1st Day – Tokyo Lockdown
We're up bright-and-early the next day at eight in the morning. There were apparently some demons milling about the area during the night, but as promised Amane's barrier prevented them from chowing down on our heroes. The whole thing definitely wasn't a dream, and Atsuro observes that even though it may be difficult to tell in broad daylight the power still appears to be out. At least they won't be sleeping in a cemetery again!
The COMPs beep in response to receiving two new emails. The first is from Naoya, explaining the numbers above our heads. It's a feature called the death clock, and it works by displaying the number of days a person has left to live, from nine to zero. Only the “leader” of a party (so, Akira) is able to see it. It's sort of like the Shinigami Eyes from Death Note. Naoya concludes the email by explaining that the number is merely a value calculated by the Laplace system, so it is possible to change it depending on a person's actions; for better or for worse.
And speaking of Laplace, we've got another Laplace Mail:
Good morning. Here is today's NEWS.
1. Power outages will continue in all parts of Tokyo within the Yamanote loop throughout the day. It is unknown when power will be restored.
2. Poisonous gas is suspected to have escaped from underground pockets. All train service is canceled across all lines. All exits from within the Yamanote loop will be closed.
3. At 1:00PM in Chiyoda-ku and Bunkyo-ku, a localized blizzard will occur. Three victims will be murdered by a snowman.
HaVE a nICE daY.
“nICE”, eh? Murdered by a snowman? Wasn't that the plot of a really dumb slasher movie? The characters are less concerned by the idea of a killer Frosty the Snowman then they are of the death clock. You can choose not to say anything when Yuzu tries to get Akira to tell her how much time she has, but even if you don't Atsuro glumly figures that it must be zero if it was one yesterday. Yuzu understandably refuses to even entertain the notion that they're all going to die today and insists that they get to the nearest station, desperately claiming that the email might be wrong about the trains being shut down. The group coming across numerous car accidents on their way, too many for just a blackout, does nothing to lift the thick tension in the air.
At Shibuya Station they find that the Special Defense Force has set up a full military barricade, blocking off the area. A haggard-sounding soldier is addressing the large and anxious crowd that's formed, announcing that the entire area inside the Yamanote train line (ie, downtown Tokyo) is being locked down due to a poisonous gas leak. No one inside is allowed to leave. This scenario is almost definitely a Call-Back to the original Shin Megami Tensei game where parts of Tokyo were blocked off by police action when its demon outbreak began. That Tokyo also had zombies running, or rather shambling, around it too, something that our guys will thankfully not have to deal with. The soldier continues his announcement by saying that the SDF is looking into the explosion at Aoyama Cemetery last night and urges anyone with information to come forward. It can be noted here that just as our death clocks have decreased, everyone else's has fallen by one digit too – the generic office worker that shows up during this scene to complain has a six above his head. The soldier, on the other hand, has nothing displayed at all. The grumbling crowd gradually starts to disperse.
Being blessed by the privilege of main character-dom, Atsuro figures that the soldier was lying about there being a gas leak, as the barricade looks too heavy-duty for something that was supposedly thrown up overnight. He exclaims in frustration that at this rate everything in the email will come true and that they'll die, when to some surprise it's Yuzu that tries to rally. She suggests that they try finding another way out of the lockdown, thus defying the predictions and changing the death clock's readout. Atsuro uses his tech skills to realize that even a small deviation from the predictions will cause a very large error in the system's predictive algorithm. Heartened at the prospect that they might still survive the day, the group sets out.
We're taken back to the overworld screen where now there's a new feature: free battles. Free battles are missions that are just that: free. No time passes during them, and you can retry them as much as you want in order to grind money and experience. However, Devil Survivor does have an Anti-Grinding system in place: the larger the discrepancy is between your average level and that of the local fauna, the more diminishing your returns will be. It's generally not worth grinding if you're more than five levels above whatever it is you're fighting. Also, while there's only one free battle mission available at the moment, later on there'll be two available at a time, one designated as “hard.” Unlike story missions, free battles can be fled from entirely, and you don't gain any extra experience for completing them, only macca.
