Devil Survivor 2: Choose Your Happy Ending
Disclaimer: Readers be warned, the below article may entail spoilers, but since nothing is confirmed and this work is purely speculative, I recommend you read on.
There have been big players on the anime
scene this season, with the biggest three from my perspective being Shingeki no
Kyojin, Valvrave the Liberator and Devil Survivor 2. Of these, Devil Survivor 2 wields the handicap
of having an established fan base courtesy of it’s original incarnation as a
Nintendo DS game.
that
was Episode 8 and more recently, episode 11.
For the uninitiated,
the Devil Survivor 2 game is a highly lauded RPG that involves a large amount
of character choices and well-placed dialogue, as well as varied options for
team and character builds.
Think a little bit of The Walking Dead in a
JRPG. Character deaths are determined by your dialogue choices and battles youchoose to fight in, the catch is that events happen concurrently so an event
might occur where you talk to a character in order to make him stay on your
faction while missing a battle that results in the death of another character.
As such, the story-oriented game elements
converge at the end in the form of 6 possible endings. Three “Daichi-related”
endings, Yamato’s Meritorious ending, Ronaldo’s Egalitarian ending and the
Anguished one’s Kingmaker ending.
Speculation has been rife as to which
ending the animation would subscribe to as for now, a few things are clear from
the anime, Hibiki, the main player character, is extremely hostile to Yamato
Hotsuin, lessening the chances of the Merit ending taking place in the anime,
and that Ronaldo Kuriki is most definitely dead, thus eliminating the
possibility of his ending ever happening.
Meanwhile, let us sketch out the details of
the possible endings and what it means.
The Daichi endings make up the vast
majority of the game endings.
Daichi 1: Liberator
The characters kill Polaris, thus saving
the world but nevertheless leaving the big gaps of void formed during the week
unfilled. Despite it not being explicitly stated, it is clear to many gamers
that this is the “bad” ending.
Daichi 2: Restorer
The token “good guy saves the world”
ending. Polaris restores the world on request of the heroes and all is well. It
is also the game’s standard good ending
Also known as the true ending, getting this
ending in-game requires you to save as many characters from death ordestruction as possible, have them join your faction and save the world from
destruction by Polaris together with them.
There is a special cutscene after the end of the game detailing the
results of the week’s action.
Yamato: Meritorious
At the heart of this route is Yamato’s
obessession of creating a meritocracy. Hibiki joins Yamato’s faction on Day 7.
Upon defeating Polaris, Yamato Hotsuin requests that the world be restored to a
new order with him, Hibiki and the JPs at its helm. This world runs on
meritocracy and it is implied that the citizens of this new world are not
morally obliged to help the sick and the weak simply because they are
“society’s trash” and are incapable of keeping up the ways of the new reign.
Ronaldo: Egalitarian.
Hibiki will join up with Ronaldo to fight
against Yamato’s ideals. The resultant society after the defeat of Polaris is
one where refugees and the weak are taken care of, much unlike Yamato’s world.
On the last day Hibiki’s character will
ally with Alcor and Alcor only to defeat Polaris. Alcor then replaces Polaris
as the world’s “God” and administrator, proving to be a far more sensitive and
empathetic entity than Polaris. This route is widely considered to be the most
difficult as you only have Alcor on your team in the final battle.
Perhaps it seems obvious to some that the
anime is steadily inching towards Alcor’s ending. However, given the large
amount of out of place character deaths, the most recent being Jungo, Airi and
Hinako’s. While this does not seem odd for an anime focusing on survivor and a
dog-eat-dog state of affairs, astute viewers who have played the game before
will note that Airi and Hinako are characters who are unable to die in-game.
Which leads us to wonder, could the ending
for Devil Survivor 2 be an original one after all. If so, how will it be
handled?
Do leave your opinions in the comment
section and let the speculation commence!
Let’s Survive,
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