As a gamer, I have a certain type of game I love. Everyone does. I’m really not an FPS gamer, and I really can’t stand the modern military shooter branch of the genre. I can appreciate casual games in the way that sometimes my hands just need to do something, but they’re nowhere near my favorite. I don’t really have the time or money to get deeply invested into an MMORPG, or the attention span to keep playing it for too long. Even when I try a free one, it’s really hard to find people that want to completely be their characters that are around my level to fill my roleplaying fix. I like to lose myself in a character, and I really can’t do that in any of these games.
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| "Anyone want to have a meaningful discussion about the military industrial complex and the side effects into modern media? *gets killed* ".....I'll take that as a no." |
So what games do I actually like?
My favorite type of games are the quirky games with mysteries. Especially the story-driven sci-fi/modern fantasies of Japanese RPGs or ones with life simulation elements. I go into Final Fantasy frenzies, and can debate about what the perfect team makeup is in any of them. I have an extreme passion for Persona, and I’m looking into getting a PS Vita to fill the Dangan Ronpa-shaped hole in my life. Phoenix Wright was my pin-up boy. Harvest Moon is my ultimate guilty pleasure. I have the complete soundtrack to Kingdom Hearts on my iPod. I’m a sucker for great music, creative character design, good voice acting (don’t get me started on Titus), and compelling narratives. There are a few companies that really deliver on that, but only one has such a huge collection of non-episodic games that I’m proud to have in my library.
I love Atlus. I don’t think there’s been a single game of theirs that I haven’t loved. But I could never do a full review of one. Why? Well, it’s quite simple. There isn’t a single game of theirs that I’ve played that is under 80 hours. That’s just not reasonable to do in one week. But the first 5 hours? Yeah, that’s manageable and more than enough to get a good impression of a game.
So lets get started with the First 5 Hours of Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Soul Hackers.
1st Hour:
Alright, this plot looks like something I can get into. Apparently as the main character, you’re part of a hacker group called the Spookies, and you live in a futuristic city with built-in city wide internet access, including phone booths with computer terminals in them. A bit different, but I like Science Fiction. You even get to choose your own Hacker Handle, so that’s a nice touch.
Yay, fully voiced cutscenes! I admit I almost freaked out when I heard the Persona 4 Golden voice actor for Chie Satonaka, but it looks like she’ll be primarily a side character so it won’t be too distracting. Hopefully.
It took me a bit to get used to the map screen for moving around the city when you’re not logged into the virtual world, but once I realized that I was specifically moving my dot around the city and other dots were people I could talk to, it wasn’t so bad. The virtual world is done in full first person mode, and the controls are pretty easy to figure out. It was a bit annoying that I had to go to every open space first before being able to get into the game proper, but I’m sure I’ll have memorized the layout by the end. I wonder when I get my first demon?
2nd Hour:
Hello creepy lady dressed as Jack Frost, welcome to my nightmares. I know the Jack Frost design is worked into every Shin Megami Tensei game but I didn’t realize that they could make a cute little guy into a weird costume, and then add on the voice of the creepy too-into-their-job amusement park lady to create my new excuse for brain bleach. And apparently I’m not the only one, because of all of the characters in the series she is the only one I can’t find an image of online. Well done Atlus, well done.
Finally I get to see a familiar face! So in the Persona series, you can take on many fantasy or mythological creatures to be your strength. In the Devil Survivor series, those personas are known as demons, and they’re completely separate from your character. I actually really like the concept, because there is a massive amount of characters used as personas and each game would take forever to come out if they had to find over 100 new mythological figures and gods for every game. The first one I recognized was Leanan Sidhe, who has been a personal favorite of mine since Persona 3. I’m really excited, and want to make her one of mine since she’s one of the best healers in the game.
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| Never Change Leanan. We love your Sidhe-sass. |
There’s also something different about how they classify the demons/personas between the two games. Seeing as I’m used to them being classified with Tarot cards, it might take a bit of an adjustment for the demon classification.
