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 Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor is the TRPG hybrid child of the mainline Megami Tensei (Megaten) games and the much more popular Persona spinoffs, which puts it in one hell of a unique position. It features many early RPG visual novel-esque elements, going heavy on the plot and characters while also having pretty tight gameplay. For those coming in from the Persona series who are cautiously curious about the rest of the Megaten franchise, Devil Survivor is a great entryway bridge. It's also just a really, really good game and I love it a lot. ...And what does Overclocked mean? Glad you asked! I’ll be SSLP’ing Devil Survivor Overclocked, which is the 2011 enhanced port of Devil Survivor to the 3DS (10th anniversary a couple months ago  at the time of writing this post, anyways). It comes with fairly nice voice acting and a pretty huge expansion to three of the original endings, bumping up the total number of endings to eight. Devil Survivor has a large number of endings, but it also has alternative dialogue out the wazoo to match. This game definitely deserves to have the devs’ efforts spotlighted, and I’ll be attempting to do just that. There's a lot to unpack! Ooh, a sequel! Can I jump straight into Devil Survivor 2 instead? Not a problem, Devil Survivor is just barely related to its sequel (also released 2011) - DeSu2 borrows all of DeSu1's game mechanics, but none of its plot. Read Dragonatrix's LP of it here. And how about Devil Summoner? Completely different but similarly-sounding spin-off series! There are some Devil Summoner name references in Devil Survivor, and I'll be pointing them out as they pop up. What's the format of this LP? SSLP. Please bear with me. Policies Devil Survivor Overclocked spoiler policy  NO DEVIL SURVIVOR OVERCLOCKED STORY SPOILERS. Not even in spoiler tags. Like most of the other Megaten spinoff games that aren’t Persona 3/4/5, most people won’t be familiar with the game’s story, and the story is actually pretty solid, so I’d really like to avoid that happening. Additionally, since this game has so many different endings and has more revolving doors than a corporate lobby, it is incredibly easy to spoil even in casual conversation. General battle mechanics are fine, just keep mum on anything related to characters/plot/endings. Thank you. Shin Megami Tensei + Persona spoiler policy No major plot spoilers of any kind from the other Megaten games.I don’t care about gameplay mechanics or back-of-the-box general knowledge discussion from the rest of the franchise - just keep the big plot spoilers out. Shin Megami Tensei V discussion policy Please don't discuss SMTV in here. The game is too new, and I'd like to go in blind. The Shin Megami Tensei megathread is here.Thread update sizing and scheduling I offer no promises regarding scheduling. This is my first LP and I intend to see it through, but that means updates will likely be on the smaller side so I can achieve consistency. Devil Survivor is largely broken into alternating story and battle segments and I'll likely be following those natural breaking points. Megaten difficulty rating? Megaten is notorious for its teeth-grinding difficulty, but Devil Survivor Overclocked is a fairly reasonable game. It’ll punch you in ways different from mainline’s bad-RNG-kills-you-in-the-tutorial, but even before NG+, it's not too hard to figure out how to kick the ever-loving crap out of it. It’s a pretty flexible game though, so I’ll be imposing gameplay challenges on myself when I feel like it (probably per gameplay loop). Content warningsPlease heed these trigger warnings that I will purposefully not be avoiding nor labelling in updates: - Suicidal ideation and suicide - Being burned to death - Multiple character death/violence/murder The premise of Devil Survivor in some ways mirrors the COVID pandemic (trapped in lockdown, news is delayed/highly contested, people are fatigued and pushed to the brink, and death is always top of mind). Also, in typical Megaten fashion, it’s going to touch some broad topics that can easily derail into a political-religious fistfight. Therefore, Please be excellent to one another and also do not derail the thread unnecessarily. Regarding thread participation Devil Survivor, like any good branching visual novel, has a metric ton of choices, and plenty of them are actually tied to important consequences. Given the sheer volume of choices within the game, I won’t be asking for the thread to vote on choices. I do plan on having polls every so often to do a temperature check on the cast, if just to see how opinions change over the course of the game. I have a general idea for what order I'll be doing the endings in, though not quite set in stone yet. The route I am choosing for the first run is for sure non-negotiable: our protagonist is going to make a lot of mistakes. Table of Contents Day 0 - The Day Before
Day 1 - Tokyo Lockdown
sorcrane fucked around with this message at 08:27 on Dec 4, 2021 |
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Oct 11, 2021 00:34
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Reserved for dancing the days away.
