Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, known in other regions as Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer’s Call, is the “third” game in the SMT franchise. And I say third with quotes because any SMT fans will tell you that’s bullshit. The third in the mainline franchise, yes, but SMT has had several spin offs and franchises all from the Shin Megami Tensei titles alone. Hell, one of them that you may know, and the reason why you are reading this article right now to yell at me over, is the Persona franchise. Persona is part of the same series, but vastly different. Persona is a game that is about the bonds you make with humans, accepting who you are and using your bonds with others to get stronger and in the end, beat the shit out of god. And if you are like me, you said, “Wow, Persona 4 was such a lively fun game, I want to get into more”. And I did. Falling into a never ending pit of Persona memes, I fell for hours into this unspeakable hellhole



But after finishing Persona 5 and falling in love with it at the rip age of 20, I said to myself, “That was great, but no other Persona games that are accessible to me. Eternal Punishment and Revelations Persona are too pricey for me, I don’t have a PSP for Persona 1 or Innocent Sin, and I would rather fucking kill myself than play Persona Q. What’s a man to do?” Well, what that man do is take back the PS2 and go onto Amazon and check out the mainline series, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne to be exact. I was sitting myself down ready for another happy adventure through anime land and ready to make some friends… What I got instead of fucking decimated by the Fiends, get lost in dungeons for hours, experience insta kills, and realize my “friends” are assholes. But despite that, I also what I got was one of the best RPGs of my generation and probably of all time. And yes, despite this being an analysis, that title holds truth. This is a better experience than Persona 5, in almost every way. So let’s stop talking around it and get to talking about it.

1: Genesis, or The Beauty of the Intro



From the first moment I start the game, I am hooked. I am on board almost immediately. You are given the option of what to name the characters in the story… All four of them, of course. We can’t have you throwing out too many names. This isn’t Final Fantasy VII. You are told of the world ending, and all you can think of, being a protagonist in an RPG, “Well shit, let’s get our gang together and stop it”. You head to the hospital to meet your teacher, Yuko Takao, and there, you run into your other friends, the level headed girl Chiaki and Isamu, a troubling child who totally ripped off my clothing style. But on the way, you run into a reporter named Hijiri, who has an article on the hospital and how it is run by a mysterious cult. And being a mature horror enthusiast, I laughed. A cult? Really? Come on, how generic…. I was very wrong, but we’ll get there later. Once at the hospital, you realize that it is completely empty. No staff to be found, and Takao isn’t anywhere. As you explore the lower depths of the hospital, you find bloody beds and empty halls. Oh, also a giant pentagram in one room surrounded by candles and curtains. Pay no attention to that. And in one of these rooms, we find a man named Hikawa, a supposed member of the cult next to a strange drum with symbols. Giving you no time, he attempts to kill you with some sort of monster shrouded in black. What is it, you have no idea. Your choices are to either run or to fight. Regardless, Ms. Takao will come and tell Hikawa to stop and leave you alone. After convincing him by refusing to take part in an event, she asks you to meet her on the roof. And here, after all the exploring… One of the best scenes happen. Scenes these good should be saved for at least halfway through the game, but Nocturne shows it in the first twenty or so minutes. On the roof, Takao tells you that the world will end, and nothing will stop it, but she has faith you will survive. She tells you to look for her, as the music slowly builds up from this soft piano to this orchestral of violins in the background. And then, the Conception happens, the end of the world. All life on earth is wiped out in seconds as the world is turned inside out. A giant ball of light floats in the center of the earth and you are assumed the last one left alive. But not all hope is lost. A young boy with blonde hair and an elderly woman clothed in black give you aid, and with that, they insert a Magatama into your eye, a bug like creature that eats into your brain, turning you into The Demi-Fiend, a demon that can survive the world. And from there, you begin your journey. All human life is lost, you are all alone, and now demons walk the earth. You have nothing to go on except to leave the hospital and explore what was once your home city, while fighting the hostile demons that roam the earth now. This intro is amazing, bringing a sense of familiarity to you before it throws you into the end of the world. Chrono Trigger had the end of the world as a bad ending, but could be avoided. Final Fantasy VI did so half way through. But Nocturne wastes no time and with the music, the talk with Takao, and seeing the world change all around you, it’s one of the best scenes in video games….. And we’re just getting started!

