Finally finished Devil Survivor

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

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 taken over the world, or maybe Yuzu’s ending so I can at least kill the bloody SDF.

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? Butt the hell out of our business before I kick your asses, ya 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 Devil Survivor 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.

L2 Love x Loop

I’ve been so caught up actually playing games I haven’t been following game news as much as I used to. Nothing too big going on right now, but an upcoming PS2 otome game caught my eye on Famitsu just now. It’s called L2 Love x Loop. If I tend to focus on PS2 and DS games in this blog it’s because those are the two main things I play on, though I also own a PS1 and a Wii.

Anyway, Love x Loop’s premise is like this: the heroine Nanami lives with her older sister in a futuristic setting where robots are at war with mankind and humans have been reduced to living in ruins. On Nanami’s birthday her sister is kidnapped in a robot attack, and she finds a mysterious robot just lying around. Now through the powers of this special robot she resolves to go back in time and change the past so that the future won’t have to be so crappy any more.

I remember someone with a plan like that, I think his name was Trunks and it didn’t work out quite as planned. Then again it did work out for someone else named Crono so we’ll see how things turn out ;-) Anyway, this wouldn’t be a real otome game without bishies, would it? Yup, so somehow Nanami finds time out of her very busy time-traveling sister-saving world-changing schedule to romance a few cute guys. What I’m really worried about, though, is that old guy in there.

See him? Right in the top right corner with the beard. He’s creeping me out. I can’t imagine…you know…even though I did hook up with the headmaster in Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side, but that’s different! Really! *ahem* According to the official blog he’s the man who gave the robot to the main character, so maybe we’ll be spared the geriatric kissy face.

Old guy worries aside (or maybe because of them) I’m really looking forward to this game. The story sounds fresh, the bishies look fresh and different and screenshots I’m seeing look lovely.

L2: Love x Loop from Idea Factory comes out August 20th in Japan. I’ll probably get it a month or two afterwards, based on the reviews.

Devil Survivor, almost done

600full-shin-megami-tensei -devil-survivor-screenshotJust started Day 7 of Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor, 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 that 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”. First 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!

Rune Factory 3!?

Want! Want! Do want! Do so want!

Let’s see, the article says a monster passes out in front of Shia’s door one night. When she treats it, it suddenly turns into a young boy named Mais, whom she persuades to start cultivating her farm. I guess Shia is going to be another of those weird main Rune Factory girls, since her first reaction to a transforming boy is to make a farmer out of him.

Mais makes an adorable wooly monster, but really…bestiality? In my Harvest Moon? It’s more likely than I thought, eh? :) I’m looking forward to hearing more details on Rune Factory 3. Based on the graphics it looks like a DS game, which is great for me. Speaking of which I’m still working on Devil Survivor, and the rest of that Shining Force Feather review is coming up soon.

Shining Force Feather review

I loved Shining Force I and II on the Genesis all those years ago, so now I sit up and bark whenever I hear the word “Shining” in front of any game. But Shining Wind, Shining Tears, all those games weren’t really “it”. At last another Shining Force is out, is what I thought when Shining Force Feather was announced, so I got it as soon as I could and now I just finished it.

Overall thoughts: It was really short, not more than 15 hours or so, but it was a good 15 hours. The action never stopped and the story moved at a brisk pace so there was never a dull moment. I just might play it again in the near future.

Story: You play Jin, a treasure hunter who comes across a mysterious girl when he’s looting some ruins. The girl’s name is Alfin, and she leads Jin to an ancient airship, which he promptly decides to sell for cash. The earlier parts of the game are taken up by Jin’s attempts to fix the crash-prone ship up so he can flog it for mega-bucks, and then the later parts involve the usual “save the world” stuff. It’s nothing original, and since the game is so short nothing is fully developed, but it’s interesting enough while it lasts.

Characters: A total of 9 playable characters and a few interesting NPCs. Alfin is never able to join you in battle, despite what the cover might lead you to expect. There’s Jin, his best friend Bale (a centaur and the best battle character, period), Miriam the elf, Julius the snooty noble, Tida the half-beast (another excellent fighter), Rush the hotblooded treasure-hunter, Grizeria the magician, …some minotaur whose name I can’t recall and Cocotte, the angel with next-to-no relevance at all.

Their interactions throughout the game tend to be very funny indeed, especially Miriam’s dumb innocent ways. Jin’s airship has a lounge where he can talk to the characters and find out what’s on their mind. Make sure you don’t miss the one where Miriam asks Jin where babies come from ;-) . Unfortunately the endings aren’t character-dependent: there’s only one ending and you get it regardless of how you get along wwith people. I really wish there had been 9 endings and more of a focus on relationships, because the characters were great!

Ooof, I’m tired from typing all this. >_< I’ll continue with the battle system, music and graphics tomorrow.