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sorcrane
Jul 30, 2017

Birds with beautiful wings! Gather on the battlefield and take flight!



sfx$ The light from the COMPs finally dies down, and in the background, a nearby train screams by.

music$ Pinch




Speaking of screaming...







Guys, get back!



(It can speak!?)

So this is the human world? Hmm. Then these humans must be the ones who summoned me.

We will fight, then! If I win, I will have my freedom! Let's go!

(That doesn't sound good at all!)










Hehehe! Get ready! I'm not gonna let you guys go!

The demons all have generic sound bytes based on their race. Pixie sounds amused, Kabuso sounds like an insulted cat, and Kobold sounds like an angry dog.

You have to die so I can go free! Hehehe!

Taking advantage of the group's state of shock, Pixie aggressively takes the first move.






music$ Battle beat


Yuzu raises her bag in front of her...



...but "Pixie" manages to claw its way around anyways.


music$ Pinch






Keep blocking your arms! Don't let it get close!

It looks like a hornet, what if you swing your ba-



Distracted, Atsuro barely notices in time that the otter-like monster is making its move.






music$ Battle beat




Barely is still enough though, and Atsuro manages to get away from its claws with few scratches.


music$ Pinch


Wh-What the? That should've hurt me way more than it did!

This is weird. Humans are supposed to be soft and chewy! Not hard!



The final monster turns towards Kazuya, but instead of blindly rushing forward like the others...



...it takes on a prepared stance.

(It's... holding a club! I don't have a bag or anything on me to block it!)




music$ Battle beat


(Don't break my arms, please don't break through...!)



Surprisingly, the bat nigh-bounces off. The pain still filters through, but it's obvious that the hit wasn't bone-wrecking.


music$ Pinch


It didn't go through! I'm not down!

GRARR! YOU STRONG!

THIS... FUN! FIGHT SOME MORE!

(Hell no! We need to get out of here!)

Yuzu! Atsuro! Let's get to the station!

Wait! Do you really think they'll just let us go?

It doesn't matter! We'll have cover in the station!

Teehee... Oh, my. Am I that scary? You're so sweet!

(This is a terrible plan... but there isn't enough time! We can't just sit around thinking!)



Kazuya begins making a run towards the station entrance behind Yuzu.

There might be other people there! Come on, Atsuro! We can't do this by ourselves!

But-!



Atsuro makes to move forward, clearly wanting to still say something. However...



Wait, Yuzu! Behind you!



Showing your back to me?

Huh? Ahh!



Yuzu! Get behind me!

Oh, I don't think so...



Stop! Go away!


music$ Battle beat




The monster continues to attack Yuzu, and the continued assault is finally bearing fruit - for the monster, that is. Yuzu looks unsteady on her feet.


music$ Pinch




It's too fast; I can't stop it! B-But the station is right there...!

Yuzu, grab my hand!

You're too far!



The otter-like monster catches up to Atsuro with little trouble. Atsuro does the best he can to fend off its attacks, but a few of them slip through anyhow.

Don't give up, you two! Go around the fence!

There's only a little distance left to go. Unfortunately...

RRRGH... PREY NO RUN! FIGHT!



I... I can't take this anymore!

Wait! You're leaving yourself open!



Try as he might, Atsuro is forced back by the monster in front of him.

So I'm supposed to just let them kill me? They're already on top of me!


music$ Battle beat


Hyyaggh!



Fed up with being on a lackluster defensive, Yuzu finally smacks the canine with her bag.


music$ Pinch


...! It looks hurt! They're not as strong as we think!

Look, it's backing off!

I did that?



I did that!

Kazuya! It looks almost dead, you attack it too! We're not gonna die here!

Finally fighting back, are we? Hrmm hrmm hrmm...





This... its wounds are gone!

You've got to be kidding me...!

Get back, guys! Come on, the door is right there!



GRAHAHHA...! YOU DIE, NOW!

Indeed! You're keeping my freedom waiting. Hurry up and die!


music$ Battle beat







music$ Pinch


Stop, wait, no, gah-! Ahhh...



Yuzu collapses and does not move.



...Yuzu?

Yuzu!! Come on, please get up!



NOW ME TOO! MY FREEDOM!

...No one's coming out of the station. It must be empty! We can't risk getting cornered...

Kazuya, listen! There's too many of them. We need to split!

But what about Yuzu?

We're out of time! I'll go towards the train tracks - you go back down the street!



(The train tracks? What's Atsuro up to? That monster tore through Yuzu so fast...)

Kazuya stops running. The canine catches up to him in no time at all.



(...Just like it'll do to me. I'm sorry, Atsuro.)


music$ Battle beat







music$ Pinch




The slumped figure does not respond.



Kazuya! drat it... You're going down with me!



Nyahh-ha-ha... Food should just sit still!



I'm not scared of you! I'm gonna make you pay!

(The train tracks are behind me, and they run through on the minute.)

(I might not be able to make it out of this... but how about throwing it onto the tracks...!)


music$ Battle beat


Hey, fur face!




Gyaaaarh! ...OK, that's it! Everyone else is done playing, and so am I!!



Wha-!


music$ Pinch




The train thunders from behind Atsuro's staggered form. His strength quickly bleeds out of his arms.

Yuzu... Kazuya... I'm sorry, I...


sfx$ The music cuts off abruptly.


MISSION FAILED











sorcrane fucked around with this message at 07:31 on Oct 25, 2021

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MightyPretenders
Feb 21, 2014

That game over message suggests some interesting implications about other possible game over conditions. Like, if Kazuya saw something his mind just could not handle, would that make the COMP effectively give up on him?

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



It might be that I've not played this in too long but I don't remember this battle being losable so uh, good job.

In a way this is making me want to checkout the 3ds remake of strange journey, but that game's loving massive even as a DS game, I can't imagine how much extra content they added.

berryjon
May 30, 2011

I have an invasion to go to.
So you lost the unlosable fight at the start of the game? Interesting choice. I suppose it's to get showing the lose screen out of the way.

That Kobold though, is going to have interesting days ahead, that's for sure.

ChaosStar0
Apr 6, 2021

I.. Just.. Why!? Why did you do that!?

Keldulas
Mar 18, 2009
I mean, that’s an interesting role play decision to pretend to be panicking teenagers.

sorcrane
Jul 30, 2017

Birds with beautiful wings! Gather on the battlefield and take flight!

Beartaco posted:

I adore these games. I've yet to play the 3DS versions since I put so many hours into the originals, running NG+ 5 times each to get all the different endings which I have never done in any other videogame. They're easily the best entries in SMT besides the Personas, but weirdly I feel like nobody I've talked to has ever actually played them? At best, people will have heard of them but even then they'll go "Oh, you liked Persona? You should go check out Nocturne!".

You've made my day! The whole reason why I started up this LP in the first place is because I want more people to be aware why Devil Survivor is the cool SMT-Persona cousin. :toot:


ChaosStar0 posted:

I.. Just.. Why!? Why did you do that!?

Keldulas posted:

I mean, that’s an interesting role play decision to pretend to be panicking teenagers.

I did say that our protagonist was going to make a lot of mistakes. :getin:

Joking aside, the tutorial battle is special in that if any one of Kazuya, Yuzu, or Atsuro die, it's an instant game over. More on this later. :eng101: The above update makes it look like it was in one go, but it was actually three different failure runs stitched together. Since this battle does have special death trigger conditions, that also means unique dialogue, which means... yup! Please bear with my fake dialogue; it's really hard to explain in-game why you'd fail this battle unless you're honest-to-god actively trying to fail.

Going forward, if there is special :gibs: dialogue in a battle, you can assume I will be doing a failure run to capture it. This happens less often than you think (normally there is a generic list of death lines every battle draws from), but it does happen here. Hitting these failure edge cases and seeing that the devs did in fact think of everything makes me happy, so I won't be stopping anytime soon.


tithin posted:

It might be that I've not played this in too long but I don't remember this battle being losable so uh, good job.

berryjon posted:

So you lost the unlosable fight at the start of the game? Interesting choice. I suppose it's to get showing the lose screen out of the way.

