Devil Survivor 2 – “Finished!”

devil_survivor_2_protagonistSay hello to my new method of finishing games: making it to the last boss and then watching the ending on Youtube. Except without the actual “watching the ending on Youtube” bit, because I can’t be bothered.

With a party between levels 59 and 62, I think I might be very slightly underlevelled against Polaris, but I was doing pretty well regardless. I made it to his third form, and then a lucky hit took out Io Nitta… along with all my Samarecarm-able demons! >_< Rrrgh. That was a very silly mistake I made.

This left me with a couple of options:
1. Try again. I might get lucky, or I might get wiped out again. Either way that’s another 10-20 minutes down the drain.
2. Grind my MC a bit in the free battles so I can fuse higher level demons. Put on Moneybags so I can afford to buy demons from the Auction and Compendium too. This will almost certainly lead to success, but it’s a 1-2 hour investment at the least.
3. Give up and watch the ending on Youtube. As a bonus I can watch both of Daichi’s endings in under 30 minutes, then if I figure it’s good enough to be worth doing myself, I can do options 1 or 2.
4. What I eventually chose: imagine the game ended how I wanted it to end. Kick Polaris’s ass, rebuild Japan, get on with our lives. This takes all of 30 seconds to do and is almost guaranteed to be better than the actual ending.

I should be quick to add, though, that I enjoyed Devil Survivor 2. I didn’t quit because I wasn’t having fun; I quit because fun time was over. What I was enjoying was the battles, and they were all but over. I can watch the ending without finishing the game, and I’m not invested in the story at all, so I decided to quit while I was ahead. If I change my mind, I still have the game and I can pick up right where I left off.

Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Devil Survivor 2 – Day 5. Act sexy for me.

40110512 hours, MC level 34, just about to revive Kama and Shiva so I can take down Alioth. I’ve played enough JRPGs that I’m not even surprised to hear there’s a monster that can only be turned on by having a 10th grader act sexy in front of it. It’s just business as usual in Atlus-land.

Things are going well, though. My MC is an unstoppable magic nuke with 22 MAG, 14 VIT, Drain, Ice Dance, Ice Boost, Media, Life Surge, Mana Surge and Battle Aura. I’m wondering if I should throw on Anti-Phys to make him even more un-KO’able, but maybe I’ll stick with this pattern for a while. All the other party member pale in comparison to Mighty MC, but I’m using Otome, Hinako and Keita for now. Try not to get in my way, losers!

As you can tell, I’m starting to get juuust a little bit cocky. This happens to me quite often, halfway through a game. The frustration of the early days is behind me, I’ve gotten the hang of the system, the story’s starting to take shape and everything seems to be going my way. Knowing SMT, they’re probably going to drop some powerful magic-reflecting boss on me and say “What now, punk?” but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Story-wise, I’m still not interested in what’s going on, but I have at least settled on a path to follow. I’m going to help Ronaldo Kuriki take down JP’s and Yamato. Why? Because Yamato is a white-haired prettyboy and as a true hero it is my destiny to beat him up. Barring any further major revelations – and I’m certain there are big ones coming – I don’t think Yamato is wrong about the whole hoarding food and supplies thing. Rescue and assistance after a disaster is all good and well, but not if the people actually doing the rescue and assistance are starving to death or dying for lack of medication. If 100,000 people have died already, what’s another 100,000 deaths if the problem can be stopped once and for all? Now, the real question is whether JP’s is actually helping any at all or whether they’re up to something fishy that will send things spiraling from bad to worse in a hurry. I remember clearly that messing with the Dragon Streams caused a lot of trouble in Tokyo Mono Hara Shi (another Atlus game), so it might be more of the same here.

Well, I’ll find out soon enough if I continue playing Devil Survivor 2. Meanwhile I haven’t been able to find the time to continue  Dark Cloud 2. I’m putting it on hold until November, when I should hopefully have a few days off. I’ll just have to resist the temptation to start anything else in the meantime.

Devil Survivor 2 – Day 3

Devil_Survivor_2_coverJungo! Nooooooo!

I will not dawdle when I see a death clip.
I will not dawdle when I see a death clip.
I will not dawdle when I see a death clip.
I will not dawdle…*sniff*

It might also be wise to keep a spare save at the beginning of each day, just in case it all goes pear-shaped. Ah well, I hardly knew him anyway. Just, why couldn’t it have been Daichi instead? I hate that punk.

As Paul wisely noted last time, Devil Survivor 2 does pick up a bit on Day 3. Just a bit, mind you. The choices are still stupid, characters are still annoying (and I got the one decent one killed! ;___;) and I don’t really care about the story. In fact, the Nicaea death clip site is one of the most tasteless and most off-putting ideas I’ve ever encountered in a video game, even though they try to portray it as actually good. I don’t want to see any more of it, much less unravel the mysteries or find out who’s behind it.

The gameplay has picked up as well, which is always good. I’ve cracked a few good skills (missed Ziodyne, but I bet Elec Dance is better anyway) and picked up some useful demons. The Compendium has taken some of the stress out of fusion, now that I know I can always get the better demon skills back if I need them. I’m not moving very fast because I focus on killing the leader in story battles and save most of my cracking for free battles. This is keeping me rather low on the EXP scale, but that’s fine. An SRPG is no fun if it’s too easy.

