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Om Mani Padme Hm | Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga Review

Updated: Sep 19, 2020


Light shines on the heaven

The earth spirit light brings, glory and grace

May it, open our eyes

To the truth

Shanti... Shanti...

 


 

The Junkyard, a vast and desolate wasteland, is home to six tribes that constantly and endlessly fight for supremacy. All tribes are monitored by the mysterious church, which offers entry to the paradise land known as Nirvana to all members of the tribe that succeeds in dispatching all the other tribes. The war has been at a stalemate, however, with constant small, but insignificant skirmishes taking place. This state of affair changes w ith the appearance of an ominous object in the Junkyard, which releases a virus turning all of the warriors of the Junkyard into ferocious demons, who must consume their foes in order to survive. The church announces to all remaining tribes of a new law, which dictates that the warriors must now consume each other to survive and bring a close to the war, promising salvation from their curse inside Nirvana. One other condition was that the victorious tribe needed to take possession of a mysterious black haired girl, who will become the key to surviving the war. The Embryon tribe, who had previously come into contact with the girl, decides to push through to the end in order to reach Nirvana. However, they must find an answer to their strange changes to their behavior, as well as an unknown connection to the mysterious girl, Sera.


Digital Devil Saga is kind of an oddity compared to its Megami Tensei peers. It was an attempt to bring the kind of dark, religious and philosophical undertones that define the series to a new, more general audience. This ambitious project to bridge the gap between the obscure and distinct Shin Megami Tensei to its more approachable contemporaries like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest turned out to be a quite distinct work from the franchise, while at the same time conserving the general aesthetic and gameplay systems intact. As a result, the Digital Devil Saga series turns out to be not fully committed to being either of the two types, with a presentation that far exceeds in scale and production the content of its narrative and gameplay that, rather than reinventing to suit its purposes, reissues previous ideas into more lacking systems. But despite its distinctive lack of singular direction, the game still manages to excel at various its individual moments and ideas, creating an experience that’s willing, more so than it is successful.


No more representative of their ambition is the splitting of Digital Devil Saga’s story into two games

No more representative of their ambition is the splitting of Digital Devil Saga’s story into two games. Rather than being a story that absolutely needed to be told in dual parts however, the game splits itself into two when it could have just been a single, continuous journey. Despite the developers’ efforts of including callbacks and foreshadowing to tie the two together, the games are too similar to be counted as unique from one another but too disjointed on their own merits to truly reach the point of symbiosis that they desire.


The first game’s Junkyard is heavily tied towards Science Fiction, presenting the majestic ruins of a desolate nightmare

On the positive end, both games excel not only at presenting a singular and prevalent aesthetic that defines them and their settings, but also at separates them through their presentation alone. The first game’s Junkyard is heavily tied towards Science Fiction, presenting the majestic ruins of a desolate nightmare. A constant rain pervades the atmosphere of the world, illustrating the constant melancholy of the world. Its structures and architecture are detailed and large in scale, but through the use of desaturated and dirty colors they are deposed of their majesty to become just remainders of the war. The artificiality of the world is highlighted through the use of specific highlights in color, such as green or purple, which give the game an unnatural lighting. The tribes are given a specific contrast of militaristic order and feral violence, either through their clothing or their home bases.


The Nirvana of Digital Devil Saga 2 is a different kind of wasteland; a more tangible and decrepit reality

The Nirvana of Digital Devil Saga 2 is a different kind of wasteland; a more tangible and decrepit reality. The sense of artificiality and majesty of the Junkyard is gone to give way to a twisted and decomposing world that feels more hellish than the reality of the already depressing setting of the first game. Unlike the chaotic Junkyard, where tribes settled on their own terms in their own land, the Nirvana of DDS 2 shows a clear distinction between the members of its society and the benefits they reap from it. While the rest of the world is in clear destruction, the society in DDS has a deceptive utopic cleanness to it, mirroring the lost purity of the Junkyard.