It's not an unlosable fight, but it's definitely hard to lose - I think I spent about 40 minutes* collecting footage for the failed run, and about 3 minutes beating it successfully. :doh: Suffering from success, as it is.

*Pixie is the only one with special win dialogue - Kobold and Kabuso have nothing to say if they kill any of the party members, but Pixie will always do her victory speech if it happens, and the camera will always pan to Pixie. Most of the time spent during the failed runs was spent luring Pixie off-screen.

Commander Keene
Dec 21, 2016

Faster than the others



I'll be honest, I never considered intentionally losing this battle. I usually roleplay a little and have Yuzu hang back, but I've never tried to get anybody killed. So thanks for showing that off, I guess? :confuoot:

There's a working theory among this game's fanbase that the code that scrolls by during the COMP hacking might be a bit of the game's source code, because it looks like functions for character movement and AI scripting.

cdyoung
Mar 2, 2012

Commander Keene posted:

I'll be honest, I never considered intentionally losing this battle. I usually roleplay a little and have Yuzu hang back, but I've never tried to get anybody killed. So thanks for showing that off, I guess? :confuoot:

There's a working theory among this game's fanbase that the code that scrolls by during the COMP hacking might be a bit of the game's source code, because it looks like functions for character movement and AI scripting.

It's actually the Demon Summoning Program, people have compared it to the code used in SMT1's opening and found matching code lines.

LiefKatano
Aug 31, 2018

I swear, by my sword and capote, that I will once again prove victorious!!
I mean, there's no question that it's the Demon Summoning Program, it specifically says as much.

That doesn't stop them from reusing demon/battle-related source code as the mumbo jumbo that flies by :v:

sorcrane
Jul 30, 2017

Birds with beautiful wings! Gather on the battlefield and take flight!



music$ Pinch


(My... My head is swimming. What's this sudden feeling of nausea?)

Argh, my head... Enough with the explanation; just hurry up and do it!



(I feel like I got run over by a train. Is that- are Yuzu and Atsuro talking?)

Man, you never change... Anyway, I'm gonna unlock the systems, okay?



(Unlock...? No, no, no, we can't do that, we shouldn't do that!)

A-

(What the... It feels like my stomach's in my throat!)

Turn your COMPs on, you guys!



A, Atsuro, wait-!

Okay, done! I'm restarting the COMPs!

Decryption confirmed.

Blue? You okay, dude?

Booting program.

(No... something terrible's going to happen. God! Why is my body suddenly trying to kill me? I need to tell them!)



He looks like he's gonna hurl!

...Condition green.

Come on... I know I've got tissues somewhere in here! Stupid bag!

DEMON SUMMONING PROGRAM ready to boot.

Wait, Demon Summoning?! ...Yuzu!

Booting DEMON SUMMONING PROGRAM.

What, Atsuro? Go get water or something!

Yuzu, listen to me! Something's not right with the COMPs!

The COMPs?

(retching noises)

Blue!?







What-










(I've never seen these monsters before, but that club... I know it, somehow.)

(Yes, something is telling me...)

We're gonna die.

Hey! Don't say stuff like that! No one's dying!



So this is the human world? Hmm. Then these humans must be the ones who summoned me.


We will fight, then! If I win, I will have my freedom! Let's go!










Hehehe! Get ready! I'm not gonna let you guys go!

You have to die so I can go free! Hehehe!

Taking advantage of the group's state of shock, the flying monster aggressively takes the first move.





Yuzu, don't just stand there! Squash it with your bag!

You want me to WHAT?

Wait, if you do that, you'll-!

Do I LOOK like a pest? How uncouth! I'll show you pest cleanup!

No, that's it! It's just like a hornet! Squash it!


music$ Battle beat


Yuzu readies her bag...



Okay, Yuzu. It's just ...a hornet! A talking blue hornet, sure...



But bugs are bugs! Get away from me, you freak!



...smacking the flying assailant into the pavement.



"Pixie" struggles to get back up, seemingly on the verge of death.


music$ Pinch


It landed...! Nice hit, Yuzu!

(My head...)

Be careful, Yuzu! It might still have something up its sleeves!

...It's not moving! Stay down, please, don't get up...

Arrgh! It hurts! Why does it hurt so much!?

...!







Don't even try to count me out just yet!



Distracted, Atsuro barely notices in time that the otter-like monster is making its move.




music$ Battle beat




Barely is still enough though, and Atsuro makes a solid connection with his laptop bag.




music$ Pinch


Gyaaaarh! Why do the human's attacks hurt!? Nobody said anything about this...

Wh-What the? That should've hurt me way more than it did!



(First is Yuzu, second is Atsuro, and third is...)



The final monster turns towards Kazuya, but instead of blindly rushing forward like the others...



...it takes on a prepared stance.

(It's... holding a club! I don't have a bag or anything on me to block it!)

FIGHT ME, HUMANS! ME... WIN!



(I... I'm certain that bat's going to kill me. I can't stop it...)

...I don't have anything!

Then PUNCH it! Come on, man, move!

(Dead if I do, dead if I don't...)

...What is UP with today!!


music$ Battle beat


Kazuya moves to attack the monster, but it gets to him first.



Surprisingly, the bat almost bounces off Kazuya's shoulder. The pain still filters through, but even Kazuya can tell that the hit wasn't bone-wrecking.

Eat this!



The results are satisfying.


music$ Pinch




It's ... not looking good! But how?

Can't we talk later!? Let's just hurry up and get away from these things!

I'm all for that! We're almost there, you two!

THIS... FUN! FIGHT SOME MORE!

(It's trying to get back up! It can still kill me!)

The COMP interface has information displayed on the demon, and it's not looking too hot.



(But... it definitely took damage, too. I need to take it down before it gets back up!)


music$ Battle beat




Kazuya yanks the bat away from the monster's grip, only to bring it crashing back down.



The monster's limbs twitch, but it appears it cannot recover itself.


music$ Pinch


Stay down, okay? Don't move!



IF ME DEFEATED BY ONE WHO SUMMONS ME, BECOME MASTER.

THIS CALLED CONTRACT. ...ONLY HEARD OF THEM...

ME KOBOLD, DEMON OF WAR. TO MEET YOU, NICE!



(It didn't kill me! But what was that fear I felt earlier? I've never had such a bad gut feeling before!)



......! Could it be... because of the COMPs?

We can win! We can't die here!

Meanwhile, Pixie is back in business.



I, I'm not gonna lose to you!


music$ Battle beat


Yuzu decides to fix that.



Once again, the flying monster smacks face-first into the unforgiving ground.


music$ Pinch


Argh - Oh, come ON! This isn't how it's supposed to go!



While Pixie eats concrete, Atsuro dashes around his monster, linking back up with Kazuya.

Alright! Time to end this!




music$ Battle beat






One well-placed punch has the monster defeated, and it begins to loudly complain.


music$ Pinch




Gahh... I've heard that if I lose, I become your servant. Oh well...

I'm the monster, Kabuso. Pleased to meet you...





Just this one left, huh? I'm not letting you cheat again!


music$ Battle beat




Yuzu does in fact get the jump on the monster before it can heal itself again, and in its poor health, it goes down in one last hit.






music$ Pinch




But I'll abide by the contract. I HAVE to lend you my powers.

I'm the fairy, Pixie. Don't you DARE waste me!










Shibuya
> day BEFORE 18:00 / ACTION: Atsuro <Battle conclusion>


sfx$ An eerie sound akin to noise interference hums as numbers clock into existence overhead.



(What in the world...?)



The clocks continue to turn endlessly, and the number 1 shifts ominously within.



What's going on? What was that? Atsuro, what did you do?

I don't know, either! I just undid the encryption! The program activated itself!

Then... The COMP is what made this happen just now?

That doesn't make any sense! That's just impossible!



(Seems like they haven't noticed the numbers... Can they not see them?)

