Okay, so with no more delays, in this blog, I will talk about the stuff you can do in between the main storyline, like side quests and most of the exploration. Let's get started.

Now, I myself prefer my RPG to be more direct. I enjoy RPGs for the story and battle system, so it is something that the SMT series wins for me, since the majority of the time you are either in battle or seeing a cutscene. When it comes to dungeon design and whatnot, they are clever, but quite often feel a bit too similar, in that the dungeons don't have a lot of differences, and are at times quite bland. Besides that, the path is mostly linear, though exploration is important, and rewarding.

But when it comes to side quest and stuff, Final Fantasy wins by a lot. In FF games, there are always something else you can do besides the main story, like blitzball in FFX. It created a nice diversion of the main storyline, and make the game seem a bit more light handed. This is something either one considers a big plus, or something that doesn't matter a lot. For me, it is the latter, but it is something to be respected about the series, which is its variety is content. The Persona games do have the Social Links to do in between the main stuff, but they are the only ones. The games that do the most in terms of making you do the main story are specially Devil Survivor and Digital Devil Saga.

However, another important thing to be mentioned is alos replay value, and it is something Final Fantasy loses. By that I mean is that there is almost no incentive to go back and play the games again unless you just really loved the gameplay or storyline, since they only have one ending. The only Fantasy to have more than one is X2. All others have only one. There are new dungeons you unlock, and even sometimes characters you can use in another run, but the replay value is kind of lacking. In SMT games, they always have a bunch of ending, like SMT 3: Nocturne, which has more than 5. That encourages multiple playthoughs. And besides that, you can always play the game with a different team setting, or with your main character being differently set up, so there is incentive to go back and play them again.

In the end, this is a tie. Final Fantasy has more stuff to do in between the main story, with strong explorations and minigames and whatnot to distract you from the main storyline. Shin Megami Tensei encourgaes multiple playthoughs due to multiple endings and stuff like it. It is another matter of what you like more.

To end this comparisson, I will say again: I think Shin Megami Tensei games have better storylines, gameplay and just more fun to play. But I can understand why someone would prefer the more epic feel of a Final Fantasy game. If you disagree with my coments, leave me a message. See you sometime else.