Which SMT game should I buy?
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CoffeeEdge
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I honestly love them all as much as each other. Might wanna skip on DDS, though, unless you intend to buy both. It'd be best to play P3FES after playing the original P3.
They're all great values, but, as a good intro to the series...I might say Nocturne.
They're all great values, but, as a good intro to the series...I might say Nocturne.
CoffeeEdge
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[quote name='LeafPanda']I've never played any SMT game before. I might try Nocturne or FES, but DDS looks so interesting.[/QUOTE]
DDS is great. Just keep in mind that you'll want to get part 2, if you want to really finish it.
DDS is great. Just keep in mind that you'll want to get part 2, if you want to really finish it.
thelonepig
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I liked DDS. If you've played Final Fantasy X, then DDS will be the easiest point of entry for the series. The systems are very similar. Nocturne and Persona are a bit less forgiving in that you can only have a certain number of skills. If you want to learn a new one, you have to forget (permanently) one of your current.
Right now is a good time to jump in because of the reprints.
Honestly though, I'd say P3: FES will be your best price for the money. It'll last you at least 100 hours. DDS 1 & 2 combined will be about half that.
Right now is a good time to jump in because of the reprints.
Honestly though, I'd say P3: FES will be your best price for the money. It'll last you at least 100 hours. DDS 1 & 2 combined will be about half that.
A
Apossum
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Depends on what you want--
Nocturne-- tough as nails dungeon crawler, hardly any cutscenes, most of the story comes from talking to NPCs. Some people say it's like sacrilegious pokemon since you're party is all recruited monsters and you spend a lot of time fusing them, breeding lots of skills, etc. I think this is the best, but it's definitely the hardest SMT game. As far as I know, this is the only "true" SMT game in the U.S. It's considered SMT3 in Japan (the rest don't have the SMT label.)
DDS-- closer to Final Fantasy-style gameplay (not story-wise...at all, thankfully), more story and cutscenes, but still pretty heavy on dungeons. You'll have to play both to get the full story. No recruitment system, straight JRPG gameplay.
Devil Summoner-- I didn't play it for more than a few hours. Someone else can give you better impressions.
Persona 3-- i'm currently 20 hours into this. Definitely the most unique--it's half school-sim, half dungeon crawler. The relationships you form in the school sim half power up the "personas" you get in the dungeon crawler half. Very fun game, but fairly repetitive. It's between Nocturne and DDS in difficulty, imo. The Persona system is a bit like monster recruiting in Nocturne, but not as deep since you only have control over the protagonist and his personas in battle.
Nocturne-- tough as nails dungeon crawler, hardly any cutscenes, most of the story comes from talking to NPCs. Some people say it's like sacrilegious pokemon since you're party is all recruited monsters and you spend a lot of time fusing them, breeding lots of skills, etc. I think this is the best, but it's definitely the hardest SMT game. As far as I know, this is the only "true" SMT game in the U.S. It's considered SMT3 in Japan (the rest don't have the SMT label.)
DDS-- closer to Final Fantasy-style gameplay (not story-wise...at all, thankfully), more story and cutscenes, but still pretty heavy on dungeons. You'll have to play both to get the full story. No recruitment system, straight JRPG gameplay.
Devil Summoner-- I didn't play it for more than a few hours. Someone else can give you better impressions.
Persona 3-- i'm currently 20 hours into this. Definitely the most unique--it's half school-sim, half dungeon crawler. The relationships you form in the school sim half power up the "personas" you get in the dungeon crawler half. Very fun game, but fairly repetitive. It's between Nocturne and DDS in difficulty, imo. The Persona system is a bit like monster recruiting in Nocturne, but not as deep since you only have control over the protagonist and his personas in battle.
I'm suggesting Nocturne. It was the most refreshing RPG I've played in a long time. It's atmosphere will have you dreaming about the game. The music is moody and battle system is fun. DDS was alright too, but seemed like a big push to please the .hack fans imo. I skipped summoner, and haven't opened Persona 3 yet, so I can't comment on those.