(...Somehow, it feels like this situation is still spiraling out of control. I don't understand what's happening.)

That's a good idea.

I know, right? ...C'mon, Atsuro! Let's go!

H-Hey, wait a minute! Calm down for a second!



We still don't understand anything yet! Shouldn't we take a close look at all this?

Huh? What are you saying? What'll we do if demons come out of these things again?



But even after what just happened, is it right to throw everything out immediately?

We don't even know if that's the safest thing to do at this point.

It's possible these things are what got us attacked in the first place, right?

But it might also be true that they're the reason we're not dead.

What do you think, Yuzu?



I'm going to take a deeper look into these COMPs, okay?

Y-Yeah, okay. But if something comes out, we're making a run for it! I've had it with this!


music$ silence




How are you doing, by the way?

I'm fine. Just had a really bad gut feeling earlier, I guess.

That's good. My heart's still going a mile a minute.

Atsuro will probably find something soon.

Yeah, he'd better!



After some time, Atsuro finally pushes away his laptop.

Ah... I get it. So that's why...

What, did you figure something out?


music$ Disquiet


Yeah. First, this process is named the Demon Summoning Program.

Demon? You mean, like... from books and myths and all that stuff?



Well, they showed up!

Yeah... We really saw them, so we have to believe what happened...

...Anyway, the other function I found in this COMP is named the "Harmonizer."

What does that mean?



It's similar to the summoning program, and I have no idea what principles are behind it.

But it seems to match some wavelength so that our attacks work on demons...

(The demons seemed taken off guard by that... Guess we have the Harmonizer to thank for being alive. )

And, likewise, it attunes their attacks to lessen the damage we take from them.



Summoning demons, protecting us from them... What does he want us to do?

His email makes no sense.

His email...? Oh, that prediction letter? Yeah, that's creepy, too!

What email? The one that predicted the death in Aoyama...?





That's it, Blue!

Er, what's "it"?

Take this, for example... The death in Aoyama was blamed on an animal attack, right?

Huh...? Yeah...





If you're trying to scare us, knock it off!

I'm not trying to scare you. I want to sort this thing out.

Maybe we should start from the beginning?



Then we would have known when and where the attack was due to occur before it happened.


So, if we wanted to, we could've been there at that moment.


In addition, the COMPs are modified to summon demons and fight against them.




I can't believe I'm saying this, but... We could prevent them?


Yeah... That's what I think, too.


Huh...!?


There's been a lot of weird stuff in the city recently. The Internet's full of rumors.


There have always been strange things happening, but there have been a lot of them lately.








Then... are you saying these COMPs were made to fight the demons who are doing all this?

Yeah... That is, if demons are really the cause of these things.



Yeah, I agree.

See? You know we're right, Atsuro!

Then... We're really going to get rid of the COMPs? Is that the best thing to do?

I mean, I don't want to have to fight monsters like that again, either...





If... If you're right, Atsuro, and this weird stuff is being caused by demons...

And even if these COMPs were made to fight those demons...

Then, why us? The police should be the ones dealing with this stuff!

We can give them to the police, but if we do, we'll never get them back.

That said, do you think we can really protect ourselves without them, Yoohoo?



...?



(So they really can't see it. It doesn't seem to be doing anything, but...)

There's a number there.





It's like a clock. There's a number in the middle, and there's a clock hand that keeps doing full circles.

A number over our heads? What are you talking about?

I don't see anything, but you look serious... What's going on?

Man... Is that because of the COMP, too?

(The COMP... It's true that the clock kind of looks like the COMP startup logo. But even if it IS part of the COMP, we still don't know what it does.)

We know so little about all this... I feel like my head's about to blow up!





I agree.

(I just hope he'll give a straight answer, for once. I don't know if I can handle his usual antics on top of this...)





Coming up next time: we try to track down Naoya.




These two occurred in the pre-battle dialogue two updates ago, but it would've broken the flow of things if I included them then. These two are interesting in that their whole lines shifted - Yuzu became a little less abrasive, and Atsuro lost some geeking out time.

Requesting an explanation posted:


Hrmm... I'm still not convinced, but tell us what you've figured out for now. You did figure something out, right, Atsuro?
—>
Hrmm... Okay, though I'm still not convinced. So tell us what you found out, Atsuro.

About COMPs posted:


See, the COMPs are constantly transmitting certain signals to each other. Without that input, several parameters are set in such a way that makes it impossible--
—>
See, a COMP has this always-on wireless feature that allows it to exchange data with-

Blaze Dragon
Aug 28, 2013
LOWTAX'S SPINE FUND

This is kind of a mean comment but, I feel the game is wordy and clear enough on its own. The battle was genuinely not better to read with the story you added. I can sort of understand adding to the protagonist - although he's not exactly a silent protagonist in the first place - but that's a bit overkill when you're also writing for characters that have a bunch of lines by themselves.

JeffRaze
Mar 13, 2021
I'm the opposite, I enjoyed the extra stuff. Battles would end up pretty dry without it in my opinion.

ChaosStar0
Apr 6, 2021

Welp, you got me to give this game another go. Hopefully I can beat it this time.

Keldulas
Mar 18, 2009
Having a voice for the MC is perfectly reasonable considering that they're a silent protag. Common practice for LPs to do that.

I'm not so certain about lengthening the introduction to the game personally, but we'll see where it goes.

Dance Officer
May 4, 2017

It would be awesome if we could dance!
I like your LP, but the Katawa Shoujo LP set a new standard for me in terms of ease of reading, and I'd like to see it formatted in a similar way.

I'm primarily thinking of adding text from a screenshot below it, and adding character names along with their portraits for their spoken lines.

Quackles
Aug 11, 2018

Pixels of Light.


I just wanted to say I like the extra storytelling you did.

MythosDragon
Jan 3, 2016

Thank you for this, I cannot stand the gameplay in this game, but I've always wanted to see more of it and ChaosArgate's died.

sorcrane
Jul 30, 2017

Birds with beautiful wings! Gather on the battlefield and take flight!
Just a heads up (since it's been a week) that next part is almost ready to go but won't be posted until the later half of this week (still fixing some things that unexpectedly broke).

Blaze Dragon posted:

Constructive criticism

I'm sorry you feel this way, but I will continue to add commentary where I see fit. Devil Survivor NG+ runs suffer a lot of repetition with Day 0, and this is giving me some wiggle room to work with for future runs. Writing it otherwise is a quick way to make me lose motivation when I get to NG+.

Dance Officer posted:

I like your LP, but the Katawa Shoujo LP set a new standard for me in terms of ease of reading, and I'd like to see it formatted in a similar way.

I'm primarily thinking of adding text from a screenshot below it, and adding character names along with their portraits for their spoken lines.
I wish alt text on images was supported and I originally had everything written with hover/alt text in mind, but it isn't, so I won't be doing this.

ChaosStar0 posted:

Welp, you got me to give this game another go. Hopefully I can beat it this time.
Excellent. :buddy:

sorcrane
Jul 30, 2017

Birds with beautiful wings! Gather on the battlefield and take flight!


music$ Disquiet



Speaking of Naoya, his profile was updated after the Shibuya Electric Museum fiasco.

Naoya Suou / 24 / ? posted:



• Kazuya's cousin.

• Lost his parents at an early age and lived with the Suou family until a few years ago. Like a brother to Kazuya.

• A genius programmer who lives alone at an apartment in Aoyama.

Shockingly, demons appeared from the COMPs he gave you.

Why would he give you such a thing...?




Time to get some answers.







Aoyama
> day BEFORE 18:30 / ACTION: Residential Area



music$ 不安 -jingle-




Man... We'll never get near Naoya's room like this...

Hey! Over there!





Looks like he's been gone.

Hmm... That's what it looks like.

You guys were lucky that you ran into him today, huh?



"Lucky" is one way to put it... He's clearly not hanging around; let's read the new email.



