Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne
by Atlus
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Video Game Reviews of Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne
Customer Review: Demons and Jack Frosts and Dante, oh my!
Summary: 5 Stars
I'd like to start off by saying that Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne is not for everyone. If you have problems with dark themes or shriek at the concept of anything remotely "demonic," you'll probably not want to play this.
Also, if you are looking for a "traditional" RPG - one with a band of likable characters going through a heroic adventure to save the world - you may find yourself disappointed in Nocturne. Characterization is small to nonexistent, and most of the time your mute hero is merely accompanied by hordes of beautifully designed but essentially characterless demons. And the story is not that of a traditional RPG either - rather than working to save the world, this game begins with it being destroyed.
You play one of the few humans left alive in this post-apocalyptic world - and indeed, no longer human, but now part-demon (and with a nifty neck spike and a set of full-body tattoos to prove it!). You make your way through this world to discover what it's like now, fighting demons and occasionally recruiting them to your side, and eventually you will choose a Reason that will remake the world in the way you want to see it remade.
Visually, the game is stunning. Kazuma Kaneko's character and demon designs are embodied beautifully in a stylish cel-shaded style. Aurally the game is not quite as outstanding, but the music is still generally quite good.
As for gameplay...Nocturne is more difficult than a lot of modern RPGs. The dungeons are long (often VERY long), the enemies are often quite tough compared to your characters, and the battle system, while easy to abuse, is also unforgiving if you make the wrong move.
(Also, for fans of Capcom's Devil May Cry series, Dante - the main character of that series - appears in Nocturne as well, and can even be recruited to join your party.)
All in all, if you're looking for an unusual and challenging RPG experience (much like the Persona games, which are a related series), you may want to give this one a try.
Customer Review: One of the best RPGs on the ps2
Summary: 5 Stars
Right up there with the classic Shadow Hearts covenant, this game is pure class from start to 150+ hour finish. It's adult and totally different to the usually childish rpgs that come out so often.
You play the main character who wakes up on a train and in a hospital is witness to the end of the world. Only one idea can shape the new world and many will try for this power. You are the favoured champion of the fallen angel Lucifer who wishes you to lead all the creatures of darkness against God and free the Universe from pre-destination and Karma.
Beautiful and unique graphics
Excellent music and memorable fights - i.e the 4 horsemen
A HUGE number of characters to meet and recruit from hindu gods to sexual succubi to angels of heaven
A very satisfying ending/s, there are many endings.
Truly superb and very interesting.
Customer Review: Excellent old-school action RPG!
Summary: 5 Stars
While SMT:N has a storyline that is a tad controversial due to it's strange take on Christianity and other-worldly religions, it takes a stealar apparoach on old RPG principles and builds on them! The game features an interesting turn based combat system with "button press icons", which diminish as you take a turn. If you manage to score a critical hit or use an enemey's weakness though, you only use up one half of a turn press icon, so in theory you can end up going twice as many turns per round in combat (and possibly never let your oppoenent take a turn if you manage to kill them before your turns are used up!) The press turn system works for your opponent in the same way though, so look out. A down side to this revamped 'old fashioned' combat system though is that if your main character dies, you lose. This is an old rpg rule that many can probably recall in games from the past.
The heart of the game though is the monster/demon creation/recruitment system. Throughout the game, you will encounter tons of different monsters, of all shapes and sizes. Each of them have different combonations of strengths, weaknesses, skills and abilities. To obtain them, you will have to either recruit them in combat via negotiation, purchase them from vendors, or fuse your old monsters to create new ones in the Cathedral of Shadows (which is what you will probably end up doing most of the time in the end.)
The game states that it has over 55 hours of gameplay, but you could easily go into the 100's if you end up looking for all of the extra content in the game. In order to obtain the added ending in this 'director's cut' version of the game, you will have to embark on some rather lengthy side quests and also will have to create a tremendously powerful party if you are to ever have a hope of battling the awsome final boss that the game has hidden away. Definently a fun challange for those who have patience.
This game features a wonderful soundtrack, which eminates techno, rock, metal, and ambient tunes. It is mostly upbeat, and it's sound effects are also very well placed in. Sadly, there is no voice acting, but it helps out in the end with the 'old school' feel that the game has. The graphics are also wonderful, as they are done in a unique and un-childish cell-shaded manner the likes of which I have never seen until now.
