Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2 - Record Breaker (2015)

Shin megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker is the remake and remaster of the Nintendo DS classic perfect for those looking for a new franchise to get into as well fans looking to relive their original cult classic in a new light. As someone who has never played Shin Megami Tensei before, bear with me as I do my best to share my impressions of this, quite long and hard, Nintendo 3DS game. I absolutely had no idea what to expect with Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker, but from what I was able to play so far I was quite impressed.

The game starts off in an innocent pre-apocalypse schoolground where you casually chat with your friend Daichi. The opening of the game didn't give me a good impression, honestly. It felt incredibly innocent and childish but it was all forgiven when I discovered it was all a ruse for a much deeper and darker video game. It's not long until Nicea is introduced, a company who've created a website to host videos of death. But not your average "see a mexican decapitated on the darkweb" site, it shows you videos of your registered friends' deaths from the future. And it's not too long into the game until you see your own. The game quickly takes the "if we see it we can prevent it" course of action and you're able to prevent your own death at the cost of fighting demons. I admit, it doesn't sound like rainbows and sunshine however the game quickly gets intense and fun as soon as you possess the demon summoning app which is the start of the entire adventure. An adventure full of death, despair, loyalty hijinks and unexpected twists and turns. For a game with innocent 18 year olds as it's surface layer, it goes much much deeper and darker.

As mentioned before, Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker awards you with an Demon Summoning App early on in the game which is how you acquire and compete with various demons throughout the game in a fashion similar to Pokemon. The whole game from the player perspective is through the "cell phone" app GUI, a nice modernization that's familar to everyone in the world. At first the Demon Summoning app is the only one you acquire, but periodically you unlock more and more apps throughout the game. All your basic utilities are done through the game's cell phone GUI including a Demon Auction, Fate System, saving and more. In the Demon Auction, players can periodically visit between missions to purchase new demons for their roster, instead of having to horrendously farm battles to capture new ones in similar games such as Pokemon. Unfortunately, the Demon Auction is all AI and not online, so you cannot sell or trade your demons with other players across the world. Another disappointment is that you cannot sell your demons even to the AI, so the only way to free up room (from a hard limit of 27) is to delete demons from your Summoning App. Along with Demon Summoning, players can check Mail periodically. Here they'll find their repeatable DLC missions, news from Nicea and much more. Another app included in the game is the Fate System, a unique system that builds your relationships with other characters to provide boosts. In other games such as Mass Effect and Telltale, building relationships with characters provide story benefits such as loyalty missions to help make later missions easier or branching story changes. Instead, Shin Megami Tensei presents you with battle-ready bonuses such as shared Skill Crack, which is incredibly useful in combat.

Speaking of combat, Devil Survivor 2 doesn't necessarily add anything new to the genre, but it does stay refreshing at least for the first 20 hours of the game. Going into my first few battles with rival demons, I felt the game was a bit too easy, yet still refreshing. It does everything right that other games do wrong when it comes to Turn-based combat. It also correctly integrates strategy-esque movement into combat, allowing you to walk around the battlefield and engage with different foes. Upon walking up to an enemy in combat, you can initiate battle with them where each side gets one turn to pick attacks or abilities. Special attacks or criticals among other conditions earn you an Extra Turn to apply even more devastating damage to your opponent with the possibility of them being unable to retaliate. You can earn skills for your player and party members by using the Skill Crack ability and beating targeted demons for them to empower your party and player for better builds and survivability. However, you demons are also very important to the battle as well so making sure they're top tier is also an important by farming "Free Battles". Fusing demons via the app also lets you combine skills with a mix and match system of two demons and breed and all new and more powerful one to level up maximizing your potential in combat. Whilst the game holds your hand early on, as soon as the first "mega" boss fight starts up, it unrelentlessly lets go of your hand as you painfully fall down a cliff of difficulty struggling in battle to keep up. Hard battles include multiple spawning waves of demons until you can defeat the mega boss as well as the tradition of hiding their HP with question marks. Progressing through the game where enemies get more and more terrorizing abilities only makes it harder and yet oddly more fun. The game allows you to keep all earn Mecca, skills and other earned items in-battle after death, which is how I was able to progressively beat a boss after a week of being stuck against one and not letting my 3DS drain its battery.

Overall, with over 50 hours of content, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker is an incredible addition the the 3DS library that may be overlooked by the mainstream. Whether you're a newcomer to the franchise like me or a hardcore fan of the cult series, this game will definitely pack a new experience for everyone with solid voice acting, two campaigns and just overall great fun that is very rare with the 3DS library. As a newcomer to the franchise, all I know is that I'm pumped to try out more content from the SMT series as they periodically release more games. Atlus games have crafted a fantastic great piece of work with very few flaws and should be very proud of themselves.