Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker Review (3DS)
Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker was easily one of my most anticipated games of 2015 considering how much I loved Overclocked, and though I’ve seen the anime, I was excited to finally play the game.
Record Breaker is a remastered version of the original game on DS but with voice-acting and extra content in the way of a new story chapter set after the main story and more demons to summon. It begins with the main character, who you can name whatever you want, and his best friend Daichi finding out about the phone app Nicaea which shows you how your friends are going to die – it’s all supposed to be an elaborate joke but when the clips shown are proven to come true, they along with many others are forced to fight for their lives. Demons are also running rampant but as long as you have the app, you can summon your own demons to fight for you.
Atlus are known for the character development and for good reason – there’s so much spoken dialogue and text and it all goes to improve character’s or progress the story, none of it goes to waste. Like in the Persona series, you can now form stronger bonds with others by spending time with them outside of story missions, and it was one of my favourite things to do during my playthrough. The characters and story are so well-written and beautifully crafted that it’s incredibly easy to want to spend more time with them and it’ll stick with you long after it’s over. It encourages other playthroughs to max out the bonds that you might have missed out on the first time around.
If you’ve played Overclocked then battles will be familiar. You move your team of four around a square grid on the field, which also indicates your range and if you’ll be able to attack enemies or aid teammates. It’s turn-based and can be pretty difficult although not nearly as difficult as Overclocked liked to be! Most enemies have strengths and weaknesses and they’re stated on the enemies’ information page on the top screen during battle, but don’t think you’ll have an easy time just because you’re aware of it as you need to ensure you have demons with the correct skills. Killing the demon in the middle wins you the battle even if others are left standing by at the cost of macca (money to buy demons) and experience, and usually the enemy on either side will absorb a killing blow for their leader.
You usually have access to free battles which exist mainly for grinding purposes and you’ll want to make good use of this as Devil Survivor doesn’t hold your hand. Time is important too as any event with a clock next to it will eat up 30 minutes of your time and can sometimes cut off other events – this is mostly important to remember in the case of strengthening bonds. It isn’t a Shin Megami Tensei game without a demon summoning and fusing system which you’ll be relying on here and considering how quickly your Macca can disappear, it’s important to not waste it on just any demon. Sometimes it’s worth scoping out a battle and deciding what skills and demons would be best suited for it rather than to find yourself stuck because you’ve blown your cash!
Devil Survivor 2 holds up visually with its use of 2D sprites and Suzuhito Yasuda’s spectacular artwork, which will be familiar to fans of Durarara!!, Baccano! and Is It Wrong to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? and he’s continued to spread his gorgeous artwork elsewhere. He designed the characters and created their portraits, but of course it was up to Atlus to create the rest of the game. Despite being 2D, the sprites look as if they’re breathing and there’s life being breathed into every aspect of the the game down to the excellent demon design, the recreation of famous areas in Japan being turned into ruins and top-notch character design. It’s not only one of the best looking games on 3DS but one of the best games on the system in every aspect.
One of the big selling points of Record Breaker is that it’s now fully-voiced when the original on DS wasn’t. Voice talent from the anime don’t return and have been replaced with NIS America’s own picks which I don’t have a problem with, especially as many have featured in Atlus games before and they’re dubs are usually spot on. With actors and actresses such as Yuri Lowenthal, Kaiji Tang, Lauren Landa and Ben Diskin involved, it’s no surprise that the English dub here is fantastic. I prefer the battle theme here to what I did in Overclocked but as with its predecessor, Record Breaker has a great OST that matches the high quality of the overall game.
Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker is easily one of the best games on the 3DS and a worthy successor to Devil Survivor: Overclocked. Featuring a campaign that’ll easily take you a couple dozen of hours to complete with reason to revisit it in future, I can easily recommend Record Breaker to JRPG fans and those just looking for a game that’s revelling in brilliance. It can be pretty difficult so those with little patience may wish to steer clear, but otherwise you’re doing yourself a disservice by not picking this up.
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