Chrono Helix
Member
If I'm not wrong his skillset is exactly the same as Dante's, except that his equivalent to Son's Oath (boost all damage by 50%) also gave him pierce.
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Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne |OT| GO GET THE BUFFS!
- Thread starter Love Deterrence
- Start date
If I'm not wrong his skillset is exactly the same as Dante's, except that his equivalent to Son's Oath (boost all damage by 50%) also gave him pierce.
This is my first time facing him now, but some obvious stuff I noticed:
There are certain story reasons as to why it is the first 'skill check' fight(Candelabra-related it seems), but it is a goofy visual design to have a skeleton matador be 'the introduction' to this tier of boss battle.
It's mostly a challenge because it comes literally out of nowhere. You walk down a hallway with very little warning and suddenly boss! Last save and healing station was a warp away in prior area too, so it is pretty cheap not letting players have at least a closer save and fuse station to prep on reload. I was half dead with my bench party earning them xp when he suddenly appeared making my first fight completely unfair and imbalanced.
He's also the first boss to get two turns per round. One usually cancels all debuffs, so my first few turns were wasted as I learned this. He also hits hard when he does attack.
I'll get him now that I know what element he uses against me, just need to fuse a demon to resist it and maybe get an ability or two to buff my party against his damage.
I don't remember if it was true or not, but I remember reading years ago when I last played it that bosses are more likely to debuff you if you max out your buffs - i.e. 4x sukukaja/sukunda. If you used 3x sukukaja/sukunda they boss wouldn't be so quick to remove the buffs.
I can't verify it though, so take the info with a grain of salt..
I can't verify it though, so take the info with a grain of salt..
That's true for certain bosses. Gonna have to look it up though.
Though I may be thinking of DDS/DDS2...
Hironobu Sakaguchi
Member
what a price !
sadly it was expensive before, so i didn't have it, and chose to go with Digital Devil Saga series, it's also got cheaper, but i already bought them in cheaper price
maybe or maybe no i'm giving Nocturne a chance anytime soon
sadly it was expensive before, so i didn't have it, and chose to go with Digital Devil Saga series, it's also got cheaper, but i already bought them in cheaper price
maybe or maybe no i'm giving Nocturne a chance anytime soon
Went in blind and defeated the first boss - stunned the shit out him! I'm liking the vibe.
Nice, thanks for these.
Nice, thanks for these.
If anyone thinks Matador is bad with two turns using beast eye, you will cry when you fight Mot and he decides to be a douche:
http://youtu.be/zIjVvnO5lgM
http://youtu.be/zIjVvnO5lgM
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
Sooooooooooooooo......... anyone playing this on Hard? Want to compare notes? Hahahaha.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
Whose decision was that?
/\ button for shuffle. R1 for skill check. Bases covered. We in, we out.
Ain't no salt like Megatened salt. Them comics and memes of his ain't for nothin'.
Speaking of salt, there was a mugen version of that guy from winter; fucker even had Beast Eyeing up at random at the start of the fight or not. Evil.
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
Ehh? It's been a long while but IIRC the game actually warned you with the prompt "The candelabra is flickering" or somesuch with a sort of effect appearing on the screen before every fiend fight, right?
Jack Frost comes with Dark Might, which is probably the best ability in the game.
He doesn't remove buffs, use those instead. Like someone mentioned previously, you should be able to debuff him once or twice without triggering Dekunda.
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
It's practically useless at the end boss and the ultimate end boss though. Well, it's great for 99% of the game, true.
Being absolutely broken in pretty much every boss fight before those makes up for that, wouldn't you say?
Edit: Your edit. D:
SatelliteOfLove
Member
There's a Manikin blabbering about seeing an angel of death too. It's also 10 steps out from a town with facilities and a teleport back to Ginza.
Compared with the ONLY thing that's broken and unfair against the player (Mot's Beast Eye, Dekunda, Beast Eye Makajaka, Makajaka, Makajaka, Beast Eye, Makajaka, MEGIDOLAON), it's usual Megaten-level think fast. It just also happens to be the point where the game takes off the kid gloves and backhands the bejesus out of you till you fight back.
