EVILNess Reviews More Games
 

As before...

TLDR THREAD WARNING

I've been busy with finishing up school (I got my degree yay!) so I have not really had a chance to play any games, which is a shame since I really enjoyed sitting down and putting my opinions on the proverbial paper for others to see. I got a lot of positive feedback from what I did before with the DS Reviews, and I found myself sitting here with a bit of free time and it honestly just made me feel all important and high and mighty. So in an effort to recapture that, I present to you the sequel thread to my DS reviews. This thread will be a little more open in terms of content because I broke my DS and haven't been playing it. I am starting with Nocturne because I recently finished getting all the endings, I figured it would serve as a nice warm up, and I review what pleases me. I reserve the right to totally and utterly disregard previous promises to review certain games.

Don't forget, the title of the game and box-art are links!

SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI: NOCTURNE

Nocturne adds an odd twist to the standard save the world fare... the world ends right in front of the main character's eyes, and there is nothing he can do about it. Saved by a teacher with confusing feelings in you and chosen by a slightly creepy little boy to be turned into a half demon, what is an aspiring protagonist gonna do in a world that has ended and is in the process of becoming something new?

Go with the flow of course.

Of course there is more than one flow to choose from and you'll quickly realize that the ideologies that you come across on your journey across apoco-land are not really as cut and dry as they initially appear and if you pay close attention all of their flaws are laid bare. Nocturne's story is very philosophical and juggles with many conflicting ideologies. As the main character struggles to find a Reason he wanders the wasteland, following were the flow takes him, eventually finding out the reason for the world's transformation and how to set things to how they were before. If the main character still wants things to go back the way they were before.

You play the entire game as a wild card, the deciding factor. You were the one thing the people who created this situation didn't foresee, and now no one knows how the dice will turn out. It's all in your hands.

When I say you play a wild card in the story I really am not joking, there are 6 endings to this game. Each one representing a different Reason you come across in the storyline.


BOTTOM LINE: OMG THE WORLD IS ENDED AND YOU ARE NOW A DEMON. WTF IS GOING ON!?!?!!111

The characters in this game all for the most part all very sympathetic people. They all have hopes, aspirations, and they all must cope with this new world they have been thrown into. Where they differ is how they cope. Some choose absolute strength as their Reason while, others absolute self, with the man who instigated the whole affair absolute silence. As you learn more about the characters and their ideologies you start to see holes in them as time goes on... and you just feel sorry for them. Not to get too much into the plot, there is significant character growth, unfortunately it tends to be in a downward spiral motion.

The main character is a silent protagonist, and his personality is shaped by what you say in the conversations presented to you as the game progresses. However, there is more to it than says a KOTOR style morality shift and there is no simple black and white just a million and one shades of gray. Eventually, you will need to adopt a Reason to help shape his view of the world, and more importantly, how the story ends.

Also, Dante from Devil May Cry somehow inexplicably appears in this game.


BOTTOM LINE: The protagonist is silent, and it sucks to live in the Vortex World. There is a bit of a choose your own adventure aspect to the character development for the protagonist. Also, Dante appears.

The graphics are very striking, with the cell shading giving many of the areas a nice contrast. The characters are all uniquely and well designed and there are a plethora of demons that you will run across ranging from bondage angels to fucking Ghostrider.

The environments can get a bit samey, especially after you spend 3 hours running around a sewer full of orange pipes. The world animations are unfortunately kinda jerky and stiff and you will go most of the game feeling very, very lonely.

At least the battle animations are marginally better, but still suffer from being kinda jerky, at least for the main character. The demons themselves are much more fluid and


BOTTOM LINE: Some animations are jerky the environments tend to get tedious, but the character models are striking and their contrasts and variance do help to break the environment tedium up a bit.

I love this game's soundtrack. The heavy metal themes really get me rocking as I play through. I think there is even a little J-pop and what can be best described as lounge music in there somewhere. The battle themes in particular, are really just good.

The sound effects are sound effects, and what voice there is in the game (Grunts, giggles, growls, etc) are all done adequately. There is no voice acting, which is a shame because I think that many of the characters had so much personality that a voice to go along with it would have only enhanced it. Not really a point loser, but its just something that would have made things better.

