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tenshinoakuma) wrote2009-07-21 04:26 pm
tenshinoakuma) wrote2009-07-21 04:26 pm
Entry tags:
SMT: Devil Survivor, complete !
Finally finished the game after wiping once, grinding a little and then pulling out every single cheap tactic I know. Warning, this post is very, very, very long, and there will be spoilers, mostly in the second section.
--
Ending Guide: Devil Survivor's got multiple routes. There's a guide on how to get 6 routes (which opens up your ending options) on the night before the Last Day. I don't know if that's all the possible endings, as, from what I can tell, there are either 6, 7 or 12 endings you can get.
Skill Related things
Skill Cracking: Leaders don't need to be the one to land the finishing blow to crack skills; anyone from their team can. Also, even if the leader doesn't have the required stats to equip the skill, as long as someone who is dispatched is able to use the skill, you can crack the skill. You just won't be able to equip the skill when you crack it.
Auto-Skills: Note that most auto-skills have a mana cost (I didn't notice for half the game). They also count as spells, so if you're Silenced or something, it won't activate.
Pierce (Requires 15 Str): In the skill description, it says (No Repel). That means that Pierce will not work on enemies that will repel that particular kind of damage. However, it works on enemies that would normally drain the attack.
Blitzkreig (Requires 8 Str and...?): This auto-skill is your best friend, especially in the chained boss fights (Naoya's route, and I think Amane's route? Dunno about the rest). It does +25% damage to both magic and physical skills. Later on you'll be able to crack a skill called Magic Yin, which gives your 1.5 damage with magic, at the price of double mana cost and only being able to use magic skills. But with the chained boss fights, you'll want to take in a physical attacker as well, due to resistances/reflect/drain, and also because the bossfights are chained, which means your mana will be hurting. Not so much the MC's, because you can easily compensate for that with skills, but your demons' mana will start to hurt, especially because it's often difficult to get the skills you want onto them. If you want to end fights quickly, Blitzkreig is the way to go.
Watchful: The exp gained from this passive skill is only counted from end of battle exp. Which means any exp you gain from Free Battles don't count towards the demon (or leader) with this skill and is out of battle. Note also that the end of battle exp tends to be less than the exp you gain from killing a whole team.
Drain: Is your spell caster's friend. It's classified as an Almighty skill, which means even Makarakarn (reflect magic once) and Seal All (All attacks nullified once) will miss. The higher your magic, the more you'll drain. Not only that, but it also has the nice effect of stopping most enemy spellcasters, with the exception of 'Divine' enemies, who will convert their HP to MP outside of battle.
Recarm, Samerecarm, Diahran: Are surprisingly useful! Especially that there are no items in game, and when you're underlevelled like I am. If you place one of these on your physical hitters, it'll save you a lot of grief when you're unable to fuse a decent healer. It also takes some of the healing/reviving strain off your healer demons, especially if your physical hitters aren't using their MP for anything anyway.
(Party) Demon related things
Getting the cheapest price possible in auctions: Basically, the aim of the game is to make ALL the other bidders give up before the 5 second bidding time is up. For Gold and Platinum level, it's possible to do this through sheer button mashing. But for Basic and Occult level, make your first bid a higher one (add about 2/3rds of the difference between the starting bid and ending bid) and then button mash to the end. You'll want to get the cheapest price for your demons if you intend to fuse a lot, because at Occult level, the demons get ridiculously expensive, and grinding for cash (and exp) near endgame is a pain, due to the enemies having the worst combinations of resistances you can get.
Fusing: Sometimes you can give stat boosts to a fused demon. You only need to exit out of the 'card' screen and enter it again to reset the stat boosts until you get the boosts you want.
Uniques: It just means you can only have one of them. So no, you can't have an awesome Shiva, and a crappy Shiva (for the purposes of fusion) at the same time.
Other battle related things
Leaders: Atsuro is the only character who will remain in your party, regardless of the route you take. So yes, characters that you grind to your level can and will leave your party. Even on the last day. Especially on the last day. They won't take your demons (or skills), thankfully. But be aware that this happens.
Exp: When you're 5 levels higher than the enemy, you'll get less exp. Not applicable to New Game+.
