SMT- NOCTURNE (HARD MODE): Demonology 102

I have talked a lot already about what demons in the game do and how they are arranged in relationship to one another but there are a few other points to cover. I wouldn't normally get so deep into mechanics if I wasn't convinced at this point that they are integral to the game's deeper messages. How these cogs and gears turn in the Vortex World (this is the clinical term) is a statement unto themselves. I actually have some trouble thinking of other games where these connections are so clear. I mean, did anyone think the 'materia' system in FF7 really meant anything to the game other than, "We at Square have a cool new word to use when talking about magic!" FF7 is a great game, but like many others the systems involved aren't part of the story. It gets worse when characters in the game's cut scenes use skills or spells in ways impossible to do in the actual player-controlled part of the game. That's not breaking the fourth wall, but a fifth wall or something.

Now returning to the subject, the trait that is most important to demons is clearly their skills. Skills are the building blocks of the combat system and ignoring their role will most likely land you in swirly angel land very quickly. Each demon starts with two or three skills when you first get them, and as they level and get stronger they learn new skills. These skills are predetermined by the demons type and are granted when they become the appropriate level for that particular skill. To get an idea of how important these skills are, think of the lowly Foul Will-o-Wisp that I spoke of in an earlier post. He had a skill called zan, which is a magic attack with good damage and low mp consumption. It was a bit better than his normal physical attack so it saw lots of use. Then upon reaching a certain level he learned mazan, which is the same skill except it hits every enemy on the opposing side. Between mazan and his high agility score, he could go first in nearly every combat and damage the whole opposing team before things even started for them. This made encounters with serious baddies far more survivable, and allowed me to explore parts of the map I had only rushed though before. With the skill mazan the Will-o-Wisp went from regular party member to the center of the offense.

Sometimes you capture a demon out there and you may not be so in love with their current skills, but the skills you see coming up for them are so great you put up with having a dud on the front line so this demon can level up and get the skill you're waiting for. On the status screen you can actually see the next skill that they will learn, though many times you wont know what it does exactly having never actually seen it in the wild. Nonetheless it's hard to pass on something called "Dark Might". That is another skill where it's inclusion in a party changes the landscape so dramatically it can reverse the outcome of boss battles. It is a little unfortunate that the demons in certain ways become backgrounds for the skills they possess, but this is probably to make sure that these demons keep changing and morphing into new forms.

How this happens is a two pronged facet of the game and one of my favs overall. In most major areas of the game is a central location with shops, warp points, healers and a place called the Cathedral of Shadows. A nice place, if you like swirling mist, giant concrete pillars and freaky ZZ-Top looking dudes dressed in purple robes. Upon entering this interesting locale for the first time, the 'Minister' informs you that he is there to aid you specifically. Now he is clearly there to aid the player, none of the shops in any of the other games ever made seem to get other customers than the player, but at least he acknowledges this fact.

The Cathedral is where you can take two demons that you have in your party and turn them into another demon of greater strength (most of the time anyway). The two demons chosen to be "Fused" are put at the top of the pillars where they disintegrate and combine into the new demon in a dramatic cut scene. It is possible from what I hear to have accidents occur during the fusing process where what you get is something totally unexpected, but I haven't seen that yet. Also you can sacrifice a third demon at the same time during regular game events and that will make the resulting demon even stronger. This will add levels and new skills to the resulting demon, but you have to be careful when doing this as their skill sets can change dramatically reflecting the skills of the sacrifice more often than not. I figure this is for when you have two powerful demons with skills you don't want, just throw in another demon with skills you like and you get a powerful and useful demon out of it. It's an expensive option however as the only demons that make good sacrifices are the ones that you have leveled many times through battle.

This fusing system is set alongside a more common idea of evolution. Certain demons have multiple forms and leveling them to the point where they have learned all the skills that are possible for them to learn will allow them to evolve into a higher form. This is something players should concentrate on because these evolved demons are powerful and usually come with two or more really great skills right out of the box. They also tend to jump up many levels, even more than you would normally be allowed to control, so there is a serious bonus there. The one thing here that is a bit confounding is that when they evolve they tend to remain in a similar shape but their clan affiliation can change. One would think that they would stay within the family as it is essentially the same demon. For example the demon Beast Inugami evolves into Avatar Makami. They look very similar but yet are of different clans. It's the same demon too clearly as it possesses many of the same skills right where you left them on the non-evolved form. However this does help to counteract the high turnover that seems to plague the front line of the average party.

