SMT: Nocturne

[Viata]

Amala dungeon was part of the Maniax version(the one that was released outside Japan). Wikia only give this as difference between each version:

The differences between the original version and the later versions are as follows:
Maniax

• A new opening movie.
• The addition of the Labyrinth of Amala and, hence, the addition of the Fiends.
• A new "true demon" ending.
• A bonus for keeping your first demon party member (Pixie).
• Devil May Cry 2's Dante: you fight him, and you can have him in your party if certain conditions are met.
• The option of allowing several previously infusible bosses to join your party.
• The option to fight and later enlist the help of Beelzebub and Metatron.
• Pierce was added as a new skill.
• General game balance adjustments (lowered ambush attacks, lower instant death rates, etc.)
• Selectable difficulty level from the on-set (Normal or Hard)
• Elimination of the Debug Mode.

Maniax Chronicle

• Raidou Kuzunoha the XIV, along with Gouto-Doji, replaces Dante as the Demi-fiend's potential ally.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

This version is also harder.

Please elaborate. From what I know both versions have identical content except for the guest character.

Well for certain we have Labyrinth of Amala, a bonus dungeon of sort and

Spoiler

clearing it is the requirement of a secret ending

But as per all SMT, the mega-bosses in the mega-dungeon is about doing the same rotation for 1 hour and hope the enemy doesn't get a lucky crit (or you miss somehow). It is honestly more tedious than anything.

 

[Average Manatee]

Ihough there was also no fiend/Dante fights, which means no Matador.

Matador is meh.

No Daisoujou means no Meditation / Makatora combo which gives party almost infinite SP source.

No Trumpeter means Evil Melody that allows to kill every random encounter in max two turns.

I've never used Meditation/Makator, just a pixie with the mana from walking around skill + makator. I've also never had mana issues.

If your MC can't take out 75% of random encounter enemies in turn 1 for most of the game then you didn't build him properly.

This version is also harder.

Please elaborate. From what I know both versions have identical content except for the guest character.

Well for certain we have Labyrinth of Amala, a bonus dungeon of sort and

Spoiler

clearing it is the requirement of a secret ending

But as per all SMT, the mega-bosses in the mega-dungeon is about doing the same rotation for 1 hour and hope the enemy doesn't get a lucky crit (or you miss somehow). It is honestly more tedious than anything.

There's absolutely no instance in which bosses should take more than 20 mins and more than 10 mins would only be if you are very poorly equipped for the boss.

 

[Terra]

Amala dungeon was part of the Maniax version(the one that was released outside Japan). Wikia only give this as difference between each version:

The differences between the original version and the later versions are as follows:
Maniax

• A new opening movie.
• The addition of the Labyrinth of Amala and, hence, the addition of the Fiends.
• A new "true demon" ending.
• A bonus for keeping your first demon party member (Pixie).
• Devil May Cry 2's Dante: you fight him, and you can have him in your party if certain conditions are met.
• The option of allowing several previously infusible bosses to join your party.
• The option to fight and later enlist the help of Beelzebub and Metatron.
• Pierce was added as a new skill.
• General game balance adjustments (lowered ambush attacks, lower instant death rates, etc.)
• Selectable difficulty level from the on-set (Normal or Hard)
• Elimination of the Debug Mode.

Maniax Chronicle

• Raidou Kuzunoha the XIV, along with Gouto-Doji, replaces Dante as the Demi-fiend's potential ally.

Do we know what was in the Debug Mode?

 

[Average Manatee]

https://tcrf.net/Shin_Megami_Tensei_III:_Nocturne/Debug_Menu

Its actually just a literal debug mode, nothing I can tell that looks really cool like you'd get on a PC game with a command line or hidden content or cheats or w/e.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

you didn't build him properly.

Indeed, it was my first Megaten (2013) and I abandoned Focus early :/

Remake should make possible to relearn forgotten skills.

 

[Average Manatee]

You don't really need focus for most of the game. Roughly the first 2/3rds is dominated by magic like Tornado and later Glacial Blast. Past that you can build a physical demon with focus just as good as the MC would be, though it takes time in the fusion chamber.

 

[Arthandas]

Well for certain we have Labyrinth of Amala, a bonus dungeon of sort

The labyrinth is present in both Raidou and Dante versions.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Amala Lab is great. Something about the tile design and music just makes me anxious as shit, and for good reason. It can be easy to get ruined there.

 

[Talby]

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Yes, the youtube algorithm is bringing back the nocturne memes now that the remaster was announced. Good times.

 

[deuxhero]

Reminder that Nocturne's formulas are straight up broken in several cases

Key:
DF = Demi-Fiend
PA = party average
EA = enemy average
[] = truncation
Formulas:
Chance of Enemy Back Attack: 12 * (EA_Lv + EA_Agi + [EA_Luck/2]) / (MC_Lv + MC_Agi + [MC_Luck/2])
Physical Accuracy: Skill_Accuracy + ([Attacker_Agi/[Attacker_Lv/5 + 3]] * 6.25) - ([Defender_Agi/[Defender_Lv/5 + 3]] * 6.25)
Critical Hit Chance: Physical_Accuracy_Formula_Result / Skill_Accuracy * Skill_Crit_Rate
Magical Accuracy: Skill_Accuracy * (Attacker_Lv + Attacker_Mag2 + [Attacker_Luck/2] + 17.5) / (Defender_Lv + [Defender_Agi1.5] + Defender_Luck + 17.5)
Ailment and Instant Death Chance: no stats involved
Item Drop Rate: no stats involved
Escape Chance (Normal mode only): 20 + 20 * (2 + (PA_Agi + PA_Luck)/4.2) / (2 + (EA_Agi + EA_Luck)/4.2)
Player Chance to Act First: (72 + (DF_Lv + [DF_Luck/2] + DF_Agi) - (EA_Lv + EA_Agi + [EA_Luck/2])) * x
x = An enemy-encounter-specific value, can be 1.0, 0.8, 0.6, 0.4, or 0
Maximum Value = 85%
Minimum Value = 50%
Comments:

