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[Digital Devil Saga 1] Playthrough
Muladhara/Svadhisthana (Meeting Sera)
- Okay, pop off with that first cut scene. I have to respect any game that immediately opens with your main characters violently transforming into demons and then eating a bunch of people.
- tbh Kaneko's art style gives his characters such dead, pale eyes that I completely missed the eye color transformation thing at first lmao
- In fact, I think the scene with all the leaders gathered is probably when I noticed the eye gimmick?
- Me: bro why is she only talking to Argilla
- Also me: so like ... this pink haired dude is evil right
- At first, the way Argilla talks about the team's personality changes makes it seem like the transformation is making them become "worse" in some way, but it was around here that I realized it's just making them emote like humans, and that's what Argilla finds unfamiliar. I liked how she accused Gale of changing when he lays out his plan, but it's more that she now finds his ruthlessness offputting, and then the meeting with Jinana confirms it for you. It's a nice way to gradually reveal that Argilla's different now too.
- God also at this point I was like "huh Cielo seems pretty normal and also sounds normal too. Am I misremembering something?" I sure was. Alas.
- um I already don't remember anything about this dungeon ig it wasn't too annoying then
- Jinana's eyes changing colors in her last moments as she's staring directly up at Argilla talking about their comradic connection (TM) ... what's gayer than this
- Let! Argilla! Eat! Jianana! While sobbing!
- I also remember nothing about this portion it was mostly just Mantra/lvl grinding
- Puzzle dungeons fuck off. PUZZLE DUNGEONS FUCK OFF. I believe this with all my heart no matter how many JRPGs I play.
- The fact that they don't give you a healing save point close to the final boss because they know you're going to teleport back to the Large Karma Terminal in order to make use of your new Yellow Key and then run ALL the way back up the tower ... I mean I guess that's game design but man did it kind of suck. The multiple flights of stairs leading to the final room? An inspired touch. Deeply annoying.
- Horniest moment: Bat stabbing Heat in the abdomen and then smugly smacking the bloody knife against his cheek. Bitch ass (both of them)
- Funniest moment: After the boss fight, Heat saying, "Say something, Serph!" and then getting mad when Serph does and Sera hugs him. Bro you did this to yourself.
- I did actually go back and fill out the map for the first puzzle area (with the pit traps into B1) simply for fun. It's fun to fill out a map!
- "It sure was 2005", a truly unfortunate story about Cielo's and the Solids members' localized dialogue patterns.
- Lmao for a split second I really thought they were going to get one of the guys to dress up as Sera and then I was like "Ohhh yeah. Argilla. But I need her to be my party's mage -"
- Girl, help. I have no Macca bc I spend it all on Mantras
- I was so overleveled for this boss fight bc of all the Mantra grinding that I killed him in four turns before he even left his Guard phase lmao
- Yes good be in anguish over the pointlessness of existence in the violent cycle you're trapped in Argilla
- Heat forcibly kissing Sera further reinforces my desire for Atlus to republish this game on a modern platform just for the online discourse
- Heat: but I'm STRONGER than Serph!! Couldn't you tell from that time I was attacking him and he was just lying down and taking it bc he didn't want to fight me? You know, when you threw yourself over a balcony to make us stop fighting? Weren't you impressed by my big orange muscles at that time? Sera? Hello?? Should we make out again
- Oh. Sewers.
- Gale having a flirty little moment with Lupa with his little toe knife against Lupa's throat ... we do have fun here
- I was like "is it just my brainrot reading too much into Gale's eyes flashing briefly when Lupa tells him 'I can see it in your eyes'?" but then three minutes later Gale is saying he'll break the rules of the Karma Temple so Lupa can go to Nirvana with Embryon. That's a little gay, bro. This can only end well.
- Update: it did not end well
- Huge cheers for Lupa saying "Please devour me" to Gale as he's bleeding out into the sewers IN HIS ATMA FORM
- Truly the best part of honorbound characters who are just there to die for the narrative is that they immediately get to do shit like stare seriously into another man's eyes and dramatically hand over their personal ring and this infects the other character enough that they also start saying stuff like "Your honor does not die with you" and "be you angel or demon, you will surely regret giving me this cursed* (*two syllables) POWER!" What can I say, it rules.
- Gale really met one guy who asked Gale to eat him and was like "okay so I think it's time we brought down the entire fucking system"
- I do appreciate how unsettling and weird Varin's boss design/body transitions are
- The image of Sera running up to one (1) character and singing for two seconds before scuttling off again in the boss fight was pretty funny. Like, does sound not carry. My other two guys are standing like five feet away. Sera can you sing a little louder maybe
- When a chara affected by Hunger Wave takes damage bc they're so hungry, I'm assuming it's just supposed to be physical weakness, but it's also fun to interpret it as them eating themselves bc of the hunger :-)
- Cielo: wow how could Gale suddenly change so much after seeing a hot older guy with his tits out!! I wonder what's up with that!!
- Argilla: We're gay, Cielo
- Heat, gnawing his hand off in the bg: Sera :(
- Mantra grinding mantra grinding mantra grinding (getting everyone except Cielo to master Evil God for the Null Death skill in one dungeon when most of them hadn't started learning the Hama/Mudo pathways yet: hell)
- I figured I might as well do this sidequest since I went through the trouble of learning Null Death
- The hard pivot for me from "Oh, is Manipura the place with all the hot demon women now? Sorry ladies but I have a cannibal demon fly to kill here" to me reading a boss fight walkthrough and going "Wait, should I get everyone to learn High Counter first? Well then (turns back around to all the enemies in the dungeon) ladies!" was all of five minutes
- I took a look at some of the other endgame sidequest bosses in this walkthrough and hmmmmm, can't say I feel like doing those, so I'll just finish up the main story lol
- WELL WELL WELL! (me loudly and predictably saying this every time Angel is on screen)
- Shoji Meguro was really popping off for the entire soundtrack but especially the final boss fight + cutscene tracks, the guitar is sooo good
- This was the moment (Serph struggling to fight against Sera's paralysis) where I was like "damn ... I wanna see Serph get fucked up"
- GALE HAD BLOND HAIR??? i can't love this man after all (pensive emoji)
- Angel saying "Do you have any idea what you've done?!" to Serph is so funny. Ma'am that was your little green virus ball, you were the one who was throwing it around in the first place. You need to commit to the mass destruction of the metaverse.
- Very fun and horny first game. The chara designs are truly some of the most of all time. English voice cast is pretty good except, you know, the one (alas)
- Through years of vague online acquaintance osmosis, I thought O'Brien(/Heat) was some sort of 3d chess mastermind so it does crack me up that DDS1!Heat is like the epitome of hotheaded dumb jock. He practically pulled a "people die when they are killed" moment when he was giving his inspiration Comrades speech at the end of the Ajna dungeon lmao
- The insane random encounter rate can go die in a hole but otherwise, I actually really liked the combat and if I didn't have an entire other game to play through I really would max out everyone's Mantras for fun. Eating demons is sooo much less annoying than the bargaining setup of Nocturne, and I vastly prefer set party members + no demon fusion mechanic.
- Looking forward to Sera hopefully developing a personality in DDS2 (not ironic! I am going in with an open mind! If Legendia could make me love Shirley 60 hours later, anything is possible!!)