YMMV / Shin Megami Tensei Liberation: Dx2

• Breather Boss:
  • After 39 floors with varying difficulty of bosses, the fact that the Aura Gate floor 40 boss is just a really buffed up slime can be an relief to some people.
  • While Aura Gate bosses with Pierce skills tend to be That One Boss, ones that don't tend to be stupidly easy because of their tendency to just focus on one element. Just bring a demon that nullifies that element and click "Auto". Prime example of this is floor 49's Siegfried, the second to last boss of the dungeon. He has nothing but physical attacks. Grab a Shiki-Ouji (relatively easy to obtain 3* demon that nulls physical), level and give him Divine brands, click "Auto", and check back in half an hour for the victory screen.
  • The first bosses in every realm in the Hollow World are generally a significant downgrade compared to the end-of-realm bosses preceding them in the previous realm.
  • Out of the four end-of-realm bosses you face as a sequential Boss Rush in the last floor of Hollow World, Mara is comparatively easier compared to the two sandwiching him, Beelzebub and Orcus. Despite having massive offensive and mooks that heal him, he still keeps his ice weakness on top of being exceptionally frail. A team of demons spamming Ice Age or Bufudyne can make a pretty short work of him.
  • If you have enough good demons that deal fractional damage, the celestial Gui Xian in Hollow World can become this. Fractional damage normally is rather useless against the celestials since their damage is capped at numbers far lower than the celestials' HP (which are at 5-digits), but Gui Xian only has triple-digit HP. Normally it offsets this by having a passive that reduces all damage it takes to single digits, but this passive doesn't reduce fractional damage, allowing your fractional attackers to deal relatively massive damage to it easily.
• Demonic Spiders: Plenty of encounters in the Aura gate can become this if your team is unprepared.
  • Cu Sith's in Level 6 have null physical, which means that, if you are running a full physical team, you're gonna have to run from battles. And if the only magic using demon you have uses light...
  • Abraxas that appear in groups of 3 in level 5 (floors 21-25) have both Makara Shift and Makarakarn, preventing their weakness to magic attacks while making them mostly invincible (Abraxas naturally drains physical attacks) while you have to risk losing press turns if you don't have makara break to dispel their magic shield, or either Pierce or Almighty to bypass their protection.
  • In Floor 41 to 45 of the Aura Gate, you can come across a group of four Jack Frosts or Pyro Jack. These guys have Amp and Pierce of their respective elements, so they hit for a ton of damage, and they'll spam their multi-target skills. Furthermore, they have their weaknesses covered up with Drain passives, so you can't exploit weaknesses to kill them in one turn.
  • Also in floor 41-45 is a group with one Isis and three Oni. Except this Isis is ridiculously buffed, as she has highly inflated Vitality and Agility, and the Speedster skill. This almost ensures her group will get the first turn, and with those stats she's really hard to take down. She will also spam Mute and revive the Oni is any of them die. Meanwhile, the Onis themselves will spam Oni-Kagura, critting your team like no tomorrow. The Onis are weak to Lightning, but Isis nulls it. This means you need to kill Isis first before casting multi-target Lightning skills (which, as noted, is really hard) or go the slow way and pick on the Onis one-by-one, all while the enemies spam Mute and crit (and as noted, Isis can revive a dead Oni once). Just for an extra kick, this group has one extra Press Turn.
  • Fixed demon encounters in Hollow World function as minibosses, but they can surprisingly be almost as difficult as the actual floor bosses because items are disabled during these battles.
  • A good number of enemies in the last realm in Hollow World possess Phys Reduction+ (80% of all Phys damage negated, even if you have Pierce), and among the worst of the lot are groups of three massively-buffed Valkyries in the last five floors. Their unique attack, Battlefield Valkyria, hits everyone for damage equivalent to Gigantomachia, compounded by their absurd stats; if the attack is successful (doesn't miss anyone or is Nulled, Absorbed or Repelled) and you have successfully downed one or more of them, it will revive one with 25% HP, potentially starting a chain of resurrections until they have successfully murdered all of your team.
  • A few floors above, from Floors 41 to 45, there are groups of four High Pixies. Like the Valkyries, they have Phys Reduction+ and spam a single attack, Mazio. While it's a bottom-tier spell, their stats are so absurdly inflated they can easily wipe out entire parties without the means to eat their Press Turns... and even if they do, it doesn't take more than a couple of castings to murder the unit allowing your team to Drain or Repel the attack, allowing them to either win by sheer attrition or by softening your team up for another enemy team to finish the job.
