a awesome addition to any ds collection
The story starts you off as a Hero (chose your name) and two friends who have been placed in a lock down in japan for various reasons. Eventually able to summon daemons (through a device that somewhat looks like a Nintendo DS) you begin to learn the story of what is actually going on, and its not as black and white as you would expect the story to be.
Game play
SMT: Devil's survivor is very traditional strategy game. To those who have played other strategy games the game play it's not so different and is a very easy to pick up. You get 3 to 4 teams max (depending on the point in the story), with each team consisting of 3 team members (1 person 2 daemons). The daemons are summonable pets so to say, that aid in battle and can be switched in and out fairly easily. When one daemon goes down instead of reviving him, you can just summon a daemon you have in reserve. However, if the leader of the team dies, the whole group dies with him, this goes for the enemy groups as well. The daemons grow independently at there own level and not as a group. However, the group leaders (which are the main characters and such) level significantly faster than the daemons, which leads to some daemons being left behind in the dust. Fortunately, the currency used in game (Mecca) is used to purchase daemons in an auction house. However, that is not what will make you a better group, instead there is an option to fuse two daemons together to make a stronger daemon. There are restrictions however, the main character has to be the same level or higher to fuse certain monsters. Luckily instead of just randomly fusing monsters and guessing what goes with what, there is a very nice search application that allows you what fusions you can currently make. This fusing of daemons has the consequence of destroying the two damns in the process, and adding combining the moves from those two daemons into a new daemon move set. Not all skills will be transferred, as you have to choose wisely and pick which ones need to be given to the new daemon that will best suit them. Another thing to think about is the stat growth of the daemons. Unlike other games where stat growth was something that not vary many people cared about or worried since it was somewhat difficult to grasp, stat growth for daemons is easy. Every daemon starts with a stock number of points in each stat, and once they level then just like in every game one of their stats grow. Once you fuse two daemons that stat growth carries over, and can be seen very easily.
With this ease of controlling stat growth you can in essence make a couple of daemons in the beginning make a very devastating daemon early on and have a smoother game. This is not totally nessicary since the game it self is very easy, with a very fast learning curve, and with the CPU reminding you of things and notes and applications at your disposal it's hard to get lost in battle. A problem arose from this, though minor the problem it was. One was the boss battles were a large jump in difficulty from what the other daemons you have been fighting to that point. instead of just waling you and easing you into it, the bosses are a very brisk jump in difficulty. Which this increase of difficulty is a bit of a wake up and a bit of a welcomed challenge compared to if you are just blazing past the other fights. It's more about not being consistent in a rise in difficulty more that the problem of it actually being difficult. Beyond that the gameplay is very solid, clear and easy to pick up and learn.
story
Devil's survivor is a different flavor of game. It has a very strong story that will keep you wanting to know whats going to happen and to who. The story does not have as many twist and turns, or betrayals and the such, althought the those traditional elements are in the story. It's more so the evolution of the characters that is surprising. The thing that stood out the most to me was that the writers chose to reveal a lot about the plot, but not a lot about the characters true motives, which makes you keep guessing which side is the correct side to chose. Also, another helpful part that the game's creators threw in was the nice amount of repetition from the characters to key elements of the story they did it to the effect of it being more of a refresher than a constant irritating reminder. Besides from the small list of characters that you interact with, the citizens of the city itself come across as something spot on in the situation that they are placed in. You need only take a second to think about the actions taken by the people, and what they say to understand that the part was done right. Another good thing about the story is its choices that they give you. There are parts on the game when choosing not to save a main character, or letting something go unnoticed changes the game, and changes the characters. Also the choice's twords the end of the game are very well presented. Its not as black and white as choice A is good and choice B is bad, you wont actually know until you pick them, which warrents a few replays for the different view points.
However good the story may have been, it has its flaws. The main issue I have with the story are the two buddy characters that the game starts you off with. The friends that stick with you through thick and thin are pretty bland. Yes, they do not immediately jump on board with the plot and what they have to and fight, they are very reluctant. Yuzu, one of the friends you start with, will complain and whine each day though goes on with the fighting without a more ideal reaction for the most part. The other friend, Atsuro, is not as reluctant, but still is more accepting to go into fights and just goes along with the punches, he is mostly there to describe the complicated things and all the science stuff.
A disappointing aspect is we don't find out much at all about those two other than bits and pieces, while other complete strangers just gush out whole aspect of the lives they had. Another sore point was the limited number of different people you get to play around with and fight with. You do get to fight along side all the characters at certain parts of the game, but as for a good chunk of it are limited to a select few. It would have felt better to have a few more characters rotate in and out of your squad just to refresh it a bit.
music
The music meshed well with the game and was exactly what it needed. For most of the talking sequences you hear this mellow beat in the background which makes you almost forget about the onslaught of demons around you. It does its job and keeps the mood light. Even the boss music was well made, going with a more even battle mode feel, instead of intense fast paced boss battle music which is not the flow of the game. The only problem I had was during pieces of dialog you would get a momentary blip of suspense full music then back to the main beat, it was not the smoothest of transitions.
Shin Megami Tensei: Devils Survivor is a great game and a must play for those that own this game. If you love this type of game play then this will make you love it more. For the majority on the fence about this type of game this should push you in its favor. With great elements of story that I wish were found more often in Handheld games, and easy to learn gameplay, it will leave you wanting to play more and find out what other choices and actions would have lead to.