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dkirschner's Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon (PS2)
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| [November 11, 2012 10:35:37 AM]
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Played a ton of short games the last 2 weeks and want to write something about them. Short meaning <10 hours. So here comes a flood of quick and unedited posts about whatever comes to mind at present.
This one I stopped after like 5 or 6. I couldn't take the combat system. I'd been playing Bayonetta, which is a really fast-paced action game, and then I (perhaps poorly) chose to play Devil Summoner 2. It also has an action combat system, but it's unbelievably slow, boring and monotonous. I almost always enjoy turn-based RPGs better than the action variety, but this one didn't do it for me. Another reason it fell flat is probably due to my playing Nocturne a couple months ago, so once I began the demon acquisition process common to all SMT games, I was sort of like, "...again?" I was very much anticipating this game though because I've developed a real liking for SMT games. I never played Devil Summoner 1 because it's always like $80 on ebay. This purchase actually was an accident. I thought it was Devil Summoner 1 for like $25, but I misread and it was actually Devil Summoner 2. Then it sat on my shelf forever while I hoped to find a cheap copy of the first. Unpossible!
So that combat system. It goes like this: o o o o. o o o o o. o o o o . o o o o. triangle. Boring, right? The o button is your basic attack, and you just button mash it to do some combo. That's pretty much it. Triangle is your special attack, which as far as I played, looks like it'll be the same one attack forever. It uses MAG, which is like mana. You can replenish MAG throughout the fight by exploiting enemy weaknesses in typical SMT fashion. Hit 'em while they're down and get more MAG. Now, the name of the game is Devil Summoner, so you can imagine that you summon devils, or demons, also in typical SMT fashion. Except in this game, they run around the battlefield with you. You can switch them in and out during battle or set 2 to be summoned by default once battle starts. You set your demons' skills. You can set one to autorepeat so they'll just do that by default. Then you can bring up the command menu during battle to give them a different command. They'll carry out that one, then go back to the default action. Their special attacks use MAG too, so the more you use powerful attacks exploit enemy weaknesses, the more powerful attacks you can use. It's a neat idea. So besides o and triangle, you run with the left stick, dodge with x + direction, block with r1, and teleport your demons out of harm's way with r2. But again, battles mostly consist of ooooooo. My thumb got a serious workout.
The story is intriguing. You're some kind of supernatural detective (not quite sure about the finer points here) and you set off to find some guy for some daughter of a wealthy politician. You get closer and closer to him until you find a guy who definitely has some ties. Except this guy has mixed himself up in the demon world. He's a gambler, uncannily lucky, draws hopefuls to him, drains their luck, and turns them into his personal demon slaves in the demon world. And some men from a mysterious organization cast a spell on me and I had to fight my way out of some kind of delusional maze within my mind. Weird stuff.
While solving cases, the demons you recruit help you along the way. They have 'races' or whatever like usual (Pyro, Frost, Pagan, etc.) that, in addition to having the usual spread of combat abilities, also have investigation abilities. So the Wind type can use these special jet streams on the map to teleport you to new areas. The Fury type can enrage and break rocks and things in your path. The Pagan (or Pixie, don't remember!) can read NPCs' minds to get extra information. You *must* use your demons in order to solve cases. You need specific demons for specific things, so it's wise to keep one of each type on hand at all times. I didn't like this necessity, since in my short play time, I came up short twice when I arrived somewhere and realized I didn't have the proper demon I needed to continue, so I had to go back and grind to find one to recruit. It was irritating, and I wasn't looking forward to having to keep one of every type in my stash at all times just in case. When you fuse, you merge two demons into a new one. That almost always results in two demon types going bye-bye and the new demon being a redundancy in terms of type. Then you must go grind and replace the types that you just fused...
Also, somehow this game seems more 'kiddie' than other SMT games...I don't know how to explain why. Maybe it has to do with the expanded demon negotiation and the fact that most of the demons look young or talk like children.
Think that's about it. Actually sad to not get more story, but didn't like the combat, which is death for an RPG. I did order Persona 4 off eBay recently, so no more SMT games until that one, and I'll put it way at the bottom of my list to play.
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dkirschner's Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon (PS2)
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Current Status: Stopped playing - Got Bored
GameLog started on: Tuesday 6 November, 2012
GameLog closed on: Sunday 11 November, 2012 |
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This is the only GameLog for Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon. |
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