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Oct 11, 2021 00:34
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  music$ Demon of Darkness    It's a bit hard to see in the sprite, but Yuzu's holding a flip phone here. Vanilla Devil Survivor came out in 2009; around this time was when flip phones entered their final popularity death throes among teens in the USA. Flip phones maintained their stronghold in Japan for a lot longer, but late-2000s is probably still accurate for the setting.  Especially since email is being used to schedule a meetup. Devil Survivor Overclocked added voice acting to the original game - the most of any ATLUS game at the time of its release (2011, article contains spoilers: link). Unfortunately, the opening scene crawls at a snail's pace since it wasn't originally intended to have voice acting - but no worries, this is the only scene in the game that really suffers from being voiced. I think the voice acting is pretty swell overall!  Naoya? Isn't that "his" cousin? I should be free tomorrow...  The red-haired woman appears distraught over something, and the black-haired man walks over to her.   Language of song indeed. I won't be uploading voice clips (maybe on the rare occasion), so instead I'll just mention who the voice actors are (NA release only has English, by the way). Gin is voiced by Josh Gilman (Angeal, Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core) and Katsuyuki Konishi (Walter, Shin Megami Tensei IV). Haru is voiced by Amanda Winn Lee (Yukiko Amagi, Persona 4) and Junko Minagawa (Erica, Catherine). Yuzu is voiced by Melissa Fahn (Neptune, Neptunia) and Ayako Kawasumi (Saber, Fate/Stay Night). Atsuro is voiced by Spike Spencer (Shinji Ikari, Neon Genesis Evangelion) and Atsushi Abe (Toma Kamijo, To Aru).   Can't say I've ever seen a room like this before. The organ is connected to the main floor by chains!  Amane is voiced by Laura Bailey (Nemissa, Soul Hackers) and Mamiko Noto (Fuuka, Persona 3).  [img]http://lpix.org/4138954/translation.JPG][/img]  …What now? "I follow no god"? Don’t be daft. God’s no friend of mine.Devil Survivor posted:
Overclocked posted:
Finishing up the voice acting in the prologue is Naoya, who is voiced by Kyle Hebert (Fujiwara, Shin Megami Tensei IV) and Kisho Taniyama (Ichiro Dazai, Shin Megami Tensei V).    The difference in screenshot size is thanks to this being run on the 3DSXL, where the top screen is larger than the bottom. The 3DS also offers 3D support for its top screen, but (thankfully? disappointingly?) Devil Survivor Overclocked only uses that feature on its title screen, so what you're seeing in these screenshots is also what I'm seeing. Anyways - names. In the official Devil Survivor manga adaptation, the protagonist's name is Kazuya Minegishi. Shin Megami Tensei adaptations love referencing other names in the franchise, and Devil Survivor is no exception. It's generally assumed that Kazuya is a reference to Kazuya No-Last-Name (Shin Megami Tensei I's protagonist) and Keiji Minegishi (Soul Hackers's protagonist). Since I only have six spaces to work with for the last name, I have to look elsewhere.  At just four letters, Suou ends up being the winner, a reference to Tatsuya Suou (Persona 2 Innocent Sin's protagonist). I also set Kazuya's nickname to "Blue" due to his overwhelmingly blue hair, ignoring the fact that blue is Devil Survivor 2's color scheme, while Devil Survivor 1 is primarily red. This will definitely not cause confusion.  That's as much introduction as we're going to get. Time to start this train ride.     sfx$ The bustling of the city can be heard, and an ominous gong-like sound rings out along with the day name drop. music$ Action    The summer of your second year of high school is almost over. People visiting Tokyo have begun traveling back home. It feels as if there are fewer people about in Shibuya... Your cousin Naoya, with whom you'd been living until a few years ago, suddenly called for you to meet him outside 901...    Real nice of Naoya to make us meet him outside on a hot day like this, isn't it? So, how's your summer been? We usually meet at school, so it feels like it's been forever. Is everything good? As mentioned before, Devil Survivor Overclocked (in typical multi-end visual novel fashion) has a large number of choices to be made. This is our first! I aim to show off every single dialogue option eventually, so for the most part you won't see the dialogue option pick screen. Any additional dialogue I add to help the flow of things (Kazuya gives very short responses) will be italicized next to a character portrait. Also, I caught Kazuya in his mid-blink animation. This will continue to be a trend where I accidentally take snapshots of their eyes shut.  Anyways, this choice doesn't really matter, so let's just go ahead with "Yeah".  Yeah. Summer's been an awesome break from all the monotony. Ah, that's the Blue I know! Young guys like us need to be full of energy!This game has great facial expressions. Still, I couldn't think of anything to do, so I spent all day on my laptop. Haha! This is great timing though, man. I just ran into this problem with my coding. It has me completely stumped, so I was about to go ask Naoya if he could help...    