DelireMan7
Member
But several years ago, I was into a big jRPG itch and I checked many videos about JRPG and Devil Survivor was mentioned with quite some praise several times.
So I decided to buy one but prices for the 3DS versions (the "enhanced" version Overclocked and Record Breaker), especially the first game, were quite high (checked again few days ago and price are completely nuts).
I ended finding a copy of Devil Survivor 2 for a decent price in a shop.
Then fast forward till few days ago and I decided to finally boot it. I am now 10 hours in.
Story/Narration :
The setting is quite murky :
A new website appears. If you register, it sends you "death video" of your friend. You quickly realize that they predict the future and actually shows you how your friends dies.
Then a earthquake ravage the city and demons appears. A new app on your phone appears and allow you to summon to demons...
But in the end the narration is quite light hearted making it not really murky. Main characters are teenage anime character and the writing is very anime. I actually like it. It's entertaining.
The narration is mainly a visual novel (it's actually my first dip into this genre too) and I enjoy it. You regularly have dialog "choice" but most of the time it looks like different flavor of the same answer ("Let's go !" or "Let's do it !" hum ok...).
Then in between you choice your next move in a menu. And here the catch, the game is on a clock. Each move will take 30 min of the days. And some event will disappear if you don't do it on time. Also sometimes you'll see a Death video of a character and have to be in time to avoid it. So far it was rather straight forward but yesterday a potential party member died because I went too late to the place I should have gone to save him.
Battle system :
It's a strategy RPG with grid base battle. Each protagonist forms a team of 3 with 2 demons and you get 4 teams max. Enemies are also group in teams of 3 demons : 1 leader on the middle, if you kill the leader, the team is defeated. But the leader is more powerful and resistant if the side demons are alive. So it's recommended to tackle at least one side demons before attack the leader.
When attacking you enter a classic JRPG battle screen, menu based. You select the attack and target for each of your team member and then all the characters do their attack.
I understood that it uses a classic system of SMT games : the "Press turn combat system" where you (or enemies) can have an Extraturn to attack. You can gain one and make the opponent lose one by using weakness (if an enemy is weak to fire, and you attack it with fire, you're likely to win an extraturn and make it lose its extraturn). There also ability that guarantee to make lose Extraturn etc...
I find it pretty addictive.
Then when one the map, you can have access to specific skill for either your demons or human party members to use : like healing, restricting enemies movement, guaranteed critical attack...
One thing I really like is that when you are attack, you also have to choose attacks. So it makes the battles very dynamic. Your not bored during enemies phases.
There is no positional advantage, so no such in depth strategy on this side.
Actually the strategy is mainly done before battle where you can analyze every enemies and see their weakness. Then you can compose your teams according to that.
You can swap in and out any skills of your human party member, giving you a lot of flexibility but makes each members less unique.
There is also a "Skill crack" system where before each battle you can select a skill from one of the enemies present on the field. If you kill it with the associate party members, you gain this skill.
Demon fusion :
Finally you can fuse demons to create new more powerful one. In the process you can make them inherit specific skills (Active or passive skill). I also find this aspect very addictive and satisfying.
So far a very good impression on the game and the overall system of the SMT franchise.
What do you think about it ?
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