Hope you get one you enjoy
gl
Hope you get one you enjoy
gl
Nocturne - Hella old school, but damn good. Light on story, but the gameplay is some of the most refined you'll find in a turn-based RPG. Might not be a good one to start out with, because it's going to kick your ass if you aren't familiar with how the Press-Turn system works in the PS2 SMT games. Still, it's worth picking up while the reprint is still available.
DDS - The first game was really good, but the second game was insanely good. Way more story-driven, and the plot is really good... though most of the plot is in the second game, so if you're expecting the story to blow you away immediately upon starting DDS 1... well, it won't happen. Definitely worth owning, though I'd put this one below Nocturne overall.
Devil Summoner - I actually finished this one, though it took far longer than it should've, because I kept getting bored after playing the game for 10 minutes. This replaces the turn based combat system with a generally ghetto-feeling real-time system, and it sucks. Enemies are annoying, and there's no depth to the combat. The game tries to make itself into an adventure game of sorts, too, as there are some areas that "puzzle" you by requiring you to have a demon with a specific skill to proceed. That's stupid. The story sucks, too. Basically, this is the only PS2 SMT game that you can go wrong with. Don't buy it, don't rent it.
Persona 3 Fes -
ing great. Only game that has addicted me enough to play 64 hours in a week. It was insane, and I'd gladly do it again. Definitely easier than either DDS or Nocturne, so it's a good intro in that regard, and it doesn't feel as relentlessly old-school in the dungeon crawling (no trap floors and such.) The school aspect of the game is off tha chain. I'm glad they went a different route with Persona 3, because another game that plays like Nocturne would've felt a little stale... but alas, this is fresh, it's unique, and yeah, it's what you should get first.
I'd also strongly consider Persona 2 for the PS1... I'm playing through it now and it's looking like it could potentially be the best SMT game of all. Basically, the only SMTs to avoid are Devil Summoner and the original Persona. I know it's not much of a recommendation when I'm saying you should buy almost all the games in a series, but they're really that good.
Man, it's nice to see the SMT series getting so much attention these days.
DDS - The first game was really good, but the second game was insanely good. Way more story-driven, and the plot is really good... though most of the plot is in the second game, so if you're expecting the story to blow you away immediately upon starting DDS 1... well, it won't happen. Definitely worth owning, though I'd put this one below Nocturne overall.
Devil Summoner - I actually finished this one, though it took far longer than it should've, because I kept getting bored after playing the game for 10 minutes. This replaces the turn based combat system with a generally ghetto-feeling real-time system, and it sucks. Enemies are annoying, and there's no depth to the combat. The game tries to make itself into an adventure game of sorts, too, as there are some areas that "puzzle" you by requiring you to have a demon with a specific skill to proceed. That's stupid. The story sucks, too. Basically, this is the only PS2 SMT game that you can go wrong with. Don't buy it, don't rent it.
Persona 3 Fes -
ing great. Only game that has addicted me enough to play 64 hours in a week. It was insane, and I'd gladly do it again. Definitely easier than either DDS or Nocturne, so it's a good intro in that regard, and it doesn't feel as relentlessly old-school in the dungeon crawling (no trap floors and such.) The school aspect of the game is off tha chain. I'm glad they went a different route with Persona 3, because another game that plays like Nocturne would've felt a little stale... but alas, this is fresh, it's unique, and yeah, it's what you should get first.I'd also strongly consider Persona 2 for the PS1... I'm playing through it now and it's looking like it could potentially be the best SMT game of all. Basically, the only SMTs to avoid are Devil Summoner and the original Persona. I know it's not much of a recommendation when I'm saying you should buy almost all the games in a series, but they're really that good.
Man, it's nice to see the SMT series getting so much attention these days.