Okay, so the story so far is pretty standard. There’s a virtual reality program being run by a corporation that everyone loves but is actually evil and has released demons into the world. But in this virtual reality, something also tries to devour your soul. And you get saved the first time by what I think is a wolf, who tells you to go on vision quests. And then you unleash a demon that possesses the body of obvious-love-interest. Now you try to defeat that company by binding demons to you to do your bidding. A pretty solid start, and hopefully Atlus pulls off the traditional Shin Megami Tensei plot-twist in a big way. Like maybe the cool, supportive dad is a big bad? I doubt it, but could be fun.
Hour Three:
So that first boss when you have no demons can take a lifetime. I literally got by only because I started to play around with the different battle features and found some demons that would actually join me on about my third try. Before that I figured out who was doing the major damage on the second try, dying again, and then focusing the damage dealer as hard as I could and then took the littler ones out. Dedicated healer was a must. Either way, it makes you freaking earn the “Survivor” part of the title.
I’m beginning to love how everyone else can’t tell how different Hitomi is when she’s possessed by Nemissa, because the avatars look so different and the attitude matches. They established that she does look different between the two forms, if only in coloration. Do all the NPCs think she has multiple personality disorder or something? Does hair and eye color just change at will in this world?
We are introduced to this game’s version of Igor, named Victor. Granted he doesn’t have the hook nose and dresses like a demonic ship captain, but they serve similar purposes. Atlus seems to have a fascination with demons in its games, and being able to interact with them. I mean, just on the games of theirs I can remember off the top of my head, we’ve got Devil Survivor’s Demons, Eternal Poision’s Falsin, and Persona’s Shadows. I mean I like it, but it really makes you wonder how it all got started.
Hour Four:
Cutest. Demon-Summoning App. Ever! Nemechi is an absolutely adorable ball of demon-buying power that uses souls to level up, but to collect those you have to streetpass people. That’s usually not much of a problem, except for the fact that I don’t know anyone else within walking distance that has a 3DS. It should be more workable if I take it to a convention though, so that’s a plan to level up that little cutie.
There’s this really annoying 5 problem quiz about Zodiac symbols that took me a few times to pass, just because I can’t memorize facts about 12 arbitrary constellations and what season they’re prominent in. I did finally get it, but it was more memorizing the 5 problems than actually studying them. And all of that was to unlock a door. Yes, just a door.
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| Learn to hate him. All of my hate. |
The boss battle after that was actually interesting though, and took up most of the rest of this hour and some of the next. He was really tough, not going to lie. I died, went to level up more, died again, did more grinding, died a third time, then grinded until I hit level 25. Then I finally won. Victory at last!
Hour Five-ish Seven:
Okay, the grind took longer than expected. Still won though! Ish. My demon/girlfriend disappeared when another demon tried to hitch a ride with her body. Again. But I won!
And that was the first five or so hours of Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Soul Hackers! Would I recommend it?
Well it’s not the best Atlus game I’ve ever played, but that’s a very high standard. If you like your RPGs science-fiction based and don’t mind figuring out most game functions yourself, it’s pretty good. Think Netrunners meets Persona 3. A fun concept, and not one I’ve played before in an Atlus title.
I guess when it comes to Atlus games you have to go with franchises to know what will work for you best. If you want fantasy, stick to Eternal Poison or the lighter Etrian Odyssey series. Persona is a good mix of normality and surrealism with a similar setting, but much lighter themes than the original Shin Megami Tensei series.
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| Yes, even next to Persona 3 |
Which means the Devil Survivor series seems to be the one based most on sci-fi concepts and based in the not-too-distant future. If virtual worlds where you can essentially live a second life are already real, how often do you think it could spill into the world we consider reality? Or a better question, how much does it do that already?
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to make sure a virtual world doesn’t suck out the collective souls of an entire city with my possessed girlfriend.
And don’t forget to email me at activelynerdy@gmail.com with any questions you have for the 3 Month Anniversary Q&A! It doesn’t matter what you’re Nerdy about, as long as you’re Active.
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