The DS has seen no shortage of role playing games, action role playing games, or strategy role playing games over the years. No, quite the contrary, as the system is starting to become the ideal place for niche gaming and 100 hour RPG classics, getting right up there with PS2 as a home for all things niche, traditional, and hardcore. Leave it to good old Atlus to give us another one with Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor. For those down with the hip Atlus offerings across all platforms, Devil Survivor is yet another game in the long-running Shin Megami Tensei (or SMT) series, while for us little ol’ DS owners it feels brand new. What is Shin Megami Tensei, and should you care that it’s finally made its way out of Japan and onto your DS? I encourage you to read on and find out.

As mentioned, Devil Survivor fits into the SMT series, but for many DS owner out there this is the first chance the franchise has really hit home. And while the gameplay may seem daunting at first, it becomes very obvious that Devil Survivor is not only a mash-up of many different play styles but also rests at the top of many of them. Mixing in strategy RPG arena stages with first-person RPG battles, a full-on "monster" collection aspect with over 100 different demons (121 to be exact) to raise and fuse, as well as a huge emphasis on story and "living manga" feel Devil Survivor is easily one of this year’s biggest sleeper hits not only on DS, but across any platform.

The entire experience feels like a strange mash-up between Pokemon or Dragon Warrior Monsters with a more traditional RPG feel, though I have to say the battle system makes Devil Survivor more original feeling overall than either of its main inspirations. The strategy RPG elements give the game an almost Tactics Ogre/Final Fantasy Tactics Advance feel, but once you actually move in for attacks mid-turn the camera cuts away to first-person RPG controls similar to that of Etrian Odyssey or The Dark Spire. It all works great though, as there’s a huge balance between party vs. party play, and the idea that taking out a leader or their two minions in a battle will change the strategy up in a big way. Since each group is made up of one leader and two underlings (for the human side you’ve got the main hero or his friends, along with two demons each) it is literally a combination of both SRPG play and full-on traditional battles, and it works great.

Keeping things streamlined (but far from "simple," as simple is often confused for "shallow) Devil Survivor makes use of an overworld map that’s basically a list of areas around Tokyo where the team can travel. As the other main concept of the game, the COMPs have been receiving strange transmissions from an email host called The Observer, which not only greets the teens with daily information but also tells the future for that day. What the hell? Essentially reading the future though a series of algorithms, The Observer is the group’s window into the future. All events in the game – be it story, free battles, random wandering through areas via text locations, or the like – take time, and when the clock strikes a predetermined news piece an event opens. It’s up to the hero and his friends to try and not only battle it out at these locations, but also change the future. Introduced early on in the story is the Death Clock; a piece of technology that can actually tell when each person in the world is going to die. When your number drops to zero… well… you better hope you can change your future, or convince yourself it’s a good day to die.

All these concepts fuse together into a story that’s rich and involving, and while more battle-minded players may get sick of the longwinded exchanges between characters the game opens up as the hours push on. What also opens up is a huge amount of customization and options amidst the demons themselves, your dozen playable characters, and a massive list of skills and modes. Skill cracking becomes available early on, letting you essentially steal abilities from enemies you face off against in battle, and demon fusion – similar to breeding in monster games – allows you to combine demons and open up new options amidst the 100+ set. Every level up allows you to upgrade your key player, each demon and human fighter in the battle will gain experience post-fight, and modifiers based on damage taken and teamwork used will reward players with even more macca (demon currency). While there are no items or equipment to purchase along the way, macca is essential in powering up your team, including the extremely innovative demon auction system. With a quick tap of the COMP, players can head "online" against other AI bidders and purchase new demons. It’s an awesome system that makes purchasing team upgrades fun, as well as a little risky. It’s a shame this isn’t actually Wi-Fi supported for real online bidding.

The overall presentation in Devil Survivor is pretty strong considering the sheer amount of content included – the number of demons, the animations and effects for all attacks, the location backdrops; the list goes on – but no single piece of art or one animation is very mind-blowing on its own. Story sequences take up a pretty large amount of time, and there are constant scenes where the top screen is completely ignored while you read line after line of text with just a few character portraits to vary things up. What Devil Survivor lacks on overall eye candy, however, it makes up for in sheer depth. There are a half dozen endings to the game, plenty of new demons that can only be unlocked with multiple playthroughs, and the combat system alone has enough depth to last most gamers well into the 30 hour mark, even if the story can be squashed in a little over a dozen hours. The musical offering is pretty strong, comprised of memorable tunes that’ll undoubtedly get stuck in your head (especially the squeal of the electric guitar during battles), though more variation would have been nice as well. All in all though it’s a great offering, and one that you’d be hard-pressed to find real problems with. It’s a deep game, and it makes due with the space it has.

Storyline:

The main story gets pretty involved pretty fast, though for anyone that picked up The World Ends with You there are a few similarities you may find. You follow around a young teen (daunting a pair of headphones) who is sectioned off in and around the Shibuya district of Tokyo. The game is based on demons and devils (which could draw some parallels to the "noise" concept in Square’s game) and it sports a very original, "neo-RPG" feel to it. That’s really where the comparisons should end though, as Devil Survivor is based on a core design that is over a decade old, and it’s one that has now made for one killer experience. You’re trapped in Tokyo with a few friends, the government has quarantined the area via a group called the Ground Self-Defense Force, and the main hero and his friends Atsuro and Yuzu get an unexpected package that includes three COMPs (basically DS units). From there the group of teens take the role of demon summoners, entering into pacts with powerful creatures and using them to fight others.

Overall:

Sources From IGN