Finally finished Devil Survivor

01.08.09 / RPGs, devil survivor, nintendo ds, shin megami tensei, video game / Author: admin / Comments: (0)
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

At the very last minute I decided to switch Amane for Yuzu, which resulted in my having to fight about 5 free battles to level her up. That slowed me down and made me a little bored, necessitating a short break away from the game.

Anyway, I finally finished Gin’s ending. I was not pleased. The aim of this ending is to remove all the demons from Earth permanently by becoming King of Bel and ordering them all to leave, essentially. Then the angels and the SDF lift the lockdown and everything goes back to normal.

Complaint 1: When the game ends you don’t get to see how the main characters get on with their lives. You see a quick shot of them walking down some road somewhere, nothing else. After all the whining about getting back to their families I would have wanted to see their homes/lives/families, and a longer happier ending than that. You don’t even get one of those “Yuzu lived happily after and had 10 kids” “Haru and Gin got married and had a baby girl named Aya” “Atsuro became Information Minister” blurbs you get at the end of movies. So what happens to all of them? You never find out. So disappointing.

Complaint 2: The govt. attempts to cover everything that happened by explaining it as “mass hallucinations due to gas leaks”. Somehow everybody lets them get away with it because “nobody can prove anything.” So all the people who were shot and killed? Died for nothing. All the people killed by demons? Died for nothing. Everybody suffered for nothing. I hate that. I wish I’d gone for Naoya’s ending and take over the world, or maybe Yuzu’s ending so I can at least kill the bloody SDF. Hmph.

Complaint 3: At the very end of the game you get an e-mail, a threat from the angels: “You still have the Bel powers in you. If you try anything funny we’ll kick your ass.” Hey angels? F— YOU! Butt the hell out of our business before I get over there and kick your asses. Worthless pieces of crap. I wasn’t going to play this game again after this, but now I’m sorely, sorely tempted to replay and get Naoya’s ending. Not now though, later.

All in all I’d give it about 7/10 total. The music was repetitive, the number of demons was sadly small, the escort missions were extremely irritating and that ending? Yuck! On the other hand I liked the characters, I enjoyed the battles, the story was interesting (and annoying), I liked the opening tune and Haru’s song and fusing and auctioning demons was a lot of fun. It was a good game, well worth the purchase. I’m looking forward to Strange Journey now.

Devil Survivor, almost done

22.07.09 / RPGs, devil survivor, nintendo ds, shin megami tensei / Author: admin / Comments: (0)
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’m on Day 7! Just started Day 7, gotta choose my final route and see which ending I get. I really wish I could make an extra save and check out the four endings I have access to, one at a time: Gin, Amane, Atsuro and Yuzu. I hear Yuzu ending is bad end, so no need to check those out. Atsuro ending sounds lame, just controlling the demons and nothing more. Blah. I’m either going with Gin, getting rid of all demons and living happily ever after, or going with Amane and becoming the “Messiah”. It’s just that…I don’t really like Amane. I think I’ll go with Gin.

Before I do that, let me just note what I did to Belial “last night”. Frist two times I fought him I couldn’t do enough damage to him and he kept killing my MC and raining down the Fires of Sodom on my head. Not pretty. Finally I regrouped and reconsidered my strategy. Here are the essential elements:
1. Magic-based MC. Failing that, Yuzu will do in a pinch.
2. ICE DANCE. Not Bufudyne. Don’t make the same mistake I did, the Dances are always better for single bosses than the -dynes.
3. Ice Rise + Ice Jump. Apparently they stack, I never knew. This doubles your ice attack
4. Null Fire.
5. Kresnik or some other persona immune to Fire. Ranga repels physical attacks so you can use her if your level is high enough.
6. Optional: crack Phys Repel from a nearby Rangda and put it on. The likelihood of your stats being high enough to do this if you have a mag-based MC are pretty slim, but whatever.
7. Optional, but preferred: Take-Mikazuchi or some other Kishin demon, so you can hit Belial twice in a row.

What I did? First turn, took out the Decarabia in front of me with MC. Moved forward a bit. Second turn, moved forward some more, Atsuro took out the Rangda on the right and cracked Phys Repel, but never got to use it. Third turn, Belial almost in range. Yuzu takes out another enemy and cracks Mabufudyne. Fourth (? not sure) turn. MC in action against Belial. Ice Dance = 400 x 3 damage! Kresnik and Mikazuchi with Mighty Hit, 200~ish each, Mikazuchi gets Dual Shadow and hits him again. Did I get an extra turn? I think I did, another 400 x 3! Then he did some stuff with fire but with my Null Fire I just yawned and shrugged it off. Then, with Mikazuchi’s Double Up, I hit him again! He was out like a light with nary a whimper. That’ll teach you to mess with me, punk! And much fun and excitement was had.

I unlocked Occult Auctions now, so I feel like grinding a bit and fusing more demons, right after I pick a path. It’s not necessary though, I feel pretty overpowered already. Back to my DS!

Devil Survivor: first 4 hours

11.07.09 / RPGs, devil survivor, nintendo ds, shin megami tensei, video game / Author: admin / Comments: (0)
Tags: , , , ,

Just a quick update on the Devil Survivor situation: so far, so good. I’ve been fighting a lot of free battles to level up, because my solution to every game I can’t get the hang of is to grind a lot. GameFAQs didn’t have any proper FAQs for this game yet so I’m on my own, but it’s going great so far. On the second day, no story battle has troubled me so far and everyone’s still alive. The auction’s fun too, and it’s easy to get the persona you need so long as you’re prepared to pay a lot of money. I’d rather overpay than lose a great persona, so I’m free with the macca. Fusion’s good too. If I learned anything from P3 and P4, it’s to never be sentimental about demons. Always get the best you can get for your level. Brilliant advice I’m taking to heart. I’ll miss Waira’s demon speed though, wish I could transfer it. Anyway, back to the game!

Devil Survivor: first 15 minutes.

07.07.09 / devil survivor, nintendo ds, shin megami tensei / Author: admin / Comments: (0)
Tags: , , , ,

I picked up Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor yesterday. I popped it in the DS expecting a looooong-ass beginning cutscene before I finally got to save, but I was pleasantly surprised. It took what, 10 minutes? Before they let me save? Yes, I think that’s about right, really unusual in RPGs these days. That’s why I never start new RPGs at night, in case I fall asleep before I can save.

Anyway, I just played the first few minutes. What I can say is: the characters look weird and cross-eyed, but they might grow on me. I like the music so far. I haven’t gotten into any battles yet. What made me stop was all the choices of where to go, where not to go. Right at the start I had the choice of going to meet Atsuro or going somewhere else. Yuzu said to kill some time before seeing Atsuro, so we went somewhere else. Suddenly the story’s moving and Atsuro’s nowhere to be found. Should I have seen Atsuro instead? Have I messed up the story? Normally I’d just keep playing and let the chips fall where they may, but since I’ve only invested 15 minutes in the game so far, it won’t hurt to take a tiiiiiny little peek at GameFAQs or something and find out if I’m on the right track. Just a tiny little peek.

See you after 20 hours when I’m done with the game!