General enemy AI behaviour: Outside of the fight screens, enemies tend to reduce the amount of time until the next turn. In the sense that they will move across the grid in such a way that their turn comes earlier. This means that (for enemies without a ranged attack) they have a preference for striking a team they're adjacent to over a team they have to move in order to attack them. For enemies with only a single target heal, outside of battle, they'll favour healing the leader over the flankers.
AI - Enemies/NPCs with ranged attacks: If there are multiple leaders/enemies inside their attack range, they tend to go for the character furthest away from them. I'm not entirely sure on this, but this is just what I observed when fighting the Bel demons that had ranged attacks. Additionally, they will tend to move (if they actually can move) in such a way that they will strike at the edge of their attack range (goddamned potshotters). For example, if you're fighting a team with a range of two, after you've moved up to them to strike them, and the enemy team is still alive, they will move back to strike you from afar. Also, if an enemy with attack range of two and you have an attack range of two, and either of you strike at a range of two, both sides are able to attack each other (instead of just one side attacking), but there will still be no extra turn.
Escort missions: Piling on high damage will help you immensely. I've never had trouble with escort missions, due to being able to wipe out enemies in one turn, and healing the NPCs in the same moment. The only one I had difficulty with was the mission where you can't kill the attackers hahaha D:
Party setup vs bosses: IMO for ease of life against bosses, your MC's team should be not only be your highest damaging team, but also your tankiest. This is mostly only applicable to bossfights because many of the later bosses heal after every battle with them, and if you don't deal a significantly large amount of damage, you'll be completely fucked when the boss outheals your damage. But the bosses also do ridiculous amounts of damage so be prepared. Also, for bosses like these, it's generally best to have a 'point' formation, where only one team attacks and receives damage from the boss (i.e. only one team is within the bosses' attack range). It's generally bad to try and surround the boss and attack with multiple teams if your teams aren't strong enough to take the damage from the boss, and outdamage the boss' heals, because the enemy AI tends to target the parties that have less health. If you want to be cheap, you can forgo a healer in the attacking team's party, and simply have another team stand next to them/near them and heal the attacking team outside of battle, but that can be a little risky.
Also, especially when dealing with bosses that have minions, don't be afraid to punch through the center, i.e. kill off the leader. While it often means that more minions will spawn, usually they spawn far away from you, allowing you precious time to take on the boss without interference.
ANYTHING PAST THIS SECTION MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Fighting the Bel demons: I've only taken Naoya's route so far, so these are from my experiences there. Applicable to other bosses as well, but generally it's a good idea to look at the skills that each demon has and customise your attacking team accordingly, taking advantage of resistances when possible (yes, I have taken in demons 10 levels underlevel before because it had more survivability than my higher level ones).
Jezebel: That pool of lava will damage you if you end your turn in it. You can easily take out the starfish, and they won't respawn. If you've got Cerebus on you, what you can do is move to the lower edge around the lava (where Amane is), move in to attack Jezebel, and then move back out to get out of the lava (and Jezebel's attack range). Basically, Jezebel can't touch you except when you're attacking Jezebel unless you actually step into attack range. Additionally, have someone with a range heal and you can stand in the corner and heal Amane when she takes damage. When Jezebel gets low on health, she'll summon shadow? Amanes, who will completely ignore your other characters and head straight for Amane. Initially you might think HOLY FUCK I NEED TO SAVE AMANE because the moment the shadows reach her, it's game over (I think?), but all you have to do is take out Jezebel. And by that time, there's no more lava, so you can wail on Jezebel all you want. This fight isn't really difficult since you can abuse her limited range and inability to move.
Belzaboul: Have someone with Amrita or a demon with a racial skill that can cure status effects (I think that's Affection and/or Devotion?). You'll need it because Belzaboul and it's Swarms will use a skill called Spawn, which, upon the team leader's next turn (I think??), will kill off the affected demon/leader, and then another Swarm will spawn on the map. Basically, don't get swamped with flies, and you should be fine; this guy's not particularly difficult.