As it turns out, the email is from the man himself. :raise:

NAOYA posted:

Congratulations

It seems you've used the COMP. Well done. I figured the general confusion would be dying down by now.

I gave you three the COMPs because you will need the powers of the demons. If you want to survive, you'll have to learn how to use them.

I don't have much time right now. Head to Aoyama Cemetary. You'll meet a person there who will influence your future actions.



Checking the other two folders, there's no new Laplace Mail...




But we did get a new email from the COMP system.



DS Admin posted:

READ ME

Congratulations! You have earned the qualifications to become a demon slayer.

You can now summon a demon at any time as an ally and command it.

Please note that "contracting" with the demons only occurs during the initial booting of this program. Defeating demons summoned via other COMPs does not apply, either.

Also, a tutorial function has been added to assist you in battle. Please make use of it.

Have a safe and pleasant experience in your new life as a demon tamer.




Haha... Naoya's insight is his greatest strength.

He's a genius when it comes to knowing what people are going to do next.



(A name to the face. Honest-to-God demons? And we beat them, so...)

"Demon tamer," huh?

Yeah, I wanted to point that out.

Remember what those demons said during the battle?

About submitting to us, contracts, lending their power... Sound familiar?



Um, so, basically...

The demons we fought can now be summoned from the COMPs? And they'll be our allies?

Yeah, but I can't say for sure until we actually try it out...

After we got that email, something called "Teams" got added to the COMP menu.

(Oh, I see it. Let's take a look...)



Geez!

If that's what he wanted all along, he could have just told us!

Haha, yeah, I think so too. Sometimes he's so smart I can't understand him...

In any case, the email from Naoya... It said to go to Aoyama Cemetery, right?

It mentioned someone "who will influence our actions," but... who could that be?



Who knows...? Considering all that's happened, anyone would be suspicious...

(There's a lot of technobabble in this menu... I'll look at it later. Let's see, they're talking about the email now.)

It did say "person"...

Yeah, you're right. It does say "person," after all.

This is Naoya. He would have said "monster" or "someone" if he meant otherwise.


music$ Action


...Fine.

I'd rather ask Naoya about this than sit around feeling scared and stupid!



Sounds like a plan. We're already in Aoyama, so it'll be a quick trip to Aoyama Cemetery.

Atsuro, however, has some lingering tutorial comments to make first.

Got a second, Blue?



But the Skill Set function looks like it'll let us use spells and such, too.

(So that's what that means on the Teams menu.)

Spells, you say? Like... magic?

Right. If we have to fight demons again, it'll help to set our COMPs to let us use them.

It looks like there's a skill set for each of us right now. That's a total of four skills.

The COMP seems to recognize you as the "group leader", so you should have write access to them.

You can change them by messing around with the Team Setup option.

I see. Thanks, Atsuro.

No problem, man.

Meanwhile, Yuzu appears lost in contemplation.

Hmm...



("Skill Set"... Alright, let's try this again.)

In the top-left corner, there is in fact a new Teams icon. Even more top-left than that is the battery level icon for the COMP, as well as its cellular signal. It seems to have dropped a battery level over the course of the earlier battle.



We also have ... some kind of money, now, in the bottom right-hand corner. It doesn't look we can use it yet, so let's move on.





Currently, there are only three character assigned - Kazuya, Atsuro, and Yuzu.


The demons the team previously defeated are all present as well - Kobold is assigned to Kazuya, Kabuso to Atsuro, and Pixie to Yuzu.



Some skills have been assigned by default to the three members of the party. However, there's not much available to do - the majority of the Skill Set is empty.



Kazuya starts off with Agi, the fire line of magic.



Kazuya and Yuzu both have better starting magic (4) than Atsuro (3), but Atsuro gets default magic anyways. Zio belongs to the electric line of magic.



Incidentally, Kazuya's starting strength is 5, but he did quite a bit of punching last battle which seemed effective, so it seems like a good idea to continue pouring into strength.


Yuzu doesn't have any offensive magic - instead, she has Dia, the first in the healing magic tree.



The demons all have the same skills present when the team faced them in battle. The team composition starts out a little bit unbalanced, what with both of the healers (Yuzu, Pixie) being on the same team. It's not a problem yet, so we make no modifications to the team composition or skill makeup.


I'm not sure what Atsuro meant when he said "a total of four skills"; there's only three available at the moment to the human party members. :iiam:


Finishing off COMP business, Naoya's due for another profile update.

Naoya Suou / 24 / ? posted:



• Kazuya's cousin.

• Lost his parents at an early age and lived with the Suou family until a few years ago. Like a brother to Kazuya.

• A genius programmer who lives alone at an apartment in Aoyama.

The mailbox at his apartment was full, showing that he hadn't been there in a while.


(Somehow, the COMP quantified our physical attributes. Er, magic, too. Can I really shoot fire now?)

Look, isn't that the cemetery right over there?

(It looks like I can have two demons summoned at once. But how do I get another one?)







Aoyama
> day BEFORE 19:00 / Action: Cemetary






Don't tell me it's a ghost... I feel like there's something out there... All those graves!

(The system email said something about "contracting" only happening once. So there must be another method.)

Hang on a second... Aoyama Cemetery... That rings a bell...

(The system email... the system email...?)

The email!

Huh...?


sfx$ Suddenly, the sound of a loud explosion rings out.







music$ Pinch




An explosion in Aoyama Cemetery around 19:00... It's just like what the email said!



A demon stumbles in from the north side of the cemetery. It's quite a bit bigger than the three demons from earlier.



It's not the only new face to the party, though. A man decked out in the blindingly orange Shomonkai robes shows up from the east soon after.



Gwahaha! Fools!

You're nothing like that woman! Do you really think you puny things can stop me?


sfx$ Wendigo sounds very, very pissed - a lot of gritty roaring sounds. There is a solid thump as it waylays the man in front of it.




The man goes down in just one hit, and proceeds to bleed out. :stonklol:




sfx$ The odd noise interference sound is heard again as the man's floating number clocks out of existence.









Yuzu, understandably, freaks out at the sight of someone dying right in front of her - but this unfortunately catches the demon's attention, and it turns its sights onto Kazuya's party.



But there's always a bigger fish.


music$ 神秘 -jingle-




Grah...! So the wench thinks she can catch up to me!

Hey, those clothes... She must be from the Shomonkai!

Why're they fighting demons?



Forget her, Atsuro! That demon killed someone! We have to run, now!

GRARR!

(I've heard that roar before!)


music$ Pinch








Next time: the team takes on their first boss.


Quackles
Aug 11, 2018

Pixels of Light.


They’ll be getting their dem on. :v:

cdyoung
Mar 2, 2012

Quackles posted:

They’ll be getting their dem on. :v:

Booo!
Booo!

nightelf_37
Oct 13, 2021

by Hand Knit
Wait, we're gonna see them suffer gruesome ends first, aren't we?

sorcrane
Jul 30, 2017

Birds with beautiful wings! Gather on the battlefield and take flight!



music$ Pinch battle






You there! It's dangerous here! You must evacuate immediately!

But how? We're surrounded!



H-Hey! Say something!



But Wendigo is far too powerful a foe for you right now. ...Leave him to me!

I will follow your orders. Direct me as you please.








Hey, uh, ...Miss! If you're following orders, that means you're really part of our party now, right?

That is correct. I will provide my support, for the time being.

And... you've got some countermeasure against the Wendigo? That is, more than letting yourself get punched to death?

Excuse me?

Sorry, no offense. It's just...





It looks like it'd be pretty easy to get trapped under its claws.




And, well, right before you showed up... it killed one of your colleagues in a single punch.



I think you'd be able to avoid actually getting punched to death, but you would retreat, because you've got more important things to do than help three dying teenagers.

Er...







All I see at the end of this are the three of us getting gored on its claws, and you too injured to do anything about it.





That... will really not be a problem.

Wendigo is weak to fire. I have sufficient fire. It says as much on your COMP, does it not?



Well--

Barring that, I am also able to punch it into submission. It cannot hope to best me.