Before we go checking out the other parts of the Yamanote circle, there are three new scenes to watch right here in Shibuya. On of them introduces a new character, but the other two are little breathers that let us learn a little about either Atsuro or Yuzu, and one of which will disappear after the other's watched. Both of them are family-oriented: Atsuro's is about how his parents are engineers who work abroad in Silicon Valley so he pretty much grew up on computers and the Internet, while Yuzu's scene has her talk about how her parents got divorced recently and how she now lives with her mother and these days has a pretty poor relationship with her.
The third scene takes place back at Shibuya Station where a stereotypical Japanese thug (complete with slouched posture, leather jacket, and bleached pompadour) is yelling at the captain of the local SDF charter until a fierce-looking guy in a track suit tells him to knock it off. From off to the side, Atsuro recognizes the new arrival as Kaido, the leader of a famous Shibuya gang called the Daemons, which he has to point out are different from the fire-and-brimstone sort of demons. Despite being a gang leader Kaido's apparently got a reputation for being rather personable, so we decide to ask if he or any of his men have seen Naoya since the lockdown began and he agrees to help out and spread Naoya's photo to his underlings. Proceeding to ask him if he knows of any secret exits has him flatly reply that if he did he would've already used it.
After he leaves we get two new emails from Naoya and the system introducing a new COMP function: the Devil Auction. Devil Survivor eschews the old negotiation system of demon recruitment in the form of this auction. Accessed from the main menu, the Devil Auction works by providing a list of available demons that're up for sale, and to buy them we have to bid against other demon tamers with our macca. You can see their bids in real time, and of course the goal is to outbid the others by the end of the time limit. The most efficient way of doing this is to let the computer bid until the last few seconds, then place your own, outbidding them by only a few macca. Some demons will have stronger or weaker stats than the species's average, and their prices will fluctuate accordingly. You can also skip the bidding entirely and scoop up a demon at hammer price, but that's not always economical. There are four levels to the auction: Basic, Gold, Platinum, and Occult with each tier being unlocked the more money you spend throughout the game. The auction's stock refreshes itself after each half-hour in-game increment or after a free battle. We can keep a total of twenty-four demons at a time, including ones assigned to team members. During a mission each team can return one demon to the COMP and summon one that’s in reserve once per turn.
Incidentally, the names of the other auctioneers are taken from Soul Hackers (which at the time of release hadn't been released in English), so you'll be seeing the names of the Spookies and Phantom Society members as you bid.
Unfortunately the first two spots along the Yamanote line are also thoroughly locked down by the SDF and the group discovers that they can't even use their COMPs to try contacting someone outside of the lockdown. At Shinjuku though Atsuro briefly spots a boy with glasses and a yellow polo shirt that he recognizes as an old school friend named Keisuke. Keisuke, however, gasps out something about our death clock numbers and hastily excuses himself, leaving Yuzu to wonder if he has a COMP too, as otherwise the death clock is invisible to people. Atsuro protests that Keisuke isn't the sort of person who'd deal with demons since he was always sticking up for the little guy back when he knew him. Yuzu wonders why he seemed so flakey then and Atsuro admits that he doesn't know – they just lost contact after middle school. This little scene ends with Akira telling Atsuro that Keisuke's own death clock was down to 1.
Our wanderings next take us to the Roppongi district, which isn't all that lively like it normally is thanks to the blackout. The only sign of its usual hoppin' social scene is a street performance that a bunch of people are gathered around. Yuzu has a fangirl freakout when she sees who the singer is – a young red-haired woman in a rather loosely-hanging dress by the name of Haru. Given the BGM playing at the moment, she's probably supposed to be singing Reset. After the street-side concert concludes Yuzu gushes about how Haru's really popular in the indie music scene, and that she used to be a member of a band called D-Va before it split up when its leader went abroad to study music further. Aaaaannnnd her death clock also reads zero. Startled, Yuzu insists that they warn her, but Atsuro points out that she'd think they were crazy if they flat-out told her she was going to die. And anyway, they need to worry about their own death clocks first. Yuzu reluctantly agrees, and it's time to move on to the neighboring Omotesando.
