Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga Review

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(More customer reviews)Having played most of the RPGs out on all three console systems, I had been looking into another time waster RPG that I could play that would not only keep me entertained gameplay-wise but also story-wise.There was a series I kept hearing about, Shin Megami Tensei.Two games have been released not even 8 months apart from each other, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne and now Digital Devil Saga.I quickly bought both.One I loved, the other not so much.

As it turns out, I tried playing Nocturne first and was completely and utterly frustrated at some design choices in the game.Not only that, but the story didn't seem to be going anywhere, so I quit playing it.I decided to give the Shin Megami series a second chance and tried Digital Devil Saga.All of my complaints of the first game were completely addressed in this game.

Let's start with the story.Digital Devil Saga incorporates a very dark story involving demons and human nature and computers into a wonderful package.The strengths of its story not only lie in the huge events that propel it along but also in some subtle areas.Character reactions that seem a bit over the top in the beginning make perfect sense the more you think about it.SPOILER: it's like the characters are experiencing feelings for the first time and therefore all of their actions and reactions may seem over the top because they are experiencing this heightened feeling for the first time.The story continues up to a climax that leaves the game hanging.Good thing the sequel comes out in August.

Another positive is that you are playing with static characters, humans who can transform into demons.These characters allow more a story format to follow since you have a full party that talks and acts on their own.It's also nice not to have to worry about screwing the characters up (like you could in the fusion system of Nocturne).

And this is a good thing because the combat system in DDS is exactly like in Nocturne.It's based on strength and weaknesses.Every character in the game (save for some bosses) have strengths and weaknesses and it is through manipulating these weaknesses that you can win battles.For instance, if a monster is weak against fire, you want to use fire on him not only to do more damage but to also give you an extra turn to attack.Each character gets one action but by using a weakness, the character only uses 1/2 of their action points.Conversely, enemies can use your weaknesses against you.It's here that you want to combat that.If they use an ability a character is strong against, it takes away their turns.By manipulating strengths and weaknesses, you can control the tide of battle.

I also like what they did with the abilities.Whereas in Nocturne, if you took a new ability you had to effectively forget another ability and it was lost forever, DDS fixes this by allowing you to learn abilities then giving you slots to choose which ones to equip.That way you never fret over having to "forget" an ability which might be the only key to your success later on.It seems like such a small thing, but the ability to customize your characters to battles really helps the game move along.

Speaking of abilities, DDS uses a system much like the sphere grid in FFX.Each character starts with certain abilities already learned from Mantras, and by learning beginning Mantras, you open up paths to bigger and better Mantras.You download Mantras from Terminals for Macha (the monetary system) and by winning battles you gain AP used to learn each Mantra.Afterwards, you can equip learned abilities how you see fit.This gives you a much more rewarding customization option than seen in Nocturne.

The graphic style is also like Nocturne and is real interesting to me.And the art style is also intriguing, the demon designs are inspired, especially the demon you and your friends can turn into.The music is pretty decent (you get the soundtrack album with the purchase) and the voice acting is decent.Once I realized why the characters were over-emphasizing every little emotion they have I appreciated it much more.In the beginning, it is a little jarring because they are talking about emotions in such a heightened, over the top, roll your eyes way.But it's all for a point.

I know that in my review I kept referencing Nocturne.I can't help it.The two games are so intertwined on so many levels that comparisons are impossible to miss.I also bring it up because there might be other players out there like me who couldn't really get into Nocturne and are on the fence with this game because of it.I think if you are new to the Shin Megami Tensei series and want to get your feet wet, try this game before you try (if you even want to try) Nocturne.It is more in line with a traditional RPG format.I will say that DDS is a truly exceptional RPG game with a dark and mature story that brings to life questions about humanity.And it solves all of the problems I had with Nocturne (you can see my review on Nocturne to see what I mean).Not only does it fix problems in Nocturne, but it stands in line with what are considered the pillars of the console RPG community.An excellent adventure with fun gameplay.If you like RPGs you should definitely give this one a try.

