Put in Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne in the PS2 tonight for a couple hours. I'm playing on a "backup copy" using swap magic 3.6 on my old block PS2. Well, I'm not sure if it's mine or my friends (who I traded with 'cause his wasn't workin' right with some game.) but I've since redeemed it by removing its faceplate and slapping one of the Lunar: Silver Star Story avatars on the side of it. Ripped off two big stickers off of it... heh.
Nocturne is a nice little game. It's atmosphere is genuinely distinct from other RPG series in the wake of its intro in which the old tokyo is then transformed into a new world... the world map that you travel on is bowl shaped because apparently it's part of a sphere that the world itself is in, funky, huh? And full of all your favorite mythical creatures and beasts.
Hmm...
I had a 25 minute battle with one of these guys who have "Candelebras" which are needed to be collected in the game... and the battle digressed into my party being whittled to death with various status afflictions. One of my ogre teamates was confused in the midst of battle and "withdrew himself," also under the confused ailment, a window will say "Oxy is feeling strange..." and then skip his turn. Stuff like this occasionally happens with other things in battle. Reminds me of the same kind of ways to skip turns in EarthBound, i.e. Mole is absentminded..., Pokey gets down on his knees., etc.
Another one of my recruited demon friends was expelled from the battle. Until that point I had been using that character to cast an anti-expel attack through out the course of the battle... but I let my guard down at one point and the character himself got expelled. This particular fancifully dressed Skeleton boss has a move that gives him 4 extra turns to do whatever he wants, it's called "Startle." The fancifully dressed Skeleton waves a burst of colorful light into the sky and begins to pummel me with a variety of attacks.
But it was the way I was gradually defeated which really stuck out to me as one of the game's signature moments. The battles require a certain momentum to maintain stability, when the tables can turn quickly in a battle with fresh opponents. Enemy demons will also call for help, and sometimes (I THINK) pick on certain party members, so they have some kind of ganging intelligence I think.)
The other key thing about this game that I enjoy is that you recruit demons, other enemies in the world to join you. This can be done by talking to them during battles and seeing how it goes, or you can have a demon with the seduce ability to lure someone in to your party. I had one of my fairy demon's seduce this red goblin type guy with a horn coming out of his crotch (very phallic) and his response in battle was literally, "That's some hot ass. Okay, I'll come with." Laugh out loud moments in this bleak RPG are very welcome. And the humor with the NPC's, many who are souls of a past life wandering around, is delightful and at the same time ironically painful. There's a city full of manicans who are harvested for their hatsuguchi (it's like MAKO in this game) and they appear to lead very down trodden, strange lives.
The soundtrack is really great too and also does a great job setting the mood. It does it's job well, I must say.
~
Hm. These here be the workin's of a new review.
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honestgamer - March 22, 2008 (02:00 PM) Don't ever make the mistake of listening to the soundtrack disc that comes with the game while the lights are low and it's late at night and you're alone. Even after playing through the game and the secret dungeons (finish them all before a certain point and you unlock a special alternate boss after the 'normal' one), I went back and listened to the soundtrack disc one night and it creeped me out! |
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EmP - March 22, 2008 (04:42 PM) I actually own Nocturne and I did not know. The name was changed here to Lucifer's somethingorother. I had no idea. |
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