That leads me to why I think things are set up in this fashion. As this game starts to unfold I am starting to see the over arching concept. Demons are at the center of everything, a seemingly easy spackle to the game being both friend and foe, but they are also a metaphor. The story puts you into what is essentially a half-baked world, and the idea is that you may or may not have the power somehow to decide what comes out of it. The game calls it "Reason". Whatever your Reason is this is what becomes of the Vortex World. It looks like everyone who survived the destruction has a chance at what comes next, and the one with the strongest Reason is the one who wins.

The demons are the living embodiment of that violent change. Not only are they constantly learning and evolving, they become building blocks for other demons as easily as walking into a shop. You decide who continues to exist and who is ground up for parts. There are allusions to machinery and fate and the inevitability of pain and destruction, all of it pointing to the fact that the new world is a giant crucible. And for all it's power, vastness and variety, it too in the end is only to be ground up into parts for some yet larger construction. As above, so below.

SMT- NOCTURNE (HARD MODE): A Fiendish Labyrinth

To put it bluntly, this may have been the wrong game to challenge on the hard mode. The mania that has me gunning for harder and harder play from videogames has probably finally gotten the best of me here. Not that I'm giving up mind you, this is a very good game. The path to take when putting your team together is always clear, but sometimes you need more strength and luck than you are going to have at that point. The complaints that I had in the past have since been mollified by the great gameplay in SMT: Nocturne. And we all know that things like art and story tend to take a backseat to the meat of the game once you've got your hands in it. The art is still sort of an eyesore, but the story has taken a few nice turns that I think are interesting. On the whole, the demon training/combining part of the game is satisfying too. Look for more details in Demonology 102, coming up next week.

Now on the subject of difficulty, I have been cursed twice by my own hand. Once when the game asked me, "Will you play the kiddy wuss version of the game? [NORMAL] Or are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president? [HARD]" (I'm paraphrasing here) I mean... really. What could I have done? It's not like me to take that kind of guff from a videogame. So I had to choose [HARD], but perhaps they should have called it [DESERT ISLAND MODE]. Secondly I need to discuss a game called Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne Maniax.

This is the director's cut of the original game released in Japan, and was the game that was brought to the states and translated by Atlus for release as SMT: Nocturne. Maniax added a number of new elements, including a place called the Labyrinth of Amala. The labyrinth is a place reminiscent of your old Ultima Underworld games (beat em), or the more recent Etrian Odyssey (beat it). It is a tough as nails dungeon with traps and pitfalls and many other kinds of carefully engineered doom. You gain access to this place after defeating a jaunty skull-headed fellow named "The Matador" and talking to an old man in a wheelchair and his hot goth nurse type... person.

After the battle you whisked to this alternate world with walls the color of blood and creepy music. Once there you hear from the Old Man that he once had eleven candelabrums (candelabras?), one for each level of the Labyrinth. And he wants me to get them back from the fiends who stole them from him. I said yes, naturally. After all when presented with an epic quest what else would one do? What I didn't understand at the time was that I was already on an epic quest, and this was totally optional. I could have said no, and have never heard from either of them again, or had to fight ten fiends. The real problem is that each of these fiends is placed in irritatingly close proximity to the regular bosses, who are pretty tough, and are about twice as strong. There hasn't been a boss battle I haven't had to spend time on preparing for yet. Having two of these battles back to back without any kind of story progression is really annoying. Had I known about the structure of the optional content would I have changed my answer? Probably not. Massive dungeons are a reason I buy games to start with.

So as I defeat each fiend and get his candelabrum, I can travel deeper into the labyrinth. With all the preparation (read: grinding) needed to overcome the bosses it makes for the perfect playground for xp farming. The place has it's own rules and story as well, which makes it more interesting. It is also very big, big in the sense that every level of the labyrinth has multiple floors of it's own. One trip down a ladder can put you up against demons you have no chance of beating, that's of course if you aren't lucky enough to fall into a pit trap that takes you down lower than that even. There certain death is dealt to you by totally unfamiliar demons who will reflect your own attacks back at you. No kidding, it is the classic "you don't belong here yet" kind of beatdown you might remember from the old days.