Allow me to take care of Wendigo - which I am perfectly capable of doing - and you will survive this ordeal.

You are rather cynical. Do not give up so easily.

...I'll take your word for it.

Immediately following the tęte-ŕ-tęte, Kazuya's COMP goes off.





...This must be the tutorial that email mentioned!

They showed up when we were fighting too! I guess some functions won't be usable...



(Status check works fine, but team composition seems locked down. Looks like I can't modify that after the fighting begins. Aside from that...)

The floating numbers vanished.

...Those numbers you mentioned back at the Electric Museum? What the hell are they?

...Oh wait! It looks like there's more to the tutorial!



There are two kinds:
• Automatic Activation Skills
• Command Activation Skills

Use the Race Skills to gain the upper hand in battle. You can view the Race Skill's effect with the HELP menu.





(That tutorial explained nothing about what the skills actually do! Guess we'll have to play it by ear. Let's see...)



(Wendigo is over there.)



(...The Shomonkai lady said she'd take care of it.)



(These all look like the same canine demon I fought earlier. Kobold... There's a lot of them, but we can probably break past them.)

Atsuro! Yuzu! Let's do this just like earlier. Kobolds are weak to fire, and there's just three of them.

On it! I've got this side covered.

We don't have much of a choice... Let's get this over with.

Kazuya gears up to fight the nearest Kobold, but the COMP interrupts him.



Be cautious of the following:

Skirmish tutorial posted:

• The leader is in the middle. • If the leader is defeated, the whole team is destroyed.

• So long as the minions live, the leader takes less damage.

• If you defeat a leader first, the EXP and Macca of the remaining monsters is halved.


It is to your advantage to kill the minions flanking their leader.

So, it'll be hard to take down the leader without going through the lackeys first... Be careful, everyone.

Right!


music$ Battle beat




Thanks to Kazuya's Agi, the Kobold quickly burns into a crisp.


music$ Pinch battle




(Any extra firepower would've been really nice... Guess we have to get demons some other way.)



Atsuro, already heading over to the nearby Kobold, also gets stopped by a notification from the COMP.



It's a bit of a lengthy tutorial that can be summarized to: attack weaknesses, get an extra turn in combat; attack resistances, lose your extra turn AND your enemy gets the jump on you. More on this later.



...we've gotta hit 'em where it hurts or land a critical attack!


music$ Battle beat


Atsuro immediately puts this combat tip into practice via his new demon, Kabuso, who has access to Agi.



The Crispy Kobold count goes up to three. Kabuso also learns Zan, the first in the Force/Wind line of magic.


music$ Pinch battle


Mraahaha! That was awesome. Let's keep up the pace! I wanna clobber that Pixie over there.

Whoa! W-Wait a minute, slow down--!

We've seen a few race skills in play already: Pixie has Charm, which is basically a light group heal, and Kobold has Aggravate, which guarantees the first Phys attack to be critical.



Here Kabuso's racial skill kicks in - Animal Leg allows Kabuso's team to move again after combat. Atsuro is able to get within range of Pixie thanks to this. Meanwhile...

It's all up to you now, Miss!

Certainly.








music$ Battle beat


Wendigo has 246 HP - an order of magnitude more than the demons faced so far.



However, Amane has fire.



...Wow!!

:flame: Wendigo goes down in a single hit. As a reminder, Kazuya could only do 30 damage with Agi earlier.


music$ Pinch battle




Well, almost goes down. Wendigo (plot armor) barely survives the brutal scorching and makes a run for it.





Oh, but-! Aargh, there's still demons...

Nothing we can't handle! Just a couple left.

You're nowhere near as scary as that woman. I'll take that confidence of yours and make you eat it!




music$ Battle beat


Wait, what is THAT?



GRAAAGHH!!

Don't know, don't care! At least it's going down easy!

How can a HUMAN like you use Zio? Tsk! This might actually be bad...



Nice going, human! Let me join in.




music$ Pinch battle


No one said the humans could fight back...!

Well, no one would roll over and die for you, either!



Yuzu defeats the last Kobold in the vicinity, bringing the battle to a close.









music$ Sad seeing






What we just went through... A... A person was killed...

......



(Yuzu seemed to be holding herself together alright during the battle, but now there's nothing to distract from the... murder.)

It could be an animal.

You know... It would be less scary to believe it really was some animal...

Demons, huh...? Looks like we're prepared for the worst...



They were using COMPs, too, and the demons didn't really scare them.

That explosion must've been caused when they were fighting earlier.



That means... The demons have been around for a long time, right...?

What are the Shomonkai...?

They seemed pretty intent on taking down Wendigo. Superheroes?

I kind of doubt that. But still, we don't know anything here...



That big demon, Wendigo, seemed to be afraid of her, too...

Could she be the person mentioned in that email from Naoya?

She might be the one.

I wonder, too. She seemed really strong, and I got this feeling from her...

The emails, the demons, and now the Shomonkai... drat it! It's too much to think about!

All we can do now is pray that nothing more happens today...


sfx$ The power cuts out.


music$ Disquiet




What's going on?

It's a blackout, right?

A blackout...? Wait a minute... That's it!

What's wrong, Atsuro?



Remember what was in that first email? It said there'd be a blackout!

Is this for real...? We don't know if it's citywide, but so far it's all coming true...

Yuzu pulls out her cellphone.





Huh...? Why not? How can you not have reception in a place like this?

Is this because of the blackout?

But the phone centers have their own backup power, right? This doesn't make sense!





It's pitch-black... I never thought Tokyo would be so dark at night...

Hey, what are we going to do now...?

Wait...! Someone's coming!


music$ 神秘 -jingle-




So, you are all safe. It's as I thought... You're demon tamers, as well.

...! Aren't you that girl from a little while ago...?



It's nice to meet you...

R-Right. I'm Atsuro Kihara, and she's Yuzu Tanikawa.

Oh, um... Hi. And this is...

I'm Kazuya Suou.

Kihara, Tanikawa, and... Suou. I shall remember your names.



I have set a simple barrier around this place tonight. It's best if you stayed here.

M-Minions? You mean, demons?

You said we should stay, but... this is a cemetery!

It's better than dying. Wait here until dawn, then head for the station.



Hey! W-Wait!

...drat, what's going on?


music$ 不安 -jingle-




She took down Wendigo in one hit. We wouldn't have stood a chance.

Let's follow her advice.

We don't have a choice. If she's right, then it's too dangerous to go anywhere now...

B-But... This is a graveyard...



If a demon comes, we run.

But we need to rest up first so we CAN run.

Y-Yeah... I don't think I can go far anyway... My legs are like jelly...

We don't have a choice. Let's take turns keeping a lookout...




Coming up next time: A recount of the day's events.



Lots of neat dialogue changes in this battle segment, including characters swapping out lines.

Running away posted:

Forget them, Atsuro! We need to run before we die too!
—>
Forget her, Atsuro! That demon killed someone! We have to run, now!

Declaration of intent posted:

Argh! I am SO gonna get you!
—>
All right... I'm gonna do this! I'm gonna live through this!

COMP tutorial pt.1 posted:

Hey! The COMP's saying something!
—>
What the? There's a message on the COMP's screen...!

Floating numbers posted:

......!? It must be those numbers they talked about at the Electric Museum! I'm confused!
—>
...Those numbers you mentioned back at the Electric Museum? What the hell are they?

On racial skills posted:

I... guess we have no choice. I'm glad we have demons on our side and all, but still...
—>
Ugh... We've got no choice but to fight? I'm glad we have demons on our side, I guess...

Shomonkai girl posted:

Hey, you guys! It's too dangerous here! Run!
Yeah right! That's not really an option right now!
—>
You there! It's dangerous here! You must evacuate immediately!
But how? We're surrounded!

Shomonkai girl defeated posted:

No...! How is this possible? I'm sorry I was of such little use.
—>
How is this possible...? I'm sorry I couldn't be of help...