Belberith: I should mention that the map is a bitch to navigate. I accidentally bypassed almost all the fighting with the Shomonkai by having Phantasma on my Main Character, and killing only one of the Shomonkai guarding the switches. You have to activate the switches by having someone stand on each of the switches in order to actually reach the big guy, regardless of whether you have Phantasma or Flight. But once it's activated, you can bypass the long walkaround to the platforms to get to Belberith. Also note that when you kill the Shomonkai, demons will spawn to take their place. He's not particularly difficult, but Victory Cry means that you'd better be packing a punch on him or else you're fucked.
Babel: Babel actually consists of a 7 chain bossfight (for Naoya and Amane's route), starting with the Babelface, then progressing onto the previous Bel demons, starting from Beldr and ending with Belberith. Yes, you still have to punch Beldr in the face with a phone strap. You can pretty much use the same tactics as before, but remember, once you actually start the fight with Babel, you can't swap your leader's skills around, so you should be planning for the long run. Getting Double Up (a Kishin racial skill) is helpful, as you'll want to be laying on the smackdown with as many extra turns as you can manage, if you don't have an agility focussed team (in favour or more damage or better resistance to damage). The final form of Babel is weak against Zio, and repels Agi and Bufu skills, Nulls Mystic (I think), and IIRC it's Strong against everything else. It's not too bad if you know what to expect, but I was completely fucked because I went with Bufu on my MC and I was severely underlevelled. Note that in Naoya's (and Amane's?) route, Babel is level 77, whereas apparently in Gin's route, Babel is only level 67.
--
To be honest, I can't really say that much on the storyline because I didn't get everything. I wasn't able to see the whole picture because of the choices I made, and I ended up with 3 possible endings that didn't really appeal to me. Basically, I ended up with the two extreme sides (where I either side with the Angels or the Devils, which really was quite unappealing because fuck the Angels, man. Seriously), and... well. Yuzu's ending, which was running away. The 'good' ending is apparently the path of neutrality, and I can totally get behind that. But... GUIDE DANGIT.
The replay value I'm going to get from Devil Survivor (DeSu?) will be amazing, though. Even though some of the characters I most often encountered really irritated me (Yuzu, Keisuke when he went all fanatical, and Midori before she joins your party), the way the game is made really makes me WANT to know more. Makes me want to replay so I can ferret out all the bits of information that you can only really get by replaying multiple, multiple times. Like, I want to know more, more about what started all this, who everyone is, what happened (at least, for this war between Angels and Demons). For the ordinaries, I want to know more about how they tick, what they'd do in other situations. That kind of thing. Having multiple routes, where decisions from the very beginning of the game will affect the potentiality at the end is completely fascinating, because it's every replay is like watching a parallel universe unfold before me.
I've said before regarding Persona 3 that Minato absolutely fascinates me, because I've said that he's almost a complete blank slate.
I think the MC of Devil Survivor is possibly even more of a blank slate than Minato, because almost everything is customisable about him. Name, stats, the path he walks down... It's really difficult for me to express what I like and dislike about a game in regards to plot and characters outside of the very broad terms of, 'I didn't like this' or 'I didn't like that'. But what the game has done, is that whatever flaws I find with the plot and characters, the game has me thinking about them, and that is always a good sign.
Also, reading the demon's responses to you buying them, or fusing them, or appearing from fusion never ceases to amuse. I feel a little bad whenever I fuse the dog demons (Garm and Cerberus) because it's like. But I don't wanna go ;; But I will do it anyway because you asked ;;;;;;
What I'd really like to get is all the art, including the backgrounds, as well as cutscenes etc. Speaking of which, I'm just a little disappointed that the game doesn't use the DS' dual screen to its full effectiveness. Many of the out of battle cutscenes and animated stuff doesn't make use of the top screen, which feels a little bit disappointing, because I expect there to be something on the top screen, but all it is a blank screen. It's particularly noticeable in certain animated things where it sort of feels like it ends abruptly, when it could've just continued onto the top screen.
Expect fanfic and fanart in the future, perhaps.
