This is the Ocarina of Time of turn-based RPGs. I can see how it was absolutely mind-blowing back in 2003 but 20 years later it's just a pretty solid game and others in the series have improved upon its systems. I found this to be nowhere near as difficult as people make it out to be (I did play on normal difficulty) - there were some tricky segments but nothing unmanageable with the right buffs/debuffs. They fixed the beast/dragon eye spam, so that might be part of it? The story was underwhelming even in the TDE to me but this is a game focused on combat, not narrative. If you're here for that you'll have a blast.

The Switch version tended to lag during boss cutscenes (especially the fiends) and some attack animations, but it doesn't affect the gameplay at all. If that bothers you, though, go for the PC or PS4/5 version. I hear they have less of that.

Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne es un juego especial dentro de la franquicia por lo nuevo que trajo jugablemente, aunque también resulta llamativo en narrativa. En este juego tomaremos el rol de un estudiante de secundaria que, junto con otras personas, es testigo del fin del mundo y el nacimiento de uno nuevo conocido como Vortex World, un mundo transicional que espera la llegada de un ser poderoso que le dé una forma definitiva según sus ideales. A lo largo de nuestra aventura viajaremos por este mundo postapocalíptico en busca de respuestas sobre lo ocurrido, viendo también cómo los sobrevivientes del mundo anterior forman sus propios ideales respecto a cómo debería ser el nuevo, siendo la mayoría bastante extremistas, por lo que recae en nosotros apoyar alguna de estas facciones o tomar un camino distinto dependiendo de lo que se alineen mejor con nuestra manera de pensar.

En cuanto al apartado jugable, Nocturne introduce el Press Turn Battle System, un sistema de combate que premia el uso de las debilidades de los enemigos y los ataques críticos, dándonos un turno extra si acertamos uno de dichos ataques, el cual podemos usar para curar, potenciar alguna característica de nuestro equipo, debilitar a los enemigos o seguir atacando. Así, con una buena estrategia y un equipo equilibrado, seremos capaces de vencer a los enemigos sin que llegue su turno. Eso sí, los enemigos también pueden aprovechar este sistema, y nosotros podemos perder turnos si fallamos o usamos ataques que no les afectan (aunque ellos pueden perderlos también por los mismos motivos), así que te pueden dejar muy mal parado si no sabes cómo contrarrestar esta desventaja. Si bien todo lo que mencioné del sistema de combate es fantástico, tiene un gran problema: los enemigos no son muy inteligentes y suelen cometer los mismos errores, como sería repetir los mismos ataques una y otra vez, esto hace que el juego se vuelva demasiado fácil si sabemos cómo explotar sus fallos.

Con todo y sus defectos, Nocturne es un juego que ofrece una experiencia enriquecedora en muchos aspectos, no solo por lo que ya he mencionado, sino también por su atmósfera, siendo una perfecta para un mundo lleno de demonios y peligros, explorando tanto lugares cotidianos que han sido destruidos o abandonados por la influencia demoníaca, tales como hospitales o parques, así como también locaciones sobrenaturales llenas de elementos extraños, como figuras geométricas con tintes diabólicos, teniendo como únicos habitantes algunas almas del antiguo mundo o demonios. Si te gustan los juegos que abordan temas filosóficos sobre el destino del mundo, que tienen un sistema de combate por turnos dinámico y que te sumergen en una atmósfera muy bien lograda, Nocturne es el juego ideal para ti. Por cierto, agradezco mil veces que en el HD Remaster pueda escoger a gusto las habilidades que quiero heredar a mis demonios, no quiero repetir la experiencia de estar entrando y saliendo del menú de fusiones hasta tener el resultado que quiero.

Nocturne was a game that I originally hated. It has design artifacts that come across as dated and out of place in its era. But that’s exactly why I like it now and remember it fondly.

Nocturne embraces the dungeon design of its predecessors. I think it’s important for something like Nocturne to exist in the time period it was released in, since you had games like Final Fantasy 10 leaning more towards the simpler side with its linear hallways and simpler dungeon design. Yeah, it’s probably stockholm syndrome from older RPGs, but it’s fun getting lost in big mazes and getting items at dead ends, and it's cool to see Nocturne maintain this design in a 3D space.

The combat is really fun. There’s a big emphasis on buffing and debuffing in this game, and there’s a ton of different demons to fuse and teams to use which keep the whole game feeling fresh. There’s also this “Press Turn System” in the game in which you will get another turn for attacking an enemy’s weakness or getting a crit. You also lose another turn for missing your attack. This also applies to enemies, and it makes evasion buffs and debuffs the most broken thing in the game by far. I do think there should have been some balancing done to that. You can also skip a turn and give it to another party member, which is very handy if one of your demons is useless in the fight you’re in. There’s a ton of scenarios where this is fun and promotes a lot of different strategies.

