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Survivor Series: Devil Survivor 2 Review

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Recently, I imagine that you been asking yourself a question lately, ” Where the F#%k has Devil Survivor been for the last three months??” Well ladies and gentlemen I moved to South Korea and I’m teaching at a public high school. Its been a good time so far and finally I have time to write something. The topic this time is the second Devil Survivor game which came out in February. I have played through it twice now and I’ll give you a tour.

 

Background Story

The story in Devil Survivor 2 is a bit different then in the first game as the story this time takes place in different locations around Japan and in the first game you were locked down in Tokyo the whole time trying to escape.  Again your a boy in high school, this time a third year high student instead of a second year student,  who is coming back from an exam at school with his two friends. When at the subway station, they receive an email on their phones from a website that shows a video clip  depicting their deaths in  an explosion in the near future. The three students are able to avoid their imminent deaths because of a warning from an avatar from the site and then a train comes crashing and they run for cover. As they wake demons appear and a battle begins, after defeating the demons  the students form a contract with the demons and become demon summoners. Soon after the heroes encounter a mysterious government agency known as JP’s that is trying to protect the remaining Japanese cities that haven’t been completely destroyed by the disaster that  has struck Japan.  They ally with JP’s in order to find out what is behind the disaster that has befallen Japan  and find a way to survive.

 

Gameplay

The gameplay hasn’t changed much from the last game which used a turned based system combat system on a grid of squares. The combat system also featured teams of three, two demons and one of the human characters, and the game allowed you to use up to  4 teams at once.  You can carry up to 24 demons in your party at any one time and a great feature of this game is the ability summon a new demon if one of your demons lose all its hit points. Another feature from the first game is ability to create more powerful demons by fusing two less powerful demons. A new twist has been added to this feature called the demon compendium which saves all demons used or created in the fuse application, and for a price you can immediately summon that demon back to your party as long you have a free space. A completely new feature is called the Fate System which is a social relationship system that uses a 0 to 5 scale to rate the bond between the main character and the other characters. The benefit of having a high level bond with another character is that it grants you certain special abilities  that can only be used with that character.  Again present is the branching story lines like other SMT games, although it seems like there are as many  paths as was in the previous game.   The demon auction also still in the game, but is less important now with the demon compendium in the game.

 

Graphics and Cutscenes

The graphics in some ways are not much improved from the original game. The environments looks more detailed and the bosses look quite nice. However, some of the artwork from the first game was reused, but if you haven’t played the first one then you probably won’t notice that. The cut scenes are where the game shines  because the first game doesn’t have nearly as many as DS2. The cut scenes all look graphically bright and vibrant. Overall the game is an improvement in most areas in terms of graphics.

 

Audio and Music

The game’s soundtrack is exceptional, which is a hallmark of any of the SMT games.  Each song seems to fit the scene its being played in. The sound effects for the different demon attacks and other actions fit nicely with the overall feel of the game.

 

Closing Comments

Comparing this game to the original devil survivor it holds its own, while bringing some new gameplay elements to the table. I think Atlus could have put some more effort into making some more new artwork for the character interactions instead of just reusing some of the character models from the first game. Overall, the game is improvement over the first incarnation. One final note, if you haven’t played the first game yet, don’t worry because you can jump right into this game because the two stories have no bearing on each other at and are completely separate stories in effect.   

 

 

 

Cheers and Beers,

Devil_Survivor

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Survivor Series: Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3 Review

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He once watched an anime called MD Geist  and said its the worst ever, Once he drank a Dos Equis beer and it was exceptional, and once listened to another anime podcast other than AAA and said never again…… he is the most interesting man on the AAA network.

Ok lol, so that’s going to the new intro to each blog entry because I love those commercials and the beer. In this edition of the series I’m going to talk about a musou games; Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3. I know the hack and slash genre has a lot of critics and fans at the same time which leaves it as one of the more hotly debated game genres, and I had never played any until this game, but this game has new features that set it apart from the previous entries in the series. That said, lets take a look at the game.

Background Story:

The story devised for this game is that a number of characters from the various Gundam series are transported to a location along with their mobile suits. The location is never really spell out, perhaps some alternate dimension or whatever. Some of the characters met up and form groups and began battles against other groups of characters. Some mysterious signal is being broadcast and the characters follow it, and this drives the story. Not much of a story :P, however a story isn’t really the main focus of this game.

