooftop, P4 has Shadow Yosuke, and P5 has the prologue battle. Of course, excluding these, probably possible. P5 Reaper has actually been killed with Joker doing nothing but spamming Heat Riser on party members.
I already play most games that allow for such ai (and it isn't completely broken in an unusable way) in that way. Only difference for me would be not using MC.
The Helltaker Run: -Can only use female chaos-aligned demons (or traditionally chaos aligned demons if the game has no chaos alignment like Nocturne). Can't use male demons at ALL, can't even have them in your party for a second. -Everytime you encounter a female demon (regardless of alignment), you have to try and recruit them, or at the very least resolve the conflict by talking. -Can't kill any female demons, run if you can't talk to them (bosses excluded since it's for plot reasons)
I have one for Persona: Incelocke 1. You cannot use any female party members. Just the boys. 2. You can't start any female social links, automatics like Sae are an exception. 3. You cannot interact with the Velvet Attendants, therefore no compedium. 4. You cannot recruit and fuse any female Persona. 5. You cannot itemize or obtain skill cards from female Personas . 6 .You cannot buy anything from a female NPC. Considering that Persona fans have a reputation for being incels, this challenge is appropriate.
@@originalketer1993 In that case, I'd say that the genders should be swapped entirely. Only female party members, etc. You could argue that that should be considered the Femcelocke, so it doesn't count, but by that same token, the entire run would be impossible with the FemC.
... Watching this is like having a series of horrific nightmares described to me Megami Tensei fans really are the most Sado-Maso types out there Here I thought I was cool for just playing SMT IV with a physical build and balanced stats (IE, no dumping 123809231098321809 points into magic to immediately destroy everything in your way)
@@trapscancreate5760 This is the best recreation i can find: th-cam.com/video/jg7mdVlAENE/w-d-xo.html Here is part two, enjoy: th-cam.com/video/buabZ-lKQzI/w-d-xo.html
Much like the narrowed down themes (like the "one alignment" one mentioned), I wrote up a One Arcana challenge for the Persona series. You pick an arcana, either randomly or intentionally, and play only with personas of that arcana.
Oh I got another one. The "no summon is free" challenge : you are not allowed to modify your party outside of battle, you _have_ to use the summon and retreat commands in battle. Harder version : you must return all your demons in the stock after every battle, meaning you need to manually summon any demon every battle.
I did have a challenge idea for SMT IV that I have been considering for a while, that challenge is a Semi-Pacifist Run. Here are the rules: Flynn and his demons are not allowed to directly harm demons in any way, this includes: >Any melee attack >Attacking skills (this includes skills like counter and retaliate, can't lash out!) >Poison (probably panic too since i'm pretty sure demons can attack their own party members, but I think that could be up to the runner) >pre-emptive attacks, since attacking an enemy on the field causes a small amount of damage when the battle starts, which is banned However, since you have to kill bosses anyway, what is allowed are: >Partner attacks (you're not the one hurting them, it's your friend who's doing it, no blame on you) >Repel damage (It's the demon's fault they hit into a repel lol. Also Tetrakarn and Makarakarn are allowed because Minotaur is basically impossible otherwise) The fact that you cannot kill any demons directly means that the only ways to get exp are through negotiations, fusions, partner attacks, and repel abuse, and Minotaur will be an absolute pain at the beginning because you need to either grind to the earliest Tetrakarn or try to somehow manipulate skill mutations to give you Tetrakarn early, if that's even possible. this also means that demons that only use instakill and almighty attacks will be impossible to defeat. would this be a fun challenge? probably not honestly, requires a ton of slow grinding, but I guess you could brag about something. also sorry that it was really long. (also the reason why it's semi and not full is that the tutorial forces you to kill demons in the very first encounter + the horde immediately after lel)
Jack Bros only run in any game would be fun. Might struggle with humans only until you get a Jack Frost, but once you get things like Frost Ace and Black Frost it'll be a little smoother.
I think a good one for the Digital Devil Saga duology would be what I like to call the "Miser Run", with the ruleset being as follows: 1) You may not spend Macca through any means, except to unlock Mantras. 2) You may not sell any items to the shop. Now, I have not tried this one out yet myself, but given how important Macca is in the DDS games, I imagine that these rules would make one be especially careful about which Mantras to go for and when, since Macca would be a lot more hard-to-come-by than in a casual playthrough.
the "I wanna hate IVA even more than I already do" challenge -Nanashi can only use the Anarchy Ring (free DLC, makes you weak to everything except for Almighty) -Apocalypse difficulty, whatever the second hardest one is if that's too much -No special fusion demons -Other than the DLCs mentioned above (Anarchy Ring and Apocalypse Difficulty), no DLC content. The bosses are an exception if you wanna go for the challenge, but don't fuse them (and they fall under the special fusion demons rule anyway) -No HP/MP Walk apps or the one that restores your HP/MP on a level up -No stat enhancing items (as in incenses or armor boosters, using equipment is fine obviously) -Always use Gaston as your Partner (before you unlock him use whoever's the worst in the current situation), pick the Anarchy ending and choose him as your Goddess -Don't give the Awakening skill to Nanashi
Gonna be honest, it'd then be just easier to let Nanashi die at every fight and let the demons do the work, and the only boss that would prove a problem would be Sukuna-Hikona due to his overwhelming damage output. As for Ose and Titan, they're easily crippled by spamming ailments
Pimp Protagonist Challenge: -From the moment you can obtain one you may only use demons of the opposite sex of your player character. -From the moment you are able you may only use party members of the opposite sex. -If playing Persona you must romance all available characters.
For anyone interested in something easier than these masochistic ideas, you can try using only demons of a certain alignment. That's a lot more restrictive in the IV games since SJ rewards using same alignment demons and Nocturne doesn't tell you alignments. For a Nocturne specific challenge, you can only use Magatama of a certain color. There are 8 light, neutral, and dark magatama, and this limits the skills you can access and really limits some of the strategies you can use. I actually did this one myself with the light magatama and if I did it again, I'd play on hard mode because even with the restriction it was pretty easy on normal. For a IV/ IV Apocalypse challenge, you can try never whispering skills to the MC. Pretty self explanatory but that would limit your player turn actions to weapon attacks or items.
1 Race/Arcana per Dungeon/Zone/Whatever else Basically, use only one race of demons per dungeon or until certain story elements trigger. For example, in nocturne, it would be forced to use the fairy race in the hospital and let's say the yoma race for shibuya, then wilders for ikebukuro and etc. You are also free to recruit and fuse any demon, but in battle you are allowed only the demons of that race, MCs are the exception and to make things a bit spicier, you can use a random number generator, with each number being a race and with it, the race for certain sections can be the same in the last one or certain races may not appear at all. Now for the story elements part, the reason i'm saying that, is that certain games tend to have some extremely long dungeons and doing those with only fairies or wilders, can be kind of boring, hence whenever certain key moments in story appear or certain bosses do, it will trigger a change in races. A good example is SJR, with Sector A being race A since its pretty short, Sector B can be pre-Zelenin and post-Zelenin so race B and C respectively, Sector C can be Fused-Horkos and Defused-Horkos so race A and D and it goes on. For persona, it would be certain arcanas only, fool is the start then rando. The only exception for certain races not to appear, would be because none of them would be available at a certain point in the game, or do you want to see a Lv.60 Yu Narukami beating Yukiko with an Anubis in non-NG+? If you want the second, the only thing to say, is good luck. Others are dds and dds 2, with certain types of skills can be allowed, such as fire only or healing only etc.
I had an idea for a Persona Anti-Social Challenge awhile ago, which was admittedly less about challenge and more about flavoring a run, I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult to an experienced player but here's what I came up with (this was mostly based on P5/P5R since I had just beaten it again and it was on my mind, but I'm sure you could do this in 3/4 with some tweaks): >Fresh file >Hard Difficulty >No Direct Commands, AI Allies Only >No Social Link/Confidant Advancement Unless Required >No optional hangouts unless required >No getting a job >No raising social stats unless required >Pick the most rude or dismissive dialogue (for flavor) >No mementos requests or any other kind of "helping other people in a dungeon" things unless required >No healing/curing/buffing teammates >In P5, No negotiating (which I guess also makes this Arsene only, not sure) >no tycoon/darts/pool/whatever >dungeons must be finished in a single day or whatever the minimum amount of time investment is (some are broken up and require multiple days) in order to minimize how much time you have to spend around other people And I guess if you want to upgrade this to the "Shut-In Challenge", no leaving your room during free time unless required. Anyway, that's just an idea I had. Would love to see someone do it just for fun.
*Phase Changer Challenge* *This challenge revolves around the Moon/Kagutsuchi phases. -During a Full Moon, you may use a full party in battle. -Waning towards a New Moon, you must use only one party member or demon in battle outside of the protagonist. However, this ally cannot be the same one that was previously used on the waxing phase. -During a New Moon, you are forbidden from using party members or demons aside from the protagonist. -Waxing towards a Full Moon, you must use only one party member or demon in addition to your protagonist. However, this ally cannot be the same one that was previously used on the waning phase. Hard mode additions: -Demon negotiation of any kind is forbidden during a New Moon. If a demon starts negotiations with you first, you must decline their offers to end negotiations ASAP. -Fusion is forbidden during a Full Moon. -Consumable item usage (in and out of battle) is forbidden during any phases between New Moon and Full Moon.
Sounds neat, but given how quickly the moon phases change, it'd be super tedius going into the menu just to swap out a party member, and could be easily cheesed for boss fights by just running around until you hit a full moon, then going into the fight.
