Nocturne is Shin Megami Tensei distilled and evolved. It strips the series' mythology down to its bare essentials, giving you a barren world and a distant echo of a story to hold onto as you try to figure out your demi-fiend's place in this game's interstitial world. This sort of arms-length approach to storytelling usually doesn't do all that much for me, see my opinions on Dark Souls for that, but here it felt really purposeful. Here is an event that turns all participants into potential kings, of course human nature would push the few humans apart so they can try and achieve that power.
As a sort of inverse to the simplicity of Nocturne's aesthetic and story, the gameplay has been deepened significantly from the previous installments. Magatama now acts as both a replacement for equipment and a sort of Final Fantasy V-esque job system. The press-turn system is introduced here and it turns the challenging-but-flawed battle system of games past into a locked-tight, competitive-feeling system that makes every boss encounter feel like a genuine triumph. I could sit here for days trying to explain just how amazing this system is, and how its steadfast set of rules perfectly make the game easy to understand and soul-crushing when you slip up. It's brilliant stuff.
I spent like 70 hours on this thing over like two and a half weeks and I'm feeling a sort of withdrawal from it days after. It's an utterly fascinating and exciting experience and I'm so excited to explore the rest of the series to see where it's gone from this crystallized gem of a game.
Note: I did play this for the first time on the HD remaster, and yes it has some pretty big flaws that your mileage will surely vary on. Personally, I didn't care that much about the frame drops or whatever but I did find the compressed music and DLC situation a huge bummer. The portability on switch and skill inheritances for demons pushed this version over the edge for me though, so that's why I'm here and not on the PS2 page. My score reflects my feeling on the game itself though and not the port. I do hope Atlus has learned something from this port and tries to do better on (hopefully) more ports in the future.
As a sort of inverse to the simplicity of Nocturne's aesthetic and story, the gameplay has been deepened significantly from the previous installments. Magatama now acts as both a replacement for equipment and a sort of Final Fantasy V-esque job system. The press-turn system is introduced here and it turns the challenging-but-flawed battle system of games past into a locked-tight, competitive-feeling system that makes every boss encounter feel like a genuine triumph. I could sit here for days trying to explain just how amazing this system is, and how its steadfast set of rules perfectly make the game easy to understand and soul-crushing when you slip up. It's brilliant stuff.
I spent like 70 hours on this thing over like two and a half weeks and I'm feeling a sort of withdrawal from it days after. It's an utterly fascinating and exciting experience and I'm so excited to explore the rest of the series to see where it's gone from this crystallized gem of a game.
Note: I did play this for the first time on the HD remaster, and yes it has some pretty big flaws that your mileage will surely vary on. Personally, I didn't care that much about the frame drops or whatever but I did find the compressed music and DLC situation a huge bummer. The portability on switch and skill inheritances for demons pushed this version over the edge for me though, so that's why I'm here and not on the PS2 page. My score reflects my feeling on the game itself though and not the port. I do hope Atlus has learned something from this port and tries to do better on (hopefully) more ports in the future.