Even boys at school call me "Yoohoo", and it's your fault! Hehe, it's not that bad, is it? It's a friendly nickname! And it's not just our class. Some of the teachers actually think your name is "Yoohoo." That's because people like you keep calling me that! Haha, it's working! (I still don't see him... Is he running late?) Where's Naoya? Huh...? Oh, that's right! He said that something's come up, and he won't be able to make it. Aww, what's up with that? Naoya stood us up! Wait, what did he want you to give us? Here, take them. They were a pain to carry around in my bag, too. (Wait a minute, these are...) Naoya gave you these? That's a Nintendo DS. I've seen commercials for them before. They're like, "Play with people around the world!"Nope. Nintendo DS. 3DS, actually. I think they actually upgraded the cut-in image used here from DS to 3DS; you can see the tell-tale 3DS directional stick in the upper left hand corner of the controls. Also, the difference in screen size that I mentioned earlier. We get to use a Nintendo 3DS while playing a Nintendo 3DS. Excellent.  Oh, you know about them, Yoohoo? That's exactly what these are. They have email and a web browser, so they're more like cellphones than game systems.The 3DS has a web browser, but no native email. I'm liking these COMPs already! Huh... Is that so? Naoya said, "You'll all need these. Don't let go of them." Eh? "You'll all need"...? Well, there are three of them. ...Still, why would we need these? I mean, I've got a COMP back at my own－－ Huh? What the...? I've never seen this menu. Did he homebrew this? What...? Do you mean he made this himself? Is that even possible? Huh? Don't you know, Yoohoo? Naoya's famous among us programmers. He's a genius!Naoya handing out homebrewed game systems like it's nothing. Naoya is a cool cousin. Something like this would be no problem for him. Hmm... I can't open this folder. Looks like it's protected... Protected...? You mean, it's set so other people can't mess with it? We can't look inside, then. Don't forget you're talking to the second-biggest geek in town. Atsuro can crack it. Heh heh, that's right! Good thing I brought my laptop along... ...Huh? H－Hey, Atsuro! What're you doing? Heh heh! What does it look like? I'm gonna hack this folder wide open. You're hacking it...? Hey, Naoya's gonna be angry if you do that!(Oh yeah, almost forgot about the keyboard incident. Yikes, that was pretty scary.) We'd better not, then. He's right. C'mon, Atsuro, stop it! If he took the time to call me up and give it to me... That means he wants me to break his protection scheme! It's like a friendly greeting! That doesn't make any sense! Why can't he say "hello" like a normal person? Let's take a look here... What's his encryption scheme this time?  Hrrrrmmmm... Ah, there we go! You can at least check your mail for now. Here, these are yours.  New system, score! As Atsuro pointed out, the mail service is up and running. Kazuya goes ahead and opens it. Right now there's one unread email in the inbox from "The Observer". It's probably a welcome email from the server, but there's no reason not to check it out. Kazuya opens it up.   (Wait, what...?)The Observer posted:Laplace Mail   He'll be attacked by some carnivorous beast... ...? What kind of news is this? That's so creepy... Yeah, that is creepy. I know, right? The way it's written so offhandedly just makes it even creepier... It says it's today's news... But none of this has happened today. Does Atsuro regularly get challenges like this from Naoya? No wonder he's so peppy. Facial expressions change halfway through a line fairly frequently. It really adds some extra life to the vocal delivery. Aoyama, Aoyama... Hmm... Naoya's place is near there, but is that important...? That's enough! This is way too creepy! I bet Naoya knew you would tinker with the COMPs and played a trick on us. Hmm... I can't figure it out from just this. I'll try the rest of these files, too. I'm gonna go find somewhere I can think. Go kill some time. Oh, you can take the COMPs! Some of their functions still work, so you might as well try them out. See ya later, okay? I bet it's all just a prank. Atsuro always acts like such a kid with stuff like this! Um... What should we do, Blue? Why don't we wander around until Atsuro's done?Yeah. He definitely needs some alone time.   We have access to the overworld now! Coming up next time: Atsuro continues to bang on the homebrewed COMPs, and we take a look at the COMPs ourselves. [img]http://lpix.org/4138954/translation.JPG][/img] LiefKatano posted:
sorcrane fucked around with this message at 06:44 on Oct 13, 2021 |
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Oct 11, 2021 00:41
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Ooh, I love this game. I'll definitely be following this. Might play along, on New Game ++; I've gotten two endings already. Of note is that Overclocked added voice acting to the game; Atsuro is voiced by Spike Spencer (best known for not getting in the drat robot), and Yuzu is voiced by Melissa Fahn (also known for voicing Gaz in Invader Zim and Ed in Cowboy Bebop). sorcrane posted:
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Oct 11, 2021 01:09
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This is one of my favorite games in the series and I look forward to reading along.