--
Now that I'm done with that I can actually, you know. Concentrate on the things I'm supposed to be doing. Like RP |D;;; Speaking of. I'm idly considering playing Atsuro. Thoughts? xD
--
Ending Guide: Devil Survivor's got multiple routes. There's a guide on how to get 6 routes (which opens up your ending options) on the night before the Last Day. I don't know if that's all the possible endings, as, from what I can tell, there are either 6, 7 or 12 endings you can get.
Skill Related things
Skill Cracking: Leaders don't need to be the one to land the finishing blow to crack skills; anyone from their team can. Also, even if the leader doesn't have the required stats to equip the skill, as long as someone who is dispatched is able to use the skill, you can crack the skill. You just won't be able to equip the skill when you crack it.
Auto-Skills: Note that most auto-skills have a mana cost (I didn't notice for half the game). They also count as spells, so if you're Silenced or something, it won't activate.
Pierce (Requires 15 Str): In the skill description, it says (No Repel). That means that Pierce will not work on enemies that will repel that particular kind of damage. However, it works on enemies that would normally drain the attack.
Blitzkreig (Requires 8 Str and...?): This auto-skill is your best friend, especially in the chained boss fights (Naoya's route, and I think Amane's route? Dunno about the rest). It does +25% damage to both magic and physical skills. Later on you'll be able to crack a skill called Magic Yin, which gives your 1.5 damage with magic, at the price of double mana cost and only being able to use magic skills. But with the chained boss fights, you'll want to take in a physical attacker as well, due to resistances/reflect/drain, and also because the bossfights are chained, which means your mana will be hurting. Not so much the MC's, because you can easily compensate for that with skills, but your demons' mana will start to hurt, especially because it's often difficult to get the skills you want onto them. If you want to end fights quickly, Blitzkreig is the way to go.
Watchful: The exp gained from this passive skill is only counted from end of battle exp. Which means any exp you gain from Free Battles don't count towards the demon (or leader) with this skill and is out of battle. Note also that the end of battle exp tends to be less than the exp you gain from killing a whole team.
Drain: Is your spell caster's friend. It's classified as an Almighty skill, which means even Makarakarn (reflect magic once) and Seal All (All attacks nullified once) will miss. The higher your magic, the more you'll drain. Not only that, but it also has the nice effect of stopping most enemy spellcasters, with the exception of 'Divine' enemies, who will convert their HP to MP outside of battle.
Recarm, Samerecarm, Diahran: Are surprisingly useful! Especially that there are no items in game, and when you're underlevelled like I am. If you place one of these on your physical hitters, it'll save you a lot of grief when you're unable to fuse a decent healer. It also takes some of the healing/reviving strain off your healer demons, especially if your physical hitters aren't using their MP for anything anyway.
(Party) Demon related things
Getting the cheapest price possible in auctions: Basically, the aim of the game is to make ALL the other bidders give up before the 5 second bidding time is up. For Gold and Platinum level, it's possible to do this through sheer button mashing. But for Basic and Occult level, make your first bid a higher one (add about 2/3rds of the difference between the starting bid and ending bid) and then button mash to the end. You'll want to get the cheapest price for your demons if you intend to fuse a lot, because at Occult level, the demons get ridiculously expensive, and grinding for cash (and exp) near endgame is a pain, due to the enemies having the worst combinations of resistances you can get.
Fusing: Sometimes you can give stat boosts to a fused demon. You only need to exit out of the 'card' screen and enter it again to reset the stat boosts until you get the boosts you want.
Uniques: It just means you can only have one of them. So no, you can't have an awesome Shiva, and a crappy Shiva (for the purposes of fusion) at the same time.
Other battle related things
Leaders: Atsuro is the only character who will remain in your party, regardless of the route you take. So yes, characters that you grind to your level can and will leave your party. Even on the last day. Especially on the last day. They won't take your demons (or skills), thankfully. But be aware that this happens.
Exp: When you're 5 levels higher than the enemy, you'll get less exp. Not applicable to New Game+.
General enemy AI behaviour: Outside of the fight screens, enemies tend to reduce the amount of time until the next turn. In the sense that they will move across the grid in such a way that their turn comes earlier. This means that (for enemies without a ranged attack) they have a preference for striking a team they're adjacent to over a team they have to move in order to attack them. For enemies with only a single target heal, outside of battle, they'll favour healing the leader over the flankers.
