Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne

[Silvergun X]

Unfortunately you'll have to wait a little bit more time then.

We don't allow trading posts like that outside of the forums, really. It might be worth checking ebay if you're after a copy, or waiting until your account's been allowed access to the trading forums.

[Sane]

Just a heads up for anyone looking for this, Play Asia have reprints of both Nocturne and DDS in stock.

[fuse]

I've been reading up on this after seeing someone else rant and rave about it on another forum, and I must admit I quite like the sound of it; not so much for the battle system and all, but rather the suggestions of the plot and mood being rather dark, moody, and generally more 'adult' than your standard RPG affair; what can I say, I'm a sucker for it. To those of you playing; any comments on what the plot and such is like? Although at the end of the day I'm not going to play it through if the fights are frustrating and dull, but I'm far more interested with how the story is going to be told.

Hello me from 2004, right there on the first page of this thread! You did end up picking this up later on, but then you didn't play it. What a dope. You did however play, and fall massively in love with, Shin Megami Tensei IV - prompting this one to go up even higher in your estimation. In 2021 though Nocturne gets a re-release though, and finally you've started to actually play it.

I'm about 2 hours in, and I'm already very happy with it. The dialogue is all very to-the-point and snappy, and it's already wonderfully odd and with some really great looking scenes. Naturally it's been cleaned up a little, but is still very clearly a PS2 game though. Interestingly the FMV doesn't seem to have had much done to it, and given some of these include in-game graphics, you get a nice direct comparison of what it would've originally looked like vs what you're getting now.

I saw some complaints online about the easy difficulty mode being sold as DLC, but it does at least seem to be free. Yes it should just be there in the first place, but I'd worried that they were charging for it or locking it behind certain versions of the game or something.

Probably not one for everyone, but a good opportunity for me to finally play this ahead of SMTV later this year.

[fuse]

About 15 hours deep in this now, and now starting to hit my stride with it.

As usual, some of the takes on real-world Tokyo locations are nice, but getting away from these it is very much a dungeon crawler - lots of map-checking, indistinguishable corridors, and back-tracking. Feel like some of the audio could've done with a lot more tidying up too, and the balance of some sound effects is way out of whack - I feel like I need to drop the volume every time I fight someone that might cast Berserk! I've not read up on any qualified opinions of how the remaster is, but with no frame of reference I'd say it's pretty low effort.

More general thoughts on the game though: plot is very sparingly distributed, and am still waiting on the big hooks to get stuck in, but some of the cut scenes are already very nice, with some wonderfully composed visuals. It does unsettling atmosphere very well. If you're familiar with the 'press turn' system this likely doesn't need explaining, but battles are massively swung in the favour of whoever can exploit weaknesses - there's no concept of weapons or armour, with your main character's only variables being where you allocate stat points and what magatama you're currently running with. When you hit walls, it's very likely a case of needing to go back, enlisting or fusing new demons that have are strong against what you're losing to, and then going back and having the entire script flipped on its head. Unless you're reading a guide and going in to each new boss with a suitable build, some of these will be painful on first attempt.

I'm still enjoying this and am planning to stick it through, but somewhat inevitably, I'm finding myself comparing this to SMT IV, which I am even more convinced now may well be one of the best JRPGs ever made.

[wakka]

Interesting, thanks for the impressions. Still haven't ever played a Megaten (outside of the Personas, which I adore), and I'm holding off on this to play 5 at the end of the year instead.

[chopemon]

I bounced off this one just under halfway through recently. I played it on easy since I'm working a lot at the moment and don't have it in me to deal with losing a load of progress. The easy difficulty trvialises everything. No need to use items, very low encounter rate and no need to use combat skills. Since the combat is almost nothing on that difficulty, the right angled identical corridors and puzzle maze dungeons really didn't do it for me. Stunningly well realised aesthetic and world though, one of the coolest games I've ever played. I wish I'd played it when I was in a better situation to give it the attention it deserved as it seemed excellent, just not for me.

[fuse]

I think (read: hope) I'm about halfway in now and it's definitely becoming a bit of a slog. The dungeon design feels particularly antagonistic in its repetition, use of dead ends, sheer scale, and the encounter rate being so exhaustingly sky-high. I lost a good chunk of progress last night after a cookie cutter enemy in a random encounter got a lucky cast of Mudo to land on my full-health main character. Even with a very determined mindset to see this through, it's proving tough.

[wakka]

Gonna go ahead and say that with my current mindset for gaming, both you dudes bouncing off it shows I made the right call in not picking this up (I did toy with the idea). I'm struggling to get myself through Ratchet and bloody Clank, let alone something pretty gruelling like this.