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Product Description:
Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga collects the Digital Devil games that redefined role-playing in Japan, and updates them for an all-new experience and a new audience. You are seeking the path to Nirvana when you develop the power to change into a demon. Use this power to defeat your enemies and build up enough to storm Nirvana and earn a place in paradise.Discover special link attacks to unleash the power of your party

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Shadow Hearts: Covenant Review

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(More customer reviews)Until the release of Shadow Hearts II - Covenant, 2004 has been a very dry year for fantasy gamers.Not that there have ever been a really good year for the genre, Fantasy RPG games.Good fantasy of the class of the Final Fantasy series is difficult and costly to produce, and somply doesn't have the market share that other types of games command.Which is why Covenant is such a surprise.

The original Shadow Hearts was a strong, gothic game featuring Yuri and Alice as their adventures sprawled across Asia and Europe.A solid plot, interesting battle system and good art and animation made the game into a closet success.It wasn't as great as the FFX 10's and lacked the addictive play of the .hack series.But it was a game well worth playing.

Covenant, which picks up the story of Yuri after the death of Alice is an order of magnitude better.The plot, which fills two disks is full of intricate twists and turns as Yuri and a pretty German lieutenant (Karin) start a journey to find a new evil that is leading early 20th century Europe into war.These to gradually accumulate a glittering cast that includes Geppetto, his doll Cornelia, Joachim the vampire wrestler, a Russian princess, a white wolf and even more. The go from France to England and Russia and then back to Japan as well.In this huge geography the cast unearths layer after layer of evil.Each time the apparent cause is defeated another is found to be pulling the strings.

All of the characters come to life thanks to an excellent script and use of cut scene.Each gets to star, but Joachim steals the show with a genuinely funny performance. Pompous, perpetually showing of his muscles and still genuinely likeable, he has a knack for using things like frozen tuna and skyscrapers as weapons.And each time he discovers one we get a new comical cut scenes.But all of the characters have surprising wit and warmth, and each has their own panoply of accessories, special skills, and weapons.Most of the subplots of the game involve character improvement.

Art and animation are in keeping with the level of the plot.Hours of cut scenes, many remarkable settings, and a huge cast of villains and monsters keep your eyes on the scene, often desperately looking for the next magical item needed to advance the plot and clues to the next puzzle.

The fighting system uses a wheel with sensitive areas.You have to strike the areas to initiate an attack.It quickly becomes intuitive, and the player can tune the wheel to enable various feats and displays of skill.Expect your right thumb to get a serious workout.

This game comes in a very close second to the best of Final Fantasy.Certainly, if you like the one, you will like the other as well.I managed to get completely distracted by Covenant for something like 90 hours.You can finish in less, but the subplots are an important part of the game - winning is less important to me than taking the grand tour.If you've been waiting for something worth spending money on, this is it.Be warned, the dialog is a bit bawdy - definitely teen and up.

On replay -

I was surprised how well the game held up the second time through.this time I played through Shadow Hearts 1 and the through Covenant.Be warned, while the Japanese version does know that a completed first game was on the card, the US version doesn't seem to.In neither case does Covenant recognise that a player actually managed to get to the 'good' ending of SH1.Neither of these are biggies, though.On this time through I was in better control of the complex play system and managed to run a fairly logical game without a lot of backtracking.

Again I was struck by the high level of story telling, and by the amount of innuendo (and worse).This is a game that really is appealing to someone looking for a richer experience than other RPG's offer.

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Product Description:
Shadow Hearts 2: Covenant is a deep, engaging strategy role-player that continues the story of the original Shadow hearts. In this sequel, World War I has started, and a cult has used the chaos to further their own ambitions. Yuri, the hero of the first game, will explore his new powers as he fights this new evil. An engaging strategy epic where you try to survive battles against secret cults and powerful, mysterious wizards.

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Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne Review

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(More customer reviews)Nocturne is one of the most interesting (both plot and gameplay-wise) RPGs I have ever played.Having borrowed a successful monster collecting formula from Pokemon, and a plot line out of a horror movie, this game definitely monopolized my attention over some other recent RPGs.

Nocturne introduces the players into a strange post-apocalypse world where the hero becomes a demon after the rest of the world is destroyed.There are no princesses to save here, nor are you some do-gooder so typical of other RPGs.Basically you are trying to survive in a world full of demons, and you get to choose your own destiny.Most of the choices are pretty dark though.

