Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne Analysis - The Price of Creation

it's hard to think of many other games that are like shin megami tensei nocturne even when taking the entirety of atlas's catalog into consideration you'd be hard-pressed to find any other title that matches nocturne in terms of tone the type of story that's presented and the themes that are conveyed which is doubly impressive when you look at the sheer number of games in atlas's megami tensei franchise so what exactly is nocturne and what does this game do to stand out from the crowd of other rpgs on the playstation 2. in order to answer those questions as well as evaluate nocturne as its own game i'm going to have to dig deep and explore the game mechanically and thematically this is your spoiler warning now i'm going to be talking about the game in depth so that means spoilers are going to be discussed if you're the kind of player that likes to go into games as blind as possible i suggest you stop the video now and return once you finish the game nocturne starts off unlike most games with the literal annihilation of the entire world you play as a high school student who was caught in the middle of this when you and your friends chiyaki and asamu go to the hospital so you can check up on your teacher mr cow there are rumors surrounding the medical center that you and your friends are visiting people say that this place is used for occult activities this is proven true once you stumble upon a man named hikawa down in the basement of the hospital he uses this strange terminal to summon a demon but before he can kill you he's stopped by your teacher she threatens hikaba that she'll no longer cooperate with him if he goes further which causes him to stop you meet with mr cow on top of the hospital where she explains that the world is going to end because of an event called the conception she explains that everyone who is currently inside the hospital will survive and asks you to find her in the new world before we can even have a chance to register what's going on the conception begins wiping out all life in a blink of the eye transforming the world as we know it into the demon-infested vortex world at the same time lucifer gives you a bug-like creature called a magatama magatama is the source of demonic power and by ingesting it the protagonist transforms into a half human half demon known as the demi fiend even though the world is currently in a state of chaos that doesn't mean it will be like this permanently the conception acts as a big reset button for the world once the universe has run its course the conception will occur so that the world can be reborn humans are able to conceive what are known as reasons these reasons will shape what the new world will become and the ideal style to be followed but this means that only one person has the power to change the world since the demi fiend is half demon he's no longer able to create a reason of his own but that doesn't mean he can't support the reason of another person nocturne's main plot is very simple on the surface but most of its depth comes from the philosophical views of the other characters the vortex world is very cruel and unforgiving it's a world where those with power are able to survive and live comfortably but anyone who lacks the power to fight for their ideals are very expendable and don't deserve the chance of the inevitable reincarnation of the world the characters views and ideals are all influenced from their experience in the vortex world as much as i'd like to discuss what the characters reasons are and the meaning behind them now i need to talk about the gameplay side of nocturne because it does a great job at supporting the game's main theme shin megami tensei nocturne was the first game where atlas really tried to innovate on their turn-based combat system persona 1 attempted to add more depth of the combat system by having battles take place on a grid but this was a very mixed bag for me since at the end of the day it didn't really change the overall foundation of the battle system because of how easy the encounters were i could get away with just having the characters auto attack nocturne was where atlas really stepped up their game when it came to the combat mechanics and overall battle design nocturne was the pioneer of what is known as the press turn combat system these icons in the top right of your screen represents how many turns in combat your party can make the number of demons you have currently summoned will affect how many of these icons you get whenever you perform an action in battle one of these icons will disappear when you no longer have any press turns remaining it'll be the enemy's turn what gives nocturn's combat a lot of depth is the way the press turn system can be used to give you an edge in battle by landing critical hits or by exploiting enemy weaknesses you only end up using half of a turn this is indicated by the flashing turn icon in the top of the screen by only using half a turn you don't fully deplete the icon so by landing multiple critical hits or only using magic that can hit weaknesses you can effectively double the amount of moves you can make in one turn from four to eight however by missing an attack we're using a move that the enemy nullifies instead of using up one press turn you instead use two even more deadly is that the enemy absorbs or reflects an attack every one of your press turns will be drained instantly this is to encourage smart play you have to consider every possibility when making a turn in combat you need to know what the potential consequences are for picking the wrong move or becoming reckless if you have a demon on the field that can't perform any move that will be optimal in that encounter you could always just pass your turn exclusive