I'm currently playing P3Fes, which is my first SMT game, Nocturne is next, and I can honestly this is one of my favorite games of all time, and by the time I finish it may be my favorite (a spot currently held by Final Fantasy Tactics).
And for $30 new there's no excuse not to buy it.
And for $30 new there's no excuse not to buy it.
Mr Durand Pierre
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Nocturne has the best visuals, music, atmosphere, etc...,
DDS has the best story,
and P3 has the best gameplay.
Honestly, I've never liked the series as much as I've wanted to. They all have fantastic art direction and interesting unconventional stories, but they also all have rubbish pacing and feel unnecessarily padded out. I only got about 10-12 hours into Nocturne and DDS1 and I'm about 15 hours into P3FES. I'd like to one day finish them all, but I'll be surprised if I ever even finish one of them. If I do though, it'll probably be P3 because it doesn't have random encounters that made the other games so much worse than they should have been. If you have the patience for 'em, they're all rather good for that sort of thing.
DDS has the best story,
and P3 has the best gameplay.
Honestly, I've never liked the series as much as I've wanted to. They all have fantastic art direction and interesting unconventional stories, but they also all have rubbish pacing and feel unnecessarily padded out. I only got about 10-12 hours into Nocturne and DDS1 and I'm about 15 hours into P3FES. I'd like to one day finish them all, but I'll be surprised if I ever even finish one of them. If I do though, it'll probably be P3 because it doesn't have random encounters that made the other games so much worse than they should have been. If you have the patience for 'em, they're all rather good for that sort of thing.
The only similarity really between FFX and DDS is the sphere grid system isn't unlike the Mantra system in DDS.
However in terms of combat, press turn is notably different than most turn based systems, in the sense that you can actually gain turns and lose them depending on what abilities you use/hitting elemental weak points/voids/repels/drains. The press turn system can turn a "simple" random encounter into a Game Over by making the wrong decision, and the bosses can be very brutal. It's really hard to just auto attack your way through most fights.
Whereas I'm unsure its possible to see the Game Over screen in most RPGs, the SMT games give you a unique system to work with and are very satisfying because they are pretty hard. Of course once you are familiar with them, they all play similarly and aren't very hard, they just make every other RPG a complete snore through by comparison in my experience.
However in terms of combat, press turn is notably different than most turn based systems, in the sense that you can actually gain turns and lose them depending on what abilities you use/hitting elemental weak points/voids/repels/drains. The press turn system can turn a "simple" random encounter into a Game Over by making the wrong decision, and the bosses can be very brutal. It's really hard to just auto attack your way through most fights.
Whereas I'm unsure its possible to see the Game Over screen in most RPGs, the SMT games give you a unique system to work with and are very satisfying because they are pretty hard. Of course once you are familiar with them, they all play similarly and aren't very hard, they just make every other RPG a complete snore through by comparison in my experience.
Allnatural
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[quote name='Nakilos']The press turn system can turn a "simple" random encounter into a Game Over by making the wrong decision, and the bosses can be very brutal. It's really hard to just auto attack your way through most fights.[/quote]
Oh yes. Nothing like an "easy" fight suddenly going tits up because an enemy dodged your attack. I've seen the game over screen more times in DDS than in any other rpg. Thank goodness for frequent save points.
Oh yes. Nothing like an "easy" fight suddenly going tits up because an enemy dodged your attack. I've seen the game over screen more times in DDS than in any other rpg. Thank goodness for frequent save points.
willardhaven
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[quote name='Mr Durand Pierre']
They all have fantastic art direction and interesting unconventional stories, but they also all have rubbish pacing and feel unnecessarily padded out. I only got about 10-12 hours into Nocturne and DDS1 and I'm about 15 hours into P3FES. I'd like to one day finish them all, but I'll be surprised if I ever even finish one of them. If I do though, it'll probably be P3 because it doesn't have random encounters that made the other games so much worse than they should have been. If you have the patience for 'em, they're all rather good for that sort of thing.[/quote]
I have to say you are correct about DDS and its slow pacing. Nocturne however, thrusts you right into battle and really has only minimal interruption.