Game Play:

The story mode of game is broken down into chapters in which two or three characters are playable at first. Each individual character is restricted to his or her signature mobile suit until you buy a license in the game shop which allows all playable characters to pilot it. Each chapter has a number of missions that all have the same end conditions, that being killing the end boss character of that mission. How you go about getting to the end of each mission is really the difference in each mission. There are over 300 different missions within the story mode in 8 different categories. The combat is much the same with other DW games, a lot pressing of the A button to create chain combos to perform different special moves and the unique signature attack of each character. A new feature is the addition of the Partner Strike, which is an attack performed by a partner character set at the start of each mission, which can used to turn the tide of battle. There are a number of other new map features that add a more strategic atmosphere. The Emergency Dash is a new option that allows players to get out of danger if timed right.  There 81 different units to choose from in the game to be collected  by acquiring MS plans and building them in the MS lab. The plans can gained whenever you finish a mission and you typical get 4 or 5 after each mission

In the online mode up to 4 players can play together in 15 unique missions. There are reports that more missions on the way at some point, although no date has been given.

Audio\Music:

The music in the game is average at best, not horrid and not exceptional either. The characters are voiced in certain parts of game, but not in all dialogue between the characters. The voice actors are the ones that portray the characters in both the Japanese and American versions of the shows, so that’s some good continuity between anime and game.

Artwork:

The art style is an upgrade over the previous two DW:Gundam games. The graphic artists choose to render the characters and mobile suits in a cel shaded style which is bright, well detailed, with great environmental effects, and visually pleasing. The background environments are enough in number without getting too repetitive.

Closing Comments:

DW:Gundam 3 is most importantly an improvement over the previous games in this series. It does all the things the other games have done in a better way that made the others a success. That said it still has the issues of other Dynasty Warriors games, almost completely devoid of anything resembling a story  and sometime repetitive combat. This game is almost just for Gundam fans, however it may appeal to fans of the hack and slash genre, which is a viable business model in Japan and not so much in America. Not many Gundam games get released in the West, well at least not many of the good ones, leaving not much to play if your a Gundam fan in the Western world, so its a question of take it or leave it. For myself its just good to have a decent game to go and blow up things with my favorite mobile suits.

I give this game 3\5 beam sabers slashing up grunt suits

 

Cheers and Beers,

Devil_Survivor

 

 

fanboy-sony

Survivor Series: Franchise Innovation and Fanboy Rage

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Innovation is usually seen as a good thing by most people in any given field in human endeavor, however there are always a small percentage of die hard  adherents to something that cannot accept change in any form. This is nowhere more apparent then in video game fandom.  So I’m going to look through some of biggest fanboy dust ups over game companies trying reinvent their franchises.

OK, these are not in any particular order, there just ones I have been made aware of.  The first one is the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise, of which I’m a huge fan. There have been a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh games across many game consoles, but the three that are relevant for this discussion were on the Game Boy Advance and Gamecube. The first GBA game was the Sacred Cards released in July of 2002 and it was different in a couple respects. First, unlike all the previous games in the franchise, this game actually has a story, in fact it lets you play one of the story arcs from the show. The other difference was the rules of the card game itself were different, and that’s really pissed off the fanboys of this franchise.  The second GBA game was called Reshef of Destruction, was very similar although it had a completely original story. Now both of these games have  flaws, like most games, but they are also good games broken the formula and because of that the fanboys labeled them as inferior, which is so short slighted.  Moving to the Gamecube, in 2002 a Yi-Gi-Oh game was released called the Falsebound Kingdom that was radically different from anything seen in the franchise thus and since then. The game was a combination of the RPG and RTS genres and was not a card game at all. Instead the monsters from the cards become characters in the game to be used on RPG style teams of 3 under the command of one of the cast from the TV series. A lot of the items in the game are also cards from the card game, which shows the detail the developers put into the game. RTS element comes out in the missions in the game in which you move your teams and engage your enemies and capture bases, additionally there are other objectives to complete sometimes in a given mission. The games was received very negatively by the review community as with many games that step outside the norm. The game has some flaws, as the maps for the missions were really low rent and not very inspired, but was balanced by the great graphics of  monsters and battle animations.

The next franchise that attempted to go a different way and hit a brick wall of fanboy rage was Devil May Cry. The controversy stems from the redesign of Dante, a design that wildly changes from the previous four games. This game doesn’t even have a release date yet, its suppose to come out in 2012 sometime, and the hate is already flowing from the fanboys. You would think that people at least would wait until the game came out ,and not just complain about the visuals.

Infamous is another franchise that has felt a rain of fanboy artillery fire over the design of a character, Cole, the main character in the game. The difference here is that, Sucker Punch the developer of Infamous, caved into fanboy pressure and changed Cole back to to way he was in the first Infamous, although there was still minor changes to him to better fit the new game. Again its just kinda sad that fanboys cannot get pass such trivial things like character designs.

