Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner
Devil summoning may sound wicked, but this game is pretty good!
Tags: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Categories: PS2 Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Craig "American Idle" Hansen on Oct 30th, 2006
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner (title page) | 1 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Role-Playing | No | ||
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Shin Megami Tensei, as a series, made its biggest splash ever last year with the two-part epic, Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2, was released to broad critical acclaim and really decent sales numbers. Now, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner is the first new installment in the SMT series since that landmark release, and the pressure is on to live up to the legacy Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2 established.
By and large, the game does not disappoint. The game’s subtitle is “Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army,” and that pretty much explains the concept of the game. Although you get to name your character, through a series of tests that serve was a pre-game tutorial, you earn the title of Raidou Kuzunoha, the 14th in a line of devil summoners who beat back the demonic forces that seek to wreck havoc on the world of normal humans.
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Raidou is quickly assigned to work in Japan at a detective agency, where the first of several paranormal cases soon presents itself, setting up the storyline that builds throughout the game. Set in a 1930s-style, film noir-esque take on Japan, Raidou is initially charged with the task of recovering a girl who was kidnapped while he and his detective partner were having a first meeting with her as a potential client.
The look and style of the game is pure Shin Megami Tensei, stylized and moody, but somehow looking a bit more advanced than even last year’s SMT:DDS games. While the game features an action-oriented battle system, compared to the turn-based system in previous SMT games, the battle system is not as revolutionary is pre-release footage of the game made it appear.
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While pre-release footage suggested a game in which you walk up to enemies and immediately start fighting them, that’s not the case in the final game. Instead, you walk up to enemies, there is a transition into a battle screen, and then you begin fighting it out in real-time action mode from there. So unlike Elder Scrolls Oblivion or the system that seems to be promised by the forthcoming Final Fantasy XII, there is that interruption for a transition to a battle stage in SMT:DS, rather than a no-interruption real-time battle system.
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Still, the battle system is fun and addictive, allowing you to slug out out hardcore, while offering you a menu to command your summoned creatures, heal yourself or do other non-fighting tasks. Having that menu will make the game feel a bit more friendly to turn-based fans, but won’t annoy action-RPG fans since you’ll only access the menu when you need it, not encounter it every time you want to attack a foe. This speeds up the pace of battles and adds some perceived energy and excitement to the game play.
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The game also incorporates elements from Final Fantasy VII’s chocobo-raising minigame, Monster Rancher, Pokemon and Jade Cocoon by offering Raidou a chance to capture monsters he encounters, build trust with them in battle, and ultimately combine them into all-new, more powerful monsters. It’s an element that extends the appeal of the game and keeps you going even as the base combat system veers a bit too close to becoming repetitive. This is made worse by the fact that the game has almost no voice acting in it at all; in an era where most RPGs are largely voice acted, this oversight lends the game a definite “throwback” feel.
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Raidou and the other characters in the game come off as a bit flat at first, but once the game’s story gets rolling, that situation is corrected, as the characters gain depth as the story moves forward. Some may fault the pacing, but with plenty of story to unravel, holding off on some of the back story until later in the game actually works to get the good stuff – the action – sooner. That, for many gamers, is preferable to the approach games like the XenoSaga series takes, which tosses sometimes as much as an hour of story segments at the gamer between battles in the early going.
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Also, much like previous Shin Megami Tensei games, Devil Summoner is no pushover game. The battles are hard and you’ll need to have plenty of supplies for healing and restoring magic points to get through most of them. Of course, that’s not to say the game is unfair or imbalanced; the challenge level goes up in boss battles and scales up well over the course of the game; but unlike some other RPGs, the game is not filled with tons of battles with extremely weak enemies. You must play well to defeat them.
The summoned demons play an important role not only in battle, but in the rest of the game as well. One of them is important early in the game because it has the ability to read the thoughts of NPCs who would otherwise not be willing to reveal all they know. Others can help you solve puzzles, knock down barriers and otherwise aid you in your quest in multiple ways.
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SMT:DS fills up over 30 hours of game time, divided into 12 chapters, which is about average for the series but a bit short on average for an RPG; of course, with a slower turn-based battle system, those 30 hours could have been stretched into the 40+ range easily, so that’s another thing to keep in mind. Consider the shorter length to be a benefit of streamlined game play, rather than any shortcomings on the story front.
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In the end, though, while Devil Summoner delivers a solid story with a typical dark slant, it simply isn’t as innovative or appealing in its storyline as last year’s darkly disturbing, cannibalism-themed Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2. Devil Summoner earns its M-rating, for sure, but with only Raidou as a main character, there are fewer others for him to play off. The ensemble cast gave more dramatic punch to DDS1&2.
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Also, there are far more “cutesy” demons in DS than in previous SMT games, skewing the game from its normally serious tone to a lighter touch than SMT fans may be accustomed to. While this difference does not make Devil Summoner a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, it does mean Devil Summoner falls a bit short of the benchmark set by DDS1&2. As a side note, Atlus has a PSP version of its Devil Summoner game that’s due to be released in Japan this holiday season, but so far no plans for a US release have been announced.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
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+ New action-style battle system adds energy, excitement and speed to the game. + It's fun to gather and “synthesize” demons. + Game's graphics are a step up. |
8.5 |
| What Doesn't | |
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– Story tone isn't as darkly morose as previous installments, thanks in part to “cute” demons. – Featuring virtually no voice acting at all, the game feels like a silent film in the talkie era. – Final form of the battle system doesn't quite live up to pre-release footage; there's still a transition into a battle screen. |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| A solid, if silent, installment in the critically-acclaimed Shin Megami Tensei series, Devil Summoner delivers the goods but falls short of greatness. | |
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Tags: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner
Posted by Craig "American Idle" Hansen on Oct 30th, 2006 and is filed under PS2 Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
