You can do anything within Reason, Let's Play Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne! [Finished]
The Game
If you're at all a fan of JRPG's, you've probably at least heard of Shin Megami Tensei and I'm going to assume most of you know at least a little about its more popular spin off Persona. Nocturne (Also known as Lucifer's Call in PAL regions) is the third mainline game in the SMT series (although far away from being the third game released, this series is a spin off factory), and it bucks several conventions of the SMT series thus far. While it's still very much a post-apocalyptic setting, gameplay has changed wildly from the classic dungeon crawling conventions the series had used thus far. The team size has been pared down from 6 to 4, your protagonist is a demon themselves and can learn skills much like the demons can, the concept of equipement has almost completely been removed, and the environments are fully 3D in a third person perspective in contrast from the first person view of the original games. The ideological nature of the story has shifted from strict alignment categorization and instead follows various characters supporting a central Reason, and the your decision on who's reason to back determines your ending as opposed to shifting your alignment based on many choices over the course of the game. Nocturne has had a bit of a slow burn in recognition, in the west it's one of the earliest MegaTen games we got and languished in obscurity for a long while, and in it's native Japan the major settings and mechanics changes made it a bit of a turn off for the built in fanbase. Time has been very kind to it though, as people have recognized just what a collection of cool concepts it has for an RPG and it executes them very well. I've played this game many times over the years and I can easily list it as a personal favorite, and I hope to show it off to you in a comprehensive way that demonstrates just how great it is!
The Let's Play
This will be a playthrough of the original North American PS2 version, played on Hard Mode in what I believe to be the most effective way to approach the game. I plan collecting all Magatama, completing the Labyrinth of Amala Sidequest as well as the time trial sidequest contained therein, and getting two endings for the game as well as showing off the complete Demon Compendium. I doubt I'll show off absolutely everything but this can be considered a 100% run as far as meaningful content goes. We'll also take some quick looks at the game's recent HD remaster when I feel the time is good to do so. Do note, this is a let's play I started and abandoned many years ago due to persistent tech issues corrupting the recordings. I don't feel my original videos are all that bad, so I just recently decided to pick up where I left off with a new file. I've learned much about the game over the years, so some of my comments in the earlier videos may be incorrect about certain mechanics or mixing them up with how things worked in the spiritual successor series Digital Devil Saga. Starting from Part 14, the video quality and my game plan will be much more consistent going forward. I hope you check this out and I'm able to inform you of some new things about this awesome game!
The Videos
Part 1, Beginning With The End
Part 2, Hard Boiled
Part 3, Shibuya Shopping Trip
Part 4, http://am.ala.hel
Part 5, The Ginza Ghost
Part 6, Suicidal Overconfidence
Part 7, A Thousand Yen is Not a Lot of Money
Part 8, Holder of Foundation: Matador
Part 9, Welcome to Hell
Part 10, Noble Voice
Part 11, Might Makes Right
Part 12, Ssstylish
Part 13, Ghost Faced Kila
Part 14, Ni Hao Kaiwan
Part 15, Ose Can You See
Part 16, Prepare For Trouble
Part 17, Second Impact
Part 18, Jailhouse Blues
Part 19, Kin You Believe It
Part 20, Ki Blast
Part 21, Ride or Die
Bonus 1, Puzzle Boy
Part 22, Red Rum
Part 23, Obelisk The Tormentor
Part 24, Sister Act
Part 25, Penis Humor
Part 26, Societa
Part 27, Evil Jellystone Park
Part 28, Ambition
Part 29, Lovely Bones
Part 30, Smokin' Sick Style!
Part 31, Temple OS
Part 32, The Ark of Solitude
Part 33, Brokentooth March
Part 34, Wicked
Part 35, Hell's Bells
Part 36, Slide Away
Part 37, For a Healthier You
Bonus 2, The Hell's Vault Tunnel
Part 38, The End is Nigh
Part 39, True Demon
Part 40, Broken Stillness
Part 41, We'll Never Fight Alone
Part 42, Baal Down To This
Part 43, True Freedom
Bonus 3, HD Glow Up and New Game Plus
Part 44, Time Crisis
Finale, No Church in The Wild
Last edited by Cullen on Thu Jul 28, 2022 2:50 am, edited 30 times in total.
Part 35 is out! Rounding out the business in the 4th Kalpa, which involves entering and leaving it repeatedly. Joy. I left a pinned comment on the video about this, but we are able to enter the fifth Kalpa at this point, I've just never bothered to pick the no option for the Matron's questions so I didn't realize it isn't a "But Thou Must" prompt. The discussion about the Afterlife Bell takes priority over her asking if you'd like to continue, and I didn't think to use the peephole a third time while recording. We'll be entering the fifth Kalpa at the start of the next video as there is a cool bonus for us right at the entrance.
Part 42 is up, and another God rejected! We're close to the end now, just one more thing to do and it'll be ending time. I'll likely do the Bandou Shrine and the final boss in the next video. Bandou is pretty repetitive so I can easily edit chunks out and we'll have a video that's only slightly longer than usual. Ideally anyway.
Part 43 is out! In this video, we complete the bonus dungeon Bandou, and defeat the final boss to get an ending. This is not the end of the let's play though, we have one major sidequest left to tackle, a few odds and ends, and a bonus final boss to take on. Should be two more videos left to go.