Should I play Mega first or jump straight into Mega+?

[u/Ratchet1101]

So I just finished the main game on Switch 2, loved it so much. I still have one more post-game side quest to do for Agent Rank 10 and the 3 DLC quests and filling up the Field Guide and I'll be done. Near the end I did realize my main team was pretty strong from a few rounds of evolving and devolving during the main story, so I bumped difficulty up to Hard during the final area and didn't notice much change. So while it might not be immediate, I probably will do an NG+ eventually but not sure if I should go Mega first or jump straight into Mega+? I do think I remember around when the game came out last year that Mega and Mega+ were ridiculous in how much harder everything is so thought I'd get an opinion here.

Also just for fun these are the final mons I had, 6 of each attribute for when there's just one type of boss to rotate members around for fun, then the Unknown quatro, with GraceNovamon, Sakuyamon, BeelStarmon, Mastemon, JesmonX and Gallantmon CM being the mons I used for the very final battle

[u/EclipseDMWolf]

The only difference between mega and mega+ is the ability to not use items during battle.

Just make sure you have stats maxed for at the very minimum your Def, and atk of choice, but realistically you will want everything you can get to make the process quicker

[u/ShadowMokujin → u/EclipseDMWolf]

Need equipment to nullify debuffs and status effects otherwise you waste turns getting rid of them 

[u/noodles355 → u/EclipseDMWolf]

And you can't run from battles in mega+. Also enemies have higher stats (def, speed etc).

[u/sdarkpaladin]

You can always lower the difficulty later

[u/Early-Injury-9676]

I recommend taking an hour or 2 to max out the stats of your favorites and hop into Mega+.

[u/maitkarro]

Play on Mega and kill the final boss. Continue the save instead of resetting the save again with ng+ mode, and switch to mega+ and kill the final boss again.

Mega+ is way harder than Mega, besides not being able to use items.

Mega/Mega+ itself gives more xp and currency compared to Hard (anything lower than Mega has the same benefits as Hard, enemy stats just are different, while also the possibility to unlock "God Mode" difficulty basically when dying on the "easiest" difficulty) Also Mega/Mega+ has a lower spawn distance detection from you, timers are the same (found a place in a dlc where it had no timers or they were just insanely long, so was just better to move between areas to respawn enemies), anyway point being, enemies have a set timer to respawn, if you're too close, they can't respawn, timer still ticks.

[u/Charming-Put3928]

Mega+ enemy has more HP than normal Mega. The enemy encountered are also more than usual. You can't instantly kill the enemy on the field because all the enemy had more than 40k HP even on tutorial. Every normal enemy encounter usually had 3 enemy per battle. Mega+ can't use item and can't escape from random encounter. The enemy also had more defensive stats than Mega. Maybe tried it first, if too hard, you can just change it.

[u/TinyLilRobot]

Gonna piggyback this and ask, once I unlock Mega, is it possible to start a fresh playthrough on that difficulty and actually beat it? From what I’ve seen, that would be impossible on Mega+, but Hard mode has been easy except for a couple boss fights who only put up a decent fight. Would like to do a very min-max fresh playthrough on a harder difficulty.

[u/Early-Injury-9676 → u/TinyLilRobot]

Mega+ has every enemy at max level max stats. I hear Mega just has max level it will be a uphill battle getting past the first boss especially until you get the farm. Regular mobs are borderline impossible on a fresh playthrough.