Gamespot score:9.0(editor's choice)
my score:9.5
(+)Pros:- Story is incredibly aborbing,-multiple endings provides more replay value,-demon fusion is important and addicitng at the same time,- demon auction acts as a simpler way to attain demons,-skill crack is innovative,-battles are most of the time challenging and require a lot of strategizing,trial and error to win,-great cast of characters,-awesome music,-great boss fights.
(-)Cons:-Only one mother fking save file
gameplay time:50 hours+( long)
Ooookayy,today's game review will be of my 2nd favourite all time game, shin megami tensei:devil survivor. Being a huge shin megami tensei game, I, like many others, worried that the 1st SMT DS port would be rather inferior and pathetic. Thankfully, its quite the game, and FUCK YEAH, its got awesome scores, and after a while, I realise I was lost in the world of devil survivor. Devil survivor is definetely one of the best games on the DS, and is absolutely not to be missed by gamers alike.
Devil survivor's story highly mirrors that of the world ends with you. A city in japan, 7 days to death....seems like alot in common eh? Wrong. The world ends with you and devil survivor are 2 very different games with 2 very different stories. Devil survivor starts off as the hero(you) arrives in tokyo in the last week of summer vacation with his 2 best friends, yuzu and atsuro, to meet his cousin, naoya. While naoya doesnt show up in person, he hands the 3 some very pecuiliar comps to the 3 main characters. When computer geek atsuro tries to crack the comps,
demons come out of nowhere and the comp screen states the words,"lets survive". The city plunges into despair as a counter appear above everyone's head indicating that everyone has only 7 days to live, and a lockdown occurs, locking everyone in the yamamoto circle in, so like it or not, things start to get reallt bad.....
Devil survivor is a strategy RPG hybrid, kinda like final fantasy tactics advance. It has everything, ranging from a simple yet effective battle system to a great cast of characters filled with hot babes( yuzu and amane FTW). The game's concept requires you to stay alive for 7 days in the yamato cirle, where demons pop up here and there, requiring you to either avoid them or fight them. You are given a certain number of hours during a day to wander the streets of tokyo to answer or attend to events that appear on the list of areas. Each event you go to, be it a battle or just a conversation with a certain character, it takes up a certain amount of time. And when everything is said and done, the day is passed, and you will proceed to the next day. Its one of the game's main challenges, the time management, it all depends on how you wander the streets of tokyo to spend your time and how it all affects later events.....everything you do has its consequences, thats what makes your descicions so important.
The game's main battle system is simple. You make a team of 3, a summoner and 2 demons. Make 3 or 4 of these teams(based on the part of the game you are at), and you are ready to . Demons are split into races for classification, and each race has thier own special abilities, more on that later.On the field its just like your everyday tactics game, you move according to grids and attack enemies at range. When engaged, you fight enemies 3 on 3, like a turn by turn basic RPG. On the above screen is the enemy demon's stats and on the bottom are enemies up close and your HP/SP and the enemies' too. According to the demon statistics, each one has a weakness, and exploiting them will either give you an extra turn or rob an enemy of thiers. Needless to say this works for the enemy too, so it pays to be careful. Race skills come in use here, some allow you to heal, move after you attack, or even go as far as to attack twice in one turn. They all have thier own drawbacks, but its all depending on how you use it in the end. Also in previous SMT games where obtaining demons are a matter of shuffle time or pursuing the demons to join you, it a much easier process in this game, all you have to do it buy a demon from the auction. Plus, demon fusing is back, and irs concepct is the same as previous games, but its as addicting as ever.
Devil survivor even has some really epic boss fights, most of which are ridiculously hard, but like most of the game's difficult fights, heavy strategizing and trial and error are all part of the game, finding the best combination of demons or best fighting routes are some of the most satisfying things to do after you find out that what you did was the best choice in turning the battle in your favour. All of these combined with the game's solid soundtrack...its just pure win. While the game is awesome its only flaw is that you can only have 1 save point. With so much trial and error and other events such as picking multiple endings or making sure you made the right stat point attribution, its better to put more save files so the game is made much easier and more convinient for experimenting.
Happy gaming!
