Nocturne | PC Preview
There has been a trend in the games that I like to review: Music is involved. Sometimes I choose games for other reasons, but I will always point out if the music is stellar! Nocturne fits the former. Take awesome music, gameplay that resembles Guitar Hero, all wrapped into a 16-bit RPG world, and I was quite excited to give this demo a chance. It’s quite possible that you would like this game, too. Let’s see!
Story
Your name is Karma and you have just died. If you have watched the show Upload on Amazon Prime, you’ll see a similarity. Your consciousness gets uploaded to Maya where all of your friends and family can be found. There is only one problem: Karma is not in the system. Karma’s brother died not too long before and told Karma to find him when he arrives. You can’t find other people in Maya unless you are also in the system.
The helpful lady at the front desk tells you to go get a soda while things get sorted out. When you return, it has not been fixed yet. So, they give you a pass key to leave the building until all is repaired. Immediately upon leaving the building, Karma can tell that things aren’t right. You meet a boy named Kimothy. Yes, the makers of Nocturne named a character Kimothy.
Kimothy tells Karma that he’s been dead for a thousand years even though Karma just showed up. That’s strange. He also explains about a blackout when the “old sun” disappeared. So many people, including Kimothy’s parents, disappeared. Meanwhile, items all around Maya have become “corrupted” which means you cannot use them or even touch them. You can tell what’s corrupted because it looks like pixels have been rearranged. Bridges become unusable. Corrupted trees are dangerous. Things are very, very wrong.
Kimothy helps you understand enemies and fighting; we’ll talk about those events later. When you have proven your abilities as a fighter against the evil alien-animal looking creatures roaming around Maya, Kimothy takes you to a sensei of sorts, Satoru. Satoru is a catfish in feudal-Japanese era clothing. He helps Karma to learn that he can repair the corruption. You also learn that Nocturne is the name of the main antagonist in the story.
RPG Guitar Hero
The non-battle gameplay is very 16 bit RPG-esque. The classic overhead view as you walk around a world with enemies here and there will be quite familiar if you’ve played any other similar sounding game. While I was not a Pokemon game fan, that environment immediately came to mind while playing minus the tall grass.
As you walk around the RPG style world, the enemies might spot you. Early on, Kimothy recommends sneaking past the enemies. This is fine, especially if you start feeling like the battle sequences are a grind. The trade-off is that the more enemies you defeat, the more powerful you become through XP-goal-automation (750 XP gives you stronger attacks). Obviously, there will be enemies, possibly bosses, that you will be required to fight. Wouldn’t it be better to build up your XP to enhance your abilities rather than sneaking past enemies to fight the big baddies as a weakling? So, I chose battle every time.
When the battle begins, you’re lined up on a button board that resembles Guitar Hero if it were an RPG battle. It’s not turn-based, though. Instead, some wicked awesome electro-rock music begins and the battle is on! You must match the button presses as they travel down the board and enter the attack spot which matches the rhythm of the music.
A little on the keyboard based controls. Controls are completely configurable but the defaults work fine and dandy. One set of four buttons are your directional controls in the RPG area. There is also a run button. Meanwhile, a different set of four buttons are used for the battle scenes. Match your button presses to the rhythm and you’ll gain victory. A couple of added functions such as stacked-power-attacks also become available. I’m sure more options are made available beyond the limits of the demo version.
While the RPG world graphics are reminiscent of 16-bit gaming, the graphics during the battle sequences are crisper with tighter lines. Much closer to PS2 era gaming. There is nothing to write home about but it’s certainly adequate for this game.
Once the enemy is defeated, Karma collects the XP and you return to the RPG style world to find another enemy or reveal the next story-related item in the game. Even in the demo, the space available to explore was surprisingly large. It made me wonder how big the entire game would be.
Very Theatrical with Great Battle Songs
During the RPG gaming section, the music in Nocturne is quite sweeping and theatrical. Imagine the music that you hear in your mind when you’re driving, come around a bend, and see a hill or mountain in the distance; For me, it’s the sound of mystery and possibility. I’m becoming accustomed to PC/Steam games being successful in their sound design and music scoring.
The battle music is spectacular. Let’s just get my one hiccup out of the way, the first time I played was on my laptop which is supposed to be powerful but seems to have a gremlin. The battle songs were out of sync, sometimes ending 30 seconds before the battle did. Make sure your machine is capable of playing this game. Back to the music!
Have you ever listened to Trans-Siberian Orchestra? They play the fantastic arena-rock style instrumental Christmas songs that you hear on the radio (some of their songs do have lyrics). That was what immediately came to mind when the amazing battle sequences kicked in. It is electro-rock awesomeness. I jammed out while kicking some butt and as soon as the battle was over, I went looking for the next enemy so I could hear the next song. Defeating enemies adds the song to your library so that you can listen outside of the battles. However, if you find the same kind of enemy in another area of the game, the battle song is the same.
Nocturne Final Verdict
Like I mentioned above, I would imagine that the battles might start feeling like a grind, especially if this game surpasses eight-hours. Game length info is TBD, as of this writing.
On the other hand, the story is engrossing. A perfect mix of current tech with a zen way of thinking. The characters that are in the demo made me want to meet even more. They kept true intentions hidden while giving you just enough breadcrumbs to want to progress through to the next area and find more answers.
Based on the hour-or-two demo, Nocturne is going to get my recommendation. It’s already in my wishlist and I look forward to finding out what happened in Maya, what’s with all this corruption, can I find my brother, does Kimothy reunite with his parents, and more!
To hear me talk more about Nocturne, be sure to listen to our August 30th, 2024 podcast episode.
This preview is based off of a PC preview build provided by Stride PR for review purposes.