to the player's party is the ability to pass anyone's turn in battle passing a turn will count as using a half turn so you can still perform any other action with the half turn you cannot pass a turn twice in a row without wasting the turn not too many people bring this up when discussing nocturne which i always found odd because it's such an important tool at your disposal just by doing something as simple as passing a turn on someone who isn't immediately useful in combat you open up the door of possibly applying more buff spells and sneaking in emergency healing before you cycle back to your damage dealers though these mechanics may sound simple on paper where nocturne really shines is the way it pushes its battle system to the absolute limit nocturne has become rather infamous over the years due to its extremely high difficulty and let me just say that i personally think that the challenge of nocturne has been a little blown out of proportion to the point where newcomers may be a little too intimidated to even check the game out don't get me wrong nocturne even on its normal setting is still a challenging game you're gonna have to pay attention to the moves you select and respond to enemies appropriately but i feel as though the most challenging part of nocturne comes from learning how to play the game properly to begin with there's no traditional tutorial area of nocturne the most you get are some hints on how to recruit demons to your party and the importance of having a full team it's up to the player to learn the importance of certain skills and how to overcome any obstacle in your path so there are two simple questions to ask does nocturne give you the necessary tools to figure out the combat system on your own and what does the game do in order to keep the battles challenging once you know what the game expects from you the best way to answer the former question is by looking at the first major roadblock of the game the infamous boss battle against the demon matador matador acts as a skill check to make sure the player knows how to play the game properly what makes matador so infamous is his exclusive skill that maximizes his hit and evasion rate this makes it almost impossible to land a hit on him normally the game forces you to use buffs and debuffs to even the odds teaching you the importance of those skills but if you don't have those skills by the time you get to that fight that doesn't mean you're out of luck in the area just before the battle you can buy another magatama that can alter your resistances to nullify the force element so you can get rid of matador's press turns as well as just tank the damage not only that you can recruit demons that you can then infuse into one that has the tsuku kaja skill so while matador is a spike in difficulty that doesn't mean the game doesn't give you the tools necessary to overcome the challenge sure it might take a couple of tries but that just means you need to adjust your strategy adapting and overcoming the odds is the key to succeeding in nocturne you can't hold on to the same demons forever because demons need far more experience than the dummy fiend in order to level up so to mitigate that you can fuse away the old demons while transferring their skills over or recruit new demons that can fulfill roles in your party that you may be lacking in if the demi fiend has a weakness that the bots can exploit switch out the magatami you currently have equipped to not only cover that weakness but to adjust your stats accordingly so in short yes i think nocturne gives you the tools necessary to figure out the combat on your own matador is a challenging boss battle even on repeat playthroughs he can catch you off guard but i believe that he's a necessary roadblock because this battle teaches you the importance of buffs and debuffs but this leads into my second question what does nocturne do in order to keep battles challenging once you understand how the game wants you to play random encounters in nocturne are relatively comfortable most enemies don't have a lot of health and have weaknesses that can be exploited but where the game truly shines and pushing you to your absolute limit are in the boss battles i already mentioned matador but he's just the tip of the iceberg in order to keep you from abusing the same strategies for every encounter nocturne's boss battles have tricks up their own sleeves that can keep you on your toes not every boss is created equal however while some may test you in unique ways such as beelzebub whose ai performs certain actions depending on how many buffs or debuffs you have used and gary mccullough who completely reflects physical attacks and is a check to make sure you have demons with powerful magic with you there are a few that are very basic and offer next to no challenge most boss battles have a way to remove buffs and debuffs some have access to their own stat boosters and they'll abuse them as much as you do however another source of challenge comes from a boss exclusive move since the player has access to the ability to pass turns a good chunk of mini bosses have access to their own skill called b style to even the odds beast eye sacrifices one turn in order to gain back half turns so essentially it's just a boost to how many actions the enemy can take in battle i personally find this a bit of a lazy way to make a boss difficult because rather than making the boss difficult from them having powerful moves or making the ai smarter the difficulty comes from the fact that the enemies can just increase their turn counter out of nowhere it just feels cheap whenever this is the entire gimmick of the fight the best use for beast die is when it's a punishment for trying to cheese the fight when you fight the four riders if you kill their minions before the main boss themselves