What I'm Playing - No. 120
Welcome back to another weekly wrap-up of the games I’ve been playing over the past week!
Spoiler warning for Devil Survivor! There are spoilers for the late game, so you shouldn’t read this week’s post if you don’t want to be spoiled!
Click a title to skip to that section. Games contained within this post:
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked (3DS)
After overcoming many trials, I made it to the end of the original game’s 7 day story, and started the new 8th Day content added in this 3DS version. Along the way, I started to really appreciate the different routes and meaningful choices you’re presented with. For instance, because of the route I was on, I came across a Black Frost protecting weaker demons from a group of humans with demons of their own, intent on killing the weaklings. I decided to stand with the Black Frost and fight against the humans there, defeating them and taking away their COMPs to ensure the weaker demons safety. This gained me the gratitude of Black Frost, causing him to join my party the following day. What I didn’t immediately realize though is that unlike all the other demons, he doesn’t go in a demon slot - he goes in a leader slot and leads a team of demons himself. He’s been pretty useful too - he automatically repels both Fire and Ice, but beyond that he has some amusing things to say which make him worth bringing along.
While Black Frost may have joined my party, due to the choices I made and the route I ended up on both Yuzu and Midori left my party permanently after I decided to resolve the lockdown crisis by having the player character absorb the power of several demons, become a demon overlord, and fight against God. But I gained Naoya and another guy named Kaido to make up for it, so honestly it wasn’t a big loss tactically.
I did a bit of grinding on and off in between story missions, usually just a Free Battle or 2 to gain some experience and money. In light of that, I didn’t have to retry many missions on the way to the original game’s ending. There were definitely some battles that took a long time, but I eventually made it through thanks to making Naoya a designated healer and having him and his demons revive my dead characters many, many times. One late game boss, Belberith, I was pretty worried about initially. He automatically healed by a large chunk after each skirmish, but I was able to exploit his wind weakness and also deal a bunch of physical damage with Atsuro thanks to his Pierce passive skill that lets his physical attacks deal full damage even if the enemy has a physical resistance.
The boss fight after that seemed even harder. After the boss’s first phase, you have to re-fight every major boss again, including Beldr who if you recall, I really struggled against the first time around. The bosses are stronger now as well, around level 60, because they would probably be a walk in the park if they were still at their original levels. Needless to say, I was pretty worried about this segment, because I didn’t want to lose and have to re-fight the first phase all over again. Surprisingly, defeating all those bosses again was easy. It was kind of lucky that I still had all the demons with me that I needed to use many of the strategies I had for these bosses the first time around. After that ordeal, the player character absorbs the rest of the demonic power he needs, becoming a demon himself and being crowned the demon overlord.
At that point, it’s my understanding that the original game ends. The credits rolled and you can either save Clear data to start New Game+ with, or save Clear data to begin the extra 8th Day content. I chose the latter, and my save file at that point was at 35 hours 47 minutes. The character silhouettes on the top screen seem to get filled in as you play through various routes in the game, so I imagine if you used the same save file to play through the game several times in New Game+, you could probably fill them all in eventually.
Anyway, I’ve only just started the 8th Day content. From the times on HowLongToBeat.com, it seems like the new content is roughly 8 hours long, so I’ll probably be finishing that next week. It’s had some challenge so far, not in the form of bosses (yet), but in the form of having to keep NPCs alive in order to not fail the mission. These angels are bloodthirsty, man!
