Random encounter works in 2D games when players already use their imagination to fill in the details. In full 3D games with controllable camera, it's hard to convince me that there's a gigantic monster between me and the chair five feet away from me. The encounter rate certainly didn't help either. Almost every SMT game depicts societies on the brink of collapse, this one has human beings virtually gone extinction already. Morality is a human construct. This game being so fixated on moral, but without a human society to act upon, seems to be a paradox created by the developer. Everyone I encountered in this game tried to tell me what is the "right way", but why should I care?

confident and self-assured, nocturne takes a risk and diverges from the style established in the classic, genre-defining SNES games and gives up the cyberpunk flair for unsettling, contemporary atmosphere laced in a rich hard rock sound. instead of demon summoning programs and makeshift blade runner-esque technology, demi-fiend finds himself injected and violated by lucifer himself, given nothing but a vague motive to direct the vortex world as an ubermensch-type figure. the protagonist has biological ties to this new world now, and he can't just look away from it -- the marks of a demon are all over his body.

nocturne's difficulty and unforgiving nature redefined the perception of shin megami tensei as a whole: since nocturne, this is a series with high risk-reward combat that paints desolate scenarios the player will find themselves barely scraping by through. the original SMT presented this well through plot, but nocturne was the first to utilize gameplay mechanics to reinforce the series' brutality.

nocturne isn't a joyless, humorless edgelord game either. throughout my entire replay, the main thing that stood out were all of the unique NPCs and optional bits of dialogue that helped flesh out the world. whether it's just hearing random lost souls talk about tangentially related subjects or demons with genuinely clever quips and jokes, nocturne's world is by no means devoid of personality and charm.

i stand by the game being a bit too unforgiving to first-time players that don't know what they're doing. there's no way to know which way is "correct" for a good demi-fiend build, and which magatamas you should be grinding out until it's too late. you can end up making the game as a whole significantly harder for yourself if you put too many stats into ag or lu. demon fusion discourages experimentation because of how damn pricy it is early/mid game, forcing a player to stick with potentially very suboptimal demons or grind their ass off for money.

but with a little nudge in the right direction, nocturne is a perfectly manageable and rewarding experience that respects the player's intelligence and feels great to progress in. every boss, every dungeon, every tough random encounter makes you feel fucking incredible, and that's a feeling that nothing quite nails but this series.

if you hate yourself, play this game


ONE MORE GOD REJECTED
I AM THE BUG INSIDE YOU
ONE MORE GOD REJECTED
I AM THE BUG INSIDE YOU

My username stands for "Megami Tensei Fake Fan" and I have technically never beaten this game.

I'm an arcade gamer at heart. I play until I get bored, then the next time I decide to give it another go I delete the save file and start over. So the furthest I've made it was the final dungeon. This suggests two questions: (1) why did I get bored? (2) why did it take so long?

I got bored because the combat system is terrible. If you went to the drawing board and tried to come up with a design where you would never be encouraged to adapt to anything mid-battle, where success or failure was determined solely by comparing your party setup to the enemy's, you'd end up with Nocturne's "Press Turn" system. Within a battle, everything is built on positive feedback loops: if you use the right attack, you get to use another for free; if the enemy has two turns and misses its first attack, it doesn't get a second.

But the game is fun because of the resource constraints this imposes. You only get a few party members, and they need to be equipped with the right skills to handle every battle as cleanly as that, or else you'll quickly Game Over. This turns out to be harder than it sounds. Only a "bad" combat system with so few ways of working around a problem could gatekeep the player into actually engaging with this.

There is a story to go along with this. It's written with more care, compassion and self-seriousness than I'm used to in video game stories. This disarms me to the point that I work through whole essays' worth of thoughts before I realize it's just a simplistic Christian fable about rejecting temptation and embracing the gift of free will.

An endnote/desperate plea: PLAY THIS GAME ON THE "HARD" DIFFICULTY, NOT "NORMAL". The international release was balanced around this setting, which matters more than usual because this game is all about its mechanical rigor. I suppose this would be fine if Normal were insufficiently easy, but as it stands it never lets you experience the intricacies. You'll get some extra Games Over on Hard, but we all do. It's a sign that you're playing the game, not that you're bad at it.

