Відео

There's a lot of grinding, you can easily lock yourself out of good endings on your first playthrough without checking a guide, and some bosses are REALLY tricky to beat if you don't already have very specific strategies ready and available, but MAN is the story great. This is the ONLY Silent Protagonist game where it felt like my character had an actual voice and influence on the game, and it is impressive how much your choices can affect the game. People live and die by your choices, and the fates you can bring to the world are many and varied. You can be destruction, salvation, rejection, failure, domination, and more. I SO regret that I don't have my copy of the game anymore, as I gave it to a friend a while back (who did enjoy it), but I'm also glad that I should be able to buy a new copy to play it again.

Good video thank you

Is this a Devil Survivor analysis from a small up and coming UA-camr??? I'm already interested in your channel!

Ey this was really good

The big thing with the DS version and the screens representing the perspectives is how the final puzzle was presented to the player: it was upside-down, forcing you to flip the DS so the touchscreen is on top. This keeps the perspectives, and shows that it was Junpei transmitting the solution back to Akane in the past, and in turn receiving the solution for his puzzle. While for all the other puzzles, it's Akane transmitting the puzzle solutions to Junpei (with the touchscreen on the bottom). It was one of those things that really could only be pulled off on the physical DS (I think emulators artificially reversed the screen flip, which ruins that particular bit of immersion). Awesome video and retrospective!

I feel like the thing that's underlooked about Ronaldo's ending is that it's inhernetly hypocritical, and it's not just cause of Ronaldo's actions in the game. Yamato's route is based on the idea that the strong should have control over the weak, and yet Ronaldo, through the strength of the party, is the one who is allowed to manipulate the nature of all of humanity? The irony of a world where humans are not allowed to be inconsiderate or selfish is that it BECOMES a hollow meritocracy. You would do the role you're most capable of doing, and for a lot of people, since it's a world with no real economy, police force etc, would be...nothing. Would it be considered unkind to invest in your art form for example, if that diverts attention away from people who are better at it than you? If a theatre performance is happening, and two people want a role, who would get it? Would you get an endless cycle of people offering the other person the role? Would it just be the person who is best suited to the role? The existential issue about Ronaldo's route isn't about competition, it's about conflict. What would be the point of anything if there's no drive? Where would our inspiration come from? Doctors don't just become doctors because they're just the nicest alturistic people in the world. Sure, it can be for good intentions, maybe even the main intent, but at the end of the day, it's a stressful challenging but well respected and well paying job. What about media like movies and games? Much of art derives from life's ups and downs. It's gives as a different perspective into the realities of our world and often stay with us because of the meaning it has. Why would a populace programmed to be considerate and kind want to go see Saving Private Ryan? Why would they see anything? There's no escapism or meaning to be found when life is already 'perfect'. The purpose of existence would ultimately to just be to survive; to grow up, find a mate, have children and die. I'm honestly surprised about the lack of pushback on this ending as many other fictions have explored the idea of 'forced utopia' before, from the Matrix to Honkai Impact. If you could put all of humanity into a dream world where everyone is happy, the general perspective towards it is one where happiness without context is ultimately meaningless, it's suffering that makes life actually worth living, it's what makes acts of kindness and alturism so powerful and meaningfuil. Ronaldo's is even worse than the typical example, because most of the time, there is usually some objective reality outside of the paradise to contrast with. With Ronaldo, people would be reprogrammed and you would never know it. it's downright horrifying, all because a few people in Japan got to decide the fate of humanity.