Gameplay-wise Nocturne is a lot like Pokemon, but taken to the next level.The hero starts off alone and must recruit other demons as allies.The hero's party can either talk/bribe/kidnap demons to join, or to use a system called "fusion" which allows the player to fuse two or three demons together so to create a brand new demon.There are around 180 demons total in this game, seperated into multiple classes and levels.There are also around 100 (very rough guess) different attacks/skills here shared by these demons.When you fuse demons, you can randomly combine different skills of the parent demons.Of course, the gimmick here is that you can only keep up to 8 demons, and for each demon you can keep only 8 different attacks/spells.

Understanding of different attacks and spells make up bulk of the strategy here.Attacks are divided into phyical, fire/ice/lighting/wind elemental, curse/mind, and light/dark magical types.In addition you have stat buffing/debuffing spells.Since most of the enemies you fight against will have certain weaknesses, finding a weakness will not only allow the player to do more damage, but it will also allows the player to attack an extra turn.This mechanism means that even if the player's demons are leveled up high, the player can still easily lose to low level demons if the demon lineups are wrong.Having said this, it's very difficult to beat this game without dying many times, since you wouldn't know what to expect from most demons/bosses the first time.

Graphic-wise this game is Cell-shaded (reminds me of the game Breath of Fire V dragon quarters), and very stylish in terms of character designs.The overhead world is a bit blend though.Unlikely Final Fantasy you wont see 2 mintue summons or outlandish spells when you fight enemies and the attacks are mostly unspectular.Nothing too good or bad in this department.

The music for this game is very good if you can stand heavy metal/industrial.I actually like most of the pieces alot.The sound is fairly crisp.When you destroy some enemies they will moan, while others just simply disappear.Nothing too impressive here either.

My biggest complaint about this game is the naming convention used in this game.The monsters' names are mostly confusing and there are no numbers IDs assigned to each monster.This makes fusing a bit confusing/difficult for beginners.It's not too bad though if you get used to it.

Last but not the least, this game is definitely not for kids.The demons in this game do not only swear and use the F-word on a regular basis, this game also has many occult references which will certainly offend most religious fanatics.The Demons include Christian Biblical figures, far east deities, and various mythological creatures.This game's story line features alot of philosophical mumbo jumbo which will be difficult to understand to some, and possibly to be considered satanic to those who do understand.

This game will take a while to finish.Probably 50-60 hours the first time through, and alot more if you are planning to collect all of the demons in the game.Overall I recommend this to any RPG fan who are not too religious or easily offended.

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Product Description:
Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne is a continuation of the popular role-playing series, set in our modern world. It's an average day, as a typical Japanese high school student goes to the hospital, for a visit with his sick teacher. While on the train, he gets a mysterious vision that the Apocalypse is coming. Arriving at the hospital, the boy is sucked into a Vortex Field, into a dark mirror-image of his world. When he learns our world is ending to make room for this new one, he'll do what he can to get back home and (hopefully) stop the Apocalypse.

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Shadow Hearts Review

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(More customer reviews)Midway is publishing an RPG? Surprisingly enough, yes, and it happens to be a well-translated adaptation of a fine Japanese RPG. Featuring a dark, macabre story and premise, memorable characters, as well as some of the finest music compositions yet heard on the PS2, it is not an RPG to be missed by any fan of the genre.
This game was created by ex-Squaresoft members who left Squaare and created a development company called Sacnoth. Much like Monolithsoft, developers of the upcoming prequel to Xenogears, Xenosaga, Sacnoth members were sick of creating yet more Final Fantasy related games and wanted to do something different. And something different Shadow Hearts certainly is.
The game features a Square-esque polish, so it is solid in its presentation and has excellent character and plot development. Unlike Square's recent Final Fantasy games, however, you end up playing more than watching.
Pros:
Dark, unique story and good character development
Excellent dialog breathes life into the characters
Beautiful and haunting musical score.
Cons:
Graphics are dated (true gamers realize the unimportance of pretty graphics)
Battle system a little too simple.
So please, put down Final Fantasy X and pick this game up. FFX will be there tomorrow, however, this game may not. This is because it will most likely be overlooked due to FFX's early release date. Don't let that happen, you'll be missing out on one of the best RPG's to come our way in quite a while.