P3 suffers from a lot of dialogue but it shines despite this because of the above average writing.
I would start with P3 and move on to Nocturne if I were getting into the series.
DDS 1 and 2 are for people who have finished the two aforementioned and want more, even at the cost of quality.
Devil Summoner is for people who are desperate for SMT.
They all have fantastic art direction and interesting unconventional stories, but they also all have rubbish pacing and feel unnecessarily padded out. I only got about 10-12 hours into Nocturne and DDS1 and I'm about 15 hours into P3FES. I'd like to one day finish them all, but I'll be surprised if I ever even finish one of them. If I do though, it'll probably be P3 because it doesn't have random encounters that made the other games so much worse than they should have been. If you have the patience for 'em, they're all rather good for that sort of thing.[/quote]
I have to say you are correct about DDS and its slow pacing. Nocturne however, thrusts you right into battle and really has only minimal interruption.
P3 suffers from a lot of dialogue but it shines despite this because of the above average writing.
I would start with P3 and move on to Nocturne if I were getting into the series.
DDS 1 and 2 are for people who have finished the two aforementioned and want more, even at the cost of quality.
Devil Summoner is for people who are desperate for SMT.
The only reason I would disagree with skipping the first is I found the setup really engrossing with no clue where it was going the majority of the game. I mean basically a voice tells all the clans in the "world" to eat each other, and that is your objective. No real explanation, and I found it really effective. Obviously this is more effective if you try to make a deliberate effort to not read much about the game.
While the second one explains the events early on very coherantly, I think the experience of that play through is worth it.
I wouldn't exactly call the DDS games padded, there are items you can get relatively early to deal with the random encounter volume in both games (as I recall the shop system is easy to exploit), and I found the pacing of the storylines was fine, dungeon length was fine. If anything I wished both were a bit longer but they were a good 50 hours or so if you bothered to try to do the side bosses/max out mantras, and not quite as cut scene heavy as some other games of the generation. Nocturne on the other hand I think relies heavily on atmosphere rather than cutscenes, even just things like talking to ghosts in the world actually adds a lot to the immersion I think.
Also, I really enjoyed the soundtracks to DDS 1 and 2, and I typically don't enjoy video game music. It was really different to me when I played them, and I found they added a lot to the games.
While the second one explains the events early on very coherantly, I think the experience of that play through is worth it.
I wouldn't exactly call the DDS games padded, there are items you can get relatively early to deal with the random encounter volume in both games (as I recall the shop system is easy to exploit), and I found the pacing of the storylines was fine, dungeon length was fine. If anything I wished both were a bit longer but they were a good 50 hours or so if you bothered to try to do the side bosses/max out mantras, and not quite as cut scene heavy as some other games of the generation. Nocturne on the other hand I think relies heavily on atmosphere rather than cutscenes, even just things like talking to ghosts in the world actually adds a lot to the immersion I think.
Also, I really enjoyed the soundtracks to DDS 1 and 2, and I typically don't enjoy video game music. It was really different to me when I played them, and I found they added a lot to the games.
[quote name='heavyd853']If you can find DDS 2 I would probably start with that since you don't really need an explanation about what happens in the first one (everything is pretty much covered in the first few hours). I haven't played nocturne or p3 yet because Im broke as hell.[/QUOTE]
Whoa, I dunno about that... the second game has a lotta stuff that you'd just completely miss without playing DDS 1 first. And you wouldn't have any idea why certain characters or events are important.
Whoa, I dunno about that... the second game has a lotta stuff that you'd just completely miss without playing DDS 1 first. And you wouldn't have any idea why certain characters or events are important.
[quote name='Nakilos']Nocturne on the other hand I think relies heavily on atmosphere rather than cutscenes, even just things like talking to ghosts in the world actually adds a lot to the immersion I think.
