K I finished.

Digital Devil Saga 2 is excellent. After the first game ends with you in a different location and back to square one, you're once again on the run with your old party (and one omission) to try to find your savior and the truth about your existence. The games setting is actually pretty small, being set in one big city that contains what's left of humanity. Pretty much every major character here is fleshed out, and I know it sucks to do the whole 'oh heehee you need to play to find out what I'm REALLY saying' but you kind of do. Just know all the characters are great and all the locations are cool, got it?

And then there's the gameplay, and it's peak...if you pick the exact party the game wants at the beginning, or else you're fucked. Basically, the game lets you customize your party members to an absurd degree, letting every character fill out a cool niche. But the game has all but two party members (Gale and Cielo, use them for the whole game for the love of god) leave for a long while, so if you don't just guess who'll be there for the rest of the game, you'll end up INCREDIBLY underleveled to the point you might as well restart because the game doesn't give backup EXP. It gives backup Mantra for gaining skills, but not EXP.
But aside from that, it's classic press turn gameplay with all it's perks, with some great boss fights that make the most of the mechanics. And it's classic blocky PS2 graphics, helped by Kaneko's amazing PS2 era art and killer cocteau twins inspired(?) soundtrack (seriously, Pitch the Baby sounds perfect for this game)

So it's peak fiction. Loved the ending as a perfect sendoff, so if you're one of those people who request a DDS3...why exactly? Anyway, play this while the roms are out there lmao.

AMAZING: this being representing the potential of humanity is considered an "essential worker". Once a week God in The Sun corrupts the data of all humanity so that this nonbinary being can reincarnate. Everyone is reborn the next day.
This Monday Dyaus will fly extra low to support this hero's reincarnation. Extremely low.. but Dyaus said it wasn't low enough. So the Karma Society bit the bullet. Dyaus will be flying BELOW the underground district this Monday.
But it's costing the Karma Society vital infrastructure. Jenna Angel had this to say:

"The drill sounded cool to me."

But god didn't like that answer. So he took the sun away. But then Seraph happened and the potential for error and redemption in the human soul went UP. And the sun started a GoFundMe. So next time you're walking around during the day, don't forget to thank this nonbinary hero.

wow, this one blows the first game out of the water so much more going on story-wise even if it still suffers from similar characterization issues but there is just so much more going on that it makes up for it. it is though very annoying to have to start with all the basic skills again right after a game where you had all the end-game powers, it also this one really endulges on the smt LONG ASS final dungeon "trope"? but aside from that even though this is a very similar game mechanically to the first game there is just much more going on the game constantly forces you into specific parties taking and giving you characters feeling like a very tailored experience compared to most smt games where you usually have a big control over that a la pokeman. this taking away and giving characters also feels very unhinged video game writing wise and even if I don't think its the deepest writing I seen I still enjoyed it so idk it's not the best smt game but I really enjoy its weirdness definitely went from "really this game has a cult following?" to "wow ok this is why this has a cult following"