Shomonkai girl gives chase posted:

I can't just let him go! I can catch him if I go now. Please excuse me.
—>
I won't let you escape... Please excuse me, I must go after that demon.

Please tell me your name posted:

It's a pleasure. Oh, and you are...?
—>
Oh, um... Hi. And this is...

sorcrane fucked around with this message at 01:16 on Dec 3, 2021

Quackles
Aug 11, 2018

Pixels of Light.


Man, it looks like we're about to experience some Shomonkai business.

Or we just did.

Hunt11
Jul 24, 2013

Grimey Drawer
If you are feeling bold you can weaken the Wendigo and then feed the kill to the mc. It isn't necessary but it is a good level boost.

Fat Samurai
Feb 16, 2011

To go quickly is foolish. To go slowly is prudent. Not to go; that is wisdom.
So, are spells coming out of the DS COMPs or are we just flailing them around wildly? Because everyone seems to notice when someone else has one, so they are not in a bag or something.

MayOrMayNotBeACat
Jul 22, 2017


I know this is from the previous update but


wow, wild deMons, amirite?

nightelf_37
Oct 13, 2021

by Hand Knit
I remember playing this game on the DS. I named my character "Kazuya Hosho", nickname "Kay". I derived my MC's (and Naoya's by extension) surname from a bluenette (like Kazuya) magical girl character.

I wonder if you can guess who she is.

Commander Keene
Dec 21, 2016

Faster than the others



Fat Samurai posted:

So, are spells coming out of the DS COMPs or are we just flailing them around wildly? Because everyone seems to notice when someone else has one, so they are not in a bag or something.
At the very least, you probably need the comp in hand to summon your demon squad for combat. Seems like it'd be a bad idea to just walk around with kobolds and kabusos and pixies hanging around.

MayOrMayNotBeACat posted:

I know this is from the previous update but

wow, wild deMons, amirite?
Don't worry, he's just fainted. He'll wake up at the nearest medical center with half his wallet missing.

sorcrane
Jul 30, 2017

Birds with beautiful wings! Gather on the battlefield and take flight!
Shin Megami Tensei V came out last Friday :dance: and I've been glued to my Switch screen since. I've finally come back up for air to get back on this though.

I'm close to done with the Day 0 wrap-up, but I'm still working through the Day 1 footage (I record the whole day before jumping into formatting) so expect a little bit of a wait before we get into Day 1 proper. Thanks!


Hunt11 posted:

If you are feeling bold you can weaken the Wendigo and then feed the kill to the mc. It isn't necessary but it is a good level boost.

I don't remember the exact HP cutoff (I think it's around 70HP?) but yeah, you don't need to actually "kill" the Wendigo to survive the encounter - it's wholly possible for Kazuya & co. to drive Wendigo down low enough, even with the demons they have right now. Most of our demons right now will die in a single hit to Wendigo, but thanks to the COMP dampening team leader damage, the main trio can get through the encounter OK without Amane, even now. :cool: I'll regurgitate this in the battle write-up.


nightelf_37 posted:

I remember playing this game on the DS. I named my character "Kazuya Hosho", nickname "Kay". I derived my MC's (and Naoya's by extension) surname from a bluenette (like Kazuya) magical girl character.

I wonder if you can guess who she is.

I did a quick Google search and I have never seen this show. Her hair is very blue though, the last name reference seems reasonable. Having talked with a few other folks it seems like using some variation of Neku/Phones is also fairly common for DeSu1 MC's name



thanks to the weird headphones TWEWY and DeSu1 both have.


Fat Samurai posted:

So, are spells coming out of the DS COMPs or are we just flailing them around wildly? Because everyone seems to notice when someone else has one, so they are not in a bag or something.

Devil Survivor has a manga which provides one interpretation: magic appears to coat their body i.e. Kazuya's hand gets set on fire with Agi and then gets chucked at the enemy. They are generally holding a COMP in one hand while casting, though that's not always the case.

ChaosStar0
Apr 6, 2021

I personally use Abel for the nickname. Kazuya is definitely his first name, too bad Minegishi doesn't fit in the English version though.

ChaosStar0 fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Nov 18, 2021

nightelf_37
Oct 13, 2021

by Hand Knit

sorcrane posted:

I did a quick Google search and I have never seen this show. Her hair is very blue though, the last name reference seems reasonable.

I'm guessing you won't show the goons so they will search it themselves? :)

BrightWing
Apr 27, 2012

Yes, he is quite mad.
Hey, I just want to appreciate your graphics you make for the updates. They look really slick!

sorcrane
Jul 30, 2017

Birds with beautiful wings! Gather on the battlefield and take flight!

BrightWing posted:

Hey, I just want to appreciate your graphics you make for the updates. They look really slick!

Thank you very much! I've got a cache of them just waiting for their time to shine. :dance:

Please forgive the double post, but the next update is ready. :toot:

sorcrane
Jul 30, 2017

Birds with beautiful wings! Gather on the battlefield and take flight!



music$ Sunset

The party might've stated they were going to go sleep, but there's some last-minute emailing to check out first.







NAOYA posted:

Laplace Mail
I'm sure you've noticed the Laplace Mail by now.

Kazuya, everything in the world has causes and effects.

If some intelligence could record and analyze every event simultaneously, the future would no longer be a mystery to us.

Ultimately, nothing created by man can ever be truly perfect, but you can use these messages to guide your actions from now on.
(...What a mess.)

AT-LOW posted:

Testing

Hey, it's Atsuro.

I was messing with my COMP and saw that the email app's still working, even in the blackout. If you know someone's COMP address, you can send mail directly to them. Plus, it looks like two COMPs will automatically learn each other's addresses when they get close to each other. It takes a while, though. I'm going to teach Yuzu how to use this function.

Too much stuff happened today. I'm so tired. I just want it to be morning...
(I suppose I should answer.)



It's decision time again. Just like how the game will sometimes prompt Kazuya to pick a response in conversation, Kazuya is also sometimes able to respond in a variety of ways to emails given at the end of the day. No response is also a valid response.

(All three of us should stay on top of this. I don't want to think about what would've happened if Atsuro hadn't figured out the COMPs are our ticket to getting of this alive.)





(The follow-up email the COMP promised, huh?)

COMP.sys posted:

About EXTRA TURNs

A brief explanation about Extra Turns:

• The higher your Ag, the easier it is to earn Extra Turns.
• The attacker is more likely to earn them.

Certain actions raise your chances to earn an Extra Turn or take away an enemy's:

• Strike an enemy's weakness
• Land a critical hit

If your attack misses or the enemy has any resistance to it, you may get the opposite result. Pay attention to the enemy details on the top screen.
This last email here touches upon more battle mechanics.

Well, now's as good a time as any to go over the battle system (and the day's battles)! I like the combat system quite a bit and you might too, but everything following this line is completely optional :words: - if you're the type of reader who's only here for the story, you can safely skip ahead to the next post.

In future updates, where battles are complex enough to warrant their own deep-dive, these (optional) battle reviews will likely directly follow the story update. Also, for sake of readability, I'm going to stop with the italics for this section. Enjoy!


You might've picked up how the battle system works from the earlier parts, but let's run through it anyways.

Battles takes place on two levels:



the tactical grid map, and



inside the skirmish.

Both sections have their own set of unique skills and ways to go about handling them. Unlike other TRPGs that have automatic forecasts for skirmishes (Fire Emblem, most NIS games, to name a couple), it's wholly possible to set up all your units in advantageous positions on the grid, only to get utterly decimated due to poor choices (or plain bad luck) within skirmishes.

First, let's look at the grid/map level. All units on a map have two key values that play into their actions: move (how far they can move), and speed (determines how often they act).



These values are visible at the bottom of the upper screen (Pixie here has 3 move and 40 speed), and are static values that do not change the whole game (but can be temporarily modified by specific racial skills).



Kazuya and Atsuro both have 4 movement and 50 speed.