Eu nunca joguei um jogo tão ruim na minha vida. A nota tá alta, claro, ele tá dentre os meus favoritos jogos jogados, eu aqui me refiro a "ruim" num sentindo vulgarizado da palavra, aquele "ruim" a quem populares, habitantes do Brasil de base (ou "Brasil profundo"....) se referem, o "ruim" antônimo de "bom". O dialeto popular comunica sem complicações e arrodeios — gosto bastante dele — e vem super a calhar porque a forma como esse jogo é "mau" não é gráfica, ela é espiritual, acionando assim essa memória religiosa que origina o termo; a atmosfera de Nocturne é de um pleno apocalipse, a narrativa é conduzida através de plot points setados por decisões baseadas em egoísmo, ganância e orgulho, não há virtuosidade em Shin Megami Tensei III, o jogo começa te introduzindo a uma guerra aonde o bem perdeu e não parece que possa se fazer muita coisa a respeito, ou então que talvez nunca tenha existido esse tal lado; mesmo em canecido branco, pálido, nocturne não parece existir a luz e brilho que conhecemos, isso é um elogio, e não se fala em outra coisa quando se toca nesse jogo, subcomunidades internet a dentro, porque existe um forte culto em torno de todos os aspectos desse jogo a nerdaida não poupar elogios ao falar da direção de arte e como ela é incrível; sobre história também e ela é bem maneira sim, como dei a entender agora etc.; trilha sonora? sou todo ouvidos!.. mas, irmão, a gameplay disso aqui que é a melhor coisa, eu nunca conceberia um jogo de turno tão foda nesse aspecto — satânica máquina de eficiente entretenimento.
Ele é difícil, mas te educa, de uma forma tão rígida que beira ao criminoso nos remetendo àquelas histórias "Você acha que seu pai é ruim? a pois o meu me batia de cipó de goiabeira..." que os nossos avós nos contavam— em referência ao tal Brasil profundo aqui supracitado.
O beabá é mais ou menos esse aqui: um boss é extraoirdinariamente filho da puta contigo, abusa de mecânicas que o jogo não te ensinou, você morre, você bola uma estratégia para vencer ele, você morre mas vê que pode dar certo, você passa: real senso de mérito. Há uma liberdade gigantesca para o jogador moldar seu personagem e os demônios da sua party a partir de skills e o sistema de fusão, pena que ele é pouco acessível e eu realmente recomendo o uso de sites com a calculadora de fusão e os demônios para jogar; dominar bem essas mecânicas e conseguir derrotar os bosses te dá um senso domínio tão forte e esse aspecto da gameplay é refletido na narrativa: true demon ending.

It's really interesting to think that Atlus apparently wasn't thinking about continuing their mainline Shin Megami Tensei series after the completion of If. That explains a fair bit about why this game, in a lot of ways, feels like a reboot of the series. This is also not to forget that the team wanted to make this game the best it could be and not miss any marks in its potential. Generally speaking, this is a goal most developers have, but it's not uncommon to see pitfalls in the end result because of missing time, skills, and the like. Nocturne was fortunately afforded all of these, and so with its lengthy period of conception and development, its small team made way for a game that's near-perfect to me in a lot of ways. It still has a few slight issues, but none that I can really hold against it.

In fact, it's a little tricky to put into words what I really like about this game outside of the excellent gameplay. The game at a lot of points feels more akin to an introverted experience that one might keep to themselves than one that can be broken down in a myriad fashion and shouted from the rooftops. Much of that comes from the deliberate atmosphere that the game has and I really adore it for that; more games ought to have this sense of comforting isolation. Some of the other SMT games do have it to some degree, but this one is the most overt out of the ones I have played thus far. It also makes jokes related to this game an all the more apt juxtaposition, like this ad for it G4TV once aired.

SMT games did struggle to keep gameplay fresh for a little bit. New entries during the fifth generation still boiled down to the simple demon summoning and fusion mechanics with standard turn-based gameplay that maybe had some odd alterations mixed in (see Devil Summoner with the loyalty system). Compared to what Final Fantasy was doing with each entry then, it made the series look a little barebones in comparison. However, Nocturne introduced the press turn system which has become a mainstay for the mainline games; seeing some additional use in that mobile game DX2 and the Digital Devil Saga games as well. Maybe it's a little weird to get the hang of initially, but that confusion shouldn't last long. Fundamentally, your entire party has a shared set of turns they can use, and certain outcomes can extend or reduce how long the player phase goes on for. Normally this would just be one turn per party member, but you can get fancier than that. Things like passing a turn, getting a critical hit, or getting at an enemy's weakness will count as half of a turn letting you move an additional time. On the other hand, having moves miss, be reflected, drained, or nullified will use up more than one turn; sometimes all of them. There's a little more nuance to it besides that, but in the end it's a rather simple idea that can lead to really fun (or devastating) outcomes. It all depends on how you've built your team and strategize. Well, mostly, there's still the standard randomness typically seen in an RPG, of course.

