Maybe it’s because it’s been a while since I’ve fought demons on an equal footing instead of having a team of Lv. 99 badasses to lean on, but I have to say that I found the first free battle at Sensouji to be pretty hard starting out. The demons greatly outnumber you, are sturdy, and they (at least the ones new to this game) have multiple elemental resistances to put a damper on our offense. Well, it’s a good thing we can retreat, and the memory sticks happen to show up early to help bolster your wallet for the auction at least.
After some grinding and bidding, our next story battle is at another familiar location, Hibiya Park. Daichi says that he’s glad there don’t seem to be any demons around here and calls for another break already, but as soon as the group enters the familiar outdoor concert hall a man runs up and off with Daichi, dragging him by his scarf. Hibiki and Io stand there dumbfounded for a moment before running up onto the stage after the kidnapper and discovering that he’s actually the man with the suit and cap they encountered earlier. He’s all smiles, completely unfazed by their bewilderment, and claims that he was trying to save us from the “creepy things” that came out of his phone and started chasing him. He introduces himself as Yuzuru Akie, but insists they call him Joe.
There’s a silence before Daichi groans that of course demons would be chasing him if he hadn’t formed a contract yet, and they’d be coming this way. Sure enough a horde of demons arrive in the venue, led by an especially-pissed off Kobold. Joe says that since we seem to know what we’re doing he’ll leave things up to us, and once more we are thrust into battle.
Mission 3: A Man Named Joe
- All demons must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
- Joe cannot die
Good news! Tico tells us that the Skill Crack function is now available, so we can now buff up our arsenal so dealing with the demons today isn’t so much of a pain. Right now there are a lot to snag right off the bat, so for this battle I’m focusing on getting the other basic spells, Bufu and Zan.
Unlike all the missions at this place in the previous game we start this one off on the stage. Joe will simply mill about and we won’t have to babysit him thanks to the map’s natural chokepoints arresting the demons’ advance. It’s good to have those roles finally reversed. Most of the demon teams are underleveled now, being Poltergeists and the like, but the new, stronger ones, mainly Knocker and Tam Lin can be trouble. The Knocker will spread around healing and the Tam Lin’s Physical attacks can hurt. They’re both weak to Force though, so picking up Zan mid-battle as well has having a leveled Kabuso who knows it is huge. The Kobold is all by itself and upon beating it (it complains that having help during a contract battle is cheating) it’ll return to Joe’s phone, though he won’t join the battle or anything.
Completing the mission earns us 90 EXP and 600 macca.
After Daichi has a hell of a time explaining the summoning app to Joe he decides that he’s going to tag along with us for the time being, just like that. Daichi’s not cool with it, calling him a complete flake, so the man decides to prove himself to the skeptical teen by telling him that their original plan to reach Ariake via the Harumi district’s a bad idea, as the place is swarming with demons. He makes the same speculation that Atsuro did, that once the summoner’s killed the demons can freely use their phone to enter the real world, and suggests instead that they take the Rainbow Bridge to Odaiba instead which, looking at a map of Tokyo, is actually a much shorter route than their original one. So Joe officially joins the party along with his Kobold. He’s Lv. 6 and his stats are basically the same as Keisuke’s, his strengths being Magic and Agility.
Once that scene’s down we get yet another email from Nicaea introducing another feature: the Fate Viewer. The Fate System is the little brother of the Social Link system seen in Persona 3 and 4. Basically, each character has a hidden number value, and by spending time with them, ie watching their events and responding favorably to dialogue options, the number will go up until it hits a certain threshold, at which point their Fate Stage will go up by one. There are five levels total, each one unlocking some sort of bonus:
- Fate Stage 1 - The character gains an innate elemental resistance. Some gain more than one.
- Fate Stage 2 - The character can “share” Skill Cracks with Hibiki, essentially allowing the player to crack multiple skills at once with a single character.
- Fate Stage 3 - A demon is unlocked for fusion.
- Fate Stage 4 - The character and Hibiki can swap demons with each other during a mission.
- Fate Stage 5 - Another demon is unlocked for fusion.
