Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • All There Is to Know About "The Crying Game": If you've never played this game, but have heard of it, chances are you only know about the Labyrinth of Amala and the True Demon Ending. Barely any other part of the story is well-known, and even among the game' fanbase the endings besides True Demon Ending are largely forgotten.
  • Anticlimax Boss: Kagutsuchi. If you Buff and Debuff to maximum, he's mostly a joke, especially compared to the rather brutal battle that precedes him.
    • Sakahagi. Sure, you fight him right after taking down Girimekhala (the first boss to reflect physical attacks) and given no chance to heal, but he only knows second-tier elemental spells and can be easily taken out in one turn by this point in the game.
      • What makes that battle an even bigger joke is that you keep all the buffs you have against the preceding demon and Sakahagi doesn't have a lot of MP. Use Mana or Life Drain on him and he becomes even more worthless. Also doubles as Too Dumb to Live considering the guy could have just run away and make his schemes another day.
      • He does pose a mild threat in that he can easily finish you off if you're weak enough from the preceding boss fight. Especially if there's any elemental weaknesses in your party. But if you survive his first attack, you're more than likely going to be fine.
  • Breather Boss: Thor the second time. Sure, he'll start using Dragon Eye when he hits half health, but really, you should be able to drop him from his full 8000 to 5000 fast, and then finish him in one turn.
    • Mara, even though he heals himself to full health on every turn. His strongest attack is Hades Blast, which isn't that bad even though it can Mute you. You're also forced to fight him during a full Kagutsuchi, thus enabling Bright Might. Bring a few demons that have it, and he'll be dead before he gets a turn.
      • Taunt + Tetrakarn = Dead Mara.
    • To a much greater extent, Mithra is often considered by players to be the easiest boss of the game. The majority of his turns are wasted on Expel or Death spells, which are inaccurate and easily blocked by that point, meaning that even after using Dragon Eye, he'll end up not doing much. He is also quite frail for such a late-game boss, as he can be killed within less than 4 turns with little trouble. The only thing that can (not necessarily) mess you up in this battle is that you can't be immune to Death AND Expel at the same time at this point of the game (though your demons certainly can).
    • Black Rider is one of the easier Fiends due to not having any way to deal with buffs and debuffs and having no other gimmick like Daisoujou and Trumpeter other than being a Flunky Boss. Don't be too complacent though, as he does have Megidolaon.
  • Crazy Awesome: What demon, after giving the world's most epic evil laugh, shoots lasers out of his eyes that causes a powerful, Almighty-type, multi-target attack with a chance of instant Expel-type death? Metatron. That's who!
  • Complete Monster: Chiaki, who is the only person to be explicitly called "evil".
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: "World Map -Last Area-", and pretty much the whole soundtrack.
    • This is one of the many normal battle themes. It's also the theme that plays when you fight the Demi-Fiend as a Bonus Boss in Digital Devil Saga. This is the Kotowari (Reason) boss theme, playing only against three bosses when they decide to get serious.
      • Or hell, even the pre-boss music. "The next thing you see is going to beat the shit out of you. Prepare for that."
        • Heck, in this game, all the pre-boss musics bathes in pure awesome; we have the theme that plays before a Fiend battle.It says: "You'll be fighting something horrifying. Brace yourself". On the same vein, this is the epic song that plays just before the True Final Boss. One of the most Oh Crap inducing songs you'll find.
        • Boss Battle: the lyrics help convey the intensity of a difficult battle, and the hollow, disembodied, distorted sound with which they're recited serves to underscore the notion that if the beings singing this ever were humans from the world we know, they're something (or somewhere) horribly different now.
      • Isamu's theme song fits incredibly well in the scenes it plays in.
    • "Metatron's Theme". There is no other song in the universe perfect enough to portray the feeling that you're practically giving God the finger at this point, and have inflicted his wrath. Bonus points for including a remix of the Shin Megami Tensei Law Theme.
    • Tokyo Conception. Soft piano, for Yuko's lines... and then the booming organ and the dark riffs pitch in, and the world dies.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Lucifer and the "True Demon" Demi-Fiend get this a lot. The fact that their agenda involves destroying all life seems to be glossed over at best. People forget all too often Chaos is at least as horrible as Law, and Lucifer is its heart and soul.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Matador, with a bit of overlap with Colbert Bump. Prior to the game's Maniax update, Matador was simply a fiend that looks like a skeleton dressed as a matador that is ready for a bullfight. Cue his jarring "Wake-Up Call" Boss battle and now Matador has become a symbol for the franchise of "Never, EVER think buffs/debuffs are pointless. Always invest in them. They will save your ass from being pounded flat."
  • Fashion Victim Villain: Hikawa's got an amazing pajama-esque suit and M-shaped widow's peak.
  • Fountain of Memes: For someone who only shows up for a single boss fight outside of fusion, Matador has a surprising amount of memes:
    • "I challenge you to a duel!" Despite the fact that there's more to the sentence, this is all that shows up in the one text boss, but with a comma replacing the exclamation point. Pictures of Matador saying this is a fandom joke of things getting serious.