AI - Enemies/NPCs with ranged attacks: If there are multiple leaders/enemies inside their attack range, they tend to go for the character furthest away from them. I'm not entirely sure on this, but this is just what I observed when fighting the Bel demons that had ranged attacks. Additionally, they will tend to move (if they actually can move) in such a way that they will strike at the edge of their attack range (goddamned potshotters). For example, if you're fighting a team with a range of two, after you've moved up to them to strike them, and the enemy team is still alive, they will move back to strike you from afar. Also, if an enemy with attack range of two and you have an attack range of two, and either of you strike at a range of two, both sides are able to attack each other (instead of just one side attacking), but there will still be no extra turn.
Escort missions: Piling on high damage will help you immensely. I've never had trouble with escort missions, due to being able to wipe out enemies in one turn, and healing the NPCs in the same moment. The only one I had difficulty with was the mission where you can't kill the attackers hahaha D:
Party setup vs bosses: IMO for ease of life against bosses, your MC's team should be not only be your highest damaging team, but also your tankiest. This is mostly only applicable to bossfights because many of the later bosses heal after every battle with them, and if you don't deal a significantly large amount of damage, you'll be completely fucked when the boss outheals your damage. But the bosses also do ridiculous amounts of damage so be prepared. Also, for bosses like these, it's generally best to have a 'point' formation, where only one team attacks and receives damage from the boss (i.e. only one team is within the bosses' attack range). It's generally bad to try and surround the boss and attack with multiple teams if your teams aren't strong enough to take the damage from the boss, and outdamage the boss' heals, because the enemy AI tends to target the parties that have less health. If you want to be cheap, you can forgo a healer in the attacking team's party, and simply have another team stand next to them/near them and heal the attacking team outside of battle, but that can be a little risky.
Also, especially when dealing with bosses that have minions, don't be afraid to punch through the center, i.e. kill off the leader. While it often means that more minions will spawn, usually they spawn far away from you, allowing you precious time to take on the boss without interference.
ANYTHING PAST THIS SECTION MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Fighting the Bel demons: I've only taken Naoya's route so far, so these are from my experiences there. Applicable to other bosses as well, but generally it's a good idea to look at the skills that each demon has and customise your attacking team accordingly, taking advantage of resistances when possible (yes, I have taken in demons 10 levels underlevel before because it had more survivability than my higher level ones).
Jezebel: That pool of lava will damage you if you end your turn in it. You can easily take out the starfish, and they won't respawn. If you've got Cerebus on you, what you can do is move to the lower edge around the lava (where Amane is), move in to attack Jezebel, and then move back out to get out of the lava (and Jezebel's attack range). Basically, Jezebel can't touch you except when you're attacking Jezebel unless you actually step into attack range. Additionally, have someone with a range heal and you can stand in the corner and heal Amane when she takes damage. When Jezebel gets low on health, she'll summon shadow? Amanes, who will completely ignore your other characters and head straight for Amane. Initially you might think HOLY FUCK I NEED TO SAVE AMANE because the moment the shadows reach her, it's game over (I think?), but all you have to do is take out Jezebel. And by that time, there's no more lava, so you can wail on Jezebel all you want. This fight isn't really difficult since you can abuse her limited range and inability to move.
Belzaboul: Have someone with Amrita or a demon with a racial skill that can cure status effects (I think that's Affection and/or Devotion?). You'll need it because Belzaboul and it's Swarms will use a skill called Spawn, which, upon the team leader's next turn (I think??), will kill off the affected demon/leader, and then another Swarm will spawn on the map. Basically, don't get swamped with flies, and you should be fine; this guy's not particularly difficult.
Belberith: I should mention that the map is a bitch to navigate. I accidentally bypassed almost all the fighting with the Shomonkai by having Phantasma on my Main Character, and killing only one of the Shomonkai guarding the switches. You have to activate the switches by having someone stand on each of the switches in order to actually reach the big guy, regardless of whether you have Phantasma or Flight. But once it's activated, you can bypass the long walkaround to the platforms to get to Belberith. Also note that when you kill the Shomonkai, demons will spawn to take their place. He's not particularly difficult, but Victory Cry means that you'd better be packing a punch on him or else you're fucked.