2. Gospel, The Music of Nocturne



I am convinced that lead composer of Atlus, Shoji Meguro can do any style of music. From the lively hip hop beats of Persona 3, the joyous pop and rock of Persona 4, the smooth funky bass that is in Persona 5, the soft jazz style of Catherine and the space opera orchestral score of Strange Journey, and the hard rock that we hear in Nocturne is no exception. The world of Nocturne is strange and threatening. It is a world where death is around every corner, where everyone either wants you dead or wants nothing to do with you. And if there is anything that sets this in, it is the atmosphere. Atmosphere is, of course, a blend of visuals and music and tone, but they are all so perfect that I want to talk about each one individually. The music has a tone of mystery when you are exploring, yet some familiarity. You’re exploring the ruins of real world locations in Japan, Shibuya, Ginza, Ikebukuro, all places that exist in Japan. You (Or a Japanese player) can go to these places right now, yet you don’t gotta worry about seeing a giant starfish with one eye or an ironclad demon riding a horse in a shopping mall. The music sounds familiar, but with that strange synthesizer and electronica in the background mixed with the faint guitar sounds gives it a strange vibe to it. Speaking of strange, the battle music. They are all real bangers to listen to, until you get to the vocals, and then it sounds truly threatening. Some people say that it is the dogs of hell shouting at you in anger, but really, it’s just the computers text to speech program that is reading it. You remember using a laptop in school and you had that one voice, the “Frog in my throat” one? People think it’s that. It’s not an uncommon practice. Suda51 of Grasshopper uses a text to speech format from PlainTalk in his games all the time, like The Silver Case and No More Heroes. Apparently the voices in the songs are referencings scriptures from the bible, which… yeah, I believe it. I don’t know if it’s true and I can’t understand it at all, but I believe it.

3. Psalms, The Art of the Conception



(At this point, you’re wondering why I’m referencing parts of the bible. But if you are, then you probably don’t play Persona or SMT for those reasons).
Let’s discuss another man of brilliance that works at Atlus, Kazuma Kaneko, the lead artist for Nocturne. Having been doing this work as well as freelance art for Konami and Capcom, you may know him as the artist for the robot designs of Zone of the Enders and for the Devil Trigger forms of Dante and Vergil in Devil May Cry 3. But everything else in SMT, every character, every world, every single one of the hundreds of demons you can recruit, drawn all by him. And yes, his artwork does look a lot different in Nocturne than in the Persona games, because he didn’t draw art for those games. Persona, at least the mainstream ones, being 3, 4 and 5, were all drawn by Shigenori Soejima. And I am not going to compare the two, because they both have styles that work for their respective games. Soejima’s art is just as good, but it would not work in the dark world of Nocturne, so it fits with Persona. Same with Kaneko. SMT would never work in Persona. Got knows they tried to give SMT a lighter artstyle, which resulted in Tokyo Mirage Sessions and the less said about that travisty, the better



Anyway, Kaneko has a very distinct art style. You could look at it from a surface level and go, “Hey, anime kids with anime features. That’s at least good for the merits it’s going for”. But no, there’s a lot more to his art, and not just in the human designs. It’s the way he draws characters in their proportions, how these otherworldly beings have such strange designs. The detail he puts into their uniforms, into each and every character having a different look. No character can even remotely be considered alike because of their distinct features in facial features, hair, clothing, it all blends well. One thing that is a sort of trait to Kaneko’s art is the black shaded upper lip all of his human characters have. Now, why he does this is… uncertain, yet it just somehow works. It’s not distracting or ugly, it’s actually quite stylish. Hey, if Hirohiko Araki can slap lipstick on all his male characters and have people say Part 7 should be in a museum, then I can say these black lips are fine and dandy.

4: Exodus, Exploring the World of Tokyo



How can a studio take the basic concept of a post apocalypse and make it more unique. I like post apocalyptic settings, don’t get me wrong. Mad Max: Fury Road is one of my favorite movies ever. I think Fist of the North Star is incredible. And Fallout: New Vegas is in my top 15 games ever. But most post apocalyptic settings are either deserts or a bunch of plants growing around. But Nocturne, being the cheeky little unique boy it is, does something unique with it. Aside from an assortment of demons that roam around the world ready to throw your ass to debuff hell and back, the world itself is designed amazingly. I said before that the world of Nocturne was turned inside out, and you may or may not be thinking about it correctly. Basically, there is no longer a sky. If you were to look up, right where you are standing, assuming you are in America, if you look up into the sky, you can see probably China off in the distance. The entire earth revolves around a giant glowing ball known as the Kagatsuchi, an entity that is just out of reach, but if someone were to reach it, a human to be exact, they could create a new world in their image. Just thinking about the design of the earth is so cool. Apparently the artists, Kaneko and Soejima wanted to let you see buildings off in the distance and whole other areas, even ones you could go to, but due to the limitations of the PS2, they had to scale back. I hope that whenever SMT V comes out, they can fix that. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha……… Anyway, we got it all, gang. We got the music, we got the art, and we got the world. This bad boy has got it all in the stew to make ourselves a zesty atmosphere soup. But we can’t talk about atmosphere forever… I mean… I can… I want to. But this article isn’t even halfway through. All these amazing design choices and we haven’t even gotten to talking about the gameplay yet (Huh, maybe that Clerks article would have been shorter than this)

