Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga

"Incomplete but with interesting potential"

Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner

Graphics/Sound: 9

No complaints here - the world and interface behaves smoothly. Barring the somewhat painful theme song (the singer has a good voice, she just can't pronounce English very well), the music isn't anything to write home about, but it gets the job done.

The interface menus and battle transition scenes abuse hexagonal geometric patterns to great effect. In particular, the battle transition is one of the smoothest I've ever seen, and the menus are clean and elegant, with just enough decoration to look pretty but maintain legibility.

The 3D models and backgrounds are also very detailed, and the fact that the game takes place in a bizarre setting gave the a wide berth for creativity; while they didn't quite get away from the smooth, inorganic locales common to the series, in this case it's very appropriate to the overall atmosphere and mood. The series illustrator, Kaneko Kazuma, has a very distinct style, which they did a pretty good job translating into 3D considering it's not particularly realistic. There are obviously some monsters which are the 3D equivalent of a palette swap (same model/animation, different skin), but they're generally distinct enough. Another plus point would be the animation for the various creatures - not only do they look peculiar, their animated movements also echo the alieness of their design.

The cut scenes use the same high detail models from the actual gameplay, and while you don't get full FMV quality, there's also no obvious style clash between cut scene and gameplay, and they've got the expressions . . . if not perfect, at least they get the point across.

Minus points would be, of course, lifting almost all the monster models straight out of Shin Megami Tensei 3. There's also not quite as much variety in the monster types, but then given the already high encounter rate and the length of the game, there's no real room to cram more monsters in.

System: 8

Aside from the character growth and party system, most of the rest of the game mechanics are imported directly from Nocturne. Though there are sometimes still landscape with a fixed camera angle, for the most part it's the same movement/camera system. They've also kept the plot warnings - the convenient exclamation marks and warning texts when you're about to go into a room with a boss or other plot encounter, immensely useful for backtracking to get items or level before the dungeon collapses/explodes/whatever.

Also convenient is the option to warp back to large save points (usually placed near the beginning and end of dungeons) from small ones, and warp between large save points. This makes it a lot less aggravating when traversing the dungeons, especially given the high encounter rate. In fact, most of the actual map, dungeon, and save system seems designed to make it as un-aggravating as possible for the player. The skill learning system they have is based on getting new skill sets to learn from save points, and so there are save points all over everything.

There are a few puzzle solving elements - nothing particularly difficult or involved, but enough to give some variation to the individual dungeons. They've also had the good sense to turn off random encounters in the puzzle rooms, making it much easier to just concentrate on the puzzle.

And aside from the Field Hunt, which is more a leveling tool, there're no other minigames, which is almost a relief given the prevalence of them in most other RPGs. In particular this setting doesn't really lend itself well to minigames without completely shattering the atmosphere.

The encounter rate, as par series tradition, is on the high side. That, combined with the constant running for the nearest save point to learn new skills, means you see a LOT of combat. Fortunately combat is one of the better points of the game.

Combat: 9

Combat is where the game really shines; using the same system from Shin Megami Tensei 3, the encounters are fast-paced, load very smoothly, and require a bit more thinking than just mashing the Fight command. As is true of the rest of the series, random encounters (at least those of equivalent level) actually pose a serious threat to the party. Because of the way the system is designed, it's quite possible to beat monsters a dozen levels higher than what you should be fighting if you think a bit. And the same is true of weak mobs turning the tables on you, though thankfully the monster AI isn't too demanding. These are, after all, more or less the same monsters that the protagonist of Nocturne used to fight his way through the game.

They could have used a bit more randomization in the encounter patterns, although in this case I suspect it would lead to a lot of Game Over situations, although given the aforementioned prevalence of save points it might not be so bad. Things like making it easier to run away when you're in trouble adds to the thrill. The net result is such that fighting something you're not supposed to yet works for a few fights, maybe enough to get you to a save point and back out of the dungeon, though you slowly run out of recovery items if it goes on too long, as opposed to something where wandering into the wrong dungeon at the wrong time just gets you wiped out as soon as you get within sneezing distance of a random mob.

