Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga (PS2)

I'm going to try and aim this review at both people who have and haven't played this games predecessor, Lucifer's Call. If you have played that game you are pretty much completely clued up in regards to what to expect...I'll get on to the differences later. If you haven't played Lucifer's Call...my advice is to play that first. Although the stories aren't connected in any way, I simply think LC is the better of the two. And it will get you used to all the customs and mythology that the Shin Megami Tensei series seems to be built around.

In Digital Devil Saga you are Serph, leader of a small band of rogues who live in a post-apocalyptic world of constantly warring "tribes" who exist and fight according to strict codes and rules of allegiance. As is customary in RPGs, a world-changing event is about to happen that throws all the tribes into turnoil, and in this game it is the sudden appearance of a black haired girl called Sera (which causes a sensation because nobody in the world has ever had black hair before), who every tribe suddenly wants to kidnap after hearing that, for some mysterious reason, she alone can unlock a forbidden (or formerly unreachable) place known only as Nirvana.

Anyway, enough of the plot. It becomes clear early on that the player is in for traditional turn based battles, and I'm glad to say the superior "press turns" system from Lucifers Call (in which you gain extra battle turns by knowing which attacks best exploit your enemies weaknesses - and likewise, the enemies also do the same with your weaknesses) is still in effect. What's different from most RPGs is that everybody in this world has a demon "alter ego" and for every battle, you will see your characters with a completely different physical appearance, usually with lots of teeth, spikes and claws. This kind of de-personalised the battles for me as it was visually just a load of monsters against monsters, but story-wise it does have some importance. Apart from that, you'll find yourself in pretty linear territory and with little room for deviation with regard to where you go after finishing each dungeon, and what you do next. What struck me most on playing was the surprisingly small scale of the game as a whole. There are only five tribes in this world, so I expected lots of twists in the story, but once the enemy tribe leaders are all thwarted in their efforts to seize Sera from you, the game is all but over, and you only have one other thing left to do, which is to take her with you and see what this so-called Nirvana is really about. Now there's a very obvious reason for this brevitiy, but it's not a very encouraging one - the game is designed very specifically to be Part One of a two game series. So if you choose to buy it, be prepared for much of the plot to be unresolved at the end, and to have to go and get Part Two to finish the story. Knowing this, I kind of expected a mammoth storyline that simply went on and on, but in reality, I think DDS1 only has about half the gameplay time of some other one disc games out there anyway, so the need to sell it in two parts seemed a bit greedy to me. It was definitely over sooner than I expected.

Now onto the next drawbacks, but these ones will only really hit gamers who played and enjoyed Lucifers Call (that's me, then). The demon recruitment system, which let you add any monster you met in battle to your own team of playable characters, is gone, which means no more fantastic variety of team members to play with. The monsters you fight agaisnt are all familiar faces from that game though, so expect to encounter those pesky physical-immune elephants (Girimehkala), and the death spell-happy goat demons (Baphomet), as well as several new faces. But on your side of things, Digital Devil Saga has a mere five members, which is low among RPGs anyway, and compared to Lucifer's Call, it seems very tame.

All the battle skills and spells still exist, along with the same unidentifiable names (Tenterafoo? Pulpina? Me Patra?), but to obtain the really good ones is much, MUCH harder work now, simply because they have to be paid for with money, and the top of the range spells like Debilitate, Dekunda, Megidolaon etc, cost massive amounts of cash, and you still have to buy and work through all the spells on the pathway to the top end (the skills are only for sale in a pre-set order, the weakest must be learned first before each next level becomes available).

Now I know in most RPGs this is the norm, and I don't mind some serious levelling up to unlock the best skills. But here, every single top skill comes at the very end of all the other skill sets, and you will most likely reach the end of the game with several pathways nowhere near finished - unless you do nothing but grind away so that all the required experience and cash gets earned. Of course, the idea is to extend replay value...I realised this as soon as I read on the web that the "clear game" mode starts you off on a replay with all mastered skill still saved, so after two or maybe even three playthroughs, you might just have learned all the really good skills that there are...phew! Sorry but that's not for me. And not even after seeing that many of my favourite basic safety support abilities like Null Death and Null Expel come way up at the top of the list. Actually, that in itself makes the game much harder that Lucifer's Call, as you have to do a lot of battling against enemies who cast all those mean spells like Hama and Mudo before you'll ever reach the abilities that protect you from them. Ok, you do get spells that cast shields against these attacks, but I wanted the permanent immunities!

This leads me to my other gripe - this being that with all 5 characters, the shopping list of skills is the same for everybody. One giant grid (a lot like the sphere grid in Final Fantasy X) shows you which paths lead to which skills. So individual character has little to do with how you deploy the skills of your team, you can make anyone into anything. Although the five characters do come pre-loaded with a definite slant (Argilla will always be the best magic caster and Heat the strongest physical attacker, etc), it's nothing like the array of abilities that the "cast of thousands" in Lucifer's Call had, giving you there the huge scope for a custom team with some real personality in it. I was very proud of my final, boss-beating line up in Lucifer's Call, but in this game everyone's going to be exactly the same at the end of the story as they were at the beginning, just with more HP and improved spells. OK, I know thats the case in most RPGs...it just goes to show how memorable Lucifer's Call really was. I'll tell you one major improvement though: you no longer have to permanently delete skills to learn new ones - hooray!

The look of the game, however is wonderful. A step up from Lucifer's Call, but still with the same anime style, except that now the graphics are even better. Thankfully they have improved on the drab locations that seemd to be repeated to infinity in that game, and some of the dungeons are now quite stunning - although they still repeat interiors over and over again for all the rooms and chambers in each dungeon! And now the characters finally have spoken dialogue. This is great, and it makes them all seem really alive, despite a very dodgy "Jamaican" accent given to one of them.

So in summary, a shorter game and with sadly less innovations than Lucifer's Call. But it looks better and it's definitely still in that league. And it actually has a better story - all the stuff about The Conception and choosing a Reason kind of went over my head last time, I'm sorry to say! So is that enough? I'd say buy Lucifer's Call first and then get this one if you want more. Although you have to buy Part Two as well afterwards...

Digital Davil Saga is another brilliant RPG in this series which I have again got addicted to! You play as the head of your Tribe - Serph - in the Junkyard. You and your tribe follow the story as to why you have now all become part demons with lots of fighting along the way. There are 5 characters to control and you have to decide what skills you wish them to learn with Mantras.

The story is brilliant and the ending has a bit of a cliffhanger as this is the first of a two part game. The game takes about 30-40 hours to play depending if you do the side quests etc. When you play the game over again all your previous mastered mantras are passed over into a new game adding good replay value.

If you liked Lucifers call, then you will definately like this. I can't wait for Digital Devil Saga 2 to be released over here! This is a superb RPG - Buy it now!!

I paid £35+ for this when it first came out,and I don't regret it one bit. It is a very deep game and is different to persona. In this game,and the second,you get random encounters,and instea of getting new demons(personas) you have one. The customisation is great. You can get different ammo for human form,and different itesm for demon. You can also choose to give all magic types to every character. The game does need a little grinding at times,but this isn't long.

This game is well worth this discounted price. And you can buy this,and the second one for less the £20!

Buy both games. You won't regret it