5: Proverbs, JRPG Battles CAN be Fun



Now I hear a lot of people, usually fools who play shooters or Fortnite or some garbage game, that RPGs are dull and boring because you have to wait your turn to attack. I just think that these people must’ve never had to wait their turn in their life. Clearly these motherfuckers never played a real board game in their youth like Candy Land. Well that’s what JRPGs are. A fun board game about strategy and planning. So in short, yes, I just said Nocturne is Candy Land… With Satan! But seriously, it’s more complex than that. The game has this annoyingly fast encounter rate. You can walk three steps, and that is enough time to send demons at you. Thankfully, the battle system is fun so you don’t have to hold triangle down and wait for it to be over like other JRPGs. In Nocturne, the game is a lot more about planning because enemies have weaknesses and resistances. You have a set of physical attacks along with magic, buffs to your party, debuffs to the enemy, healing, and you (But only Demi-Fiend) can use items. If an enemy is resilient, it will do less damage, while Null has no damage, reflect sends the attack back to the attacker, and drain heals the enemy. If you hit their weaknesses, you will get an extra turn. That means you can abuse this system to get way more damage in on your foes, but only once per turn, so it will stop. But be warned, as your enemies can do the same. If they hit a weakness on any of your three party members, they get an extra turn. And they all have the same moves you can get. Including insta kill moves, so if Demi-Fiend gets hit with those, it’s back to the start. Yeah, this is one of those JRPGs where if the lead party member dies, it’s game over. No matter how much healing items you have, no matter if your party members are still standing, game over. But that is where the Magatama come in. There are twenty four in all, with a secret twenty fifth one you can collect. What these do is they can change your stats, completely nullifying one attack while possibly making you weak to another, as well as changing your stats, like giving you more health or strength. It can change the tide of battle with ease. An enemy that is getting turn after turn on you can waste all their turns and leave you wiping the floor with them. It’s great and using the Magatama when possible will make fighting super bosses like (SPOILER) and (SPOILER) and my personal favorite (SPOILER) less of a headache. Also there’s something with the Kagatsuchi, cause it changes phases like the moon. Sometimes you’ll get more encounters, and other times you can recruit new demons. It’s kind of unreliable and mostly a neat gimmick for like… two boss fights. Oh, and speaking of recruitment.

6: Numbers, The Mechanics of Recruitment and Fusions



I swear to you all, Nocturne isn’t like those other JRPGs. It isn’t going to hold your hand like Tales or bore you with simplicity like Secret of Mana or give you absolute trash like Tokyo Mirage Sessions (DID I MENTION I DON’T LIKE TOKYO MIRAGE SESSIONS). Even other SMT games gave you party members. DDS gave you party members and I can barely remember them. Persona was fucking full of them. And yet, Nocturne has no party members. I know that telling an SMT fan that Nocturne is like Pokemon will flat out piss them off… So I’m gonna do it. Nocturne is like Pokemon… kinda. Let me explain. In SMT, you don’t get regular party members. You gotta go out and collect them by finding them out in the world and getting into random battles. There, you can talk to them and ask them to join. Depending on your level, on how they communicate, they will ask for a bribe of either money, items, take some of your health, or ask you questions. And this is both amazing and annoying. Amazing because I love the idea of just talking enemies from the battlefield to join you, but the problem comes with aside from probably not finding the demon you want on the first battle and either beating them up or running away several times, when you do, there is no chance that they won’t just take your items and then fuck off into the night. It’s a 50/50 chance they’ll join you. But don’t worry, because that’s where the Cathedral of Shadows comes in to make it less of a pain. In the Cathedral of Shadows, you can fuse demons together to get a brand new demon. It’s like a fucked up science experiment, how you get them depends on what demons you have, what level you are, and also if you sacrifice other demons. It’s actually kind of insane the level of depth this thing has. And you can fuse all sorts of demons, from angels to devil lords to (SPOILER), it’s pretty great. Also, on a Full Kagatsuchi, you can sacrifice, yes, kill, another demon in your party to give the demon more experience to level up faster or to get a new demon completely. It’s really the only way to get a powerful angel onto your team. So yeah, Cathedral of Shadows. Pretty cool place to go. So yeah, battles are really cool and I love the demon fusing and recruitment. Level design and enemy encounters can get pretty obnoxious, but the world is cool and I like the story and Pixie is just a cutie. That’s my IGN review. Better than God Hand/10. But this is NikPiks. This isn’t a video game review series, this is an analysis on the deeper meaning of things because I’m a hipster. So let’s talk about something else. Let’s talk about Lucifer!