Since the Devil Survivor games progress in finite increments of time just like the Social Link Persona games do, maxing out all the characters’ Fates is something that is very difficult to do, and unlike those games, it doesn’t carry over between playthroughs (the unlocked demons do, though). You can keep an eye on each character’s current Fate Stage on the menu’s character profile page, and at the end of this scene Daichi hits Fate Stage 1 and gains a resistance to Fire. I’ve read that the resistance the characters gain is also tied to their Zodiac sign.
There are two more scenes we can watch in Hibiya Park before we’re on our way. The first is a quick preview of the inevitable social breakdown where Hibiki and Daichi witness some thugs looting a vending machine (Daichi, thirsty, goes to see if there’s anything left and finds that the only drinks left are the weird-tasting stuff that no one buys) while the second concerns Io, who tells Hibiki how worried and scared she is about everything, the demons, the state of the city, her parents, the lack of relief efforts... She says that she signed up for Nicaea because all the other girls in her class were doing it, and then says that laying everything on Hibiki’s made her feel better, though the narration implies that he sees right through her. Regardless, her Fate reaches Stage 1 and she gains a resistance to Elec.
To round out the Fate stuff for today, speaking next with Joe finds him reading an issue of Shoji Leap outside a seemingly-looted convenience store, asking Hibiki if he’s read this week’s chapter of “Featherman: From the Ashes”. He says the earthquake was actually a good thing for him, since he was afraid he was going to be fired for being a half-hour late for a company meeting with a client. The gist is basically that responsibility and punctuality are things that just slide right off of the man. He achieves Fate Stage 1 and gains a Force resistance. Hibiki must be feeling left out of the Fate party - no one cares about his issues, whatever they might be.
It’s now 8:00PM, meaning the day’s already gone later than any of the Devil Survivor 1 days. It’s time for the final battle of the day in Shinbashi, Tokyo’s railway hub. The group arrives at a place called SL Plaza, no doubt named for the steam locomotive that’s on display, and seeing that Io’s starting to fall behind thanks to her ankle Daichi goes about seeing if he can find a way to make the trip easier. He finds a truck parked nearby and naturally, since no one seems to take them with them when evacuating a vehicle, the keys are still inside and the door’s unlocked. So Daichi finally gets a chance to put that driver’s license boasting from the start of the game into action...until there’s a giant explosion in the plaza and Dubhe falls out of the sky, landing on top of the truck.
He panics and floors reverse, causing the thing to tumble off the truck and to the ground in a rather undignified manner. Perhaps Dubhe has a sense of embarrassment, for when it picks itself back up its cap immediately starts to expand and it summons demons to corner the remaining characters. You can have Hibiki urge them to fight but Joe’s not too wild about the idea and instead suggests they run, and since for some reason we can’t turn around and go back the way we came we have to run past Dubhe and the demons in order to reach an escape route at the opposite side of the map.
Mission 4: Daichi’s Worth
- All allies must escape
- No one can die
- Io and Joe must be dispatched
There’s actually a whole second half to the map, but due to the locomotive everyone’s jammed into one half of it. It makes things very claustrophobic, especially given Dubhe’s attack range.
Dubhe (Lv. 20)
HP/MP
- ???/???
- Reflects Physical; Nulls Fire, Ice, Elec, Force, Curse, and Almighty
- Agi - Deals Fire damage to one target.
- Binary Fire - Deals two hits of moderate Fire damage to one target.
- None
- Dubhe Proof - Grants immunity to all elements; has an attack range of 4 panels.
Yikes, right away they’re throwing Beldr at us! Welcome to Devil Survivor 2, where almost all the bosses are much more gimmicky than anything the Bels could muster. Dubhe doesn’t move, but with that attack range it doesn’t have to, it will be able to attack one of your three guys in this enclosed space no matter what. The only thing we can do is survive, and to that end, since Dubhe seems to target demons more than the humans, it’s best to bring along some Knockers and Kabusos if they’re leveled enough, as they resist Fire. There’s an enemy Knocker near the starting point that you can crack Anti-Fire off of, so it’s advised to quickly slap that on a human before sending them into Dubhe’s line of sight. It’s important not to get too bogged down on the demons, because if anyone goes, game over.
