(Original image source: Atlus.)

Having put over 100 hours into Persona 3 FES, I was somewhat familiar with the framework of the Shin Megami Tensei series, and thus had a head start when playing Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne.

I knew my Agi, Bufu, Zio, Hama and Mudo, and I knew what the big deal was with Dia. The Persona in P3F had demonic counterparts in Nocturne, so I knew what to expect from Thor when I first went up against him. I also knew fusion — the act of crafting new demons with specific skills — would be an essential part of the game.

I knew all that and, as they say in the ‘toons, knowing is half the battle. The other half is cursing passionately when you realise you know jack.

The first Nocturne foe to give me real trouble was a boss named Matador, an arrogant skull-faced showboater. The first time I went up against him I was well and truly whupped as my three most-powerful demons (who were naturally by my side during the battle) were vulnerable to Mazan, his party-wide Force spell. Figures.

Much like P3F, Nocturne battles are all about weaknesses: exploiting them offensively and mitigating them defensively. If you know your opponents’ weaknesses and have the means to exploit them, victory is yours for the taking — often without taking any damage in return. Determining weaknesses is a simple matter of using the Analyze skill, which not only provides that crucial information, but pretty much tells you everything you’d want to know about a foe right down to its current health. It’s highly useful right up until you meet a boss at which point the Analyze skill becomes utterly useless.

(Why? Because providing a useful skill then depriving the player of it just when it would be truly useful is a very JRPG thing to do.)
Continued…

(Original image source: Atlus.)

After the weak gameplay of Spore, I was pumped for something more engrossing and complex so I duly got Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. I haven’t played it much but there are a couple of things about the 2004 PlayStation 2 RPG that astonished me even before I got it.

Nocturne comes from Atlus, a company with a habit of producing relatively small runs of its games—something that holds true even for its most popular titles. Though Atlus does re-release titles every once in a while, a popular title like Nocturne usually fetches a high price in secondary markets in-between reprints. We’re talking eBay prices to make scalpers lick their lips and rub their hands together with glee. I know this because I was hunting on eBay for a copy of the game before Play-Asia, thankfully, replenished its stock recently.

In Nocturne’s case, the demand even extends to the strategy guide. As of writing, used copies of DoubleJump’s 400-page guide are going for comedy pricing with one seller optimistically holding out for USD139 dollars. I cannot think of a PC equivalent of this astonishing situation.

You’d think that DoubleJump would want to take advantage of the demand by reprinting the Nocturne guide whenever Atlus reprints the game but the sheer size of the guide makes reprinting it financially unviable. The obvious cost effective alternative would be an e-guide and that’s the route DoubleJump took. Unfortunately, due to piracy, the e-guide must be read online instead of being a simple downloadable PDF. On the plus side, the e-guide is going for USD9.99, which is a steal if the 23-page PDF sample is anything to go by.

I doubt I’ll be getting the guide since I prefer going it on my own when playing a game for the first time. My core, it is unquestionably rock hard. Still, it’s reassuring to know somewhere out there exists a comprehensive tome with the answer to any and all questions that might stump me.