Hello everyone!
I'm here to rant about this game, Devil Survivor 2.
Now, if you go on the Internet (like you are doing right now), you'll find comments about this game varying from:
- OMG BEST GAME EVAAA
to
- Worst Devil Survivor/SMT game, 0/5
And really, I fail to understand humanity at times. I mean, it was popular enough to get an anime. no?
As usual, to be fair, I haven't played the first Devil Survivor, but I have played the Persona games, 3 and 4. So, I'm basically looking at this as a standalone. How did I find this game? Let's analyse it my way, and go from there!
Gameplay:
This game is a JRPG.
This is the status screen, it's your way to prepare for battle. You choose what characters/demons to bring in battle.
As for the battle, we have turn-based combat (strategy style). It's basically like Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy Tactics, Luminous Arc or Tears to Tiara. For those who still don't know, you have units that you can move, and during your turn, you're free to do anything you want (wait, attack, heal). On the enemy's turn, they can do the same (HEALING. ENEMY HEALING. UGH). You also have different objectives, either the battle objective that will enable you to win, or mini-objectives that get you more Macca (the game's currency).
That's the base, now let's go in depth. Basically, like I said earlier, you control units and your enemy does the same. The units you control are humans that have the capability to control demons. Every demon/human specializes in their different ways. For example, Pixie happens to be a demon that specializes magically, and Siegfried is rather of a physical hitter. Your human units also have specialties.
Screenshot taken from gavin80001
Also, you get a character that represents you within the game! You are free to name him whatever you'd like, and level him in the way you'd like! What do I mean, well...
As seen in the image above, there is a level up screen. Normally, JRPGs just level your stats for you. However, you choose what stats to level in this game! You can be a tank, a magic freak, a strength freak, a speed freak or a completely balanced person. It's your choice! I found that pretty cool, it's as though you really are that person.
Furthermore, you can choose what the man says! Like in the Persona series, where the protagonist only spoke when you chose what to say. Some dialog is influential, and you can tell. Some dialog... so jokes. Try out the game, it's hilarious!
Similar to the Persona's social links, you have Fate levels in this game (I know I'm making a lot of comparisons, but... I'M NOT A PROFESSIONAL OKAY). You can interact with different people, friends and foes alike, and level up your relationship with them. Furthermore, depending on it's level, you can influence parts of the game.
To get to other areas, you cannot free-roam (which is a shame really), but rather you choose an event, and reach the area where the event is taking place. Each event takes 30 minutes (in game-time), which by the way, is important. Certain events take place at certain times, so you can miss them or certain events have a certain time slot, so you can miss them as well. If you miss certain events, you can miss the opportunity to save someone.
Some of you may see this as restrictive, but I see this as a certain plus. In normal JRPGs, you can perform a certain action forever and not be penalized, offering a sense of nonchalance. This is a way of managing the player's time, which is cool.
You can also fuse demons to get better demons. At times, you'll have to use Macca. You can also buy demons to get better ones, however it takes place as an auction, therefore if you don't offer the highest bid, you lose the chance to purchase it. There is a "BUY NOW" option, but it's much higher than the original price. However, it still offers you a chance to purchase it if you really want it.
You can also register demons in case you want to use them again, at the cost of a bit of Macca.
Graphics:
As for the graphics itself, the game offers nice drawings for the still-images itself. It's anime-styled. However, all the girls in the game suffer (or benefit, depending on how you see it) from gravity-defying boobs. They just... stay up. And don't tell me they all have super-bras or something, Hinako has no bra whatsoever. Her top basically only covers half her boobs, so you can tell.
However, for any other events than the status page or the dialog page, you get little people that walk and move around. This is within the full capabilities of the DS, so you can't say it looks bad. It's rather fine for it's time/console. Also, the backgrounds look also as fine.
Music:
The music is pretty good, I like it quite a bit. The music fits the mood quite well in the game, in events and in battles as well. No complaints here. Still, everyone has their opinion, so I'll post some samples.
Confrontation
JPs Theme
A Gloomy Person
Difficulty:
Oh boy, how to go about this... It's pretty challenging.
I went into this game, similar to the way I would enter a Persona game, and boy was I in for a shock. It's not as easy, that's for certain. There's no difficulty option, but it's just hard from the get-go. I mean, you're not breezing through ANY battle (unless it's an endgame "Free battle"), unless I've been playing the game wrong. I, in fact, restarted once completely because I screwed over my demon leveling. You CAN go in free battles to level your demons up, it doesn't consume any time, so that's cool. However, it doesn't bring your levels up much, so... what I'm trying to say is, when you feel COMPLETELY SCREWED, you most likely are.
This won't happen too deep in the game though, as the difficulty spans evenly everywhere. It's a rather fun difficulty.
What's frustrating however, is the fact that the enemies are too similar to you. What I mean is, they can HEAL. In early game, you're not OP or strong in general yet, and you basically hit as hard as your enemies do, and vice-versa (except for bosses, they're just douches in general). They also have healing skills, which is plenty annoying! If you don't kill 'em off in time, they just spam it. And you take forever to kill 'em. UGH.
A plus though, is the fact that your characters aren't gone forever if they die in battle (unless it's a requirement for them not to die this battle).
Story:
It's rather fine to say the least. You're a normal student, soon brought into a post-apocalyptic world. Demons are everywhere and the only way to defend yourself... are the use of demons as well, through the power of your cellphone by registering on this site called "Nicaea".
You are the influential member of the group, as your actions influence the story. You can choose who lives and dies (intentionally or unintentionally). As such, there are multiple endings to this game. It actually has a nice twist in it too, it's not predictable to 100%.
The characters happen to be lovable too. None of them are stereotypes, or at least if they seem like it, they aren't. The ONLY character I didn't like was Ronaldo. Yeah. Never got his ending.
Overall:
It's a pretty solid game to say the least. Good gameplay, good design, good music, good story...
Like I said, the only things I can call out on is the difficulty and the inability of free-roaming. We do need hard games in the world, but the healing AI is just unforgivable. And free-roaming is fun, though it is a DS game, so I'm not sure if they can do... wait no. Free-roaming is possible, there's a Zelda game that I know that has that capability. Final Fantasy III also has that function. Sorry game, you just don't appeal that to me.
So, my rating would be 8/10. A "B" if you will. It's a pretty good game, so be sure to check it out!
Alice
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