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Product Description:
A hero with a mysterious past. A young girl holding the key to world domination. A villain who will stop at nothing to unlock the path to unlimited power. Prepare to experience an RPG unlike any other. Welcome to the world of Shadow Hearts.

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Diablo II: Lord of Destruction Expansion Set Review

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(More customer reviews)It's simply amazing how character development can go in so many directions with this game. Seven character classes are now offered, and focusing on certain options within any of the 3 different "skill trees" of each class can itself forever change the way in which you relate to the game. Characters can become so specialized that names have been attributed to them (lexicons can be found on the Net); for example, if you choose to play a character from the new Druid class, he can be differentiated into a Shifter, Summoner, Elementist, Botanist, Windbreaker, Bowling Druid, etc. [lingo used by D2:LoD addicts, these aren't terms that the game itself uses]. It could be said that choosing from these different paths renews the playability of the game, as you are forced to figure out new strategies to survive, especially in the Nightmare and Hell difficulty settings.
I've been playing this expansion since its release, and can hardly believe how much I yet have to learn. The Druid class is a clever addition to original 5, and quite different from the others; the new Assassin class I cannot in good faith critique, as I have only developed one character from that class. Act 5 has a much different flavor, and disposing of Baal can be a highly frustrating task, if you don't have a plan [Hint: get his back against the wall on the runway, slow him down, and hit him without a pause]. The addition of charms and class-specific items vastly improves your chances for survival, and the new set items are geared towards the more advanced players. However, other improvements put forth in the expansion balance it out in favor of the enemy (e.g., you can no longer dominate simply by having a Level 25 Fire Wall).
Lately I've discovered several websites devoted to the game, and features of the game that previously made little sense now are revealed as worthwhile to me. If you are getting the impression that this game can create a black hole in your weekly schedule, then I think I have gotten my point across. For example, tonite I am supposed to be reading an article titled "Parenteral Nutrition in Pregnancy," but instead I am researching new strategies to keep my Necromancer alive (can you blame me?)
Finally, there is the adrenaline rush motive. When trying to stay alive during some of the more challenging moments, your heart will be racing and you might even break into a sweat. Warnings written in the other reviews (about how addiction to this game can trash your GPA and cause your girlfriend to seek out someone who has never heard of Diablo or its sequels) should be taken very seriously. As a graduate student I came close to smashing the disc on several occasions with the thought of freeing myself...that would doubtless have been a waste of money, as I would have promptly jogged down to the store to pick up another copy.

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Product Description:
Destruction Awaits...Product Information[Requires Full Version of Diablo II To Play]Expansion to the world's best-selling action RPG!The expansion picks up almost immediately after where Diablo II leftoff and features a fifth and final act in addition to two all-new playablecharacter classes more than ten all-new types of monsters hundreds ofnew items and more.The fifth act takes place around the barbarian town of Harrogath whichis under attack by the forces of hell - or more specifically the forcesof Baal Diablo's brother. Even as you exit the town you'll come underattack from nightmarish siege weapons which look like barbed catapultsthat rain elemental artillery down upon your character. You'll also facedemon imps and demonic minions and their overseers who whip them intoa battle frenzy. You'll battle massive ice creatures called frozen horrorspowerful blood lords and the undead rot walkers who may clamber back totheir feet even after you think you've killed them.The two new character classes the assassin and the druid are bothhybrid fighter-mages that seem to fit very well with the existing fivecharacter classes. The assassin is a female warrior whose skills comprisemartial arts techniques shadow disciplines and trap making. The martialarts techniques make the assassin a powerful melee fighter while her shadowdisciplines give her powerful and versatile magical attacks. Her trapsare also effective as they let the assassin cause widespread damage throughenemy ranks. The Diablo II expansion's lead designer Tyler Thompson describedher as being a more tactical character than the original Diablo II classes- she cannot cause direct melee or magic damage as readily as the barbarianor sorceress but her attacks are ultimately no less powerful. In additionto her martial arts the assassin also specializes in unconventional bladedweapons like claws and katars.The druid is a tall imposing character clad in furs. His skills ares

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