The Shin Megami Tensei series is known for its unique blend of role-playing elements, (very) lengthy plot-driven stories and horrible things happening in Japan. This particular outing on the Nintendo DS tries its hand at a new direction by stepping away from the token role-playing game of Persona 4 and toward the strategy genre. Worry not, however, as there is still the very good possibility that Japan will be destroyed. Some things never change.

In Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor , you play as The Hero/Main Character/Good Guy/Bret “The Hitman” Hart (in my case), whose name and personality is whatever you feel like giving him. Regardless, you’re playing a 17-year-old Japanese high school student with bad luck and even worse hair.

You meet with your friends, Yuzu and Atsuro, who deliver gifts your cousin says “you will need.” The presents in question turn out to be devices that control demons. Almost immediately, demons emerge from the “gifts,” and things go downhill pretty quickly. Basically, devils and demons have overrun Tokyo and the government has sealed you, the demons and many anime stereotypes inside. Your newly acquired demon-control abilities also allow you to see people’s “death clocks,” which allow you to see that no one in Tokyo has one more than a week. That’s about as sane as things get as your journey to halt the apocalypse begins.

The game starts with a bang and never really goes far beyond its core “here are some demons that you use to kill other demons” system. The characters you control are divided into teams consisting of one human and two demons. Demons come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and levels of ugliness. All units use the four stats of Strength, Magic, Vitality and Agility. These determine physical power, magical power, hit points and speed, respectively. Your teammates’ and demons’ stats will increase automatically and their roles won’t change all that much; thus, your level 4 Atsuro will still be an attacker at level 99. The only unit you have complete customization over is your hero. He can be an attacker or magic user; it’s up to you. Demons also have elemental strengths and weaknesses — fire, ice, wind — which have become common in RPGs; humans have no strengths or weaknesses.

Demons will duke it out on your traditional giant grid, where you’ll exchange turns with the enemy. Moving adjacent to an enemy and attacking them shifts the action into the actual battle during which you trade blows and magic blasts. Each demon/human gets one attack unless they hit the enemy’s weakness, in which case they gain an extra turn. Despite sounding trivial, these extra turns are crucial to surviving in this game. Your demons each have special powers that affect various aspects of strategy, such as movement, attacking, battling or hindering the enemy. These will help you tremendously, and building your demon teams appropriately is essential as you strive for victory. It all sounds pretty complicated, but the key is to go all magic and never look back. Brute strength works well early in the game, but the bosses quickly become immune to physical attacks, and your nonmagic units will only be good at dying.

Leveling and getting stronger takes a new twist in Devil Survivor . Your human characters will need to level up to use better abilities; however, your demons rarely get the chance to learn new skills. Although you can kill enemies to strengthen your demons, a unit will gain significantly reduced experience based on how much higher it is in level to the enemy. Essentially, your demons only gain a few levels at max and quickly become obsolete. The key to success is gaining new demons that have higher stats and more advanced abilities. New demons are acquired using one of two methods.

The first — and arguably less strange method — is purchasing new demons in Demon Auctions using demon cash you earn from killing demons. The alternative is using Demon Fusion to combine two weaker demons into a stronger one. The skills of the two “parent demons” can be passed on to the new one. You’ll come to rely on Demon Auctions only to buy “materials” to be used in Demon Fusion. This is due to the fact that fused demons’ stats are higher, and some demons (the best in the game) are only obtainable through fusion.

The game’s presentation is done well, with the art and sound delighting the senses. The characters and demons are fleshed out, and you may even find yourself caring about the less annoying humans. The music mostly comes down to techno tracks and guitar solos, but it fits the angst in the game and is really what I’d expect from a demon deathmatch soundtrack. Perhaps the most disappointing are the battles. The demons fight in a Pokemon-esque manner with a still picture having HP going up and down as it sustains hits. What should be epic really fizzles, especially since many of the illustrated pictures of the demons make them look really cool and battle-hungry.

The meat of the game consists of you fighting demons, getting stronger by killing demons, getting new demons to kill stronger demons and so on. The battles vary in what you must do, such as rescuing idiotic civilians or weakening a demon so an ally gets the killing blow, but mostly battles boil down to “kill all enemies.” The game isn’t difficult in terms of strategy, as most enemies will rush blindly to their deaths and attack your lowest-level unit, regardless of their own weaknesses. As the game progresses, the demons get harder only in the sense that they are higher levels, are strong against multiple magic types and are many. So the challenge here mostly comes down to frustrating you rather than outsmarting you with tactics.

Despite these drawbacks, Devil Survivor is good fun and has a noticeable charm. The story is intriguing and the important characters have great depth. Demon-gathering has a “gotta catch ’em all” feel, and the game slips in some humor alongside the serious story. This is most apparent in the main character’s dialogue choices, with the “non-heroic” options including such lines as “I figured it out! Wait ... No, I got nothing ...” and “What does 0 plus 2 equal?”

Devil Survivor will keep you hooked and the branching stories lead to one of five possible endings. Beating the game once unlocks New Game+, which unlocks stronger fusions and makes your demons level faster. This helps tremendously toward beating the game multiple times, and the great replay value makes Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner worth the purchase.