I'm on my fourth play through of the game after picking it up on PSN.
Hard mode is kicking my ass. I just beat Forneus and on the way back to the save terminal I'm attacked from the rear by three Hua Pos that kill my entire team with maragi. My second attempt I kill Forneus and the same thing happens. Finally I make it out to the world map and two Zhens wipe my team out in one round.
Either I've gotten rusty or hard mode is ridiculous. I don't remember it being this brutal way back when. I'm already cringing at the thought of the Matador battle.
EDIT: Also, my favourite piece of artwork from the game:
Hard mode is kicking my ass. I just beat Forneus and on the way back to the save terminal I'm attacked from the rear by three Hua Pos that kill my entire team with maragi. My second attempt I kill Forneus and the same thing happens. Finally I make it out to the world map and two Zhens wipe my team out in one round.
Either I've gotten rusty or hard mode is ridiculous. I don't remember it being this brutal way back when. I'm already cringing at the thought of the Matador battle.
EDIT: Also, my favourite piece of artwork from the game:
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
Ahahaha sorry I have a bad habit of doing that
Man, I am actually kind of scared going against him now since I am playing hard. This will be my first Hard fight against him.
Hopefully Priestess Uzume can hold my party against him since she is practically the only viable choice of healers against him.
Me too!
Say, you're playing hard mode as well, maybe we should compare notes, hahaha.
Love Deterrence
Member
Chrono Helix
Member
That prompt does appear, but I think that might not be enough to clue you in to an upcoming boss fight, especially if it's your first time playing the game. At least the later bosses have the decency to explicitly tell you "You sense a powerful presence behind the door".
SatelliteOfLove
Member
Forced Battles don't do that either (Troll, those Onis).
Don't forget that you can recruit/fuse a Nozuchi, which drains Force. Not a healer (Not really anything actually, awful skills), but Matador can't really do much to him before he starts spamming Andalucia. Two, potentially three, party members immune to Force is very nice.
super-famicom
Member
Ah, I fused him to make a Lilim, who inherited Dark Might (iirc). But I just recruited another Jack Frost, so it's all good.
That's good, spread it to your entire party.
My thoughts on this so far, mostly comparing it to SMT4, but with some other SMT games as well.
I absolutely love it so far. I notice so many similarities to SMT4, especially gameplaywise. However there are some things that SMT4 kind of spoiled me on that annoy me. The first and foremost one is the lack of minimap (unless there is some button for this I just don't know of?) While you can quickly hit square and get a good sense of which direction you need to go, it is kind of annoying especially when some doors look the same and you aren't sure if you went the right way or not.
Another is the encounter system, which I don't completely understand. I saw the lit up compass and thought it was something like Strange Journey, where it starts out green, turns yellow, then red, and when it's red you're about to hit an enemy. It goes through these colors as you move. in Nocturne it just seems to be completely random, because there have been times I just got out of a battle and then basically take 3 steps and am right into another one! I'm not really sure what the point of the color indicator is on the compass if it just seems random like this. I didn't find an explanation for this yet in-game.
The storyline is so far better than SMT4's in my opinion. SMT4's wasn't bad by any means, and I certainly hope this has some twists like SMT4 did (SMT4 spoilers):
Also Hijiri (guy with the occult magazine) has a striking resemblance to Issachar from SMT4. Am I the only one that caught this? They even seem to serve a similar role (SMT4 spoilers)
I'm only in Shibuya right now, so I'm not too far in, but one thing I really liked that I hope to see more of, is more buildup to the bosses. In SMT4 there wasn't always buildup to what the boss of an area was, and sometimes it would be just kind of random. For instance (I won't spoiler this one since it's very early in the game), Medusa is just kind of there, and then people talk about her after you beat her. It was really cool to see Forneus swimming around in that room through the glass before going in there, and then the souls were like "Hahaha, you think you can beat Forneus, good luck with that." (Forneus was pretty easy though).
