devil-survivor
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When Genres Collide: Why Devil Survivor 2 works so well (and Namco x Capcom doesn't)
This is a column by Kat Bailey dedicated to the analysis of the once beloved Japanese RPG sub-genre. Tune in every Wednesday for thoughts on white-haired villains, giant robots, Infinity+1 swords, and everything else the wonderful world of JRPGs has to offer. One of the dullest strategy RPGs ever made is Namco x Capcom, a forgotten Japan-only release for the PlayStation 2 in 2005. Playing the crossover was about as exciting as banging your head against the wall -- the two activities are equally repetitive.The reason it fails so completely is paradoxically the very reason that it looks so appealing in trailers: the active, combo-based combat. Namco x Capcom's combat isn't too bad at first, but it quickly becomes a series of using the same combos again and again, across maps that take ages to clear out. I've had math tests that were more fun. But now we have Devil Survivor 2, which manages to succeed in every way that Namco x Capcom's battle system failed.The key here is that, as far as I can tell, Devil Survivor is the only SRPG spinoff that retains some semblance of what made the original so popular in the first place. Now hear me out before you start typing that angry comment. Final Fantasy Tactics is a fine strategy RPG, but it has much more in common with Tactics Ogre than most mainline Final Fantasy games (Final Fantasy XII notwithstanding). Replace the jobs with more generic classes, switch out the Chocobos for horses, and you'd hardly know the difference.It's easy enough, I suppose, to shoehorn an existing universe into the basic framework provided by the likes of Tactics Ogre. But speaking the language of the genre without sacrificing the spirit of the original game is considerably harder. That's why I'm so impressed with Devil Survivor and its sequel, which manage to translate the battle system of a traditional RPG into an SRPG setting without missing a beat. Just how impressed was I by Devil Survivor 2, specifically? Just read my review to find out.%Gallery-149047%
Atlus announces Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor and some random minigame collection
Atlus is addicted to Nintendo DS game announcements. It's basically up to one a day at this point! The latest set to be revealed by the niche publisher includes one game that we knew was coming, and 101 that completely blindsided us.Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor is a strategy RPG in which players control a team of teenagers who collect and fuse demons and battle on a hexagonal grid. This was one of the game announcements revealed early via Amazon.ca. It's out June 23 for $30.101 in 1 Explosive Megamix is a minigame collection from European publisher Nordcurrent. It comprises various sports, puzzle, and action minigames, and it doesn't really look like much. It's an extremely bizarre game for Atlus to pick up. Maybe it knows something we don't, and the game is actually awesome. We'll find out when it comes out April 21, at a price of $20.%Gallery-44068%%Gallery-44067%
Atlus leaks: Devil Survivor, Knights in the Nightmare, more
Okay, so we already knew about Atlus's ridiculous surge of DS releases in the first quarter of this year, thanks to the ESRB and, later, Atlus. But what about Q2? In a discovery that will no doubt exasperate Atlus's PR staff, a Siliconera reader found five more unannounced Atlus games on Amazon.ca, all with projected release dates between April and June. The four new DS games are: Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier, Sting's Knights in the Nightmare and Dokapon Journey, and Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor, known as Megami Ibunroku Devil Survivor in Japan. The one PSP release in the store's database is Crimson Gem Saga, which is known as Garnet Chronicle in Japan and Astonishia Story 2 in Korea.The bad news is that all we have to go on is Siliconera's word and this image. The listings have all been pulled if they were there.%Gallery-21499%
Atlus's Devil Survivor revealed
The mysterious game Megami Ibunroku Devil Survivor that Atlus teased in last week's Famitsu has been revealed (in this week's Famitsu, obviously). It turns out that the "wait seven days to see it" thing was thematically appropriate: Devil Survivor, like The World Ends With You, gives players seven days to save Tokyo from destruction. Unlike Square Enix's well-received action RPG thing, this is a strategy RPG. The game, due out in January, will feature monsters designed by well-known Atlus character designer Kazuma Kaneko, who also did character designs for the last Trauma Center.
Atlus teases new 'Devil Survivor' game
The latest issue of Famitsu features this two-page ad from Atlus, revealing the title of a new DS game: Devil Survivor. We can kind of see the kanji for megami next to it, which is obviously used in the company's Shin Megami Tensei titles. NeoGAFfer duckroll identifies the tiny kanji string as Megami Ibunroku, which was used in the name of the first Persona game. So there's a faint chance it could be somehow Persona-related, but with the Persona series now pretty big, we'd imagine Atlus would actually use the Persona name on a DS spinoff.According to the ad, more information will be available on November 7.
