The Top Shelf: The Second Round 042: Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne

Welcome to The Top Shelf, a weekly feature wherein I sort through my extensive PS2 collection for the diamonds in the rough. My goal here is to narrow down a library of 185 games to a svelte 44: the number of spaces on my bookshelf set aside for my PS2 collection. That means a whole lot of vetting and a whole lot of science that needs to be done - and here in the second round, that means narrowing our laser focus to one game per week (at least). Be sure to check out the Case File Repository for more details and a full list of games/links!

Extra Note: We've entered Shelftember! In this much-vaunted month, we will be processing one of the second round entries every day. I'll be spending one hour apiece with each game - inspired by DanielKempster's backlog-clearing series "An Hour With..." - and determining its fate from there.

Sigh. My relationship with Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne is challenging and complex. Specifically, the game is challenging, and I developed a complex about never being good enough to beat it. I've grown older and wiser since then (though mostly just the former) and have a couple of Persona games under my belt, so it doesn't quite represent the insurmountable obstacle it once did, but the game still exhibits a mean streak a mile wide that regularly smothers any burgeoning affection I have for the game's bizarre post-apocalyptic setting, its deep philosophical messaging, the sinister Kazuma Kaneko character design that it shares with Digital Devil Saga, and the great surreal soundtrack with its heavily distorted Satanic vocals.

Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, known over here in Europe by the censor-unfriendly name Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer's Call, is the third core Shin Megami Tensei and follows the blueprint of the previous two by invoking the apocalypse early on and having the player choose one of several "paths" - usually Law, Chaos, and a Neutral option - with which to reshape the subsequent rebirth of the world. In this case, the protagonist becomes the Demi-Fiend: an entity with the power of a demon and the free will of a human that is uniquely qualified to determine the fate of the inverted "Vortex World" once they gain the sufficient physical and spiritual strength to do so. The demons, for their part, are trying to destroy the Demi-Fiend and his threat to their dominion, or at least subtly influence his eventual decision. That goes for the protagonist's formerly human friends, who have all embodied the various above paths with their life philosophies and later become allies or enemies depending on the player's choices. It's a game that doesn't shy away from getting really metaphysical with its lore and ideas, and that's part of the reason it's enjoyed this niche fanbase that's allowed Atlus to persist with the series from the NES era to the present day: Shin Megami IV: Apocalypse, a slightly Nocturne-like sequel to the fourth game, released just last year. And, of course, the success of core Megami Tensei has allowed the central conceit of recruiting and fusing demons to find new life in any number of SMT spin-offs like the aforementioned Persona and Digital Devil Saga.

Unfortunately, an hour was only enough to get me past the tutorials, during which the game was still unloading exposition about the new post-apocalyptic world, the dubious characters running around, and the basics of recruiting new demons and fusing the ones you've found as well as standard SMT combat stuff like emphasizing the importance of powerful buff and debuff skills, seizing upon weaknesses to grant yourself additional attack turns, and making sure your own elemental bases are covered. The player character also fights alongside their demon recruits, and grows in power as the game continues. My ideal end point, which I managed to reach, was heading out onto the world map and seeing that neat inverted effect where it looks like you're running around on the inside of a sphere rather than the surface. Terranigma did the same thing, and I'm shocked more games haven't followed suit with how cool it looks. I guess it's kind of a surreal concept to build a game's geography around.

Anyway, Nocturne is absolutely my white whale of white whales as far as the PS2 era is concerned: a game that I enjoy in a very specific masochistic sense, one that ranks among the best written and smartly plotted of all the PS2 JRPGs, and one that really demands that you get on its level to appreciate. My respect for it hasn't wavered, but my resolve to seeing it through continues to crack. Rather than beating my head against it during what will already be a busy period of PS2 catch-ups, I might just see if Digital Devil Saga is more my speed instead.

Result: Eliminated (but only for the purposes of this feature; I will return to it one day in some shape or form).

< Back to the Case File Repository

That concludes the second round of eliminations! Be sure to check the repository and the reserves list for all the eliminations and final round entrants, and I'll see you again soon for the third round: The Battle Royales (I'm not ripping off Playerunknown's Battlegrounds, I swear).

Man.

I am one of those people that loves this game. It is a daunting game to play, I'll admit, but it really delivers on everything it promises. Story, atmosphere, difficulty, etc. The only caveat I can think of is that it really needs some of the quality of life features that newer SMT games have. I'm not talking about compromising the difficulty, I'm talking about UI design and giving you more useful information.

@justin258: yep. I have no doubt SMT switch will have those things. I'm excited.

Man, we really need an HD collection of some of these PS2 SMT games with those enhancements.

Nocturne is a game I wish I liked more than I actually do. It has cool ideas, and introduced the Press Turn System, which has been the basis for every MegaTen game since. But I didn't get my hands on a copy until I had already worked my way through basically all the other PS2 games, so its flaws stood out to me more than ever. For example, I found the difficulty pretty overrated. It's not an easy game, it's mostly just...unbalanced. There are some big difficulty spikes, like that early fight against Matador, but if you go into it knowing how MegaTen works you realize a lot of the mechanics are extremely abuseable. It's stupid how OP the buffs and debuffs are in that game. I can mostly understand why the game got the reputation it did, being that it was so many people's entry into the series and everything was foreign, but it doesn't have nearly the same bite once you know how it works. I don't think I have ever been so disappointed within the series as when I steamrolled the optional secret bosses with minimal preparation, after all that hype over the years.

I would still love to see a proper remake one of these days, that irons out its kinks. That game does have a lot of potential, it just doesn't all come together. Unfortunately that would mean no Dante of Devil May Cry though, since that license has long since expired. That was a great/dumb crossover for that game.

Never beat this one. That Trumpeter fellow is a real son of a bitch.

@justin258: I can totally get that. I've had enough people tell me they love the SMT games and this one in particular. It's kind of why I want to complete it some day, and then maybe move onto Strange Journey or IV afterwards.

@frostyryan: I am looking forward to playing the new and improved entries. My intent right now is to play Tokyo Mirage Sessions and Persona 5 at some point next year, though neither are really "core" SMT.

@zeik: Those random difficulty spikes and the unfamiliarity with SMT are pretty much the reasons I dropped the game the first time around. I'm not sure it'll be quite as alienating this time around after a few Persona games and knowing how SMT works. Still, fighting Matador again isn't something I'm looking forward to.

Nocturne is a fantastic game. Press Turn manages to keep most battles engaging and your party is entirely customizable via demon collection and fusion. Because of how much control you have over each of your party members and their abilities, the game gives the player the opportunity to abuse the battle mechanics as much as the AI does (Mot lol). Extra turns for hitting elemental weaknesses, losing turns for blocked attacks, passing on a turn to extend your party's rotation, etc. Along with other MegaTen entries, it's one of the few games I've played where buffs and debuffs feel of great importance; they can make or break battles. Because a party member missing an attack costs your entire team an extra turn, even the hit/evade stat is given prominence. I feel those basic elements are taken for granted in other RPGs while they're magnified here due to how easily situations can snowball.

It's a shame they didn't implement the "pick what skills transfer in fusion" system until Persona 4 Golden & SMT IV. Going back and forth in menus to reroll transferred abilities was a glaring oversight for the longest time. Also, multiplying the prices of everything in the game by three for hard mode is a drag; it hampers how much you can do with the demon compendium which, in turn, limits what you can do in fusion. It's best to avoid hard unless doing a NG+ run. I don't have many complaints about the game's mechanics beyond that, though.