A Tokyo collapsing into chaos while a kid wakes up turned demon, and you are off on the coldest journey the genre has to offer.

When the community picks on pure gut feeling, Nocturne lands right in the middle, neither rejected nor celebrated. But go criterion by criterion and the picture shifts. On the desert island reflex it sits ahead of nearly eight games out of ten, and both attachment and art direction climb just as high. All of this rests on very few votes, so take it as something to confirm, but the trend is clear. Where it stumbles is the feel of the controller and the soundtrack, both falling near the bottom, ahead of barely a fifth of the field. That is the tension here, you want to take it with you and bond with it, yet the direct contact pushes you back.

No surprise for a demanding, austere turn-based J-RPG built for mood and harshness more than comfort. Next to the genre's friendlier RPGs, it owns its coldness.

So who is it for? You, if you love strange post-apocalyptic worlds, lonely journeys and a look that leaves a mark. Much less if you want something immediate to handle and a system that goes easy on you.