Excellent fucking game. Probably my favorite PS2 RPG this side of FFX.
I always did like the Persona games, so I picked this one up on a lark. Well worth it. It's a nice, old-school RPG, filled with legitimately challenging battles (even random battles can turn ugly if you're careless or unprepared), long dungeons, just enough story to get by, and a general sense of ambiance.
I've always liked mythology, so seeing demons and gods from just about every major (and even quite a few minor) religions is a real treat. Moreover, the fact that your party ranks are filled out by these demons/gods is a definate uptweak from the Persona games. In those, your Persona was basically just "choose an ability set", but there was no real involvement with them. Here, actually seeing the demons in action, with distinct animations/graphics/sounds adds a lot to the game. The fact that there is almost completely negligible palette swapping means there's a ridiculous amount of variety (something like 180-odd demons you can actually have in the party, not counting non recruitable bosses), which helps a ton. It's also nice in that a significant number of bosses can be fused or added into your party, or even pop up later game as regular critters, so there's a constant sense of escalating power both in terms of your combat capability and that of random enemies.
The skill learning system works well. It's not perfect, especially as there are quite a few abilities that are hard to get a sense of from the description, so a FAQ or two might be handy there. Levelling up is nice and fast for the hero, though, unlike the Persona games. Demons take longer to level, but the exp curve is set just right so that by the time you've capped out the demons in your party that you want to, they're primed to be fused into a more powerful demon. My other major complaint is that in demon fusion, the abilities are selected randomly, though they're weighted - negotiation abilities take an annoyingly high precedence, and transferring a skill to negate a weakness that a new demon would have (like giving Surt the Ice Drain ability) can be like pulling teeth. Simply letting the player select which abilities to pass would have been extremely nice, though I think I inflicted a lot of annoyance in demon fusion on myself by trying to powergame a bit too much.
The plot is mostly minimalistic. There's little cutscenes here and there, which set the tone and allow you to align yourself with one of the game's factions (there's five standard endings), but they don't drag on - no Xenosaga length scenes here. It's definately a "game RPG" over a "movie/story RPG". That being said, the version of the game the US received has a completely optional extra dungeon - looking over a FAQ, not only does it contain enough plot info to completely change the tone of the game, it provides a hell of a challenge, gives opportunities for unique demons to create, and has what looks to be a very interesting, unique conclusion - certainly something that we'd never have gotten on these shores in the old days. I only explored a bit of the dungeon, but I do plan on replaying eventually and working my way all the way through.
If you like your RPGs 1) With lots of difficult combat and deep dungeons, and 2) Like collecting lots of party members/monsters/etc, or 3) are a mythology buff, then you'd probably get a real kick out of SMT: Nocturne. I'm real glad I played it, and it's probably worth looking into if you like old-school RPGs.
I always did like the Persona games, so I picked this one up on a lark. Well worth it. It's a nice, old-school RPG, filled with legitimately challenging battles (even random battles can turn ugly if you're careless or unprepared), long dungeons, just enough story to get by, and a general sense of ambiance.
I've always liked mythology, so seeing demons and gods from just about every major (and even quite a few minor) religions is a real treat. Moreover, the fact that your party ranks are filled out by these demons/gods is a definate uptweak from the Persona games. In those, your Persona was basically just "choose an ability set", but there was no real involvement with them. Here, actually seeing the demons in action, with distinct animations/graphics/sounds adds a lot to the game. The fact that there is almost completely negligible palette swapping means there's a ridiculous amount of variety (something like 180-odd demons you can actually have in the party, not counting non recruitable bosses), which helps a ton. It's also nice in that a significant number of bosses can be fused or added into your party, or even pop up later game as regular critters, so there's a constant sense of escalating power both in terms of your combat capability and that of random enemies.
The skill learning system works well. It's not perfect, especially as there are quite a few abilities that are hard to get a sense of from the description, so a FAQ or two might be handy there. Levelling up is nice and fast for the hero, though, unlike the Persona games. Demons take longer to level, but the exp curve is set just right so that by the time you've capped out the demons in your party that you want to, they're primed to be fused into a more powerful demon. My other major complaint is that in demon fusion, the abilities are selected randomly, though they're weighted - negotiation abilities take an annoyingly high precedence, and transferring a skill to negate a weakness that a new demon would have (like giving Surt the Ice Drain ability) can be like pulling teeth. Simply letting the player select which abilities to pass would have been extremely nice, though I think I inflicted a lot of annoyance in demon fusion on myself by trying to powergame a bit too much.
The plot is mostly minimalistic. There's little cutscenes here and there, which set the tone and allow you to align yourself with one of the game's factions (there's five standard endings), but they don't drag on - no Xenosaga length scenes here. It's definately a "game RPG" over a "movie/story RPG". That being said, the version of the game the US received has a completely optional extra dungeon - looking over a FAQ, not only does it contain enough plot info to completely change the tone of the game, it provides a hell of a challenge, gives opportunities for unique demons to create, and has what looks to be a very interesting, unique conclusion - certainly something that we'd never have gotten on these shores in the old days. I only explored a bit of the dungeon, but I do plan on replaying eventually and working my way all the way through.
If you like your RPGs 1) With lots of difficult combat and deep dungeons, and 2) Like collecting lots of party members/monsters/etc, or 3) are a mythology buff, then you'd probably get a real kick out of SMT: Nocturne. I'm real glad I played it, and it's probably worth looking into if you like old-school RPGs.