• Luck doesn't do much. It plays no role in critical hit chance or ailments at all, and it's effects on acting first in combat and avoiding back attacks are eclipsed by agility.
• The Physical Accuracy and Critical Hit Chance formulas are, frankly, a trainwreck. Your character level causes you to perform worse in both accuracy and critical hit chance, and the truncation is far too extreme. To give an example, if you were level 50, then (Lv/5+3) = 13. This means that only every 13th point of Agi has any benefit to you at all. If you had 12 or 1 Agi, it would have the same effect. Same for 13 and 25 Agi. At high enough level, there's even no difference between 1 and 40 Agi.
• The magic stat is ridiculously self-sufficient, providing magic damage, magic accuracy, and MP.

Wonder if they'll fix this.

 

[karoliner]

Luck is a dump stat in every single game i played so far.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Yes, the youtube algorithm is bringing back the nocturne memes now that the remaster was announced. Good times.

Got this oldie

Reminder that Nocturne's formulas are straight up broken in several cases

Key:

• The magic stat is ridiculously self-sufficient, providing magic damage, magic accuracy, and MP.

That's all well and good, but also ignores the fact that Magic is complete trash after the first half of the game, maybe even first quarter. I did TDE as a Magic character last year and Magma Axis, the only spell that actually scales somewhat in the end game, is still pretty much worthless.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

That's all well and good, but also ignores the fact that Magic is complete trash after the first half of the game, maybe even first quarter. I did TDE as a Magic character last year and Magma Axis, the only spell that actually scales somewhat in the end game, is still pretty much worthless

My guess is because for some stupid reason, pierce doesn't work for Magic , right?

 

[Average Manatee]

That's all well and good, but also ignores the fact that Magic is complete trash after the first half of the game, maybe even first quarter. I did TDE as a Magic character last year and Magma Axis, the only spell that actually scales somewhat in the end game, is still pretty much worthless

My guess is because for some stupid reason, pierce doesn't work for Magic , right?

Not at all actually. Pierce is required for phys because if you run into enemies that void phys or better you're fucked. For magic you just switch element and in the worst case of the enemy having resistance to the 2/3 elements you have, you just pass your turn to your demons or buff/debuff. The issue is that:

- You can't focus magic attacks like you can physical
- Bosses and lategame enemies tend to have no weaknesses to hit with elements while physical skills have significant crit rates.
- It takes a lot of skill room to cover multiple elements with boosters.

To quote myself earlier:

If you aren't doing TDE route magic is generally pretty fine. Only the TDE final boss essentially requires pierce, and without it physical doesn't nearly dominate late game random encounters the same way since way more late game groups will void or worse if you AoE. That said you certainly don't want only Magma Axis, you need fire boost with it and you want some other elements to hit other weaknesses for random encounters.

FWIW my late game save (maxed stats, level 92) has Deathbound doing around 1k damage per hit w/ focus while Magma Axis does about 750. Deathbound requires two actions but hits roughly twice (more for group fights), and can crit. Magma Axis can hit weaknesses for a cost of only .5 turns and higher damage while focused Deathbound at best still costs 1.5 turns. Doesn't seem too unbalanced to me. For comparison Wind Cutter seems to hit around 550 and Tornado 350ish per hit while boosted, so that's pretty trash unless hitting weaknesses.

Edit: Freikugel is a more straight comparison than Deathbound, it does around 550 damage without a crit or focus. Of course it crits a lot, but it's comparable to hitting a weakness with Wind Cutter. Just the unfortunate problem of Freikugel critting on bosses while magic can't hit weaknesses, shame there's no focus ability for magic in Nocturne.

Magic definitely is the strongest early game, Tornado + high magic stat will have your MC one-shotting or two-shotting (in case of resistances) entire groups. It reaches its peak about halfway in but still does decently. Glacial Blast when you get it is also pretty nice since frozen enemies will lose all phys resist and be auto-crit, and you CAN freeze bosses.

 

[Matador]

Matador is meh.

If anything, I'm underrated.

 

[Dorarnae]

they should put an option to turn off voice acting.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

New info and Gameplay of the Remaster.


edit: The Fiends gonna be voiced too.

 

[WhiteShark]

they should put an option to turn off voice acting.

Some of the Japanese voice acting sounds good, but yeah, I think it detracts from the overall atmosphere. Are they even changing anything aside from the resolution and adding voice acting though? The original already looks good on PCSX2.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

I don't know why but I think that the lack of voice in the original Nocturne adds so much to the incredible atmosphere.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

I am not even sure why people are againts voice acting at all

Ii is not that the Japanese VA is a cheap shit tier. If anything ATLUS English dub too is usually decent to good if it comes to that.

It stinks of people thinking "OLDER IS BETTER" so "NO VA IS BEtTER" which is on par with the Codex I guess.

 

[Talby]

The silence is a big part of the atmosphere.

 

[Viata]

VA is always shit, anyway. No matter the game.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

I don't know why but I think that the lack of voice in the original Nocturne adds so much to the incredible atmosphere.

Agree, the same with Strange Journey. If they release English version though... I wouldn't mind best SMT waifu Zelenin speaking with strong Russian accent!