they'll counter with beast dies so they can not only re-summon their minions but also give themselves extra turns it forces you to fight the boss in the way that it was designed to be the worst example and of course i have to bring it up is mott mott is broken i know mott is weak to electricity but the problem is that's really the only thing effective against him he either voids or absorbs most other elements and mod is also resistant against physical attacks but what makes motz so infamous is his abuse of the beast eye skill for some reason mod is scripted in a way that lets him use the skill beast die multiple times per turn under the right condition especially if you're playing on hard mode which means is that ma can use beast die to get an extra turn only to use it right away again to get even more turns what happens is that mod ends up building up multiple buffs and will nuke your team and you're unable to do anything about it the likelihood of this happening is low but the fact that this is even something that can happen to begin with is a problem but these underwhelming bosses are still fun due to the fantastic battle mechanics and nocturne features nocturne has what i believe to be the greatest turn-based combat in any video game when the bosses have interesting attacks and designs that let the player take advantage of all the mechanics at their disposal and interesting ways that's when nocturne is at its peak in terms of gameplay thankfully there are plenty of bosses that do follow this design philosophy but sadly there are a few stinkers i have to mention because their quality is that much of a drop one of nocturne's most recognizable qualities is the world itself despite the fact that the world has been destroyed there is ironically more life than ever before sure humans may be near extinct but when the world is now populated by demonic presence they feel the need for interaction demons have a wide range of personalities that are expressed both in and out of battle demons can range from being more animalistic and instinct driven to demons that are far more passive and like to pass the time chilling at a bar demons also have their own hierarchy of power at the end of the day the vortex world is ruled by those who have power and those at the bottom of the food chain are either considered worthless or in the case of the mannequins a group that's meant to be preyed on mannequins while humanoid and emotion and physical attributes lack a soul to truly make them human what makes the world far more interesting however is that the inhabitants have their own beliefs and philosophies there are multiple factions in nocturne that have their own bases you can visit in order to get a view on the demon's ideals by the time the other humans begin to form their reason of creation the demons will take a side with the ones that they believe in the vortex world is constantly evolving and it's never static events that happen in the story have randomifications on the world itself which makes every action feel more important something i could praise nocturne for is its fantastic atmosphere and world design this is one of those accidental accomplishments made due to hardware and budget limitations but the quiet and eerie vortex world is oddly beautiful in the way it's presented there's a feeling of hopelessness and dread while exploring the various landmarks in the destroyed state due to the lack of npcs in the areas you truly feel alone in this world fighting just for your survival most of the dungeon themes are very ambient which adds to the moon but in terms of actual world design nocturne takes a very mature approach to its post-apocalyptic setting something that i notice is that the game is very strict on its use of disturbing imagery the mature rating that this game earns is because of the complex themes and ideals that the game tackles and not because the game is exploited with its use of blood and gore the only time blood is used in nocturne is to enhance the mood never for shock value i've heard people say that the dungeon design in nocturne is really difficult but i've personally never agreed with that for the most part dungeons and nocturne are pretty straightforward where the challenge really comes from are the encounters for the dungeon as well as the unique puzzles that you have to solve the most difficult dungeon in the game from personal experience is the prison dungeon since it involves you jumping between two realities in order to traverse the area this mechanic is very integral to the way the dungeon is designed and i find it very disorienting because when you're in the grayscale world the prison is flipped upside down so i can never remember if i was going the correct way or not while on the other end of the spectrum the amala labyrinth challenge comes from how the dungeon is designed i actually think that the entirety of the amala labyrinth is my favorite dungeon in the game because it features my favorite encounters and boss fights funnily enough this content wasn't present in the original japanese release of nocturne the version of the game we got is known as nocturne maniacs edition the maniacs edition adds extra demons a new ending and the labyrinth of amala but none of these additions even compare to the little bit of cross-promotion that atlas did with capcom you get the opportunity to fight and recruit the pizza loving demon hunter himself and yeah dante rocks [Music] look i'm totally biased i know dante isn't a great character against bosses but i do find him very useful against a lot of enemies especially when grinding at the end game but he's dante from devil may cry and he doesn't feel out of place at all in the scan because he only makes appearances during the optional content you bet your ass when nocturne hd comes out that i'm buying the dante