DarkRecon

Kid Icarus Uprising is another great game in the Nintendo Franchise. The story is entertaining and like TVtropes says, it's "better than it sounds". The dozens of weapons in the game allow for many different playstyles, and that's without modifiers that give more power, cause status affects or increase health and defense. The voice acting is great and the witty banter between characters is some of the BEST Nintendo has done, on par with the Mario RPGs, which are known for the hilarious dialogue. The online mode is smooth and very often lag-free, though many online players have weapons that can destroy you in seconds. Gameplay wise, I have little problem with the controls for both parts of the game and wonder why many people have a problem with it. Overall, I think Kid Icarus: Uprising is a great reboot of the franchise which was seriously needed, and was executed brilliantly. Congrats Nintendo on another stellar game.

Devil Survivor blends RPG and tactical strategy with an original story with a decent cast of characters. I didn't play the original version, so I decided to pick this one up instead when I saw it on sale. The voice acting is on point, though I do have some disagreements on some of the character's voice, one of which that makes my ears bleed, but that is besides the point. The game however doesn't use the 3D capability that the 3DS offers which is quite a shame seeing how good a game like this could be if more 3D aspects were added. Overall, I found the various aspects of the game fun and enjoyable from the auctions to the fusing aspects and the limitless possibilities, as well as the various alternate endings, and the bonus day after completing the game.

The changes Devil Survivor 2 had brought are pleasant, but some of these changes feel as if the hinder the game more so than help it. The story, music, and environment changes is all good, the gameplay changes however might not be as great. The vitality stat now affects both magic and physical defense, rather than only affecting physical, which isn't a bad change. However, the Magetite system used in the last game has been replaced by the Add-on function. These add-ons are only applicable during demon fusion and only one add-on is allowed per demon and you can only have 6 add-ons at once. While these add-ons do give your demons helpful boosts, I feel that the Magetite system is superior as it allows you to change the command skills for demons in your party, thus, allowing you to customize the demons' skills based on their strengths and you are now stuck with your demon's default command skill set plus one or two more they get through fusion. Granted, one could use their Demon compendium to chain fuse skills into a certain demon but they are still stuck with the default skill set that they can never hope to change. Plus, summoning demons require Macca, the currency in the game, which brings me to my next point, free battles. In it's predecessor, Free battles came in two different forms, normal free battle, and hard versions with stronger monsters. This allowed you to grind your characters' and demons levels to a suitable amount which you could take on the boss with some, but not a lot of difficulty. The demons in the free battle also got stronger as the game progressed, making it worthwhile to go back and fight said demons. However, free battles in this game only come in one difficulty, and it is barely enough to prepare you for the day's upcoming boss battle, unless you constantly grind for a couple hours straight. Another thing is that the monster you fight in the free battles stay relatively the same until you move into the next day, and only some of them are replaced with slightly stronger monsters. Since many are less likely to do free battles as a result, it makes farming Macca harder and one has to result to story-based battles in order to get the money as well as more exp. Some of the gameplay changes, however aren't all bad. The new fate system allows for joint skill cracking which allows characters with a certain level fate or higher to not only crack their skill, but yours as well, thus allowing more than one skill to be cracked after defeating a demon. In order to raise the fate level of a character, the player has to interact with the character during the free time, which provides for some fun dialogue and quirky moments. Overall, I think that Devil Survivor 2 is a good game. However, some of the gameplay changes aren't all that welcoming. If Atlus decides to create a third entry in the series, I hope that they remove the Add-on system and go back to the Magetite system and allow the option to have harder free-battles.