A little bit TOO refreshing.
SMT is the kind of game that appeals to one type of gamer and that one type alone: The informed gamer (i.e. "hardcore"). This game will hardly sell enough to cover the shipping costs, and I could see why.
SMT requires gargantuan amounts of patience and time in order to completely comprehend. The game also requires a somewhat extensive knowledge of the Megaten series in order to truly and fully appreciate. Needless to say, I have neither.
Graphics: 9/10
Very good use of cell-shading with amazing use of lighting. The character models are very well detailed, as is much of everything else in the game. The animation lags quite a bit behind but it's not too bad. The environments are jaw dropping: dilapidated buildings, destroyed parks, roads bent out of shape, abandoned mansions, etc. They all leave you feeling a little bit disturbed.
However, it's quite a shame that this wasn't put to good use. SMT has hardly any truly spectacular attacks. Most of the attacks seem very one-dimensional. You wont see ANYTHING as impressive as the stuff that appears in Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger.
Sound: 9/10
The sound effects and voice acting (or lack there of) are barely passable, but the music is downright godly. I didn't know games could have music this good. If you’re into the whole Celtic-music, end-of-world-crap, and opera or anything in between for that matter, this game has it. The soundtrack is jaw (ear, actually) dropping. Thankfully the game comes with a music CD as a bonus, which is actually worth listening too. Awesome.
Gameplay: 5/10
Just like every above average game SMT falls short in the gameplay section. Nocturne has amazing production values together with some of the best presentation in the whole genre, but both of those awesome features get bogged down by aggravating gameplay and a Spartan-like story that leaves you wondering what exactly the hell are you doing half-the-time.
SMT is a game about demons, easy as that. Your main character (The Protagonist) is one of 6 other humans left in the world after a cataclysmic cleansing called the Conception. The Protagonist also happens to be visited by a weird little boy who makes him ingest a nasty little bug transforming The Protagonist in a half-demon. However, he's a special bastard, he can talk to demons and convince them to join his party. Now YOU have to go out in the ruins of Tokyo and choose one of 6 paths in order to save or destroy the world.
On your way to saving the world you may want to take note of a few very nasty beasts, not because you'll be fighting them, but because you'll need them to fight the even nastier beasts. See, in this game your party is formed entirely out of enemy creatures. Yup, that means zero interaction between you and your party and a grand total of over 300 possible members in your party. Lost yet? It gets better.
Other than the regular way to acquire party members (by talking to them during a fight, and acknowledging their requests, which is not very successful after the first 2 or 3 chapters) you can obtain party members by fusing two or more of your current members. Oh, and don't worry about acquiring the cannon (fusion) fodder since there are so many random encounters in this game it gets downright annoying.
But see, here's where the problems start to come in: Nocturne has yet to perfect a leveling system. Since you'll be switching demons like socks trying to level them up is downright impossible sometimes. Demons take 4 to 5 maybe even 10 times the amount of XP it requires you to level up, furthermore, since the demons you can recruit are only limited by who you want to throw out of your party and your level, you can just switch those useless lv. 20 demons that were powerhouses 3 minutes ago with the new demons on the block, that are lv. 25 and are infinitely more useful. Seems logical enough, be there is a problem: since this is an absolutely required method (since your demons will simply get overpowered at the rate they level) you will find yourself with a ton of demons that can't defend against certain bosses. The game doesn't allow you to ever have a balanced party you're permanently required to switch demons out and in and that makes an already hard game, harder. More so, it means that over 90% of the demons in this game are useless, as is leveling them.
Your hero also levels up, but unfortunately he's not the one who levels up, it's those nasty bugs you got ingested with that do... more problems. See, each of the bugs has special skills and, without a guide, you will NEVER know which to switch to and when (since a few of these skills are only shared by you and 2 or 3 other demons, out of 300). More so, you will need to permanently switch between these bugs to get new skills. Oh, and if you happen to reach lv. 40+ and forgot to level a Magnatama (that's the name of the bugs) since lv. 3 and you just found out that a skill that pertains to that magna is required to defeat half-the-game, your screwed. Trust me, it happens.
I also think this game has a story... but I'll have to go check...
*turns on SMT*
*plays for another 12 hours*
... still checking, just a bit more....
*keeps playing until the game ends*
Ah so that... oh who am I kidding this game barely has a story. I don't even know what the hell I'm doing, and why am I doing it half-the-time. Not to mention it seems that stuff in this game happens at quite a helluva pace. It appears that in the 24 to 96 hours from the Conception to the time I got out of the first area there are already 2 powerful demon factions fighting for power. Hmm, must be the whole information era. Let's not even mention character interaction, because it's inexistent. There are 6 humans for the Pete's sake in the whole world (which is Tokyo, yup, Tokyo has been bombed by a drugged up nuke, destroyed by powerful thousand year old warriors, obliterated by crazed sex-demons, and now, Conceived) which leaves the interaction between your character and other NPCs to a minimum of "You no do what ai say, ME SMASH!!!”
The battle system is pretty well done. It's fast paced and there are quite a few spells some of which are VERY nasty, especially the instant death en-masse moves that the CPU seems to be so fond of. There are no items to equip really, except the different Magnatamas, which grant some stat bonuses. However, what really hurts the fighting system is another idiotic concept: all physical super moves require HP that means you get hurt when you use your own super moves. Great. Too bad this doesn’t seem to apply to the CPU ever. The second big problem with the fighting in SMT is that there is way too much of it. Even though, after a while, you find some spells to lessen encounters (or to increase them) doing either is gonna give you a huge headache latter on. The actual fighting itself suffers from a lack of truly cool looking (!!!) moves, but some of the demons in this game are downright amazing...
... And by amazing I mean "Oh-my-God-I'm-fighting-Lucifer" amazing. SMT's presentation is downright grandiose. The demons are well made and all the throwbacks to religion and mind twisting philosophies play right in to whatever little story there is. Not to mention, they fit right in to the whole apocalyptic scenario, which is not only one of the few such scenarios in gaming, but it's one of the best.
Multiplay: N/A
It's an RPG, what do you expect?
Overall: 7/10
Maybe a little harsh, but I just can't overlook this games annoyances because they're way to many, and way to spread. Never-the less, SMT is a good game, and it's definitely much better than the "by the dozen" fantasy RPGs, now, if only they could solve some of these problems....