Devil Survivor 2: Everybody's still talking about RK. Well better ramble more about RB.
FWIW Ciato, while I am enjoying DS2, part of the reason I started on it rather than DS1 was because from all reports they're kinda the same game. Which is fine, I mean, lots of us here played LFT despite already playing FFT, but it might be worth taking a break first. Incidentally, anyone want a mint copy of DS2 DS still in the shrink wrap? I wouldn't recommend it for anyone with access to a 3DS - just get Record Breaker then w/ the new translation & voice acting & other stuff - but if anybody is stuck on the vanilla DS, it's not like I'm ever going to use that cart.
I mostly like the Day 6 arc. I will say that to MILDLY whine... well, to back up, if you have a system where the way the player interacts with the plot is by choosing who to socialize with / monitor in events, then you make the plot interactive by, well, forking the plot based off the player's event choices. Good! That said, I kinda wish in-game they snuck some OTHER excuse in for the Day 6 life/death crisis than "Our Hero went and chatted with the girl and cheered her up" when said crisis isn't directly tied to self-confidence or the like. Sure, I understand that in reality it's because I the player went and chatted with her, but I'd prefer it if in-game, it's because that event involved getting a mystic stone of protection or something. Oh well. I YouTube'd up the 'bad' option, and it's pretty well-done! I like that they don't have some long slow bleed-out with lots of dying words. Especially since...
I think the writers ran out of ideas for how to do the Fate-level 5 (=max S-Link's) events. They are way too melodramatic. They are all some variant on "character comes to some revelation that they are awesome despite their doubts, then goes on a demon killing spree to save someone," and them thanking Our Hero for inexplicably showing up for this to offer some bland encouragement. Mix things up! Daichi saves Hinako, Jungo (human) saves Jungo (cat), Keita saves Jungo (human), Makoto saves rioters while Ronaldo saves gov't agents. Io / Joe / Airi get the best ones and they don't directly involve demon combat, so more of that, please. (I'm even missing out on the Dera-Deka sidequest... grumble grumble).
Mizar (Day 6 boss) is adorable, as is the dragon. He's easy.... until he wasn't, if that makes any sense. Very much a fight where you can be rolling through everyone going "yes I am awesome" until things start collapsing as he keeps coming, as oh man do they harshly punish you if you don't keep the offense rolling. Quick Growth has some weird timers... there was one piece of Mizar that used it that I didn't kill immediately, and still got another turn later on to finish it off. But another one just used it then grew without me getting an intervening turn (!!), though in fairness I was attacked which does slow turns down a bit... and sheesh is that horrible, you have to kill the big one (who now has range 4) THEN kill 2 more small ones afterward. There's a time limit on the full battle too, so I ended up having good use for the SDTP transfer after I killed one side with Hero & Io but needed to get my good demons over to the other stat. Speaking of which, you're certainly rewarded for using Io in this fight: Mizar is fire-weak and Io is like the only good fire mage. Airi maybe I guess, but only Io has the strength to equip Fire Amp AND a good magic score. Give her the Chaos Wave unit (no Extra turns? whatever with her AGL) and she snipes the little pieces from afar like a champ (they're range 2, she's range 3). Also this is definitely the stage of the game where you can get some pretty broke'd units with Null Phys and the like; it's probably the last hurrah of my great Cu Chulainn, whom I fused Anti-Ice on so he has no weaknesses AND has Pierce & Assassinate, so he murders the enemy leader like a champ no matter what. He's made all of Day 6 a lot easier, so we'll see if I can get something similarly broken for Day 7.
