Shin Megami Digital Devil Saga, as well as most other Shin Megami Tensei games, starts off in reverse to most Japanese role playing games. Rather then a band of angst ridden boy band looking heroes out to save the world, it is a group of half demons merely trying to survive in one already torn asunder.

You play the role of Serph, the leader of a tribe known as the Embryon. This tribe is essentially a rogue military group stuck in never ending gang territory wars with other tribes. This ongoing war is all in an effort to be the last standing, the reward for this? to get out of their living nightmare and go to Nirvana as promised by the Karma temple situated in the center of the post apocalyptic world.

On the Embryon's quest to reach Nirvana they will have to do a lot of fighting. And being demons they have access to a lot of skills. These skills are gained by atma points once selected. Gain enough atma points at the end of fights, get the skills. Simple right? not quite. To speed this up you can also devour the enemies you fight. Yep, you can eat your opponents. This gives you bonus atma points to learn them faster, though on the flip side if you eat to much you get stomach ache, which results in no points at all. I will never not find that hilarious.

Having a diverse set of skills is hugely important in the world of Digital Devil Saga because although it is turn based it adds some twists to it thanks to the turn press battle system. In the game you can use three characters at once, each of these characters has an icon indicating their action turn, but the key to winning is in extending those turns, whenever you get a critical hit or attack an enemies weakness with a certain skill, your turn icon will light up giving you an extra turn. However, what goes around comes around, as your characters also have weaknesses that enemies will exploit for a devastating chain of attacks, making the game fairly unforgiving at times but still feeling fair.

The voice acting in the game is top notch. Each character and their personality are acted out really well for the time this was released. (I found one of the characters a little stereotyping though) The music accompanying this is just as good. The game features a metal soundtrack mimicking the hard edged world the game is set in, and adding the feeling of speed and adrenaline to the fights.

Digital Devil Saga uses cell shading to great effect to portray the world the Embryon live in, with some excellent dungeons including castles to scrapped cruise liners. Each area full of little details like crushed elevator doors or paintings and statues. The characters themselves are modeled nicely as well, with some very unique designs, each suiting their demon form.

The game lasts a good 40 hours, not to mention an ample amount of extra bosses to fight along the way. the toughest of which the game must be replayed in a game + save to reach. so plenty to get value for money. It must be noted though that this is only part 1, it has a second part that completes the story.

Overall this is a surreal game, relieving the stale clichés a lot of RPG's seem stuck in. With a fantastic story, interesting cast of characters, and a great combat system. This is a game that should get more attention than it does imo and I would kill for Atlus to release a remaster collection.

+ Fantastic setting
+ Interesting cast.
+ Simple but challenging battle system.
+ Gorgeous art, visuals and music.