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.
+ 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.