I originally complained about how some of the fiend locations are random as hell and they give you no hints as to where to find them and it still holds true. It’s necessary to fight them all for the secret true ending or whatever, which is why it was annoying, but I find it more annoying that a true ending exists in the first place. I kind of wish it just had you pick which ending you want, without any of that “canon” stuff getting in the way. Looking at it from that aspect, the odd fiend locations don’t really bother me anymore.

The story does suck though. Conceptually, it’s pretty cool, but it suffers from pretty unrealistic character motivations which are important for a plot like this. I don’t want to go into detail because I don’t want to spoil in my reviews, but if you’ve played it you might understand what I mean. I know there’s that “nobody plays SMT for the story” argument or whatever, and yeah, I enjoy the other aspects a lot more.

Oh yeah, this game is a remaster too. Does it do well on that front? Well, no, not really. I’m more so glad that this is officially playable on modern hardware now, and so I didn’t have to mess with a PS2 emulator. The lighting messes up a lot of the environments and the soundtrack is still left compressed like it was on the PS2 version! Luckily, there is a mod to uncompress it which my friend insisted I used and I eventually caved and used it even though I don’t like using mods on games. It was definitely nice to hear the music in higher quality, and I honestly recommend everyone use it too, it sounds pretty bad without it.

I was always looking at Nocturne as some elitist, hardest RPG ever made type of deal, and I think my unenjoyment stemmed from the game not offering the challenge I was expecting. The truth is, no, Nocturne is not one of the hardest RPGs ever, or whatever, but it’s a real fun game that has a lot going for it.

I'll start by stating that I've never played the original, but I can't imagine playing this one without the voice acting. While not always great, it was often quite enjoyable. Took the True Demon Ending, and while there were certainly some difficulty spikes the overall challenge felt good with the right amount of tension. The characters were pretty thin, which was a shame considering the overall story had more depth. The art style is incredible, and probably the biggest selling point of this game outside of the combat, and it suits the atmosphere of the game well. Punching everything to death was super fun, and the combat as a whole was enjoyable. Easily recommended.

I really enjoyed my time with this one, but even for a remaster, really shows the test of time. Most of the problems that I have with this game are acceptable for a game released in 2003, but not a remaster released in 2020. My MAIN problem being that the enemy ai is really stupid. The game has a fantastic press turn battle system and it feels really cool to use it, but I don't feel as if the enemy ai is smart enough to use it as strategically as the developers intended. It feels really cool as a player using it to manipulate the turn order, but the enemy is constantly either failing to use it, or even going as far to hinder themselves. It doesn't make me as the player feel smart or satisfied when the enemy is constantly screwing themselves over rather than me winning by being smart. It seems to me that they could have updated the ai before this modern day release. And theres just other little things like being unable to read what skills do in game, and having to look them up online. That is the most barbaric thing I could imagine in a jrpg like this, and I could not believe they didn't add that into this remaster. But overall the gameplay loop, story, and customization are all pretty great for a 2003 game I have to admit. I just wish they remastered more than the graphics here.

that time kazuma kaneko + shoji meguro summoned a whorling liminal space that tricked jrpg fans into enjoying meat + potatoes (teleporters + pitfalls) dungeon crawling. same shit your grampa plinked away at on his apple II a century ago, same shit your grandkids will plink away at on their apple II a century from now in their neofeudal bunkers

and much like your relatives, I love that shit; I love a big ass maze with a million dead ends, and if it ain't broke don't fix it, lest we end up with whatever the fuck those P3 + P4 dungeons were

at its best and most confident it understands the simple things — things like teleporters originally being designed to thwart manual graphing; that automap needs to be accounted for with appropriately disorienting, discordant layouts and structures; and that imbuing a sense of doomed futility is non-negotiable. there's a desire here to smother, obstruct and impede; a love of mazes that reveals its hand in slow motion, peaking with twinned monstrosities — the labyrinth of amala, and the tower of kagutsuchi — that crank the pressure inch by excruciating inch

complimenting it is the arrival of press turn serving as an antidote to blobber slugfests and the sedentary JRPG-isms that descended from them — the dynamic action economy shifting combat from sludgy attrition to a revolving door of lightning round encounters closer to puzzles than math problems. it's no surprise that many of the bosses took up hallowed positions in the genre pantheon, nor that the sinewy party building was so lauded — few games in the genre that succeeded it would be so mechanically accomplished, to say nothing about those that came prior

all of this is further defined by an aesthetic sensibility befitting a "vortex world"; a collage of textures, words, images, sounds, and ideas — from solipsism to darwinism to occult esoterica — delivered in broad, painterly strokes, flickering past rapidly in service of potency and immediacy above all else