Obviously I haven't gotten to the infamous Matador. I do know my SMT stuff and how important buffs are, so hopefully I don't have too much trouble with that one when I get there.
I'm sure I will get things thrown at me for saying this, but the Magatama system sort of reminds me or Persona. I know Persona 1 and 2 were made before this game was, and I never played them, so I have no idea how things worked there, but if they were different than 3 and 4, then I'm going to guess that P3 and P4 got some inspiration from the Magatama system in Nocturne.
Overall I really like it so far, and it actually kind of makes me want to replay SMT4 again.
I absolutely love it so far. I notice so many similarities to SMT4, especially gameplaywise. However there are some things that SMT4 kind of spoiled me on that annoy me. The first and foremost one is the lack of minimap (unless there is some button for this I just don't know of?) While you can quickly hit square and get a good sense of which direction you need to go, it is kind of annoying especially when some doors look the same and you aren't sure if you went the right way or not.
Another is the encounter system, which I don't completely understand. I saw the lit up compass and thought it was something like Strange Journey, where it starts out green, turns yellow, then red, and when it's red you're about to hit an enemy. It goes through these colors as you move. in Nocturne it just seems to be completely random, because there have been times I just got out of a battle and then basically take 3 steps and am right into another one! I'm not really sure what the point of the color indicator is on the compass if it just seems random like this. I didn't find an explanation for this yet in-game.
The storyline is so far better than SMT4's in my opinion. SMT4's wasn't bad by any means, and I certainly hope this has some twists like SMT4 did (SMT4 spoilers):
Ashura-Kai's use of people living underground for the red pills, children, etc.
Strong interest in the occult, and at least in Issachar's case possibly getting so absorbed into it they turn into a demon and you have to fight them.
I'm only in Shibuya right now, so I'm not too far in, but one thing I really liked that I hope to see more of, is more buildup to the bosses. In SMT4 there wasn't always buildup to what the boss of an area was, and sometimes it would be just kind of random. For instance (I won't spoiler this one since it's very early in the game), Medusa is just kind of there, and then people talk about her after you beat her. It was really cool to see Forneus swimming around in that room through the glass before going in there, and then the souls were like "Hahaha, you think you can beat Forneus, good luck with that." (Forneus was pretty easy though).
Obviously I haven't gotten to the infamous Matador. I do know my SMT stuff and how important buffs are, so hopefully I don't have too much trouble with that one when I get there.
I'm sure I will get things thrown at me for saying this, but the Magatama system sort of reminds me or Persona. I know Persona 1 and 2 were made before this game was, and I never played them, so I have no idea how things worked there, but if they were different than 3 and 4, then I'm going to guess that P3 and P4 got some inspiration from the Magatama system in Nocturne.
Overall I really like it so far, and it actually kind of makes me want to replay SMT4 again.
Good to hear. I'm glad this game doesn't pull a Soul Hackers and go "LOL MAGIC ON THE MAIN CHARACTER IS USELESS, FUCK YOU IF YOU LEVELED IT AND DIDN'T KNOW THAT!"
buddha0991
Member
This is most old school Megaten protags, they cant do magic at all. Nocturne changed that.
Still good to hear. When I first started playing Soul Hackers I put some points into Mag the first few levels, then I read on GAF that the protagonist can't learn spells. It seemed kind of stupid they even let you put points in it.
IIRC instead of being a countdown, the encounter rate just increases as the colors change
Okay, what exactly makes them change though? The area? Randomness?
Chrono Helix
Member
It IS like Strange Journey, it's just that sometimes you can walk faster than the indicator can turn to red lol. But encounters triggering that fast shouldn't be happening, maybe you just got unlucky then.
Red indicates the highest chance of encounter. Yellow, the least, etc.
Not necessarily. There are some bosses who will waste a press turn removing buffs on your party or debuffs. This is instead of attacking, which can save you.