The player character, Demi-fiend, is treated like a blank slate to build stats and moves on. You can choose a stat of his to raise on leveling up, but in addition can also find magatamas throughout that give you certain resistances to swap out and moves to add to your skill list. Some of these are much harder to get than others, but most of the practical ones not so much. Many of them can be bought from stores or by doing a neat side quest, and it's not required to get them all. Though, the final one you get for collecting the first 24 is absolutely busted, despite you getting it really late in the game and having to suffer through the Puzzle Boy minigame to get it. Said minigame is an homage to Atlus' old puzzle series of the same name (in Japan at least). I like those games from the little bit I've played, but you have to do 20 stages in one go and they get very challenging. The option to get back to the normal game and resume later on would have been cool, but that's beside the point. Magatamas are handy, and make for great team customization.

It's also rather common for RPGs to include elements that intend to add complexity to their games that either don't do anything or push the complexity into convolution. A balancing issue between breadth and depth, perhaps. But this game is rather impressive for having this yet never feeling too overwhelming by allowing a variety of strategies to be viable within a rather simple framework. It also makes good use of pretty much every aspect of the game's systems. One that jumps out at me the most (that I hadn't mentioned already) is that auto battle is actually useful. Especially the case since it's speedy and physical attacks are a solid neutral option oftentimes. I'm not the biggest RPG buff, but as far as I know, systems like that are usually not very helpful unless you wanna die. A couple pitfalls come from the Luck stat on the Demi-fiend not being very handy since it just lowers the chance of being cursed by your magatama, which itself is already pretty rare. Demon negotiations are also a bit weaker in this game. They're much more simplified to the point where scoring a new demon to summon hilariously becomes almost complete chance, save for a few instant recruit scenarios (i.e. some skills fare better depending on who is talking to whom). It's pretty funny to joke about, but when you actually have to deal with it and demons start robbing you of your items and macca, not so much. I do think it was nice that they wanted to make it more accessible to newer players, but the overreliance on randomness makes things a bit annoying. Similarly, demon fusion is great as usual, and lets you choose which moves you can transfer, but not really. In order to get some combination of skills you want in a demon, you have to go in and out of the menu until the fusion preview randomly selects the ones you want. I don't think manipulating this was intentional at all though, as they probably would have implemented choosing skills directly if so. So having to game that system slightly is an annoyance, particularly since lower-level skills like Kidnap and Pester are more likely to be selected, and personally I don't want more demons with negotiation skills.

In fact, practically all of the minor quality of life peeves I have are addressed in the Hardtype mod. Cool! It's a much more technical version as well, but it's also still got the random skill transfers which I'd imagine would make me want to vomit a bit when preparing for some of the late-game encounters. The recent remaster does outright fix that though, but it also looks like it has more things that would aggravate me personally, like the battle music still being compressed when it doesn't need to be. Thus, I'll likely still prefer this version over it.

The setting in this game is also fascinating. This game uses a contemporary world, but, whoops spoilers, the world (i.e. Tokyo) "ends" in the first couple minutes of the game, and its remains become this surreal spherical landscape called the Vortex World. Old places like Shibuya and the Diet Building are warped, not beyond recognition, but far beyond how they would have originally felt. Nearly everyone from the previous world died, so the NPCs are primarily demons, human-like creatures called Manikins, and the spirits of the dead. That description on paper probably sounds hellish, but like I said earlier there's a rather comforting feeling to it. Series artist, Kazuma Kaneko, envisioned the player running around the desert naked, and exploring the world map isn't too far off from that. Many of the locations also have aspects of Buddhism, Gnosticism, and then some in their appearance, and it makes every dungeon ooze with memorability. Kabukicho and the Obelisk are usually first to come to mind for me, and I really think the Amala Network's look would make for a trippy interior in a hotel. There are a lot of strange things like this and such that are never fully explained. They just exist as idiosyncratic phenomena. And of course, I'd be remiss to forget mentioning the outstanding soundtrack by Shoji Meguro, Toshiko Tasaki, and Kenichi Tsuchiya. There is not a single song in it that isn't solid; even the ambience tracks used are perfect. An excellent OST for playing on the go, for sure.

