History VideoGame / DevilSurvivor

** God wants to test humanity and make sure that they are capable of responsibly handling its growing power, and is willing to nuke Tokyo and abolish free will if the answer's "no." [[spoiler: The Shomonkai are trying to stop God's Judgment, but they don't realize that the demon they've allied with is worse than God could ever be.]] A Naoya-allied Overlord, [[spoiler: like the Shomonkai, battles against God's Judgment, just with less collateral damage - how ''much'' less depends on your methods]].

* LighterAndSofter: One of the few games in the series where [[spoiler:God is actually put in a somewhat positive light for a change]], though this is ZigZagged in [[UpdatedRerelease Overclocked]].

* [[UnusualEars Unusual "Ears"]]: The design of the Protagonist's headphones gives the appearance of this, of the cat-ears variety. This led to a fair amount of amusing head-scratching early in the game's promotional cycle as the promo art didn't make it clear that they were not his ''actual'' ears (it only gets really obvious from the side or in a complex background where you can see that the "ears" are hollow), thus leaving people wondering if we were going to get a franchise-first Furry protagonist.

* [[UnusualEars Unusual "Ears"]]: The design of the Protagonist's headphones gives the appearance of this, of the cat-ears variety. This led to a fair amount of amusing head-scratching early in the game's promotional cycle as the promo art didn't make it clear that they were not his ''actual'' ears (it only gets really obvious from the side or in a complex background where you can see that the "ears" are hollow), thus leaving people wondering if we were going to get a franchise-first [[PettingZooPeople Furry]] protagonist.

* SNKBoss: [[spoiler: Lucifer]] is one of the hardest [[BonusBoss Bonus Bosses]] of the franchise, being pretty much impossible to defeat without RIDICULOUS preparation (we're talking about full level 99 custom teams, which takes '''days''' of intense LevelGrinding)... And even then, there's still an very large probability you'll lose. [[spoiler: Lucifer]] on his own is ''extremely'' tough (where, if this was all it came to, mean you'd need one or two teams almost completely dedicated to healing and resurrecting), but he's accompanied by infinitely respawning teams of incredibly powerful demons (among them [[DemonicSpiders Decarabias, Ariochs]] and even freakin' ''Astaroth'') [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard with computer-only boosted attributes]], has three phases with different skills each and every time he changes phase, he becomes fully healed. And if you don't kill him quickly enough, he'll cast Megidoladyne, a field attack that does almighty damage (which can't be resisted) to every one of your teams and grows stronger every time it's cast, meaning even if you can weather it a few times, it will eventually do more than the HP cap of 999,

* MatrixRainingCode: Naoya's haori, though the numbers [[CaptainObvious don't actually move]].

* SerialEscalation: Atlus claims that ''Overclocked'' is the largest game to have been voiced. In fact, it was so large, they thought it [[CrowningMomentOfFunny wouldn't fit inside the 3DS' cartridge]]. [[http://www.siliconera.com/2011/03/04/devil-survivor-overclocked-has-the-most-voiced-dialogue-of-any-atlus-game/ According to this post]], ''Devil Survivor'' has approximately 20,000 words voiced, 5,000 of that for 8th Day alone. Even these statistics are surprising, because games like ''VideoGame/{{Catherine}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'' have large chunks of voice-over, the former of which ''has'' a full voice-over. On another note, this justifies the ObviousBeta for the VO (see other tropes for further info).

** The player can skip the entire bidding process at the Devil Auction by picking the "Buy Now" option and get the demon for a relatively high price instead.

** {{NPC}}s and Black Frost are white.

* TheComplainerIsAlwaysWrong: Yuzu will always say that you should all run away and escape the quarantine area. This is the exact opposite of what you should do, as it leads to the BadEnding. Though with Overlocked's 8th Day option, it may well be the best (rather, the least shitty) of all the endings.

* CutLexLuthorACheck / FakeRealTurn: [[spoiler: Atsuro's ending makes it possible to control the Demons for the progress of humanity while also evading all the supernatural Mumbo Jumbo]]

* GreyAndGrayMorality: The four successful endings, as usual for a ''[=MegaTen=]'' game, all have their pros and cons. [[spoiler: Yuzu]]'s ending is more Black, but it's also not portrayed as the protagonist's agenda but as an [[NiceJobBreakingItHero unforeseen consequence]] of it. [[spoiler: At least in Overclocked, you're given a chance to undo the damage you caused with your flight.]]

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: [[spoiler: Escaping the lockdown breaks ''a lot more'' than the blockade...]]

* {{Irony}}: As pointed out by Izuna. Man feared God's ordeal and started summoning demons to protect them from it. Turns out that summoning those demons is what made the forces of heaven decide to start the ordeal. [[spoiler:Though it's actually subverted as it's implied that the ordeal was planned all along and the demon infestation was just an excuse]].