7: Apocalypse, The Bonds with Lucifer



Hey look, you can forge a bond with someone. That someone just happened to be Lucifer, devier of God and The Prince of the Underworld. Now common confusion in the SMT fandom is why Lucifer is this… child… old man… giant superboss… when there is clearly Satan and Beelzebub in the same game. Well thank translations from the bible, or rather, stuff lost in translation. Basically a bunch of stuff surrounding how Lucifer is not really an entity of evil but more of a demon that lures people away from god, seen as horrible in religion, but has now become far more romanticized in modern day due to atheism on the rise and is now more of an icon against a cruel god in the eyes of some. Whether that is true or not…. I don’t fucking know, I just wanna talk about a game. Anyway, Lucifer. I’d say it’s a spoiler, but we all know who it is. All Lucifer does is give you the Magatama to make you a demon. That’s it. What you choose to do from there is all up to you. Bring Reason to light, restore the world to normal, or throw that all out and destroy everything, just know that Lucifer is always watching. Of course, you could do as he says and join him. It isn’t too hard, all you gotta do is beat every single superboss in the game. But doing so gives you so much more content, so much more lore, so much good stuff, and possibly my favorite ending in the game… But we’ll get to that later. For now, just know, Lucifer is not your ally unless you want him to be, but he won’t be your enemy. But he is a spectator, and he doesn’t want you to bore him.

8: Covenant, The Demons and Characters In The World



But is it all bad? Is the world of Nocturne really a barren hellhole where everyone wants Demi-Fiend dead? Well…. Not super really. Sure some of the demons want to slaughter you, but they want to slaughter everyone. Nothing personal. But seriously, there are other demons that do other things. Some of them don’t believe in killing for the sake of proving their strength. Some are just content with wandering the world, doing their own thing, living in peace. Some of them are no different than people in personality, hanging out with other demons as comrades, being flirty, crass, sad, witty, all sorts of emotions that they have. Some demons want to fight their way to the top of the Tower of Kagatsuchi, and others just want to sit at a bar and drink their problems away. Some demons are content with slaughtering as many as they can to prove their strength, and others just want to stay in a shop and make a profit. There are other humanoids in the game known as the Manikins, mud dolls that represent humans but are made from mud and twitch violently. But aside from that, they are peaceful. Some demons hate their peace and want to torture them for fun, but other demons live with them, perfectly content with coexisting. And the Manikins are the only ones that won’t attack Demi-Fiend (Well except those ones you meet in random battles, and Sakahagi, but fuck ‘em). Their leader, Futomimi, wishes for a Reason, which we will discuss in detail later. He wants a world where everyone can rely on each other and live in peace. An idea that is laughed at in the world ruled by demons, but a nice one to have. Yes, and I am aware that Dante from the Devil May Cry series is in it. Get your memes out of the way now. He’s really cool, his chase is intense, and has the best physical attacks in the game. He’s cool, I guess. But of course, there are the humans you meet as well. And honestly, they are more ruthless than even the demons. And let us discuss those humans. Right now.

9: Acts, Comparing Reasons to Law and Chaos



In the days of older SMT, there were three alignments. Law, Chaos, and Neutral. Law gave everyone peace and paradise at the cost of individuality and were to be one person. Chaos gave everyone true freedom at the cost of a world where chaos reigns. And neutral was to just keep a perfect balance of both in human society. Everyone chose Neutral because it made the most sense and it was the one with the most content. But in Nocturne, they dropped Law and Chaos in place of just Reasons. With this, it was much harder to pick which route to go with. You couldn’t say one person was more evil or just than the other because they all had their merits in a way, yet how they achieved those goals were pretty terrible. And this is where the article goes into spoiler territory so…

(MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI III: NOCTURNE FROM HERE ON OUT! CLOSE THE ARTICLE IF YOU WANT TO PLAY THE GAME YOURSELF!)

