Title: Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne
Platform: PS2
Released: October 12, 2004 

The first time I heard of Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, it was not because someone was recommending it for its gameplay or graphics. No friend was telling me to get the game because it was so incredibly fun. People were telling me to get it because it was somewhat rare. Not SNES Championship Cart rare or anything but, at one point, this game was worth around $80 on eBay. I got my first copy of a friend of one of my college classmates for $30 and flipped it on eBay. I got my second copy off the Goozex service about a year ago and it stayed on my shelf for months before I finally got around to playing it. Now that I’ve finished it, the game has left me a little confused and somewhat thunderstruck. I want to make it clear that this is a good game but it is not for everyone. This is an RPG, but it is not like Final Fantasy. Don’t come in here expecting spiky-haired, zipper-festooned girly-men. Nocturne is haunting, lonely and brutally exhilarating. 

The game starts with the end of the world and goes on from there. You get about 10, maybe 15, minutes in a normal, pre-apocalyptic Tokyo before everything goes crazy and the world folds in on itself. You start the game as you and two friends are about to pay a visit to a hospital where your high school teacher is a patient. Once you get there, you find the whole hospital deserted with the exception of your two friends who arrived earlier. Soon after that the world gets destroyed and suddenly you’re on the inside of a giant sphere with a new moon in the center and the whole place is crawling with demons and the souls of departed humans. This whole apocalypse is called the “Conception” and was brought about with the help of a cult in the human world, of which your high school teacher was a member. Your character is then cast into the world to try and find his way as best as he can and maybe figure out what happened to the people he knew. But, before setting out into the wider world, he is turned into a half-demon, half-human hybrid, allowing him to recruit various other demons to fight alongside him. So, while you do play as a teenager, you’re not on a quest to save the world. In fact, for a good portion of the game your ultimate objective isn’t really clear and, when you do finally realize what’s going on, you’re not forced to be the good guy. You’re not the typical Square Enix anti-hero, all broody melodrama and teen angst with a heart of gold; you’re just a guy trying to make his way through a thoroughly unfamiliar world. 

It’s in portraying this sense of unfamiliarity and loneliness that Nocturne really excels. It’s quite possibly the best RPG I’ve ever played in terms of setting the mood. The graphics and art style are two of the main reasons why this whole game feels different. I can’t quite describe exactly how it was done, but every locale in the game looks and feels dark but without necessarily being creepy. Part of it is the fact that they didn’t just make everything dark. There is light to be found in the game, areas where the moon shining in the center of the new world gives off a close approximation of sunlight, but it doesn’t seem bright and cheery. There’s a bloom effect that makes it seem very dream-like. Then there is the art style. Most Japanese RPGs tend to have rather bright, dramatic art styles. Nocturne, and indeed the whole Shin Megami Tensei series, does not. The characters are drawn more realistically. Most of them are pale-skinned and lack the exaggerated body features of traditional JRPG characters. Even the way the main character is depicted when he turns into a demon/human hybrid is nicely understated. His whole body is covered in glowing tattoos and an odd spike can be seen rising from the top of his spine. 

Then there is the fact that even the NPCs that you meet in the game aren’t traditional. As I said before, your character has to recruit other demons into his party, so there are no other human characters for you to fight alongside. At one point early in the game, you come across a bar. Obviously, what with the whole world now occupied by demons, it’s a demon bar. It looks like a regular bar, with a bartender and bottles of miscellaneous liquor and everything-just with demons instead of people. It’s not like they’re hostile to you or anything, they’re just chilling, possibly after a long day at work. It’s moments like this, once again mixing normal, everyday situations with the new worlds disquieting setting, which really make you realize how alone you are in the world. There are a very few purely human (or even human-looking) survivors and every time that you meet them, you end up getting more attached to them.  

This sense of connection with other characters is often missing in most games, but it’s absolutely vital in Nocturne. Oftentimes, it’s the only thing driving you forward, because the plot is very sparse. In most other RPGs you always have your other party members to interact with, allowing the storyline to be pushed forward at fairly regular intervals. However, when the only other members of your party are demons, who speak rarely if at all, this method can’t be used. Nocturne gives you some plot exposition at Point A and then tells you to go to Point B where you will get some more of the plot. The only problem is that getting from A to B takes a really, really long time. You can easily go for a couple of hours without pushing forward the plot at all. Without a clearly defined goal, it’s hard to really care about what you’re doing, especially in the early game. You often end up feeling totally lost about why you’re going from one location to another. This is not to suggest that Nocturne does not have a good story; it does. It just takes a while to become clear. 

