I didn't see a thread about this and I thought I'd make one, because I'm so excited that I need to tell everyone that doesn't already know!

Persona is (or started off as) a spinoff of the Shin Megami Tensei series of JRPGs. These games generally have a darker atmosphere, much higher difficulty, and a story that focuses much more on choosing between a few different representations of some sort of ideal than on high school hijinks. And they're also pretty much entirely about dungeon crawling, though for some reason the Persona games rarely have dungeons as engaging as SMT games. No social links here.

SMT Nocturne is in desperate need of a UI overhaul. You can play the game on a PS3 now and visually it's fine, but the menus and UI are all vastly superior in later games. There are so many quality of life things missing that I haven't replayed Nocturne in a long time and that's a damn shame because the actual gameplay pretty much consists of turn-based JRPG combat at its finest.

And we're also getting SMT V, a game which we seem to have no details about except that it looks a lot like Nocturne and not much like SMT IV or Apocalypse. Speaking of, I'd love to see a Switch remaster of those two games as well.

Anyway, here's some trailers! Also that Nocturne opening theme is really fucking good. And I kinda hope there's no voice acting in the remake, as in the original

Also, for good measure, here's Nocturne's original opening, complete with Dante cameo. I don't think we'll be getting him this time because that Raidou Kuzunoha guy is in the trailer. That kinda sucks, but whatever.

The possibility of a new UI is definitely the thing I'm most anticipating with the Nocturne remaster. It's not my favorite game in the franchise, but I like it well enough, however the UI is pretty garbage. It would be great if they could fix a few other issues with the game, but if they at least fix the UI I'll play it again. There's voice acting in the trailer btw, so we're 100% getting that, but I'm sure you'll be able to turn it off.

Also Raidou is cooler than Dante anyway.

I feel like the biggest outlier of SMT fandom but I fuckin' hate Nocturne so much, it's so terrible.

But I'm glad seemingly everyone else is getting an update to a game they like.

@efesell: What do you hate about Nocturne? I've heard mention of some SMT fans who like other games more, but I don't think I've heard of any SMT fans that outright dislike Nocturne.

In any case, I hope SMTV is more to your liking!

I know which games Raidou is a part of but I don't know anything about his character. He does fit in the franchise more and wrangling with seventeen year old rights to make sure a crossover character can appear sounds like a lot of headache when you've already got a perfectly good character in a different version... but that "wait, what the fuck is Dante doing here?" feeling is still pretty cool. At least, if you weren't in the know already.

@justin258: I think it's very boring. I know that a lot of people dig the atmosphere and all that but to me it's just an entire game of nothing and nobody to care about, which is an instant failure of any RPG to me.

It also has this reputation for it's difficulty and like.. I think it's mostly because the bosses are really badly designed. I mean you'll die a whole lot but it's because you didn't know in advance what their Pull 5 Turns Out of My Ass strategy was and which demons you need to counter it.

It just ain't my scene. Solid music though.

I mean, we've known about SMTV for years, but its nice to see signs of life.

Of course, as we all know the best SMT game was released for Switch earlier this year: Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE.

Raidou is cooler than Dante, but Dante was a weird, kind of fun crossover. I am pretty excited about both of these announcements, but I'm way behind on my SMT games anyway. I'm also not super excited about having to check strategy guides for bosses while on my Switch.

Man those Raidou games are great, remaster those. I feel like they didn't get the attention they deserved coming out so so late in the PS2 cycle.

If these were the last two games I got to play in life I'd be happy. SMT has been my favorite series since I first played Persona 3, and Nocturne in particular has always stood out to me for its dark themes and eerie atmosphere.

I love Persona but the series lost a lot of its edge with 4 and 5, so I'm excited as hell for V.

Saw the Matador in that trailer for Nocturne and got some nasty flashbacks to the later Candelabra boss fights in that game. No plans on replaying it myself, but it does remind me to go back and beat SMT 4: Apocalypse. Cool to see SMTV still truckin' along; hope it's good.