  • The last floor of Hollow World is home to a pair of Forneuses sandwiching a Camazotz. The Camazotz is inconsequential, but the Forneuses have two versions of Final Measure, a self-destruct attack that deals unblockable damage based on your team's max HP which they will use if they get a turn. The first Final Measure shaves off 25% your max HP, while the other, usable at low health, wipes out half. And remember there are two of them. You have only two options: Kill only the Camazotz then heal your team as much as you can to survive the double explosions, or burst them down in one turn, which is easier said than done thanks to the fact that they have over 12K HP and no weakness, making them obscenely tanky.
• Difficulty Spike:
  • Hell difficulty is a noticeable step-up from Hard. Whereas enemies in Hard still run by A.I. Roulette like in Normal, Hell enemies will mercilessly exploit any weakness your demons have, so expect the enemy taking twice as many turns to blow up your demons.
  • The first 30 floors of the Aura Gate can more or less be rolled through without issue if you keep your team up to date and leveled. However, from 31F onwards, the game's propensity to cheat skyrockets hard in addition to stat increases, making the trek through the last 20 floors much harder and requires a dedicated team with advance planning.
  • Likewise, although Aura Gate 2 can be accessed after you beat Aura Gate 1's 30F, the early enemies in Aura Gate 2 are already far more difficult. Furthermore, the difficulty jump between Aura Gate 2's first realm (10F) and second realm (11F) is also noticeable: Not only the mooks are about 20 levels higher, but the maps start to become much bigger and more longwinded.
• Fridge Brilliance:
  • At the start of the game, your character laments the lack of excitement in their life only to be dragged in the latest SMT conflict. However, the people that you meet are all appropriate, as they are all associated with entertainment in some capacity: a web video maker, a horror movie fan, a light novel author, a gifted graphic artist etc. In other words, you get to meet a plethora of people who each break away from monotony and boredom in different ways.
  • A ritual that is normally very complex and requires a lot of study is simulated by a computer, making it incredibly easy to use. The Demon Summoning Program, or Vanitas simulating the Dragon Stream?
  • In the first Take Back Tokyo event, Susano'o and the Kunitsukami appear to be tyrants who sealed away Amaterasu, but they're trying to help the people of Tokyo as best as they can, and Amaterasu is dead rather than sealed. In the original myths, while Susano'o was responsible for Amaterasu being stuck in a cave, he didn't put her in. Rather, he wrought havoc and Amaterasu was so distressed that she sealed herself away.
• Fridge Logic: Eileen's plan to sell photographs of demons failed because she advertised them as real photographs, and the Muggles thought it was a hoax. Why didn't she advertise them as art prints? She'd be breaking the Masquerade if people believed she was selling real photographs.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Huang Di. Possesses a passive that grants pierce Phys and grants 20% increase to hit rate with two good physical attacks naturally, plus no weaknesses means that it is a solid demon all around. The only problem is that A) he's a Gacha exclusive and B) He's a 5 star, which has very low rates. Even worse is the fact that all the archetypes you can pull him are good, even coming with good Gacha skills. Common grants him "Life Aid"^note Heals about a third of his hp after clearing a wave, Aragami grants "Berserker God"^note  a slightly stronger physical attack than his unique, which also costs less and "Auto-Taruka"^note Casts Tarukaja on the first turn of a fight, Protector grants "Salvation" ^note  Heals everyone and cures all status aliments and Null Physical (thus making him a superior to Ose), Psychic grants an immunity to charm and "Serial Killer"^note multi target attacks do 10% more damage, and Elementalist grants Repel Light and "Infernal Mask"^note 60% reduced chance of getting afflicted with a status ailment. All options good one way or another, either in PvP or PvE.
    • Huang Di's sword form is a terror in Battle Tower, mainly due to the BT mechanic giving the MC 80% damage reduction at the start of a battle, allowing them to survive any initial onslaught even when going second before retaliating with the sword's Yinglong Flash, a powerful AoE Phys pierce attack with massive critical rate, especially when combined with Huang Di's shield that gives further accuracy and critical bonus, or Yoshitsune shield which gives the MC 5 mana after every kill, allowing them to spam Yinglong Flash even more.
  • Jeanne D' Arc, or rather, her unique skill: "Orlean's Prayer". This skill heals an allied demon and gives them 3 MP, which means demons with high cost spells can use them more often, which makes her great in both PvE and especially in PvP.