A side effect of this, however, is that since it's impossible to scan bosses for either their weaknesses or abilities, boss fights may take up to 4 or 5 tries each to figure out the boss's patterns and abilities, and whether or not you have a certain set of abilities equipped essentially decides the battle. Whether this is rewarding or frustrating depends on if you like learning through painful and messy trial and error, and how much tolerance you have for repeated cut scenes.

Of course, once you master all the hidden abilities, your party becomes pretty god-like, but by then you're probably just plowing through the extra dungeons and optional bosses. The Ultimate Hidden Boss that's so popular to RPGs these days, however, will still turn you into demon kibble without planning and luck.

Story: 5

And unfortunately, the story and scripting is where the game flops. The Megami Tensei series has always gone for the slightly dark, somewhat metaphysical, occultish feel, and isn't afraid to field disturbing ideas or religiously questionable material. Hell, one could say that it essentially is religiously questionable material, dancing the macarena atop the mutilated corpses of thousands of years' worth of world mythology.

DDS is no different, and the setting alone earns high points on originality. Deviating from the standard fantasy RPG formula (or the standard Megami Tensei formula, which would be post-Apocalyptic Tokyo) is never easy to pull off. They head off to a pretty good start, and the beginning bits of the game are chock-full of the exploration of the strange new setting which is starting to evolve even as you're just getting a grip on it.

The pacing and story progression isn't bad, but the ending is where everything just falls apart. The problem is that you can't really do decent plot and character development while still keeping all the secrets under wraps for the sequel. As such you get a lot of setting and events that make no logical sense, and characters prone to completely random and bizarre behavior that's never explained, as well as sidequests and events that are obviously supposed to have some significance . . . except they never got finished. You can only get away with so many iterations of "we're doing this because the voices in our heads tell us to". The ending just left me scratching my head and going "huh?" as the credits scrolled. It's like some strange disease propagated from the folks over at Namco or Bandai - make half a game, declare it done, then go shuffle things around for a sequel that should've been part of the original game in the first place. Seeing this sort of marketing scheme become more common among developers is rather disappointing.

Another scripting issue would have to be the communist choice problem. While it's a series tradition to have a silent protagonist, generally the choices, whether action or dialogue, the player takes actually affect the game other than changing a few lines of dialogue. In fact they've got a decent track record when it comes to multi-scenario plotlines. Here, where the protagonist is supposed to be a capable leader (as opposed to, say, a random schoolkid), you never make any real decisions - everyone else tells you what to do.

Overall: 7

The game system itself is quite rewarding if you want something with a bit of thought to it; they've tried to tweak it so that combat, which is about 80% of what you'll be doing in the game, is as smooth and interesting as possible. People who'd prefer to just mash the Fight button, on the other hand, will probably find it frustrating.

The story and setting were very ambitious, and some of the awkwardness can be explained by the fact that it is a strange setting and the character development and plot face the initial challenge of the entirely unfamiliar (by normal social conventions) world; for the most part, while it's not nearly as dark as the opening scenes would lead you to believe, it's very well-constructed. Most of the problem, however, is the cryptic non-ending, which doesn't have much of an excuse. It might have been different had they gone for a straightforward fantasy quest, but because of its integrity to the overall plot the unresolved mystery has a large impact on the essential incomprehensibility of the over-arcing storyline (the sub-plots are mostly ok).

Overall, DDS has a fun system and is much less complex than the traditional Megami Tensei games, maybe along the same level as Persona, which makes it fairly enjoyable without having to write up complex demon combining charts. Ignoring the incomplete issue it does have enough content for a light RPG, and it's certainly good eye candy. However, if you're looking for something with a more epic-scale depth and complexity, I'd recommend trying Nocturne instead.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/18/04, Updated 07/14/06