As I am about to ramble on about Nocturne, I realized that there is a great divide between Nocturne and all other SMT games I've played before Nocturne. Overall, Nocturne is superior to P4, P3P, and Devil Summoner2 because of (1) gameplay: press-turn system (2) better dungeon layout (3) darker atmosphere (4) more philosophical themes (5) lots of things to do aside from the main quest.
One of the best things about Nocturne is the "press-turn system". Having played Persona 4 before Nocturne, I was initially overwhelmed by how my turns can easily be wasted when my attacks have missed the opponents or have been nulled/drained, and it was especially annoying when enemies kept using some multi-target and high-critical attacks, causing them to gain more and more press turns! I noticed that knowing your opponents moves and their weaknesses are essential in defeating enemies. It becomes very inefficient and sometimes impossible to beat enemies if one does not know how to exploit enemies' weaknesses. Furthermore, knowing when to pass turns to other party members are sometimes key to efficiently eliminating enemies. As I played along, it gives me great satisfaction to have defeated enemies with the least number of press turns or casualties. The press-turn system is so much fun because it's likely to be more advantageous to the player than to the enemies as long as the player knows what he or she should be doing. That said, I still died in five boss battles (Matador, Mizuchi, Fiend in Asakusa, Trumpeter, Beelzebub) and also in random encounters! It's so easy to die in this game especially during the first half of the game, and I'm not even playing in hard mode. Random encounters are a joke after having Trumpeter learn Evil Melody though :). I can't say enough of how much I like Trumpeter in this game. Fiends are the best "demon race" in this game because a lot of them null several ailments and expel/death spells (and i love skeletons!).
Some of my favorite demons in this game include: Matador, Daisoujou, Red Rider, The Harlot, Trumpeter, Beelzebub, Lilith, and Vishnu. No Metatron this time, because he only has around three open skill slots with a lot of default hama-related skills which sucks big time compared to Trumpeter's Evil Melody... Fires of Sinai is not particularly special either especially considering it costs lots of MP to cast. Metatron's best skills are support skills, but other mid-game demons have them too; considering that Metatron is expensive and is a pain to fuse, he's not that worthy. Can't deny that I'll always love his metallic face and wings though.
In terms of Nocturne's setting, the dungeon layout is definitely better than P3P and P4's, the towns of Devil Summoner 2 are superior to Nocturne's though. On another note, I like the darker atmosphere and story of Nocturne; the graphics is so well suited for the apocalyptic world it portrays. Nocturne's story telling is not particularly special or better than P3P, P4, and Devil Summoner2 but Nocturne's story itself is quite interesting and philosophical. Basically the world is ending and there are three main ideals that aim to shape the new world and the player can choose which of the three to align with, and from which, the game's ending is subsequently dependent upon the player's alignment (alignment choices have always been a SMT tradition). Personally, among the three, I'd go with Hikawa and Nihilo's Buddhist ideology. There is also a very long optional quest associated with the fiends and the Amala dungeon, which can totally alter the ending of the game if completed before the final dungeon. Missing this optional quest/s would almost mean cutting hours played by 50% or so.. but i think this optional quest is another factor that makes Nocturne so good since there is so much that the player can do and discover outside of the main storyline.
Even though this game is older (and probably less well known) compared to Persona 3 and 4, I thoroughly enjoyed Nocturne more than any Megaten games I've played before I played Nocturne.
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