Sigourn
uooh afficionado
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2016
- Messages
- 5,658
I've been playing Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne for over 20 hours already.
It's a good candidate for the "diamond in the rough" definition: this game does a lot of things great, but a lot of things wrong. I'll be comparing it to JRPGs as a whole since it's how the game truly shines.
Pros:
- You can actually die in random battles if you are not careful, meaning most fights are engaging.
- Boss battles require strategy. Party composition requires some strategy.
- Movesets are important. Buffs and Debuffs satisfyingly so, as they can make a huge difference between "impossible" and "doable".
- The Press Turn system is great. Basically, you are given one "turn" for each party member you have. Battles are divided in rounds: all side's turns first, then the second side's turns. Missing an attack means you lose two turns. Getting a Critical Hit or a hitting a weakness means you get an extra half-turn. Having your attack Voided means your round ends. Overall, it encourages thinking as opposed to "spam Attack", because fights in Nocturne are potentially deadly and your entire party could be wiped out if you were an unlucky idiot.
- Magatamas allow for customization of your character, as they affect what skills does he learn, his weaknesses, and his strengths, as well as bonus points to his attributes (that aren't permanent).
- Fusing your demons is always nice.
- Interesting premise and story so far.
- Demon design kicks ass. Artstyle is fantastic.
- Soundtrack is cool.
Cons:
- Dying kicks you to the intro screens, as opposed to asking you if you want to reload. No game that has this problem can EVER be a 10/10 in my book, it's the most basic flaw anyone who play tests a videogame should have become aware of.
- The Press Turn system, as mentioned, is great. However, I don't think Critical hits should be rewarded with extra turns. Whereas you can reliably augment your chances to dodge an attack, or cause your enemy to be more prone to getting hit, getting a Critical Hit is something so random (for the most part) that a battle can go horribly wrong (or horribly right) if your luck was bad. Having enemies constantly land criticals on you as you watch hopelessly is just not my idea of fun.
- Magatamas can't be switched mid-battle. Prepare to reload if you faced a boss that was strong against your current Magatama. I would have made it so that switching Magatamas gave the enemy double the turns.
- Dismissing a demon takes one turn. Summoning a demon takes another. Frankly, I've survived in Hard without ever needing to dismiss and summon a Demon, because it's such a fucking bore (and inconvenient) to have the process take two entire turns.
- Running away is another fucking chore that I never felt like pulling off, which is funny considering there are more than enough reasons to run away in this game compared to other JRPGs.
- No rule for who gets the first round in a battle. Training demons becomes a hassle when you can't get your party to consistently get the first round and obliterate the opposition before your weaker demons get killed.
- Movement is shit, I don't like it at all. I would have made this a grid-based dungeon crawler like the originals. 3D movement adds nothing to the game, IMO.
- Encounter rate is too high for my taste. This makes the tougher areas of the game a pain to traverse, as not only every encounter has the chance to be lethal, you have to traverse TONS of them.
- High MP requirements of spells and low MP pools in the early game make spells something that should be used very sparingly. Not necessarily something BAD, but it's kind of annoying.
It's a good candidate for the "diamond in the rough" definition: this game does a lot of things great, but a lot of things wrong. I'll be comparing it to JRPGs as a whole since it's how the game truly shines.
Pros:
- You can actually die in random battles if you are not careful, meaning most fights are engaging.
- Boss battles require strategy. Party composition requires some strategy.
- Movesets are important. Buffs and Debuffs satisfyingly so, as they can make a huge difference between "impossible" and "doable".
- The Press Turn system is great. Basically, you are given one "turn" for each party member you have. Battles are divided in rounds: all side's turns first, then the second side's turns. Missing an attack means you lose two turns. Getting a Critical Hit or a hitting a weakness means you get an extra half-turn. Having your attack Voided means your round ends. Overall, it encourages thinking as opposed to "spam Attack", because fights in Nocturne are potentially deadly and your entire party could be wiped out if you were an unlucky idiot.
- Magatamas allow for customization of your character, as they affect what skills does he learn, his weaknesses, and his strengths, as well as bonus points to his attributes (that aren't permanent).
- Fusing your demons is always nice.
- Interesting premise and story so far.
- Demon design kicks ass. Artstyle is fantastic.
- Soundtrack is cool.
Cons:
- Dying kicks you to the intro screens, as opposed to asking you if you want to reload. No game that has this problem can EVER be a 10/10 in my book, it's the most basic flaw anyone who play tests a videogame should have become aware of.
- The Press Turn system, as mentioned, is great. However, I don't think Critical hits should be rewarded with extra turns. Whereas you can reliably augment your chances to dodge an attack, or cause your enemy to be more prone to getting hit, getting a Critical Hit is something so random (for the most part) that a battle can go horribly wrong (or horribly right) if your luck was bad. Having enemies constantly land criticals on you as you watch hopelessly is just not my idea of fun.
- Magatamas can't be switched mid-battle. Prepare to reload if you faced a boss that was strong against your current Magatama. I would have made it so that switching Magatamas gave the enemy double the turns.
- Dismissing a demon takes one turn. Summoning a demon takes another. Frankly, I've survived in Hard without ever needing to dismiss and summon a Demon, because it's such a fucking bore (and inconvenient) to have the process take two entire turns.
- Running away is another fucking chore that I never felt like pulling off, which is funny considering there are more than enough reasons to run away in this game compared to other JRPGs.
- No rule for who gets the first round in a battle. Training demons becomes a hassle when you can't get your party to consistently get the first round and obliterate the opposition before your weaker demons get killed.
- Movement is shit, I don't like it at all. I would have made this a grid-based dungeon crawler like the originals. 3D movement adds nothing to the game, IMO.
- Encounter rate is too high for my taste. This makes the tougher areas of the game a pain to traverse, as not only every encounter has the chance to be lethal, you have to traverse TONS of them.
- High MP requirements of spells and low MP pools in the early game make spells something that should be used very sparingly. Not necessarily something BAD, but it's kind of annoying.