I haven't played a game where the possibility of death was so great since my days of Nethack obsession. It is only a certain part of the game so the comparison is not perfect, but without the greater amounts XP gleaned from this place I'd be wandering around the overworld for ages trying to get the same things done. Despite all the roadblocks I've pridefully put up for myself, I am still quite looking forward to the tasks at hand. A sure sign I am dealing with a winner here.

SMT- NOCTURNE (HARD MODE): Catch em all?

I don't think I can really get into much further discussion of Nocturne without going over the primary attractions of the game, the demons. From what I can tell so far, there isn't a battle you fight in the game that isn't against a demon of some kind. One of the many hooks here is that the very same demons can become your allies without much trouble. In fact, you aren't getting very far at all without getting as many demons on your side as possible, as soon as possible. And this is only allowed because the main character himself becomes a demon very close to the start of the story. Having trouble keeping all these demons straight? I don't blame you.

My guess is that there are probably more than a hundred of these colorful characters out there to fight and recruit. Each demon has an individual name and a clan name. They are constructed like so where if the demon's name is "Jirae Kodama" "Jirae" is the clan name, and "Kodama" is the individual species name. They also seem to fall along various physical themes, and these themes do not stick too close the clans where they are dominant. For example, "Jirae Kodama" and "Jirae Sudama" are alike in color, size and skills, but "Jirae Hua Po" is also of Jirae clan, yet looks far more like a member of the "Fairy" clan, "Fairy Pixie". Furthermore Hua Po and Pixie are seen banding together against the player in random battles in many places at the start of the game. Hua Po and Kodama are also found alongside one another, but less often for some reason.

To give you an idea of what you might see for demons in the new Toyko, you have "Wilder" clan, which is a clan of beastlike demons. The "Divine" clan is a clan of angelic demons (believe it or not). The "Foul" clan is full of slimes and ghosts. A personal favorite, the "Megami" clan is a phalanx of female demons based on various goddesses. The "Fiend" clan is the one the player belongs to, having consumed a special type of demon to gain it's powers (more on this later). Having only seen a small portion of the total group, around 15% by the reckoning of the Demonic Compendium (think pokedex), I can't really say if these patterns are consistent throughout the demonic world or if I will be surprised again by what I find.

Getting these demons to do what you want can be an interesting process and not too difficult. I have already been warned that there are demons that won't choose to go with me of their own free will but I haven't encountered any of them yet. What you want to do is first find the demon that you want in a random battle, then isolate them, killing everyone else in the opposing party. If there are other demons around either they will block the attempt. Once that is accomplished you can use the "talk" command or have one of your demons use the "seduce" skill. The only difference between them seems to be that "talk" is automatically part of the main character's battle menu. Then the demon will usually start demanding items, money or to drain your 'power' (HP). These requests are never simple, you nearly always have to give them two or three things before you get the final stage of negotiation. The demon you are trying to get to join the team asks you a question. Usually it's something like, "Are humans meant to suffer, or is it just their own stupidity that causes suffering?" I kid you not, this is a very philosophical bunch. You must answer in the positive or negative, and based on that the demon can join you or just take all your stuff and leave, even if you answer correctly. Hell, they can break off the negotiation at any point they want. I've seen this occur with weaker demons more often though. A stronger demon will most like get every last thing out of you before making a decision.

I'm pretty certain at this point that there is a series of secret variables that keep track of your relationships with the various demons, or at least the various demon clans. At the start of the game I recruited a weak demon, probably the weakest one, named "Foul Will-o-Wisp". Foul clan demons are hard to communicate with, you mostly you have to wait for them to halt combat to talk to you. He requested a healing item, I gave it to him and he joined up. He was a kind of floating ball of white smoke with a suffering grimace floating in it. As the game wore on, he naturally gained levels and sometimes upon leveling up he would ask to talk to me. At these points he started giving me gifts, healing items mostly. What happened next was even more amusing.