BOTTOM LINE: I love this game's soundtrack. The battle themes in particular, are really just good. There is no voice acting. :(

In terms of gameplay, Nocturne is a standard JRPG in certain aspects, it has random battles where the hero and the enemies take turns pounding on each other. However, this little JRPG has some tricks up its sleeves. First there is the press turn system. You get 1 press turn for every demon in your party, up to a maximum of 4 press turns on a normal play through. (You can earn more by doing special events.) You use one press turn for an action, but if you hit an elemental weakness or get a critical hit then you only use half a press turn effectively letting you go once again, basically rewarding you with extra moves for good strategy. This may sound familiar to you Persona 3 vets, as this system was tweaked for that game. The difference between P3 and Nocturne however is that this game penalizes you for bad decisions in battle, taking 2 press turns for a resist, 3 for a null, and all of them for a absorb! Taking into account the vast number of demons and they all have different weaknesses in conjunction with the fact that pretty much any demon can get in a lucky hit on your main character prematurely ending your game make this a very difficult game. Beware enemies with instant death spells.

The demons learn skills as they level up and through demon fusion, a near identical concept to the persona fusion from P3. The main character on the other hand learns skills through leveling up while ingested with parasites called magatama. Each one bestows its own strengths and weaknesses upon the main character as well as adjusts his stats. Creating a build for your main character requires forethought and planning because you cannot relearn a skill once it is forgotten and you have a limited number of skill slots.

As you go through the game you are presented with choices, these choices determine how the game end, and you can even choose not to make that choice instead opting for the game's 6th ending which has you descending a very hard dungeon. Oh did I mention the fact that you have to fight other fiends for the right to go down into this dungeon? You do, and these boss fights will challenge your abilities to plan and execute strategies.

When I say this is probably the hardest RPG I have ever played, you have to realize how much of a feat that is. I have played lots of RPGs. Lots. This game requires skill, strategy, planning, patience, and above all... luck. Literally every enemy in the game can kill you.

BOTTOM LINE: This. Game. Is. A. Hard. JRPG.

Overall Score: (9/10) Almost Perfect

This game is why I purchase everything that Atlus brings over to our shores. P3 is a great game and all with its suicidal head shooting imagery blah blah blah... but Nocturne is in my opinion just better. It is fun, challenging, and has lots of well fleshed out characters. Not to mention its own post game challenges, and the 6 different endings. I recommend this game to anyone with a PS2 and a wad of cash. Hell, they just reprinted it so it isn't super rare anymore! There really isn't a good excuse not to at least pick this game up and play it once.

This thread isn't getting any love? Shame. Real shame.

Great review as always. If I didn't have two MegaTen games waiting to be beaten already, and if my goddamn Gamestop had a copy, I would play the shit out of it.

More than just DS games now! Good.

What's planned for the next installment?

I think the next game I review will probably be something completely off the wall and random.

Of course, I could always just review another JRPG. I got stacks and stacks and stacks of those.

You know what? I know exactly what I am gonna review. Hint: Its a PSX game and it was made by Capcom.

Puzzle Fighter?

I mean "PSX By Capcom" ain't too specific.

I'm guessing either Breath of Fire 3 or Breath of Fire 4.

I spent 2 hours kicking a soda can!
 

BZZZT! WRONG!

You play as Mega Man, gentleman archaeologist and notorious womanizer, as he delves into the mysteries of a forbidden island with his partner in adventure and love, Roll. After a terrible crash that damaged their ship. Also accompanied by his faithful sidekick Data the dancing monkey and Roll's grandfather the duo is ready for anything. Constantly under threat by the island's inherent dangers as well as the pillaging Bonne family of pirates, Mega Man may just find the mother of all finds and a little about himself as well.

Mega Man's first 3D romp is a fairly straight forward and immensely enjoyable dungeon crawling romp through the homicidal robot infested catacombs of a small rural island. Oh there are also pirates, who coincidently use homicidal and cute Lego-men robots to rob banks and all manner of nefarious deeds. Its not really big on the story department, with a very simple ans easy to follow story. You basically spend the whole game clashing with pirates and malfunctioning bots in ruins. This is why the game excels, it doesn't try to make you think. It puts you into a Saturday morning cartoon and lets you mess around with a cannon strapped to both arms.

