An instant favorite, if you enjoyed Nocturne or any other Shin Megami Tensei game you'll love Digital Devil Saga
Graphics: Well if you've played any other Shin Megami Tensei game you'll know what to expect here and you won't be let down. Keeping the traditional angsty carbon copy emo look where everybody just seems like a lifeless zombie staring at you thinking your a package of oscar mayer bologna. Okay Okay...put plain and simple Digital Devil Saga keeps true to the Shin Megami Tensei branch of Atlus with it's very original graphic designs.
Character Customization: Whoo hooo throw a bunch of people who naturally don't care together and suddenly give them emotions! Yeah it keeps the plot spinning in a downward soap opera feel at times but never the less all the characters have a unique backstory but are pretty much customizable the way you choose. All your available party members can learn the same skills and as they level up they can retain more skills for battle. Of course all the characters do have their prefered elements and they start off with most of these equipped. Basically it involves a large branch diagram where as you learn one skill you gain access to branch offs and new skills. think of it as A proceeds to B which can then proceed to C or D directly. You get the picture.
Gameplay: Digital Devil Saga employs all the classic rpg elements, you have puzzles to help advance main storyline levels and then obnoxiously hard sidequests which make the final boss seem like Strawberry Shortcake on parade. All the while you're assaulted with constant battle after battle. This all seems great but about halfway through the game you begin to see disgustingly difficult difficulty spikes which leaves you with nothing but backtracking to level up. (Nothing like being forced to play a game huh?) There is a fairly wide array of enemies and unlike many rpg's you really have to know what you're doing to survive in Digital Devil Saga I lost countless hours of gameplay by not saving when going into even normal area battles because there is such a strong weakness/ critical and element strategy behind the game that one move could seriously cost you your hard earned gaming time.
Storyline: Finally we get to what everybody really is wanting to know about the storyline! Yes it's amazing, there is strong character development that would make even the best harlequinn romance writer show some appreciation...just kidding. No overall it is pretty innovative and taking emotionless people and then suddenly throwing emotions only at random to certain people and not others...there's going to be conflict...oh yes lots and lots of conflict.
Overall if you're looking for a good videogame with interesting graphics, good gameplay, a great storyline, and deep character customization you definitely need to go out and get this game.