This game is severely overrated. The story is bland, mediocre, SLOW...

Whoever designed the UI and the systems built around it whenever you're out of combat should be fired. Everything is slow for the sake of being slow.

The way the story and narrative is presented is also slow because potato. Why on earth is there a narrator that narrates what I've literally just seen 15 seconds ago? Why does the plot need to be this slow? The plot is simple as FUCK, there is no depth, there is no need for so much unnatural buildup.

I've never been a fan of combat in these kind of games but I'd say that this is one of the few ones that I actually felt good playing. That is until I hit a fight where I was underleveled and forced me to grind, and then the same thing happened next battle and this went on and on and on.

Overall not a bad experience, music and art makes up for how bad the narrative is, but still nowhere near anything past a 6 or 7 out of 10.

Incredibly good game, from the countless biblical and demonology references, to what was showed of what humans would do under dire circumstances and the different decisions they would make depending on their background and upbringing, and a few other things as well. Really liked the different endings that were available in the game and gave different perspectives on choices. Though as any Atlus game, it definitely didn't come without its frustrations and struggles, though overall, the gameplay was fine

An effective dark story with solid pacing.

Swan Song has an excellently presented atmosphere. The backgrounds are good, the setting is grim but fairly realistic and the SFX are quite good. The BGM helps the atmosphere as well, and even the points where the music is completely silent helps the mood a lot as well.

This is a unique story with more than 1 main character. You get the perspective of different characters throughout the plot, and it's interesting to see their thoughts throughout the tense situations.

The visual novel is also divided into different acts, almost like a play. While the setting is grim, it starts off relatively lighthearted before it slowly gets darker.

There are two major endings, with much different tones. Either can decide whether the whole story was worth it.

The changes made to the combat were great and I see some really unique ideas in the plot MegaTen never really attempted tackling, but the writing is mostly garbage. Seems to also be suffering from an identity crisis on what it wants to be.

It draws most of its inspiration from NGE and modern Persona, but doesn’t try to make its own identity otherwise. Interesting mesh, but the over abundance of anime tropes, way too many filler characters, and a plot that drags on for much longer than it should, it further clutters the product with nothing but incomplete concepts. Really disappointing, yet I’ve seen much, much worse.

by far one of the worst endings I had the displeasure of encountering in a video game, everything else was mostly fine, but after I followed all of Flowey's orders, the game blocks me from proceeding to what Flowey wants me to do and forces me to talk to the annoying bird (which I tried to kill before, yet this time I don't get the chance?) and betray Flowey

what's the point of giving me options then? "oh but the genocide route exists" isn't an excuse to make such a bad normal ending, the only thing differentiating my run from a genocide run is that I didn't walk back and forth killing random encounters for like 20 mins for no reason, if you don't want to give me the genocide route, fine, but at least make a more appropriate neutral route, not one that completely flips the personality of the characters

There's realistically not much I'm going to be able to say here that hasn't already been said, but I suppose I'll give it a go.

It is very rare these days that I get as immersed into a world/story like I did here. This game does a fantastic job of really making you feel the tension of the overall situation. The whole gimmick of choosing when and where to spend your time, and who to talk to over the course of the week this game takes place really creates such a sense of urgency and dread (in a good way!), as the city and people around you fall into chaos and despair. The fact that you cannot do everything and go everywhere adds such a weight to how you decide to spend your day, and I am all here for it. There were many times where I was genuinely stressing about how I spend my time, which just 100% adds to the immersion. It's just great. I one day want to return and do a second playthrough just because I know there are so many other routes and endings I can try to get.

The combat is also really fun. It is such a genius concept to combine the grid based strategy game with classic turn based combat. Using positioning to gain the advantage in the short burst turn based encounters never got old, and I'm surprised I haven't really seen anything like this before.
The megaten mechanics are also in really strong form here. It's always fun building and constantly updating a team by fusing and cultivating demons with the skills you need and that is no different here. The skill crack mechanic is also neat, and really adds a lot of purpose to what might otherwise be seen as more filler/leveling battles.

I really adore everything about the minute to minute gameplay. Most half hour segments you play really feel well paced and I couldn't put it down in the sense that I always wanted to do "one more" half hour before I went to bed, which always turned into many more.
My only small problems with this game is one, it starts to get INCREDIBLY grindy towards the end of the game. The amount of money you need to grind even have a semblance of control over your team towards the end game does kind of get ridiculous. You'll have to play the same free battle over and over just to get enough money to summon and fuse just one of the many demons you'll need. That and the fact that the bosses are so weirdly spread out. Most of the bosses in this 30-35 hour jrpg are fought in the last 5-10 hours. It makes sense from a narrative standpoint but from a gameplay perspective it is just downright bizarre. This sort of adds to the whole need a crap ton of money problem in the endgame because this is where you'll start to require a lot of different demons to deal with the crazy bosses.

But all in all a genuinely fantastic game that I genuinely couldn't put down. Easy five stars and a recommendation to anyone who either enjoys tactical role playing games or is just a fan of the series in general.

Devil Survivor Overclocked is a fantastic game. It has a great narrative with realistic and very human characters to go along with a highly philosophical plot that stays engaging the whole way through. It also boasts superb pixel art and a phenomenal soundtrack. My only gripe is the gameplay. I have never been a fan of grid-based strategy games. However, the switch to turn-based combat is very unique and helped to boost my experience. I loved the approach to routes in this game, being that they tie into a certain character's philosophy and feelings towards the antagonistic situation. There's a lot of replay value, which is great as I intend on replaying in hopes of a better experience with the gameplay. I hold this game as one of, if not the best, RPG experiences.

EDIT: After playing a few SMT games I have disregarded my opinions on the gameplay and have given the game 5 stars. The fact that no other SMT game or really JRPG in general can have character development like this game is quite frankly embarrassing and should be criticized more.