The only downside, I think, is the rather rushed finale to the game. It raised too many questions and answered none. While sometimes that is a good thing, I don't think that it really fit in with the rest of the game's plot tone. Hell, I don't think raising concerns about the main character's origin in the last 30 minutes to an hour of your game would really fit in any plot.


BOTTOM LINE: Basically the story is summed thusly: Crash!... Pirates!...FIGHT!!...Explore!...Pirates!...FIGHT!! ...etc... Not a bad thing.
The main characters in the game are all wonderfully done. They are well designed, expressive, funny, have great voice actors, and the dialog isn't too cheesy. The only downside to them is that you don't really learn anything about them other than the obvious, which of course plays well with the games simple story so it isn't a real big problem. I mean, the two biggest issues I had with any of the characters was the noise Bonne Bonne made and the whole "Mega Man's origins are... Oh wait... to be continued in the next installment" thing.


BOTTOM LINE: The characters are very straightforward. You will love them for it. Tron Bonne is my hero.

This is a PSX game originally released in 1997, so the graphics are dated to say the least, but honestly they aged rather well. The characters are clean looking, expressive, and most of the models move very smoothly.The enemies are all uniquely and well designed. You can definitely see Capcom's signature quality in this game. There is some noticeable tearing every once in a while, but I chalk that up to the age of the game.

BOTTOM LINE: It's a high quality PSX game that, in my opinion, has aged very well.

I don't know what it is with Capcom and music, but damn. There are songs I hum to this day that came from this game. In fact, I recently discovered that one of the tunes I constantly hum (Its what I do. I hum, constantly.) actually came from this game and I had forgot that! It was a song that I had relegated to never knowing where I picked it up from, and 'lo and behold there it was! Small world, huh?

BOTTOM LINE: I <3 this soundtrack.

The gameplay is pretty straightforward. You run through stages and shoot at enemies with your buster cannon, which you can upgrade in an odd RPGish fashion, occasionally fighting a boss. There are a great deal of mini-games, some of which are hair pull frustrating, but they are all mostly optional. There is also a large selection of secondary weapons... from cannons and vacuums, to homing missiles and doomsday lasers. The controls look rather awkward from an outside view, but aren't really as bad as they seem. The bottom line is that they do require a brief adjustment period though, but it shouldn't be any longer than it would take you to reacclimate yourself to a Resident Evil game. After you get the hang of them they go very smooth and you'll find yourself rolling and jumping and dodging even the harshest bosses' lasers.

Speaking of bosses, this game is rather easy, most of the bosses can be soundly defeated with minimal damage just by circle strafing them. The game is also short. I clocked in at just under 7 hours when I beat it on Christmas Eve, and that was with me getting a few of the optional things. There are lots of hidden easter eggs and little things here and there to boost the length of this game, but it is a very short game. Expect to spend no more than 6 hours on a straight run through, and 12-18 hours playing it if you are getting everything, depending on how much you suck at mini-games.

BOTTOM LINE: Very straightforward game, but is kind of short and sways on the easy side of the difficulty spectrum.


While over-arching plot and deep thought provoking dialog isn't what you will find in Mega Man Legends, I think that this only adds to the charm. I originally played this game during a time when my game life was choked with super serious JRPGs. Tired with battling with ideas of loyalty, religion, heresy, betrayal, and belonging I picked up this game and had fun. Pure, simple fun. At the time, it was really what I needed and even today 10 years later it is a game I can appreciate as simple, but not mindless fun. I mean, c'mon, the game has a dancing monkey as a save point. It is my opinion that this really should be considered one of the best Mega Man games. Pick it up, I'd bet money you would enjoy it.

Something I've never understood (probably because I didn't buy it), is Mega Man 64 a port of Legends? How does it stand against it?

It is, and there is very little difference between them. Maybe I should review another game...

Hmm...

The idea of Mega Man as an archeologist and a womanizer is completely psyduck to me, but nonetheless good review.