Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor

Platform: DS
Genre: Strategy/RPG
Developer: Atlus
Publisher: Atlus
Release: 23 June 2009
Rating: Teen
Price: $18

The Shin Megami Tensei metaseries* has had some of the best RPGs I've ever played, encompassing Digital Devil Saga, Persona, Strange Journey, DemiKids, Devil Summoner, and many, many more. It's a long, and venerated series on par with giants like Final Fantasy (some would even say it's better). While (like the aforementioned Final Fantasy) most of the SMT games are separate from one another, they do share many common themes and gameplay elements. Most of them are fusions of disparate genres, the spell names remain mostly consistent, and almost all of them involve making contracts with demons to fight with you. They also tend to be brutally difficult, but what do you expect from Atlus?
Moving on to Devil Survivor. It's good. The game is a fusion of traditional turn-based RPG and turn-based strategy RPG. Think of it as Final Fantasy Tactics meets Dragon Quest. Essentially, battles start on an isometric grid, but when an attack is executed, it switches into a first-person perspective for a single round of RPG combat, before returning to the grid. This may sound a bit roundabout, but there's no denying that it works to give Devil Survivor a surprising amount of depth.
Even the character-growth mechanics are deep and interesting. Your human characters gain new spells via the "Skill Crack" system, wherein you steal techniques from your defeated foes MegaMan-style. And you can get new demon allies by either buying their services at auction, or by fusing two demons to create a single stronger one (another staple of the SMT games).
As for the plot, demons have overrun Tokyo, and the military has issued a lockdown: no one can enter, or leave. In order to survive, you need to ally yourself with various demons, and other people trapped in the city. The story is rather non-linear. While the basic plot remains the same from playthrough to playthrough, which of the five endings you can get, as well as which characters survive to the end, is all dependent on the choices you make. Be careful though, as everything you do eats up a little bit of your time, and you only have seven days.
While Devil Survivor is rather short, that's actually a point in its favor. There are five vastly different endings (which I won't spoil here), and the game actively wants you to see them all, each one unlocking new powerful demons that you can obtain for your next playthrough.
It's heavy on the grind and the difficulty, and may be a little too complex for a newcomer, for strategy or RPG aficionados, but I highly recommend Devil Survivor. There's also the updated rerelease on the 3DS coming out soon, so if you'd rather spring for that version... Regardless, a used copy of this one from GameStop will come in at $18.
Play, save, and enjoy. See you next week.

--Kotaro

*A series which contains many smaller series within it.