Gamecast – Episode 64 – “Eastern Blocâ€Â

[Link Antilles]

In this show, we talk games that we enjoyed despite being super hard, broken, short, and from Russia.

Stream the show from here or download it directly from here.

Question to the Audience
Not only is a year coming to a close, but a decade. Looking back from 2000 to now, what were your top 3 games of the decade?

[uc pseudonym]

I had forgotten some of you were playing Devil Survivor. I’m curious which ending Link said was the “true” one. Off-hand I would guess Gin’s (because it ties together all the plot threads and seems the most thematically appropriate) but I hadn’t read anything about a specific ending being favored.

The civilian rescue missions were generally irritating. I took to carrying around an Avatar-class demon on Atsuro for most of the game so he could sprint toward the furthest ally and then use Switch (giving you an effective range of 10+). Otherwise you’re at the mercy of the RNG, and it always seems to kill off one of them.

I don’t have any other SMT games to compare this one with, but it seems that your choices make less difference than you might think. You can’t block off Yuzu’s path, which is probably the one you’ll do first unless you enjoy free battles a great deal. It’s also possible to unlock every path in one playthrough, though I didn’t accomplish this until New Game + because I accidentally got a major character killed.

[Fish and Chips]

I actually feel a little guilty about my comments on Devil Survivor, since shortly after I finally got the hang of managing my teams effectively, making civilian rescue missions still annoying, but much more manageable. Though it doesn't help that Atsuro quickly becomes useless due to his low magic affinity.

And then Keisuke left my party. Right after I got around to making him a reasonably heavy hitter. Yeah, hopefully I can get him back.

[Link Antilles]

[quote="uc pseudonym (post: 1360892)"]I had forgotten some of you were playing Devil Survivor. I’]

Gin's path is the first (and only so far) ending I got. I haven't looked too much into the other endings, but I have a vague idea about them (mostly played the game "blind" -no guides, etc). I would say his seems, in addition to what you said, was the "nicest" ending. So, I'd call it the true ending.

However, I have seen debate for..

[spoiler]Amane's ending being the real ending. I got the impression you'd get the most information from that route, though I guess you would have to kill those in her path. *shrugs*[/spoiler]

[uc pseudonym]

You did Gin's path first? That's admirable, as his was one of the hardest. He did the best job of convincing me, though, and I probably would have done his route first if I hadn't wanted to slip through Yuzu's in order to get the benefits of New Game +.

[spoiler]That's interesting. I'm not sure I agree, but I see the argument. To me, Amane's ending was sort of the required opposite of Naoya's. I liked it simply because I was pleased that you have the option of taking away humanity's free will, but there's more duplication on the last day than I initially expected.[/spoiler]

Though it doesn't help that Atsuro quickly becomes useless due to his low magic affinity.

Eventually you can crack skills that make a physical attacker on par with your others, but for a day or two in the middle they're kind of weak. I tried to compensate for this by putting one of my stronger unique demons on Atsuro's team, but your mileage may vary.

Also, you can lose Keisuke depending on your actions, as I discovered. The problem is that the window of opportunity on this is much smaller than I expected. He's a better character than some others; good luck keeping him.