[/QUOTE]
See, that's the cool thing about Nocturne -- it feels a lot more like an adventure just because it's about where you venture... not what some assholes say in a cut scene. There's really not much out there like that, and nothing that pulls it off as well as Nocturne.
[/QUOTE]
See, that's the cool thing about Nocturne -- it feels a lot more like an adventure just because it's about where you venture... not what some assholes say in a cut scene. There's really not much out there like that, and nothing that pulls it off as well as Nocturne.
Sort of a loaded question and both are fairly different. Nocturne plays like a lot of standard RPGs, go to dungeon, beat boss there, move on to next area. Except you can fuse and recruit a ton of monsters, and it uses the press turn combat which is basically exploit enemy weaknesses for more turns, lose turns when you hit their immunities, monsters get a turn to do the same (your monsters have immunities and weaknesses usually as well). Nocturne has a rather robust system with 6 different endings and they aren't too terribly obscure to determine what is an important plot point to decide which ending you want to go with. Dungeons I feel are well designed and have a great atmosphere in a ruined "modern" world - lots of dungeons include subway tunnels or other urban areas (a construction site and a hospital for example), as well as more fantastic dungeon settings (The Kalpas, the Kagatsuchi Tower) which resemble more fantasy/sci fi-ish dungeon settings. This game uses a random encounter system, and the encounter rate is considered high, and you will get in fights even in towns in most cases.
FES is like....it covers each day in a bit over a year, each day you can build relationships with people and at night time, at midnight you can dungeon crawl through the randomly generated dungeon. I hate random generated dungeon crawlers normally, but the floors were overall short enough to not be super annoying. Uses a variation of press turn in the sense that hitting weaknesses knocks enemies down, knock down every enemy on the screen and you can do an all out attack, which is beneficial in 98% of fights. Rather than recruiting monsters you get Persona cards which you can fuse into other Personas, which basically in battle you equip Personas to access various abilities. Your party members abilities are a fixed growth since they can't change Personas, and they aren't controllable (do have AI scripts though). The benefit to relationship building is it increases Exp gained when fusing new Personas, so there is a significant benefit as when you fuse you get a powered up version of that Persona. I haven't played FES, but the secondary content plays the same way with a different story and I believe lacking the Persona fusing, which is much shorter than the normal game, and I believe lacks the same relationship building system. This doesn't have random encounters in the traditional sense, you can see monsters, hit them or they hit you to start the encounter (which IS random, except as I recall different sized shadows on screen often were an indicator of what monsters you MAY fight), but when you are high level the on screen monsters will often run away from you in fear.
The other difference is Nocturne has only items, no equipment to wear, unless you count the Makatama as a form of equipment. In Persona there is equipment, but realistically the defense helps survive, and weapon quality affects the all out attack damage, but you probably won't auto attack your way through most relavant fights. In FES they added weapon fusing however, so this may be more relevant. I only used 1h swords in Persona 3 and had no problems, saw no compelling reason to use other weapons most of the time.
The final difference is Nocturne's ability learning system is permanent, you can't undo losing an ability so you really need to know what the abilities are and to a degree this discourages experimentation, whereas in Persona 3, you can hold so many Personas and each can have 8 abilities (active and passive), I know by the end I had access to easily 60 abilities or so to swap from just by changing Personas. In Nocturne, you can learn 8 at a time and just discard abilities for new ones. Needless to say, Nocturne is considerably more unforgiving, but you CAN compensate poor skill selection via intelligent monster fusing, though at the end of the day only 4 abilities in Nocturne end up mattering, debateably 3 if you want another demon to do your healing.