  • The skill "Tag", only available on Protector type Jack Frosts and Pyro Jacks. Using this skill is the same as passing, but without consuming any turn whatsoever (usually Pass consumes a half turn). In this game, MP regenerates by 3 per turn, but the skill only cost 2 MP^note Actually 3 MP, but it's an Awakened skill on the Jacks, which has the cost reduced by 1, so it can be used infinitely. This also means players can spam Tag and Pass until their heavy hitter regenerates enough MP, then unleash its nuke on the first round. Especially egregious if the nuker in question is a Protector Ishtar, which has the extremely-deadly-but-expensive "Concentrate"^note Next magic attack damage multiplied by 2.25 + "Mesopotamian Star"^note Ishtar's unique skill, deals heavy Almighty damage, increase ally attack, and reduces enemy attack combo.
  • The team combination of Zaou-Gongen and Hell Biker. Zaou-Gongen has the passive "Kongo Zaou", which grants anyone under the effect of Rebellion the ability to pierce Physical resistances (with the exception of Repel or Drain Phys teams with Aliat or Rama respectively). Combined with Hell Biker's "Red Zone", which grants the effect of Rebellion to the whole party, and Phys teams will be demolishing teams with no means to counter the set up. Notably, Jeng Yun abuses this setup to brutal effect in Chapter 7A-11.
  • Reduced stamina events, especially halved Brands of Sin events, are these for seasonal exchange events such as Frog or Wish gathering. Normally, the amount of exchangeable items given per level is equal to the stamina cost, but during these events, the drop amount doesn't change with the stamina cost. The cost also rounds down, so it's possible to get more than twice the amount of items per stamina point.
  • Dante☆, largely because of two of his fixed skills. Rapid Shot puts him into a state of Might if he manages to connect with a regular attack. Million Stab is a multihit attack with Phys Pierce and thus can shut down Endure skills. As long as he's able to hit one enemy with a physical attack and none of them have any Pierce-nullifying skills, he can lay waste to groups of enemies in short order. His spiritization bonuses are Simple, yet Awesome, simply giving him further boosts to his accuracy, critical rate, damage and HP.
  • Nero☆ comes with the skill Overture, which is a powerful, self-sufficient skill. Hitting all enemies and putting the user in a state of Concentrate would be strong enough, but Overture also has Elec Pierce. There are few groups that can withstand an assault from Nero☆, especially if you start off with Aragami Nero☆ who comes with Elec Amp on top of his default Elec Boost.
  • General Masakado^note Not to be confused with Hero Masakado. Considered by many to be one of the best demons in the game, for two good reasons. His passive, Warlord's Wrath, gives a smorgasbord of effects including Phys Pierce, reducing the enemy's press turn icons by one, and guaranteed counters. The phys pierce part synergizes with his exclusive skill, Occult Flash, which is almost guaranteed to kill an enemy unless they nullify his pierce. Bringing an incredible offense and considerable suppression to any party, Masakado is a threat anywhere you encounter him.
  • Spirit Infusion. Since, due to the progress of the game, some demons are naturally left behind, now there's an option to sacrifice duplicates of five-star demons to infuse them with extra upgrades to boost their parameters and make them viable again. It takes up to six copies of a demon to fully upgrade it, but once it's done, they can become outright monsters - for instance, a fully upgraded Alice gets her Dark damage boosted by 15%, all Dark moves reduced in cost, and gets two more castings of Die For Me!.
    • And now the 4-star demons are starting to get their own Infusions - though it becomes harder to fully charge all panels, since all of them require double the amount of points to activate.
    • Some 5☆ demons got a fourth-panel as of July 2021, further adding massive stat boosts and extra skills to make them competitive once again. Thanks to this, Lucifer became very dangerous in PvP given his 4th Panel grants him +30 to his magic and vitality stats, and casts auto-debilitate at the start of all his turns, meaning not only he's harder to kill without mortal skills, Morning Star, the hardest almighty attack in the game became even more busted than before, turning him into a living nightmare if he gets to cast it.
    • A slew of 5☆ demons, starting on July 2022, are getting their own fourth panel upgrades. Barong's Barong Dance now layers a Bulwark barrier with each use, Samael now unleashes a wave of ailments to every enemy at the end of his turn, Quetzalcoatl gets more Ce Acatl's Return uses and enables resurrection for demons killed with Deader than Dead skills, Siegfried adds an extra No Saving Throw attack each time he uses a Phys skill, and many more.