Link download pls 🙏

Wow, so happy that this came across my recommended today! 999 is my favorite video game of all time, and I just finished a replay of it about two weeks ago. Excited to hear your thoughts since all of the details are still very fresh in my mind off my recent replay

I just beat the game and this is exactly the type of video I was looking for

to me the equalitarian faction's issue is more about how people can realistically live in a "parasitarian" way if they arent skilled enough to help in some way, not even in something small, while a medic or a teacher busts their ass for them. the whole "innovation can happen without competition" falls on its face the moment people feel they need nothing more and get complacent with whats around, which is the way someone very capable would think overall, sure, with polaris intervention this people can still thrive without complacency, but still, certain breakthrouhs or thoughts lines wouldnt occur at all, or would occur in a very delayed moment, at the end of the day, 10 people trying to find the cure for cancer faster than the others will make those people that cant wait 10 more years wait less. it all comes down on how utopic an egalitarian world is, it boils down to take away people's freedom for the sake of the greater good...which funnily enough also ends on what i call "preying on the strong", equality in reality always drags people from the upper class to the equal class, and most of the times, the equal class is somewhere around middle low class there is a rather peculiar point i'd like to put forward, in every fight you have vs ronaldo's faction, the moment ronaldo (or all the leaders) are defeated, the rest of the people retreat...notice how without divine entity intervention the whole "we work for the benefit of everyone" falls apart dont get me wrong, the goal is the best out of all "3" and in theory its the best ending, the issue, and prob the reason why neutral is the "best" and canon ending instead of law, is how utopic or invasive egalitarism is, too good to be true if you will, which is prob the reason why people would be against Ronaldo at the end of the day, is a SMT game, this ones are notorious for showing utopian or extremist ideologies, most of the times, chaos is "evil for the sake of long term sustainability and growth", law is "good, but is so intrusive that makes/forces people behave in unnatural ways" and neutral is "FUCK NO TAKE ME THE FUCK BACK" now, as for both of the kill polaris endings, the daichi one is moronic but wants to show something similar to law ending, but in a more "we work together im time of crisis" saiduq's i have to hardly disagree with your points, humans used to be able to live without modern equipment, the new world would basically inherit whatever knowledge the cast has and go from there, a new game+ with low achivement points if you will, can only transfer 4 demons, the auction and mitama fusion lol great video, very nuanced talk and that puts everything in the table, i think ot lacks seeing more of ronaldo's route flaws, but overall didnt seem like calling it "objectively better"

wonderful video that expressed all of my ideological criticisms of desu2 especially the daichi endings and the depiction of ronaldo's ending as a bad one + discussed a lot of ideas that i didn't consider :) i've always thought the politics of desu2 were very questionable and i'm glad someone made an entertaining and clear video essay on it! ignore my display name

Still very much in the beginning of the video but what do you mean by "...letting you keep control of a JP's base after you go against them"... letting? You're one of, if not the most powerful Demon Tamers at that point. Tf they gonna do to stop you? They were barely handling the rioters, Yamato knows just kicking everyone out isn't an option. That goes for the other factions too, everyone is OP and JP's is not full of elites.

watching this makes me want to play 999 again. i binged 999 and vlr last year on my birthday and really fell in love with the games. the way you edited the timelines was really helpful too, seeing it more condensed is nice. the only critique i have is playing the japanese voiced cutscenes made it harder to listen in the background since i had to stop what i was doing or guess what they were saying. fantastic video :3

nice vid, very critical but i absolutely get being harsh on smth out of love and your devotion to the game shows even tho it takes some reminding that its your fav megaten game at times. it's one of my favs too and i never know what to expect going into megaten vids like this but the structure was pretty satisfying to follow, lots of content here in terms of actual substantive commentary and it was a good idea going character by character in the general direction of the games plot/as these characters related to each other and shared strengths and flaws since it is a game largely driven by character action and growth. as someone who always goes chaos on a first playthru i liked naoya out of the gate and having learned how to tune out the friendship stuff by playing apoc like twice beforehand, i liked naoyas 8th day as a cool victory lap cementing naoya and abel as brothers taking on god which i find personally compelling. but replaying the game on amanes route really made him my fav desu character, really one of my fav megaten characters overall. the 8th days in general act as a character study of naoya, showing him from different perspectives which is so cool, im almost tempted to call him my favorite unofficial louis cypher of the series. but as a result of giving the time and focus of a whole other route to him, amane feels so shafted and, having tried to like her a lot because i wanted to be more fair to law reps in general, it is really sad to me lmao. her character did feel complete but i still really wanted to see her upbringing and philosophy as a stronger driving force behind your cause as messiah on the 8th day, even tho its there in a few scenes i just wanted more focus on her but naoya and kaido and honda stretch that day thin so many different ways its hard for her to do much, esp when youre pressed for time. still a wonderful game and it really makes me crave another megaten game like it just knowing the series strengths at writing both humans and demons, the synthesis between different mythologies its capable of, and this time system that is just so much better than personas, altho after smt5 and soul hackers 2 i have no faith in atlus right now