Another positive is that the game features Dante from the Devil May Cry series, whom many gamers will probably be familiar with (as was I. In fact, he was the main reason I bought the game!)
SMT:Nocturne is a rare game, and it will be hard to come by at a price under $50 dollars, but believe me, it is very well worth the price of admission if you are looking for a GOOD RPG.
Customer Review: One of the best RPGs ever...
Summary: 5 Stars
Graphics/Music: The graphics (both for characters and map textures) are extremely unique for an RPG or otherwise. Very dark, and very moody with lots of twisted (in some cases literally)enviroments. The same goes for the music which is a great mix of heavy rock and techno. All in all it matches the game very well.
Story: The story is one of the best parts of the game. Rather then set you off on yet another quest to save the world, you are treated to the destruction of it within the first 10 min! You are left with this question, "If you had to create a world without judgement, without the concepts of good/evil or right/wrong, what would you create?" A unique concept which pans out extremely well through the course of the game.
Gameplay: The gameplay is complex to explain as it involves a unique turnbased system which relies on weaknesses/critical hits/guards/dodges and a Pokemon style partner system. To sum it up, your stength in battle relies solely in your strategy; a level 30 character can easily be wiped out by a level 10 enemy or two if you've got the wrong weaknesses. An average gameplayer who finds Final Fantasy difficult would be crushed by their first or second boss in this game. The second 'Pokemon' style system is less complicated but just as fun as you can recruit a huge list of detailed and cool looking demons. Every single enemy and boss (except for the last ones) can be recruited or created to your team. Enemies join in a number of ways including being talked to, bribed, weakened, scared, or by fusing your demons together to make new ones.
Extra Info:
5 Endings
Dante from Devil May Cry is a playable character
Hard/Normal difficulty settings
New Game+ Mode
Overall, this is an incredible game that should not be missed by any RPG fan.
Customer Review: Casual gamers need not apply
Summary: 4 Stars
The last two years has seen some unorthodox RPGs. With Shadow Hearts: Covenant, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne and now the two Digital Devil Sagas, the Final Fantasys and other Square-Enix games have some creative competition.
After reading all the reviews and looking into this game, I was really excited to try it. I am about 20 hours (my characters are around lvl 44) into the game and for all intents and purposes I think I've only scratched the surface. I wanted to give my current review of the game up to this moment to let people uncertain if they want to purchase it what the game is about.
It has aptly been called a dark pokemon game. This is true in that you must negotiate with demons and find ways to recruit them to your side. However, a downfall to this sytem is that it boils down to you giving up hard won items like healing items, items to ressurect your people, 100s of Macca (the currency). And normally it goes, "that is not enough, give me 1 life stone...I'm still not convinced give me 500 Macca...okay you're starting to piss me off, give me 1 revival bead...no, I'm sorry but I don't want to join you." So you just wasted 500 Macca, 1 life stone and 1 revival bead on someone who just vanishes. If at any time you say no, the negotiations stop. Now, other demons you get can learn skills to help in the negotiation process. But, sometimes it's hard to justify an ability like Nag that is supposed to help get uncertain demons when you can only have 6 skills. If it comes down to learning that next heal spell or Nag, I'm going to have to go with the healing spell over Nag. So it can be frustrating to get some demons to your side. Other times it's s snap.
Then, you are able to fuse these demons together to create more powerful demons that share some of the qualities and skills of the previous two you had. More depth is added by the change of the moon cycle and the ability to sacrifice a third demon to make your demons even more powerful. It's a cool concept that works really well for the most part. IF you know what you're doing.
Which leads me to my biggest problem with the game. If you don't carefully plan out your demons and your demon fusing even early in the game, you will have a very hard time as the game progresses. You see, another concept that figures heavy into the battle system is the weakness/strength based on skills. Some enemies are weak to your skills, some nullify certain skills, some drain hp from skills, some reflect these abilities, etc etc. If you score a hit the enemy is weak against, you gain another turn to act in your round. If your attack is nullified, you lose turns. The same happens to you. So, if you end up fusing demons together and have to fight a boss that your new demon is weak to, problems can occur. Especially if that demon is your healer and is killed in round two...