    • All Berserk demons, but especially Berserker Guts and Griffith as of April 2023, having received their own fourth panels and received much-needed boosts to their unique skills to make them properly competitive again. Skull Knight's allows him to spam his Sword of Actuation, Guts now adds another attack every time an enemy gets downed and gets multiple uses of The Struggler, Berserker Guts gets a tremendous 50% Phys damage boost, Griffith now can boost his party with Zenith, spam Charm and gets infinitely faster, Zodd can now spam Rip and regenerate like nobody's business...
  • Alternate Susanoo, more specifically on PvP defense teams. His passive, 'Heavenly Valor', counters most teams that rely on using Pass by attacking every time his opponents use Pass (Though it does not proc for Tag). Bad enough as it is, his signature attack, 'Violent Slash', charges up every use, and after two uses can pierce through death nullification passives like Avatar and Endure, and has an 80% crit rate that's boosted with his Epitome of Carnage passive.
  • Guts from Berserk is Simple, yet Awesome: His main AoE offensive skill, Dragon Slayer, is cheap, can't be countered and on second use onwards shuts down Endure skills. His other unique skill, The Struggler, boosts his accuracy and gives him an Endure skill, and his first spiritization bonus is an additional AoE fire attack he fires at the end of enemy's turn if his health is low.
  • Undead Alice^note Not to be confused with Fiend Alice. The ONLY Demon in the game with an unblockable Mortal (instantkill) AOE move if the enemy is Cursed. Her passive, Give me Jewels, drains 1MP form the enemy team if they're going first and this stops MANY Demons trying to kill her on turn 1 (Anat, Baal, Uriel, Alternate Quetzalcoatl, etc.) with very few exceptions like Skull Knight's Panel 2 Sword of Actuation, reduced to 4MP. This lets her to survive much longer, focus on more defensive Brands like Phys DEF, Mag DEF and even Phys EV and if paired with another Curse user especially Nebiros and to lesser extent Belial and Black Frost, she's a force to be reckoned with in both PvP AND PvE as other than Null Mortal and Bosses, she can kill basically everything!
  • Nebiros. Whenever his teammate dies, his Hand of Glory curses the entire enemy team and casts Luster Candy on his own, and if he survives an enemy turn with just one enemy cursed, his Call of the Dead revives all his dead teammates for free. By default he has Epitome of Madness, which makes him very hard to hit and his curse impossible to dodge. Then his spiritization bonus includes Null Mortal, so Alice and Masakado are useless against him. Finally, Psychic Nebiros has Null Bind, disabling the only ailment that can work against him^note Charm is not very useful against him since he's not built to attack, and his passive skills always benefit his team and hurt enemy team even when charmed; Mute is also useless since it doesn't stop passive skills; Poison and Curse are, generally, Useless Useful Spell. End result: A demon that is practically impossible to kill first, but if not killed first will render his team unkillable.
  • Psychic Xi Wangmu. Her Peaches of Immortality is a two-charge, free, automatic Samarecarm which activates whenever her teammate dies. This naturally makes her a kill-on-sight target... except that psychic Xi Wangmu comes with Null Mortal, forcing you to take her down the hard way. God help you if she's paired with Ixtab, Nidhogg, Nebiros, the Moirae Sisters, or Maria...
  • Angra Mainyu. His 16 Scourges is an AoE fractional attack, a.k.a. completely unstoppable, which can slap every ailment in the game, moreso if he's paired with a paneled Mother Harlot or Samael to remove those pesky barriers before he acts. His unique Everything Evil gives him 2 MP at the start of his turn, and when combined with proper setup, this allows him to fire off his expensive 16 Scourges on the first turn even when going first against Undead Alice or Adramelech (though not both), so unless you have Mahamayuri, you really can not allow him to act. Lastly, he has three innate repels that makes him a very attractive ally for Demiurge or Atavaka, as well as innate evasion of up to 30%, making him a potential nightmare for physical attackers.
  • Alternative Surt. What makes him the strongest fire mage in the game is his skill Eruption, which deals strong fire piercing damage to all enemies while also reducing defense, followed up with 4 more hits at random if the attack is successful, allowing him to clean up endures. His Panel 2 replaces his normal attack with a single target fire piercing attack that can no longer miss and lets him counter anti-pierce demons like Atavaka or Demiurge. Lastly, his Passive Twilight Inferno deals heavy fire piercing damage to enemy party if he dies before his teammates, which is easy due his low VIT, meaning that going first against him is going to be the end you and thanks to his low AGI and Intimidating Stance as Psychic, he's the perfect partner to General Masakado, the Moirae Sisters, or Beelzebub A.