Something I’ve been trying recently is a guns/items only run of digital devil saga 1. The only skills I’m letting my characters use in atma form are buffs (and gun combo skills) since otherwise the necessary strategies are super unreliable
I was considering how to pull this off. Being allowed to use atma form for buffs actually is a good conscession since I was thinking human form only. You would have to use ng+ for that, but you could do NG this way. The problem is wasting turns transforming. But if you did it ng+ you wouldn't have to grind for the buffs with how you wouldn't be able to use hunting skills. Maybe using emulators you could cheat in the human form skill.
@@BlackKanye yeah I cheated to get the human form skills in ng, at first I was considering just using attack buffs so the battles would go faster, but I ended up using defense buffs as well simply because it made it more reliable. A good amount of the bosses have random hit physical skills and my party members would get 2 hit killed by them so it was like a 1/4 chance that my party gets wiped every turn.
@@Jobulejobies I'm doing a similar thing, but with no Atma form usage at all (barring transformations induced by Panic or Hunger, in which case I revert ASAP or run away if the enemy in question isn't a boss). Although, I am doing 2 on Normal for now, since it's possible to carry over skills and decide which ones to allow at will. Hard would be extremely grindy because that luxury doesn't exist, and it might be possible that Field Hunts would be necessary to make mantra acquisition reasonable (in addition to *_lots_* more money/item farming with Panic Shell).
@@Jobulejobies Yes. And _lots_ of them. The Megido Fire is actually useful for once in 1, since it's a reusable Wild Card (Megido item). With this challenge being as item-reliant as it is, it's actually possible to use MF enough times for it to effectively pay for itself. (Even then, it would be more worth it if it cast Megidola instead, or if it cost as much as the Revival orb but would cast _Megidolaon_ unlimited times. Not to mention that it would be cool if it was present in DDS2, _if_ it was more viable) Crimson boxes are very useful in 2 when playing with these restrictions; while the ability to straight-up buy elemental items in 1 is replaced with the boxes, they only cost 1k cash apiece instead of and there's a chance to get 2 or 3 items from them. I've heard that solar data levels also affect lootbox earnings, but I'm not entirely sure if it's the quality of the items that goes up at MAX, the chance of getting multiple items per box, or both.
I've actually been giving the P5R Solo Joker Merciless a try myself. I was inspired by Tevin's video of that funny enough. I didn't agree about the "Madarame is impossible without excessive grinding", but it was in a way that I had a curiosity that wanted to be satiated. It's been an on and off project for me since I've been balancing it alongside speedrunning. While it isn't 1:1 on the rules about using the party members, there are still ways I've been able to work around the spots where a full party is forced in order to maintain the spirit of the challenge. It's led to an interesting approach to the game where I have to take my perfectionism with set-building, and make it even more optimized. Yet, in some spots it's felt easier due to not having to worry about keeping an entire party active and healthy. I've gotten to the Third Semester so far in my run, and I really only have the second foray into the final Palace left, and the Day of Fates. It's what I considered one of the three biggest roadblocks of the run, but I'm looking forward to seeing how I solve it. tl;dr I really enjoyed this video that covered different ideas of challenges to roll with, and I definitely want to give more of these a try once I finish up P5R
Something i have done in Persona 3-5, is what i call the "Slacker" challenge... It's INSANELY tough and punishing, but i got a real kick out of it! It's pretty much the opposite of a 100% run, and basicly requires you to involve yourself with as few of the games mechanics as you can, while still getting to the true ending. Pretty much just go to bed or do something that doesn't really benefit you, any time you can. Using Persona 5 as an example, some of the rules i used were: -Do as little as possible in the social part of the game, and avoid increasing any social stats if you can (meaning you HAVE to answer every school question wrong). -Never buy anything, sell anything, equip anything or train anyone, unless you REALLY can't progress, and then try something that is the least damaging in the long run (like equipping better armor for an impossible fight, and then unequipping it when you are done). -Do as few social links as possible. -Level up as little as possible, and use as few partymembers as possible. -Never fuse new personas unless you absolutely have to. You can add or take away rules for yourself, but the goal of the challenge is to finish with Joker being as close to how he started the game as possible; as low level, poor, friendless and antisocial as he was in the beginning!
Jim Reaper and MasterLL cries in Nocturne Hard Low-Level run, which is essentially the " Minimum Battles " challenge. Edit: It would be cool if you do a Nocturne Hard Low-Level run, Nyarly!
I love doing challenge runs they're so fun. I did one for Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and I had a great time doing it. Didn't make a video out of it due to a lack of recording software but I had a lot of fun. If you've got time to kill and no new games to play I highly recommend it
You Might not see this but I'll suggest it anyway Persona 3 Climb to the End Challenge Rules - Start at Lvl 1 Everything - No Compodium Summoning - Fusions Available - Start with Orpheus - Start with Junpei and Yukari - Every Secret Document Checkpoint gain's you a new party member in order by progression (Akihiko then Mitsuru and So on) - Start with Starting Equipment - Obtain Weapon's Item's and Persona's trough climbing up Tartarus Optional Stuff - Max Social Links so Every Persona is Available Including Orpheus Telos - No Quest Limits (If anyone can Mod It) - Play on Hardest Difficulty - Elizabeth Optional Bossfight - Margaret Optional Bossfight - Other Bosses can be fought uppon getting to a certain lvl
No healing springs? That sounds like an advanced nuzelocke. Or, locketurne... Pokemon nuzelocke does have a no pokemon center rule set, but its an advanced set, the default rules smt would likely just be like pokemon if you think about it. First demon in the area, and part ways with any that fall in combat. Those other rules just sound like additions to the rules, speaking of pokemon also has other rules to add on top like no buying items at the pokemarts and so on. But seriously though, that locketurne rule set looks more like an advanced rule set for after beating a regular nuzelocke style run.
Although I never completed it, I did a run of Persona 3 Portable with the female character using only Pixie. I officially didn't start the run until I got one. She was a 4-elemental with buffs and healing.
One of my favorite challenges I did in a game was what I call "Fire Emblem Echoes no optional recruitment run" were like it says you don't recruit anybody except the ones you're forced to recruit here are all the units and it is possible and fun also make gray and Tobin there cannon class so Gray: mercenary Tobin: Archer Alm's rout. Alm Gray Tobin Lukas Clive Myce ------------ Celica's rout Celica Boey Mae Saber Conrad
Nice shoutouts! Regarding the minimum battles concept, I've mainly been defying the main point of such runs by doing them in NG+, but I still like to see how low it's theoretically possible to go nevertheless. The run I'm personally most interested in is _Persona 5_ on Merciless since Vanilla's version of this mode only lets you earn 40% EXP, IIRC. Except, I've been thinking of applying that same handicap in the _Royal_ version...except Merciless _increases_ your EXP now. So, applying the original's EXP penalty would require either a mod (if/whenever that's possible) or close monitoring of every party member's level, stats, skills, etc., and editing the save after nearly every possible battle (exceptions being multiple separate battles where there's no chance to save). Unfortunately, it seems that the only program I've heard of that can decrypt and edit the save files (that I could hope to get my hands on, at least) costs $50 (or was it $60?), and I'm not so desperate to try playing P5R with a cheated/mod-based rule as to spend that. Maybe if this game is ported to Steam at some point and someone makes a cheat table for it like I've found for _Persona 4:Golden..._
A 'solo' run of Persona 5 is doable by having the other party members just guard and not do anything until Fox shows up and you can just remove them, however...it seems to be VERY HARD to do in Royal due to the Shadow Madarame boss fight being WAY harder than it was in base Persona 5. There was a youtuber called YourBudTevin who attempted this and got stopped dead in his tracks by this. Mind you he was on the highest difficulty in the game and even on normal it was insanely hard.
SMT1 Challenge for SMT4 and SMT4A, the protagonist can only use Attacks, Gun Attacks and Items. (I added that the protagonist could have Charge but nothing else but whatever floats your boat) and if the protagonist dies = Game Over. (You can do it with the Annihilation app in SMT4A)
On the subject of the Nuzlocke challenge, I came up with both a standard Nuzlocke ruleset, as well as the Soul Link ruleset, for Persona 3-5. The rulesets were designed to actually emulate the core Nuzlocke rulesets, while still maintaining the identity of Persona. I'll post a link to both of them in the replies to this comment if anyone is interested (assuming that TH-cam-sama doesn't get onto me for it.) I streamed a Persona 5 Royal Nuzlocke using the standard ruleset on Hard Mode and it was still extremely manageable, even though it was my first time playing through P5R. Attempting it on P3 and/or P4 has been far more challenging, though.
Did a Devil Survivor 2 nuzlocke recently and it was honestly pretty fun, the rules regarding demons were that I wasn't allowed to use any dead demons and that they had to be fused or deleted by the end of the day, no compendium, only allowed to buy each demon once from the auction, one special demon per membership level and no dupes, for the humans I just made it so if they died they weren't usable in battle, if they were mandatory they were just forced to stay still and die before anything happened and if the protag died it was game over, merciful rules for a game this easy ik but for my first megaten game and nuzlocke I enjoyed it :)
Seeing your starting Persona only runs had me thinking about what that would be like in the first two games, with everybody being able to change Personas. It would definitely be crazy.
3,4,5 do have a solo challenge, specifically 5. Tbf it requires new game plusing the game and planning to kill off each party member at the start of every encounter. However there are specific bosses in 5 with instant kill attacks that require party members to avoid and or damage to be done in a sufficient quantity. This is largely why solo joker is more popular with the extra bosses and battles as you have complete control in that specific encounter.