Every time I would encounter another Will-o-Wisp, they would stop fighting to come over and beg for items. Apparently it had gotten around that I was a friend to the Foul clan! It had gotten so bad that when I decided that I didn't want to avoid combat by placating the demon with money or items, the Will-o-Wisp would just leave combat dejected, robbing me of his precious experience. Annoying for sure, but endearing too somehow. My Will-o-Wisp was essential part of my early game because of his force attacks which could hit every demon in the opposing group at the same time. Now all demons can exhibit these behaviors in varying amounts, but I never again came across another demon as loyal or emotive at the "Foul Will-o-Wisp". I eventually had to break him down for parts at the Cathedral of Shadows (more on this in another post) to make a stronger demon and I have to admit there was a little regret in the decision.

There is another demon out there with even stranger behavior than this. The title of Strangest Demon easily goes to "Yoma Isora". The Isora is a big aquatic manta ray sort of deal that lives in the sewers of the Great Underpass of Ginza. I noticed first that they're negotiation questions were always very windy and often didn't have clear answers, so getting them was always a coin flip. Then after recruiting a few one rushed up to me and begged for his life, offering advice for the kindness. I relented and he gave me a tip on using demon skills that I already knew and was off. After that Isora would break combat to run up to me and ask me their strange questions, all without provocation or a "talk" command. Sometimes I would get items, sometimes not. They would always leave afterward. Once an Isora started talking to me without even a question being asked first. Just rambling about the universe for two or three lines, and then gone like the rest.

Perhaps the Isora are the scholar-poets of the demon world. They seem friendly in their own way, if only a little too much so. During a routine battle I watched an Isora run up of one of the other demons in my party, not even to me! (this has never happened again) Once there and situated in front of "Beast Inugami" he ranted, "I see a RIVER! A glorious shining RIVER! I give my life to you!" And then immediately joined the party without my permission. Not what you'd expect from your garden variety Seaking, eh?

SMT- NOCTURNE (HARD MODE): Eatin' demons, castin' spells

I have been eagerly awaiting this game since about the time I went searching on ebay and saw the exorbitant prices for used copies. They were usually about $40 - $60. I checked reviews and it scored very favorably, and I was very interested in the dark demon summoning setting as well. I had made a decision early on in my PS2 years when I decided that I would obtain the Shadow Hearts games as they came out and wait until later to catch up on the SMT stuff. This has saved me quite a bit of money until now since the game count on the SMT/Persona side is considerably higher, and the games more sought after in general. Don't get me wrong, the SH series is A-class stuff. Even the first game has lots of great moments.

Well, now I am playing Nocturne and my initial impressions are... mixed. I was puffing up this game a bit on the hype probably, but I don't usually let it get to me. There are two things worth mentioning first that I won't usually hold against a game. One, the main character is on of those silent/yes/no types. This is an old-school thing and I understand why it works. This allows the player to identify with the protagonist, allowing the player's internal commentary to take the forefront in the play experience. I'm not a major fan of it but you can't get on a role playing game for using respected tools of the genre. I mean, am I going to rag on hit points next? Ahhhh, no.

Secondly there are no voices in the game. Of course this is another old-school thing, but not so much for the same reasons. Older games were on carts or simply didn't have the budgets for voice tracks. Now this game was released in an era when at least partial voice tracks were pretty common, but not totally so. I will have to watch this and see if this was an artistic choice or not. Neither of these really have degraded the experience for me, but I just wanted to cover them before going on.

One thing that is really bothering me is that the main character is an emotionless freak. I mean not a peep during combat or a strongly worded (yes/no) response during conversations. The story thrusts this high school age boy into a post-apocalyptic world riddled with demons bent on his destruction, and of course this is after he's undergone an instantaneous demonic puberty that has left him radically changed. Even Dragon Warrior would give us a "!!!" at climatic points. Is this an extension of the silent hero idea, or another artistic choice? Perhaps he really is nonplussed by all of these things. Perhaps he's a chosen one who was born here in a past life or something. Like Paul Atredies, "He will know our ways..." Gawd, I am really making excuses here. My point is that this could be the case in which his near-psychotic detachment would make sense, sorta. But, could he look any more bored??? Ok we're past that now.