Also IIRC Matador removes Fog Breath on his second turn right? If he misses you, that'll definitely help.
eyeball_kid
Member
30 minutes might have been a slight exaggeration on my part, but if you're trying to get an exact mix of skills, you can be in the fusion window for easily over 10 minutes.
Hylian7 said:
Well, it is based on the phase of the moon, at least if memory serves. It's been a few years since I played. At full moon the encounter rate is the highest.
Second attempt against Matador and it was a joke. Knowing he casts Mazan(Force) much of the time, I just went back and fused/recruited a couple demons that null and/or are strong to Force attacks and annhilated him. Whenever he casts Mazan it immediately ended his turn while my team took either minor damage or voided the attack. I stuck to pretty much casting Sukunda here and there and used physical attacks(lunges and whatnot for bonus damage) and after 5 or so rounds it was over. Didn't have or need that Fog ability the thread is talking up. I think it was Nozuchi that I fused that had voided or drained force attacks if anyone cares. Matador's physical attacks were still a bit rough still since I didn't debuff much(and had no buff spells of my own), but I did have Media to help curb damage on one of my guys.
Moving on and still loving the game.
Moving on and still loving the game.
Chrono Helix
Member
The worst feeling is when you're trying to get skills A, B and C, then after you've spent several minutes rerolling you find yourself with A, B and D, and think "yeah that's great" and confirm, then you realize "Wait, I wanted A, B and C SHIT"
It's really more that there's a random number of steps until your next encounter, but the colors are the "timer."
Just so happens that every now and again, the timer is set to "3."
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
My Hard-Mode Playthrough Log 2:
Just arrives at the world map for the first time, escaping the Hospital, defeating Forneus.
Status:
Mobius (MC) Lv 8 -- St 7 Ma 3 Vi 7 Ag 4 Lu 3 -- Lunge, Analyze, Life Bonus
Pixie Lv 5 -- Media (skill change request, upgraded from Dia, lucky!!!), Zio, Seduce, Rakunda, Posumudi
Kodama Lv 5 -- Zan, Gonnection, Dia, Lunge
Shikigami Lv 5-- Zio, Beseech, Tarunda
Reserves:
Will o' Wisp (luckyyyy one of these things asks me to join and after a life stone joins my party!) Lv 3 -- Needle Rush, Zan, Riberama
Hua Po Lv 5 -- Agi Pester (joins easily due to Kodama's Gonnection)
Money: 5052 Macca.
No game over yet, I've been lucky that I only met 3 Hua Po team one time and they don't spam Maragi since Kodama and Shikigami are both weak to fire so it's a sure game over if that happens! The most annoying fight so far is against a team of 3 Shikigami, where they acted first and all three spam Sukunda! Since Dekunda is impossible to obtain at this moment --> Miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, bahhhhhh.
Also, is it just me or does Hard mode dramatically increases the amount of time the enemies attack first or what? It happened so often during my Hospital exploration... or is it because my relatively low agility maybe? Hmmmmmmmmmm.
Small update: Just arrived at Shibuya. Disheartened to see the prices of two Magatamas to buy from Jack Frost....... 6000 and 9000? Uuuurghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Pixie has transformed into High Pixie.
Just arrives at the world map for the first time, escaping the Hospital, defeating Forneus.
Status:
Mobius (MC) Lv 8 -- St 7 Ma 3 Vi 7 Ag 4 Lu 3 -- Lunge, Analyze, Life Bonus
Pixie Lv 5 -- Media (skill change request, upgraded from Dia, lucky!!!), Zio, Seduce, Rakunda, Posumudi
Kodama Lv 5 -- Zan, Gonnection, Dia, Lunge
Shikigami Lv 5-- Zio, Beseech, Tarunda
Reserves:
Will o' Wisp (luckyyyy one of these things asks me to join and after a life stone joins my party!) Lv 3 -- Needle Rush, Zan, Riberama
Hua Po Lv 5 -- Agi Pester (joins easily due to Kodama's Gonnection)
Money: 5052 Macca.
