Did you finish the first Digital Devil Saga? How’d those constant random battles grab you? If you loved being thrust into yet another battle against bizarre enemies then you’ll be looking forward to playing through the sequel and uncovering even more of the bizarre plot.

As you may know, the world Serph and the rest of his Embryon buddies experienced was really just a virtual reality simulation where all the characters were pitted against each other to find out which was the strongest program. Serph won and even though he never said anything to celebrate, since he never speaks anyway, he and a few of his friends were transported into the real world and so begins their next task of trying to work out what the heck’s going on and how it all leads back to God being a bit of bastard and how it relates to, Sera, the mysterious girl from the first game. Phew! Can things get any more complicated? Of course they can! Don’t forget about Schrodinger the cat, and why has God turned the sun black transforming humans into stone and yet leaving the Tuners alone (Tuners can transform into hideous, and sometimes cute, beasts just like Serph and co)? And why are there just so many random battles?

We can answer one of those questions right now! Aren’t we skillful? Nah not really, we just noticed how long it takes to learn any of the more powerful abilities and spells. Bloody ages. You get a few more party members this time as well, though you can only use three at a time in battle, and all of these guys need careful nurturing to get them to decent power levels so you can take on every weird-assed creature that sets upon you.

The sort of elemental system returns as well. Every character has his or her own weaknesses and this also applies to the enemies. You can scan a new enemy to learn its weakness, and it might be handy to have a pen and paper beside you just so you can note down what each enemy’s weakness is. Otherwise you’ll end up wasting a turn to check each time. It’s important to exploit it though because you need to use the hunt skills to get the most Atma points to level up your skills and unlock more powerful moves. The only thing is it does become tiresome when your progress is being interrupted so often by the random battles; usually we’re suckers for lots of leveling up, but not when it starts to seriously grate.

It does sound like we’re being down on Digital Devil Saga 2, especially after we gave the first one a whopping 86% when we reviewed it, but there is something interesting about the series, mainly the graphical style which is like nothing seen in other games and feels truly science fiction. It doesn’t fall back on pointyeared elves, but instead concentrates on strange creatures with mouths for breasts – the imagination that has gone into creating these characters is truly astounding.

… continued