confident and self-assured, nocturne takes a risk and diverges from the style established in the classic, genre-defining SNES games and gives up the cyberpunk flair for unsettling, contemporary atmosphere laced in a rich hard rock sound. instead of demon summoning programs and makeshift blade runner-esque technology, demi-fiend finds himself injected and violated by lucifer himself, given nothing but a vague motive to direct the vortex world as an ubermensch-type figure. the protagonist has biological ties to this new world now, and he can't just look away from it -- the marks of a demon are all over his body.

nocturne's difficulty and unforgiving nature redefined the perception of shin megami tensei as a whole: since nocturne, this is a series with high risk-reward combat that paints desolate scenarios the player will find themselves barely scraping by through. the original SMT presented this well through plot, but nocturne was the first to utilize gameplay mechanics to reinforce the series' brutality.

nocturne isn't a joyless, humorless edgelord game either. throughout my entire replay, the main thing that stood out were all of the unique NPCs and optional bits of dialogue that helped flesh out the world. whether it's just hearing random lost souls talk about tangentially related subjects or demons with genuinely clever quips and jokes, nocturne's world is by no means devoid of personality and charm.

i stand by the game being a bit too unforgiving to first-time players that don't know what they're doing. there's no way to know which way is "correct" for a good demi-fiend build, and which magatamas you should be grinding out until it's too late. you can end up making the game as a whole significantly harder for yourself if you put too many stats into ag or lu. demon fusion discourages experimentation because of how damn pricy it is early/mid game, forcing a player to stick with potentially very suboptimal demons or grind their ass off for money.

but with a little nudge in the right direction, nocturne is a perfectly manageable and rewarding experience that respects the player's intelligence and feels great to progress in. every boss, every dungeon, every tough random encounter makes you feel fucking incredible, and that's a feeling that nothing quite nails but this series.

Absolutely incredible. every aspect of this game is incredible. It takes itself serious enough to make a good storyline and yet doesn't take it self serious at all. You can throw a grenade into a gator's mouth and it will explode like a cartoon. The music is incredible, the graphics hold up, the r1 gimmic durring cutscenes can give you a better feeling for Snake, can be hilarious, or anything else. Every boss is incredible and unique. The camoflage gimmick is very fun to mess around with, and all the different ways you can play this games makes an easy 10/10, masterpiece on all fronts.

while far from perfect, higurashi's answer arcs are an incredible subversion of what could have been a bog standard mystery novel, instead going for an incredibly earnest story insisting upon the importance of communication, friendship, personal growth, and atonement. i think, despite how raw and unpolished the experience is as a whole, the ideas it's trying to convey land incredibly well.

i didn't really "get" this until certain real-life experiences of my own, and i think it's long past due to revisit higurashi as a whole again.