I always really liked the mantra system in this game. I like how it incentivizes you to plan ahead with your builds, but allows you to change it whenever you want.

i do love how Argilla doesn't initially Devour Enemies of how a little story bit like that plays into gameplay, i always love when games do that kind of thing no longer how little or how long it is

Atlus really created arguably the best customization and build system of any SMT game and then never ever bothered with anything like it ever again. I guess this does make DDS even more unique than any other SMT title which is just one of the many reasons why Atlus should REMASTER THIS GAME ALREADY!

Chrom: oh no! I drop the Blue Key! Chrom immediately dies afterwards Speaking of Fire Emblem and Hinduism, I remembered that the Fire Emblem story I had in mind was based on Hinduism with a mix of Alchemy. 24:47 Serph is the Leader, Heat is the Lancer, Cielo is the Big Guy, Gale is the Tactician, and Argilla is the heart. Sera is the new girl.

I think its funny how I started playing DDS the same day that you uploaded the first part. Its been really fun so far.

This episode:DID SOMEONE say customization!?!?! 9:40:Okay so our pink main healer wants to go down the line for this games wind skills…..welcome back yukari takeba

You know, the way the general map design and hidden items are, this reminds me a lot of Pokemon Colloseum.

Any other Embryon member: Hey boss, why is there blue walls blocking off bits of our own base when we don't even initially have the key? Serph: Uh... Because... Uh.... *Brain short-circuits* Angel: Because someone has to write this kind of comedy.

Mantra always seemed really interesting to me mechanically. It’s like the closest MegaTen has ever gotten to a job system

I always love in games where Theres like a separate experience bar and then when that’s max you get new skills , it’s also really cool in this game especially due to hunt skills, and always throws me off when it’s just the bar to get all of the skills

Wanted to note something about the buff and debuff skills. Two party members with a buff skill each can combine into Dekunda, while two with a debuff each combine into Dekaja. And if all three party members have a debuff each they can combine into Debilitate Could be useful to have until you can get those skills normally

Correction: Null Element only gives immunity to Fire, Ice, Electric, Force, and Earth skills. Expel, Death, Physical, and Ailment skills will still be able to hit you.

I love the mantra system. it allows for so much experimentation and, more importantly, it actually allows me to multi mage PROPERLY (seriously smtv why are your essences so impossible to get)

love how in depth this is of a game i have mostly only seen Challenge Runs people have done on this game

I want a new Devil Survivor. I’ve played them both so much that there is nothing more to try besides really weird builds which isnt my thing. The SMT demon thing just works so well with tactical RPGs. There is a lot more they could do with it. It honestly should be one of their pillar franchises to feed the tactical fans

I liked going over the Mantra system but I feel like it ruins some of the suprise but other that it's helpful and probably will help people get ready for the FIENDISH super boss

0:55 I see, so that's what MAG was in Raidou, really should check out the pre-PS2 games one of these days. The Mantra System works well, with most of the later ones having some broken skills, with the caveat being that you'll likely only be able to buy one of these in the main game without Macca grinding and the main game is generous enough that it really isn't necessary.

9:20. I remember watching SuperButterBuns' "Digital Devil Saga For Beginners" Video and she pretty much recommended the same thing. Or in she so eloquently put it "Make this guy [Serph] blast fire real good". 24:38. All the "correct" dialogue options in this game can be summed up as "I am the Goodest of Boys.".

So Mantras are Materia combined with the Sphere Grid. That's a good system. 14:31 He wants to be the only one with the immunities :D

