Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor 2 Catch-All

So yeah, it's out today. Copy incoming from Amazon. Some talk in the JRPG thread and even in the Devil Survivor thread.

But I figure this deserves its own few pages. It will probably be the best game for the DS this year, as the library starts winding down a bit. If you played the first, or any other SMT game, you're probably looking forward to it as well.

So... anybody else pre-ordered? Anyone else going to jump in this week?

It's going straight to the top of the pile for me, and I'm going to push to get as much done before ME3 next week.

I won't have as much time for it as I'd like since I'm moving this week, but my copy arrives today and I definitely plan on jumping into it for at least one day.

Some comments from folks on other forums who imported it suggest it's actually a bit meaner than the first one: it's been compared to SMT: Nocturne in that regard.

I still need to finish the first one, but I am super-excited about this. I'm really looking forward to hearing your impressions.

Well it's here. The only thing I can say so far is those combined English/French instruction manuals really are thick. 45 pages for each half.

I pre ordered & used my lunch break to pick it up. Now I just have to make it through work.

They can't stop me from reaching into my laptop case to stroke the case. Soon, my darling. Very soon, now.

Got some time in this afternoon. It's more of the same goodness I remember.

Of course on the 2nd fight maybe,

Spoiler:

one with a "protect teammate" defeat condition

,I nearly had a game over:

Spoiler:

Jerks went right past MC, straight for Daichi, killed his demon teammate and took his health down to 8! Managed to get him out of range for a few turns until I could heal him up.

Then I had a great bit of luck where I used Makoto on the boss to kill both it's companions, and whittle the boss down to 20-ish health without killing it. Swooped in with MC next turn and gained 2 levels. Felt like a strategic genius for a minute. ;)

Oh man did I miss demon auctions.

Also, right after winning a couple, a special auction popped up! There were like 9 high-quality demons available. I think some of them had powers not normally on the base demons. Got this one Ghost with Zio, Agi, and Bufu all three!

Still not finished with the first day yet, but definitely feels great so far.

Stayed up way late last night, over midway through day 2.

Spoiler:

6 party members now. Already feels like a decent roster of demons. Have continually fused and kept demons near MC's level as much as I can. Making sure to do every free battle at least once for skill cracks.

Also seems like you can reset the auction by starting and immediately retreating from free battles. Handy if you're looking for certain skills for fusion. :cool:

How does it compare to the first, difficulty-wise and feature-wise?

ClockworkHouse wrote:

How does it compare to the first, difficulty-wise and feature-wise?

Seems great. Granted I only did 1 run of the original, since I borrowed it from a friend, and it's been a few years. But I think I am enjoying the characters more this time around. I'm definitely more experienced in demon fusion, with DS and SJ under my belt, so so far it feels pretty easy.

They've added in this very nice Fate system where you get a rating from 0-5 of your relationship with your party members. Also each new level unlocks bonuses, either for the teammate, the MC, both, or unlocks new demon fusions.

Finally lost a battle a few minutes ago. That was my bad for not understanding the victory/defeat conditions properly though. Hopefully will finish day 2 this evening.

This game looks interesting to me but I haven't played any games in the Shin Megami Tensei universe. Seeing as I just got a 3DS, what game should I start with?

Distantsound wrote:

This game looks interesting to me but I haven't played any games in the Shin Megami Tensei universe. Seeing as I just got a 3DS, what game should I start with?

Pretty much all of the Shin Megami Tensei games are stand-alone. There's not a continuing storyline that you need to worry about.

Devil Survivor Overclocked is a 3DS-only upgrade of the original Devil Survivor and is rock solid. I've really enjoyed it.

For the DS, there's Devil Survivor, the new Devil Survivor 2, and Strange Journey. The Devil Survivor games are turn-based tactical strategy games (along the lines of something like Final Fantasy Tactics) and Strange Journey is an old-school dungeon crawler.

Probably any of them would be a good introduction to the series. Devil Survivor 2 is probably the cheapest right now.