I’ve had enough of the rioters and all the whining and crying over food and supplies. It’s not like these aren’t valid concerns in a major disaster, but we covered all this ground in the last game. It’s stuff you can take for granted and assume it’s going on, along with things like eating and going to the bathroom in video games, but it shouldn’t be allowed to waste valuable time that can be spent on the “real” story. Still, it’s only Day 3. If we deal with all the unrest today and the next 4 days are more sensible, I won’t have a problem. Well, actually I’m not that easily satisfied, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

So, Day 3, level 23-ish, just finished the Ronaldo fight, about to take on Phecda. My current party is MC, Fumi, Daichi and Io, but I think I’m going to bench Daichi and take either Airi or Joe instead. There’s not much to choose within the three.

Dark Cloud 2 I haven’t gotten back to yet.  I really want to but since you can’t save anywhere I’ll have to devote a block to time to playing it. Now’s just not a good time. Someone asked me once if I could see console gaming ever dying out. It was a while ago, and I said “Hell no!” but now I’m not so sure. It’s just so darned inconvenient, *grumble grumble*. But that’s a topic for another day.

Dark Cloud 2 & Devil Survivor 2

A company mixup led to me going without electricity for three days. 👿 It wasn’t too much trouble to keep my laptop and phone charged, but as a principle my consoles and handhelds don’t leave my bedroom, much less my house, so I haven’t got much gaming down in the past couple of days. I still managed to get Dark Cloud 2 and Devil Survivor 2 started, but only barely.

Dark Cloud 2 – Very barely started, like 30 minutes in. I did the prologue, escaped the evil circus master, entered the water channel, fought a few rats and then the game froze. o___o I haven’t heard any reports of serious bugs in the game, so it’s probably my PS2 acting up again. Hang in there a little longer, PS2, I think I’m going to like this game. What other game lets me power up my weapons by infusing them with the spirit of…bread? The only thing that might stop me now, apart from a caput PS2, would be the combat turning out to be too hard. From the three battles or so I’ve faced so far, I think I’ll be okay if I have enough healing items. We’ll see.

Devil Survivor 2 –  Played about 2 hours and 30 minutes. Day 2, Osaka, around 12:30 IIRC. I’m not really enjoying myself, but it is kind of scratching my SRPG itch, so I might hang in there a little longer. TBH it’s a little too much of a Devil Survivor retread for my liking. There are things I liked about DS that I didn’t particularly care to experience again. The demon auction, for example. The constant need to fuse for new demons. Skill cracking. The MC’s cowardly male friend and vapid, helpless female friend. The “suddenly, demons!” storyline. Meaningless conversation choices every 3 sentences. I’ve seen it all before. Once was good, twice? I’m not that bored yet.

Having said that, it doesn’t look like such a long game. Unless something radically annoying happens or I start a better SRPG, I’m probably going to finish it.

“Finished” EarthBound. Well, I fought the last boss at any rate.

GiygasI made one failed attempt at beating Giygas. I was going to go back and try again, but first I decided to call my brother and ask for tips. He pressured me into playing EarthBound in the first place. He claims it’s his favorite RPG. He’s gotta know how to finish it, right? WRONG. Turn out he never even finished Fourside! He stopped playing right after Moonside and was “too busy” to ever go back!

Of course you don’t have to finish a game to know you love it, just like you don’t have to finish it to know you hate it. But you’re definitely calling your fan-ness into question when you can walk away from your so-called favorite game so easily. You’re also making me feel like an idiot for trying so hard to get into a game that even you couldn’t successfully get into.

So I “finished” the rest of the game by reading a Let’s Play and called it a day. Two can play at this quitting game, you know. And so it ended between me and EarthBound.

Thoughts

I’m glad I played it, if only to shut him and several people up, but I didn’t enjoy it too much. I didn’t not enjoy it either, but apart from the music, the funny NPCs and enemies and the art style I’d be at a loss if you asked me what I liked about this game.

Umm…

Gee, this is awkward.

I can’t remember the last time I had this much difficulty finding something to write about a game. Especially after spending at least 20 hours on it. Umm, there wasn’t much backtracking, I guess? And the story was pretty straightforward too. The ending seemed nice, though it sucks that Pokey got away. The Runaway Five were amusing. And, umm… yeah. I’m done here.

What’s next

I was supposed to play Dark Cloud 2 in September, but I skipped it over because I wasn’t done with this game. Guess I’ll start with that. Devil Survivor 2 is on the list for October, but I don’t know whether I want to play it or not. The first Devil Survivor was about being trapped in Tokyo, and I just finished playing 7th Dragon 2020, which takes place entirely in Tokyo. I’ve had enough of Tokyo. I’ve never even been there so I have 0 attachment to the place. I know it’s Japan’s capital city and all, but can I be trapped in Okinawa or Sapporo next time? Or better yet, not be trapped at all? Anyway, I’ll start Devil Survivor 2 and put it on hold if it turns out I need to wait a bit.