How about a One Shot Run on Any Game? Rules: -No Saving -No powering off -Death is permanate -You must play the game, from begining to end. Bonus -Play the game on the highest difficulty -4A must have the annihilation app activated.
I actually made a list of rules for a Persona nuzlocke, though it mostly applies to Persona 5. 1: If the protagonist happens to die, what ever persona he was using must be realeased. If all of your personas happen to have to be released, the game is over. 2: You can only capture the first persona in any loaded area. If the shadow is captured, defeated, or runs away, no other personas can be captured on that loaded area. (In a palace, basically just every time there's a transition between doors. And on every LEVEL of mementos or BLOCK of tartarus, not every individual floor. I don't know how it works in Persona 4.) 3: You cannot fuse or summon personas, including the dlc personas. This would make it too easy to make up for lost personas. You can still strengthen and itemize personas. You can still use your party members even if they die.
I did a Nuzlocke challenge of Persona 5 Royal where these rules were a part of that, and yeah, it was pretty stinkin' easy, even on hard mode. P3 has been a bit more rough for me in this regard. I posted the ruleset in another comment.
Thank you Nyarly for uploading a video, I'm losing my mental sanity at this point that I just watch your challenges and rewatch them lots of times lmao
I always though a no sub-persona run in Q1 would be fun. I feel like the best team would be both protagonists so you can get ultimate personas, naoto because she's broken as hell, yukari for healing, and zen/rei to handle all elments but dark and light and almighty but also because they can't use sub personas anyway and thus their stats are really good. Unfortunately this run would limit you to the skills you could use but that's kind of the point. I'm the only one who likes persona q so I don't think anyone will do this. In Q2 this challenge sounds impossible since there are more elements for attacks and there's no team I can think of that would give you all of them, and mudo and hama skills aren't nearly as useful, and the bosses in Q2 are bullshit.
I kinda got an idea for a "Locketurne" challenge for the mainline SMT games (Nocturne, IV and Apocalypse). - You must recruit the first demon (or group of demons) that you encounter in a battle. - You can alter your demons, use mitamas or any other enhancers on them. - You can only fuse demons that you have recruited before, assuming they haven't died yet, in order to have stronger versions and replace them with the base forms of the demons you recruit. - If a demon dies, you cannot fuse them again, and you must part ways with them. - You can also use demons that are rewarded through side quests or can be recruited after you beat their boss battles (Black Frost and Dante/Raidou in Nocturne or Krishna in Apocalypse). - You must play in the hardest difficulty. - If the protagonist dies, all demons within that party are deleted as well, but you can continue the run. - If the protagonist dies and has no more demons left after returning to the last save spot, or all demons you have in your list are dead, the run is over. - You can only carry up to 6 demons total (3 in your party and 3 as substitutes). - If you replace a demon with another, the replaced demon must be parted ways with. - Your demons are allowed to evolve if need be. Considering how much more difficult the mainline SMT games are in comparison of other spinoffs I think this is fair, also sorry for the wall of text.
I've thought about playing SMT IV/Apocalypse like an old school Megaten game. For damage, you can only rely on your Sword, Gun, and attack items. You can't inherit any skill. I have also thought about adding a "magnetite" mechanic, but I have yet to see how that could work
I'd say your Magnetite would be equal to half the Macca you get from any source, and you spend Magnetite equal to a demon's level whenever they do any action except passing a turn and including summoning them, and if you cannot perform a different action with that demon due to Magnetite, it must be returned to the stock
Devil Survivor 1 with only one leader character(Basically MC + 2 Demons only,switching is okay). any good ending is acceptable. early fight that require you to dispatch other characters are okay, you can dispatch other human characters but don't move them and only guard with them. the first and second fight are an excecption and you can play those normally. this version of a solo devil servivor run is actually quite possible. PS: kinda happy that Nyraly watches Jrose's videos as well
I had a idea for two challenges in one like never upgrade weapons and armor (For main characters and party members) and only have two demons in party. You can still gather demons to upgrade, but you can only have two demons at a time.
I was actually thinking of doing a nuzlocke challenge for Persona Q, as you have full control over how many characters you can have in your party. Maybe I'll make a video about that but I'm not sure, probably just be a personal challenge
The Challenge that i could suggest in persona is the Only Your Arcana Challenge. You can Only use in Battle Personas from your Arcana and Protagonist Persona (Orpheus/Iza/Arsene) Or maybe the Adachi Challenge, prohibiting any Social Link.
I did a SMT4A nuzlock on apocalypse once and my rules were: Recruit the first demon in a group you encounter only, Dead demons get deleted, Fusion is fine since it does come at the cost of having fewer demons, If protag dies all demons in party deleted, party deaths count even in forced defeats, no dlc. It was pretty rough in the start because I just got unlucky but as I got a party going it was easy.
SMT Nuzlock rules (Some will be similar to Nyarly) If your demons die and you die in a battle run over For SMT IVA only once a human party member dies you can't use them again If you die but demons don't remove all demons from your COMP/Stock You can only use fusion in a new area (for advanced rules) you can't fuse dead demon Characters like Dante and Raidou I consider static encounters so if you already got a demon in that area you can still get Dante Advanced rules You can't fuse dead demons You can't use healing in battles Can't use static encounters If you have any rules that you think would be good or could improve any rules feel free to tell me
Persona 4 is my first megaten title. I started this game when 8/9 yrs old. Accidentally play with initial persona until rise dungeon. Seriously, I think it was so hard back then even on beginner.I only can read simple English & new to turn-based rpg game.
For anyone wondering, you can bypass having to pay for train fairs in p5 if you have a confidant who messages you which will allow you to teleport to where they are without paying money
I highkey considered doing the Raidou games with no demons (Excluding the ones you need to continue the story with) but then I realized that 1. All boss fights would just be button mashers and healing items are restricted so you can only hold 12 medium heals at a time 2. In the first game, here is one fight that's immune to physical and I think gun? so you're stuck. In the second game there is no bosses that are immune to physical but there are a few that just straight up deal 23 damage per combo even with Tarukaja active and have like 2500 health and teleport every three seconds. 3. Why would you do this over Low Level? The games are literally called Demon Summoner not "High School Detective fights Soulless Army and Bugs"
Recently i was messing around with some cheats in some SMT games and I found an exp multiplier for the PSP version of Eternal Punishment. A 0 Exp challenge would be the most difficult of the bunch.
7:04 I personally would rule that the protag is more like a "trainer" and make an exception for him. Otherwise, that would just be a bit masochist. As for the Locketurne run, that just sounds like the SMT version of those over-the-top Pokémon nuzlocke rules you see on TH-cam from time to time. Like, no Cathedral of Shadows? That's just brutal, since fusion is the closest mechanic in SMT to Pokémon's evolution (yes, some demons do evolve like Gremlin to Raiju in SMT 4, but that's an exception, not the rule). The ruleset I'd use is basically the standard Nuzlocke rules, minus the naming part, since we sadly can't nickname our demons in SMT. Also, I like your protag KO rule. 9:05 Persona 4 lets you go solo in dungeons if you want to, so a permadeath run would be more feasible there.
In p5 there is a workaround for the train fare thing. If you accept a confidant’s request to hang out with them you will be teleported to them without spending money but you need to have started their confidant for this to work
The thing that i want to do is lvl 1/0% growth challenge. Basically your team doesn't has power up but can learn skill. But considering some SMT and persona games has MC died the game over. It kinda not fun and you need to tweak the game room first
Amazing timing on the video! I'm starting a P5R act freely challenge run with no crossing elements (Party members can't be used if Joker has a persona that uses their element)
No heals, or passive only build runs would be cool. Basically you just can't use attack or healing skills. (I also haven't really thought through this so I dunno if it'd work lmao)
a thought but the all pixie run doesn't mean you can't fuse down to one, but leveling it may be problematic after a certain point, and I just checked it is possible to fuse one with a flame element and Kijimunaa (the level 8 fairy type)
the strange journey solo challenge is probably my favorite way of playing the game, i almost completed it but stopped at the new final boss and will attempt it again after im done with a run im planning to do in my next playthrough (low level in impossible difficulty)
Arsene only is a fun entry level challenge run, I would say the difficulty peaks at Madarame (at least on merciless) because you don’t have access to many elements but its still a fun challenge I recommend to any P5 fan. I honestly just do this challenge every time I do a playthrough of P5 because I love Arsene’s design a lot
you can skip train fare in p5 if a social link invites you over chat. accepting will just teleport you to them without taking the train. This wouuuld make all social links possible in a bankruptcy challenge, but it will make your schedule much more inflexible. All these challenges sound so fun though, i'll probably spice up my next devil survivor playthrough~
You can actually also do no skill cards with starting persona only; since you can always refuse your starting personas, meaning Orpheus could actually get Ragnarok, Fire Boost, Fire Amp, Mind Charge by just fusing Surt down into Legion, and fusing legion with slime I think it is. So fuse that same Surt into Slime so you are basically going to get everything easier. But yeah; you can ignore skill cards (meaning P3 Fes); if you understand the fusion system enough to know how to refuse starting personas you can refuse basically any ability in the game into your starting personas
A class is jrpg challenge, level 99 in the first area, or alternatively, recruiting every possible demon before moving on (fun for SJ where Slime and Dybbuk won’t talk to you except on full moons)
Idk if anyone’s mentioned this, but I can confirm the workaround in P5/P5R for the train for the Bankruptcy Challenge. Basically Morgana will spot you the fare if you don’t have enough to pay for a ticket.
