Literally one of the hardest Shin Megami Tensei game yet, but that doesn't mean it's a bad game.
If your reading this review then you already know what Shin Megami Tensei is. I love SMT, and of course they are meant to be hard as F****, but this game is one seriously hard as S**** that I seriously almost broke my DS because of it. Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor 2 is a sequel to the award winning Devil Survivor on the DS (but has not connection with it), with just a few tweaks but that's about it, it's like I'm literally playing the first one all over again, it just feels like nothing has changed. The Story is ok at best. You play as... well you and you travel around with your buddy Daichi Shijima. After finishing your mock exam, Daichi tells you about this weird site rumor going around the school that it can foresee a death of anyone and it actually comes true, so for some reason you register to it and downloaded an app to your phone. After walking to the subway with Daichi you see another classmate from your school, a girl name Io Nitta (Daichi's wet dream girl) who walks up to you guys and started talking with her, but soon after you and your friends get a message and you get a clip from the site showing your friends deaths, being crushed by a subway train at a station. Soon after an explosion occurs and they look to see the train lost control and is about to crush them and you... until then you wake up and find you and your friends are still alive, but then out of the mist demons appear and are willing to kill you to be "free" as they say, so you must fight to stay alive. A lot of stuff happens in Devil Survivor 2 that doesn't really interest me like when members die or when something major happens, the only thing that actually took my interest which was the void that was "deleting" the world but I didn't took much interest in it after. One thing for sure is this game has multiple endings but not like the first Devil Survivor where it has at least 9 different endings, this one only has 3; depending on what you do/say or who survives/dies can effect the out come of the endings that you receive. This game is going by the original MegaTen ending rule: the Law Ending, the Neutral Ending, and the Chaos Ending so you'll have to pick between those three, or... The Gameplay is exactly the same as the first Devil Survivor no joke I feel like I'm playing it all over again after playing the first and getting all the endings, after playing overclocked and doing it all over again (with the 8th days) and this just feels like nothing is new, but it's still hella fun to play, so it's not all bad. There are of course new party members that will join you but unlike the first one once they join they stick with you they don't leave your party so you'll have a ton of members to look after, until they die of course (if your not fast enough to say them). The characters are loveable which I love about this game even the MC has a character which is rare in a MegaTen game. There is a lot of fan service in this game which is funny and fun to watch which lightens up the mood of the game. They of course added new content into the game but not a lot that actually matters, like new skills, new demons, and an add-on system where when fusing demons you can add a special set of skills or increase their stats more and more. They also added a Fate system which is like the social link system in Persona 3 and 4, talking to you teammates and will increase their fate which can increase their stats or make stronger/rare demons and more. One thing that pissed me off about this game was the turn order system, I have no idea how this system works you move once and the enemies can move twice before you can move again and attack cost less than moving also if they attack you it cost you more that you attacking them how does that work? It's BS. Also bosses in this game is stupid as hell they can attack from afar I can understand but later bosses can attack even further like the dragon that can attack from 10 spaces and Polaris who can attack ANYWHERE HE WANTS TO, and has THREE F**** BATTLES?!?! plus the most retard skill in SMT ever, the anti-almighty which Polaris has which can decrease almighty attacks by 50%... there is a reason it's called Almighty I thought it was bad in Persona 3 where Nyx can reflect every single attack and magic including almighty but that was awesome (but still BS) this one isn't. The Music is really good, I loved it, I love to hear it, they also added new battle musics before a fight, during a fight it's just one still but of course there is one for regular battles, one for boss battles, one for Septentriones battles, and of course the final battle. The music before battles are different depending on the situation, which are all kick azz. The Sound Effects are the same as the first game so nothing new there from attacks to magic hell even when they die. The Graphics are not that bad they look just like how they did in the first game, great. They changed some of the skills usage like Ma- skills look a lot better than before they actually look awesome when using them. Characters look weird at first but you'll get use to them later on and love them too :3. The Controls were easy to use with the system, fusing or using add-ons, fighting, so on. It was a lot better in the first game since the comp basically looked like a DS, it feels like your in the game that you are you :P. Devil Survivor 2 is not a bad game but I feel like they should have but a lot more effort in this game and I was really anticipated with this game to only to be disappointed with it, but I still enjoyed it and maybe you will too.
Overall:
Story: 7.0
Gameplay: 7.5
Sound: 8.5
Graphics: 8.5
Controls: 9.5
Overall: 8.2