On top of that, when you fuse demons you don't get all of the skills the previous demons had. You get a random assortment based on luck and what levels your demons are. The higher the level the more skills transfer. The result is that you end up getting two demons chosen for fusing, don't like the abilities, so leave the fusing process and go back in until you get a mix of skills you want. Also, each demon can only hold a certain amount of skills and when they learn new skills and the demon is maxed, you have to get rid of one of their skills. And that skill is gone forever. Chances are, you'll need that skill that you just lost at a future time. What seems unimportant now, can end up saving your life later. And it can be frustrating, trying to create your characters as the best of what they can do and then have normal enemies or boss battles trounce you in two rounds.
I have been playing RPGs since the very first Final Fantasy graced our shores. I have never found an RPG as hard as this one. In fact, with the exception being a COUPLE boss battles that I can count on one hand, I almost never die in an RPG. This game gives you two settings to choose from at the beginning, normal and hard. I chose normal. Traveling in the over world map, in areas where a character of my level is supposed to be can become death traps if you happen to run into an enemy that has attacks your party is weak against. Or, heaven forbid, your main character is weak against. Ran into a group of characters who have a death attack. I had spent about an hour grinding in the field (you'll also be doing that a lot by the way) only to have someone cast Mudo, a death type spell, on my main character. He's not weak to the attack but the attack went through, character died, there went 1 hour of my leveling. You can only save in terminals, not on the world map and in this instance I was pretty far from a terminal and didn't want to spend the extra travel time just to get back and save. Be warned, save often!
Also, in reference to the weakness/strength problem, you are given the skill Analyze. It will give you the enemies hp/mp and their strengths and weaknesses. So this is good, right? Well it doesn't work on bosses which can become a trial and error as you probably won't have the right combination of people the first time you fight the boss. Chances are, you will wipe. The guide book is more helpful in this area and can usually help you prepare better (see my book comment below).
The game can be classified as a dungeon crawl. Not in the typical sense, but in the sense that no matter where you go chances are there will be enemies to fight. Finding areas of safety where you won't run into random encounters are few and far between. In my 20 hours of playtime I have run into less than 5 I believe. Most "towns" (I use that term loosely) where you can save/heal/buy/sell/fuse/etc have enemy encounters. On top of that, the encounter rates are higher than most RPGs. Sometimes you can run through a room with little or no encounters. Other times, you can run into battle after battle. There is a glowing compas on your UI that is supposed to alert you by changing colors as it gets closer to an encounter but that's not always truthful. It has gone from yellow (the first step) to red (the last) in one step and a battle starts.
So far, the story is pretty linear and honestly not too exciting. As far as I know, it's mainly a quest to find this guy and stop his plans of unleashing a very bad weapon. Yes, the story is dark, deals with the end of the world and also has angels and demons and familiar religious mantra in it but at this point in time it's not too terribly exciting. I'm hoping that something will happen that will change the focus of the story.
I cannot recommend this game to RPG newbies. You will be frustrated and might not ever play an RPG again. This is not a starter's RPG; it's made for the hard core group of people as you have to put a lot of time and effort into it. I would also recommend picking up the strategy guide. I don't normally do or recommend that, but at 400 pages it is almost essential in creating the best demon combinations and working your way through some really tough bosses.
If you are new to the Shin Megami Tensei series, personally I would recommend the newer Digital Devil Saga (and its forthcoming sequel). Almost all of my complaints above are addressed and fixed in that game; it also adds sorely needed voice actors and at this juncture in time has a better plot.
I know it seems as if there are a lot of "complaints" in my review which might seem incongruous with my score of 4. But I'm not exactly complaining; I just want to make sure that those who are on the fence with this game know all of the good and bad inside. I think it has the ability to really frustrate some players and I would hate to have new RPGers come to this game and decide the genre is not for them. I am enjoying the game for the most part, though I think I might enjoy Digital Devil Saga I and II better. Truth be told, the dugeon I'm currently in (the Obelisk for those who know) is kicking my ass which made me turn to Digital Devil Saga. For Nocturne, the combat system is deep and rewarding for those who play right, the dungeons are (mostly) long but fun and I have a feeling the plot is going to rachet up another level soon. But casual gamers need not apply.
**By the way, don't you dare spend the $60-80 on this game that the people are selling theirs through this site! That's outrageous that people are already selling it at that price. Check out Ebgames or Gamestop, etc. I got mine a few weeks ago for $44.