Deep, Strategic gameplay makes Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga a fun RPG to play.
Let alone that and let's talk about the game. In general, the game stacks up to the franchise of Shin Megami Tensei. Each Subtitle of Shin Megami Tensei is a stand-alone title which if you want to check out, you don't need to play them in any particular order. I started with Person 3 FES. But they're played in the similar themes and mythologies.
Presentation and Storytelling:
The game is full of cut-scenes and they're beautiful, shady and atmospheric. What DDS "Digital Devil Saga" does is giving a good first impression to keep you going, but then the game starts to beat you up. It begins to get more serious and hard with the time and because of that, sometimes it makes you lose track of what's happening in the story.
The story is about 6 groups of people fighting in a world like Hell known as the Purgatory. You take a role of one of the leading tribes called Serph. During one of their routine battles with one group. A girl falls from the sky and causes a big explosion that makes everyone turns into monsters. Then you're summoned to a room named Karam Temple and tells you what to do in order to escape this Hell.
The storytelling itself is rather good but it leaves the player with answers like, "Ok, How did Sera get in this world?" "Why do they have vision of other versions of themselves?" and unfortunately as you progress you keep questioning WHY and WHEN. Even when you beat the game, there are questions popping in your head. Fortunately, there is THE sequel.
Score: 7/10
Gameplay:
Here's where the game really shines, it's fun, deep, progressing and strategic. From the get-go, you're thrown into the world which unfortunately is very limited "only 5-6 places to go". You'd think the game would stretch as you go on, but actually it stretches from within. Instead of going forward, you go back and forth to the same places.
Battles are randomized and they're frustrating because you can't walk freely especially when there's a puzzle. Grinding takes too long but that's ok because it's really fun and here's why:
You have Mecca that serves as Money for buying items, ammo "weapons", unlocking new abilities and so on. So money is everything here. Of course, you could also sell items, but don't sell items you need or use for battles. There are specific items you can sell and you make a lot of money when saving them for a big sale.
Abilities are called Mantra, mantra is a tree of magic, physical attacks, devouring skills, and automated skills. Every character has a unique personality that affects their skills. Serph can be fully customized by you, one is suited for Heal, one is for Magic, one is for Attack …etc. You won't go wrong if you did otherwise, because as I said. It's up to you how to customize your characters and actually, I haven't this feature in many JRPG and it's nice to see it even so it's an old game.
Battles are very hard, even random enemies can finish you off before your turn comes up. Sometimes and especially at the end of the game, you'd run away like hell. That is why you need to be very strategic here. The AI is very intelligent, you need to know enemies' weakness in order to fight them back.
Score: 9/10
Sound and Voice Acting:
Well, the soundtrack is decent for the most part. It's Rock music, you know the genre very well. You'd notice the electric guitar and drums kicking. Very catchy and nice.
Voice Acting is not very well-implemented here, it seems that Actors were restricted by the script. It's not that bad., but Sara is a little annoying.
Score: 6.5/10
General Pros and Cons:
^_^ Strategic Gameplay
^_^ Good Story
^_^ Visuals are nice "sorry forgot to write about that"
-_- Story suffers from Gaps
-_- Too many Random Battles
Overall: 7.5/10