Yo, I heard you like JRPGs so we made one of the best and most difficult JRPGs of all-time.

People talk about Ornstein & Smough as "the gatekeepers", but it seems like they forgot about Matador.

Karma systems got you down? Go play in the Fifth Kalpa and prove that the best answer to a karma system is to just smash it to pieces and be the god that other games only dream of raising you to.

Secrets? We got those. Really odd minigame for one Magatama that most people will need an FAQ for? We got you covered there, too!

Extra bosses? OH, HELL YEAH, WE GOT THOSE.

A rainbow worm that is one of the most powerful teammates you could ever have? You bet we've got that in this game.

The ability to fuse monsters to make bosses you've already beaten and have them be on your team? Well...why wouldn't this game have that?

Seriously -- if you've never played this and you like turn-based RPGs, put down whatever you're doing and go play this instead. It's your duty as an RPG lover to see what lies beyond the fifth kalpa.

Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne is a tough-as-nails JRPG where strategy and party composition matters way more than raw power or grinding.

The gameplay is quick and satisfying, using the Press Turn system to let you exploit the turn order by hitting the enemies' weaknesses and quickly turn the tides of battle in your favor - the thing is, those same enemies can do the same to you.
That's not to say that the gameplay is the only strong positive about this game. The story, albeit minimalistic, is interesting and deep. The lonely atmosphere that permeates throughout the entire playthrough is immersive, and, for a PS2 game, graphics and aesthetics are at a high - like a true videogame critic would say, "they aged like a fine wine".

However, even incredible games can have negatives. Nocturne has random encounters that, in many dungeons, are way too frequent and annoying. Many of the endings are also very lackluster, which in comparison to the actual really good endings, just end up making the developers look lazy. Lastly, and this is just my own opinion, some of the later dungeons are very masochistic, and I ended up using a guide to traverse through them just to avoid a huge headache.

At the end of the day, Nocturne is still a must-play for anyone who's bored of the typical easy, "just nuke the enemies" JRPGs and want to immerse themselves in a, albeit post-apocalyptic, very beautiful world.

The Good:
+ Press turn is amazing. Easily one of the best systems regarding Turn-based combat
+ Haunting atmosphere that suits perfectly the game. It's one of a kind.
+ Organic tutorials: you learn while have fun and don't really notice that you're playing a tutorial.
+ Good world-building through gameplay aspects like demon negotiating
+ Dante from DMC series (lol)
+ Difficulty on point
+ Mostly contemplative and sophisticated storytelling
+ Phenomenal art direction and expressive art direction. Nocturne has impressive and unorthodox framings to a PS2 video game. The character design as a whole is outstanding thanks to Kaneko Kazuma's art.
+ Many optional bosses with interesting mechanics
+ The soundtrack suits perfectly
+ Huge cast of fiends and a customizable party
+ You can customize the attributes and skills of the MC
+ Extremely fair challenge that rewards the players who learn to exploit it
+ There's no "right ending". Just different philosophical approaches on the subject
+ Varied dungeons. They are never the same and always differ on the the needed mechanics to beat them. Also, different hazards
+ If your main character dies it's Game Over. This makes sense from a narrative point of view, but can be seen as a flaw


The Bad:
- Lack of Quality of Life aspects regarding Fusion inheritance (It's a pain. You can't manually select the skills you want to pass on)
- The sound quality sometimes drop to garbage-levels.
- Nothing really happens storywise until halfway through
- Lack of good characterization: You don't really see characters growing on screen. Most of the development happens offscreen
- Random encounters are annoying on certain dungeons and Estoma should be more effective in this regard
- There aren't many remarkable places inside dungeons making it easier to get lost and less interesting. The map helps, but doesn't eliminates the problem.
- It lacks voice acting
- Evasion can easilly break most of the boss fights

The Ugly:
Demi-fiend's bermuda.

Writing: 4/5
Gameplay: 4/5
Art Design & Visuals: 4/5
Voices & Sounds: 4/5
Atmosphere & Immersion: 4/5

Still the gold standard for a JRPG many years on.

It's often punishingly cruel (looking at you, Matador), but the cruelty always comes with a point — Matador is a tough lesson about (de)buffing and Focus, both of which are necessary skills for the entire rest of the game — and nothing's quite as satisfying as a tough Nocturne fight. There aren't a lot of other RPGs — to this day, even — that require much in the way of thought to random encounters, but Nocturne makes tactics a necessity for nearly all of the game — it does drop off in difficulty late-game but that's true of most every SMT.

The game's characters are still fantastic as well — pretty much everyone save some of the Manikins is enjoyably mercurial at best and deeply cruel at the worst — very much appropriate for one of the best-designed apocalypses from any media. Yuko's failures of ambition, Chiaki's descent into abject cruelty, and Futomimi's arc — all of it is incredible stuff and striking to this day.

Aside from all that it's clear proof that a good sense of aesthetics can prevent a game from feeling dated — the game is stunning to look at despite being over 15 years old. Kazuma Kaneko's work on demon design is fantastic, and the environmental design is stellar across the board — even the caves (a traditional RPG design stumbling point) are well-designed — no small feat. Good stuff all around!

SMT Nocturne is probably one of the higher peaks and best example that the old guard/staff of the Shin Megami Tensei series is capable of. Minimalist writing, dark brooding atmosphere, hard unrelenting JRPG combat, great dungeon design, absurd humor, and great replay value. Those coming to this game expecting a typical JRPG should be in for a surprise. How it handles the story and development in the game is probably my favorite part. Its usage of biblical/eastern symbols, mythologies, and cryptic writing is somewhat compelling and unique in its own way. Play this game if you want to punch god and have a mystical, occult experience.

Nocturne is one of the best entries on the SMT franchise, it doesn't have that much demons like 4, but that's for the best.
It's world is intriguing, the characters have interesting ideals and there is no more law or neutral, this is a world of strength and Lucifer is very proud of that, plus is the best official unofficial version of DMC2.
The only problem this game has is the skill inheritance system. Is rng based and it sucks hard, you can easily lose 40 minutes in a fusion trying to get the right skills.
Also, don't fall for the Matador meme, this game isn't hard, learn to buff and debuff and you will make it.