Hey Klingy. Thanks for the content today, it was a rough day today. Currently at my grandma’s house, and without my best cat buddy it’s really weird… I call it brain-denial: where you still keep expecting something to happen after it’s gone for good. But, despite that, I can say I made a good dinner (tacos) and I tried to show my grandparents Tom Lehrer. Also Hawaii Part: II is really helping me. It’s an theatrecore-like album about a young couple that ends up in tragedy and Simon’s (the guy in the story) insanity. My comfort album that if I could sink in 42-45 minutes I listen to it. I feel like the P3 Protag would listen to either The Mind Electric or Labyrinth from the album. The sheer insanity of TME’s second half after 2:50 (because that part is the song in reversed but not as chaotic as the actual song), with the second half cutting into samples from classical to Hawaiian ukulele strings. It’s supposed to represent a schizophrenic episode (as the writer is schizophrenic), Electroshock Therapy, or the electric chair. Labyrinth has MASSIVE Burn My Dread vibes, no real need to say more than that. But it’s about Simon’s crippling insanity after his “treatment”, wracked with grief over what led to his torture and agony. Sorry I rambled about one of my favourite albums. Point is: listen to it. Dream Sweet in Sea Major is beautiful, and Stranded Lullaby’s demo is a good cry song.

By the power of the Mantras… 2:28 I now christen this Embryon member “Homie” because they are a good friend. I wonder why they call it “Force” in mainline SMT. Never got that. 11:59 I don’t know, I feel like TvTropes would be a better name considering how much time it’s eaten up from me. Never did I think that a status effect called Stomachache would be such an issue.

39:27 its to let you see the honeycomb animation more

11:59 Ah yes, Wikipedia. Where anyone can write anything before the fact checkers can verify its authenticity. 24:00 I think you mean, "You have developed emotions; I do not comprehend."

Ah, I was wondering how we get rid of those walls, and also that chest at our base that we could see but get to. It's been bugging me since begining.

Time for the party get on the Mantra grid set

heat is probably the most lovable jerk/murder hungry character for me. my affinity for him is like the straight cis male equivalent of the [P5 spoiler???] . . . . akechi fixation for women and gay/bi men. the karma terminal has special dialogue when a character masters every mantra, but unfortunately i don't have a save file from right before getting that dialogue. so unless you can find it online, you won't be able to show it off. oopsies. my bad. :/

10:44 I never knew it was immune. That's very good 12:48 Come on, give it your all You've come a long way But let me just say Faking is not enough, so

18:58, true, but I don’t usually see people eat each other in war.