Characters in the first game are coated with a militaristic design that is clean and shares consistent qualities with the other tribes

Kazuma Kaneko’s character designs are important to developing the style of both games. Characters in the first game are coated with a militaristic design that is clean and shares consistent qualities with the other tribes, all of which are distinguished by a singular color. The uniformity of their designs carries over to Digital Devil Saga 2’s society, which inverts their darker color scheme for a more deceptively pure and lighter scheme. Their uniforms are enhanced by the sleekness of their design, which appears light and clean while still retaining a combat oriented look. The sense of artificiality is conveyed through the tribe’s unnatural hair and eye colors.


The sleek and clean look of the character’s human forms is opposite to the ferocity and disturbing quality of their demonic transformations. The motif of devouring the enemy to survive is present across their designs of gaping mouths with sharp fangs. Contributing to this is the odd placement and proportions of these features across their bodies, such as placing multiple mouths all across their torso, chest, and arms. Their shapes resemble those of humans but with distorted qualities such as elongated arms and multiple heads; as well as more divine qualities such as wings, feathers and blades protruding from their bodies.


The sleek and clean look of the character’s human forms is opposite to the ferocity and disturbing quality of their demonic transformations

Both games’ soundtracks contribute to the general aesthetic of the series, and towards the duality of both entries in the saga. Besides that, both soundtracks are fitting and enjoyable to listen to throughout the duration of the game, though most of their tracks seem to blend in to one another, becoming less memorable than the next. The first game features heavy use of acoustic instruments, going hand in hand with the compulsion and ferocity of its premise, creating an aggressive and intensive atmosphere that is best represented with the game’s battle theme: Hunting. The second game makes slight changes to the musical tone by placing the rocking themes on the back and focusing more on techno and more upbeat tunes, representing the kind of modern world that is Nirvana.

It is disappointing however that the game’s User Interface mostly and almost completely ignores the abundance of aesthetic themes that the game has going for. Rather than reinventing its presentation to suit the specific interests of Digital Devil Saga’s own identity, the game simply copies the look of Nocturne for functional and proven value, only making small changes for convenience as well as repainting its style to not look out of place within the game’s world.


Rather than reinventing its presentation to suit the specific interests of Digital Devil Saga’s own identity, the game simply copies the look of Nocturne for functional and proven value

This kind of conflict of direction is all too prevalent in Digital Devil Saga’s game mechanics. The gameplay of the game only slightly represents the conflict of the game, reusing proven ideas and structures without truly reinventing them to suit the more limited mechanics of the game. Even though the game makes an attempt to reinvent at surface value, giving content to simple gameplay actions such as experience by renaming it to context sensitive alternatives like “Karma”, the underlying game is just an stripped down copy of its antecedent Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne, without enough tweaks to make the game any more interesting.

To somewhat mitigate the more simplified gameplay mechanics, Digital Devil Saga lifts the Press Turn battle system from Nocturne just as it was there, leading to combat mechanics that are functional, yet ultimately uninspired. Without demon conversations, the enemies in the game lose a great deal of personality and charm, becoming only targets for the player to either devour or to have their weaknesses exploited for more press turns. As a result, the mythological designs of Kazuma Kaneko feel rather out of place when compared to his original designs meant for key characters, especially in regards to the inherent personality that his older designs carry, and how they aren’t adequately represented in the game. The issue would have been mitigated with entirely new enemy designs made specifically for the game, which would feel more appropriate to context and subsequently more inspired than the alternative. Besides that, the player is also very susceptible to their demon form’s specific weakness, since the only skills that can block that elemental weakness are ineffective, since they needs to be cast every turn, taking away time and mana that can be used to attack enemies. The only automatic skills that can cover weaknesses are offered by endgame, meaning that for most of the game, the player has to deal with the same exploitation of a weakness that cannot be changed.