Quick correction: "the strong should rule and dominate the weak" does indeed rely on violence. Violence is how strength is demonstrsted. Violence is the cornerstone of a "might makes right" worldview

1:01:58 that scene gets me every time 🥲

I love Devil Survivor 2 making me genuinely consider if neutrality was the "best" option. Entirely through Joe, who isn't even the leader of their faction. He doesn't outright say that neutrality is wrong, in fact he sort of agrees with it. But the main problem isn't what it's doing. It's how quickly it CAN do it. Humanity can change, but not everyone has the time to see the good in it. To see ANY real change. Honestly, as time has went on, and neutrality is still one of the most pushed points in SMT, this remains to be the greatest argument against it. That it's not a bad stance, but that it's a stance that only favors the future, not today.

If they wanted to criticize Ronaldo they just ask: What does it mean to rewrite human nature? Do we as humans have the right to do that? I like his ending but I wish the game questioned it better.

damm i only get 150 point rip otome my key playter team

the last game was disapoining to say the least because i just steamroll through the final boss

I love both Devil Survivor games. I still listen to the music sometimes, especially "Sunset". We NEED a third game, please!!!

When I played this game for the first time I went with Yamato. I didn't want to go with Daichi since I thought that current world maybe good for us it isn't for everyone else. I didn't go with Ronaldo since I found him to be extreme hypocrite. He wanted to make a utopia where everyone is equal but he would leave people from JP to die if it wasn't for the protagonist. If everyone is eaqual why would they deserve to die? But the thing that made me hate him was him killing Makoto. I really like her and she was the most conflicted about siding with Yamato instead of him. Alcor's also seemed to me to be a secret one so I ignored it. Yamato through out the entire game remained true to his ideals. I also found the world were talented and competent people are the ones in charge very appealing. But the fact that he, Makoto and Fumi were among my favourites could just mean that it was character bias. (There's also Keita but since I was physical and you have 4 party limit I didn't use him at all.) And among other "The strog shall rule" ending in the series this one seemed resonable. DS series is probably the only one that didn't make me go neutral since I went with Kingdom of Saints in the first one. And it also could have been a character bias towards Amane.

The true ending ACTUALLY returned the world to the stats quou but with pallette swapped sprites, meaning its objectively good and morally correct.

The first question should be what makes a game good. I think that answer is the fulfillment in the use of mechanics, user abilities, and adaptive nature. Adaptive nature are like the dodge/parry , enemy team comp, etc. But that's just me. I hear people complain that games are good or bad without explanation too much.

DS seems to be atlus going "fine give them what they want" "Can we have a Law route with out tongue in cheek hypocrisy and genocide?" Fine, Kingdom of Saints. "Can we have a Chaos ending that is not fuck you got mine?" Fine, Despot Ending "Can we have a game where being neutral is not automatically best for humanity?" Fine, DS2 (and SJ: Redux) Now let me put my wish out there : Can we get a game with story/characters quality of DS1 with DS2 gameplay improvements.

