Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army (Shin Megami Tensei Devil Summoner)

[DANGERMAN]

The actual title doesn't contain Shin Megami Tensei in it, which is probably because it's already stupidly long, but it'd do wonders for brand recognition. Anyway, Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army was a PS2 Devil Summoner game, and this is a remaster / remake of it, somewhere in between because it's definitely upscaled cutscenes and quite possibly game world but they've adjusted the combat and gameplay. Apparently, I've never played the original. 

 

The combat is more active than a usual jrpg, kind of like Ni No Kuni. In battles you're locked in the combat area and you, as Raidou, can use light and heavy attacks, shoot enemies to stop them dodging about, and increasingly lob some slowly recharging magic. What makes Raidou unique as a Devil Summoner is that he can summon 2 demons to help him rather than 1. These demons generally act on their own, although you can tell them to cast specific things, and you can tell them to not use magic if you're low on mp 

 

The MP system works differently too. Your team all share one bar, and your demons will constantly be using magic ideally, so you really need to recover MP constantly. Fortunately, using your light attack gets you MP back, although it doesn't do as much damage, so you want to alternate between lots of light attacks and a heavy to mix recovery with actual damage. There's a few other moves too, specials that can be triggered at points, and the ability to hide your demons when really powerful attacks are coming 

 

Outside of combat the story has been pretty interesting so far. A girl who asked us to kill her then got kidnapped by demons, so we're sorting that out. From what I understand each chapter is it's own thing. You use your demons out of battle too, occasionally to help with the investigation, sometimes just to recover items 

 

So far I'm really enjoying it. It's pretty easy, although I suppose how many fights you get in to determines that. You can avoid a lot, but it's probably not a great idea early on while the combat feels fresh, just so you don't end up having to grind for a boss 

[DANGERMAN]

Still going on this, but largely because I've done so much side stuff. A lot of the chapters are actually really short, so if you're not bouncing around doing side stuff and clearing rifts you've already done (battles that appear at the same spot that are supposed to be harder, but generally aren't, and give you more money and exp). 

 

For some reason I got it in to my head this was really short, about 5 chapters, it's actually 12, at the same time though if you don't piss around as much as I have you could probably beat it at about 35 hours or less, I reckon I might be done by 40 and I'll have done everything except fuse every demon and make every weapon. 

 

I'm enjoying it a lot too. The story is teetering on the knife edge of being profoundly stupid and really good. I won't spoil it but for the while I was gripped, then a bit unsure, then something really stupid was said. Still, it might all pay off