But by far, what makes the gameplay of Digital Devil Saga feel more limiting than Nocturne is its use of limited and story relevant party members as opposed to a fully customizable team of demons

But by far, what makes the gameplay of Digital Devil Saga feel more limiting than Nocturne is its use of limited and story relevant party members as opposed to a fully customizable team of demons. This decision was made to place the game closer its contemporaries like Final Fantasy, yet its placement somewhat lacks the kind of deliberate design that makes the use of limited party members more enticing in those games. For once, Digital Devil Saga seems to almost have an excess of party members at any given time, leading to the use of three preferred characters while the others are left unused for long periods of time. This becomes a problem because unused party members won’t level up unless given Karma Accrual skills, which can become a strain of money and time because of the way the Mantra system is designed. While this only creates a lack of variety in the first game, as the Press Turn system doesn’t allow efficient switching of party members mid-combat, it creates frustrating situations in the second game, where you’re forced to use specific party members at key moments that you may not have built accordingly, leading to time lost grinding so they can catch up to the standard.


The game’s solution to the problem of diverse party composition and character building comes with the introduction of it’s own Mantra Skill tree system. This system gives each character access to a grid where modules called “Mantra” can be purchased. Each module contains certain skills that the player can inherit and incorporate into their character to use in battle, but only after they have leveled them up by fighting enough enemies, which gains Atma Points that fill up a bar that represents how much progress they’ve made in unlocking these skills. Whenever each module is fully mastered, a new module or set of modules is opened up for the player to purchase and level up as well.

This system gives each character access to a grid where modules called “Mantra” can be purchased

At first glance, the system is very promising, offering an effective and enriching way to fully develop and customize each party member. After each module has been mastered, all skills are placed under a pool of skills that the specific character can take from in order to build their usable skills in battle however they like. There is an incentive to diversify skills for every situation and constantly evolve each character by making it easy to change and replace skills without permanent consequences. The game doesn’t give the player too much liberty however, since every skill costs a certain amount of money in order to obtain, thus encouraging specialized builds for each character. The limited amount of skills that the player can use in battle is also an incentive to spend on modules wisely, choosing only the skills that would make that character fulfill their role in battle most effectively.


After each module has been mastered, all skills are placed under a pool of skills that the specific character can take from in order to build their usable skills in battle however they like

When examined more deeply however, the Mantra Skill Tree system becomes far less enjoyable. The first apparent problem is that the system doesn’t reward the player in a constant enough basis. Unlike Nocturne’s Magatama system, which constantly rewarded the player with new skills whenever they reached a certain level, the Mantra System only rewards the player with skills whenever the Atma bar has been completely filled up. This wouldn’t normally be a problem, but the bar fills up at an agonizingly slow rate, taking countless battles and even Level Ups before they can get even the smallest of skill rewards.


While the game includes faster methods of grinding, such as the use of Devour skills to deliver the finishing blow to an enemy in order to gain more Atma points, it also punishes grinding through these methods in two ways. For once, devouring an enemy doesn’t give the player any more Atma points; rather, it gives all the points that would have normally been distributed to the whole party to the character that devoured the enemy. Secondly, the game constantly punishes devouring too many enemies with Stomach Aches, a status effect that nulls the afflicted character from acquiring any more Atma points and from devouring any more enemies until it’s cured. This particular problem was mitigated in the sequel, which doesn’t punish the player with as many Stomach Aches as the first.


Secondly, the game constantly punishes devouring too many enemies with Stomach Aches, a status effect that nulls the afflicted character from acquiring any more Atma points and from devouring any more enemies until it’s cured.

The second problem with the system is the great amount of obstacles there are to character progression in the game. Unlike other skill tree systems, where the points spent on progression are tied to the character’s level, in DDS it’s tied to money. As a result of this, the player not only feels unrewarded by leveling up, but they feel strained because of having to manage the Mantra Tree as well under their own resources. This becomes a problem since the element used to become more powerful in the game is not only tied to an external element that doesn’t depend on the character’s level, which is supposed to be the actual method of gauging the player’s progress, but also tied to their normal resource for purchasing items and ammo, which are essential for combat as well. The grid becomes especially resource draining as the game goes on, since prices become progressively more expensive and overly inflated as the player makes progress through the story.