The three characters you met before all have their own reasons and desires to recreate the world in their image, but only three of them go through and gain a Reason. Chiaki goes by the Reason of Yosuga, a world where only the strong willed will survive to obtain what they want, a world where those who lack drive will perish and only those that aim for what they want can live. Isamu wishes for a Reason of Musubi, a world of isolation where you are at the center of your own world, where you are in your own paradise at the cost of being the only true thing there. Hikawa follows the Reason of Shijima, where everyone lives in peace and cares for the earth that they walk of at the cost of individuality, and thus, they become one. But to obtain these Reasons, they all do horrible actions. Chiaki, once she calls her good, Baal Avatar, kills all of the Manikins to obtain their power to summon her god. Isamu steals the plans Hijiri had in mind, along with killing Hijiri to summon his god Noah. And Hikawa… yeah, obviously, destroyed the earth. Takao also wanted to create the world, using her god to create a world where everyone was happy, but was nothing but a maiden to help Hikawa and her god didn’t do anything but give her hope, as that was all she could do. Hijiri also had intentions of recreating the world, but what that was is unknown as he’s kinda dead. Whether he was going to use Demi-Fiend as a sacrifice or not is unknown, but hey, everyone else is crazy, why not Hijiri. And these all come together in the final act of the game, the climb to Kagatsuchi, and the creation of a new world.

10: Judges, The Endings



This is where all the choices matter. Any moment in the game, you could change your reason completely with NPCs you talk to just because of something you said. And I want to talk about my favorite endings, and that’s three of the six. Demon, Freedom, and True Demon. Masubi, Yosuga and Shijima aren’t anything special. You get to create a new world while getting a farewell from your friends. Chiaki thanks you and disappears. Isamu pretty much says thanks and disappears. And Hikawa, the fucker that tried to kill you, is the only one you get physically in an ending. Sure, the other two were no winners but still. But let’s talk about the other endings. Throughout the game, you are told that you have immense strength, and that not using that strength would be a waste. And you can’t have that kind of strength without a responsibility. My uncle told me that himself before he got shot- Wait, no, that was Spider-Man. Anyway, you can’t go through the game being indecisive and scared of the world. You gotta make a choice. Because not making a choice at all is worse than making the wrong choice, because really, what is the wrong choice? What is the right choice? If you go through the game without making a decision, without changing for the better, than the world will fuck you, and the game will fuck you with a fucked ending. Kagatschi tells you to fuck off and peaces out, and then Lucifer says that you’re pretty strong, but the world’s fucked and he ain’t helping, and then he leaves too. With that, you get a shot of Demi-Fiend looking over the world, no humans, no demons, just a dark world, completely alone. No final boss, no new world to show for it. Video game over. Fuck you. Love, Atlus. It’s a brutal way to psych you out for not making a choice and it makes it hurt that much more. And also makes you want to try again. So let’s be decisive this time, but instead, choose not to want this strength of a demon. Let’s throw it all away and be human again, and fight for a world you know. That is the Freedom Ending, the worst ending for the characters in my eyes, but still a good ending to discuss. This is because, yes, you are back in a world you know, and you are back with your friends, even if they tried to kill you, but now you know that there is a world that can end, and shit, the world is going to end again some day. Maybe later rather than sooner, but it will end, and you may not be there to survive when it happens again. This isn’t Persona. You don’t get to shoot God in the face and pat yourself on the back for saving Christmas. All you did was delay the inevitable, and that’s AT LEAST. But let’s say you use that strength, and that power, and want to stop the cycle of death and rebirth. Your world is fucked, and you can’t fix it, but you’re told there are millions of worlds that go through death and rebirth. What if you can stop that. True Demon ending, baby. After fighting all the Fiends, all the bosses and punching Kagatsuchi in the face, you are left with a dark world, ruined forever, no chance of reviving itself. And then out pops old Lucifer, congratulating you on a job well done, and gives you an offer. You did such a good job killing pretty much the moon and throwing your world into eternal darkness that he wants to hire you, but only after you prove yourself. This starts the true final boss of the game, Lucifer, the most deadly boss in the game, a boss that has the highest HP in the game, insane stats and immunities, and can almost one shot your party if you aren’t careful. But if you prevail and defeat him, he will bring you into his ranks as the general of the army of hell, and with that, you take your new demon army and march your way to the gates of Heaven to end the cycle of death and rebirth once and for all. Fucking metal. Aside from more content, this ending makes the True Demon route so much more satisfying. And it fits with the tone and the gameplay of Nocturne perfectly in my eyes. It’s brutal, it’s a long hard road, and you’ll die many times, but you will prevail, with demons by your side and strength to slay even gods. Oh, and also, I beat Lucifer on my first try. Suck it! Nocturne has the perfect atmosphere, the perfect gameplay, and the perfect use of characters. There’s a reason why I am excited for SMT V…. And a reason why Persona 5 is not the perfect game