With a discussion like this, i feel like the Crucible from Darksiders 2 *has* to be mentioned. I haven't been able to properly play the Crucible because i am a digital troglodyte who couldn't figure out PS3 online when i was younger, so i'll talk about based on what I *know*. The Crucible consists of a hundred total rounds, each 25 waves being unlocked as you finish a new one of the four lands in the game. Once you finish 25 rounds, it gets checkpointed and you can choose to keep playing the Crucible from that point on. If you go through all rounds of the Crucible in one go, you get a secret extra boss fight. I don't know super well how Darksiders 3 arranged its Crucible. Darksiders Genesis instead had an arena with many different challenges to it.

Just the other day I saw a video that called Saiduk's ending the best of all smt ending, and then I see your take. Huh, the duality of man. Neat

40:50 I don't consider human nature perfect, but I do consider the forced alteration of of it through Polaris as evil. There's no reason these points had to be joined with "and" as if implying they're mutually exclusive with the idea that human nature is imperfect and *should* be altered; which isn't me claiming you stated that, but where I believe is where your bias towards the Egalitarian ending showed most. As a result, I do not particularly agree with either Yamato or Ronaldo's ideologies. I do think of an ideal world in the sense that people are fundamentally good and want to find peace, but also human nature itself is fundamentally flawed, hence why they even are able to come to these opposite stances on how the world should be even though they aren't truly mutually exclusive except when their representatives in this game are trying to shape the world into mutually exclusive extremes. Which is to say, the world wouldn't even be in this dire a state if not for Polaris forcing it down to the wire, and thus Ronaldo and Yamato are ultimately opportunistically trying to change the world into their personal ideal place. Hinako has a point I will agree on: I wouldn't mind going a bit out of my way to help a stranger, but the level I'd be willing to go to for them is absolutely not the same I would for a friend. Based on Ronaldo's model, I would agree to become someone willing to extend that helping hand in equal measure and I simply refuse. Call me an individualist, maybe, but that's not in and of itself a bad thing and I don't like how your phrasing implies that only individualists would object to having their underlying values rewritten. After all, it's not like everyone else in the world is consenting to this change (or Yamato's, or Saiduq's). Hence, the Neutrals are essentially saying, even if badly argumented, that this whole thing sucks and is absurdly unfair to everyone and nobody should be playing god with the world...which goes in the wrong direction if you go the bad way of neutral. There's a reason Record Breaker's Triangulum Arc acts like the real canon ending to the Septentrione arc is a mix of Neutral and Saiduq, like you mentioned in your video when discussing how Saiduq could've been handled: we get rid of Polaris, the asshat who made this into a problem to begin with and go back to the world as it was so humanity can continue figuring itself out, but now Saiduq, a being who believes in the potential of humanity, is put in charge so he can watch and probably guide us gently from afar rather than imperiously like Polaris did. It's just that it's evident that the literal powers that be have it out for us so we have to find a different solution anyway! Overall, I actually quite like this video review. I clicked out of sheer curiosity since I naively wasn't expecting much from a low view video but you surprised me with your nuanced understanding of the characters and their ideologies, showing that you put a lot of thought into it. I'm a bit perplexed you're evidently using Record Breaker footage but dont speak of the Triangulum Arc, but I guess it makes sense because in practice it leans a lot more into the cast themselves as a comrade-slash-friend group who ultimately bonded through a trial by fire, rather than representatives of potential directions for humanity to develop into (even though thats what Ronaldo low-key does if you follow his logic in Triangulum Arc)

Having finished the first campaign of Assault Spy, I can confirm: it's one of the best character action games in recent years. There's little to no dull moments, and the gauntlets of enemies feel great to clear. It has some jank, but it's pretty unintrusive for the most part.

Bro really had to show DeSu when he talks about boring at 1:10:10 💀💀💀

Great video

nice

At 1:20:52, I think that the second and fourth 2's should be 1's due to the digital root.

I'd like you to do SMT strange journey at some point.