No game over yet, I've been lucky that I only met 3 Hua Po team one time and they don't spam Maragi since Kodama and Shikigami are both weak to fire so it's a sure game over if that happens! The most annoying fight so far is against a team of 3 Shikigami, where they acted first and all three spam Sukunda! Since Dekunda is impossible to obtain at this moment --> Miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, bahhhhhh.
Also, is it just me or does Hard mode dramatically increases the amount of time the enemies attack first or what? It happened so often during my Hospital exploration... or is it because my relatively low agility maybe? Hmmmmmmmmmm.
Small update: Just arrived at Shibuya. Disheartened to see the prices of two Magatamas to buy from Jack Frost....... 6000 and 9000? Uuuurghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Pixie has transformed into High Pixie.
All those PS and PS2 games have been drip fed over time just like Wii U virtual console. There isn't even that many PS2 games still
. I want DQ8, VP2, Dark Cloud, etc. Hell they would still have had n64 games if they didn't reset everything they released on Wii, which I thought was really silly.But it doesn't matter Much to me, all I care about is now being able to play Nocturne on something other than my old ass PS2, and not having to deal with all the problems of the emulated version of the game on PCSX2. So glad the weekend is here its time to really put some time into this game.
Well never say never. At the moment it looks like Ghostlight are pushing for DDS again.
eyeball_kid
Member
Haha yeah. Or when I'm trying for a skill mix that's rare, and I would space out in the "menu zone" and accidentally blow past the mix I wanted. "Noooooooooo" I remember once it took me another 20 minutes to get the mix again. :/
Like I said, they really need to think of a different way of selecting the skill mix during fusion. Sometimes I think they keep around certain gameplay elements just because they are "SMT", not because they're necessarily good.
NeonZ
Member
Matador is part of the additions done to Nocturne Maniax (which was the version that got an international release, although without the Maniax title). The original release of Nocturne didn't have any fiends.
When they released Maniax, they added the fiends and decided to make them important for the extra story added to the game. He happens to be the fiend chosen for that battle likely just because he's one of the fiends not based on Revelation (In Nocturne, all higher level fiends were the ones based on Revelation, aside from guest character Dante). If it weren't Matador, it'd likely be Hell Biker or Daisoujou in that spot.
But they did change the fusion system later. Nocturne isn't a new game...
eyeball_kid
Member
I know, I played Nocturne when it was released. I haven't played SMT IV because I don't have a 3DS, but that's good to hear they changed the system (hopefully for the better).
re: Matador, I don't think he has a "goofy design", or at least not any more outlandish than many other SMT demons. Besides, it's nice to have a bit of humor mixed in with all the serious atmosphere.
Woo, just took down the triple boss fight in Ikebukuro on my first try! Granted I did get some prep hints since you can 'pay Macca' for a tips on the weaknesses/strengths for the triple-boss gauntlet from an NPC outside. So I wrangled together a party that would easily handle all three boss affinity variants. (Actually mostly the same matador crew I rolled with worked pretty well)
After a decade of curiosity I finally also fought Dante for the first time! Took him down on my first attempt as well. Loved seeing his signature moves play out like Rebellion and Ebony and Ivory shots. I can eventually recruit him right?
After a decade of curiosity I finally also fought Dante for the first time! Took him down on my first attempt as well. Loved seeing his signature moves play out like Rebellion and Ebony and Ivory shots. I can eventually recruit him right?
SatelliteOfLove
Member
Temptation is what's "wrong" here. Master the urge. It's not THAT tightly tuned as to need 8 specific skills (even on the Demifiend!)
That's the only reason it was changed. I'm hoping SMT5 and P5 are built with it in mind, as it runs roughshod over the game's balancing very early.
eyeball_kid
Member
Well, Nocturne was my first SMT and I was getting my ass handed to me quite often, so I did feel like I needed every advantage I could get. But also because I wanted my demons to be unique. I recruited them and they had my back, so they felt more on my side than anyone else in the game. Maybe it's because the gameworld in Nocturne feels really alien and hostile.