Here we meet another new character, a man named Gin (pronounced like the drink). Yuzu already knows who he is, describing him as Haru's guardian. Gin says that it's not quite like that and introduces himself to the others as Eiji – the “Gin” likely coming from the fact that he runs a bar nearby. Thus he's pretty unhappy that the blackout wiped out his bar's fridge and the food and drink inside, though he doesn't seem to be aware of the fact that there's a lockdown. He shrugs it off and says that if the government's on the case things'll be over soon (oh you poor, naïve man you) and that he'll just wait things out back at his bar. His death clock reads six like most others, and Atsuro mutters that they should focus on finding people without readings at all, as they'd be more likely to survive by sticking near them.
It's now 12:00PM and the only option on the map is our first mandatory story battle since the cemetery. Back in Shinjuku the crew catches a glimpse of Naoya disappearing down a side alley, and when they pursue they end up running into a bunch of demons. Welp, no choice but to fight.
Mission 3
- All demons must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
- Atsuro and Yuzu must be dispatched
Okay, so the map we're on is some sort of small plaza in between two buildings, and our starting area is fenced in by a waist-high railing that we naturally cannot bypass. That's not a problem for some of the demon teams however, for the newly-introduced Moh Shuvuus are Avians, and their Racial Skill, Flight, allows them to ignore obstacles and move over them, as well as granting an additional panel of movement. They also have Dia, so coupled with that and the map's Pixies' Charm these simple teams can be annoying to whittle down. Moh Shuvuus are weak to Force, so taking along a Kabuso or three, as they learn the basic Force spell Zan after leveling up a bit, is recommended.
Reinforcements will eventually arrive in the form of a Waira, which'll use its Devil Speed Racial Skill (buffs movement range by four for one turn at the cost of some HP) to make a beeline for us. Enemy reinforcements will sometimes be a thing, but unless otherwise indicated they don't spawn infinitely. There may be one or two scripted incidences usually. The Waira's a little sturdier than the other demons, but its weakness to Fire makes it manageable.
This introduces a new mechanic in the form of the Macca Bonus. Basically at the end of each battle you'll get an additional amount of macca, with the multiplier bonus being dependent on stuff like if you hit an enemy weakness or somehow blocked one of their own attacks.
Completing the mission earns us 60 EXP and 60 macca.
So in the end the group loses sight of Naoya. We get email afterward that reviews the Macca Bonus and introduces a new mechanic, the Skill Set Bonus. It's sort of a confusing feature since there's nothing denoting it on the UI, but essentially by fighting well each team builds up magnetite, something that should be familiar to Megami Tensei vets, and once we have a certain amount (again, there's no way for the player to quantify how much you have at any time) we can select one Command Skill from our pool and teach it to a demon for free! Atsuro speculates that these emails are being written by a program of Naoya's and that the Demon Summoning Programs seems like it was always meant for third-party use. So, who's the third party? Oh yeah, and since we encountered and defeated new demons in that last mission, they've been added to the auction's roster.
Speaking of the emails, it's nearly one o'clock...
Compendium
- Moh Shuvuu
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- A demon from central Russia, Moh Shuvuus are said to be the bird-like ghosts of girls who died loveless. As demons they trick travelers into falling in love with them, whereupon they break open their skulls and devour their brains. Yuck.
- Waira◊
- A monster that first appeared in the famous "The Illustrated Hundred-Demon Night Parade" book compiled by the famous 18th century artist Sekien Toriyama. The Waira was simply described as a mountain-dwelling beast, and its in-game design is actually nearly identical to how it appeared in the book.
Soundtrack
- Aggressive Tune
- The theme for all free battles and non-plot-important missions. Can anyone make out what that voice is supposed to be saying?
- Cool Jam
- And the Devil Auction theme.
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