2:30 And for your service to the Embryon I shall christened you Steve. 3:41 So I should note something, despite appreciating the idea of customisation at a base line, Since it allows you to create some interesting or useful combinations by finicking with it. However I’m not a big fan of systems that follow the Mantra of “Everyone can a sess everything” that this game falls into. For various reasons that include but aren’t limited too. Choice paralysis in some cases because you have a lot of options to consider. At the opposite side it can lead to certain combinations of skills and abilities being what you want to go with, You’ve mentioned going for skills Taunt and going through the tree for Devour skill on everyone for example. Which limits build variety. Rather than encouraging or having a verity in skill composition Despite not minding Grinding depending on how you gain access to those means to get skills the game makes grinding something you have to do to get a lot of what you want rather than a choice. And like I said with Serf’s stats last video I’m not the biggest fan of when in a JRPG or being able to screw yourself other or make the game way easier by going with certain skill or stat choices. I also feel like it makes the party members inherently less interring for a gameplay standpoint, since they don’t have their own set of skills you have to consider when making a team or going into certain battles, let’s say you have a boss that is only vulnerable to Magic since they have a weaker Magic stat and don’t resist any Magic element, but are immune to Physical but weak to Earth, if Argilla for example had exclusive access to Tera line of spells and Makakaja, she would be uniquely useful for that fight, but with this system everyone can do that if they have enough time. In RPGs like this, I like having party members with a unique skill identity that makes them better or worse in certain situations alongside having incentives to consider other party members. To compare to other games with similar very free systems. For example Xenoblade 3, I like that game in spite of the fact that the party members only have soft differentiation from each other based on what classes they have an easier time getting and training in. While it did mean that certain Skills and Arts could be more associated with certain characters, Even discounting the fact that Eunie is always your first user of Full Metal Jaguar she has an easier time adding it’s Arts and Skills to other classes, but people like Noah and Taion could still use that class The game that got me into Atlus RPGs Tokyo Mirage Sessions does have a similar system to here, being that you can choose to make and equip certain weapons to gain skills, but the skills every character has access to are segmented even if some are similar. Even though they can both use the Zan line of Magic Kiria and Tsubsa have different skillsets otherwise. A game I have watched a friend play-through, Persona 1 a game which while having restrictions in what certain party members have access too actyally doesn’t do so for the most part, not only because of the small amount of Personas some Arcana’s have but many party members don’t have many Personas they cannot equip. Looking it up the starting party with their Bad (Can equip but cannot use skills) and Worst (Cannot equip at all) The Protaginist, Maki, Mark and Brown have 3, Yuki, Nanjo, Elly and Ayase have 4, while Reiji has a whopping 10. And keep in mind that includes the universal fact that only Males can use the Moon Arcana and only Females can use the one Star Arcana Personal and the fact that all Females have Bad Affinity with Tower. So only a very small amount of weaknesses, like how Maki has 3 negative affinities but only 1 unique to her So in essence its fairly free while,trying not to be while having some weird aspects that override that, like how Reiji has Good Affinity with Satan despite having Worst affinity with Judgement normally or how 1 of the 2 Tower Personas and 2 of the 4 Devil Personss are also unique to him. Hence making me think the system is kind of a mess and could deal with actually having more concrete restrictions, like most of the main cast being weak in each other’s Arcana’s. 6:38 Raksas Jazz Hands 18:54 Another aspect of this plot that I find interesting is normally I feel Heat’s strong desire to devour demons for power would be well portrayed in a very negatuve unflattering light to play him as a future villian and Argilla would be a character whose refusal to devour others would be something that stays, But due to how the world works and the games mechanics you get the opposite, Especially with Argilla as it’s kind of like character development that she starts devouring Demons, almost like how a character has a superpower that they reject and find disgusting but learns to accept it, while Heat being the most gung ho about devouring is treated in a neutral light. 19:13 Since nobody has seen the Sun, would that explain why for this game specifically why a lot of the cast are very pale in their Kaneko Art. It gives the art a very eerie quality that I don’t really like 22:31 Something I find interesting is that since the Tribes have relative strength in universe it justifies why in gameplay the regular enemies will start getting stronger when fighting certain tribes. While also making sense why the Embyrom go after certain tribes first. Not something that every JRPG does. Why would the monsters outside Roer in Trails of Cold Steel be a lot stronger than the monsters outside Celdic, In terms of how the world is constructed to lead to that strength algorithm, it leads to going seems to lead to conveniently tribes of similar strength rank being right next to each other, While due to how the Tribes territory makes a circle around the Karma it means that a lot of these Tribes also have Neibours of different strength ranks, the 2nd ranked Tribe the Wolves is also next to the 5th ranked Tribe. And the Embyrom seem to be neighbours of the 4th and 5th ranked tribes, meaning that the opponents they would likely encounter first and the weaker ones. And another aspect of game structure that would make things go a certain way, most if not all of the victories against other Tribes are going to be by the Embyrom, since we need to fight most of the Tribes to provide bosses and dungeons.

Just noticed that Heat has the same VA as Hector in Castlevania: Curse of Darkness

Magnetite was vaguely mentioned in IV and Apocalypse but yeah it’s been steathily dropped from the series

0:18 Well, isn't that lovely? 1:31 Considering that the game is called DIGITAL Devil Saga... makes you wonder, doesn't it? 6:50 That's probably supposed to be Rakshasa. 7:37 Okay, the attack buffs aren't great, but the defense debuffs? That's nice! 7:41 I take that back about the attack buffs, this skill sounds amazing! 10:45 Hell Fang, huh? If only it was Hell's Fang, then I could make Ragna the Bloodedge jokes. 12:00 ...I knew about this in advance, but I'm still confused. 14:34 Yeah, I figured. 15:32 So... we're totally going to rush down this section of the Mantra Grid to get Debilitate as soon as possible, right? 18:44 ...Sure, whatever you say, Heat. 19:52 Nope, definitely not! Totally just a coincidence! 23:41 Ah yes, the power of friendship! 35:27 And I think Shiva was on the other side. 36:15 Woah, that's cool!

