Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne HD Remaster

SMT3 is a good game if you're really into turn based combat grind. Skill advancement and monster recruitment and development are all very solid. There just isn't anything else. Nothing beyond the barest of minimum stories, level design, and interactions. This is like playing Persona only for the randomized dungeons.

ONE MORE PORT REJECTED

My first Shin Megami Tensei game. Great gameplay, a fantastic soundtrack, and a very good story, it's an excellent game overall. The characters are very charismatic. The only one I didn't care about was Isamu; he felt random to me from start to finish. He was also the only bad boss fight in the entire game. I didn't feel much desire to see the other endings besides the True Demon ending. Maybe I'll go for the Freedom ending in the future when I do a 100% run. The Puzzle Boy minigame was by far the most infuriating, boring, hard, and useless thing in the game, all of this for a terrible magatama, not even a unique demon. By levels 14–15, I started using a guide, and I recommend you do the same. I played on Hard mode for all bosses except the final fight. Kagutsuchi was easy, but I feel like beating Lucifer on Hard requires Endure on most of your demons, which I didn't have. Next time I come back for the 100% run, I'll farm for Endure. Other than the Fiend bosses, Lucifer, and Isamu, the game was quite manageable if you build a versatile team. One big bad point, in my opinion, is that most of the difficulty comes not from smart usage of skills, but from farming the right skills for the right demons. The game punishes you for exploring and using other cool-looking demons too much. I was told this issue is fixed in SMT V, which I'll play in the future. Speaking of cool-looking demons, most of them have great designs. The ones I didn't like were Loki and Odin. Thor in the first cutscene looked like he was wearing a leotard, but I think that was a minor issue, in the second fight he looked very cool. Now, about the dungeons: without Estoma, you're going to have a hard time. By far the worst dungeons are the ones with warp areas. Other than the Cursed Corridors, my favorite area was the Labyrinth of Amala, specifically the Third Kalpa. If you're a fan of the Persona series, definitely give this game a try.

I love Atlus' modern output, but part of me misses the era when their gameplay was more focused on dungeon crawling and turn-based battles that actually challenged you. This is a game about bringing the world back from absolute destruction, and the gameplay reflects that by having a massive world filled with dangerous labyrinths and challenging encounters. The dungeon design is insanely creative, with tons of awesome puzzles and unique mechanics. I particularly love the gravity-flipping gimmicks of Kabukicho Prison and the time manipulation + block puzzles of the Nihilo Obelisk. And because of the Press Turn battle system, a lot of fights end up feeling like puzzles in their own right, where you have to balance stacking buffs, debuffs, and charges, alternating between phys and magic to suit the situation, and planning out each turn to maximize damage and healing via turn-passing and bonus turns from crits or weakness hits. It's an RPG that's brimming with depth in every aspect. Beyond the gameplay, this game has a such a palpable atmosphere and strong core story that you just... get it, even if the plot deals with a lot of abstract concepts. You can connect with this game on both a mechanical and an emotional level, and I think that harmony is the true power of video games as art.

Me and Pixie against the world

КРУТЫЕ СКЕЛЕТЫ РУЛЯТ

一坨史，破烂注音输入法，缺音漏字，进游戏第一个任务没有引导没有地图还开不起来系统菜单，够逆天