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Oct 11, 2021 01:18
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Finally, this game can get off my LP conscience, I haven't played this game in ages but I still think I'd say this is one of my favorite games of all time.
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Oct 11, 2021 01:23
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Just saying, though, you sure have chosen a hell of a game to cut your LP teeth on. Especially if you're going to get more than one ending. I was considering doing this game, but I wanted to have at least one or two shorter LPs under my belt to get a good workflow down before tackling it.
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Oct 11, 2021 01:25
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sorcrane posted:Ooh, a sequel! Can I jump straight into Devil Survivor 2 instead? Fair warning for anyone who does want to read this thing I did... 8 years ago... there's more'n a few broken gifs here and there. And also some outright incorrect stuff slightly less often too. Maybe one day I'll finally figure out how to record 3DS stuff and do Record Breaker. ...Nah, I probably won't. That being a block is also why I never did this one despite absolutely wanting to. Good luck, OP! ChaosArgate posted:Finally, this game can get off my LP conscience, I haven't played this game in ages but I still think I'd say this is one of my favorite games of all time. 100%  to all of this.
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Oct 11, 2021 01:26
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Good luck, sorcane. Devil Survivor has already had two LPs (the DS version), both of which were abandoned super early. What I'm saying is that Devil Survivor might be another game cursed by the LP gods.
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Oct 11, 2021 01:34
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Ooh. It's good to see an LP of this game. I've been kind of curious about it.
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Oct 11, 2021 01:36
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Lotus Aura posted:Fair warning for anyone who does want to read this thing I did... 8 years ago... there's more'n a few broken gifs here and there. And also some outright incorrect stuff slightly less often too. Maybe one day I'll finally figure out how to record 3DS stuff and do Record Breaker.
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Oct 11, 2021 01:40
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I own a copy of this game. I have always meant to play it. I haven't played it. Thanks for playing it so I can see it. 😅
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Oct 11, 2021 01:41
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I've owned this game for a while now but haven't gotten very far into it, only a couple of hours worth, because it turns out I'm poo poo at TRPGs. Will be following this LP to see what I've missed out on and maybe try to go back to it (and 2 which I also own for some reason). Are you thinking of doing an LP for 2's remake as well?
Ibblebibble fucked around with this message at 03:17 on Oct 11, 2021 |
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Oct 11, 2021 03:08
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I love this game. I played all the routes on the original game, and then played them all again on Overclocked. I definitely prefer the plot of this game over Devil Survivor 2, although I love the game play in both games. Definitely wish they'd make a third game, as I like the TRPG aspect a ton.
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Oct 11, 2021 03:11
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Fun game - I very much enjoyed it. I haven't played two yet, I had heard that it wasn't as good / fun. My only major gripe with this game was (from memory) that the economy was stuffed w/r/t demon compendium prices and that demons very very quickly became obsolete. No story spoilers in here I did however very much enjoy the nigh invulnerability that came from a magic / drain build
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Oct 11, 2021 03:21
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Ah, Devil Survivor. I have a lot of things to say about this game, most of them very good, and quite a few of them comparisons with DS2. One thing that's always been a curious match between the two games is the music. Demon of Darkness is an absolute banger of an opener and y'all should listen to it, but the two games have weirdly different stripes - while DS1 has extremely good music around the big boss fights and endgame stuff, the day-to-day tunes I mostly found to be kinda flat, while DS2's were much more enjoyable in the regular gameplay but couldn't quite reach the high points of its predecessor. It's actually been quite a few years since I've played DS1, and I never actually got my hands on Overclocked (but I've done multiple full playthroughs of Record Breaker) so it'll be fun for me to see how much of the game I remember. DS1 is certainly less, shall we say...user-friendly than DS2, but honestly I feel that's part of its charm and its excellent storytelling. tithin posted:Fun game - I very much enjoyed it. I haven't played two yet, I had heard that it wasn't as good / fun.
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Oct 11, 2021 04:07
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Good to see someone do an LP of this game. I love SMT games despite never finishing them, and this is no exception. I've only gotten up to Day 3 or 4 myself.
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Oct 11, 2021 04:23
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theshim posted:Honestly I found 2 to be a better game in most ways. The story's a bit weaker but it's serviceable and the gameplay got refined in a number of ways. I'd highly recommend it if you enjoyed DS1 at all.