I find it really funny how much more I love this game over DS1 despite this game's many tiny flaws, it's my still 3rd favorite RPG. I feel the same way about DS2 like how i feel about Fire Emblem Engage. I'll be the first one to tell someone they should probably play DS1. Gameplay aside, i think DS1 does most things better. My two issues with the plot is: I really think the route split should of happened day 5 because i feel day 6 doesn't flow properly. And the route that leads up to the unfortunate thing that is the Tri-Arc in Record Record Breaker should of been Daichi's "bad end" . Im not an expert on writing but I feel these would be better served.

This is a very good video essay. Subbed and I hope you also do one for SMT IV Apocalypse.

If im being honest- i think Yamato is more of an aristocrat, and is pro aristocratic society than anything else. The world he's trying to create will turn out to be very resembling of times of aristocratic peaks of power, where your inherent worth as a part of a powerful dynasty is everything. Ronaldo... hard to imagine because its kinda unclear how exactly humanity is changed and what long term consequences of it are. Is it Soviet Union? Is this Hive mind like entity? As clear cut Yamato is, Ronaldo world is like when you smoke a blunt and say "What if like everyone just got along, man". Very unclear as to what exactly is implied, and whether a simple cooperation can solve myriad conflicts of interests and resource issues, but okay i guess ,it can handwave some of the issues away. One thing about competition to note i believe it is just poorly worded in the English. The society created by Ronaldo will be, without a doubt, very conformist and stale because compassion and collectivist mindset will make people very reluctant in going against the flow, and making certain innovations which require a non conformist mind going against the grain hard to implement. Its a society always goig in a lockstep for better or for worse. Some good natured lies are harmful long term, but are done out of love and compassion. Sometimes someone has to go against it. But in Ronaldo's society no one is going to rock the boat. So it is possible to do bad things out of collective desire for greater good and compassion. And sometimes competitive individualist spirit is what needed to dispell the illusion.

It's better than the sketched-only outline that was Nocturne's plot. Nocturne like... almost has no plot, there is absolutely no depth or interesting discussion on the reasons or the alignment representatives, they just suck and are pretty unlikeable. True Demon is great power fantasy, and Neutral is okay but short. Most of the game is just dungeon-crawling. I genuinely am surprised anyone would peg this as the WORST when there are like 7+ games with worst stories in the series.

this is a great video essay ! keep making more please !

I've watched video essays for a while now. I know which creators flame out and who can withstand the grind. You got talent kid. Keep it up, your videos are awesome. I love hearing your insight, even if I don't agree with your opinions match for match.

One cool detail I noticed about Devil Survivor 2 is how Ronaldo (the law rep) breaks the law to help the poor, while Yamato Hotsuin (the chaos rep) tries to use his incompetent faction to establish a meritocracy. It's like poetry they rhyme. Game is still a philosophical failure largely but hey small W's!111!!!!11!

7:20 this is one of the many reasons why you feel like a savior instead of a survivor. Everyone in this game sucks your dick at the drop of a hat. I get the appeal of the B-movie tone and awareness, but this just lacks the amazing atmosphere/tension of the first game. This game should've been called Devil Savior.

Super great viceo

The best game ever made by humans on Earth.

F Neutrals

I love the Game but its good to hear counters to the general opinion about the game, how great it is.... It does have flaws but honestly i wish it would get ported along its sequel to modern consoles...so the subffrinchise doesnt die with dual screen gaming

Dude, you got Daichi wrong First, in his route, you give two shits about polaris and just wants to return all to normal as polaris were called by force And see the problem with using polaris as you would be unable to think straight, and on both routes, or society gets unable to feel or becomes a social anarchy Now, changing the world means to DELETE AND REMAKE IT And in Ai Siduq its worse, its just killing anyone starting again, he gets opposed as on the other is remixing the original, but in this one nothing is saved to prevent Polaris from manipulating it

WOWZA BOBOWZA is a localization moment, Midori's Voice is Fine, even Cute in The Undub Version. Do Yourself a Favor and play this Game Undub.