When we do manage to get close to the escape panels...a streetlamp topples over, completely barring the way. With Dubhe about to blow it looks like everything’s over, when our heroes hear the sound of tires screeching and we see that Daichi, somehow, has gotten the truck up onto the elevated train tracks that are running adjacent to the plaza. With a desperate scream he gets it to jump the tracks and collide with the thing below just as it explodes. When the smoke clears the truck is lying on the ground, completely totaled, while Dubhe’s cap has been destroyed and the cone significantly damage. Joe suggests that it might be weak enough to defeat now. The BGM changes to a heroic, inspiring tune as Hibiki and co launch their counterattack.
Dubhe still has the four-panel attack range, but its stats have been weakened and it’s lost a good chunk of HP. Most importantly, its affinities have greatly changed; now its only immune to Curse and merely resists Fire rather than nulling it. Everything else (other than Almighty of course that we currently don’t have access to anyway) counts as a weakness so it’ll go down in short order. Once defeated the cone wavers back and forth before exploding into a burst of dark blue energy and light effects.
Completing the mission earns us 80 EXP and 400 macca.
Upon the mission’s completion Yamato, Makoto, and a few generic JP’s personnel arrive in the plaza, pursuing Dubhe. Yamato comments that it’s impressive that we were able to defeat it and then, seeing that our group’s make-up is different from before, asks if the other young man with us died. That’s when Daichi’s voice calls out, taking umbrage at being taken for dead, and the camera pans to show that he’s just been Behind the Black this whole time dangling from the broken railroad tracks after bailing from the truck. He starts panicking that he’s going to be locked up but the JP’s chief says that the battle changed his mind about changing his mind and he’s confident now that we won’t abuse the summoning app. He leaves us in Makoto’s care, and she says that tonight JP’s will provide them with food and shelter. The group’s relieved to finally have some good news, and Daichi’s still left dangling.
Come to think of it, in this context “Daichi’s Worth” sounds rather backhanded.
There are some throwaway scenes left to watch before we turn in for the night, but the most pertinent one is of Makoto scolding Daichi at JP’s HQ for his suicidal recklessness in the battle just now. Still though, she praises him for saving the day and he gets this sort of daydreamy look on his face, either imagining himself a hero or, since the title of the event is “Adult Woman”, checking Makoto out. Whatever he’s doing he soon goes on his way, we have Hibiki assure the confused Makoto that Daichi’s pretty much always like this, and she reaches Fate Stage 1 and gains an Ice resistance.
9:00PM is when we have to turn in. Before he goes to bed at JP’s HQ each day Hibiki apparently browses through Nicaea, as Tico will pop up to give a summary of the day’s events, sprinkled with their own styles of commentary depending on which gender you went with. Amid the summation today they’ll suggest that maybe JP’s might not turn out to be our friends. Well gee, ya think? Their boss only looks like a younger, shorter-haired Naoya, certainly he’s someone with the noblest of intentions! Anyway, bedtime, there’s a long week ahead...
Compendium
- Agathion
◊
- A generic name for a type of familiar. They are often sealed into pots or other objects as they have no physical body.
- Knocker◊
- Knockers are diminutive beings from Welsh and Cornish folklore who live within mines. Their name comes from their tendency to rap their fists on the walls of the mine to warn the miners of an impending cave-in. In return, the miners leave pastries out for them and refrain from whistling, a sound the Knockers hate.
- Tam Lin◊
- A figure from Scottish ballad, Tam Lin is the guardian of the Carterhaugh forest who fights the Queen of Fairies out of fear of being sent to Hell as part of a ritual that occurs once every seven years on the night of Halloween.
Soundtrack
- Confrontation
- The free battle/non-plot-important mission BGM is certainly quite different from "Aggressive Tune", its predecessor. Makes grinding easier to put up with.
- A Short Break
- The designated "Daichi does something dumb/Joe says something weird/boob joke" theme.
- Septentrione
- I really like the otherworldly sense of Dissonant Serenity that this track has going, because well, we are fighting otherworldly beings.
- Break Out
- Though Dubhe's not the most impressive of these things we'll be fighting, I like this battle track for many of the same reasons as I like the above. Very tense and again fitting for fighting something that's enormous and unknown.
- Battle of the Brave
- And that almost wraps it up for the game's mission music, and on a nice note to almost end on.
- Past the Brink of Death
- Another day survived, a week more to go.
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