** [[spoiler:An {{egregious}} case with Naoya in Atsuro's route. When you fight him in the boss battle, he has high-leveled (at least at that point in time) demons, one of which you wouldn't even be able to ''get'' unless you've subjected yourself to serious level-grinding or are playing in NewGamePlus. Plus, he has a Speed of ''75'' (note that Speed determines who moves first on the map, unlike Agility which is an actual stat), allowing him to immediately [[GetBackHereBoss move halfway across the map]], which just leads to a potentially long and drawn-out battle. And when you get him as an NPC in the final battle? He has no demons with him, has 3 movement and a Speed of 50. Thankfully, he won't go down easily since comes with Anti-All, but still, he's clearly not exerting himself to help you out.]]

** The Protagonist is named Kazuya in the manga adaption and has a CainAndAbel relationship with Naoya, similar to the manga adaption of the first ''VideoGame/{{Persona}}'' with the difference being Kazuya is now Abel while Naoya is Cain.

* FreezeFrameBonus: During the period the COMP boots the Demon Summoning Program, the following text zips by too fast to read:

* OnePasswordAttemptEver: Atsuro's friend 10-Bit has important information on his COMP, but dies before he can tell him the password. The COMP is set to lock up if the wrong password is entered, and the only thing you know is it's a four-digit number. The password turns out to be based on 10-Bit's name, being the value of the [[PowersOfTwoMinusOne tenth bit in a binary number]], 1023.

*** Kaido is TheBigGiy, being the quickest to advocate violence when pushed.

%%* FiveManBand: [[spoiler:TheHero, [[TheChick Yuzu]], [[GeniusBruiser Atsuro]], [[TheLancer Keisuke]], [[TheHeart Midori]] and look above for SixthRanger examples.]]

** In the original release, Naoya and Kaido only join you on their route, making them mutually exclusive with every other party member save Atsuro, Mari, and Black Frost. In ''Overclocked'', everyone except Gin and Keisuke can be convinced to rejoin you on Naoya's good day 8 while Kaido joins you on Yuzu's day 8; this means that the only pairs of characters who can never team up are Gin/Naoya, Gin/Kaido, and Naoya/Keisuke.

** Depending on the scenes you unlock, the characters will wonder if they can try talking to demons, a major gameplay element in most Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei games.
** The names of the competing bidders in the Demon Auction are characters from previous ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' games. Surprisingly, a lot of the names come from ''SoulHackers'', which wasn't even localised at the time! In addition, the Occult level users are all previous [[HelloInsertNameHere Heroes/Protagonists]].
** Another random conversation with Atsuro has him wonder what would happen if humans were used in fusion. ShinMegamiTenseiI allows you to recruit and fuse various humans from the Gaian and Messiah cults as though they were demons and the Chaos Hero fuses himself to a demon as a plot event.
** While it may be unintentional but this is the second time a [=MegaTen=] ever elaborated on how the Demon Summoning Program works [[spoiler: by using programming code to replicate a summoning ritual]]. The other title that used this explanation was Literature/DigitalDevilStory, from nearly 20 years ago!

* ForcedLevelGrinding: Want to beat the BonusBoss? be prepared to grind thirty ''or more'' levels to just stand a chance. What makes it worse is that encounters (even hard ones) don't scale with you.

A [[ThematicSeries thematic sequel]], ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor2'' was also released DS[[note]]and had its own 3DS UpdatedRerelease[[/note]].

* BadassBoast: The narration during the opening sequence. Although never stated, it is fairly obvious that it is God's, or possibly Metatron's [[spoiler:(as he gives the end sequence for Naoya and Amane's ends, possibly others]].

** One of the main levels on which the game works is as an absolutely ''horrific'' deconstruction of the entire concept of {{Mons}} ([[UpToEleven far beyond even what other titles in the SMT franchise do]]; we're talking ''Manga/{{Narutaru}}'' levels of disturbing) in that it demonstrates exactly how people running around with monsters capable of lethal force in an urban setting would ''actually'' work. This is most obvious in the [[spoiler: event where Kaido and Keisuke confront one another, which is almost [[{{Narm}} narmy]] in how it's set up ''exactly'' like some twisted demonic Franchise/{{Pokemon}} battle (facing each other across a street with the two "mons" in between, shouting commands, etc)... and then, unless you've played your cards exactly right, one side loses and the other's demon ''graphically murders'' the opponent at its master's urging. Enjoy your Pikachus now, kids!]]

* TheDragon: Belzaboul is the major servant [[spoiler:to Lucifer]]. He's also Belberith's dragon (as is Jezebel), but only because [[spoiler:Lucifer]] said so.

** Day 3: [[spoiler:[=COMPs=] begin to fall into the hands of groups of thugs, criminals, and {{Dirty Cop}}s, which goes about as well as you'd expect. Also, [[BigBad Beldr]] makes his appearance.]]
** Day 4: [[spoiler:Many of the remaining survivors finally [[AxCrazy snap]] and begin to form lynch mobs to hunt down Tokyo's Demon Tamers. This in turn causes Keisuke himself to snap and become a murderous KnightTemplar.]]

* TheDragon: Yama for Keisuke, Pazuzu for Kaido.