I would recomend having the demons you encounter until the slots are full. You can only change or fuse with the first demon of another route, if you so choose fusion, you can try your luck finding one demons from a past route or on your current route. Cz you need to adjust ypur party somehow, but not being unfair, that would make for insane challenges in the future.
Shin Megami Tensei Strange Journey/4 No App Run. Everything is the same, but you can't buy/equip any Apps aside of the obligatory ones (Auto Mapper/Catedral of Shadows). On Strange Journey Redux could be expanded to not equip any bonus Apps from Special Forma (Like the one that tells you where a teleport sends you, or let's you do a Pair Up attack with other alignments).
Here's what I call the Herculean or Charles Atlas run. It's pretty simple: as far as skills are concerned, you (as in, the protagonist, but you _can_ take that as meaning the player if you want an extra bit of hard) are only allowed to use physical skills throughout the entire game. Basic attacks are still a go, but your healing is limited solely to items and whatever overworld/in-dungeon healing the game has going on, you can't exploit elemental weaknesses that well due to elemental attacks all being magic skills or consumable items, and you can't buff yourself with anything except, once again, consumable items. This would make things pretty damn difficult, since you're only allowed to use attacks that eat up your HP... however, that's why I wouldn't suggest doing this on SMT5, since that game's decision to have _every_ skill cost MP takes a lot of the challenge away. Though other than SMT5, you can honestly do this on whatever game you want. Another one I thought up just as I was writing this is... basically a somewhat more lenient version of the starting Persona challenge. That is to say, the only Personas you can use are ones which's primary elemental alignment is the same as that of your starting Persona. This means fire only for Persona 3, lightning only for Persona 4, and curse only for Persona 5. The only exceptions are in those tutorials where you're forced to use a different Persona, because dismissing the challenge just because of that would be cheap. You can call this the Flame/Thunder/Dark Dedication run.
ive done a persona 4 vanilla solo challenge before. Up to the point where you can change/remove party members, i just had the others defend until death and never heal them. early on it doesnt really matter too much since you can gain levels really quickly as a solo character.
Here's one I'm doing for P5R and it's pretty fun: 1) No Velvet Room (no fusion, as you mentioned, but also no itemization, gallows, or lockdown) 2) No Mementos, except when required (this cuts short most of the Confidants, and cuts a few out of the game entirely, including Emperor, Star, Fortune, and Tower. Also, no Null Phys card for you.) 3) No grinding (if you reload an area in a Palace with Shadows patrolling around, you cannot defeat any of those Shadow encounters you already defeated)
Deathless. The Challenge is simply, those you control cannot die. GiantGrantGames sort of Pioneered this challenge first with Starcraft 2; Wings of Liberty Deathless, one of the rules he added on is that he MUST save all allies possible or at the very least make an actual attempt to save them, in the case of Mega-Ten I'm not sure how this could be applied but it could have something to do with the recruitment system, the rule where you have to save allies made the Culling of Stratholme a fairly interesting mission as he had to wait until each group of allied villagers turned into hostile zombies but a Deathless challenge is essentially a Nuzlocke on steroids, and I'd argue in Nocturn it'd be harder then no buffs/debuffs, especially if one tries to get the TDE given that from what I can tell it's easier for them to go down then stay alive.
In Persona 5, sometimes characters call you out to continue their social links. If you accept, you go to them without paying any money. However, this only works when you already started a social link, so it will really only be helpful with Kasumi and Akechi.
to be fair ds1/2 sounds incredibly easy with all same demons if you do a new game plus. if you do it from scratch its basically a solo challenge since if you did it with pixie they would fall off of being useful after a couple of levels due to how damage and levels work in that game making them at best a source of healing if they survive long enough
I remember your video about beating Persona 4 with only Izanagi, and wondered if it was possible to do the same with Arsene in Persona 5. Kinda off topic, but funny story, my friend beat both games without ever fusing Izanagi or Arsene because she refused to abandon them lol
Challenge runs are tight. But he’s not joking about the time consuming part. Good luck to anyone who attempts it!
Yooo it’s the lad
It's our bud...Tevin...lol.
Bro....i love your vids!!!
Raiyoツ thank you chief!
@FuckOuttaHere Good luck buddy...You'll need it.
i cant believe it...
my boy finally got a sponsor.
*sniff* they grow up so fast
He deserved it
@Rotom Channel BTW this comment is sponsor by Raid Shadow Legends
@@brunop.8745 yes
@@metis7534 yea
Some ideas:
-Nocturne with only your initial Magatama
-Any SMT no exploiting weaknesses
-SMT but you're a Pokemon Trainer (Only your demons can attack and your protag can only use healing items or support items, kinda like the X Stat items in Pokemon)
No exploiting weaknesses run is pretty easy, tbh, there is almost no boss in Noctutne that has weaknesses, for example
@@kichiroumitsurugi4363 Phys builds ftw
@@sickrandy2946 Not really. If you're not doing TDE, you actually are better off with magic, simply due to Magma Axis and Ragnarok being a thing
The minimum battle challenge just sounds like my Tartarus gameplay in P3P
P3 makes it WAY too easy to skip fights, so you have to actually look for shadows in order to grind. I learned this the hard way with P4G
honestly it s not so much of a challenge run more than a playstyle
persona is the easy mode of the mainline games
@@La-Machina I actually found it easier to skip battles in P4G, because of the way shadow movement changed. The fact that they couldn't pivot in place to hit you and had a turning radius let you run behind almost every shadow. Once you got the movement down and the feel of it, you can even run past some shadows in perfectly straight hallways.
@@nihiluna I see, but what I meant was that it was too easy to skip fights unintentionally. The way that Tartarus is made makes it entirely possible for you to be able to skip many floors at a time. In P4G, skipping fights when you want to is very easy, but skipping fights when your only goal is to just make it to the top in P3 is even easier, since you could go up like 5 floors without a single enemy if the stairs are close enough to you.
I started a jack frost cult in devil survivor having all my demon slots as Jack frost
Hee hoo
Hee ho
Hee hoo
Disappointing that they lack their king
He ho.
Nyarly: *shows dookieshed*
Me: that's a person i haven't seen in a long time
He only does streams nowadays
@@ZoruaHunter really?
P5 Anti-Social Run
- No non-story social links
- No showtime events
- No all out attacks
- No batton passes
- No momentos quests
- Merciless
That sounds fun actually
So basically typical smt fan run
Actually, P1 probably would have the easiest "only initial persona" challenge because you can make Seimen Kongou basically the best persona in the game.
You can buff his stats with the revive secret ability plus Kongou leveling up all the stats (all 100 stats Kongou baby). And you can fuse him to get some stronger attacks if you can deal with P1 inheritance
I’ve actually did this challenge, and excluding some parts being annoying, the only real challenge was pandora, which I honestly just ended up spamming magic mirrors on (or whatever these were called) to win. I didn’t try sqq but I think that Thanatos tower would be too much, at least for me.
Nocturne, every time you die play until you win a fight in Strange Journey Redux. Every time you die in Strange Journey, look in the mirror for 2 minutes
That last bit is nightmare fuel.
Everytime you look in the mirror for less than 2 minutes, play Devil Summoner 1 untill you recruit an demon.
@@funninoriginal6054 every time you die before recruiting a demon, play a new game of persona 4 until you fuse a new persona
Edit: just play Persona 4, not necessarily a new game
Okay so I tried this, and I probably went Insnae from looking at my reflection for so long
Rather than look in the mirror, why not take a picture of yourself?
The devil survivor one honestly doesn’t sound so hard, that game is so customizable You can do anything with any demon basically.
NG+ you can do a no demon run... But is a bitch and u have to save state alot in the early game and pray to Atsuro not miss any hit
Cannot relate
Kinda like Persona.
@@diaksongoshima5833 ANGER MISS WHAT THE FUCK ATSURO
I am currently doing devil survivor with only pixie
I played Persona 1 and 2 with base personas because I didn’t like the persona collection systems LOL
Personally I think that’s the optimal way to play Persona 2 (at least Innocent Sin) because it actually gives the game some real challenge lol
@@roy-cyber I played both games like that and Innocent Sin was a lot of fun like that honestly, EP was a little tougher but still could be done, fusion spells are too good.
When I first heard of tarot cards system of two I thought it sounded interesting... But boy is it slow, boring and you basically just run in one place trying to collect enough blank (or however they were called) tarot cards from a single room to fuse new personas for all party members at once. I think in IS I fused less then 10 personas 'couse it was really a chore.
I wanted to do a low level Persona 2 EP run. I might try that. Initial Persona run in P2 is possible because they can be mutated to get 99 of every stat. Maia Custom might be broken.
@@chrisk3824 my thoughts exactly, especially since in Innocent Sin you get 2 different upgrades to your original persona through the story so fusing wasn’t all that needed
I had a thought for Nocturne. Why not make a rule that your three party slots must contain a Law, Neutral, and Chaos demon. It you don't have one of that alignment, then you must leave the slot empty.
Another idea was "You may fuse demons at the Cathedral, but you are not allowed to reroll for the skills you want." Once you've decided on a demon you want to fuse, you must take whatever the game gives you for its skills. Once you commit, that's it.
pokemon trainer run: the protag can only use items/heal his demons and let the demons do all the fighting. its duable, just hard
That actually sounds kind of fun. Just max out vitality and you are set.
i think ill try it with my luck build run in nocturne
This one sounds really cool. Extra challenging if you do it for P3 FES lol
Is it doable in SMT Nocturne?
