Brief thoughts on Devil Survivor Overclocked

After playing a bit on the DS I started this a week or two ago and finished the game yesterday, took about forty hours for my first playthrough (Noya’s route including the 8th day), I thought it had solid gameplay and that by and large the story was ok (though it suffered from that odd SMT issue where characters react to the apocalyptic circumstances with offputting calm – I love the athmosphere of most SMT games but the characterisation is often lacking). I ran through it again on the Amane route, which I think worked sort of better than Noya’s. After that the rot set in, carrying over demons makes subsequent NG+ run throughs a meaningless cakewalk (Garuda with Multi-strike largely breaks the game it seems) and very little changes between the routes (the first NG+ is good because theres optional missions and you can do a few option flags you might have missed). I ground out the rest of the routes but to be honest I wish I hadnt as it was an exercise in tedium, even skipping text it still takes 5-7 hours per run for maybe 30 minutes worth of new content. They really could have streamlined this I feel. Still, an enjoyable enough game.

Time to complete: 90 hours 38 minutes
Completed: 17/02/14