    • "I swear, by my sword and capote, that I will once again prove victorious!" A rather spectacular Pre Ass Kicking One Liner that is one of the last lines before the fight properly begins. Among other things, it's the image for Atlus's That One Boss page.
    • Red Capote - One of his unique skills and the skill that defines the fight, which maxes out Matador's hit/evasion rate. As this was the first mainline game to be released in the West and the first game to use the Press Turn system, Matador is widely considered to be the boss for teaching players how to properly use buffs and debuffs thanks to this skill.
    • As a sub-meme of the above, variants of "Get the buffs ready" occur often when talking about the Press Turn system, and if the phrase is brought up, Matador is almost always mentioned.
  • Hell Is That Noise: Shikome's scream whenever it attacks.
    • Daisoujou's scream whenever it uses Meditation.
  • Les Yay: Fun fact: having a female demon use Seduce (high chance of recruiting male demons when used by a female demon) or wooing (high chance of recruiting female demons when used by a male demon) can work on other female demons, while a male demon using either on another male disgusts the target and results in a guaranteed fail.
    • It doesn't work so much as it doesn't not work. A female demon's chances of recruiting another female demon using Seduce are exactly the same as if trying to negotiate normally. One would imagine that female demons are a bit more comfortable about being hit on by someone of the same sex than male demons.
  • Memetic Mutation: Other than the numerous memes spawned from Matador, we have these:
    • "Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series!" is often used in photoshops of game covers in order to mock the European cover's blatant attempt at cashing in Wolverine Publicity.
    • Mot's Drama, which refers to whenever Mot spams Beast Eye and pairs it with enough Makakajas and Megidolaons to wipe you out in one turn. Became an Ascended Meme in Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse, where one of the DLC regular enemies is a Mot with Guardian's Eye, Makakaja and Antichthon.
    • One more god rejected, a line from the Fierce Battle theme and often shows up when talking about the game.
  • Narm: Listen to Daisoujou when he uses a physical attack. White Rider using God's Bow is also pretty Narmy.
    • Whenever Trumpeter speaks.
    • Every time Black Rider uses a spell. Heeeeee!
  • Newer Than They Think: The Fiends have existed since Shin Megami Tensei I, and are usually represented by the Revelation Fiends (the Riders, Mother Harlot and Trumpeter). They actually didn't debut until this game, with the Super Famicom games using a more varied roster that included the first three non-cameo Fiends in this game. The exception is Pale Rider, who was one of the original three Fiends along with Daisoujou, the second Fiend in this game, and David. The roster for every future game would follow this game's, with the six Revelation Fiends accompanied by three or four others.
  • Play the Game, Skip the Story: While Nocturne is beloved by the fanbase for many reasons ranging from gameplay, atmosphere and music, the story tends to not be one of said reasons. This is generally held to be due to the games minimalist approach. Not helping matters is that the game has a serious case of Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy, making it hard to get attached to anyone aside from your own demons. To its credit, it does raise some very real and interesting questions, but it's hard for much of it to stick when everyone has less than pleasant character issues, traits and ideoligies.
  • So Cool Its Awesome: The game is just that awesome... even if you could actually become the AntiChrist.
  • "Stop Having Fun" Guys: There's nothing wrong with completing this game and being good at it, but a number of people who hold this game in high regard seem to sneer at anyone who expresses frustration and accusations of unfairness over it.
  • That One Boss: Matador, who gets the honor of being pictured in the Atlus That One Boss page. With the right strategy, he's not too difficult, but he's the first boss in the game that you won't be able to beat without fusing a party specifically to counter him.
  • That One Level: That fucking cursed hallway in the Second Kalpa. Your HP gets cut in half every 5 or so steps, there are level 60+ demons that always seem to get through Repel. To get out you have to go back through the hallway, though thankfully, there are several shortcuts, so you don't have to go the whole circuit.
    • The lower levels of the Third Kalpa definitely count, too. You have to run around and flip switches while being shot at by Dante. Get caught by him, and he knocks your party around and sends you back to the beginning. In the second part, not only are the switches in mazes of invisible walls, Dante resets them after he catches you. The top level's not easy either: it's a gigantic maze filled with one-way doors, and some of them teleport you if a certain stat isn't high enough. The only way to be sure that you won't get thrown all over the map is to have all your stats at 25 or higher, which would require absurd amounts of grinding at this point.
  • That One Sidequest: The Labyrinth of Amala in its entirety. The mandatory parts put you through the wringer constantly and remind you it's particularly hard to assemble a powerful team capable of resisting continuous assaults (many back attacks, particularly) at the beginning. The optional Grave Run is also particularly tough, even with the endgame stats.
    • Puzzle Boy, a young Manikin that makes you play a minigame of 20 increasingly difficult puzzles if you want to obtain all the Magatama in the game. He's practically required as the Magatama he gives you teaches the Demi-fiend all the second tier healing abilities.
  • What an Idiot!: Ongyo-ki. As long as you keep hitting the real one, he'll do very little besides buff himself. He even does this after the effects are maxed out.
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