Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga

"You WILL comprehend.. Let's not save the world."

As an avid game player, I tend to get stuck to my PS2 at the most unusual times. For example, right now I'm sitting for a whole month of Advanced level examinations (to get into University, hopefully), and yet I still manage to find a game that addicts me to my TV.

I do not comprehend.

SMT: Digital Devil Saga (known as DDS: Avatar Tuner in the country of origin; Japan) is an RPG which offers, as most other RPGs do, random battles, monsters, save points, a story, and so forth. What I'm trying to get to is that all RPGs need something to boost their name - unless they're Final Fantasy, there's no way gamers are just going to pick them off the shelf and say, "Ah, this looks cool. I'll buy it."

So what stands out in DDS? Let's examine things bit by bit..

Story
I won't spoil anything here, but the story in DDS takes some time to develop. You start out as the leader of a Tribe in the Junkyard (which I still think is a sucky name though), where other Tribes compete together to kill each other's leader, claim each other's people, and when one Leader has conquered all the tribes, s/he will lead everyone in the world to Nirvana, which is their equivalent of 'heaven'. In one such Tribal fight (using petty machinery known as 'guns'), a strange pod settles down into the battlefield, sending beams of light through every person in the Junkyard. Everyone can thus become a demon/monster, and most people find it hard to control this power, or even comprehend it.

To make matters even more complicated, the Karma Temple (that is, the legislative body in the Junkyard) decrees a new law: it's not just a matter of killing your opponents, but also DEVOURING them to become stronger. People eating people.. well, actually it's monsters eating monsters, but that's the implication. The story continues to develop (they find a girl.. but who is she?) as the game progresses, and believe me when I say that all this is given out in the first 10 minutes of gameplay. It's an amazing story, and it is not yet complete, for it simply sets us questions which shall be answered (hopefully) in the sequel, DDS2.

Sound
Superb voice acting which gives out the characters' emotions really well (except for the main character, Serph. He never talks..), different tunes to accompany you on your constant battle against the junkyard, and so on. You'll never get bored of the music in the game.. and though the title theme takes some time to get used to, it's also nicely wrapped up. Nothing big to say though.

Graphics
Similarly to SMT: Nocturne and BoF: Dragon Quarter, this game uses cel-shading for its graphics, but does so impressively, rendering the characters and monsters, if possible, even more realistic. Everything moves smoothly throughout the game, and it's easy to spot the dull atmosphere that it is set in; all the dungeons use various hues of grey to portray the feeling of.. well, the lack of life. Thus, the bright red colour of blood, when sprayed onto floors and so forth (though it's not that frequent) makes an eerie contrast. Besides, the shading which envelops the characters is particularly well done.

The CGI movies and cutscenes are also something to look forward to - everything that occurs in them is portrayed magnificently. No, they're not the best graphics ever, and probably don't come up to par to games such as God of War, but then again, the animation/graphical techniques are different, so comparing the two is not fair. The animation is particularly fluid, and the battle transition is quick - the screen simply splits into little hexagons, which disappear quickly, leading us to the battle. Simple and yet efficient, since battles is what this game is made of.

Gameplay
First of all, I hate random encounters. And yet, DDS offers many of them. At the beginning, when you're trying to explore one of the game's huge dungeons (yes, they ARE huge), you're bound to get frustrated. How long till I get to a save point? STOP ATTACKING ME! *throws controller out of the window*. However, once you find out about the Mantra system, everything is bound to (hopefully) change.

Most of us have probably played Final Fantasy X. For those of us who haven't, FFX dropped the levelling system and introduced a chart system, where after each battle you could tweak the character as the chart allowed. After a while, you could add some HP, or maybe increase your character's max MP, give him healing magic or offensive magic, increase stats and so forth. Although it proved to be a very good system, each character started on different parts of the chart, and had to follow a set path before being able to diverge. That meant that most of the times, your Yuna was going to be your white mage, your Lulu your black mage and so forth.

DDS uses a similar system, however, the chart is much more linear. Everyone starts out at a different point on it, thus learning different abilities, but from the beginning, you can opt to take everyone on a different path. Why should your Serph be confined to Ice when you can teach him Fire magic? Why should your Heat have physical attacks, not Healing ones? This makes the game more flexible, as you will be able to choose the abilities you'll need to defeat certain bosses and so forth, and yet, these abilities (or Mantra) cost money (or Macca). Once you buy the Mantra, you will have to fight to gain experience and Karma (or AP) which slowly allows you to learn your Mantra and choose another one.

This system works particularly well with the random battles and boss encounters. Depending on how many characters are in a party, you get a number of Press Turns, or square-like objects at the top-right of your screen. Each turn takes away one PT, and if you miss the enemy, or launch an attack that he is protected against, you lose two PTts. Once you use (or lose) all the 3 PTs, it is the enemy's turn.

However (and as in Shadow Hearts, this is something that makes battles much more easier to live through), if you launch an attack that the enemy is weak two, you will only lose HALF a PT. That means that if you have the correct abilities, you will be able to deal serious damage to your enemy before he even has a chance to react! This PT system is also used by enemies however, so learning the correct DEFENSIVE Mantra also helps. For example, being confused/poisoned/charmed/so on in this game can be fatal, because you either lose a whole PT to heal, or you simply stick it through and have the enemies kill you.

Element of Gore
Since you'll be fighting demons whose purpose is to eat each other, you might want to know that the gore is not serious in this game. You'll never see any acts of cannibalism/gruesome deaths/rituals and so forth.

Rent or Buy?
Here in Malta you can't rent games, but most people enjoy reading this part of a review, so here we go. I'd reccommend BUY full out, however, if you're not patient, it might be better to rent the game and try it out for yourself simply because of the long dungeons and so forth, which might turn off some players.

Replayability
Sidequests like extra dungeons and so forth are available before you beat the final boss, so you can go there before ending the game. A certain boss can only be unlocked by playing through the game a second time (whilst keeping your mastered Mantra), so that's also good. I personally did not find a need to explore the extra stuff, but maybe that's because I'm more interested in the story than in the fights of almost any game.

Also check out..
If you like DDS or you want to find more RPGs that are worth a shot, try the following:
- Shadow Hearts
- Shadow Hearts: Covenant
- Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne

Prequel/Sequel
This game has no prequels as of yet, and will be followed by Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2, which at time of writing, will be released in August 2005.

The Final Word
If you give it enough time, this will become an addictive game, and on the whole, I enjoyed the experience, which was a good comeback from Star Ocean: Till The End of Time, which I found to be a major disappointment.

The Score
I was unsure whether to rate this game '8' or '9', but settled with '8' mainly because of the long dungeons and the impossible enemies (if you're not overlevelled or overskilled, some of the final enemies become harder than the bosses themselves). You'll probably find yourself attempting to run away from fights at times, but do NOT run away from this hidden gem.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/26/05