What I'm Playing - No. 127
Welcome back to another weekly wrap-up of the games I’ve been playing over the past week!
I only played 1 game again this this week, Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne HD Remaster. My coverage on it is spoiler-free!
Click a title to skip to that section. Games contained within this post:
Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne HD Remaster (PS4)
I made it past the boss I had been struggling with at the end of last week, Raidou Kuzunoha. After a little grinding in the Labyrinth of Amala, a dungeon that I think is optional, I was a bit stronger and more importantly had the strong debuff skill War Cry on Demi-fiend. War Cry severely lowers all enemies’ attack, so after hitting Raidou with one of those in 2nd phase of the fight, the attacks he used that were demolishing my party before now did much more manageable damage. Raidou remains silent after the fight, with his cat companion Gouto doing the talking instead. These characters are actually from another Shin Megami Tensei spin-off, which is neat. Anyway, I know there’s at least one more (optional?) fight against Raidou in the game, but I haven’t come across it yet. He might crush me again next time I see him!
The main story has begun to take more solid shape. The central conflict is that the Vortex World exists solely to be reshaped into a brand new world by a human with enough power and determination. Having been made part-demon, it doesn’t seem like the player character is a contender for the one who will create the new world, but there are several humans around who could. There’s Hikawa, the man who orchestrated the Conception and destroyed the old world in the first place, who wants to create a serene world without emotion. He’s played off as the main antagonist through much of what I’ve played so far, but I think you can actually side with him for one of the game’s routes. There’s also Chiaki, who wants to create a world ruled by the strong, with all unnecessary dead weight removed. There’s Isamu, who wants to create a world (or maybe “worlds?”) where everyone lives in isolation and doesn’t have to care about anyone else. There’s also Yuko who…well, I’m not entirely sure what she wants the new world to be yet! I think the most interesting thing about all these routes is that there’s not a right or wrong answer. The old world is dead, and it seems returning to the life everyone knew before isn’t possible, so the only way forward is creating a new world. I think I’m leaning towards siding with Chiaki, just to see how that turns out. Although Isamu’s world sounds interesting too, and he’s voiced by Robbie Daymond, so that’s a plus.
Much of my time spent playing has been exploring dungeons, and recruiting and fusing new demons. One of the best demons I’ve fused has been Hell Biker. A little earlier in the game, he was a boss battle, and I think I was only able to fuse him because I had defeated him in battle prior. Hell Biker is immune to a bunch of different elements, has no weaknesses, and even learned a passive skill that makes his regular attack target all enemies, so he’s been a valuable addition to my party since I got him! Daisoujou was the same way, they were a boss battle first, but I was able to fuse them in the Cathedral of Shadows a short while after. Daisoujou is really cool because they know the Prayer skill, which fully heals the whole party. It costs a lot of MP, but they also have Meditation, a skill that allows them to drain HP and MP from an enemy, so they pretty much can’t run out of MP unless you let them get too low to cast Meditation.
Earlier in the game, I would often run out of money and not have enough to properly negotiate with demons. That hasn’t been an issue in a while though - I have plenty of money now! I think the reason for that is twofold: enemies drop more money at this point in the game (at least on Normal difficulty), and there’s been no shortage of random encounters in the dungeons I’ve been going through. Sometimes the encounter rate feels a bit high, but most of the time I don’t mind because combat has such a great flow to it. Once you learn the resistances and weaknesses of the enemies in a dungeon, you can defeat them really efficiently. It’s pretty fun figuring out how to use my party to defeat the enemies quickly and without using too much MP so I don’t run out when going through a long dungeon!
That pretty much wraps up my time with Nocturne so far. Whether I’m close to the end or only halfway through, I’m not really sure! The average for the main story on HowLongToBeat.com is 53 hours, and I’m only around 26 hours in. I don’t really mind if I still have a lot of the game left though, the dungeons and battles have been a lot of fun. The atmosphere in this game is something else too; surreal, and eerily beautiful. I’m definitely down for more!