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Oct 11, 2021 06:58
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 Something I'm kinda surprised didn't come up - Yuzu's nickname is (probably unsurprisingly) changed from the Japanese version, being Sodeko (roughly "sleeve girl", despite her not wearing any sleeves  ) instead of Yoohoo.Definitely unsurprisingly, it was changed in translation because it's one of those impossible-to-translate Japanese puns - "sode" (袖) looks very similar to "yu" (柚) and "ko" is based on a different pronunciation for 子 (su/zu). I think "Yoohoo" is about as good of a translation as you could get, though it makes things like "some of the teachers at school think your name is Yoohoo" a bit... weirder. ...also for what it's worth I definitely wouldn't include changes between translation that are just punctuation-related. Even just pointing out Yuzu's change in annoyed sound effect is a bit much.
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Oct 11, 2021 13:34
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Played the hell out of the original, and Overclocked is still in the plastic because I never got around to playing it. My favourite character hasn't shown up yet. Well, either of them, so I'll save my gushing for later.
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Oct 11, 2021 13:46
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I didn't touch overclocked, so this'll be fun to follow along with. That being said, any chance you could make the screen shots a little bigger?
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Oct 11, 2021 18:12
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Thank you everyone for the warm reception. I'm very pleased to see so many new & old DeSu folks alike in here.Commander Keene posted:Just saying, though, you sure have chosen a hell of a game to cut your LP teeth on. You've got a point, but back in 2015 I meticulously took a picture with my phone of every dialogue line in the game (or as much as I could find, anyways). The process took around half a year and some 170-ish hours - so what's a couple more years of doing that all over again?   (I've already thrown in the towel, DeSu is just going to be my obsession until I can finally finish LPing it  )Also, as mentioned earlier, Devil Survivor Overclocked came out in mid-2011 - but ATLUS officially transferred over from the bankrupt Index Digital Media, Inc. to SEGA back in late 2013. Shin Megami Tensei IV released just before that happened, so it's still labelled under Index Digital Media, while Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker (which came out in NA in mid-2015) got put under ATLUS. Interestingly the original Devil Survivor cartridge registers under ATLUS. I'm not sure why - ATLUS got acquired by Index Digital Media back in 2006. MayOrMayNotBeACat posted:What I'm saying is that Devil Survivor might be another game cursed by the LP gods. The way the game is structured does not help at all with its LP-ability, but I've spent the past five years preparing for this LP. I've got spreadsheets. Definitely aiming to land this one, I've been looking forward to this LP ever since I discovered the game back in a Nintendo Power magazine in 2009. Ibblebibble posted:Are you thinking of doing an LP for 2's remake as well? Oh lord. Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker has even more variability than Devil Survivor 1, and I am a stickler for completionism. Ask me again in a couple years! (I do love Devil Survivor 2 a lot, though.) LiefKatano posted:
I'm not a speaker myself, so the Japanese-to-English translation details go over my head. Thank you for the neat info! If you've got anymore you know of, I'd be happy to hear. Also, regarding the grammar changes logging - it does take up space, doesn't it?  I still want to keep the line break changes for the voice acting lines, but the grammar ones might be overkill. Honestly, the line break ones might be too. Thanks for the feedback - thinking of moving the mostly-ignorable changes into a summary post at the end of each Day.Leraika posted:any chance you could make the screen shots a little bigger? With my setup, probably not. The quality of the screencaps aren't that good to begin with, so any upscaling I do (and I'm not used to upscaling) would probably get artifacted to hell and back. I'm available on the Discord server if folks think this is an issue and have advice for me on that (or anything DeSu related, really). Many people who didn't get very far into the game posted:Devil Survivor! I hope you enjoy! 
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Oct 11, 2021 18:33
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Oh cool. I ended up hitting a wall with this game pretty early on (SMT IV remains the only game in this franchise I've actually finished.), so I'm glad someone else is LPing this one.
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Oct 11, 2021 18:52
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sorcrane posted:With my setup, probably not. The quality of the screencaps aren't that good to begin with, so any upscaling I do (and I'm not used to upscaling) would probably get artifacted to hell and back. I'm available on the Discord server if folks think this is an issue and have advice for me on that (or anything DeSu related, really). Go ask in the tech support thread. You probably have better options than you realize.
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Oct 11, 2021 18:56
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Finally, another one of these. I wish you the best of luck. I like to think I know this game pretty well, although I only got 4 of the 8 endings (I stalled out in the middle of the fifth). The main trio come off as pretty likeable overall - although there's a lot of room to read "Blue" in different directions.