Yuzu has 3 movement, and despite being only one less than the others, this can be fairly frustrating to deal with when her lag builds up over time. However, her speed is a whopping 52, meaning she tends to go first at the start of the map. (As a general rule, all characters in Kazuya's party get the first turn on the enemy.)

Speed isn't everything, though; turn order is by no means consistent every round. Each team leader also has a "movement gauge", also located at the bottom on the top screen.



Turn order is determined by who has the lowest movement gauge. In the case of a tie, the team leader with the higher speed goes first. The team's current action is colored mint-green, and possible future actions forecast their cost in dark red.

A character's movement gauge goes up on their turn, especially if they take an action. Attacking (and getting attacked) takes up more of the gauge than skill usage. Moving takes about the same gauge amount as attacking. Ending the turn without doing anything takes up the least amount, but it's not free.

Movement gauges are also not equal between leaders! Kazuya and Yuzu both appear to use less of the gauge when attacking than Atsuro, and demons are pretty varied as well.

You can keep track of the battle's current turn order in the upper left-hand corner of the bottom screen:



This forecast is very helpful for quickly determining what your options are before you commit. Attacking really drives up your movement gauge (landing your next turn pretty far back), so sometimes it's worth moving closer to an enemy but not doing actually attacking in order to have a chance to go before another demon acts.

In the below example, the little triangle mark shows that if Yuzu decides to move, her next turn will be after Atsuro's.



This looks acceptable so Yuzu goes ahead and moves. If Yuzu decides to continue on to attack, then her next turn will instead be after Kabuso's.



Of course, the movement gauge rule applies to demons, too. If everyone gangs up on a single demon, that demon's turn will be pushed way far back compared to demons left alone. The demons' AI certainly isn't afraid to dogpile characters until their turn order drives to a stuttering halt.

Well, I say that, but the very first tutorial battle is an exception - no matter how close Kazuya is to the other demons, only Kobold will go after Kazuya :argh:. Similarly, Pixie has a homing beacon on Yuzu, and Kabuso will chase after Atsuro.

Now, what even the tutorial demons aren't afraid to do is to use racial skills. The enemy AI is quite smart about this and will use them whenever it gives them an advantage, but also won't waste HP/MP unnecessarily. This is frustrating to see, but actually very fun to play against, and really lends to the challenge aspect of the game.



For the tutorial battle, Aggravate - Kobold's racial skill - is the only real threat. It's not even really that threatening; even if Kobold crits, it won't outpace Kazuya & Atsuro's damage.

Aggravate is a skirmish-level buff that will make the first Phys attack (does NOT include magic) per team unit a crit. This does not add any resistance-piercing effects, so if your enemy happens to be Null Phys, you'll still do diddly squat. :smith:



Pixie's racial skill is far more threatening outside of the tutorial battle. Aggravate can at least be dealt with by having good defensive stats; Charm is a whole nother headache. On the surface, Charm will slightly heal all members of a single team, and has a fairly decent reach. This is annoying when used by the enemy, but bearable.

The problematic part comes from its randomized side effect, which has a decent chance of proccing. These side effects include:
  • Critical rate up
  • Full HP
  • Movement gauge down
Movement gauge down has the potential to push the target team ahead in the turn order, and it can be extremely beneficial (or terrible, if the enemy is using it) in situations where turn order matters.

Take this for example: in the Aoyama Cemetery battle, there is a Pixie close to Wendigo. Imagine Wendigo is almost dead, and one good hit from Amane will finish it off, but Amane is at low health. Pixie uses Charm and the side effect procs, and suddenly Wendigo's turn moves up before Amane's, upping the probability that Amane gets killed first.

So in terms of the tutorial battle, Pixie is rather harmless, but for everything else Charm has the potential to be a real RNG nuisance. :rolldice:




Animal Leg also doesn't get a chance to really show off until the Aoyama Cemetery battle. Not only does Kabuso not use its effects (it is honed-in on Atsuro, remember - it won't go chasing after anyone else!), but the map isn't that large to begin with. As Atsuro demonstrated in the Aoyama Cemetery battle though, Animal Leg is a fantastic movement racial skill for the map level that can really help with aggroing enemy units.



If a demon is in your party, then you can use its racial skill anytime while it is their turn in the map level. Passive skills like Animal Leg will conditionally activate; you don't have to do anything for those. Explicit skills like Charm and Aggravate can be activated before OR after a battle, so you can activate them whenever you feel it best.

This flexibility leads to a lot of interesting strategies. An enemy team composed of three Pixies, for example, could use Charm to heal (and potentially jump their turn order), attack, and then use Charm twice more after the battle to heal up all damage (and get their turn order up again). :cripes: You get the idea.

A question you might be wondering is: if demons have racial skills, then do the human party members ever get to use anything special?




The answer is... sort of! The game still has some more battle mechanics to introduce, so I'll cover that when we get there. For now, human party members have a nice and empty skill slot where the Racial Skill would normally be located. However, their command menu does contain a Summon command.



The Summon command is greyed out here because our party doesn't have any more demons to summon - in order for a demon to be Summoned, it has to not be assigned to any team. But if you look at Pixie's command list more closely,



you'll see the Return command, which allows Pixie to return herself to the stock (and allow someone else to Summon her).

Some other rules surrounding Summoning:
  • Demons that have already had their HP reduced to 0 can't be resummoned from the stock*
  • A team leader can only Summon once per turn
  • Return uses up the vanguard demon's action, not the team leader's action (so Pixie could Return herself, and Yuzu could Summon her right back in the same turn)
  • Summoning/Returning drives up the movement gauge a little less than attacking or racial/regular skill usage.
Alright, I've talked at length about the map level and actions/skills you can take while on the grid, but the skirmish level is even more important - no matter how good you set up yourself in the map level, a bad skirmish can instantly ruin the whole battle.

The latest email we received covers it pretty well, but humor me and let me go into a bit more detail. :bravo2:



A skirmish consists of two rounds. Everyone* can act in the first round, but the Extra Turn round is reserved to, well, units that have earned the EXTRA. And there are several ways to earn it!



The first is initiative. See the ± symbol?

An attacker starts with boosted initiative, and the defender with normal or lessened. If the attacking unit has a higher Ag(ility), it may start out the battle automatically with EXTRA (such as the example below).



If a unit takes damage, it has a chance of having its EXTRA removed. This removal is practically guaranteed if the target suffers two attacks of 1. a crit, or 2. a weakness hit - even if the target was defending.

In the completely opposite direction, performing a crit or hitting a weakpoint will usually grant the attacker the EXTRA, as demonstrated by Kabuso here:



It is of course in your interest to get as EXTRAs as frequently as possible - more actions means better chance of winning the skirmish, after all.

Which is why type matchups are so important! :science:

The types in Shin Megami Tensei tend to vary per game, but these are the ones present in Devil Survivor Overclocked:
  • Phys: physical.
  • Agi: fire.
  • Bufu: ice.
  • Zio: electric.
  • Zan: force/wind.
  • Curse: status effects.
  • Almighty; cannot be blocked.
Shin Megami Tensei follows the prefix-suffix school of magic levels.
  • Ma- or Mar- means AOE; it will hit once per defender. We saw Amane use Maragi earlier, and it was a little wasted since the defending team only contained Wendigo. Agi (single target) would've done the job just as well.
  • The mid-tier level of spells suffers from different suffixes. Agi becomes Agilao, Bufu to Bufula, Zio to Zionga, and Zan to Zanma. You'll just have to memorize these suffixes, unfortunately.
  • -dyne designates the highest level.
These prefixes and suffixes can mix and match, so eventually we'll be seeing skills like Mabufudyne getting thrown around.

Curse and Phys skills don't play by the naming rules and I'll cover them as they pop up. Something to note is that Attack is always* a Phys attack, no matter what else the unit is proficient in.

