Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (2003)

Let me start off by saying this, I love the SMT series. The Shin Megami Tensei games are some of my favorites of all time, and I have played a lot of them. I've played the Digital Devil Saga games, Devil Survivor Overclocked, SMT IV, Soul Hackers, I've beaten Persona 3 and 4 and now I have finally beaten SMT 3 Nocturne. But I've gotta say Nocturne may be my least favorite out of all of them, except for maybe Soul Hackers.

Let's start with what I like about Nocturne, first off it's premise. In most RPGs you're on a quest to save the world from destruction, in Nocturne you're on a quest to create a new world after the old one died. The world gets destroyed in an act called the "conception" within the first 15 minutes, and the rest of the game takes place in the Vortex World, a sort of Limbo where demons are everywhere. Because of it's different setting and premise, Nocturne feels really fresh and new compared to most other RPGs, even some from it's own series.

Now possibly my favorite thing about Nocturne is the visuals, not its graphical fidelity but the way everything looks so unique. Nocturne is one of those games where you see a screenshot no matter where it is and go, "Oh, yeah that's Nocturne." No other game looks like Nocturne does, and some of it's dungeons really take advantage of it's art style like the Amala Network dungeon. When I go through that dungeon I stop sometimes just to see how amazing the place looks.

The game play is as solid as every in Nocturne as well. It uses the press turn system that most of the other SMT games use. Each turn you are given an amount of actions equal to the number of party members you have which is capped at 4, but if you exploit an enemy's weakness (like using a fire spell on an ice demon) you are given an extra action. By continually exploiting weaknesses you can potentially double the amount of actions you have a turn. Now this can happen to you as well so you have to be careful when making your party which is comprised of demons. The SMT games are sometimes called mature Pokemon games which is a fair comparison. You collect demons and add them to your party, but instead of capturing them you have to talk to and convince them to join your party willingly. You can also get new demons by fusing them together, while it removes the two demons you fused you can get a new demon that has skills it may not normally have. With enough effort you can make a perfect demon with all strengths and no weaknesses.

The last thing I really like in Nocturne that I wanted to talk about was its music. The SMT games have always had good music and Nocturne is no exception, hell my ringtone is the battle theme. What I will say is Nocturne doesn't have a lot of what I'd call "listenable songs" what I mean by that is there aren't a lot of songs that I would listen to on my way to work or something in my free time. The songs are really more meant to just set a mood or tone and they do that well. There are long stretches of time though where no music plays and I wish that there was something to listen to but it's not that big of a deal.

Now, sadly it's on to the stuff I'm not a fan of in Nocturne. Let's start with a simple one, the rate of random encounters. Now, I am aware that Nocturne is meant to be hard, but when I can have a battle, take 2 steps and have another battle, then take 3 more steps and have another it just becomes draining. When I got to the end of the game I was just escaping as many battles as I could cause there were so many of them and it was starting to irritate me. And don't tell me, "Just use a Repulse Bell" because I used those things and they didn't work. I still had battles right after I just had one so I just gave up on the things, don't waste you're money on them.

Speaking of money, at the end of the game I had over 200K Macca and nothing to spend it on. Since Nocturne doesn't have any type of equipment other than Magatamas most of my money went unspent until I used it to by 99 medicines and 99 Chakra drops so i didn't have to worry about running out of mp during the final boss.

And the final boss, well he wasn't that hard really. SPOILER WARNING FOR THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH! My final boss was Kagutsuchi, and while he did kill me once, when I changed just one demon in my party he was no threat whatsoever. And he also kinda felt anti-climactic; I kept wondering who the final boss would be, and I thought that Hikawa made the most sense but he's the first boss you kill in the tower. Once I killed Isamu I thought Chiaki would be the final boss, but after I beat her I was very confused. The only one left that made sense was Kagutsuchi, but why would I have to fight him? He said that if I got the stones and met him he'd let me make the world as I wanted it. Then when I got up there he couldn't believe it and tried to kill me, I'm sorry what? Maybe I missed something but it didn't make since to have him as the last boss, and his fight wasn't that hard or much of a spectacle.

But the thing that disappoints me the most about Nocturne is the characters. There are five important characters not counting you, Isamu and Chiaki your two friends, Yuko your teacher, Hijiri a reporter on the occult, and Hikawa the man who started the conception. They never get a lot of time on screen, you never really feel connected to them or care about them. Hijiri is the character you see the most but you still don't learn a lot about him, he has a personality yeah but that's all you know about him. And sorry but again, SPOILER WARNING FOR THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH! Throughout the game you find your friends alive, they seem normal, shaken but normal, and they decide to try and find Yuko and each other. Wouldn't it make more sense to stay with the half demon who can cast spells? Well anyways, eventually you find them again but now they've gone a bit crazy having found a Reason and wanting to create the world as the see fit. We've been given so little time to know these characters that this doesn't make us feel anything. We should feel something, regret, remorse, betrayal, but no feelings emerge because we barely know these people. It's bad when we know them longer when they're trying to make the world than we did when they were our friends.

Overall I still love this game. While I have a major problem with the amount of random battles, and especially the character development I can still go back and play this game again without a second thought. It's still a damn good game at it's core with a good challenge. If you love the SMT series like I do I'm sure you'll enjoy this game, but I wouldn't put it at the top. But remember, the worst of the best is still better than most.