FES is like....it covers each day in a bit over a year, each day you can build relationships with people and at night time, at midnight you can dungeon crawl through the randomly generated dungeon. I hate random generated dungeon crawlers normally, but the floors were overall short enough to not be super annoying. Uses a variation of press turn in the sense that hitting weaknesses knocks enemies down, knock down every enemy on the screen and you can do an all out attack, which is beneficial in 98% of fights. Rather than recruiting monsters you get Persona cards which you can fuse into other Personas, which basically in battle you equip Personas to access various abilities. Your party members abilities are a fixed growth since they can't change Personas, and they aren't controllable (do have AI scripts though). The benefit to relationship building is it increases Exp gained when fusing new Personas, so there is a significant benefit as when you fuse you get a powered up version of that Persona. I haven't played FES, but the secondary content plays the same way with a different story and I believe lacking the Persona fusing, which is much shorter than the normal game, and I believe lacks the same relationship building system. This doesn't have random encounters in the traditional sense, you can see monsters, hit them or they hit you to start the encounter (which IS random, except as I recall different sized shadows on screen often were an indicator of what monsters you MAY fight), but when you are high level the on screen monsters will often run away from you in fear.
The other difference is Nocturne has only items, no equipment to wear, unless you count the Makatama as a form of equipment. In Persona there is equipment, but realistically the defense helps survive, and weapon quality affects the all out attack damage, but you probably won't auto attack your way through most relavant fights. In FES they added weapon fusing however, so this may be more relevant. I only used 1h swords in Persona 3 and had no problems, saw no compelling reason to use other weapons most of the time.
The final difference is Nocturne's ability learning system is permanent, you can't undo losing an ability so you really need to know what the abilities are and to a degree this discourages experimentation, whereas in Persona 3, you can hold so many Personas and each can have 8 abilities (active and passive), I know by the end I had access to easily 60 abilities or so to swap from just by changing Personas. In Nocturne, you can learn 8 at a time and just discard abilities for new ones. Needless to say, Nocturne is considerably more unforgiving, but you CAN compensate poor skill selection via intelligent monster fusing, though at the end of the day only 4 abilities in Nocturne end up mattering, debateably 3 if you want another demon to do your healing.
Allnatural
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[quote name='Chacrana']Whoa, I dunno about that... the second game has a lotta stuff that you'd just completely miss without playing DDS 1 first. And you wouldn't have any idea why certain characters or events are important.[/quote]
Case in point,
I'm in the middle of DDS2 right now (the power plant), so I'm itching to see what happens next.
Case in point,
Heat
I'm in the middle of DDS2 right now (the power plant), so I'm itching to see what happens next.
[quote name='Nakilos']Sort of a loaded question and both are fairly different. Nocturne plays like a lot of standard RPGs, go to dungeon, beat boss there, move on to next area. Except you can fuse and recruit a ton of monsters, and it uses the press turn combat which is basically exploit enemy weaknesses for more turns, lose turns when you hit their immunities, monsters get a turn to do the same (your monsters have immunities and weaknesses usually as well). Nocturne has a rather robust system with 6 different endings and they aren't too terribly obscure to determine what is an important plot point to decide which ending you want to go with. Dungeons I feel are well designed and have a great atmosphere in a ruined "modern" world - lots of dungeons include subway tunnels or other urban areas (a construction site and a hospital for example), as well as more fantastic dungeon settings (The Kalpas, the Kagatsuchi Tower) which resemble more fantasy/sci fi-ish dungeon settings. This game uses a random encounter system, and the encounter rate is considered high, and you will get in fights even in towns in most cases.
FES is like....it covers each day in a bit over a year, each day you can build relationships with people and at night time, at midnight you can dungeon crawl through the randomly generated dungeon. I hate random generated dungeon crawlers normally, but the floors were overall short enough to not be super annoying. Uses a variation of press turn in the sense that hitting weaknesses knocks enemies down, knock down every enemy on the screen and you can do an all out attack, which is beneficial in 98% of fights. Rather than recruiting monsters you get Persona cards which you can fuse into other Personas, which basically in battle you equip Personas to access various abilities. Your party members abilities are a fixed growth since they can't change Personas, and they aren't controllable (do have AI scripts though). The benefit to relationship building is it increases Exp gained when fusing new Personas, so there is a significant benefit as when you fuse you get a powered up version of that Persona. I haven't played FES, but the secondary content plays the same way with a different story and I believe lacking the Persona fusing, which is much shorter than the normal game, and I believe lacks the same relationship building system. This doesn't have random encounters in the traditional sense, you can see monsters, hit them or they hit you to start the encounter (which IS random, except as I recall different sized shadows on screen often were an indicator of what monsters you MAY fight), but when you are high level the on screen monsters will often run away from you in fear.