Even with cannibalistic demons, skill trees! 1:30 You'd think this is a digital game with devils that is part of a saga. (i'm not sorry) 3:41 Looks like a lot of Mantras share ending. 7:28 Enrage is somehow even better here than in Persona 5... 10:16 It also expanded! 14:31 Makes you inmune to all forms of magic except Almighty. And since this is technically Shin Megami Tensei... "Good strategy, unfortunately Megidolaon" is very much a thing. 14:59 Oh yeah, Weakness: Ailments... They're their own elements. 17:05 Vanity, the skill the enemy loves to spam when they're losing. 23:08 Darn, two tribes' worth of people and it's not enough manpower 38:15 We cleared two taunting treasure chests and discovered 3 more. Oh well. 39:50 I guess make that three cleared taunting treasure chests. Next time, these people keep trying to understand basic emotions.

Mantra Grid.. I see.. Would help out what they should managed.. Tribes.. Hmm.. Too bad Harley & his Tribe R gone very early tho.. Well.. A start to go up against.. or to team up with better than alone against.. 🤔 Take caution... Blue Key?- For the walls from earlier.. (That underground tho.. Postgame?.. Hmm.. Very later next time...) That clears up for everything. (A start to deal a opposite side of another tribe to the next huh..)

1:15- A pain, but it is something I'm morbidly interested in checking out. The idea of needing resources to summon your monsters is an interesting one at least. Just sounds like SMT 1 & 2 didn't do it well enough. 1:46- Yeah, it really does sound like a Chaos Rep took over this world or something. 4:34- That's REALLY nice that you can see in advance what each Mantra has too. Again, this is a VERY nice evolution/improvement from the Magatama system of Nocturne. [6:15- Never mind. Well, at least we can see what comes next and get some info instead of nothing.] 5:45- So that also means too we basically have to buy every Mantra. That said, are there any special ones we can find out in the world or no? [10:25- Never mind, that helps answer this.] 6:02- Oh. Noted. Oh well, since it looks like the Mantras don't control weaknesses/resists like Magatama did in Nocturne, that shouldn't be too bad then. 7:50- Or can we have fun with Tetrakarn and make enemies hit themselves with +2 Atk Buff hits? Xp 11:39- RIP Dark/Bright Might, but honestly, they *probably* had this nerf coming. 12:00- I'm sorry, WHAT?! Why?! lmao 16:47- Incredibly strange to see them come this late. 18:51- Kind of, but there's still quite a difference between just killing an enemy in a war and dining on their corpse. 21:03- I guess you can say that he does not compre- *Gets shot for the bad joke* 24:06- Okay, there it is. Xp 25:37- Really, it's just resolved like that. I mean, I don't require a big dramatic scene for that, but I thought a choice like that would get some more attention like in a cutscene or something. 30:24- At least he has a sense of humor...? 37:50- "Honeycomb power, activate!" - BigKlingy 2024. 38:31- Taunting us with unobtainable chests until post game?! Oh that's MEAN. 39:53- A Great Chakra ALREADY?! Why is this game so frikin generous?! In other news, as you can tell by my very late comment, a busy day. During the downtime I had when watching this, made progress for a challenge thing I've been meaning to beat and before things got busy, did more of TTYD.

Skill/Class trees have always given my a lot of decision paralysis and forced a ton of grinding, this seems more simple for now. ...Is DDS grind-heavy?

Apparently this is a bit of a hot take but i really don't think this system is all that bad. While dds2 does it better its not bad here

if Wikipedia mantra isnt a mistranslation why do people say its supposed to be called Kunitsukami? or is this the "purposeful naming choice" therefore not a mistranslation logic?

The Mantra Grid is quite cool, But it seems really Grindy... And since this is an old game, Random encounters are also a thing...

12:08 Ah yes, my favorite tree! Wikipedia!

12:00 Do you think it's called Wikipedia because your "devouring" knowledge?

Wikipedia not my go to site being a shin Megami Tensei lol

The plot really is complex. Hopefully there's no major contrivances that'll derail it. Cough cough Final Fantasy 8 Cough cough. That's one big grid. I would love it if there was a way to lose that blue key. Way too funny.