There are a few different levels of resistance to types, and demons tend to have at least one of Wk and St to the types above.
  • Wk for weak; getting hit in Wk is almost a death sentence.
  • -- for normal; it's not good to be hit by normal but you do have a decent chance of surviving it.
  • St for strong (resistance); you'll want to try to match up St as frequently as possible (it's much more common than Nu).
  • Nu for null; this completely* negates the damage type. Nus are rare but very ideal for type matchup.
  • Rp for repel; this is even rare than Nu and will completely reflect the damage back to the attacker (taking into account the attacker's own defenses against the type). A Rp hitting a Rp will end the chain on the second Rp - no infinite Rp chaining, thankfully. Additionally, a Rp that was triggered from a party-wide attack will NOT party-wide attack the offending party - it will only repel back to the original attacker.
  • Dr for drain; this is almost always better than Rp or Nu due to the fact that you heal* when hit with damage in this type. Very handy!


Kabuso here is Wk to electricity, but St against fire and curse.

While demons have a variation of type resistances, our starting three human units are blank across the entire board. This makes the tutorial battle a pure slogfest, especially since Pixie doesn't have access to Zio and Kabuso doesn't have access to Agi or Zan.


Day 0 / 17:30 / Shibuya Electric Museum: Overall assessment
The tutorial battle can typically be cleared within a few turns. It's really, really hard to lose the tutorial battle - even though in this battle, you lose if ANY of your party dies.

I spent 45 minutes provoking Kobold into killing each of the characters across three different runs (Kobold had to slowly wail on the party as they defended, since it was too easy for them to accidentally kill Kobold by attacking). In comparison, the successful run only took about 3 minutes.

Difficulty: Baby's first battle!





Aoyama Cemetery is where things start to get interesting. We're introduced to Ogre and Wendigo, both of which have the Bind racial skill. Ogre also has the Knight Soul passive (we haven't seen it proc yet - Atsuro mowed down Ogre before it had a chance to), but it's a passive self-sacrificing skirmish skill: if the leader would've taken fatal damage, Knight Soul steps in and redirects the damage.

On enemies, Knight Soul is plain frustrating, forcing you to take out the vanguard even if you wanted to dogpile on the leader. Remember, a team doesn't go down until the leader goes down, and Knight Soul is a solid block in that plan. :( As such, we will definitely be seeing it in action going forward.

If Knight Soul is frustrating on a skirmish level, then Bind is almost just as bad: it forces the map level movement speed of its target to 1. In maps where movement is fast-paced all around, this is disastrous and can severely disrupt plans.

Fortunately, Bind has a direct counter (as stated by the game) in the form of Devil Speed. We haven't seen any demons with that racial skill yet, but you can probably guess what it does based on its name.

As you are probably already starting to realize, racial skills have a TON of synergy potential and let you get away with some truly ridiculous strategies (or get totalled by enemy forces). Each of your teams effectively gets two to deal with, so choosing the right racial skills for map control is almost as important as skirmish type advantage. I know I said the skirmish level is more important than the map level, but the caveat is if you let yourself get absolutely dogpiled - getting Binded and surrounded by four enemies using Aggravate is an awful way to go, and entirely possible! :shepface:



The most dangerous part of the Aoyama Cemetery battle is, of course, Wendigo. The silver lining is that while Wendigo is quite a bit higher-leveled than Kazuya's party, Wendigo will also only use its normal attack. That normal attack can kill a vanguard in one hit, sure, but it's still manageable - not an AOE that wipes out the whole party in one turn.

The other silver lining is Amane, who makes Wendigo into a complete joke. Not only does Maragi massively overkill Wendigo, but even Amane's normal attack can take out Wendigo in a few hits, and Wendigo's normal does barely any damage in retaliation.



It IS possible to beat Wendigo without Amane, but it requires careful usage of vanguards defending (so Wendigo can't kill them in one hit), healing from Yuzu or Pixie to keep everyone alive, and constant abuse of Agi from Kabuso and one of the human characters to steal Wendigo's EXTRA.

Unfortunately at their current low level, the humans and Kabuso can't fire off too many Agis before they run out of MP (and it's a good idea to save some for healing against the horde of non-Wendigo enemies). Thankfully, Wendigo doesn't need to be completely downed - it has a threshold somewhere around 70HP that makes it retreat.



The rest of the map is pretty much a nonissue. Kazuya and Atsuro's default team formations have enough weakness-hitting skills between the both of them to take out the surrounding Kobolds, the Pixie, and Ogres with no trouble at all. Yuzu may struggle to pick off enemies if left with her default demon Pixie (they're both healers, and Pixie doesn't start out knowing Zio); having Yuzu and Atsuro trade demons helps out team balancing and makes the map easier to chew through.


Day 0 / 19:00 / Aoyama Cemetery: Overall assessment
Charging blindly into Wendigo can lead to a nasty surprise (or game over). The bottom-right Kobold has an Ogre in its party that knows Bind, as does the upper-left Pixie. Some of the map has paths only one-tile wide, so it's possibly to get trapped on both sides and not be able to escape thanks to Bind.

Just let Amane take care of Wendigo, don't let a single unit get cut off on both sides, and you'll clear this map in a few turns (especially if you use Animal Leg). Amane will also stick around until Wendigo is taken down, so if you're feeling particularly peaceable you can have Amane solo the entire map.

Difficulty: Amane's Amazing Overkill


Taking down Wendigo without Amane is still a decent idea to consider because whoever takes down Wendigo gets a healthy bonus bunch of extra EXP. And speaking of EXP, the last bit I'll cover here is stats.



Like skill types, Shin Megami Tensei also tends to vary level-up stats across all its different games, but Devil Survivor is extremely straightforward:
  • St: strength; affects Phys skills.
  • Ma: magic; affects ... pretty much everything else, including max MP. It also acts as a defensive stat against enemy magic attacks.
  • Vi: vitality; affects Phys defense and max HP.
  • Ag: agility; affects EXTRA initiative, dodge, accuracy, etc. It does NOT affect move/speed/turn order.
Every level up, Kazuya gets 1 point to allocate, and it's up to you where you put it. All other characters have a predetermined stat increase path: Yuzu tends to favor Ma, for example, and Atsuro favors St.



At the very end of the map, all (alive) units are given a burst of EXP - including demons - and this is usually enough to send some over into level up.



Although I've dumped every single stat point so far into Str so far for Kazuya, it's not actually a good idea in the longterm, as skills themselves require certain stat levels in order to even use them. Some skills will require a mix (e.g. St X, Vi Y) and these requirements will be listed on the skill. I've run tunnel-vision stat builds in other SMT games that don't have this requirement, but in Devil Survivor you tend to focus on at least two stats.

That's all for now. It's time to sleep, for tomorrow will be a new day.


*This isn't completely true. More on this much, much later.


sorcrane fucked around with this message at 05:29 on Nov 26, 2021

Keldulas
Mar 18, 2009
Strength MC kind of surprises me, especially with how the game works.

Have to say that Devil Survivor does sell the ‘everything’s hosed’ angle quite well. The best spot for the exhausted teens to rest being the graveyard is kind of offputting, and was the first big impression that stuck with me.

Fat Samurai
Feb 16, 2011

To go quickly is foolish. To go slowly is prudent. Not to go; that is wisdom.

Keldulas posted:

Strength MC kind of surprises me, especially with how the game works.

Yeah. In every SMT game I've seen where extra turns and weakness are a thing, magic is much more versatile. Nice to see something different, though.

berryjon
May 30, 2011

I have an invasion to go to.
Actually a Strength build for the MC is very good for this game for exactly two reasons, neither of which I can talk about at this point due to the no-spoiler policy. But yes, in most games, MAG focus works because of the variety of effects you can get from it. This just isn't one of them.

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MayOrMayNotBeACat
Jul 22, 2017


berryjon posted:

Actually a Strength build for the MC is very good for this game for exactly two reasons, neither of which I can talk about at this point due to the no-spoiler policy. But yes, in most games, MAG focus works because of the variety of effects you can get from it. This just isn't one of them.

You forget that any STR build on the MC is going to have to compete with Atsuro, and Physical skills are in short supply compared to Magic Skills.

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