Keep in mind that I only played through 1 route (Gin's route because he's the coolest), so I won't go in too much detail in terms of story line. Also, I played Devil Survivor 2 before playing this one so I'll be comparing the 2 throughout the review.
Devil Survivor is a strategy-rpg for the Nintendo DS and is a spinoff of the Shin Megami Tensei series for the Nintendo DS. The game combines strategic gameplay with tradition turn based combat. The gameplay is unique and the story is very good (probably better than the second one).
The story starts off with the protagonist (I'll call him Hero), and his 2 best friends, Atsuro and Yuzu, meeting up to see Hero's cousin Naoya. Naoya ends up being a no-show and instead gives Atsuro 3 devices called COMPs (Which happen to look like DSs). The COMPs turn out to be locked so Atsuro decides to unlock them using his super-awesome computer skills. He was only able to enable the messaging system and finds out that the 3 COMPs all have the same message which displays events that are supposed to happen throughout the day, all of them associated with someone dying. The 3 teens disbelieve what the email says and Atsuro goes off to try to enable the rest of the COMPs functions. He later meets up with the Heo and Yuzu later on and tells them that he managed to unlock the rest of the COMPs functions. He gives out the other 2 COMPs and they all start them up at the same time, but what happens next is not what they expect. Demons come out of the COMPs and begin attack the teens. Although they expected to be powerless, they managed to defeat the demons. When they were defeated, the demons said they are now under their control. It turns out that the COMPs are capable of summoning and storing demons. The teens are shocked and decide to try and go home only to find out that all of Tokyo is under a lockdown. The government says it because of a serious gas leak in the subway system but the teens don't believe it. They soon find out that there are demons running around the city and the only way for them to survive is to kill them with their demons. Now Hero, Atsuro, and Yuzu, are desperately trying to survive the demon invasion while finding out a way to escape the mysterious lockdown.
I really like the story of this game because it gives off a feeling of desperation while the second game's story gives off a feeling of ambition. This game revolves around surviving the lockdown while the second game's story revolves more around on saving the world (kind of generic but the game pulls it off well). Although I like both stories, I prefer this story just a bit more only because it has a darker feel to it :P
A thing to note about this game's story (and the 2nd game's story), is that there are multiple endings. The ending you decide to choose determines how you will end the lockdown. The endings you will be able to choose are based on the decisions you make and the characters you decide to talk to. There are about 5(?) endings so expect to run through the game a few times if you want to experience the entire story ;) Unlike the 2nd game, there is no True Ending, so don't assume one ending is more correct than another.
The characters in this game are all interesting and loveable. The one thing that bugs me though is that there seems to be less character development in this game than the second one, probably due to the fact that the second game had a Fate System. Despite this, all of the characters are unique and there is no "twin personalities", well, except for the NPCs. One of the cool things about the protagonist is that he is essentially a blank slate. In other words, you have full control over his stats, and the decisions he makes, which in turn affects what kind of personality he has. Although his personality has no real impact on gameplay (except for the fact that it determines what ending you get), it affects the story quite a bit, giving you more control on how the story goes.
Now for the most important part of a game, gameplay. The game is split into 2 parts: exploration and combat (and combat is split into 2 more parts XD). Exploration is where you are able to fuse demons, manage your teams, buy more demons, and pick different scenes. While exploring, you need to keep in mind that scenes and battles all take up 30 minutes of in game time, and that certain scenes can only be viewed before or after certain times. So you'll pick which scene you want to view carefully and prioritize depending on the ending you want. Exploring is pretty straight forward, you scroll through the list of areas (all of which are actual places in Tokyo) and watch the scenes you want. There are also scenes that have battle associated with them, which is what I'll talk about next.
Before the actual battle starts, you are able to do some last minute preparations. You can edit your team, their skills, position them on the map, and also set up Skill Cracks. You are allowed to have only 4 characters participate in a battle. Each character is assigned to a "team" which has 2 other demons. So each character is essentially in control of a team of 2 demons. A Skill Crack is when you choose a specific skill that an enemy has and associate it with one of your teams. When a team defeats that enemy, you "Crack" the skill and can assign it to your characters. This serves as the only way to attain new skills.
As I said before, combat is split into 2 parts. The first part is the strategy portion. This is where you tell your teams where to go and who to attack. This is similar to Fire Emblem in the sense that you tell each team to attack specific enemies. When you order an attack, you enter the battle portion of combat. This portion plays like the classic Final Fantasy games. You tell your team which skills to use and who to attack and the faster characters move first. The battle ends when a team's leader dies or when all characters attack. This game also features an extra turn system which is supposedly similar to SMT: Nocturne's Press Turn System. What this is is whenever you score a critical hit or exploit an enemies weakness, you have a chance to gain an extra turn. Normally, you can only attack once per turn, but if you get an extra turn, you can attack once more, however you can only use your extra turn after everyone else has made their move. This adds an incentive to exploit weaknesses whenever you can.
The gameplay is really unique because is combines 2 different kinds of battle systems and mixes them together to feel like a completely different genre. There isn't really much to compare to the second game because they both play the same. The only difference is that Devil Survivor 2 features a Joint-Skill Crack system which makes it easier to get skills. Thus, I shall choose DeSu 2's battle system over the first one :P.
Lastly is the music. I'll try to make this part short. The music in the game has a heavier feel than the second game and a lot of the tracks are influenced by metal, which is good because it makes battles feel more epic :D Although there are a lot of good songs, there are some songs that I don't like very much (Aggressive Tune). The OST as a whole is very well done, but I prefer DeSu 2's OST more.
Story - 10/10 (Love it)
Gameplay - 9/10 (Amazing with very few complaints)
Music - 8/10 (Love the whole "metal" vibe, but some of the track I just don' like)
Replay-ability - 9/10 (5 endings. The New Game+ feature felt pretty rushed though)
Overall - 9/10
I loved this game a lot and it's definitely worth playing if you have a DS. There's also a 3DS remake of the game called Devil Survivor Overclocked which added some of the features that were in the second game, and also adds extra content.
In order from favourite to least favourite:
Overclocked > Devil Survivor 2 > Devil Survivor
Gonna blog about my adventures through China Dragon Nest soon ^-^
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