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Oct 11, 2021 23:36
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ultrafilter posted:Go ask in the tech support thread. You probably have better options than you realize. Funny you should mention that! As it turns out, I've already spent several months trying to improve my source quality (reached out to tech support fort a while ago) and it's really just not possible without resorting to an emulator (which for various reasons is absolutely not an option for me). I stand by my earlier statement in the thread - it'd be a pain to add upscaling to my existing pipeline, especially if I have to upscale the videos for gifs too. I'm already juggling a lot of moving parts; it's a lot of work.  Personally I think it's OK since the images I have right now are readable as-is. They're already the size of the original source material (320x240) - not any smaller than what you would see on the 3DSXL. I'm willing to look into upscaling if a large portion of the thread thinks it's an actual problem, but otherwise the size will probably stay the same. I suppose you could zoom in on the screen? Thanks for your understanding!
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Oct 12, 2021 01:50
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sorcrane posted:I've got spreadsheets. ooh Good luck with this. I think this is one of the few 3DS games I have that is physical (the others I can remember off the top of my head are Super Mario 3D Land, Etrian Odyssey IV, and Kingdom Hearts 3D.)
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Oct 12, 2021 02:15
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sorcrane posted:I'm not a speaker myself, so the Japanese-to-English translation details go over my head. Thank you for the neat info! I'm not really fluent in Japanese myself, I just know it from other sources
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Oct 12, 2021 03:49
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I have a particular fondness of this one. I think the story is overall better than the 2nd one. I’ll get into detail as we go on.
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Oct 12, 2021 03:59
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Ground flooring this. Devil Survivor is a game that I do definitely have an appreciation for, even though it has problems. Devil Survivor 2, in my opinion, is like the forest nature walk to DS1's rocky mountain/valley trail-while it is much more consistent, it doesn't quite reach the soaring heights of DS1, though it also avoids it's incredible lows.
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Oct 12, 2021 12:36
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God I love this game, but LPing it is hell of a task. So much variable stuff and so much text. Also everyone needs to listen to Demon of Darkness, it sets the mood perfectly.
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Oct 12, 2021 16:55
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music$ Action  The COMPs sound spiffy, being homebrewed and all. Atsuro already has dibs on staying in one place to thoroughly investigate them though, so let's get moving.  We're currently in Shibuya. Our icon will always be on the map, but interactable characters will show up from time to time here. Atsuro's currently in Shibuya as well, but... (We'd better leave Atsuro to his own devices. Hmm, speaking of devices...) Here's our first look at the COMP home screen. It's an aesthetically pleasing design, though a good portion of the application shortcuts are empty. The game runs through a quick tutorial about how to use the COMP and progress the story through overworld events. Kazuya is excellent at wasting time and doesn't need the tutorial, so we largely ignore it.  Saving is always available while on the overworld. I will be saving maniacally. Now then, let's take a look at the COMP's functions.  Profile is where we view information about the game's characters.  Right now we've only met Atsuro and Yuzu, but...  ...Kazuya's already got some information written down about them. Atsuro Kihara / 17 / ? posted:
 Yuzu Tanikawa / 17 / ? posted:
Next up is the email application. Kazuya took a look at this in the previous scene.   There are three mail subfolders, but only the Laplace Mail has any messages right now. We've already seen its lovely contents, so I'll skip over it.  The default talking speed in Devil Survivor is a couple words at a time. I pop open Config to change that.  Devil Survivor Overclocked has a Message Skip function, allowing you to fast-forward through conversations at breakneck speed. It's fantastic on NG+, but I don't believe it stops on text you haven't read before, so you still have to be a little careful using it.  There's another tab within Configs, but it's currently full of question marks. The Help text on the bottom of the screen doesn't tell us much either, so for now we'll ignore this. Moving on, here's the save application.   On the top of the save screen we see this silhouette composition. Atsuro and Yuzu can be seen on the far left, but we haven't (formally) met the rest of the silhouettes yet.  Devil Survivor Overclocked expanded the original number of save slots from one to three, and I do usually end up using all three just trying to explore different possibilities in the story. Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker greatly expanded the number of save slots beyond three, which I really appreciated.  One last look at the COMP before we close it and do story things. The background is very neat, I like it a lot. OK, that's enough. Let's go wander around!  We could work our way bottom-up? Sounds like a plan to me! Like I said, I don't really mind where we go. It really sucks to have to work on a holiday...Every region has someone to talk to as well as an option to look around. Like the profiles on the COMP, several of these optional dialogues also have a short time to live, so I'll be nabbing all of them as well.  