So just strange journey in a nutshell?
WHOA That’s me!! Thanks for putting my vid here, was cool to see as you were the person who inspired the run to begin with!
An idea i had few months ago was a "normal human" challenge in persona 3/4
Rules :
- MC can only use weapons and items
- Other party members can still use their persona (or maybe not)
- any actions that requires the "skill" input is off limits
- you can still equip persona for their resistances, or you can limit yourself by using only your starting persona.
I think that's impossible, I'm pretty sure you have to select the skill menu in the last battle to use the Great Seal... other than that it might be just grind a lot to kill everything with normal attacks
@@door-chan If no one is allowed to use their Persona, it's actually impossible to complete Persona 3, because Rampage Drive (the third boss) nulls all Phys forms
There is one challenge that I came up with that I call the “Reload Challenge” that should work for most games. Basically, it is like Nuzlocke with a twist. Each new “dungeon,” you are only allowed to recruit persona or demons in the first 3 fights that you encounter. If you fail to recruit them, then you cannot try again. You must go through the dungeon with the characters you recruited until you beat the dungeon boss. Once you do, all characters must be deleted before or once you enter the next dungeon. If you cannot delete them all, then you must fuse them until only one remains. When and if you recruit the next character, the old one must be deleted. Rinse and repeat until the game is done. It helps keep combat interesting and also prevents over-leveling to win.
Persona 3, 4, 5 challenge: only AI party members participate in combat.
The main character does nothing but issuing commands obviously except direct commands.
i'm doing something similar to that in p3p, but the mc at least can buff, heal, and use ailments.
It’s not fun at all
Actually impossible in these without a few asterisks. P3 has the forced solo battle on rooftop, P4 has Shadow Yosuke, and P5 has the prologue battle. Of course, excluding these, probably possible. P5 Reaper has actually been killed with Joker doing nothing but spamming Heat Riser on party members.
It’s called the Commander Challenge. You “command” the teammates to do certain moves but you can’t do anything but suggest their strategies.
I already play most games that allow for such ai (and it isn't completely broken in an unusable way) in that way. Only difference for me would be not using MC.
The Helltaker Run:
-Can only use female chaos-aligned demons (or traditionally chaos aligned demons if the game has no chaos alignment like Nocturne). Can't use male demons at ALL, can't even have them in your party for a second.
-Everytime you encounter a female demon (regardless of alignment), you have to try and recruit them, or at the very least resolve the conflict by talking.
-Can't kill any female demons, run if you can't talk to them (bosses excluded since it's for plot reasons)
So you have be a chaos “gentleman”.
More like “Chaos Simp Challenge”
Chaos Nice Guy.
I have one for Persona: Incelocke
1. You cannot use any female party members. Just the boys.
2. You can't start any female social links, automatics like Sae are an exception.
3. You cannot interact with the Velvet Attendants, therefore no compedium.
4. You cannot recruit and fuse any female Persona.
5. You cannot itemize or obtain skill cards from female Personas .
6 .You cannot buy anything from a female NPC.
Considering that Persona fans have a reputation for being incels, this challenge is appropriate.
3. You can interact with Theodore in P3 Portable tho
haha persona fan bad xd
@@miyako-r31 yes
@@originalketer1993 In that case, I'd say that the genders should be swapped entirely. Only female party members, etc. You could argue that that should be considered the Femcelocke, so it doesn't count, but by that same token, the entire run would be impossible with the FemC.
Lmao
... Watching this is like having a series of horrific nightmares described to me
Megami Tensei fans really are the most Sado-Maso types out there
Here I thought I was cool for just playing SMT IV with a physical build and balanced stats (IE, no dumping 123809231098321809 points into magic to immediately destroy everything in your way)
The games are in the middle battlefield between angels and demons, we no feel pain anymore
They always say "one more God rejected" but did they ever consider that they might have given their humanity the same treatment
I've never seen a fan community that hates themselves, the game company they buy from, and the games they play more than MegaTen fans.
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Ya, accurate
Much like the narrowed down themes (like the "one alignment" one mentioned), I wrote up a One Arcana challenge for the Persona series. You pick an arcana, either randomly or intentionally, and play only with personas of that arcana.
I can see it right now
“Countless pixies gathered under Abel... to form an army...”
EXCUSE HEE HO ONLY
Persona 5 fan get a girlfriend in real life challenge run
Those lonely virgins can’t do that
Someone woke up and chose violence
Not that it would be any more difficult than an edgy ass elitist to get one.
...because someone must lovd being that guy
@Alyssandra Alonzo a good decision.
Oh I got another one.
The "no summon is free" challenge : you are not allowed to modify your party outside of battle, you _have_ to use the summon and retreat commands in battle.
Harder version : you must return all your demons in the stock after every battle, meaning you need to manually summon any demon every battle.
Yo my man Nyarly giving Jim reaper some of the recognition he deserves, DYNAMIC ATTACK SHEEP
I did have a challenge idea for SMT IV that I have been considering for a while, that challenge is a Semi-Pacifist Run. Here are the rules:
Flynn and his demons are not allowed to directly harm demons in any way, this includes:
>Any melee attack
>Attacking skills (this includes skills like counter and retaliate, can't lash out!)
>Poison (probably panic too since i'm pretty sure demons can attack their own party members, but I think that could be up to the runner)
>pre-emptive attacks, since attacking an enemy on the field causes a small amount of damage when the battle starts, which is banned
However, since you have to kill bosses anyway, what is allowed are:
>Partner attacks (you're not the one hurting them, it's your friend who's doing it, no blame on you)
>Repel damage (It's the demon's fault they hit into a repel lol. Also Tetrakarn and Makarakarn are allowed because Minotaur is basically impossible otherwise)
The fact that you cannot kill any demons directly means that the only ways to get exp are through negotiations, fusions, partner attacks, and repel abuse, and Minotaur will be an absolute pain at the beginning because you need to either grind to the earliest Tetrakarn or try to somehow manipulate skill mutations to give you Tetrakarn early, if that's even possible. this also means that demons that only use instakill and almighty attacks will be impossible to defeat. would this be a fun challenge? probably not honestly, requires a ton of slow grinding, but I guess you could brag about something. also sorry that it was really long.
(also the reason why it's semi and not full is that the tutorial forces you to kill demons in the very first encounter + the horde immediately after lel)
Jack Bros only run in any game would be fun. Might struggle with humans only until you get a Jack Frost, but once you get things like Frost Ace and Black Frost it'll be a little smoother.
Everyone gangsta when Nyarly uploads
Everyone gangsta until no death solo run
I think a good one for the Digital Devil Saga duology would be what I like to call the "Miser Run", with the ruleset being as follows:
1) You may not spend Macca through any means, except to unlock Mantras.
2) You may not sell any items to the shop.
Now, I have not tried this one out yet myself, but given how important Macca is in the DDS games, I imagine that these rules would make one be especially careful about which Mantras to go for and when, since Macca would be a lot more hard-to-come-by than in a casual playthrough.
the "I wanna hate IVA even more than I already do" challenge
-Nanashi can only use the Anarchy Ring (free DLC, makes you weak to everything except for Almighty)
-Apocalypse difficulty, whatever the second hardest one is if that's too much
-No special fusion demons
-Other than the DLCs mentioned above (Anarchy Ring and Apocalypse Difficulty), no DLC content. The bosses are an exception if you wanna go for the challenge, but don't fuse them (and they fall under the special fusion demons rule anyway)
-No HP/MP Walk apps or the one that restores your HP/MP on a level up
-No stat enhancing items (as in incenses or armor boosters, using equipment is fine obviously)
-Always use Gaston as your Partner (before you unlock him use whoever's the worst in the current situation), pick the Anarchy ending and choose him as your Goddess
-Don't give the Awakening skill to Nanashi
That's kinda interesting to watch but not for playing
@@si-level yup, hence the title "I wanna hate IVA even more than I already do"
I'm thinking of playing Apocalypse with only female demons, or as I like to call it, the Pimp Nanashi challenge
Gonna be honest, it'd then be just easier to let Nanashi die at every fight and let the demons do the work, and the only boss that would prove a problem would be Sukuna-Hikona due to his overwhelming damage output. As for Ose and Titan, they're easily crippled by spamming ailments
Pimp Protagonist Challenge:
-From the moment you can obtain one you may only use demons of the opposite sex of your player character.
-From the moment you are able you may only use party members of the opposite sex.
-If playing Persona you must romance all available characters.
For anyone interested in something easier than these masochistic ideas, you can try using only demons of a certain alignment. That's a lot more restrictive in the IV games since SJ rewards using same alignment demons and Nocturne doesn't tell you alignments.
For a Nocturne specific challenge, you can only use Magatama of a certain color. There are 8 light, neutral, and dark magatama, and this limits the skills you can access and really limits some of the strategies you can use. I actually did this one myself with the light magatama and if I did it again, I'd play on hard mode because even with the restriction it was pretty easy on normal.
For a IV/ IV Apocalypse challenge, you can try never whispering skills to the MC. Pretty self explanatory but that would limit your player turn actions to weapon attacks or items.
I'm doing the no skills run in SMT IV RN. It's pretty fun.
1 Race/Arcana per Dungeon/Zone/Whatever else
Basically, use only one race of demons per dungeon or until certain story elements trigger.