the sensation is one of extraordinary emptiness, intentional and otherwise; nihilism born from its themes as much as the capricious relationship it has with them. a fugue state drive through half-conjured nouns and adjectives that recede at the slightest touch; worlds, people, and ideologies just fuel for ephemeral spectacle

nocturne feels like it's trapped in amber: a static image of a bygone era for megaten, atlus, and the medium as a whole, still shadowed by fables and folklore about its difficulty, opaqueness, and bizarre allure. newcomers still looking over their shoulder for matador and finding themselves lost under waves and waves of dead ends and instant kills, further prolonging its mythic qualities

far from perfect in any sense of the word, it persists nonetheless as an object with no clear analogue. atlus will assuredly try and fail to replicate its appeal until heat death of the universe, but it's telling that even they can't quite pin down what happened here, why, or how — and who could really blame them?

brief thoughts on the remaster:

can't say I'm happy about the JRPG Paypig Tax or the crusty ultra compressed 128kbps OST, but it seems few people are mentioning the one inclusion that makes the remaster worthwhile: the option to play the original pre-maniax version of nocturne — previously unreleased outside of japan

while most won't be interested in seeing the game in what's widely understood to be an unfinished state — no fiends, no labyrinth, no dante raidou, or True Demon Ending — it's exciting to have the option to return to the game at its most rudimentary and see how the differences affect an experience long since overwritten by a slew of rereleases and additional material that recontextualize many of its design decisions

unfortunately, it's only present on the PC version, but credit where credit's due: atlus didn't fuck something up for once, and that's a miracle. I'd still rather eat gravel than pay full price for this thing, but it's a big, quiet win nonetheless from the least likely of places

"worst guy you know" etc.

I finally beat an SMT game and all it took was like 55 hours (including the 7 hour playthrough I abandoned after realising the PC version did not automatically include the Chronicles DLC pack which adds a significant amount of content, to the point where I'd say the game feels incomplete without it).

Overall, pretty good in terms of tone, aesthetics and gameplay, I just wish the stories of these games were a bit meatier and didn't run entirely on vibes.

Also, this is a walkthrough game for me, easy. Played as far as I could without it, but a walkthrough saved me from being completely unsure where to go next to progress the story, as well as how to aim for the True Demon Ending.

That said, despite TDE being often suggested online as being the "best" ending, I found it underwhelming. I'm glad I went for it and beat the route, but I don't know that it was ultimately worth the 7 hours of grinding, fusing demons and struggling that it added on to the end of my play experience.

I'm rating this 4/5 on the basis that this is my first experience with SMT3. I didn't mind how cronchy the music was, because the compositions shone through the awful sound quality. I didn't even mind that this was running at 30FPS because when combined with the heavy motion blur it really gave me authentic PS2 vibes. For anyone looking for a true remaster experience out of the box (1080/60 out of the box without modding) I can understand why some were disappointed with this.

Today, November 5 2023, marks the official day @Gare decides that anything with Megami Tensei in the title is very much Not For Me.

I tried this one after the first two, which I thought were okay YouTube watches despite not caring for the gameplay much, because this seems to be the one everyone likes the best. No dice. It’s pretty much for the same reasons I said here. It’s all just very goofy to me. Unserious even, as the kids are saying these days. I guess if I had to describe it under oath in a court of law, I’d say it all comes off as Kingdom Hearts writing but with demons, swears, and tiddy. While I 100% knew the bad guy was going to melodramatically quote T.S. Eliot before attempting to bring about the hero’s utter demise, I have to admit that I was shocked to find that quote was not “this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper,” but rather “April is the cruelest month.” Don’t worry though, it’s still lame when it does happen.

Ah well, the heart doesn’t want what the heart doesn’t want. I also don’t really like David Bowie’s music. What can you do?

You know what? I slipped in the bathtub last week and suddenly thousands of moral decisions came upon me all at once.

"Where did I put my recorder from elementary school? Do I still love my mom? What would be the benefits of curling my neck out of this S shape? Is every one of my problems a matter of my own construction? Are pirates real?"

I stood up in the shower I left continuously unwashed and realized that the ecosystem around me had become a transformation of such thought, the mental labyrinth had physically manifested and contained an astounding amount of lore, depth, and somewhat eastern religious subjects I didn't really quite understand myself without the help of Max Derat. I wandered for hours aimlessly but it turned out sentient creatures that looked like Seamonkeys (Or Seamonkies?) had formed groups and fought according to differing ideals, which I was confused about but was forced to make a decision about and fight for, for I, the aimless traveler, was the only one to wield the Clorox Ultra Foamer to end it all if I wanted to.

Alright and now just imagine that scenario as this game.