Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (2004)

I’ve been a Persona series fan for a while and I wanted to finally see for myself, what its predecessor looks like. At first SMT3 gave me a vibe similar vibe to the Persona games as I was expecting a game that would balance story and gameplay and the beginning of the game is the moment when the game focuses on introducing the player to the world. I was very surprised when storytelling became very sparse as soon as i left the hospital where the story begins.

Throughout the rest of the game, players are only told as much as it takes to know where to go next (and sometimes not even than that). When I got to the point where the game starts hinting directions we can take its world towards, I lost all interest in the story and wished there was an option for skipping whole cutscenes.

Despite my inability to resonate with the story, the game was interesting enough to keep me going. The dungeons were complex, fun and each one of them had its own character, so I didn’t get tired of them, even though it’s the only thing the game has to offer. Some of them are a pain, if approached without a walkthrough, as the game’s favourite way to punish players is to force to get through locations visited earlier, which in turn triggers more random encounters.

Though random encounters may be annoying when backtracking, they are the main thing SMT3 has to offer. The battle system is easy to understand and complex at the same time. It rewards with more turns for hitting enemy’s weaknesses and cancels turns if attach is reflected or absorbed. This in turn encourages building the party and the protagonist in the way providing most advantages. Simple, yet brilliant!

Besides fighting, there’s also demon recruiting and fusing, which are a crucial tools for building a party and a system for builing the protagonist, which is similar to the way demons level, but offers dofferent paths, depending on obtained magatamas.

Even though I didn’t like the world, and at the end I couldn’t carr less about the story, I had amazing time while playing SMT3. The HD version could use some more quality of life improvements but nevertheless its a hell of a good RPG.

I have just finished Nocturne and now I'm looking at the TV, thinking... why the fuck did I love this game?

It's like the game was developed to make you suffer and feel miserable... yet... I just loved it!

But still, the question lingers. Why did I love SMT3? There are so many bad things in its design! It's just filled with little to major flaws that prevents me from loving it even more.

For starters, the environments may seem pretty at first, but the repetition will get to you and it will feel dull. It's as if they made it on purpose. Claustrophobia is a thing in the Vortex World. Negotiating with demons is a pain the ass and the game doesn't even explain it to you. In fact, Nocturne wastes no time in explaining anything. The only reason I got through the game's mechanics without looking for a guide is because this is not my first SMT game.

And what about the dungeon maps? They're terrible! Again, was it bad design or is the humdrum on purpose? Why not include a mini-map? Why is the encounter rate so goddamn high? Did the Labyrinth of Amala need to be THAT gigantic and confusing? Was it a necessity to make the final dungeon in the game so frustating and clueless? The puzzles are good, but did EVERY dungeon need one?

And don't even get me started on the difficulty! Look, I get it, it's part of the experience and it's in the series' DNA. But SMT3's difficulty is just absurd. Even normal enemies are ruthless! Was it part of its design to make it extremely unbalanced and inaccessible? I see no necessity for it. And yes, there's that newly added Merciful difficult, but that just turns it into a joke. It makes Pokémon Let's Go Evee look difficult!

But even after pointing out a few of SMT3's many flaws, why do I still love it so much? Why did I have so much fun with it?

Maybe it was the character's design. Every single character, from demon to manikin, they're just VERY well done. Or maybe it's the press turn battle system that just refuses to be boring. Was it Nocturne's thought-provoking intricate writing and social/religious themes that kept me hooked? The minimalistic nature of the game's story and gameplay just hides away a mountain of depth, right?

It was probably the addictive mechanic of collecting and fusing demons. Maybe the oppressive and lonely atmosphere just talked to me, you know? I mean, the story is immersive and every single ending seems solid enough. Or was it the boss fights that kept me pumped? And I didn't even mention how PERFECT the soundtrack is. I could spend days listening to SMT3's ost and I wouldn't get tired of it.

In the end, I do not know why this game is so lovely. It is unnecessarily painful, but I just keep coming back to it.

I wouldn't recommend it, though. Unless you really wanna do it...

I usually avoid leaving negative reviews because games are hard to make, tastes are subjective and I don't find it particularly fun to rain on the enjoyment of others. But I thought I'd share the review I wish I'd read before diving into this extremely well-regarded game.

I'm a big fan of Personas 3, 4 and especially 5, which made me curious about the core Shin Megami Tensei series those games spun off of. Multiple reviews suggested that the recent re-release of Nocturne might be a good jumping-on point: It's one of the highest-rated entries, it's available on multiple platforms, and it's reasonably priced (in comparison to the rest of the series).

But after making it about a third through the game, it's time to move on to something else. Basically none of the eclectic gameplay loop, bombastic characters, approachable combat, Pokémon-esque collectability or stunning art direction I'd expect of a Persona title are present in any recognizable form here. And what is here just doesn't appeal to me enough to keep going.

Nocturne's plot is as vague as it is bleak, its characters as indistinct as they are irredeemable. Its environments consist of boring mazes of mostly grays, beiges and browns with frequent dead-ends, indistinguishable square rooms and copy-pasted NPCs with almost nothing to say. Its combat and mechanics are deep but cruelly designed… unless you download the free "merciful" DLC, which makes it all incredibly dull instead. Even the process of recruiting demons is completely opaque and frequently random.

I'm sure The Vortex World has its charms for Nocturne's many fans. But life's too short and my backlog's too large to spend any more of my free time there.

Still the gold standard for a JRPG many years on.

It's often punishingly cruel (looking at you, Matador and Hell Biker), but the cruelty always comes with a point — Matador is a tough lesson about (de)buffing and Focus, both of which are necessary skills for the entire rest of the game — and nothing's quite as satisfying as a tough Nocturne fight. There aren't a lot of other JRPGs — to this day, even — that require much in the way of thought to random encounters, but Nocturne makes tactics a necessity for nearly all of the game — it does drop off in difficulty late-game but that's true of most every SMT.

The game's characters are still fantastic as well — pretty much everyone save some of the Manikins is enjoyably mercurial at best and deeply cruel at the worst — very much appropriate for one of the best-designed apocalypses from any media. Yuko's failures of ambition, Chiaki's descent into abject cruelty, and Futomimi's arc — all of it is incredible stuff and striking to this day.

Aside from all that it's clear proof that a good sense of aesthetics can prevent a game from feeling dated — the game is stunning to look at despite being over 15 years old. Kazuma Kaneko's work on demon design is fantastic, and the environmental design is stellar across the board — even the caves (a traditional RPG design stumbling point) are well-designed — no small feat.

And hey, Dante's there.