For example, in nocturne, it would be forced to use the fairy race in the hospital and let's say the yoma race for shibuya, then wilders for ikebukuro and etc. You are also free to recruit and fuse any demon, but in battle you are allowed only the demons of that race, MCs are the exception and to make things a bit spicier, you can use a random number generator, with each number being a race and with it, the race for certain sections can be the same in the last one or certain races may not appear at all.
Now for the story elements part, the reason i'm saying that, is that certain games tend to have some extremely long dungeons and doing those with only fairies or wilders, can be kind of boring, hence whenever certain key moments in story appear or certain bosses do, it will trigger a change in races. A good example is SJR, with Sector A being race A since its pretty short, Sector B can be pre-Zelenin and post-Zelenin so race B and C respectively, Sector C can be Fused-Horkos and Defused-Horkos so race A and D and it goes on.
For persona, it would be certain arcanas only, fool is the start then rando. The only exception for certain races not to appear, would be because none of them would be available at a certain point in the game, or do you want to see a Lv.60 Yu Narukami beating Yukiko with an Anubis in non-NG+? If you want the second, the only thing to say, is good luck.
Others are dds and dds 2, with certain types of skills can be allowed, such as fire only or healing only etc.
I had an idea for a Persona Anti-Social Challenge awhile ago, which was admittedly less about challenge and more about flavoring a run, I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult to an experienced player but here's what I came up with (this was mostly based on P5/P5R since I had just beaten it again and it was on my mind, but I'm sure you could do this in 3/4 with some tweaks):
>Fresh file
>Hard Difficulty
>No Direct Commands, AI Allies Only
>No Social Link/Confidant Advancement Unless Required
>No optional hangouts unless required
>No getting a job
>No raising social stats unless required
>Pick the most rude or dismissive dialogue (for flavor)
>No mementos requests or any other kind of "helping other people in a dungeon" things unless required
>No healing/curing/buffing teammates
>In P5, No negotiating (which I guess also makes this Arsene only, not sure)
>no tycoon/darts/pool/whatever
>dungeons must be finished in a single day or whatever the minimum amount of time investment is (some are broken up and require multiple days) in order to minimize how much time you have to spend around other people
And I guess if you want to upgrade this to the "Shut-In Challenge", no leaving your room during free time unless required.
Anyway, that's just an idea I had. Would love to see someone do it just for fun.
*Phase Changer Challenge*
*This challenge revolves around the Moon/Kagutsuchi phases.
-During a Full Moon, you may use a full party in battle.
-Waning towards a New Moon, you must use only one party member or demon in battle outside of the protagonist. However, this ally cannot be the same one that was previously used on the waxing phase.
-During a New Moon, you are forbidden from using party members or demons aside from the protagonist.
-Waxing towards a Full Moon, you must use only one party member or demon in addition to your protagonist. However, this ally cannot be the same one that was previously used on the waning phase.
Hard mode additions:
-Demon negotiation of any kind is forbidden during a New Moon. If a demon starts negotiations with you first, you must decline their offers to end negotiations ASAP.
-Fusion is forbidden during a Full Moon.
-Consumable item usage (in and out of battle) is forbidden during any phases between New Moon and Full Moon.
Sounds neat, but given how quickly the moon phases change, it'd be super tedius going into the menu just to swap out a party member, and could be easily cheesed for boss fights by just running around until you hit a full moon, then going into the fight.
Great to see you are being sponsored, Nyarly! Your channel is incredible! Keep it up, man
NYARLY !!! I was bored man you litterally made my week !
Something I’ve been trying recently is a guns/items only run of digital devil saga 1. The only skills I’m letting my characters use in atma form are buffs (and gun combo skills) since otherwise the necessary strategies are super unreliable
I was considering how to pull this off. Being allowed to use atma form for buffs actually is a good conscession since I was thinking human form only. You would have to use ng+ for that, but you could do NG this way. The problem is wasting turns transforming. But if you did it ng+ you wouldn't have to grind for the buffs with how you wouldn't be able to use hunting skills. Maybe using emulators you could cheat in the human form skill.
@@BlackKanye yeah I cheated to get the human form skills in ng, at first I was considering just using attack buffs so the battles would go faster, but I ended up using defense buffs as well simply because it made it more reliable. A good amount of the bosses have random hit physical skills and my party members would get 2 hit killed by them so it was like a 1/4 chance that my party gets wiped every turn.
@@Jobulejobies I'm doing a similar thing, but with no Atma form usage at all (barring transformations induced by Panic or Hunger, in which case I revert ASAP or run away if the enemy in question isn't a boss). Although, I am doing 2 on Normal for now, since it's possible to carry over skills and decide which ones to allow at will. Hard would be extremely grindy because that luxury doesn't exist, and it might be possible that Field Hunts would be necessary to make mantra acquisition reasonable (in addition to *_lots_* more money/item farming with Panic Shell).
@@steam-powereddolphin5449 how do you deal with enemies that are gun immune, just spam elemental items?
@@Jobulejobies Yes. And _lots_ of them.
The Megido Fire is actually useful for once in 1, since it's a reusable Wild Card (Megido item). With this challenge being as item-reliant as it is, it's actually possible to use MF enough times for it to effectively pay for itself. (Even then, it would be more worth it if it cast Megidola instead, or if it cost as much as the Revival orb but would cast _Megidolaon_ unlimited times. Not to mention that it would be cool if it was present in DDS2, _if_ it was more viable)
Crimson boxes are very useful in 2 when playing with these restrictions; while the ability to straight-up buy elemental items in 1 is replaced with the boxes, they only cost 1k cash apiece instead of and there's a chance to get 2 or 3 items from them.
I've heard that solar data levels also affect lootbox earnings, but I'm not entirely sure if it's the quality of the items that goes up at MAX, the chance of getting multiple items per box, or both.
I've actually been giving the P5R Solo Joker Merciless a try myself. I was inspired by Tevin's video of that funny enough. I didn't agree about the "Madarame is impossible without excessive grinding", but it was in a way that I had a curiosity that wanted to be satiated. It's been an on and off project for me since I've been balancing it alongside speedrunning.
While it isn't 1:1 on the rules about using the party members, there are still ways I've been able to work around the spots where a full party is forced in order to maintain the spirit of the challenge. It's led to an interesting approach to the game where I have to take my perfectionism with set-building, and make it even more optimized. Yet, in some spots it's felt easier due to not having to worry about keeping an entire party active and healthy.
I've gotten to the Third Semester so far in my run, and I really only have the second foray into the final Palace left, and the Day of Fates. It's what I considered one of the three biggest roadblocks of the run, but I'm looking forward to seeing how I solve it.
tl;dr I really enjoyed this video that covered different ideas of challenges to roll with, and I definitely want to give more of these a try once I finish up P5R
Something i have done in Persona 3-5, is what i call the "Slacker" challenge...
It's INSANELY tough and punishing, but i got a real kick out of it!
It's pretty much the opposite of a 100% run, and basicly requires you to involve yourself with as few of the games mechanics as you can, while still getting to the true ending. Pretty much just go to bed or do something that doesn't really benefit you, any time you can.
Using Persona 5 as an example, some of the rules i used were:
-Do as little as possible in the social part of the game, and avoid increasing any social stats if you can (meaning you HAVE to answer every school question wrong).
-Never buy anything, sell anything, equip anything or train anyone, unless you REALLY can't progress, and then try something that is the least damaging in the long run (like equipping better armor for an impossible fight, and then unequipping it when you are done).
-Do as few social links as possible.
-Level up as little as possible, and use as few partymembers as possible.
-Never fuse new personas unless you absolutely have to.
You can add or take away rules for yourself, but the goal of the challenge is to finish with Joker being as close to how he started the game as possible; as low level, poor, friendless and antisocial as he was in the beginning!
This is such a fun and interesting concept. I’m an engineer but I literally do persona runs for fun and I might try this.
@@unknownusername74 i do recommend doing it on normal if you don't want to hate your life
Jim Reaper and MasterLL cries in Nocturne Hard Low-Level run, which is essentially the " Minimum Battles " challenge.
Edit: It would be cool if you do a Nocturne Hard Low-Level run, Nyarly!
“Forsaken World: Gods and Demons”
Wow, sounds a lot like SMT to me
I love doing challenge runs they're so fun. I did one for Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and I had a great time doing it.
Didn't make a video out of it due to a lack of recording software but I had a lot of fun. If you've got time to kill and no new games to play I highly recommend it
You Might not see this but I'll suggest it anyway
Persona 3 Climb to the End Challenge
Rules
- Start at Lvl 1 Everything
- No Compodium Summoning
- Fusions Available
- Start with Orpheus
- Start with Junpei and Yukari
- Every Secret Document Checkpoint gain's you a new party member in order by progression (Akihiko then Mitsuru and So on)
- Start with Starting Equipment
- Obtain Weapon's Item's and Persona's trough climbing up Tartarus
Optional Stuff
- Max Social Links so Every Persona is Available Including Orpheus Telos
- No Quest Limits (If anyone can Mod It)
- Play on Hardest Difficulty
- Elizabeth Optional Bossfight
- Margaret Optional Bossfight
- Other Bosses can be fought uppon getting to a certain lvl
No healing springs? That sounds like an advanced nuzelocke. Or, locketurne...
Pokemon nuzelocke does have a no pokemon center rule set, but its an advanced set, the default rules smt would likely just be like pokemon if you think about it. First demon in the area, and part ways with any that fall in combat. Those other rules just sound like additions to the rules, speaking of pokemon also has other rules to add on top like no buying items at the pokemarts and so on. But seriously though, that locketurne rule set looks more like an advanced rule set for after beating a regular nuzelocke style run.