  • Beelzebub (97). His King of Hell passive starts by eating an enemy Press Turn and autocasting Rakukaja and Tarunda if his team goes second, or grants him 3 free MP and autocasting Tarukaja and Rakunda if he goes first so he can fire off his Death Flyers attack (an Almighty-type Magic attack, so it cannot miss) right out of the gate without depending on Angra Mainyu, and gives him a built-in 800 HP Endure. Said attack ignores Endures. His Panel 1 gives him 25% HP and 3 MP at the end of his enemy's turn if he's below 80% HP, and his Panel 2 makes him immune to Charm, Bind and Mute, shutting down most means to stop him from using his attack (and by extension, hard counters Angra Mainyu and Motoko Kusanagi, who are considered the 2 best ailment casters on the game). No matter how much HP you can possibly have or restore during your turn, Death Flyers becomes insanely strong with each passing turn, and adds a Debilitate effect each time it's cast. By the third turn (second if he's paired with Gemori), it has 100% Mortal regardless of anything else. And finally, he has either Null Mortal or Drain Phys along with innate Repel Light and Dark, each making him even more of a headache in their own way. Your only chance of salvation against him is either Dimensional Lakshmi, or Black Rider.
  • Psychic Erlkonig. This guy is considered one of the most annoying things in PvP defenses due how hard it is to kill him. His passive skill Alder King is simple: at the start of his turn it heals his party by 15%, while at the start of each enemy turn, it casts Tarunda (and if it's fully paneled, it will also cast Rakukaja) and makes it tremendously hard for ailments to stick to him. It doesn't sound bad until you find that if boosted and paneled, it will heal more than 1000 HP for all the party members (with even more of himself, given his Power of Life passive grants him a 3-turn Lydia), and thanks to its high VIT defense, he will be alive to keep everyone else perfectly fine. And with Null Mortal, killing him first is out of the question. Now pair this demon Beelzebub (97) and you got an unkillable party that will constantly heal until Death Flyers kills you.
  • Adramelech. His Sun God's Majesty gives his team a one-time Luster Candy at the beginning of the first turn (with a one-time Debilitate on the enemy once he's paneled) and punishes extra MP generation with a 30% fractional damage plus a 1 MP reduction, and his Sacrificial Inferno, being a tremendous single-target Fire attack, will all but certainly erase one enemy without having to worry about triggering Demiurge, Atavaka, Alilat or Rama's defenses.
  • Astaroth is an insanely fast physical attacker whose main attack, Lord Astaroth, can easily destroy a single enemy, and if it connects, it will proc a second attack. Enemies killed by either attack will be forbidden from reviving, allowing him to seal up to two enemies while dealing a Critical hit (preserving his turn), increasing his team's Attack and Accuracy/Evasion by 20% and lowering the enemy's by the same amount for each kill, and allowing his passive, Master of Hell, to give his team another turn, which can make all the difference in a game based on Intimidating Stance and Cerberus A and Masakado A's turn manipulation.
  • Maria's Miracle of Fatima procs every single time an ally is downed. First, it removes revival block, making it impossible to put anyone on the ground for good as long as she's alive, plus a 1-turn Luster Candy and some healing - and it still procs when she gets killed, which means she cannot be permanently killed, ever. She has obscene HP (both from her high base HP and the many innate HP bonuses she has), is immune to ailments, Nulls Mortal, is designed to easily spam Salvation, increases her team's natural MP generation by 1 just by being there, and once paneled will cast a 1-turn Tarunda + Rakukaja during opponent's turn to further neuter their offense (especially when paired with a paneled Erlkonig or Beelzebub (97), who do the exact same thing). To cap it all off, Miracle of Fatima will revive everyone on her side at full HP at the end of the enemy turn if there's a single dead ally. Even if It Only Works Once, it's still enough to break any kind of enemy team.
  • Arioch. On top having obscene HP, he gives himself Bulwark at the start of battle which gives him additional 3,000 HP, and a one turn Null Mortal in case you want to snipe him ASAP. Once you fail to kill him, he will give himself charge and might, then unloads his Lionfall on your team, which all but guarantees a Total Party Kill. While he doesn't start with ailment immunity, his Protector self comes with the transferable skill Null Bind/Weak, so you can bet he will be immune to those. If you see him with any of the above recent game breakers, good luck.