dlc right it was cool and all but come on it's dante alright the gameplay and setting is good and all but what about nocturne's story and themes after all those two aspects are what i heavily focus on in my atlas videos because those are what appealed to me most i felt as though it was important to go over all the gameplay mechanics because unlike most mega 10 games i played they actually helped express the theme nocturne has but in order to explain why i'm going to have to discuss the narrative of this game if what you've seen so far has interested you i highly recommend you play nocturn now it's a great game that's worth your time as long as you're able to adapt to what the game throws at you nocturne's platform most of the runtime is very disconnected from itself it's hard to justify the game with having an overarching narrative but more so having multiple smaller stories going on all at once that all bleed together in the final act of the game as i said earlier in the video most of the story comes from the characters developing their philosophical views so i feel as though talking about the characters individually and going over what their ideals are will be the best way to convey what the story is about so first up on our list is going to be isamu the first impressions you get of isamu is that he's a laid back kid that sometimes acts a bit cocky but after the conception occurs his true colors are shown isamu isn't all that he hypes himself up as he's actually much more timid and afraid of stepping out of his comfort zone isamu learns on his own that he can't rely on others in this dog-eat-dog world so he has to gather his own strength in order to survive he ends up spending most of the game inside of the yamala network at that point which is how he ends up developing his own reason isamu wishes for the world of masubi to be born through the solitude that he himself experienced while inside the amala network he realized that the only person that matters in the world is yourself people don't care about you nor do you care about others you will be the center of your own world with the reason of masubi what this means is that every being will be given their own pocket universe to exist in anything that they want change can be done in the blink of an eye no one will be able to bother you anymore since you control your own life in order for usamu or anyone else for that matter to create their reason they must forge a contract with a demonic sponsor think of these sponsors as super powerful demons that can only be summoned with enough energy also known as magatsuhi has been gathered the goal these sponsors are to give humans enough power to fight what is called the kagetsuchi once the kagitsuchi is defeated by someone who represents a reason the new world will be born isamu sponsors a nameless god that has been forgotten throughout time which is a feat only achievable through absolute solitude he dubs his demonic sponsor noah and the two become one with isamu taking the form of a red orb inside the demon isamu's reason while seeming like a great choice for most people comes with its own set of problems the biggest consequence to giving everyone their own personal paradise would be that the human race would become stagnant and unable to grow because there would be no one to challenge their ideals or mindset if there's an obstacle in your life in the kingdom of masubi you can just change it and not learn anything or grow as a person people can be terrible yes but we can't rely on ourselves to fully change without any sort of outside influence of course there's the obvious benefit with being able to do anything you can possibly imagine but the question lies in if you think life will be fulfilling having that absolute isolation and always getting everything you wanted this reason spawned less of a selflessness to help others but because isamu was too cowardly in life and wanted to run away to his own utopia if isamu gained his reason by running away from the world and hiding chiaki gained hers by embracing the new world order and discovering herself through combat her experience from the vortex world leads her to believe that the only way life can have any sort of value is through power the weak should all be wiped away from existence or serve the strong strength and beauty are one and the same in the kingdom of yosuga when chiaki has the power to steal from the weak she massacres the mannequins in asukusa in order to steal their magetsuhi her demonic sponsor fuses with shiaki turning herself into the ball avatar the name ball is used for the title lord or master and it's also used as a substitute name for multiple deities shiaki wants to use her godly powers to shape the world in her image chiaki's reason boils down to being social darwinism the people with power are the ones that will be able to shape the world while the rest will only exist as servants for the strong i personally don't see any of the benefits of having this be the world order because it's a world of constant war of paranoia there could only be one person at the top of this food chain and because of the power hierarchy there will always be someone trying to take that role for themselves physical strength being the only dictating factor of reworth is a hypocrisy on chiaki's part because she herself was a weakling for most of her life in the vortex world it wasn't until someone with power agreed with her that her reason even had a chance at existing this is no doubt intentional because seeing the flaws in someone's reason is supposed to make you question whether or not it's truly the best option for mankind yosuga functions as an extension to what the vortex world currently is and has the same basic rules and social structures as chiaki's yosuga so we get to experience firsthand how terrible this