Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker

Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker is a 3DS remake of the original Devil Survivor 2 which came out on the DS about 3 years ago. Coming out near the end of the DS’ life cycle made it one of the harder to find games for the handheld. Devil Survivor 2 was one of the better RPGs on the Nintendo DS, and Record Breaker finally brings the niche title back to store shelves with a nice amount of extras.

Devil Survivor 2’s story starts out with you, the main character, finishing your exams at school where afterwards you meets up with your friends, Daichi and Io. Daichi begins to talk about an odd website called Nicaea, which shows you videos of your friends’ untimely deaths. Shortly after signing up you receive a video of Daichi, he receives a video of Io, and she receives a video of you, all crushed by an oncoming train. Right as the video is about to come true (you were waiting on a train from the start) you’re saved by a trio of demons you then have to fight to gain control over. After this you leave the station to find Japan in a state of emergency and must find a way to survive against the odds as a now demon infested society collapses around you.

Devil Survivor 2 runs on a time-based system. You and your group of characters have a set amount of time to get stronger, save other people, and defeat a boss monster by the end of each day. Each timed event takes a 30 minute interval out of your clock, and you’re given around 28 or so events per-day. It’s not as restrictive as it sounds. To strengthen your team you can do free battles, which are missions that don’t take away from the clock, giving you time to talk with your other partners. Bonding with your friends in game gives them bonus stats and can unlock new demons for you to use as well as other factors near the end and post-game.

Missions in Devil Survivor 2 are turn-based battles where you and your party move across a grid, typically with the goal of wiping out all the enemies on the map, sometimes these are swapped for rescue missions or to simply escape. Fights run in a similar fashion to other ATLUS games, each character and demon has their own set of weaknesses and resistances, and exploiting one of these can give you an extra action in battle. Likewise, the computer can exploit the weaknesses of your own demons to gain an advantage too, so planning well-coordinated teams is the key to success. Battles are fun and, if you’re an effective team builder, can end quickly before they begin to drag. My only complaint is how badly the difficulty spikes near the end. Bosses get more and more ridiculous over time, but it’s rarely things you can plan around. Each boss gains more attack range than the last, up to the point where you are guaranteed to never have an advantage and have to hope the number generator for hit chance is working in your favor. Even better is one of the later boss battles has the boss surrounded by a swarm of demons, but if you defeat too many of the demons the boss gets to act 4 or 5 times before your team can, which is more than enough time to completely wipe out all your party members. It’s situations like this where you’re rewarded for putting together the only working team, rather than making a strategy of your own, that frustrate me.

Completing missions earns your team Macca, the currency for this game. Macca’s primary use is in demon auctions, a function where you bid against other tamers to purchase demons. You do this by placing a single bid, trusting your judgement based on sets of “assumed bids” of the other NPC tamers. There are little hints that will clue you in on if a tamer will bid higher or lower than their predicted bid, but never a flat amount. There’s a system in place where you can just buyout a demon without having to bid, but this typically comes at a premium. If you win enough demons in succession you unlock a special set you can bid on that have better stats and moves than the normal selection. The bidding process is fun, especially when you unlock the bonus rounds, but in order to do so you need to play several free missions to stock up on macca.

Auction demons will rarely be your main party members though. Once you unlock fusion it’s better to combine auction demons into something stronger. Fused demons come with plenty of benefits, the main one being that certain strong demons can only be obtained by fusing. Fused demons also have access to move sets from both of the original demons that made it. Once fused, a demon is saved into the compendium, an encyclopedia where fused and purchased demons can be repurchased for an amount typically higher than that at the auction. Late game, the compendium becomes an important part of demon fusion as in order to get the right moves on a certain demon later you may have to back track through several fusions. Fused demons also have access to things called add-ons, which can give them anything from bonus stats and moves to cleared out move sets, which can sometimes be used to get less than desirable starting moves off an otherwise strong demon.

One of the new things added to Record Breaker is a second scenario. This new story is a direct follow up to the original story, so it’s hard to talk about it without spoiling the original plotline. You’re doing much of the same as in the first scenario though: A catastrophic event throws Japan into nation-wide crisis, demonic beings begin to attack the populace, and it’s up to your character and his friends to survive the nightmare while trying to find a way to fix everything. The game gives you the option to start on either scenario rather than play through the first before unlocking the second. Since the original game is well over 36 hours in length, it’s nice that people who already played the original story can jump right into the new content.

Being able to skip to the new scenario of the game doesn’t mean that the older content hasn’t been updated as well. The game now features voice acting outside of dialogue in battle. The quality varies from time to time. It takes some actors a bit to find their footing, but overall it’s a strong vocal dub that adds positively to the game. ATLUS has also fixed some of the original translation, reworking some of the more wishy-washy dialogue. The most noticeable of these changes comes from a nickname one character gives to another. In the original translation the nickname was “Clicky,” which is a Japanese play-on for that’s character’s last name, Kuriki. In Japanese both words are spelled the same phonetically, but the wordplay isn’t as obvious in English. In Record Breaker his nickname was updated to “Ronnie,” which fits a bit better with his first name, Ronaldo.

There’s also sets of new demons and attacks for your character to obtain. Many of the new moves are limited to the second scenario though, while the new demons are passed out via the 3DS’ spotpass feature. There’s also a set of Downloadable content in the forms of missions designed specifically for grinding Macca, experience, skills, and fusion add-ons. Each missions costs a dollar, but none of them really feel worth it. Much of the game’s difficulty doesn’t come from being under leveled, it comes from not having a properly constructed team. More often than not gaining a higher level is not the solution to beating a hard mission. I guess if you have to buy the DLC, just get the mission that gives more Macca, since that in turn gives you the option to buy more demons.

Record Breaker is every bit as good of a game as the original Devil Survivor 2. With a challenging but fun battle system and sizable cast of interesting characters, it’s definitely worth the investment. The game comes with two difficulty modes, one reminiscent of the original game’s difficulty, but also a toned down mode for those who aren’t complete masochists. If you’re aching for a longer game to play over the summer, or just in general, Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker will never be a bad choice.