Babel: Babel actually consists of a 7 chain bossfight (for Naoya and Amane's route), starting with the Babelface, then progressing onto the previous Bel demons, starting from Beldr and ending with Belberith. Yes, you still have to punch Beldr in the face with a phone strap. You can pretty much use the same tactics as before, but remember, once you actually start the fight with Babel, you can't swap your leader's skills around, so you should be planning for the long run. Getting Double Up (a Kishin racial skill) is helpful, as you'll want to be laying on the smackdown with as many extra turns as you can manage, if you don't have an agility focussed team (in favour or more damage or better resistance to damage). The final form of Babel is weak against Zio, and repels Agi and Bufu skills, Nulls Mystic (I think), and IIRC it's Strong against everything else. It's not too bad if you know what to expect, but I was completely fucked because I went with Bufu on my MC and I was severely underlevelled. Note that in Naoya's (and Amane's?) route, Babel is level 77, whereas apparently in Gin's route, Babel is only level 67.
--
To be honest, I can't really say that much on the storyline because I didn't get everything. I wasn't able to see the whole picture because of the choices I made, and I ended up with 3 possible endings that didn't really appeal to me. Basically, I ended up with the two extreme sides (where I either side with the Angels or the Devils, which really was quite unappealing because fuck the Angels, man. Seriously), and... well. Yuzu's ending, which was running away. The 'good' ending is apparently the path of neutrality, and I can totally get behind that. But... GUIDE DANGIT.
The replay value I'm going to get from Devil Survivor (DeSu?) will be amazing, though. Even though some of the characters I most often encountered really irritated me (Yuzu, Keisuke when he went all fanatical, and Midori before she joins your party), the way the game is made really makes me WANT to know more. Makes me want to replay so I can ferret out all the bits of information that you can only really get by replaying multiple, multiple times. Like, I want to know more, more about what started all this, who everyone is, what happened (at least, for this war between Angels and Demons). For the ordinaries, I want to know more about how they tick, what they'd do in other situations. That kind of thing. Having multiple routes, where decisions from the very beginning of the game will affect the potentiality at the end is completely fascinating, because it's every replay is like watching a parallel universe unfold before me.
I've said before regarding Persona 3 that Minato absolutely fascinates me, because I've said that he's almost a complete blank slate.
I think the MC of Devil Survivor is possibly even more of a blank slate than Minato, because almost everything is customisable about him. Name, stats, the path he walks down... It's really difficult for me to express what I like and dislike about a game in regards to plot and characters outside of the very broad terms of, 'I didn't like this' or 'I didn't like that'. But what the game has done, is that whatever flaws I find with the plot and characters, the game has me thinking about them, and that is always a good sign.
Also, reading the demon's responses to you buying them, or fusing them, or appearing from fusion never ceases to amuse. I feel a little bad whenever I fuse the dog demons (Garm and Cerberus) because it's like. But I don't wanna go ;; But I will do it anyway because you asked ;;;;;;
What I'd really like to get is all the art, including the backgrounds, as well as cutscenes etc. Speaking of which, I'm just a little disappointed that the game doesn't use the DS' dual screen to its full effectiveness. Many of the out of battle cutscenes and animated stuff doesn't make use of the top screen, which feels a little bit disappointing, because I expect there to be something on the top screen, but all it is a blank screen. It's particularly noticeable in certain animated things where it sort of feels like it ends abruptly, when it could've just continued onto the top screen.
Expect fanfic and fanart in the future, perhaps.
--
Now that I'm done with that I can actually, you know. Concentrate on the things I'm supposed to be doing. Like RP |D;;; Speaking of. I'm idly considering playing Atsuro. Thoughts? xD
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Hahahaha, I just realized today that I can change demons in battle. : [[[[[
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Hahahah really? I realised when i saw Summon and Return in the menu lmao.
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;;; I never... tried it. It was like "WILL THEY DISAPPEAR FOREVER FROM BATTLE?" So for a while, I always had the exact number of demons I needed for just my team.
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