Back in 2003, almost ten years after the second mainline Shin Megami Tensei entry was released in 1994, Atlus published the seminal JRPG that quickly became a cult classic. Alongside its worldwide release in 2004, Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne was generally praised by critics and fans, despite commercial sales not necessarily reflecting that same success. Over time fans had come to love the game's progressively unforgiving difficulty, hectic and foreboding atmosphere, and charmingly disturbing characters and demons. All of this returns in its purist form with Shin Megami Tensei 3 Nocturne HD Remaster, among sparse but important changes.

Updates have come to the remaster since its Japanese release in October of last year, many of which will be welcome to those worried about the remaster's state of release. Not only have the issues with loading and optimization been resolved out of the box, but also a few additions to mechanics like demon fusing, as well as graphical updates, improve the gameplay experience moderately. Story scenes and player conversations also have brand new, fully-voiced dialogue, something not present in the original. Other than that, Shin Megami Tensei 3 Nocturne HD Remaster remains extremely faithful to the original game in more ways than one.

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Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne

Nocturne establishes the game's atmosphere just as masterfully as it once did over a decade ago. The stakes are set immediately, as the Conception raptures the city around the player, they witness the world's fracturing into demon-riddled chaos. Cinematics are nearly identical to the game's original release, though the moments in-between are heightened with the newly implemented voice acting. Characters who previously only spoke in text like Yuko, Chiaki, and Hijiri, now all have full voiceover in English as well as Japanese.

The early hours of Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne were never as merciless as the latter portion of the playthrough, and that hasn't particularly changed in HD Remaster as well. Players see their first few battles, get to learn about certain spells and abilities, different Magatama, a few story-centric scenes, among other basics for combat and progression. Exploring the hospital, and expanding out into the ruins of Tokyo, sets up a pretty simple and straightforward introduction that places players straight into the harrowing adventure.

That being said, it's clear that the difficulty curve could ascend rapidly, especially for those not particularly familiar with Nocturne's reputation, or Shin Megami Tensei in general. Atlus has also implemented a "Merciful" difficulty for that express reason: so that players interested in the story of Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne can play with little worry of getting stuck on a difficult fight. In function, the remaster's easier difficulty does exactly that: auto-battle basically won every fight, and demon negotiation is relatively painless.

Shin Megami Tensei 3 Nocturne's remaster also includes a new quicksave-like feature called "Suspend Save," which essentially allows players to save from any specific point outside of combat. For the purposes of the preview, it didn't particularly change much, but certainly could make the rest of the game much easier to play for some.

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shin megami tensei 3 nocturne remaster demon berith

Besides higher resolution textures, higher display resolution support, and a frame rate up to 30fps, fans will find that Shin Megami Tensei 3 Nocturne HD Remaster remains extremely faithful. Visually speaking, nothing has been significantly altered or changed from the original release. Besides the new voiceover, even the compressed audio quality of the overworld and battle music remains the same, despite the OST itself being remastered previously. For some fans that could be a pretty sour point, but the compressed battle music was an intentional choice in the original release, and will remain that way in the remaster.

Lastly, it's worth noting that both the "Maniax" and "Chronicle" packs are included in the Digital Deluxe Edition of Shin Megami Tensei 3 Nocturne HD Remaster, but they are separated. In any respective playthrough, players will have to choose between Devil May Cry's Dante, or Devil Summoner's Raidou, not both.

Overall, with a few quality of life changes, graphical updates, and efforts in improving immersion, Shin Megami Tensei 3 Nocturne HD Remaster remains extremely faithful to the game's original release. Nocturne does hold up surprisingly well in function, but anyone expecting any sweeping changes may want to temper their expectations. Modernizing the game for widescreen format and stable FPS, applying sharper graphical fidelity on original assets, as well as the aforementioned changes, are basically all that's going into this remaster. Depending on player preference, that may be enough for fans.

Shin Megami Tensei 3 Nocturne HD Remaster releases on May 25, 2021, for PC, PS4, and Switch.

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