The story itself unfolds in the world that is created with the destruction of the old one. It's a temporary world, used to help shape what the new world will be in the cycle. Your character, the main character, is a human to start off with, just like the friends who got dragged with you into this messed up world. You are all that's left of humanity in a world full of demons, but even you aren't safe, getting turned into a demon yourself by none other than Lucifer.
Your job is to navigate the world, fighting demons and growing in strength, while figuring out what happened to the world, and trying to find your friends in the process. But with the state of the world how it is, that's easier said than done, and you have to fight your way through organizations vying for the ability to shape the world with their ideals.
Now, this game might have come out in Feb 2003, but is still one of the best games that has come out to date as far as I'm concerned. And here's why I think this.
We'll start with the things that people notice first in most cases. The graphics. Considering that the game came out ten years ago, the graphics are amazing. The world is a little dull, but considering you're looking at an apocalyptic chaos world after everything is destroyed, it makes sense that there isn't much colour anymore.
Next thing I tend to notice is the sound. Does the sound actually please the ears or help set the scene? Yeah, I think it does in this. The soundtrack is amazing, and they've made it so it fits the scene and enhances the mood and feel of the interactions with the different people and places.
Next thing I'm going to hit on is design and story. Now, without spoiling the story at all, I'm going to say that they managed to draw me into the story and hook me. I couldn't put the controller down, I had to know what was going to happen next. It was really well written, even if the protagonist doesn't speak through the whole game.
Now the world design. You would think that there's only so much you could do with a world that was destroyed so recently and so completely, but they managed to combine real places from Japan with places that have sprung up from nothing or been modified. Going from a destroyed hospital to the center of destroyed Tokyo, traveling to this high tech super dome, and even into the cyber realm. Each place skillfully done and unique from the rest.
Gameplay has a few things that are involved in it. The thing most people think of is how the player interacts with the game, but there's also the extra features and everything else they added to keep things interesting and interactive for the player.
The players interaction to the world is simple, which isn't always a bad thing. It's a single button to interact with the characters and the world, simple and easy to navigate menus for both in and out of combat, and the combat is entirely turn based. What makes things a bit more complex combat wise to keep things interesting, is that you get a number of turns equal to the number of people you have in combat with a max of four. If you hit an elemental weak point, you get an extra turn. But if you hit a resistance it takes two turns, and if you hit an immunity it takes all of your remaining turns, so learning your enemies is important to success.
What really helps me appreciate how much time and effort they put into this game is the sheer number of demons that you fight in this game, though calling them demons is slightly misleading. All of the enemies in the game with very few exceptions, are actual gods, demons, or creatures from someones mythology. You have Inugami from Japanese culture next to Vishnu from Hindu, Agni of the Vedic lore next to Echidna of the Greek mythology. And to make this even better, any enemy you find throughout the game you can get in your party in one of several ways.
You can negotiate with them and convince them to join you, though this doesn't work with all demons. The other way is by a method called Demon Fusing. Using this method you take two demons of different types and fuse them together, passing skills on that the resulting demon might not learn normally, as well as creating a whole new demon in most cases to join your party.
A lot of the most powerful demons can only be obtained by fusing, and there are several demons you can get by fusing that aren't possible to get any other way. What's more, they actually have multiple endings to this game.
You can side with Law and the angels who follow a path similar to the Buddhism concept of nirvana where everyone has a purpose and fits that purpose with a single minded devotion.
The Neutral path follows the sense of self to the extreme, believing that you can only trust in yourself and your own abilities, and shouldn't trust anyone else.
Following the Chaos path relies on strength above all else. If you aren't strong, and don't seek to be stronger, then you'll be killed. Very much focusing on survival of the fittest.
But you can choose not to follow any of those paths if you wanted. Doing this leads to a good path where you restore the world to it's previous state, or the Demon path where you take over everything.
This specific release of the game also featured a sixth ending not available in the original marked as the true-demon ending. In this ending you actually end up siding with Lucifer before the end, but only if you complete the optional area included in the game.
This game ended up getting good ratings from several other sites, too. And if you want to see what they have to say you can find IGN, Gamespot, and Metacritic's reviews right there. They aren't as careful with spoilers as I was, so read at your own risk. Either way I consider this game one of the all time must plays for the PS2 system.
Kenju
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