11: Revelations, The Part Where I Bitch About Persona 5 Not Being Shin Megami Tensei



Now comes the part that I advertised in the title of this fucking article. The part where everyone disregards how great Nocturne is and tells me how I am a hipster bigot because I don’t like Persona 5. And I love Persona 5. I think that it is one of the best JRPGs in years. After Final Fantasy 15 XV was disappointing and after Tokyo Mirage Sessions made me want to kill myself, playing Persona 5 was a breath of fresh air and I loved it. But my problem comes from the characters, tone shifts and how it comes so close to being a love letter to SMT, especially Nocturne but just misses. The characters of Persona 5 don’t feel that fleshed out. And again, this is coming from someone who loves Persona 5, including the cast. But this article could’ve been all about Persona 4 and I would’ve had the same problems. The cast are great, but we only really learn about their entire character in certain parts and that’s it. We learn about Ann’s relationship with her friend and Ryuji’s anger towards Kamoshida early in the chapter, and not much else from there. Their S. Links are where it becomes really disappointing. You’d think we’d learn about them from there, but instead, we learn about these new characters. Want to help Ann better herself in her job and how it supports or affects her personally? Nope, let’s talk about her rivalry with some random bitch. Wanna work out with your bro Ryuji? No, let’s talk about his relationship with the sports club. No, Makoto, I don’t want to pretend to be your boyfriend to help some random girl who doesn’t even have a fucking character portrait. And poor, poor Haru gets no intro other than dad’s a dick, fiancees a dick, I have a Persona now. The characters just didn’t feel like friends. They felt more like teammates. I had more of a bond with my Jack Frost in SMT Nocturne. I was more worried about losing him than I was losing Morgana when he got into an incredibly annoying and forced argument with Ryuji 2/3rds into the game. That part sucks and you can’t tell me otherwise. But I will say this, at least the level design in Okumura’s dungeon paid tribute to the level design of Nocturne. It was just as bad and obnoxious too. But I do love Persona 5, and while I think it’s character writing was lacking, compared to not just Nocturne but other SMT games, it excels in gameplay and especially presentation. I don’t want to compare Nocturne to Persona 5 because you… really can’t. Yes, I know, I put it in the title, but this is not a comparison article, at all. This is a preference article, and personally, I love Nocturne just a little bit more.

12: Testament, Nocturne is Amazing



Nocturne is a lot more than a game with an oppressive atmosphere that scares and intimidates you. Nocturne is far more than a difficult RPG that will demand you to power through it. Nocturne is more than a bunch of scary skeletons and Dante memes. It’s a game that has a lot of heart to it, even with all the weird cameos and the strange tone shifts. It’s a game that respects your choices and asks you to make them, a game that rewards you for sticking by it to the end with one of the most compelling narratives I’ve seen in a game, that cuts back on the tropes of other JRPGs and tells something unique, unseen in the genre at the time. It may not have a heartfelt message to it or a deeper meaning, but it is a game that holds a lot of glory to it. Art doesn’t need to tell you some deeper thoughts or some extremely deep story, because Nocturne, while having a great narrative, is not completely deep. It just needs to make you feel something to be important to you, and I do feel something for Nocturne. It’s that feeling of accomplishment, of completing the impossible, or what is considered impossible. The impossibility of traversing a world that doesn’t want you and will kill you, the impossibility of defeating all these foes of mythos and religion that hold greater power over you, the impossibility of changing the world in your own image to feel that you accomplished something. The impossibility of completing a game as difficult as Nocturne. And yet, I did it. Many before me did it. And I hope many more will do it. In conclusion, WHERE THE FUCK IS SMT V!?