Cool Thanks ClockworkHouse

Yeah the only connection between SMT games are the demons you summon as teammates. The names and races of them are pretty consistent from game to game. Otherwise, it seems to be a whole new story and even different genres from game to game.

Son of a...

The game is cheating.

There was a mission where there were portals that spawn in extra demons, which you can destroy to stop the spawns. So I did. And then another demon group spawned two turns later right where the portal was!

Anyway I'm onto day 3... but taking a break now.

I played through for about a half hour. The system feels a little bit slicker. I like the way the COMP looks. Also, I'm perversely delighted to see this game get a little more visual than the first. The gloom and dread in the first game is great, and I think the more graphic tone of the second will help it stand out very well.

I am both impressed and surprised to discover that...

Spoiler:

You can beg to die and the game will grant your wish. I don't think I've done that since monochromatic text adventures were still a common thing. I admit. I laughed.

Despite all this, the music seems a lot more subdued.

Here's hoping some hard-learned lessons from the first Devil Survivor will help me in part two.

Day 3 is down! Still hope of finishing before ME3.

Having fun. No particular spoilers to share at this point. Game is great. Think I enjoy most of the characters more than the first.

Party members seem to rotate in and out a bit for story reasons so far. It's nice to change things up I guess, but a little weird to have to rearrange lineups. So far I haven't let anyone die so that's a plus.

Couple of random things I've noticed that folks might find interesting. No worries, no spoilers.

1) I don't *think* this was true in Devil Survivor 1, but if you have a unit that boosts attack range (Dragons w/ Evil Wave, for example), it also boosts the range of recovery skills like Dia, Amrita, etc. Kinda neat. Still debatable is whether or not this is worth losing Extra Turns.

2) Auctions reset even if you just reload the same save game. Handy for hunting 4-5 star versions of demons or (if you're truly neurotic) attempting to trigger special auctions, since apparently whatever tracks that is completely random and also resets if you just reload the same save game.

Yeah the ranged attacks is really only worth if if you're sniping off groups that don't have ranged attacks back. Otherwise you're just giving up the advantage of extra turns for no gain.

I've been mostly avoiding it so far. Maybe if I could combine it with the one enemy who lets you attack twice in the same turn? I know there's one of those...

I have a bit of dilemma.
SMT:DS2 is on the same UPS truck as SSX.
Whatever will I do when they both arrive this afternoon??

SMT! Don't let that "game of the week" article on the front page fool you. DS2 is the superior game. Elysium... he chose... poorly.

Whoa. Demon's race skills can upgrade to a different version. Can't remember if that was in the first game or not.

But my Fairy Pyro Jack just leveled up and his race skill changed from Glamour (team low heal + side benefit), to Fairy Dust (heal ALL teams + side benefit). Pretty awesome.

Just when I was about to fusion him away too... but might keep him around for a while now. Even if he gets under-leveled that's one hell of a skill.

EDIT: Yeah one of my Avians just got Flight into Winged Flight (+2 move instead of +1). This is definitely a nice reward for leveling up and keeping some demons around instead of always fusing ASAP.

Day 4 went down late last night. I'm actually overwhelmed with fusion possibilities. Gained 2 levels on the boss fight, and now have like 8 new demons to fuse. Seems like I hit a spot where a couple of the fate-unlocked demons are available on top of the normal 2-3 per level.

Really enjoying the story and characters still. No idea which ending I will pursue, although I hear there are 5 or 6? Guess there's lots of room for replays later.

Haha. So I'm level 37. A level 43, 4 or 5-star Mothman popped up for auction. I figured what the hell, I'd take a shot. A high level monster with Media, Devil Speed and most of all Endure! Plus Mazan since he had an extra star or two. Won him.

Then that triggered a special auction. With a level 46 Mothman. All of the above, plus Swift-Step, Anti-Fire, and Devil Speed upgraded to Devil Flash. Won that too.

Better to be lucky than good eh?

I don't know how I could fail the next couple of days now. I have a partner demon in two of my parties who gives me move, initiative, group heal, and can die once per battle and still endure. Hell yeah.