could be for people in my eyes yosuka would be the last reason i would support personally the final reason we have access to is that of hikawa if you remember hikaba was the man that tried to kill the demi fiend at the start of the game and is the reason as to why the conception took place to begin with hikaw was a part of a group called the cult of gaia when he learned of the conception at the start of the game there were news reports going on that a riot at yoyogi park broke out over communications tower being built there were people who ended up dying in this riot which caused panic in the city but this wasn't the true story hikawa summit an army of demons to massacre the cult of gaia in yoyogi park in order to get the attention of god when god saw that the world had become unbalanced and impure that's when he decided it was time for the conception hikawa entered the vortex world with a reason already on his mind so all he needed to do was gather the necessary amount of magazuhi in order to summon his demonic sponsor hikawa's reason is to make the world of shijima a reality hikaba's goal is to create a world of complete stillness where all minds are one the concept of individuality will cease to exist and all war pain and segregation will be eradicated because all will be equal the demonic sponsor for the world of shojima is the god of the void ariman aryaman is a deity in zoryasterism and is the equivalent of the devil or satan from christianity the world is supposed to represent absolute equality the idea is that individuality is eradicated and everyone exists in a vacuum of stillness and oneness as i said earlier this has the benefits of solving many world issues such as war pain racism crime all of that but at the same time this comes with the sacrifice of losing your identity and becoming nothing more than a cog in a machine so the question comes down to how important individuality actually is a world of perfect harmony and unity can only exist in the extreme case that hikawa seeks by reducing everything to nothing but a black void where minds just exist at complete stillness we will achieve the eternal peace that he is talking about when trying to think that how that world would look it becomes terrifying what's the point of even living to begin with if we can't enjoy the simple pleasures that life has whether that be the connections we have with the people around us or the more materialistic needs hikawa's reason much like chiaki's stems from hypocrisy if only one person is able to change the world hikawa has contradicted his entire goal with shojima as he himself has been given a privilege that others don't have maybe he sees this as a necessary evil to bring his ideal world to life but it just proves the importance of being able to think for yourself and being able to question what's right and wrong in a world without conflict there would be no reason for mankind to even approve or take any actions to better themselves there will be no difference between life and death in the world of shijima all three of these reasons have a few things that are in common with one another as you may have noticed all these views are very flawed in one way or another there's no objectively best philosophy just one that you can agree or disagree with but the problem i do legitimately have with nocturne is the characterization of these three people more so the lack thereof if we take a step back from the story for a second and look at these characters as people they're very one note and very underutilized this is more so a problem with chiaki and asamu because they're supposed to be your friends from high school there's implied history between you three but none of that is ever really explored or developed if you reject the character's reason you're destined to battle them near the end of the game on your way up to the kagatsuchi they sure as hell aren't gonna let you get in the way of their ideal world and you need to take them down in order to proceed to the top but there is such a missed opportunity here for some emotional weight these are your old friends that you're fighting it's supposed to make you think where did it all go wrong but we don't get any of that there are some hints of something when shiaki says that your friendship with her has to die in order for the world to be rebuilt but it just doesn't hit the right notes i believe that this was supposed to be intentional because in a game about presenting different ideologies and having the player pick which one they believe is the best for the world there should be as little bias as possible in that choice so keeping information about the characters away from the player does help with keeping your decisions in line with the reasons rather than the specific character but i'm always gonna have preference and i think that there could have been a way to have more fleshed out characters it could really make you think about your actions if you side with a character when you personally disagree with the reason only to have them commit genocide in order to see their world through it would be a consequence to staying loyal to your favorite character instead of picking what you truly believe in even though there are three different reasons you can side with that doesn't mean you have to pick one of those reasons to begin with there are a few endings you can get outside of siding with a reason one of them relating to your teacher miss takao miss takao is fully able to harbor a reason of her own she even goes as far as acquiring a demonic sponsor to do so the problem that she faces however is that she lacks any sort of philosophy of her own that could lead to a reason developing she wanted the previous world to become a better place but is unsure of a reason as to how she wants to create a better world but she lacks a