  • Demeter. She's by far the worst of them all to the point people want her nerfed, her Elusis' Blessing gives her Null mortal, a bulwark at the start of her turn equivalent of 1500 HP to all the party alongside Luster Candy, and while everyone is on bulwark they will null all ailments, earn 2 MP, and receive -20% less damage of everything and if anyone gets hit with any attack, let it be physical, magic, and even fractional, she'll give everyone another bulwark equivalent of 25% of everyone's HP each time you hit anyone alongside Luster Candy, and it will keep going until she dies, not even Elohim can outdamage her bulwarks, there's also the fact her skill "My harvest!" also grants a bulwark of 20% HP, her Second panel does that as well alongside defensive cry,making any party where she is in escencially unkillable due the amount of stuff she does. (and unlike Erlkonig, there's no counter to this.)
• Goddamned Bats: Hathor in later Aura Gate levels. Most enemies in later Aura Gate are weak to Electricity, Force, or Light, and most farming teams are built around exploiting said weaknesses. Well, Hathor isn't weak to any of them, instead resisting both Force and Light. While her weakness to physical look easy to exploit, it actually makes her more annoying. First, she has plenty of Agility, so trying to physically attack her has a high chance to miss. If you do hit her, you won't deal much damage since she also has high Vitality and you're probably using a magic-based team. Second, if you're using Auto-battle, that weakness can break Fenrir's (a staple in Aura Gate teams) AI. It will try to hit her (and probably miss) instead of actually casting support spells like it's supposed to do. If your Fenrir misses and she gets to act, get ready to use a revival item, because Hathor uses Force, which Fenrir is weak to.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • A rare demon conversation will have the demon ask the player what they think about their Timbs.
  • Some of the quotes your party members say in the Hideout has become a little memetic:
    • "The number of fans I have is simply" ^note In the Hideout page, Shionyan said this line, cut off thanks to space limitations. Eventually it would be completed by adding the word "abysmal".
    • "I would like to command more" ^note In a similar vein, Rika would sometimes say this unfinished line. Eventually it would be completed by adding the word "demons".
    • "WTF is Shionyan doing here?!" ^note Gakuto will express surprise that Shiori is a fellow Liberator, even after the umpteenth time. The narmy delivery of the line doesn't help
  • Remove you limes ^Explanation Due to "Blind Idiot" Translation, the compendium on the demon Reiko Kashima had the line "remove your limbs" mangled into that, spawning jokes about how she was going to kill you by giving you scurvy.
  • With the announcement that Devil May Cry would be crossing over, "Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series", last seen in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, made a resurgence.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The inability to turn off Auto-Talk during Auto-Quest. See, at the end of a talk, demons will often ask for something before joining your party. Often, they'll only ask for tiny amounts of Macca or Magnetite. Sometimes, however, they'll outrageously ask for the life of your demon or an obscene amount of HP calculated from your entire team's max HP, thus potentially fatal. When auto-questing, you will always accept the request. This can end up with players getting killed by a bunch of Slimes during a leveling session. To add insult to injury, if your team dies because of this HP demand, the demon will not join you afterwards!
  • The game's Auto-Battle feature can be extremely fussy to toggle. Don't be surprised if you occasionally find your team auto-attacking a very powerful enemy because seconds earlier you just finished farming, and the game often won't let you turn off auto-battle until after your demon makes their first move, which can be an undesired move with fatal results.
  • You cannot reject friend requests wholesale. This is aggravating as you can have up to 30 pending requests at any time, after which you must start accepting/rejecting before you can receive any more (and you can only have a limited amount of friends). Manually rejecting 30 friend requests at a time can get extremely tedious after a while.
  • Some of the randomly-activated Dx2 abilities can screw you over if they trigger at the wrong time and there's nothing you can do to stop this unless you burn gems to reset their skill points, which will also deprive you of those same skills when you need them the most.
    • Shionyan's ability inflicts Mute, which makes her a liability in Strange Signal quests. See, most of the time Strange Signal enemies stick to a single element, so if you bring demons that negate that element, you'll normally be able to breeze the levels even with undertrained demons. Shionyan's Mute instead forces the enemies to use melee attacks, which can wreck you if your demons lacks physical resistance. Bypassing this problem by using Shionyan will instead lock you out of Eileen's Random Drop Booster.
    • Enemy demons such as Daisoujou and Ladon can respond to Dx2 skills, which can be catastrophic in PvP as this causes the enemy to do something you are completely not prepared for. Daisoujou responds to Honey Sweet's charm by muting your team, while Ladon counters MC's healing with fractional damage and debuffs.