Earlier games played more with the idea of a law vs. chaos setting, but this game leans much more into the chaos side, leaving it to the player to choose which of three doctrines will govern the world (called Reasons). You also have several options for rejecting them as well, making for six possible endings. Gameplay-wise, they don't affect too much save for changing which of the bosses you fight near the end. The exception being the True Demon Ending which requires you beat an extra dungeon that's available to you closer to the start of the game. For the most part, the game gives you positives and negatives for every outcome which makes the decisions feel nonjudgmental and respected. There's no definitive best ending, and only what you decide to make of them. The closest one to a bad ending being the one I accidentally got this time around, which is pretty funny, so I give it a pass. The cast of characters is also very small and major cutscenes are kept to a minimum, which gives things a little less intimacy, but they're always cool and visually remarkable. I find it interesting that the aforementioned remaster gives the cutscenes voice acting; not a downside most likely, but I do think this a rare example of a modern game that benefits from not having any there.

I do also find it interesting that this game gave this series its reputation for being tough as nails. The developers designed much of this game for accessibility and it shows since it's rarely tedious, however it does require you to play by its rules. Matador is the first boss that really makes that apparent. If you're focusing on having a higher level, you're probably still going to have a hard time because the more efficient way to play is by crafting a team that can take the most advantage of the press turn system in a given fight. Once you understand that, the game is rather doable. Of course, I often still died a lot. Partly because the sort of creative gimmick each boss has requires a different strategic approach, and partly because sometimes the game just feels like picking on you.

The original Japanese version of Nocturne didn't include any of the parts related to the True Demon Ending. Those were all added into the definitive version subtitled Maniax, which was the version that ended up being localized for the West. Out of all of the definitive versions of Atlus games I've played, this is the only one that doesn't make changes and additions that feel overly jarring and out of place. The exception to this being Dante/Raidou's inclusion. Though that "Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry" series badge on the European cover is legendary, so I'll take it.

Unsurprisingly, with how long the development of this game was, there's a ton of unused stuff. A handful of unused songs, dungeons that look trippier than the ones in the final release, and a UI that looks closer to the ones seen in the fifth-gen SMT games just to list a few. It looked like a completely different game, and I'm glad the developers have showcased early development on it, even if there's no prototype builds publicly accessible. I find this to be an excellent game as it fosters a unique style and never slacks on substantial gameplay. I think with the next playthrough I might finally go for the hard difficulty (not the Hardtype mod). It's just for a good challenge, but hopefully changes like not being able to run from battle and items costing thrice as much don't drive me nuts. After all, this game would never take advantage of my innate gullibility.

Progress: Dohráno 100%
SMT 3 je umělecké dílo, které musíte dohrát na 100% abyste si ji mohli naplno užít.
Gameplay je standartní tahové RPG na styl Dragon Quest, nebo Final Fantasy, ale také dělá svůj vlastní zvrat na bojové taktiky s tak zvaným "press-turn" systémem, kde můžete se super efektivními útoky přidat extra tah své partě, nebo s elementální imunitou odebrat od nepřátel jejich tahy, ale pozor, vše co jsem teď vysvětlil se také týká vašich nepřátel, takže si vybírejte svoje útoky opatrně.
Hra se zabývá filozofií stvoření a pravidel našeho světa, ale styl vyprávění nemusí být pro všechny, první problém může nastat že v této hře je minimum cutscén a příběh se dozvíte spíš od postav, které najdete posypané po mapě, nebo ve městech.
Díky bohu, že NPCčka mají skvělé, informační a zábavné konverzace.
Vřele doporučuji pro hráče, kteří hrají Pokémony (série SMT vyšla dříve, než Pokémon), chtějí větší výzvu a nebojí se experimentálních témat.

Nocturne is one of those beautiful games where every aspect of them feeds its own greater themes. The unforgiving gameplay, the alien and hostile setting, the constant drifting apart of the few friends you think you can rely on and the overall cynical hopelessness of the world all come together to form a beautiful narrative in which you're ultimately forced to blindly feel around for its meaning, rather than be given one. I always get a bit upset at the take that Nocturne's story is barebones just because unlike newer SMTs it doesn't take care to explain every event in excruciating detail like some of the newer games. It's a sleek, minimalist game that uses a lot more than words to tell itself, and I have a lot of respect for that.

It's my favorite game of all time. Period. The mood, atmosphere, music, press turn system in combat, mazes, bosses. Everything is great.

Altrough it's not perfect. There might be some bullshit moments here and there, a bit unfair at times. But you can also use for your advantage against the enemies, even bosses.

The Kalpa levels are nerve breaking mazes. That's what I want, a challenge. This game delivers big, I love it. And the TDE (for the ones that know what I'm talking about) that's perfect for our character. It's total Dark-Chaos.

In short, it's perfect for me.

Took me around 35h to complete so it's not a big RPG.