Posted July 10, 2021
Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne HD (Switch)
HD remaster of one of the series most well known games from the PS2. The original can still be purchased on the PS3 store by the way...at least until Sony has another shot at closing it down. But honestly, other than price, there's really no reason not to use this new version as it's on Steam and PS4/5 as well.
The game has a reputation for difficulty. It is difficult too, but maybe not in the way that people assume. The combat is not so bad, it uses the classic SMT extra turn system where you target enemy weaknesses to gain an extra turn. Of course bosses don't usually have any weaknesses, just resistances and nulls or even absorbs. The crucial aspect to combat is the buff/debuff system and balancing out your list of demon summons to handle as wide a range of scenarios as possible. Once you understand the game, the combat is not so hard and the HD version has an easy mode as well- which is very useful. Even if you don't want to play the story in the new difficulty, it is still super useful to switch to when you want to grind for levels because it also doubles XP gain- making it a very convenient time saver.
The real difficulty is knowing where to go to advance the story. It can be a bit vague to say the least. If you pay attention you will get a name of a location to go. But finding that place is a pain sometimes, made worse by how hard it to navigate the overworld map. You cannot zoom the map out to get a good view of the lay of the land. So you end up just wandering around until you get lucky sometimes, or just look up a guide like I did a few times.
The story is dark. The world is destroyed for the purpose of reincarnation and you basically are fighting to reincarnate the new world in your preferred vision, which ties to one of 6 endings. It's quite a philosophical sort of story. If you're a socialist then there's an ending for you to aim for. If you're a believer in nature and it laws of survival of the fittest, there's an ending for you to pursue. The story may be hard to find, but it's a good one.
Still a great game, but I think many players will loose patience before seeing it through and just go back to Persona.
HD remaster of one of the series most well known games from the PS2. The original can still be purchased on the PS3 store by the way...at least until Sony has another shot at closing it down. But honestly, other than price, there's really no reason not to use this new version as it's on Steam and PS4/5 as well.
The game has a reputation for difficulty. It is difficult too, but maybe not in the way that people assume. The combat is not so bad, it uses the classic SMT extra turn system where you target enemy weaknesses to gain an extra turn. Of course bosses don't usually have any weaknesses, just resistances and nulls or even absorbs. The crucial aspect to combat is the buff/debuff system and balancing out your list of demon summons to handle as wide a range of scenarios as possible. Once you understand the game, the combat is not so hard and the HD version has an easy mode as well- which is very useful. Even if you don't want to play the story in the new difficulty, it is still super useful to switch to when you want to grind for levels because it also doubles XP gain- making it a very convenient time saver.
The real difficulty is knowing where to go to advance the story. It can be a bit vague to say the least. If you pay attention you will get a name of a location to go. But finding that place is a pain sometimes, made worse by how hard it to navigate the overworld map. You cannot zoom the map out to get a good view of the lay of the land. So you end up just wandering around until you get lucky sometimes, or just look up a guide like I did a few times.
The story is dark. The world is destroyed for the purpose of reincarnation and you basically are fighting to reincarnate the new world in your preferred vision, which ties to one of 6 endings. It's quite a philosophical sort of story. If you're a socialist then there's an ending for you to aim for. If you're a believer in nature and it laws of survival of the fittest, there's an ending for you to pursue. The story may be hard to find, but it's a good one.
Still a great game, but I think many players will loose patience before seeing it through and just go back to Persona.