The third and final problem with the system is that there’s just a distinct lack of unique or special skills that are not merely an improvement from the last. One of the incentives towards wanting to level up the Mantra Tree would be discovering the powerful attacks that they can use after a certain while, yet the realization that there is a notable lack of variety between individual skills becomes apparent early on. The game doesn’t have many skills that feel distinct from those offered in any other tree, being instead just linear improvements of the basic elemental or physical skills the player starts out with. And there is very little reason to experiment with the different trees anyways because each character comes with a specific module that they are already initialized in when starting the game, turning that into their main specialization for the rest of the game because it’s the one that consumes the least amount of resources.

Digital Devil Saga 2’s alternative to the Mantra Skill Tree is a definite improvement over its first iteration. The new Mantra Grid becomes a more engaging system by turning it into a more free-form and visually appealing manner of improving each character, as opposed to a predictable tree of ubiquitous skills with perhaps a hidden skill unlocked by levelling up multiple trees. The system encourages experimentation with the addition of circular skill progression as opposed to direct progression, which means that the player can purchase the modules that are directly adjacent to the ones they’ve mastered instead of the ones directly ahead. This form of progression allows the player to freely choose and experiment with which new module they’re going to obtain, rather than focusing on a single tree for the entire game.

The new Mantra Grid becomes a more engaging system by turning it into a more free-form and visually appealing manner of improving each character

Another engaging feature of the Mantra Grid system is that it turns character progression into a cooperative experience between each character. There are certain modules in the Mantra Grid that can only be unlocked when all modules adjacent to it have been unlocked globally by every character, meaning that multiple characters can unlock several of these required modules to unlock the special hidden one. This makes the experience of building characters much more dynamic, by turning it into a meta-game of experimenting with new modules to strategically unlock the hidden modules. Even if the hidden modules aren’t all that useful, the experience of unlocking them highlights just how dynamic DDS 2’s Mantra Grid is compared to the first game’s Skill Tree.

Digital Devil Saga 2 also greatly improves the experience by changing the game’s balance to create a smoother experience. While the first game’s Mantra System had problems with high money requirements for skill modules and slow, tedious grinding to unlock any new module, DDS 2 fixes these by lowering the money requirements to purchase new modules. Besides that, grinding is greatly reduced by speeding up the rate by which the Atma bar fills up, leading to quicker mastering of new modules.

Besides the Mantra Skill Tree, Digital Devil Saga, and to some extent its sequel, has a distinct lack of character customization. The protagonist, Serph, is the only character whose stats can be altered by the player. Every character besides him has self-evolving stats that fit them into a specific type that the player can’t control. The player also has no means to control their stats through equippable items, only consumables. The only item that the player can equip is Ammo, which only affects the attack of the character’s human form, offering no viable way to customize each character in a better way.


The protagonist, Serph, is the only character whose stats can be altered by the player.

Also worth mentioning is just how totally useless each character’s human form is. While they do have increased resistances to Holy and Dark skills, their attack power is honestly pathetic compared to their demon forms. This would just be a useless mechanic if the game didn’t lock Gun skills behind each character, turning it into a contrived way of exploiting certain demons' weaknesses because of how it forces the player to spend a Press Turn just for reverting back to human form under most circumstances.

Digital Devil Saga 2 mitigates the former issues however, by introducing Karma Rings. Each ring is an equippable item that grants the player a certain stat boost as well as specific perks unique to each ring, making them determine the usefulness of each ring for each character. Besides that, rings allow the player to modify their character’s stats by incorporating certain gemstones into it, each of which increases a stat by a certain number. The system is mostly successful, except for the inconvenience of only being allowed to apply a certain number of gemstones to each Karma Ring once, forcing the player to destroy all of their applied gems if they ever want to apply new gems. This issue becomes less relevant as the game goes on however, since the player acquires an abundance of gemstones anyways.


On their own, most dungeons can actually feel rather unique, with interesting enough mechanics, puzzles, set pieces and visual styles to make them stand out from one another

The execution of the game’s core mechanics hurt more than the moment to moment combat however, as they influence the experience of playing through each of the game’s dungeons, making it more mixed than it should probably be. On their own, most dungeons can actually feel rather unique, with interesting enough mechanics, puzzles, set pieces and visual styles to make them stand out from one another and to give the basic, moment to moment dungeon crawling some novelty value. The sound mixing of dungeons is also excellent, featuring music tracks that evolve and become more intense the close the player comes to the end.