Now, if we could only get a re-release of both halves of Persona 2. On the PSX they only put out EP (2/2), and on the PSP they only put out IS (1/2).

They made enough money with P5 that I would hope to see a remake/remaster of all the PS1/2 era games. Give me a remastered and complete DDS!

I tried playing nocturne... didn't that not have any sort of compendium? Like, you couldn't fucking ever resummon the monsters you created? I wanted to dig into it but it hated me.

Hopefully they modernize some of that stuff, I'd really like to actually play it this time.

@north6: It definitely had one, although it wasn't as user friendly as more modern variations.

@zeik: Ah ok. I didn't have any problem with P3/Fes, or anything after it, but I remember just really disliking everything about the metagame in nocturne. I figured it was a stylistic choice that separated persona from smt proper, and didn't bother with any of the other SMT games.

SMT is definitely stylistically different than Persona, or most JRPGs, but Nocturne is kind of its own beast on top of that.

I'm so psyched for a version of Nocturne where you can choose your fusions inherited-abilities instead of having to spam-reload to get what you want. Man I love that game.

So dumb. I mean, it's fine if they want like 60k sales, but just imagine if it was P5....

@sombre: I’m not sure you are factoring in the concept of “installed user base” and how it affects sales. There is a reason why Persona always lagged behind the most recent generation of hardware. I

If it was a "dumb move", Shin Megami Tensei IV wouldn't have sold enough units to make an expansion pack sequel. I doubt Atlus expects SMTV or the Nocturne HD version to make as much money as P5 did, but Atlus also has a knack for making niche JRPGs way more profitable than they should be. Etrian Odyssey should, by all conventional thinking, not made any money at all, but that series has six main entries, two remakes, and two spinoff games. It's the same story with Shin Megami Tensei games (which seem to be a fair bit more popular in Japan).

The SMT games have never been knockout million-sellers and probably never will be, but they do well enough for notoriously difficult post-apocalyptic JRPGs.

It did!

It's been a while since I played it, but I remember Nocturne's UI just missing some details that it really should have had, and some things were just hard to find anyway. This is the one thing I'm most excited about - P4 Golden, SMT IV, and SMT IV A improved a lot of things about fusing demons and sorting through inventories and so on and so forth that it's hard to go back after playing those games. When I first played Nocturne, I kept a laptop with a Wiki open next to me so I could see what skills actually did because I remember the UI only telling me in one specific, inconvenient place. And it still managed to be a game I was extremely fond of.

If they don't revamp the UI, I'd still recommend trying SMT IV and SMT IV Apocalypse, as those games have a different sort of flavor and a more conventional sort of apocalyptic city to travel through.

I have dabbled in some SMT games but never played Nocturne so I am vaguely interested. Personally I have never had them click for me like the Persona games do, I think I just like the characters and story of Persona better, though I appreciate the dark philosophic aspect of mainline SMT.

@arcitee: See now to you I would recommend instead.. Digital Devil Saga.

@efesell: I have never played one but would definitely give it a shot.

It's so funny that this news comes out right as I start playing SMT IV (first mainline SMT game!) on a whim. I'm liking it well enough so far so I wouldn't be opposed to trying one of these.

I know everyone raves about Nocturne but I might go SMT V myself just to keep those QoL features they put into the later games like choosing which skills go into your fusions and being able to save anywhere (a feature I am gleefully abusing in IV). Plus it's just shiny and new compared to Nocturne.

I'll take any excuse to play Nocturne again. For smt5 I am cautiously optimistic. 4 and 4A were fine games, and did add a few great QoL features, but little about the characters and presentation gave me the feeling that I was in a lonely, terrifying world that wanted me to die.

I think the strength of Nocturne was its focus. The characters it does have existed to personify the philosophies tied to their respective endings. There wasn't a support cast of dweebs helping you complete sidequests or whatever. Which again, I also enjoy, but that can be found in any jrpg.

I just wanna be worried that Thor is gonna cave in the skull of one of the three humans I know.