The other issue I am having is with the art. This was probably the first cel-shaded game for the SMT people so you can say they were getting used to it, but the real-world environments look really washed out and bland. When you get to the more strange alternate-realms the game puts you into things are far more visceral and convey mood well but they have been rare so far. Could they be trying to make a contrast here? I'm not sure. On the character end of things the art style makes them look stiff and manikin-like. Emotion again is hard to find and in general the designs are not so interesting to look at. I am only five hours into the game now, so these things will probably change a bit as the events take their toll on people. The demons on the other hand have some really great designs, even if the themes chosen thusfar are not the most original.

My guess is that the real star of SMT: Nocturne is supposed to be the setting, which is fantastic. The heart of the main story right now is a mystery about what the heck happened to the world, so at the start the protagonist is fumbling around trying to learn about how this new world works and this allows the largest amount of exposition on the setting. This new world is a nightmarish mirror of the real one, and also a very brown mirror, but it seems to have existed long before the arrival of the main character. There are factions, rules and common complaints coming from it's numerous denizens. So did we travel in time as well as in space when the world changed? Or was the real world the mirror of this one?

Combat in Nocturne (I'm playing on hard mode btw) is a fast turn based system that allows for just enough depth to keep it fun and challenging. It is possible to end up in random battles that can overwhelm you, so saving is a virtue, but so long as you don't make any obvious blunders even these battles can usually be weathered. Demons, their strange behaviors and their powers are obviously as the center of the system but I will save that part for later when I have seen more. The music is very good, if a little quiet at every moment other than battle.

It may be possible that this is a game elevated to it's acclaimed heights on the fact that the setting is so totally unique. Most of the things done here in the systems and design have been done all or in part before. It's a mish mash of good ideas, and I like the way it works. Right now I am just waiting for the moment where I care about what is happening to these people and hoping that the real gold in Nocturne ends up coming out in the story. At least I'm pretty sure I won't be disappointed.

Hard Mode, hard to pass up?

I must be some kind of masochist. I'm about to start playing Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, having recently finished Odin Sphere, and I am already stuck. At the start of a new game the game asks you if you want to play with normal difficulty or on hard difficulty. I can't decide which I want.

Now I like a challenge, but I don't like being stymied or having to grind for levels. Now you may say, "But dude, that is what 'hard' means in RPGs!". This is not always true. In the original Valkyrie Profile, the hard mode allowed access to events and optional dungeons that the regular mode did not. Also the increase monster strength allowed for the tactical nature of the combat system to be expressed, making every action in combat more important. The thing I really can't stand in games is mindless combat. My tastes run toward the tactical anyway, so having myriad skills and spells that never see the light of day because your regular attacks can take care of all the challenges for you is unforgivable. In a game with all the layered systems and optional dongles of SMT Nocture, my fear of having this happen was even more acute.

I am about an hour into the main game now and the weakness of the enemies is giving me the heebie-jeebies, so I need to learn what the hard mode actually adds to the game. Now I read everywhere on the interwubs that this game is very hard at certain points, but I see no mention of the hard mode. So I dig deeper, one player says that there is no extra content in hard mode. No extra events, characters or dungeons. Not what I wanted to hear. Next tidbit I get is that in hard mode there are basic mathematical increases to monster strength, and probability based attacks like insta-kills and status effects are far more common. Insta-kills are insta-annoying, and yet...

To actually beat the game on hard mode, wouldn't that be even more awesome? Wouldn't I have to pimp the systems to their utmost to prevail? Wouldn't I get the greatest appreciation for the game design and textures in the game rules by challenging myself? Wouldn't the spectre of death make every random encounter all the more interesting?? The spectre of DEAAAAATHHHHHHH! (He's right over there... don't look!!)

Ya anyway, I can already see myself restarting on hard mode. This is happening tonight. *sigh* Am I nuts? The only guarantee is that I will spend more time playing this game one way or another, and I have a huge pile of games to play after this one. Is beating SMT: Nocturne on hard mode even all that important? Nothing but the math is changing here apparently, but the very fact that few if any of the goobs on gamefaqs, UGO or IGN have claimed this feat for themselves makes me want to try it all the more. There is one other thing I get out of this, however. And that is that no matter how I grind, min/max, combo or match traits to situations, I will not feel as though I am cheating myself out of any of the challenge. Is this the puritan work-ethic at work in my demon summoning/training/breeding/eating video game? Yeah probably.