Although I never completed it, I did a run of Persona 3 Portable with the female character using only Pixie. I officially didn't start the run until I got one. She was a 4-elemental with buffs and healing.
Nuzlocke challenges.
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.
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Hama and mudo enters the chat
My boy finally got a sponsor that i can skip, great.
One of my favorite challenges I did in a game was what I call "Fire Emblem Echoes no optional recruitment run" were like it says you don't recruit anybody except the ones you're forced to recruit here are all the units and it is possible and fun also make gray and Tobin there cannon class so
Gray: mercenary
Tobin: Archer
Alm's rout.
Alm
Gray
Tobin
Lukas
Clive
Myce
------------
Celica's rout
Celica
Boey
Mae
Saber
Conrad
Nice shoutouts!
Regarding the minimum battles concept, I've mainly been defying the main point of such runs by doing them in NG+, but I still like to see how low it's theoretically possible to go nevertheless. The run I'm personally most interested in is _Persona 5_ on Merciless since Vanilla's version of this mode only lets you earn 40% EXP, IIRC.
Except, I've been thinking of applying that same handicap in the _Royal_ version...except Merciless _increases_ your EXP now. So, applying the original's EXP penalty would require either a mod (if/whenever that's possible) or close monitoring of every party member's level, stats, skills, etc., and editing the save after nearly every possible battle (exceptions being multiple separate battles where there's no chance to save).
Unfortunately, it seems that the only program I've heard of that can decrypt and edit the save files (that I could hope to get my hands on, at least) costs $50 (or was it $60?), and I'm not so desperate to try playing P5R with a cheated/mod-based rule as to spend that. Maybe if this game is ported to Steam at some point and someone makes a cheat table for it like I've found for _Persona 4:Golden..._
A 'solo' run of Persona 5 is doable by having the other party members just guard and not do anything until Fox shows up and you can just remove them, however...it seems to be VERY HARD to do in Royal due to the Shadow Madarame boss fight being WAY harder than it was in base Persona 5. There was a youtuber called YourBudTevin who attempted this and got stopped dead in his tracks by this. Mind you he was on the highest difficulty in the game and even on normal it was insanely hard.
SMT1 Challenge for SMT4 and SMT4A, the protagonist can only use Attacks, Gun Attacks and Items. (I added that the protagonist could have Charge but nothing else but whatever floats your boat) and if the protagonist dies = Game Over. (You can do it with the Annihilation app in SMT4A)
It's pretty manageable, tbh. More so on IVA
On the subject of the Nuzlocke challenge, I came up with both a standard Nuzlocke ruleset, as well as the Soul Link ruleset, for Persona 3-5. The rulesets were designed to actually emulate the core Nuzlocke rulesets, while still maintaining the identity of Persona. I'll post a link to both of them in the replies to this comment if anyone is interested (assuming that TH-cam-sama doesn't get onto me for it.)
I streamed a Persona 5 Royal Nuzlocke using the standard ruleset on Hard Mode and it was still extremely manageable, even though it was my first time playing through P5R. Attempting it on P3 and/or P4 has been far more challenging, though.
Nuzlocke: www.reddit.com/r/PERSoNA/comments/hmcofl/persona_345_nuzlocke_ruleset_compilation/
Soul Link: www.reddit.com/r/PERSoNA/comments/itlc7b/soul_link_nuzlocke_ruleset_for_persona_3_4_or_5/
Did a Devil Survivor 2 nuzlocke recently and it was honestly pretty fun, the rules regarding demons were that I wasn't allowed to use any dead demons and that they had to be fused or deleted by the end of the day, no compendium, only allowed to buy each demon once from the auction, one special demon per membership level and no dupes, for the humans I just made it so if they died they weren't usable in battle, if they were mandatory they were just forced to stay still and die before anything happened and if the protag died it was game over, merciful rules for a game this easy ik but for my first megaten game and nuzlocke I enjoyed it :)
Seeing your starting Persona only runs had me thinking about what that would be like in the first two games, with everybody being able to change Personas. It would definitely be crazy.
3,4,5 do have a solo challenge, specifically 5. Tbf it requires new game plusing the game and planning to kill off each party member at the start of every encounter. However there are specific bosses in 5 with instant kill attacks that require party members to avoid and or damage to be done in a sufficient quantity. This is largely why solo joker is more popular with the extra bosses and battles as you have complete control in that specific encounter.
How about a One Shot Run on Any Game?
Rules:
-No Saving
-No powering off
-Death is permanate
-You must play the game, from begining to end.
Bonus
-Play the game on the highest difficulty
-4A must have the annihilation app activated.
the part two of this challenge (especially if you do it on P5R) is paying the light bill
@@yairkiller43 I probably should've put in to take a break.
I actually made a list of rules for a Persona nuzlocke, though it mostly applies to Persona 5.
1: If the protagonist happens to die, what ever persona he was using must be realeased. If all of your personas happen to have to be released, the game is over.
2: You can only capture the first persona in any loaded area. If the shadow is captured, defeated, or runs away, no other personas can be captured on that loaded area. (In a palace, basically just every time there's a transition between doors. And on every LEVEL of mementos or BLOCK of tartarus, not every individual floor. I don't know how it works in Persona 4.)
3: You cannot fuse or summon personas, including the dlc personas. This would make it too easy to make up for lost personas. You can still strengthen and itemize personas.
You can still use your party members even if they die.
This sounds kinda to easy
@@Joker-nh6dd what could make it harder?
@@delusion3771 no fusion, its to easy to break the game if you know what to look for
@@Joker-nh6dd I actually thought about that when I was writing the rules at first.
I did a Nuzlocke challenge of Persona 5 Royal where these rules were a part of that, and yeah, it was pretty stinkin' easy, even on hard mode.
P3 has been a bit more rough for me in this regard. I posted the ruleset in another comment.
Didn't mention the SMT3 "pass only-playtrough" 0/10
I get this is a joke but that seems like hell i'll try it
what, just how?
a workaround for persona solo challenges,if you cant switch out party members (yet or at all) just have them guard every turn
Thank you Nyarly for uploading a video, I'm losing my mental sanity at this point that I just watch your challenges and rewatch them lots of times lmao
I always though a no sub-persona run in Q1 would be fun. I feel like the best team would be both protagonists so you can get ultimate personas, naoto because she's broken as hell, yukari for healing, and zen/rei to handle all elments but dark and light and almighty but also because they can't use sub personas anyway and thus their stats are really good. Unfortunately this run would limit you to the skills you could use but that's kind of the point. I'm the only one who likes persona q so I don't think anyone will do this. In Q2 this challenge sounds impossible since there are more elements for attacks and there's no team I can think of that would give you all of them, and mudo and hama skills aren't nearly as useful, and the bosses in Q2 are bullshit.
I kinda got an idea for a "Locketurne" challenge for the mainline SMT games (Nocturne, IV and Apocalypse).
- You must recruit the first demon (or group of demons) that you encounter in a battle.
- You can alter your demons, use mitamas or any other enhancers on them.
- You can only fuse demons that you have recruited before, assuming they haven't died yet, in order to have stronger versions and replace them with the base forms of the demons you recruit.
- If a demon dies, you cannot fuse them again, and you must part ways with them.
- You can also use demons that are rewarded through side quests or can be recruited after you beat their boss battles (Black Frost and Dante/Raidou in Nocturne or Krishna in Apocalypse).
- You must play in the hardest difficulty.
- If the protagonist dies, all demons within that party are deleted as well, but you can continue the run.
- If the protagonist dies and has no more demons left after returning to the last save spot, or all demons you have in your list are dead, the run is over.
- You can only carry up to 6 demons total (3 in your party and 3 as substitutes).
- If you replace a demon with another, the replaced demon must be parted ways with.
- Your demons are allowed to evolve if need be.
Considering how much more difficult the mainline SMT games are in comparison of other spinoffs I think this is fair, also sorry for the wall of text.
i'm really bad at smt persona 4 was a challenge for me to beat but hoooooo boy I am going to try some of these
I've thought about playing SMT IV/Apocalypse like an old school Megaten game.
For damage, you can only rely on your Sword, Gun, and attack items. You can't inherit any skill.
I have also thought about adding a "magnetite" mechanic, but I have yet to see how that could work
I'd say your Magnetite would be equal to half the Macca you get from any source, and you spend Magnetite equal to a demon's level whenever they do any action except passing a turn and including summoning them, and if you cannot perform a different action with that demon due to Magnetite, it must be returned to the stock
Devil Survivor 1 with only one leader character(Basically MC + 2 Demons only,switching is okay). any good ending is acceptable. early fight that require you to dispatch other characters are okay, you can dispatch other human characters but don't move them and only guard with them. the first and second fight are an excecption and you can play those normally. this version of a solo devil servivor run is actually quite possible.
PS: kinda happy that Nyraly watches Jrose's videos as well
I had a idea for two challenges in one like never upgrade weapons and armor (For main characters and party members) and only have two demons in party. You can still gather demons to upgrade, but you can only have two demons at a time.
I was actually thinking of doing a nuzlocke challenge for Persona Q, as you have full control over how many characters you can have in your party. Maybe I'll make a video about that but I'm not sure, probably just be a personal challenge
What about PersonaQ without Secondary Personas?
Calm down Satan
I actually did this
I actually did this challenge run a couple months ago. I couldn’t beat the final boss because of the countdown function
The Challenge that i could suggest in persona is the Only Your Arcana Challenge.