  • Dx2 duels were updated to include a defensive circle mechanic. Each turn after the third, your party takes an increasing amount of damage at the beginning of the turn until the duel ends. This makes only very specific types of teams any measure of effective on both sides. On the offensive end, teams that can kill enemies quickly are preferred, as the defensive circle will do you in if you take too long. On the defensive end, stalling teams rule the roost, as if you don't kill the enemy, the circle eventually will. This has somewhat decreased after the initial damage the circle inflicts was lowered, as was the rate at which damage increases.
  • Brand and Armament enhancements start having a chance to fail when you upgrade them to high enough level. You may end up blowing millions of macca and/or quickly run out of demon compounds while futilely enhancing brands and armaments.
  • You can only send demons into your storage if the demons have no brand equipped and are currently not in any party. The first part isn't so bad, as the brand equip page has the option to unequip all brands in one go, but the latter? God help you if those demons are included in multiple teams across your Dx2s, because you have to manually track the demons in every party you have and remove them one by one. This is especially glaring when you can fuse and sell demons without having to manually remove them from Dx2 parties beforehand.
  • The game's Combat Exclusive Healing becomes a problem in Aura Gates, since unlike normal battles, your demons' health persist after every battle, so if your demons have taken too much beating, you will have no means to recover and are forced to retreat.
  • Aura Gate automove AI leaves much to be desired. It's not so bad in Aura Gate 1 since the maps are randomized every hour, thus making it as taxing to players as it is to the AI, but:
    • Until you clear a floor boss in Hollow World, the automove AI will wander all over the place instead of doing something useful like opening treasure rooms. After you clear that problem by beating the boss, you have to deal with a Spiteful A.I. who almost always deliberately avoid avenge spots, your source of Fame in the Aura Gates, unless said avenge spot lies smack dab in the middle of a small tunnel and thus cannot be avoided.
    • Aura Gate SP floors are randomly selected instead of generated, and until a given floor is fully mapped, the AI will do the logical thing of going to unexplored corners. However, after a floor is fully mapped, the AI then has the stupid tendency to explore every nook and cranny again instead of going straight to the floor boss, wasting your time by either said incompetence or by forcing you to manually move, defeating the purpose of automove being supposed to make it so that players don't need to glue their face on the phone 24/7. And like avenge spots above, the AI is prone to avoid treasure chests, often deliberately.
  • Alter World's Break system is a disaster. Bad enough that We Cannot Go On Without You, the battle system also forces you to spend ages to activate a Limit Break before you can deal decent damage with even your lategame demons, and enemies are pretty much guaranteed to deal massive damage to your team even with the right setup due to having excessive press turns and immunity to Drain/Repel Pierce.
• That One Attack: Aside from some unique attacks listed on the aforementioned Game-Breaker, status effects that are not Useless Useful Spell also can be disastrous if they manage to land: Bind renders affected demon helpless and unable to do anything on top of wasting turn, charm turns friend into foe, and mute forces demons to use only basic attacks in a game where demon skills make or break the game.^note However, passive skills are not affected by charm and mute
• That One Boss:
  • Trumpeter in the Sloth Brands of Sin stages 6-9 is a nightmare to deal with starting out. Packing an ability that goes off at the beginning of each enemy phase, dealing a different status effect, an Almighty attack that also inflicts mute, and has concentrate to boost the power of said almighty skill even higher.
  • Any boss in the Aura Gate that has Pierce, since it makes demons who have resistance/immunity to the boss's attacks moot, thus having to plan around said attacks. The most notable are:
    • Ose in floor 32. You know how Ose is considered a Disc-One Nuke? This boss shows you why. He has the standard Ose kit Charge + Hades Blast, and a Phys Pierce exclusive to this boss. This means you can't prevent the huge physical damage he'll be dealing. And like other Oses, he has no elemental weakness to exploit to kill him quickly. Thankfully he has no Null Phys.
    • Sleipnir in floor 38. It has high Agi and the skill Speedster, which means it will always go first and start spamming Mahamaon. Combined with Light Boost, Light Pierce, and the generally inflated stats for bosses, this means that Mahamaon will hurt a lot. Not surprising it can kill an unprepared party before they can even act.