On the other hand, the room to room visual design of each

dungeon is utterly repetitive, as it often consists of hallways, open rooms and split paths that look indistinct from one another. In the case of the first Digital Devil Saga, the visual design of the dungeons struggles to hold up nowadays because of the higher detail of each environment, making them more visually unappealing and, therefore, more boring to explore.


However, the biggest problem with both games’ dungeons and the entire series by consequence is that every dungeon drags on for far too long. Almost every dungeon in the series outstays its welcome and becomes boring after hours of constant and never ending random encounters, which only make each dungeon last even longer than it does, and longer than it ever should. There is not enough variety between the multiple stages of every dungeon to justify the absurd length that they have, and the game mechanics don’t have nearly enough depth to hold the player’s interest for such a long time either, turning the dungeon crawling process into a mostly mindless experience.


Almost every dungeon in the series outstays its welcome and becomes boring after hours of constant and never ending random encounters, which only make each dungeon last even longer than it does

This problem further extends to the storyline as well, since it creates a very wide ratio between gameplay and cutscenes. The dungeons don’t have nearly enough storytelling to keep the player invested in the plot, or the dungeon itself. This deeply hurts the narrative of the game, because despite being presented forefront with flashy cutscenes and relatively high production values, it still feels utterly minimal when compared to the countless hours spent dungeon crawling, which in turn reduces the investment of the player in the story, and the game itself. It also prevents the game from being entirely story based, since it always blocks the player who’s just interested in the story from progressing to the next cutscene thanks to the long winded dungeon crawling.

This deeply hurts the narrative of the game, because despite being presented forefront with flashy cutscenes and relatively high production values, it still feels utterly minimal

When looking at it from afar, this might just be the crutch that makes the story of the game suffer so greatly, but even so, the story of Digital Devil Saga is not exactly elegantly told or cohesive anyways. Sure enough, it has plenty of enjoyable and emotional moments as well as the promise of being something much greater and significant, however, it comes dangerously close to collapsing under its own weight, since it lacks the time required to tell its story most effectively. This in turn creates a fountain of issues that get in the way of telling the story it was meant to become, depriving the games of their own enlightenment.

What works best about the story is what its writer, Satomi Tadashi, is best known for: characters. Even when many other elements of the narrative are not compelling, the player can always turn towards any character to relate to and feel compelled by. The journey of these characters makes the story of Digital Devil Saga great, as it chronicles their emotional and metaphysical evolution along the course of both games. Their relationships evolve, their fears are overcome, and they learn and evolve because of the adverse situations they are forcefully placed in. The voice acting is also great at conveying these characters’ evolution, as well as bringing their unique personalities to life in a way that feels tangible.


What works best about the story is what its writer, Satomi Tadashi, is best known for: characters

From the very beginning, Digital Devil Saga establishes a world of sheer creativity. that speaks of the promise of its story. Both the Junkyard and Nirvana are settings that easily stand out from among others. It’s interesting to see the Junkyard’s endless power struggle, as well as its conflict after its inhabitants awaken to the power of demons. Besides that, Nirvana’s use of natural disasters and disease to set up its own post-apocalypse makes it stand out sufficiently enough from the Junkyard and everything else as well.


The inspirations are clear when looking at the architecture of the Junkyard, which shapes many of its buildings around temples, with only slight hints of a modern take.

One of the most important sources of inspiration that make the game stand out so well lies within its use of Hindu culture to shape the world, storyline, aesthetics and themes. The inspirations are clear when looking at the architecture of the Junkyard, which shapes many of its buildings around temples, with only slight hints of a modern take. The themes of the game are also drenched with the inspirations it takes from Hinduism, shaping the narrative of the games around the repeating cycles of death and rebirth of Samsara, in order to achieve the highest state of consciousness and awakening that is Nirvana.


