Gamerforlife wrote:
Discarding skills doesn't make you think more than any other rpg. ALL rpgs require you to use certain skills for cerain situations and ALL rpgs require you to diversity your party. You're always going to need a physical fighter, a magic user, a healer, etc, etc. So no, Nocturne is no more special than any other rpg. The only thing discarding skills in Nocturne does is screw you over because the next area may have an enemy that the skill you discarded would have been very useful against. Since you have no way of knowing what the enemies in a new area are going to be like, the discard feature is CHEAP and also kills your argument about combat being about preparation. Plus, no rpg I have played allows you be a god as you put in, until you're near the end of the game. No rpg hands you every skill in the game right from the get go so your argument doesn't make sense.
Also, again going back to your idea that combat is all about "preparation". Sometimes you need certain monsters in your party for certain fights. Unfortunately, this requires you to either capture a monster, which is a process that is often based on LUCK or try and create one, which is also a RANDOM process unless you have a strategy guide or faq. Skill only gets you so far in Nocturne, the other fifty percent of it is luck. This includes how a battle can go for or against you based on RANDOM factors like enemy initiative in combat or one of your party members RANDOMLY missing an attack, which by the way is not usually a big deal in other rpgs because the designers actually have enough intelligence to know that you can't harshly punish a player for something out of their control, but a missed attack or enemy initiative in Nocturne can KILL you.
Oh, and one more thing. Let me not forget how the game RANDOMLY throws more enemies at you after you win a battle, sometimes more than once. How the hell do you prepare for that? It's completely random and sometimes you'll lose a fight like this because you didn't have enough health and resources for THREE back to back battles that you didn't know were coming.
Shin Megami Nocturne is a game that pretends to be challenging by just being cheesy(like most so called hardcore games unfortunately)and honestly, it does hardly anything that you haven't seen done better in other rpgs. It's only claim to fame is its style and cheap difficulty level.
And for the record, the whole "Final Fantasy is so easy" argument is tired, cliche and ignorant and not surprisingly usually comes from people who don't put much time into them. Final Fantasy games always have optional challenges, enemies and bosses that are FAR more challenging than the game's end boss. If you're not getting challenged by an FF game, it's because you weren't looking for a challenge in the first place. Try and do EVERYTHING in Final Fantasy 12 and come back and tell me how easy it is after you get destroyed by bosses with instant kill attacks, multiples status effect attacks and bosses that have enough health to keep you fighting them for over an hour.
EDIT: Not to mention regular and hidden enemies in each area that are higher level than you and very powerful if you have the guts to try and take them on
Most RPGs only require you to attack. Over and over again. And then attack some more. Magic? Magic often does only slightly more damage than attacking, which costs nothing. Exploiting weaknesses? Hardly does enough damage to balance out using MP restoring items, and you can probably make up the difference by using Crit Rate increasing equipment.
Having to drop skills does make you think strategically. When you have to choose between Megido and Marukunda, that's a pretty tough choice. Megido is a powerful, but costly attack. Marukunda will lower the defense of all your enemies, and in SMT, debuffs against enemies actually matter, unlike every other RPG under the sun. What is going to benefit you? You have to make a sacrifice. Other RPGs just allow you to obtain a wall of skills, many of which will never even be cast.
Fusion is only slightly based on luck. There is a chance - a
very small chance, that the fusion may fail. Otherwise, fusion is all about discovering patterns. Fury + Megami will always yield a Diety. Lady + Fury will always make a Vile. This isn't luck - this is simply figuring out what combination will give you want result you want. It simply requires you to study. Not to mention you are often told what you will get before you fuse a demon - it's not like you are fusing blind.
As for missing attacks, having your weakness exploited, etc - it's something that you have to prepare for. I haven't seen to many cases where attacking an enemy will miss when you know its going to hit. You have to be aware of what enemies are more likely to dodge. You have to be aware of what enemies have what skills. What's more, you have skills that make it harder for enemies to dodge, and other such things. "other rpgs because the designers actually have enough intelligence to know that you can't harshly punish a player for something out of their control" HAH! They sure as hell don't have enough intelligence to make every skill I learn do anything worth a shit! Debuffs in RPGs are almost universally useless, and the only reason I can say 'almost' is because of SMT. Reducing an enemies defense in a FF is a wasted move. In SMT, it's a smart one.
SMT's claim to fame is that every skill has a purpose, you are rewarded for exploiting weaknesses, and you are punished for not being aware of your own.
"Try and do EVERYTHING in Final Fantasy 12 and come back and tell me how easy it is after you get destroyed by bosses with instant kill attacks, multiples status effect attacks and bosses that have enough health to keep you fighting them for over an hour."
Huh huh huh. You say - funny thing. I couldn't even do one thing in FF12 before I decided that game was an utter train wreck. I did, however, kill a few of the weapons in FF7, and this is what I can tell you about them - utterly pointless. They are side-quests, and pointless side-quests at that. The only reason I do side-quests is for character development, to learn more of the story, etc. The only character development the secret bosses in a FF has is "Here's a weapon you DIDN'T NEED to kill the final boss who is FAR WEAKER THAN THE BOSS YOU JUST KILLED!"
What's more, the fights aren't HARD. They are just LONG. All you have to do is stock-pile enough potions and shit, attack one round, and heal the next. It's usually a very, VERY simple pattern that you just have to have the patience to sit though. I don't recall the battles in SMT being very long. Very hard, yes, but not long.
Oh yeah, I forgot this: "Plus, no rpg I have played allows you be a god as you put in, until you're near the end of the game."
So, you're telling me the game starts out hard and becomes a push-over by the end?
HOW ANTI-CLIMATIC! Shouldn't the final battles of the game be the
HARDEST battles of the game? How can you excuse such awful design?
