A nice game, if you didn't play Nocturne.
DDS delivers a nice atmosphere, something never seen in games. You will be introduced to the Junkyard, a world that resembles Purgatory, at least. Your main objective will be to reach Nirvana: in order to do that it is your task to defeat and conquest all territories of the other ones living in this world.
Graphically, DDS is plain good. The animation during the cutscenec rivalry great blockbusters like Final Fantasy or Tekken: the expressions, looks and actions of all characters are well rendered and natural. In game animations aren't so well done, but it's not bad: just doesn't stand out. However, something that will always stand out is the design of Kazuma Kaneko. As always, he's great as a designer: everything will look severely twisted and badassy! The look of the demons is as creative and original as those from the very first Persona game: he's a genius, period. (moreover, these are some fun characters to cosplay, if you dare!)
The sound is great, with lots of progressive rock and guitar solos. It is technichally very good, though has little originality (one of the tracks clearly resembles the intro of Californication, from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers). Being the first game of the series to present voice over, it's astonishing how it was well done. All the lines are very well delivered and the actors must be praised for such a job. You may strange a little the fact that the characters doesn't seem to have emotions, but, hey, that's what we are talking about!
The major drawback of this game is on the gameplay, but only those who played the previous games (like Nocturne). It has changed very little, so it will feel extremely dated and sometimes repetitive. Fighting in the same way, against the same demons, with the same sound effects and the same hard difficulty... It's boring, to say the least. But if you never played a Shin Megami Tensei game, you are welcome to try fearless: it may spoil Persona 3, which is under production right now and looks like will have the same system, but it functions well. Unlike Final Fantasy, SMT doesn't change at all from one game to another, what is shameful.
The little change is also a prove of lack os creativity: you will have a sphere grid! Yeah, that one from FFX! Your characters will evolve according to their displacemente along a grid with spherical markers. Sounds like you've seen it before? Definetely. But, unlike FFX, in DDS the sphere grid doesn't work well and soon you will feel frustrated by the fact that most spheres are virtually unacessible, since you will have to save extreme amounts of money in order to buy them for each character.
In the end, Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga is curious and has an interesting plot with cinematic cutscenes, but it's a shame that the production team gave so little attention to make it a new game, not a recycled version of Nocturne. I recommend that you rent it one weekend and play again only one month later: you will regret buying it as I did...