Stele, I'm concerned: are you still sleeping? Eating? Going outside?

Huh? Is outside where the sun is? It's hot there. :p

So what's the grind factor on this one? I've loved the gameplay of every SMT game I've played but never finish them because of the end-game bosses always seem to require more grind than I care for.
However I have a 60 dollar Best Buy certificate and I could see a portion of it going in this direction, as my DS has been gathering dust for a couple months.

Well I can't say anything about the final boss... but I haven't had to grind for anything through 6 days so far.

I do maybe 2-3 free battles a day I'd say. Mostly for skill cracks, not necessarily xp even.

Also it looks like the "finish before ME3" isn't likely to happen. I was doing a day per day until Sat... didn't finish Day 5 until Sun instead, and still not completely done with day 6 last night. Doubt I can get through that and all of 7 before midnight.

Oh... well I was stuck on day 6 for a while... and day 7 for another week or so. I did finish ME3, but I've just been dabbling in DS2 for 30-60 min at night before I sleep the last week or so. Finally hit day 8 a couple nights ago, and threw my DS in disgust when this one battle kicked my ass for the 3rd time.

Very difficult fight on early day 8. It was one of those 4 vs 10 things. And I kept getting swarmed by 3-4 different groups in a row and somehow that keeps pushing my turn down and before I ever get a chance to heal or revive my group I would be dead.

Juggled some things around and tried some different passives/autos, and finally plowed through it easily with only one group down. So I guess I'm in the home stretch now. Maybe a couple more nights and it will be done.

Still loving the fate system. Loving the characters. Having fun with the story. As for routes, I chose

Spoiler:

Anointed One

. Seems there are at least 4 routes to choose, and I had them all available. But one of the routes

Spoiler:

Dachi

has two different options based on the fate system. If I understand correctly, to get the special ending on that route you have to

Spoiler:

have everyone's fate at 4! Sadly I had 3 people still at 3 on day 7 and 3 already at 5, so I must have prioritized the wrong conversations during the week. I tried a couple times with my last 3-4 hours of that day to get everyone to 4, but a couple people didn't have any opportunities on that day. So I just gave up on that and figure I'll try it next time, assuming I play NG+.

ARGH! Wasted probably 2 hours on the last fight. Angry rant and mechanics spoilers ahead:

Spoiler:

Stupid fight is broken up into THREE phases. Sure I expected two. But earlier in the game when there was a two-fight-in-row-battle, the game restored your health/mana between phases. Not so in this fight! So I do have several mana-recovery powers and demons... but at this point where my save is, beginning the 3rd phase it's going to be impossible for me to ever win. One of my casters with recarm is OOM, and because of running OOM in the 2nd phase, I had to do an SDTP to revive and even beat that phase, which of course I thought was the end. I wouldn't have done it if I'd known there was another phase.

It's just so frustrating that the rules are going to change for this one fight. And even be different than the OTHER fight where the rules changed. Hell let me re-setup my powers between phases if you're not going to give me a refresh of health/mana. It just feels like the game is cheating and maybe I'm too old for this sh*t.

I know I sound like a grumpy old gamer but dammit. I don't want to have to read up on some spoiler walkthrough to know what's coming, but it's almost like they expect you to do this. No one could guess that this fight would have another wave and another wave and ignore the previous precedent of restoring your health/mana. It's breaking the rules established by the game in multiple ways. Not sure why designers think this sh*t is fun.

And really you call your game strategy... but then you purposely hide the enemies that you will really face, and don't actually give the player any chance to build a strategy. They build for what is on the field of battle and then you change the rules, spawn entirely different enemies... TWICE... and somehow think that's ok?! :mad:

Going to have to redo the whole thing.

And... done.

Much easier when I prepped properly for the last fight, knowing what was ahead.

Post-clear save made. Guess I'll do a NG+ sometime. Definitely fun, really like the characters more than I thought I would from some of the pre-game previews. If this game gets the Overclocked treatment I'd probably buy it again someday.