Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2 is the second part of a JRPG duology, and a spin-off of the Shin Megami Tensei series with a standalone story. After the cliffhanger ending of the first game, Digital Devil Saga 2 dishes out the heavy hitting revelations from the get go. We get explanations of why the world of Digital Devil Saga was the way it was, the characters that appeared and what's happening in this current desolated world. The battle system remains the same being the Press Start battle system. You gain extra "half turns" if you target an enemy's weakness, but lose turns if you use something that they absorb or repel. These rules bound the enemy as well and thus if you do not prepare well, you might be locked into a battle where the enemies end up doubling their amount of turns as they continually target your weakness. You may also spend half a turn to pass with a character, to allow another character extra turns instead. Battles go by faster than the first game as animations have increased in speed.
Unlike the mainline Shin Megami Tensei series, this game allows you to pick and choose what skills to equip your characters. This is done through equipping Mantras, and gaining experience remains the way to get more skills for your characters. The skill tree is not linear and grouped by similar skills anymore, instead, it is on a map-like board, giving you a bit more freedom and non-linear progression. Gaining more skills remain as addictive as the first game, especially later on in the game where grinding for lower tiered Mantras to round out your characters is a lot more efficient. The game mainly involves exploring dungeons. It features random encounters but the encounter rate seems to be more reasonable than the first game. It can be a little bit higher than normal at some places but it is really well paced for most of the game. Dungeons can feel repetitive especially since it reuses the same environments many times in the one dungeon. Thankfully, there is a map which you can pull up making it much easier to traverse and getting your bearings.
Unfortunately, the later dungeons have a gimmick to them which makes them extremely annoying and aggravating to push through. Warps return but there is a really annoying section where you have to run away from a chasing enemy in the dungeon. Action sequences are not the game's strong point and not what players would play this game for, so it is especially annoying when it decides to throw paralyzing traps that stop and pauses you for a sec before the enemy catches up to you requiring you to start the section again. Then even if you pass the section, but forgot to heal, and you're unlucky enough to enter a random encounter where the enemy has the first strike and die, yay, you can now replay the whole section from the beginning again. Like the first game, bosses are the highlights but they are trial and error. You will rarely be able to defeat a boss on the first go. This is because you need specific skills that you will only find out when you battle them at least once.
Bosses are also where you might need to grind for skills and having well rounded members is more important this time around as the game will force certain party members on you at specific points. The grind can be painful at times, made worse if bosses decide to spam party wide status moves or multiple elements (since you can only put up protection against one element per turn). This feels lame and cheap especially since you know your party is strong enough, just that you haven't developed the exact skills the developers wanted you to for that particular boss. Even worse is when the game consistently rearranges the members of your party, throwing out your planning in the skills developed for each character to cover all your elemental weaknesses. A nice bonus is if you have a cleared save file from the first game, you can import it to gain additional minor bonuses such as increased money at the start, extra items, sidequests and unlock hard mode from the get go.
All in all, Digital Devil Saga 2 feels easier than the first game, especially since you can gain a lot of levels easily if you're lucky and encounter the right enemies. Despite that, some sections are still dependent on luck as you may just get a random encounter where the enemy consecutively gets critical hits and destroys your party in one turn. There is also a massive difficulty spike in the final two bosses, requiring you to grind heavily for specific abilities. It's annoying and frustrating since it stops you in your tracks to the finale that you know is very close. It's pretty disappointing when the game up until then was perfectly balanced, no requiring excessive grinding and able to get away even if you don't have the optimal abilities. While the first game had limited amounts of story, that is not the case here. The story is a lot more developed and cutscenes are more frequent, giving you more purpose in the dungeon crawling. The story is fantastic and really steps it up.
The story begins right after the first game where Serph and his tribe members are thrown from The Junkyard and into Nirvana. Unfortunately, what they find there is not the paradise that they were promised. Furthermore, Sera has been captured, thus the party aims to rescue Sera and along the way, rescue the world from the crisis it is currently facing. The story gets really good towards the finale, with some saddening dramatic moments. You feel that the game was building up towards these scenes and it delivered. It culminates into a nice ending that is satisfying after two games. Powering through the game, you can finish it within 25-40 hours, depending on how much you get lost during dungeons, how many times you died and how much time you spent on grinding abilities. Overall, Digital Devil Saga 2 is a fun game. You definitely have to have played the first game in order to fully appreciate this sequel (also given that there is no tutorial for the battle system either). The game is a lot more balanced than the first game, which in addition to the higher amount of storytelling, makes it a rewarding and fun experience.
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