“One born of human flesh. Man is now a race of some power. You, son of man, must face the power you hold. And you must face your destiny as well…
Though your days be peaceful, the fated time draws near. I am your judgement. I sundered the tongue of your fathers and shattered their arrogant power.
So long as the lord does not live in you, all living beings hold darkness in their hearts.
If you truly wish to be yourself, then rise and fight the darkness within… the demon inside. If you have the will to challenge your destiny of battle, son of man, state your name…
As He proclaimed… this world, created in seven days, shall be destroyed by the sounding of seven trumpets.
You who have a will, fear the numbers your eyes shall see. Fear the time left…”
The game starts on the summer of Mid-August, on a day where you decide to reunite with your friends to hang out with your cousin, who called you all of a sudden in order to meet up. Oddly enough, he does not show up, but instead gives you and your friends an electronic gaming device that features an odd homebrew menu that he probably programmed himself.
After your friend bypasses some of the security in the device, you receive an e-mail that predicts grim events happening later that afternoon, such as a murder carried out by an unknown beast, an explosion and a blackout. Trying to ignore such a strange predicament, you head towards your cousin’s place, where the murder that was predicted in the e-mail has come true. Trying to figure out exactly what’s going on, you and your friends tinker with the device further, causing a pack of demons to be summoned after running a program from the device. You fight them alongside your friends and survive, only barely, and escape to investigate more about the device.
Shaken by this incident, you seek shelter until the night is over, but things aren’t any better in the morning. First, you recieve an e-mail that predicts that you and your friends will die at a specific time later that day; but not only that, since you also realize that the entire city has been locked down with no escape and demons have been running rampant on the city, wreaking havok along their way. You’re running short on food and water, there’s no way out and you are destined to die later that day. From this point on, Peaceful Days are over and it’s time to survive.
Survival is a key aspect of the plot and tone of Devil Survivor. There is not an instance where this game doesn’t reinforce the constant threat of death these characters are facing, whether it’s through their Death Clock, which is a number above people’s heads that displays how many days they have left before they die; the aggressively colored user interface, which focuses on violent tones of red and the sometimes grueling difficulty that the game can sometimes have, especially for a newcomer.
Devil Survivor features the basic mechanics of any other Tactical-RPG, with battles taking place on a single map, where you have to complete a series of objectives in order to succeed, such as defeating all enemies; and just like any other Tactical-RPG, Devil Survivor mostly focuses on team composition and planning above all else, but the quirk that makes this one, and it’s other MegaTen peers, stand out is the franchise’s flagship demon collecting mechanics, not without it’s few changes though.
First of, demons aren’t collected through negotiation, but through the “Devil Auction” instead, which is an in-game marketplace where you must participate in auctions to unlock demons which you can then fuse as you please. Even though the demon compendium is surely missed from this title, as you cannot summon demons you’ve previously obtained after fusing them, the demon fusion system in this game is one of the best in the franchise due to the addition of the Fusion Search system, where you can view every single possible fusion that you can make on the game and all of the demons you need to create them, which adds on to the battle planning aspect of the game as you now need to plan ahead of time which demons you will need for upcoming fusions.
Besides the usual demon collecting mechanics, Devil Survivor also features some of the most extensive character customization features I’ve seen in an RPG thanks to the Skill Crack system, which allows you to steal skills from enemies after defeating them in battle, a mechanic that makes players consider their approach to each battle in order to obtain the skills they need from the enemy. Aside from that, there’s very few things wrong with the gameplay of Devil Survivor, such as steep difficulty spikes on the most commonly obtainable endings and balancing problems.
With that out of the way though, Devil Survivor wouldn’t really be the kind of amazing game it is today if not for it’s completely engrossing and well written story of survival, overcoming impossible odds and deciding the fate of mankind, which is reminiscent of only the very best of Shin Megami Tensei storylines. I would be perfectly contempt with a story that only covered the themes mentioned before, but Devil Survivor goes beyond that and fully explores the consequences of the Tokyo Lockdown and the Societal Collapse that would ensue after the widespread control of demons by the populous and the lack of basic resources, it also involves government conspiracies and complex moral and ideological conflicts that make it fit right in to it’s own franchise.
Pacing is one of this story’s greatest virtues. This game doesn’t waste it’s time in meaningless events that only drag down the story, because every single event serves a purpose to the plot in any and all ways, be it introducing new concepts, threats and goals on a moment to moment basis, that keeps the plot constantly feeling fresh and interesting; plus building up a great mystery storyline and well rounded character arcs along the seven in-game days.