If the plot is somewhat lacking in focus and clarity, the same cannot be said for the battle system. Nocturne has a battle system that is, I think, one of the best in the RPG genre. Nocturne uses something called the “Press Turn” battle system. You start each battle with a certain number of turns, one turn per party member, and your entire party then attacks in sequence, with each member using one turn. The same then occurs for the enemy party. However, every demon in the game, including the player, is both weak against certain types of attacks and either strong or invulnerable against others. If you attack an enemy with a fire-based spell, and they happen to be weak against fire-based attacks, they will take increased damage and you will only use ½ of a turn. This effectively grants you an additional attack. Conversely, if you attack an enemy using an attack or spell type that they are resistant or invulnerable to, you will use up 2 turns instead of 1. Both of those rules also apply to the enemy, allowing them to either gain or lose turns based on their attacks. On top of this, you need to consider the type of ‘magatama’ that you’ve got equipped on the main character. Magatama are somewhat like job classes in other RPGs; a particular magatama may, for example, make you immune towards fire-based attacks, vulnerable towards ice-based ones, boosts a couple of your stats and grant you fire-based attacks depending on your level. Of course, you can’t just stockpile every skill you get; you have a maximum limit of 8 that you can use at any one time, so you can’t turn the main character into an all powerful fighter. All of these rules and restrictions force you to think more strategically about the way you approach every battle, even against regular enemies. You’ll be switching out magatamas and the demons that compose your party every time you enter a new area, trying to gain every advantage you can. You’ll have to pay special attention to your party composition too, as that is often the key to survival. 

You can’t just stick with one particular set of demons as your allies, seeing as different demons will be more or less effective against certain enemies. Demons in your party can also level up and gain additional skills which comes in handy when you fuse them with other demons. At certain shops within the game world, called the Cathedral of Shadows, you can take two demons from your party and fuse them to create a (potentially) stronger demon which will have certain skills taken from both its parents. You can even register demons, allowing you to summon them from any Cathedral for a fee. There are well over a hundred different demons that you can recruit or get through fusion, adding a lot of replay value. You can only take 3 into battle with you at any one time and you’re only able to carry 8, so even though you need to adjust your party every so often. Getting new demons becomes another driving force since you’ll want to push forward, just to see what new potential allies are up ahead. 

Nocturne is a game that revolves around its battle system and its great dungeon design. Every thing that I’ve talked about above feeds into some truly epic battle sequences that are nothing like what you’ll find in any other game. It’s very, very quick for a turn based game, even during its boss sequences. Exploiting enemy weaknesses and using stat-boosting or stat-lowering spells has a very noticeable effect and is absolutely necessary, especially if you want to avoid grinding. All of the complexity in the battle system is, for the most part, well balanced. You will occasionally run into problems though. Since the main character only has 8 skills and can only carry 8 demons around with you, it’s entirely possible to screw yourself by not having the skills necessary to advance. Magatama give out their skills only once; you either accept it then, knowing that if you don’t have any empty skill slots it’ll replace a skill you already have equipped, or lose it forever. You may not have the demons with the necessary resistances for the area you’re in which leads to enemies getting more turns in battle, causing massive amounts of damage. This is very much a game for the hardcore RPG player. It requires a good amount of planning and the sheer difficulty of certain enemies can be astounding. Playing on normal is challenging but rarely unfair. The hard difficulty level will is controller-throwing hard. If you’re new to RPGs or this particular series, for the love of God, don’t choose hard mode. You may end up losing your will to live. 

Even with everything I’ve said, I feel like I’ve just scratched the surface of what Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne offers. I haven’t talked about the excellent music or the way that the moon affects battles and demon fusions; make no mistake, there is a lot of depth to be found here. It’s not the best game for story, especially during the beginning, but it’s hard to think of another turn-based RPG with a deeper battle system. The best part is, the game is now dirt cheap. Atlus reprinted Nocturne and eBay is full of copies selling for under $15. For that kind of money, you’ll be getting many, many hours of entertainment.

-Nikhil