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SMT: Nocturne

Nifft Batuff

Prophet
Joined
Nov 14, 2018
Messages
3,169
I spent about a total of 160 hours in SMT IV Apocalypse (two playthroughs). And about 60 h in SMT IV. Admittedly I played these games while doing other things... (e.g. watching movies, listening musics, boring work...)

Now I am replaying Nocturne for the second time after a couple of years (the first playthrough was about 80 h). I am playing the fan-translated Maniax edition. So far it seems easier than Lucifer's Call, but maybe it's just me.
 

Suicidal

Arcane
Joined
Apr 29, 2007
Messages
2,207
Advise me, Nocturne experts.

I've been playing this for a week or so and I'm really enjoying it, but ever since the skeleton monk boss that spams mass insta death attacks I've kinda been brainlessly steamrolling through the game. I'm now at the point where you rescue a bunch of manikins from a BDSM dungeon and I just killed its boss.

Today I read about that hardtype mod and I'm now considering restarting the game to play with it. From the description it sounds exactly like my kind of shit - it reduces grind, makes the combat harder and adds an emphasis on switching demons during combat, which reminds me of Labyrinth of Touhou, my new king of RPG combatfaggotry.

Should I just restart now? How far am I into the game? Would I lose out on anything by playing the game with the mod without having played through it properly at least once?
 

Puukko

Arcane
Joined
Jul 23, 2015
Messages
3,861
Location
The Khanate
I cannot speak from experience as I have not played the game with the mod, but I would advise against it for a first playthrough, especially since you're already quite a few hours into it. It's generally regarded as something to be used for subsequent playthroughs as it relies on you knowing the encounters and the game's mechanics well. If you consider yourself hardcore(tm) enough and think it would boost your enjoyment of the game however, it can't really hurt to give it a go for a few hours.
 
Joined
Jan 7, 2012
Messages
14,149
Sort of depends on why you are brainlessly steamrolling through the game. If you are cheesing obviously OP stuff like a full Dark Might team vs. bosses, just try to restrain yourself. If you have a full setup of good elemental spells that wipes every encounter turn 1, don't worry because magic caps out at level 30-40 and won't be able to do that for long, and bosses tend to stop having weaknesses.

By BDSM dungeon, you mean the prison with the water spirit snake boss weak to fire? That's like 50% through the game I'd say. The whole game world is basically a BDSM dungeon for manikins.

The Hardtype mod doesn't really show much difficulty increase until after Matador, so you'd have to play more than a few hours to figure out whether its too punishing, or whether you want to play it on Normal or Hard.
 

Suicidal

Arcane
Joined
Apr 29, 2007
Messages
2,207
Thanks for the info.

1 more question - if I make a copy of the iso file I'm using and apply the hardtype mod to it, will I be able to make new saves or will the save data from the other one carry over? I'm not using save states for authentic hardcore experience n shit.

If I can use another modified iso while keeping my old save data intact, I can just check it out to see if it's worth playing and come back to my old save if not.
 

Suicidal

Arcane
Joined
Apr 29, 2007
Messages
2,207
Finished the game today. Decided to restart with the mod from half-way point after all and I think it improved the overall experience due to numerous quality of life changes, faster XP gain and the bosses being slightly more challenging due to smaller caps on your buffs/debuffs and increased stats.

I gotta admit, towards the end I was kinda getting annoyed and wanted the game to be over and the final boss in particular pissed me off because he REQUIRES you to have a party that all has over 900 HP and immunities (or at least resistances) to statuses and all basic elements because the alternative is getting hit for 1500 damage with AoE elemental attacks when your max HP is 999 so I had to sit for several hours and reroll skills on my units until I had all the stuff I needed.

Some thoughts on the game: overall, it's quite good and I enjoyed the dungeon crawling, atmosphere and making different monsters the most.

Monster fusing is simultaneously my favorite and most hated part of the game. It's very fun to fuck around and experiment with different recipes and after every dungeon run I always was looking forward to coming back to base and mixing my newly acquired monsters and getting that perfect party comp that covers all the bases. But whenever you need to make something specific, getting the right skills on the right creatures is an extremely painful and unfun process that involves playing the skill slot machine sometimes for a few hours straight. I'd much rather select 2-3 skills myself than randomly roll for 5.

As for the combat, to be honest, I didn't find it very good. At first I thought it was decent enough but the more I played the more it started falling apart.

First of all, I think the turn system of the game, where you get bonus turns from critting/hitting weaknesses is retarded and here is why: it makes the combat very onesided and viable strategies for beating bosses extremely obvious. Because of how the combat works, it becomes impossible to lose to random encounters if you go first, but there is a very high chance to die (at least at the beginning of the game) if the enemy goes first. If you go first, you just spam whatever shit the enemy is weak to and they die before they get their turn. If the enemies go first, they do the same to you. Getting a back attack in the early game is pretty much guaranteed death because the enemies not only go first, but also get a huge crit chance bonus. In the second half of the game most of your units start having immunities to a lot of things and you just stop dying to random encounters altogether and they stop posing any threat and turn into a waste of time.

When it comes to bosses, the vast majority of them are defeated by just having a few units that are immune to their most dangerous element because it makes them waste turns and if a boss is unable to kill you in 1 turn then it's actually impossible to ever lose to him, which brings us to the next problem with the combat is that healing is very overpowered. I don't think a spell that heals all your party to full HP and removes all negative effects should cost 10-15% of the caster's mana, especially in a game where mana restoration options are plentiful and you are unlikely to ever run out of it in a fight. Even the early game healing spells are extremely strong. The aoe "medium" healing spells heals you for most of your HP and costs very little mana.