Crowded as always. No kidding. Let's keep going. ...Is there anything fun to do around here? Hm... Something up? Oh! No, it's nothing. Hey, if Atsuro ends up taking a long time, do you want to look around Omotesando some? (I set aside the whole day in case the meetup with Naoya went off on a weird tangent. Maybe it already has? Either way, I haven't got other things planned.) Sure. Great! I've been meaning to go for a while. This is a great place to spend my mad money! Ugh... crepes aren't worth these lines! Let's grab some next time. (Sometimes you just have to brave the heat.) Speaking of! I can't believe you decided to wear black out in this! Aren't you overheating? It's fine. Huh... Well, if you say so... I'm not changing shirts. Are you hitting on me? Lose the other chick, and maybe we'll talk. (Just have to brave it...) Good day. Hot today, isn't it?  Aren't those the Shomonkai freaks? Do they ever shut up about God? It's so boring...I've pulled in a few generic NPC portraits from Devil Survivor 2 to add some variety to the overworld dialogue. This is one of them.  Looks like a new face. They've got quite the sunken eye look.  Kannagi-cho > day BEFORE 16:00 / ACTION: ??? sfx$ The murmur of a crowd can be heard all throughout this scene.    Now... What should we do? Wanna go watch a movie, or do some karaoke? Hmm... Atsuro might call us, so we should go somewhere with cellphone reception...music$ silence  music$ 神秘 -jingle-   We appear to have stumbled upon a sermon. Oh, man... What's with that bunch of weirdos? Now, along with our Shomonkai, let us bring the world together. With the power of the Internet, the world will be as one once more... The Tower of Babel is an odd choice for a metaphor and that in itself is sort of interesting, but ultimately it's a bunch of folks with questionable fashion tastes preaching about the "power of the Internet". Philosophical spelunking isn't on the table today. No. (Atsuro might be, though.) Yeah, I wouldn't think so. Their clothes are weird, too. Well, even I think it's great how the Internet lets you connect with the world. But all this stuff about gods and bringing the world together... I don't know. Ugh! Why are we even talking about this? Let's go somewhere else, Blue! All members are welcome to take part. Believe in His Majesty and prepare for the ordeal. That is when we shall... music$ Action  Nah, Shinjuku is a bust. Time to get out of here.   Omotesando is on the way back and nothing seems to be happening elsewhere, so let's indulge Yuzu.  Omotesando > day BEFORE 16:30 / ACTION: Yuzu sfx$ A crowd can be heard here as well. music$ 通常 -jingle-   I used to go to Harajuku all the time, but I always wanted to fit in at Omotesando. Hey, do you think I stick out like a sore thumb here? I manage to grab a shot without the dialogue box obscuring the portrait. (That's... a lot of pink.) Give it another year. Yeah, I see... Just a little longer. Don't you think that Harajuku and Omotesando have different images? Omotesando feels more like Aoyama's style than Harajuku's... It's been almost an hour since Atsuro bunkered down. Is something wrong? Huh...? Oh, sorry! I was just thinking about that email in the COMP... You know, the one about someone being attacked by a "carnivorous beast"... (Yuzu's still pretty bothered over it, huh.)sfx$ A police siren wails, present for just a moment. music$ 不安 -jingle-  Those police cars... They're heading towards Aoyama... Ah... Ahaha! There's no way it could be true, right? ...... Hey... Naoya's apartment is in Aoyama, right? Shouldn't we... go check it out?It's honestly unsettling to see Yuzu go through a full range of expressions back-to-back. Let's go, then. (I'm starting to get nervous, too.) Y－Yeah. music$ 不安 -jingle-   That's the plan. The appearance of police cars have sent the streets murmuring though, and Kazuya gets distracted by one particular conversation.  Wait - "another"? Don't you know about the bloodless murders? These serial killings have been going on for about six months now. All the corpses are found totally drained of blood, with holes in their necks! What are you doing, Blue? Let's get going! R-Right! It's a pretty famous mystery. (I'll ask Atsuro about this whole bloodless thing later; he keeps up with this kind of stuff. Naoya's more important right now.)  Aoyama, residential > day BEFORE 17:00 / ACTION: Residential Area   (Seriously? Right here? Of all places, right here?)   music$ Action   ...I'm surprised to see you, Kazuya. What are you doing here? (He's always like this. Does nothing faze him? Not even police sirens outside his front door?) We were worried! Th－That's right! We thought something might have happened to you, Naoya! ...Oh, you mean the incident in the building. Of course that's what we mean! What's going on, anyway? That weird email you made us read made us all jumpy! I see... You're right... Sorry about that. I didn't mean to frighten you.  music$ Disquiet  Is what that email said really true? But, we got the email before the incident happened... What does this mean, Blue? (Atsuro is right - Naoya's the smartest person around, he's always been. But this time someone is actually dead... just what kind of ridiculous trick involves someone dying? Is he telling us to back off?) The email was a warning. That does seem like a logical explanation. But, no, that's not what happened. I understand why the two of you came here, Kazuya. But, our meeting here is an accident. We shouldn't be talking like this.   ...There isn't much time left. Listen carefully to me, both of you. Do not turn away from what is about to happen now. Do not be afraid to stand up against it. That is when the door of truth will open... Overcome your fate. Oh...! W－Wait a second! music$ silence  music$ Action  sfx$ A high-pitched trilling noise. Sounds like a fairly standard ringtone.    Yo! I figured out how to crack the encryption on those COMPs! I need yours so I can unlock them. Meet me in front of the Electric Museum in Shibuya!  I didn't even get a chance to respond. Um... Why don't we meet up with Atsuro? I'm all confused from everything that's happened so suddenly... For a quick wander away, a lot of things sure did happen. We'll dive into Atsuro's insights next time.  Shinjuku soapbox posted:
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Oct 13, 2021 10:06
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I always appreciated how evil Naoya looks. He just looks very sinister and it puts you on guard about him immediately.