When Transformers: War for Cybertron was announced, the main complain yet again was superficial about character designs. The G1 40 year old virgins were complaining about why wasn’t the game using the 1984 designs. Well maybe because its 25 years after the fact, and things need to change sometimes to bring in new fans  to a franchise. Blinded by nostalgia glasses is a common medical problem for most Fanboys, and can be corrected by getting out of your parents basement, actually getting laid , and not watching porn all the time.

In sum, I just wish fanboys would come out of their formulaic comfort zone, and give a game with a different take on a  beloved franchise a chance. Its almost like fanboys are afraid of change in and out of their game life, which is probably why they cannot get out into the world and get their lives going. If there is any group of fanboys from anime or video game fandom you look to see get owned by me, please leave a comment or pm me on the forum.

This has been pubic service message from the Truth and Fact Defense Force.

-Devil_Survivor

 

 

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Survivor Series: Catherine Review

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Hey Anime Addicts, so I finally finished main lining the wondrously busty Catherine and now will proceed to review the game. I know that this game has a big following on this site, and I hope a lot of you will read this who are not yet fans of this game will pick it up and play it because its really a one of a kind game. This game has controversy surrounding it, not only for the mature content( when I told a friend I was playing this game she said oh the sex game :P), but also for the difficult of the game itself, I’ll address both of those points below.

Background Story:

In this game you take the role of Vincent Brooks, a 32 year old, systems engineer for technology company. He’s kind of a lazy, unorganized, and very in the moment average guy with not much of a future planned out. He has a girlfriend of 5 years(amazing I know), called Katherine. Katherine has recently began to talk about getting married and then Vincent started to have very dark nightmares. The next morning he wakes next to a hot, young, and curvy girl also named Catherine and wonders he how he will get himself out of this mess.

Game play:

Catherine is two games in one, a puzzle game and what you might call a ” moral” psychological thriller. The puzzle element of the game is pretty straight forward as it involves 9 stages with various themes and lengths. At the end of each stage there is a boss stage in which a large creature will change up the wall of blocks and will attempt to kill you. In each puzzle stage there will be various items that can used to help complete the stage. Sprinkled through the stage you find “sheep”, other guys like Vincent trying to escape the nightmare and they will try to impede your progress. As you proceed through the game there will different types of blocks you will encounter, ice blocks, spike blocks, exploding blocks, black hole blocks, etc. and learning how to manage each type of block will be integral to your completing the game.  Also important is mastering the various techniques for scaling the different walls of blocks, these will be taught to you at certain points in the game.

The other element of the game, the moral psychological thriller, mostly takes place between each stage in the form of questions asked by a disembodied voice in a confessional booth and the question is usually on the subject of some issue of morality. How you answer the questions affects the ending you will get upon finishing the game, there are 8 endings in total, three for each Catherine, and two neutral endings. Some of the questions will asked at a bar called the Stray Sheep where you will interact with your friends and get messages on your phone from both Catherine. In the bar there are additional features like a mini game called Rapunzel which is also a block based puzzle game, and there is a jukebox that plays various songs from different Atlus games.

As for the game being too difficult, honestly with any game you should probably play it on lower difficult levels, learn the game,get skilled and then try to beat it on the more challenging settings. Its true this game is very challenging, in fact the develops actually created a very easy mode because people complained it was so hard. I found the game to be not as insanely difficult as people make it out to be, playing on easy I think I never dropped beyond 90 retries as there are more enough items that give retires, so on normal and hard it cannot be that impossible.

 

Visuals and Graphics:

The game play graphics are pretty good for this day and age, the blocks are rendered in nice detail and are as the characters. Where this game really shines in terms of visuals is in the cut scenes. There are two types, ones that are CG graphic or ones that are anime style. I really love the anime cut scenes, I have never seen such great animation in a game and Atlus really went out of their way to make those scenes so beautifully animated. The CG scenes are good as well, just a little overshadowed by the anime scenes.

 

Closing Comments:

I loved playing Catherine its a one of a kind gaming experience that combines two genres of games that I think no one  ever thought would go together, and yet it seems to work in this incarnation.  Its a special treat if your a anime fan like me, and most of you that will read this most likely are. This game asks some interesting questions about relationships  and what people want out of life and I found myself rethinking a lot things I thought I had figured already about life. In sum, if you want a game that will make you think, with puzzles, and you are a fan of anime this game is for you.

 

Until next time,

Devil Survivor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Survivor Series: Devil Survivor Review

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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