The thing that made me drop Nocturne in the end (besides the punishing difficulty) is that you walk way too much and have just a tiny bit of story. In a way I understand since the protagonist is alone most of the time, still for me it feels like hours of dungeon, some tiny bit of story and then again.
In DDS1, even though I'm still in yhe beginning it feels like it has better pacing and an easier difficulry curve.
Sad thing, for me, is that I like the premise of Nocturne (and Stange Journey) so far better than Digital Devil Saga, it's just I find myself in a love/hate relationship with those game and some thing really put me away from them in the end.
I think one day I'll just write in my blog a bit about how I love and hate these two games at the same time, at least I'll put as much as I feel like saying without bothering anyone to death and whenever anyone wants an insight from someone else, it'll be there.