Survivor Series: Devil Survivor Review

So I thought it would be appropriate for my first game review to be my namesake, none other than: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor. This game is part of the long running Shin Megami Tensei series and its the first of the series that I have had the pleasure of playing. It also has the title of the first of the series to be released outside of Japan. Devil Survivor received very good reviews averaging an 8 out of 10. So let’s now take a look at the specifics of the game.

Background Story:

In Devil Survivor you are a high school student, who is referred to as Hero and who you give a name too at the beginning of the game,  who is about to enter his third year of high school and the game begins with you meeting your friends to hang out in downtown Tokyo. One of your friends is late and he explains your cousin gave him three new Comps, DS looking devices that are very popular with the Japanese, and he hands you one and tells you that your cousin has modified the Comps with a new program he wrote. Then you get an email on your Comps from something called the “Laplace System” and it makes some dire predictions about the future including a lock down of Tokyo. Soon the Japanese Self Defense Force announces a lock down of a large area of downtown Tokyo. Soon Hero and his friends discover that the Comps have an intriguing ability to summon demons  and battle other demons. The main characters are then attacked by demons and became aware that the modified Comps allow humans to fight demons on an equal footing and defeat the demons. They then embark on a journey to uncover the mystery surrounding the lock down and ultimately escape from this nightmare.

Game Play:

Devil Survivor is a tactical role playing game and plays much like similar games such as Final Fantasy. You have a team of three characters, but with a slight difference  that human character is part of the team along with two demons. You can have up to four teams at one time on the battlefield, however you might have many other playable team leaders in your party. As for demons, you can carry up to 24 in your Comp. One of the coolest features of the game is the ability to fuse your existing demons with ones you can buy in auctions or that you acquired other ways into more powerful demons. There are two types of battles you will encounter; ones that are plot related and free battles.  Free battles are pretty simple they just allow you to fight some enemies to gain experience to level up and earn some money to buy more demons in auctions. The plot related battles are more involved as the ones you choose will influence which character’s ending you will get at the conclusion of the game. These are called “paths” and every major character has one. The two times I played the game so far I got Yuzu(Hot chick in the pink with the very large boobs) ending and Gin’s ending(Gin is the badass in the tie that owns his own bar). There are other events which are non-battles that advance the story as well, you can tell them from battles because an icon appears next to them with a red exclamation mark and say “battle”, pretty easy to tell apart I know :P. The game is broken up into 7 days and each event you do moves the clock forward 3o minutes, so beware of this if you want to level up some more before moving ahead in the story.

Personal Comments:

I really enjoyed this game a lot, its exactly what I like in a role playing game. The game has a deep and richly realized story with many twists and turns, characters with good development(yuzu and mildori are annoying at certain points), and a simple and easy to learn combat interface. The replay value is high as there are many different endings depending on the path you decide to take. The game places the fate of you and your friends in your hands and its up to you who lives and who dies, it almost gave me a god complex lol (P.S. I’m not as crazy as I seem). I’m excited about the sequel that is coming in fall, and will review it when it comes out. If your looking to buy this game, I would go with the new version called Devil Survivor: Overclocked, which adds an 8th day to the story. I’m going to buy it for my 3DS(I was dumb and brought it at the high price early on, but I’m looking forward to my 20 free games from the virtual console and will get Netflixs soon on it). I give Devil Survivor 4.5 of 5 big boobed anime girls.

Ok that’s all for now. Not sure what I’ll review next, I’m I need to jump into Catherine because I know so many people on this site love that game.

Cheers and Beers,

Devil_Survivor