Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne

I was playing Final Fantasy XII earlier today and I thought maybe I should play something else because there's only so much of the MMORPG-styled game I can take. So after some digging around in my games pile, I decided to play SMT Nocturne again.

Apparently I left it off after about 10 hours of gameplay, because I encountered a boss that was really hard to beat. After a bit of level-grinding and a few new demon fusions (awesome system btw, just like in the Persona series) I beat him on my first try.

The story is basically about a Japanese high school boy, who was visiting his teacher in the hospital, but due to some mysterious incidents, was turned into a half-demon. Now he has to fight his way to save the world. Or something like that. The whole thing so far is kind of vague, or it's possible that I simply forgot.

So, about the actual gameplay. For those who have never played it or the SMT Digital Devil Saga series, the whole game is basically 95% dungeon-crawling. Whatever time you are not spending in dungeons, you are on the world (not so vast though, more like overall area) map. There are only few rare places in the game without any random encounters, the rest of the places are crawling with monsters. And the encounter rate is really high.

The battle is turn-based, but winning usually requires strategy, and that's what makes this game so challenging and fun. Elemental weaknesses, critical hits, missing the target all contribute to how many actions you get per turn. Sometimes you find yourself making hit after hit, while other times you are unlucky enough to miss a few hits, in which case your turn is over before you know it.

Now for the overall presentation. Nocturne is rated M, and it shows through the monster designs and certain themes. Overall, the colors used in the game are rather bleak, and it really affects the player's mood after a while. Because you are all alone all the time save the demons that you recruit, it really feels lonely and desolate.

That's an image of a typical dungeon. As you can see, the atmosphere is rather desolate. The sound and the unique character design of SMT games all make the game creepy in its own way.

Nocturne has its difficult moments (rather frequently) but it's quite a fun game. Rather rare now, but very well liked among hardcore RPG gamers.