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A Japanese high school student pays a visit to a hospital to see his sick teacher, only to find the place deserted. The student does ultimately find his teacher, only to witness a disaster called the Conception that destroys the world and transforms him into a demon. Afterward, the man travels across the new Vortex World, seeking answers as well as many demons that help him along his journey. Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne was the third main installment of Atlus's Shin Megami Tensei franchise, seeing its North American release near the end of 2004 and marking a critical evolution in the series, featuring changes from its predecessors that would influence future Megami Tensei games. Nocturne itself proves to be a decent title in its own right, even if fairly daunting at times.
Battles in Nocturne are randomly-encountered, with an encounter indicator gradually turning red to signify how close the player is to encountering enemies. In battle, the player and the enemy have separate turn sessions, with a number of icons indicating how many turns the player has, one for each combatant, with a maximum of four. Each character has a set of skills, including normally attacking, that, when used, usually consume one turn icon. Only the hero, furthermore, can use items, adding a bit of strategy to battle at times, with the protagonist and all his companions able to "pass" their turns, consuming half a turn icon.
One key thing to consider when using various attacks throughout the game is the strengths and weaknesses of enemies. If a character lands a critical attack or exploits a monster's weakness, only half a turn icon will be consumed, although if an attack misses or the enemy nullifies its damage, two turn icons will be consumed. If an enemy absorbs a skill's damage or reflects it, all turn icons will be consumed. These rules apply to both the player's party and the enemy party, so the player's own strengths and weaknesses must be considered.
Weird pattern
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Parasites known as Magatama play a significant part in the protagonist's ability development throughout the game, gained through various means such as story events, defeating bosses, or even buying them from shops. Ingesting a Magatama increases each of the hero's stats by a certain amount, and provides resistances to certain kinds of enemy attacks, although in most instances, weaknesses to other kinds, as well. Magatama also occasionally grant the protagonist a new skill upon leveling, with the hero only able to carry up to eight skills at a time; part of the game's challenge is that when the hero's skill set is full, the player must make critical decisions on which skills to drop and keep throughout the game, with some literally spelling the difference between victory and defeat.
Demon recruitment too plays a significant part in combat throughout the game, with the hero able to negotiate with demons he encounters, bribing them with money and items and answering various philosophical questions to get them to join his party. Negotiation sometimes fails, though, and the protagonist can't recruit demons whose levels are higher than his. Demons themselves have their own unique skill sets that increase as they level (though they like the hero can only carry eight skills at a time), as well as strengths and weaknesses to various types of skills. Sometimes, demons can evolve into more powerful incarnations upon leveling, with the protagonist also able to fuse them into different demons at Cathedrals of Shadows.
Random encounters tend to end fairly quickly, given the general quick execution of player and enemy attacks, although there are certain aspects that may alienate players, such as the high difficulty of many bosses (even on Normal difficulty), which tend not to have any weaknesses, although Magatama with specific strengths against their attacks can help somewhat, as can stat increasing and decreasing skills. Things can also get hairy if one of the hero's monsters dies, since it disappears from the party upon doing so, and reviving it doesn't bring it back into combat, requiring the protagonist to re-summon it, as well (although he can keep a stash of other demons, as well). That the hero's death means Game Over can spell some problems, as well, since there are two kinds of instant death spells enemies can use at will. Still, combat provides for decent strategy throughout the game, and is one of its high points.
Ghost Rider
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Interaction has its strong points, such as a clean menu system and useful automaps in dungeons, although there are some irritations such as the randomized nature of skill inheritance when fusing demons at Cathedrals of Shadows, forcing players to reselect demons constantly if they want fused demons to inherit specific skills. The spacing of save points can also be an issue since the game just dumps players back to the title screen whey they die, alongside the lack of direction on how to advance at times and the absence of maps on the overworld. All in all, interaction is by no means bad, although there are certain flaws the developers could've easily resolved.
The idea behind the battle system, where the player and enemy are rewarded for exploiting each other's weaknesses and punished for using skills that are ineffective against one another, is what sets Nocturne apart from its other RPGs and its predecessors, a concept that would influence its successors, mainly the Digital Devil Saga dilogy. The game does borrow some elements from its predecessors such as a post-apocalyptic world and some philosophical choices throughout the game, but is distinctive in its own right.
Nocturne's plot has many things going for it, such as different philosophical choices throughout the game, although the general brevity of the story, what with the scarcity of developing story scenes and weak pacing at many points, is one of its main weaknesses. There are many different endings, albeit disappointingly short, even the "special" ending gained by completely finishing the game's main extra dungeon, the Labyrinth of Amala (although progressing through this dungeon reveals backstory on the Vortex World). Overall, the story has fairly strong potential, although it seems wasted at many points, and is average at best.
Open wide
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So, too, could the music, composed by Shoji Meguro, have been better, as well. There are some good tracks, such as those in battle, on the overworld, and during cutscenes, although most of the dungeon music is forgettable and overly-ambient. The sound effects and occasional monster voice clips in battle are adequate, though most normal attacks use the same smacking sound. All in all, Nocturne's aural presentation could have certainly been better.
The visuals, however, are superb, using a gothic cel-shaded style that really exemplifies the excellent character and monster designs, with some interesting architecture throughout the Vortex World, as well. There are some flaws, such as the blurriness of the graphics at points and the asinine dodge animation of characters and enemies in battle, but otherwise, the visuals help the game far more than hurt.
Finally, Nocturne is a fairly lengthy game, taking somewhere from forty to sixty hours to complete depending upon how long the player takes with the extras, chiefly the Labyrinth of Amala and a few additional areas. Overall, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, while not without its flaws, was a solid evolution of the series, establishing many game mechanisms that would play part in the franchise's future installments and being an enjoyable title in its own right, what with a strategic and often challenging battle system and solid visual presentation. There are certainly many things in the game that could've been better, such as the story and music, although these shortcomings don't detract too heavily from an otherwise solid experience.
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