strong enough opinion as to what it should be this is where her demonic sponsor eradia comes into play eradia is a false god what that means in the world of nocturne is that she came from a world that has ceased to exist there exists multiple universes all going through the cycle of creation and destruction if a universe fails to be reborn during the conception it will eventually die out since eradia comes from one of these destroyed worlds her powers are limited the goal of a false god is to be reborn alongside the new world so they can get their powers back so as of right now eradia lacks any sort of physical form and will occasionally take control of mr cow's body in order to speak with the demi-fiend aradia is supposed to represent freedom she questions and tests the demi fiend's confidence about going against god's will if he were to reject all three of the reasons depending on how you answer these questions he'll either be locked into the bad ending or what is called the freedom ending in the bad ending the world will be stuck as the vortex world until the next conception but because there are no more humans it will be a constant cycle of destruction until the universe eventually dies out in the freedom ending you're able to accept eradia's ideologies and following the path of freedom when the demi fiend is face to face with kagitsuchi he's warned that god has already tried to give the world freedom but it did nothing but create chaos and that chaos eventually led down the path of the world's destruction the kagatsushi attempts to destroy the demi fiend but is ultimately defeated instead of the world being born anew it ends up reverting to its previous state as if the conception never happened in this ending lucifer warns the demifing to keep his power and prepare because by going against god's will he's become an adversary to the great will himself this ending is very self-explanatory a world of freedom is a world where humans themselves dictate how they should live the consequences being that there will always be terrible people in our world selfish and heartless people that just seem to enjoy taking advantage of others but of course there will always be the ones you can depend on that have impacted your own life changing things back to the status quo is only a temporary fix the conception will still occur when the world has run its course so in the end changing things back to the way things were doesn't really resolve anything doesn't while i think what we have now is better than the options proposed by the other reasons that doesn't change the fact that what we're doing by destroying the world is putting a band-aid on a leak a temporary solution to a much bigger problem nocturne features a wide array of different endings you can obtain but in a game that's all about moral ambiguity and player choice there's the unfortunate fact that there's one ending in nocturn that objectively speaking is the best ending of the game for a few reasons i mentioned it briefly earlier but this version of nocturne that we got in north america was the maniacs release one of the additions was a brand new ending that has been dubbed the true demon ending this ending is tied directly with the labyrinth of amala dungeon that was also added in this version of the game the reason as to why i think that this ending is the best one is because it's the ending that offers the most amount of content in order to get the true demon ending you have to finish the yamala labyrinth which has three exclusive boss battles in it one with the lord of flies beelzebub the herald of god metatron and a rematch against dante in fact to even recruit dante as a party member you have to reach the final kappa of this dungeon so at that point you may as well just finish this place off but not only that in order to gain access to more kalpas of this dungeon you need to collect menorah from the fiend race of demons other than matador these are all optional boss battles that offer a great challenge and are even better allies once you're able to fuse them but wait there's even more when you finish the labyrinth of a mellow you are locked into the true demon ending you also get access to the skill called pierce pierce is a passive skill that completely cuts through all physical resistances other than reflection making it one of the best passive skills in the game there's also the fact that by going through the labyrinth of amala a lot of the questions involving noctuan's narrative end up getting answered you learn the backstory of hikawa and araria there are ties to other mainline smt games because of certain characters fate and you even learn about the existence of multiple universes and how the conception actually works this is all natural exposition because every time you finish a kappa in the amala labyrinth lucifer and his assistant reward you with this information in an attempt to lure you into cooperation it's as if the game itself is trying to tempt the player by dangling just enough to pique your curiosity but the cherry on top of this is the final boss of the true demon ending instead of the game ending after killing kagutsuchi you get an extra boss battle against lucifer himself lucifer is without a doubt the hardest boss in the game he possesses a crazy amount of hp the most powerful spells and skills and resists every element in the game including almighty damage the only viable way to deal damage against lucifer is by having demons with the skill pierce demifiend will always have it but if you grind enough levels to fuse metatron there are other ways for your demons to get pierced alright there's a lot of gameplay content packed in this route but what exactly even is the true demon ending to begin with by going down to the bottom of the amala labyrinth the demi fiend trays away the last of