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Oct 13, 2021 12:39
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I do have thoughts about how the payoff for the bloodless murders goes down, but naturally, that will have to wait until it actually happens. The Shomankai though, really do need to work on their PR. Bright orange costumes? They stand out like traffic cones, and not in a good way.
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Oct 13, 2021 12:40
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I am excited to see all the little things I missed whilst playing this because boy are there a lot of things going on.
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Oct 13, 2021 12:58
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music$ Action   (Sounds like a lot of people believe that.)  Yeah, sorry. Right behind you.(It's been a very weird day. I'll take some notes on the train.)  Naoya's profile unlocks at this point. Notable in it is his last name, which is always the same as Kazuya's. Naoya Suou / 24 / ? posted:
 It's finally time to meet up with Atsuro. The "BATTLE" on the screen is a little foreboding, but let's go see what he figured out.  Shibuya > day BEFORE 17:30 / ACTION: Atsuro <Battle>    Another mid-animation blink, though it does make Atsuro look like he fell asleep waiting. We went to Naoya's place. Huh? You guys went to see Naoya? Oh, yeah. Well... Wait, what? Are you saying that the email actually came true? Hmm... Anyway, if you ran into Naoya, why didn't you call me? I had some stuff to ask him. Sorry. So much was going on that we kind of forgot you.That's rough, buddy.  Oh, well. That's okay. Bringing it up now isn't gonna change anything.  Are you sure you didn't just fall for one of Naoya's pranks?(Well... We're definitely getting played, somehow. ) You may be right. ...See? (And there's the kicker. Is Naoya really unrelated to these events?) I can't believe they'd be a part of his joke! Hmm... If Naoya was telling the truth, that email wasn't a warning, right? Unless someone really did predict the future, it's probably just a coincidence. That makes sense. If it really was predicting the future... It would be odd if those don't happen. Still, they seem pretty unlikely. What...? But... Hrmm... Okay, though I'm still not convinced. So tell us what you found out, Atsuro. Yeah, well... I was completely fooled. I think Naoya knew I'd try to get inside one myself. It seems these three COMPs are always monitoring each other, so I can't crack one alone. See, a COMP has this always－on wireless feature that allows it to exchange data with－－ Man, you never change... Anyway, I'm gonna unlock the systems, okay? Turn your COMPs on, you guys!music$ silence     sfx$ As the COMPs come to life, they emit a series of mechanical noises with their text prompts.       sfx$ There is a tone of finality as the COMP interface suddenly goes dark.   Generally speaking, there's an unsettling feeling of the whole decryption process being completely automated/out of your control. That last bit in particular flew by very fast and is tough to catch; let's slow this down and see what it says. Romans 3 posted:God's Righteousness Upheld   ...Oh.
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Oct 15, 2021 09:01
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I never bothered looking into the text the game throws at you there as I just assumed it was normal computer stuff.
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Oct 15, 2021 09:34
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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!".
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Oct 15, 2021 12:06
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Hunt11 posted:I never bothered looking into the text the game throws at you there as I just assumed it was normal computer stuff. It's difficult for me to make out, but the stuff flying the in the background does look like good ol' C++. This is what I was able to discern; take it with a grain of salt: code:code:code:
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Oct 15, 2021 16:54
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| # ? May 19, 2024 08:06 |
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For some reason, long scrolling strings of code are an aesthetic that I really dig.
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Oct 16, 2021 18:18
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