The themes and message of the series concentrate on the teaching of Dharma to its characters, the set of natural values that create peace with the universe. Karma, the spiritual principle of cause and effect, is also an important concept in the game’s story, as the characters must atone for the negative Karma they’ve built up on their past lives and create new positive Karma under their new bodies and personalities in order to ascend to Nirvana. As a result, the first game is focused on these character’s awakenings from the eternal cycle while the second shows the result of their awakening, and their atonement as they work to build a positive Karma with the world.

In concept, all of these ideas are profound and significant, making for a highly transcendent story. However, what doesn’t work about Digital Devil Saga’s narrative most of the time is the execution of all of these elements because of the very limited screen time allocated to the game’s cutscenes and dialogue. The writing of both games is very prone to introducing elements that are either subtly dropped or not appropriately expanded upon or explained sufficiently, leading to writing that feels generally haphazard and lacks a general and consistent point. While not necessarily incoherent, the writing comes close to being convoluted and needlessly obtuse.

This wouldn’t be much of a problem if all of these elements had a proper place in the narrative, but alas, they do not. One of the distinctive qualities of the narrative of both games is the lack of payoff to many of the things it sets up along the way, as well as payoff for elements that were hardly or hastily set up. There are plenty of instances where relationships are outright told instead of expanded upon, or motivations are established one or two cutscenes apart from their conclusion. There are also moments where underlying doubts or intrigues about the narrative have little to no emotional conclusion, being left up in the air or given a weak payoff that persists long after they stop being relevant.

Further on, there is a contradictory lack of character and narrative depth compared to the presentation of the game’s cutscenes, which have intensive cinematography and voice acting. One would expect the game’s narrative to be appreciated on its own without the allusions to religion and themes, which would have been its purpose as an alternative to the obscure narratives of previous MegaTen games, yet little to no self-contained narrative depth is encountered within the game, leading then to a story that feels rather hollow during some of its most emotionally and thematically intensive moments that would have benefitted from such depth. For a game that benefits so much from likable characters, the story has an unnatural concentration on the narrative of the events rather than the experiences of each character due to many cutscenes being focused on the immediate intrigue rather than the development of party members and key characters, which hurts the overall story since the former is not quite as interesting as the latter due to a lack of depth.


A plot that is full of filler, setup and little to no payoff

This also comes hand in hand with the story’s overall problem of poor pacing, which shows itself in different ways across both games. The first game lasts about a third or fourth of its runtime before the plot truly kicks off, creating some uninteresting opening hours that are then followed up by a plot that is full of filler, setup and little to no payoff. To rectify this, Digital Devil Saga 2’s story is full of payoff and little to no build up, creating a relationship between both games that is closer to being parasitical rather than symbiotic, since neither can present a satisfying story on their own terms. They cannot present a fully satisfying story when combined either, since the progression between the two is unnatural and choppy due to what seems like an unnecessary need to split the two apart. The pacing also suffers from not being reinforced through long stretches of gameplay or dungeon crawling; which leads to wasted time when it could have been used to develop its characters through banter or other means.

What the Digital Devil Saga duology lacks most is a cohesive direction; a singular voice that directs and reforms every aspect of its design to suit a main purpose or create an all-encompassing experience. The games suffer from having far too numerous directors that did not work close enough together to create a singular bigger picture for both games, instead relegating themselves to finishing specific areas of the game and not much else. There is very little design in Digital Devil Saga that connects gameplay, art, writing and cinematics, leading to many areas that either feels uninspired or in conflict with one another, as is the case with the gameplay and the story, which are disconnected to the point of making the experience weaker.

All in all though, Digital Devil Saga had good moments; great moments in fact. What Digital Devil Saga did not have and so desperately needed was connecting tissue, which would come in the form of extra depth that connected gameplay, story and aesthetics. For what it is now, the duology is playable and enjoyable, but it falls short of being the kind of epic and profound journey that it could and frankly should have been all along. Even so, I don’t regret experiencing it at least once, and might even consider going back to it in the future, because what I did get from it was important enough to make me think positively of the experience.

Perhaps on its next life, will it be able to reach true awakening.

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