his humanity to fully embrace his demonic side lucifer plans to destroy the kagatsuchi so that he and his army of chaos can challenge god in a fight for true freedom the trade-off however is that by destroying the kagatsuchi without a reason the entire universe as we know it will come to an end with no possible way to rebuild it but if you made it this far you actually go through with it and it's exactly how it sounds the world becomes nothing but darkness with a lone light far in the distance if you defeat lucifer in combat you manage to prove your worth to him the demi fiend leads lucifer's army as their general in the final battle against god and that's it we don't get to see what happens next it's left purposely ambiguous so that the player can form their own conclusion this ending left me with a lot of different feelings racing through my head it made me question if the actions i took were right but after letting it rest for a bit and giving it some thought i believe that this at the end of the day was the correct choice to make in the current law of the universe god is the one to decide the way we're supposed to live if he sees that we've gone against his order or have too much freedom that's when the conception will occur it's a constant cycle of destruction and creation the only way to end that cycle is by killing off the concept of creation and taking a stand against this power but this comes with great consequences all of your friends your loved ones your entire world is sacrificed in order to come this far this ending represents nocturne's themes perfectly shin megami tensei nocturne asks one simple question how much are you willing to sacrifice in order to carry out what you believe is right what is the price that comes with you staying true to those ideals and how far are you willing to go with them we get to see this in both the characters and the gameplay the characters all give up parts of themselves in pursuit of their reasons the most prominent example of this is the demi fiend himself throughout the game you acquire new demonic powers to aid you in combat recruit infused new demons to fight alongside you as you gain more and more of these powers and rise to the rank of demons you're slowly letting go of your humanity in order to gain that power only by fully embracing that demonic side you're able to gain enough power to fight for what you believe in in the case of the true demon ending you have to go as far as ending your own universe in order to prove that we don't need someone to tell us how to live our lives and that we should be able to forge our own path that's why this ending in the whole game for that matter really speaks to me nocturne is a one of a kind game it's mechanically rich while at the same time it hosts very thought-provoking ideologies it's not a game without flaws there's very much a reason as to why this is a very niche title at the end of the day there isn't much of the way a story outside of debating which reason you support but even then i still feel as though the game shoots itself in the foot in that regard thanks to locking a lot of content behind one of the endings i think the characters could have been fleshed out more in order to provide a lot more emotional impact in the later half of the game when you're forced to fight them but those are only some flaws in an otherwise outstanding game that i think anyone can enjoy as long as you give it a chance it isn't as accessible as atlas's persona titles i think those games do a much better job with characters and narrative than nocturne and at the end of the day i would still play something like persona 4 before nocturne at a personal preference but that doesn't mean that noctur should be forgotten in fact in many aspects it completely outshines the persona games so you bet your ass only picking up the hd remaster when that comes out i might even do a live stream where i play through the game on hard mode i've never done that before at the end of the day this game will always be considered a classic by me there really is no other game like shin megami tensei nocturne everyone thanks for watching i'd like to give a special thanks to all my lovely patrons whose names are on the screen now i would also like to give a thank you to my good friend nolan also known as that boy aqua for helping with the script of this video he makes really good video essay content on more western games such as assassin's creed and the batman arkham games you should really check him out if you're interested in those types of games because he does a great job at going over both their successes and their failures as i said in my last video there will be at least one more nam related video coming out in october this one is a much smaller scaled video on crash 4's mechanics and level design problems but after that i'll be jumping right into the persona 2 games to finish off the year i'll have many updates on those projects of both my twitter and my discord both of which are in the description of this video so if you're interested please check them out so once again thank you all so much for watching and have a good one

Channel: Nam’s Compendium

Views: 125,834

Rating: 4.9386973 out of 5

Keywords: smt nocturne the price of freedom, Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne Analysis The Price of Freedom, SMT Nocturne Analysis, Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne Analysis, nam12399, nam12399 nocturne, nam12399 smt, smt nocturne review, nam12399 smt nocturne, nam12399 persona, Nam12399 persona 2, smt nocturne story explained, smt nocturne all reasons, smt nocturne video essay, Nam's Compendium, Nam's Compendium Persona, nams compendium, Nam's Compendium Persona 2

Id: cAXKkY5ZLQg

Length: 34min 30sec (2070 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 13 2020