One of the biggest benefits to this game’s pacing is it’s approach to telling it’s story, which takes absolute full advantage of game and story integration, to the point where the story and gameplay almost completely blend in to one another. In Devil Survivor, time means absolutely everything. Every day in the game only has a set amount of hours, and every event takes up at least thirty minutes of your time, which means that every single event matters. Certain characters will only be approachable on certain days at a certain time, and ignoring these events or choosing the wrong dialogue cue may lead to their eventual demise on a later day.
Now, this may seem like an impossible ordeal without a guide, but thanks to the Laplace Mail and the Death Clock function, the player can be fully aware of the kind of events that will lead to a character’s demise or may lead to an undesirable ending. This constant need to manage your time keeps the player thoroughly invested in the outcome of the game, which involves 5 different endings that the player can unlock by following a set number of requisites. Besides altering the outcome of the game, these events also alter the development of the story.
If you don’t choose the appropriate event, maybe you’ll be forced down a path that you don’t really want to be in, and the game acknowledges that, since it completely changes up the tone of the game to reflect that if you made the wrong choices. The game has a highly dynamic plot that develops naturally as the player strategically makes choices to keep certain characters alive or to choose the outcome of the Tokyo Lockdown.
One of the biggest reasons the player will be so invested in all of these mechanics is definitely the characters, which are some of the most well written, grounded and well rounded characters from the Megami Tensei franchise. In the early days these characters are established with well defined characteristics and personality traits, but as the days pass on and they start to reach the verge of desperation, you start to see how these characteristics and their backstories combined with the horrific situations they are facing transform them into psychopaths or self-righteous fighters that abuse the power of demons to indulge in their fantasies or achieve their own ideals.
Even as the characters in this game are at their complete worst, you still get to understand their point of view and come to see them as fairly realistic representations of the way certain people would react to situations that drive them to such madness. Combined with the aforementioned seven day time limit, players will also get to decide how these characters develop along the course of the story by choosing the events that correspond to their character arc, essentially making the player responsible for their downfall if they choose to ignore them.
Besides themes, pacing and character, tone and atmosphere are very important parts of Devil Survivor. Another one of the main reasons as to why the Tokyo Lockdown feels worse than it actually may be represented as, is because of the strong sense of tone and placement the writing in this game, which is made clear due to the emphasis not only on problems like lack of electricity, food, water and communication; but also because of the social instability, caused as a consequence of the spread of the Demon Summoning Program.
The world of Devil Survivor is constantly reacting to each new issue that is presented by going deeper and deeper into a spiral of madness, that is felt throughout the entire game because of how the tone of the game keeps getting heavier and heavier, which only helps make whatever conclusion you decide to go for all the more satisfying, once you know that our characters have finally escaped this ordeal.
Another aspect that complements the story and gameplay of the game perfectly, is the intense rock soundtrack by Takami Asano, which is not only very enjoyable to listen on it’s own, but also gives the game a thorough sense of musical personality, raw intensity and unruliness that fits in extremely well with the themes of the game.
The biggest drawback to the game’s presentation, is the art direction. While I think the UI is very well designed and reinforces the tone of the game very well, even though it’s a bit of an eyesore at times, and the demon designs by Kazuma Kaneko are still as excellent as they’ve always been, I can’t help but feel like the character designs and artwork could’ve used a different artist. I don’t think Suzuhito Yasuda is a bad artist or that he did a terrible job at designing these characters because some of these designs are somewhat good, but I do think that his style doesn’t really fit very well with the game, or doesn’t give it the kind of personality it deserves. Besides, some characters really have rather poorly thought out designs that either almost completely lack subtlety to them, or have no characteristic features in general.
But such a drawback means nothing in the grander scale of things for this game, because putting aside the weaker art direction, everything else about Devil Survivor blew me away. The excellent story and engrossing gameplay kept me hooked for days on end, and makes me want to replay it every single time I finished it to either experience it again or to look at all of the little details or plot developments I missed on previous playthroughs.
Devil Survivor is a rather underrated game in my eyes. It’s a game that I cherish for it’s excellent execution and I wish more people were able to play it and see just how great it is. No matter what version you play, whether it’s the 3DS port or the original NDS version, I give Devil Survivor a full recommendation to fans of the Megami Tensei franchise, Tactical-RPG fans and JRPG fans in general. It’s a must play if you own any of these portable devices.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Even though its one of my earlier works, I still like this review. It's straight and to the point with all the things that I love so much about this game and it also started my tendency to add flair and style to my reviews. Honestly, its good even today.