    • Girimekhala in floor 41 is like the floor 32 Ose, on steroids. Instead of Charge, it gets Mega Boost, which is Charge plus guaranteed critical hit. And it gets Megaton Press, which is a stronger version of Hades Blast. It also has Phys Pierce, which means even more fudgehuge damage you can't prevent. It thankfully has three elemental weaknesses...at the cost of repelling physical attacks.
  • In floor 45 of Aura Gate you fight a Dual Boss of Thor and Ishtar, and boy is it hell. To start with, both have the highly inflated stats of bosses, and between them they get 5 press turns. Ishtar will spam Judgement, a powerful Almighty (AKA unblockable) attack that also buffs their damage. Additionally, she can also use Diarahan to heal ~1000 HP. Meanwhile, Thor uses extremely damaging physical and lightning attacks, enough to wipe half your team's health in one turn (remember, they get five). Once you kill the more troublesome Ishtar, turns out Thor brings four of their shared five turn, so now you have four rounds of Thor ravaging your party. Fortunately both are weak to Force, and Thor doesn't have any Pierce skills.
  • Beelzebub in Aura Gate 2 floor 20. He spams Gluttony with Dark Pierce (weak), constantly ravaging your party's HP and healing himself, punctuated every now and then with Sea of Chaos, an Almighty attack that lowers Defense. He has no weakness, is immune to Light and Dark, and resists Physical, Wind and Electricity. When you manage to harm him enough, he will break out a single-use move to restore almost all of his HP. And when you manage to bring him down again, he stops using Gluttony... and switches over to Gluttony+, which hits harder and lets him eat more of your demons' HP, making it all the more hellish to keep his HP down and your demons alive. He remains a major threat when you meet him again on the last floor, as he keeps all the above deadly skills and gets increased stats, even if he now has one less press turn.
• That One Sidequest: The Tokyo Abyss dungeon. For starters, you can't use your demons there, only the Armament you've created, and you start with a single Common demon of 1 or 2 ★, and three demon slots. Your objective is to traverse as many levels of pure random horror as you can stomach (60 to receive all Sin Infusions for the month, and a Gift Pack every 5 subsequent levels; the last achievement you can unlock from it is from reaching Level 200), from allies and fusion results to extra moves. Nobody can use Brands, and healing and revival are restricted to Founts of Healing and moves - no Level-Up Fill-Up for you. You can't switch the Shield you start with in battle, only the Sword. Your MC caps at lv 50 and your demons cap lv 99, while enemies go well beyond lv 100. Every single battle opens with a checkpoint - if you bite it or quit, you return to the exact state you were before entering it, and you can only traverse each level in a single line, denying you any goodies that may lie in other paths or giving you the chance to refresh a bit before the level boss. Welcome to hell.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Being the first Guest Fighter in the game, Bayonetta was a pleasant surprise. Other than her, she's joined by popular side-character Jeanne...and Beloved, a generic enemy.
  • While the Demon roster has plenty of familiar faces, it also has some serious outliers that no one saw coming. Some of them are even Demons who've had very few appearances throughout the franchise, including Kamiotoko, Reiko Kashima, and even Arianrhod.
  • A chief example of a surprise Demon is the Shin Megami Tensei if... version of Angra Mainyu, who previously other than his sprite only had concept art and a Manga adaptation of his home game to show off his particular design!
  • The Shin Megami Tensei IV eighth anniversary event ends with a cliffhanger surprise appearance from Koga Saburo, marking the first appearance of a guest artist design from that game and foreshadowing the demon's 3D model, released in mid-August 2021.
  • The first four crossover events were all with franchises that had some sort of thematic similarity to SMT, which is why the announcement of a Sonic the Hedgehog event caught everyone by surprise even with Sega's ownership of Atlus. Especially since Sonic is an overall more family-friendly series, whearas SMT is generally targeted to older audiences (Spinoffs like Jack Bros. and the Devil Children series notwithstanding).
  • The 4.5 year anniversary event features the return of Elohim, one of the three avatars of YHVH from the end of Shin Megami Tensei II. Beyond just being an unexpected return, this makes Elohim only the second playable Godly race demon in the franchise after the Ancient of Days.
  • Following the return of Elohim, Shaddai and Sabaoth were quickly revealed one after the other, thus making this the Godly Trio's second appearance overall and first playable appearance ever since their debut in Shin Megami Tensei II.
  • The 5th anniversary followed suit with another outlier, this one which has never been playable and has never even appeared as a boss in any game, Gozu-Tennoh from Nocturne.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The game has the equivalent of E10 on the iOS and Android stores. Despite featuring Mara.....

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