You can Only use in Battle Personas from your Arcana and Protagonist Persona (Orpheus/Iza/Arsene)
Or maybe the Adachi Challenge, prohibiting any Social Link.
I did a SMT4A nuzlock on apocalypse once and my rules were: Recruit the first demon in a group you encounter only, Dead demons get deleted, Fusion is fine since it does come at the cost of having fewer demons, If protag dies all demons in party deleted, party deaths count even in forced defeats, no dlc. It was pretty rough in the start because I just got unlucky but as I got a party going it was easy.
SMT Nuzlock rules (Some will be similar to Nyarly)
If your demons die and you die in a battle run over
For SMT IVA only once a human party member dies you can't use them again
If you die but demons don't remove all demons from your COMP/Stock
You can only use fusion in a new area (for advanced rules) you can't fuse dead demon
Characters like Dante and Raidou I consider static encounters so if you already got a demon in that area you can still get Dante
Advanced rules
You can't fuse dead demons
You can't use healing in battles
Can't use static encounters
If you have any rules that you think would be good or could improve any rules feel free to tell me
Persona 4 is my first megaten title. I started this game when 8/9 yrs old. Accidentally play with initial persona until rise dungeon. Seriously, I think it was so hard back then even on beginner.I only can read simple English & new to turn-based rpg game.
For anyone wondering, you can bypass having to pay for train fairs in p5 if you have a confidant who messages you which will allow you to teleport to where they are without paying money
I highkey considered doing the Raidou games with no demons (Excluding the ones you need to continue the story with) but then I realized that
1. All boss fights would just be button mashers and healing items are restricted so you can only hold 12 medium heals at a time
2. In the first game, here is one fight that's immune to physical and I think gun? so you're stuck. In the second game there is no bosses that are immune to physical but there are a few that just straight up deal 23 damage per combo even with Tarukaja active and have like 2500 health and teleport every three seconds.
3. Why would you do this over Low Level? The games are literally called Demon Summoner not "High School Detective fights Soulless Army and Bugs"
Recently i was messing around with some cheats in some SMT games and I found an exp multiplier for the PSP version of Eternal Punishment. A 0 Exp challenge would be the most difficult of the bunch.
7:04 I personally would rule that the protag is more like a "trainer" and make an exception for him. Otherwise, that would just be a bit masochist.
As for the Locketurne run, that just sounds like the SMT version of those over-the-top Pokémon nuzlocke rules you see on TH-cam from time to time. Like, no Cathedral of Shadows? That's just brutal, since fusion is the closest mechanic in SMT to Pokémon's evolution (yes, some demons do evolve like Gremlin to Raiju in SMT 4, but that's an exception, not the rule).
The ruleset I'd use is basically the standard Nuzlocke rules, minus the naming part, since we sadly can't nickname our demons in SMT.
Also, I like your protag KO rule.
9:05 Persona 4 lets you go solo in dungeons if you want to, so a permadeath run would be more feasible there.
In p5 there is a workaround for the train fare thing. If you accept a confidant’s request to hang out with them you will be teleported to them without spending money but you need to have started their confidant for this to work
1:43 I expected Dating Start from Undertale would play here.
The thing that i want to do is lvl 1/0% growth challenge. Basically your team doesn't has power up but can learn skill. But considering some SMT and persona games has MC died the game over. It kinda not fun and you need to tweak the game room first
Amazing timing on the video! I'm starting a P5R act freely challenge run with no crossing elements (Party members can't be used if Joker has a persona that uses their element)
No heals, or passive only build runs would be cool. Basically you just can't use attack or healing skills.
(I also haven't really thought through this so I dunno if it'd work lmao)
a thought but the all pixie run doesn't mean you can't fuse down to one, but leveling it may be problematic after a certain point, and I just checked it is possible to fuse one with a flame element and Kijimunaa (the level 8 fairy type)
the strange journey solo challenge is probably my favorite way of playing the game, i almost completed it but stopped at the new final boss and will attempt it again after im done with a run im planning to do in my next playthrough (low level in impossible difficulty)
Arsene only is a fun entry level challenge run, I would say the difficulty peaks at Madarame (at least on merciless) because you don’t have access to many elements but its still a fun challenge I recommend to any P5 fan. I honestly just do this challenge every time I do a playthrough of P5 because I love Arsene’s design a lot
My brother is doing a real time persona run. One day irl you play one day in game...
you can skip train fare in p5 if a social link invites you over chat. accepting will just teleport you to them without taking the train. This wouuuld make all social links possible in a bankruptcy challenge, but it will make your schedule much more inflexible. All these challenges sound so fun though, i'll probably spice up my next devil survivor playthrough~
You can actually also do no skill cards with starting persona only; since you can always refuse your starting personas, meaning Orpheus could actually get Ragnarok, Fire Boost, Fire Amp, Mind Charge by just fusing Surt down into Legion, and fusing legion with slime I think it is. So fuse that same Surt into Slime so you are basically going to get everything easier.
But yeah; you can ignore skill cards (meaning P3 Fes); if you understand the fusion system enough to know how to refuse starting personas you can refuse basically any ability in the game into your starting personas
Yea, it is possible, it's just not fun because of the random inheritance
A class is jrpg challenge, level 99 in the first area, or alternatively, recruiting every possible demon before moving on (fun for SJ where Slime and Dybbuk won’t talk to you except on full moons)
Idk if anyone’s mentioned this, but I can confirm the workaround in P5/P5R for the train for the Bankruptcy Challenge. Basically Morgana will spot you the fare if you don’t have enough to pay for a ticket.
I would recomend having the demons you encounter until the slots are full. You can only change or fuse with the first demon of another route, if you so choose fusion, you can try your luck finding one demons from a past route or on your current route. Cz you need to adjust ypur party somehow, but not being unfair, that would make for insane challenges in the future.
Shin Megami Tensei Strange Journey/4 No App Run.
Everything is the same, but you can't buy/equip any Apps aside of the obligatory ones (Auto Mapper/Catedral of Shadows).
On Strange Journey Redux could be expanded to not equip any bonus Apps from Special Forma (Like the one that tells you where a teleport sends you, or let's you do a Pair Up attack with other alignments).
Here's what I call the Herculean or Charles Atlas run. It's pretty simple: as far as skills are concerned, you (as in, the protagonist, but you _can_ take that as meaning the player if you want an extra bit of hard) are only allowed to use physical skills throughout the entire game. Basic attacks are still a go, but your healing is limited solely to items and whatever overworld/in-dungeon healing the game has going on, you can't exploit elemental weaknesses that well due to elemental attacks all being magic skills or consumable items, and you can't buff yourself with anything except, once again, consumable items. This would make things pretty damn difficult, since you're only allowed to use attacks that eat up your HP... however, that's why I wouldn't suggest doing this on SMT5, since that game's decision to have _every_ skill cost MP takes a lot of the challenge away. Though other than SMT5, you can honestly do this on whatever game you want.
Another one I thought up just as I was writing this is... basically a somewhat more lenient version of the starting Persona challenge. That is to say, the only Personas you can use are ones which's primary elemental alignment is the same as that of your starting Persona. This means fire only for Persona 3, lightning only for Persona 4, and curse only for Persona 5. The only exceptions are in those tutorials where you're forced to use a different Persona, because dismissing the challenge just because of that would be cheap. You can call this the Flame/Thunder/Dark Dedication run.
ive done a persona 4 vanilla solo challenge before. Up to the point where you can change/remove party members, i just had the others defend until death and never heal them. early on it doesnt really matter too much since you can gain levels really quickly as a solo character.
Here's one I'm doing for P5R and it's pretty fun:
1) No Velvet Room (no fusion, as you mentioned, but also no itemization, gallows, or lockdown)
2) No Mementos, except when required (this cuts short most of the Confidants, and cuts a few out of the game entirely, including Emperor, Star, Fortune, and Tower. Also, no Null Phys card for you.)
3) No grinding (if you reload an area in a Palace with Shadows patrolling around, you cannot defeat any of those Shadow encounters you already defeated)
Emperor does not have a Mementos request
Oh hey since you said you get a lot of video suggestions I've got one:
Do a video that's near and dear to you. Love the content man, keep it up.
Deathless.
The Challenge is simply, those you control cannot die.
GiantGrantGames sort of Pioneered this challenge first with Starcraft 2; Wings of Liberty Deathless, one of the rules he added on is that he MUST save all allies possible or at the very least make an actual attempt to save them,
in the case of Mega-Ten I'm not sure how this could be applied but it could have something to do with the recruitment system, the rule where you have to save allies made the Culling of Stratholme a fairly interesting mission as he had to wait until each group of allied villagers turned into hostile zombies but a Deathless challenge is essentially a Nuzlocke on steroids, and I'd argue in Nocturn it'd be harder then no buffs/debuffs, especially if one tries to get the TDE given that from what I can tell it's easier for them to go down then stay alive.
In Persona 5, sometimes characters call you out to continue their social links. If you accept, you go to them without paying any money. However, this only works when you already started a social link, so it will really only be helpful with Kasumi and Akechi.
to be fair ds1/2 sounds incredibly easy with all same demons if you do a new game plus. if you do it from scratch its basically a solo challenge since if you did it with pixie they would fall off of being useful after a couple of levels due to how damage and levels work in that game making them at best a source of healing if they survive long enough
I remember your video about beating Persona 4 with only Izanagi, and wondered if it was possible to do the same with Arsene in Persona 5.
Kinda off topic, but funny story, my friend beat both games without ever fusing Izanagi or Arsene because she refused to abandon them lol