So preparing for bosses barely requires any thought because getting the right immunities is usually all you need to do, and fighting them requires even less because all you do is spam your strongest attacks and heal every turn. After applying the buffs and debuffs, naturally, which you also usually don't need to worry about because rarely do the bosses actively try to remove them. There were very few exceptions that forced me to do more than that. Even the final boss I complained about earlier went down like a bitch once I brought in a party he could not kill with 1 elemental spell because as I said, if a boss cannot kill you in 1 turn, victory is inevitable.

Still despite my complaints, I had a good time and I'm interested in trying the other games in the series at some point. Strange Journey and Apocalypse look interesting. Are there any other ones you guys would recommend?
 

Grampy_Bone

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2016
Messages
3,640
Location
Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
Still despite my complaints, I had a good time and I'm interested in trying the other games in the series at some point. Strange Journey and Apocalypse look interesting. Are there any other ones you guys would recommend?

You may enjoy Digital Devil Saga. It's the same battle system only you can pick all your skills, and the bosses require quite a bit more strategy, although it comes down to a lot of trial and error. It's more grindy, especially the second one. You have to die to a boss a few times in order to figure out it's moves and then build an effective team to counter them.
 

Puukko

Arcane
Joined
Jul 23, 2015
Messages
3,861
Location
The Khanate
Digital Devil Saga 1+2 are a no-brainer if you haven't played them, it's more of a typical JRPG duology due to having set party members but it has the best music in the series, or at the very least tied with SMTIV. Apocalypse is good but it's in a weird spot because it's kind of a sequel/whatif/duology with SMTIV where the story happens simultaneously with IV but in a timeline that didn't happen in that game. For this reason, and the fact that it improves upon almost all of SMTIV's issues, it's generally recommended to play SMTIV first and Apocalypse after to understand the story better and because going back to IV after Apocalypse might be difficult. However, if you don't think you have the time or interest to play both, going straight to Apocalypse is fine. Do mind however that you'll need to... adjust a bit to put up with the difference in tone. I found the complaints to be exaggerated, but the fact is that Apocalypse is the odd one out with its anime trope characters - however, I ended up liking most of them by the end, and going in with an open mind will do you favors. It's only really more light-hearted on the surface when in reality it gets arguably more gruesome than any other game in the series I've played. And the neutral-dark ending is great.

I've got SJR and Soul Hackers left to play out of the games I've got an immediate interest in but I'm taking a break to explore other series for the time being.
 

Suicidal

Arcane
Joined
Apr 29, 2007
Messages
2,207
Thanks for the recs. I thought Apocalypse was the subtitle to SMT 4 like Nocturne is SMT 3 and not a different game entirely, good to know.
 

Matador

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 14, 2016
Messages
1,631
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Seeing your complaints about skill randomness in Nocturne you are going to love the fusion system in Apocalypse, is convenient and perfect for minmaxing without save scumming.

The dungeon crawling and tone are vastly inferior to Nocturne though. Good game still, but I prefer Nocturne.
 

Puukko

Arcane
Joined
Jul 23, 2015
Messages
3,861
Location
The Khanate
I personally found the dungeon design of the PS2 Megatens to be their weakest points. DDS1+2 felt like mazes furnished to look somewhat passable as buildings.

SMTIV may be the worst offender when it comes to traversing the overworld, it's like Nocturne except cramped and with shit for markers. Apocalypse improved upon it massively, and indeed, fusing demons is a joy due to the search functions, ease of passing down skills, etc.

But oh boy, Apocalypse's final dungeon was ass.
 

Puukko

Arcane
Joined
Jul 23, 2015
Messages
3,861
Location
The Khanate
Yeah, SMTIV had a brutal first few hours but once you got to
Tokyo
it got considerably easier, too much so in my opinion, until you got to the DLC where the difficulty took a sharp curve upwards. Apocalypse I found to have a very consistent difficulty, I switched to War about 1/3 through.
 
Last edited:

CallMeSnek

Novice
Joined
Sep 13, 2017
Messages
17
I recall reading that the consensus on gamefaqs was that the gameplay is most balanced and challenging (i.e. interesting) in the first 10 hours or so, and starts dropping off after that - even in hard mode.

I think I vaguely remember feeling that way myself around halfway through. The bosses in particular became pushovers.

The Hardtype mod doesn't really show much difficulty increase until after Matador

Interesting. If the hardtype mod fixes the buff/debuff balance problem, then I'll definitely be all over that like a fly to shit.
 
Self-Ejected

Thac0

Time Mage
Patron
Joined
Apr 30, 2020
Messages
3,292
Location
Arborea
I'm very into cock and ball torture
Lol I dug up my Fat PS3 a few weeks ago to buy this together with some other PS1 stuff, since it became clear PS5 would not be backwards compatible to PS1+2.
Doesnt look like they change enough for a new run on the switch but cool for those that havnt played it yet. Its a good game, in the runners up for best SMT/Persona game.
 

InD_ImaginE

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 23, 2015
Messages
5,365
Pathfinder: Wrath



What the FUCK?


i would assume PC will come later? Switch and PC is kinda "let's port these games to these 2 consoles later"

Good for people that never play the game, and the game actually looks crisp from that trailer. That Raidou in the end means that this is based on the Maniax version (not that ATLUS has any choice to use Dante to begin with I guess).

Unless they add some other content I have seen everything the game has to offer tho.
 
Joined
Mar 3, 2018
Messages
5,486
Judging by the end it looks like the Raidou version instead of Dante. Also looks like a ps4 release too.
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