The other difference is Nocturne has only items, no equipment to wear, unless you count the Makatama as a form of equipment. In Persona there is equipment, but realistically the defense helps survive, and weapon quality affects the all out attack damage, but you probably won't auto attack your way through most relavant fights. In FES they added weapon fusing however, so this may be more relevant. I only used 1h swords in Persona 3 and had no problems, saw no compelling reason to use other weapons most of the time.
The final difference is Nocturne's ability learning system is permanent, you can't undo losing an ability so you really need to know what the abilities are and to a degree this discourages experimentation, whereas in Persona 3, you can hold so many Personas and each can have 8 abilities (active and passive), I know by the end I had access to easily 60 abilities or so to swap from just by changing Personas. In Nocturne, you can learn 8 at a time and just discard abilities for new ones. Needless to say, Nocturne is considerably more unforgiving, but you CAN compensate poor skill selection via intelligent monster fusing, though at the end of the day only 4 abilities in Nocturne end up mattering, debateably 3 if you want another demon to do your healing.[/quote]
Wow, thanks for actually taking your time to write this.
FES is like....it covers each day in a bit over a year, each day you can build relationships with people and at night time, at midnight you can dungeon crawl through the randomly generated dungeon. I hate random generated dungeon crawlers normally, but the floors were overall short enough to not be super annoying. Uses a variation of press turn in the sense that hitting weaknesses knocks enemies down, knock down every enemy on the screen and you can do an all out attack, which is beneficial in 98% of fights. Rather than recruiting monsters you get Persona cards which you can fuse into other Personas, which basically in battle you equip Personas to access various abilities. Your party members abilities are a fixed growth since they can't change Personas, and they aren't controllable (do have AI scripts though). The benefit to relationship building is it increases Exp gained when fusing new Personas, so there is a significant benefit as when you fuse you get a powered up version of that Persona. I haven't played FES, but the secondary content plays the same way with a different story and I believe lacking the Persona fusing, which is much shorter than the normal game, and I believe lacks the same relationship building system. This doesn't have random encounters in the traditional sense, you can see monsters, hit them or they hit you to start the encounter (which IS random, except as I recall different sized shadows on screen often were an indicator of what monsters you MAY fight), but when you are high level the on screen monsters will often run away from you in fear.
The other difference is Nocturne has only items, no equipment to wear, unless you count the Makatama as a form of equipment. In Persona there is equipment, but realistically the defense helps survive, and weapon quality affects the all out attack damage, but you probably won't auto attack your way through most relavant fights. In FES they added weapon fusing however, so this may be more relevant. I only used 1h swords in Persona 3 and had no problems, saw no compelling reason to use other weapons most of the time.
The final difference is Nocturne's ability learning system is permanent, you can't undo losing an ability so you really need to know what the abilities are and to a degree this discourages experimentation, whereas in Persona 3, you can hold so many Personas and each can have 8 abilities (active and passive), I know by the end I had access to easily 60 abilities or so to swap from just by changing Personas. In Nocturne, you can learn 8 at a time and just discard abilities for new ones. Needless to say, Nocturne is considerably more unforgiving, but you CAN compensate poor skill selection via intelligent monster fusing, though at the end of the day only 4 abilities in Nocturne end up mattering, debateably 3 if you want another demon to do your healing.[/quote]
Wow, thanks for actually taking your time to write this.
bread's done