4/5 ★ – Lancey's review of Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Children - White Book.

The story is rather simplistic. You play as Masaki who was born on the same day as Takahata and it begins innocently as you two and his younger sister do some things and the game quickly turns bad as she's seriously injured by Cu Chulainn and is hospitalized. The two of you decide along with your demons to traverse the world of the demons and find a cure for her. Later the plot turns much darker after she's cured. I won't spoil the rest but it leads to an epic showdown. The language barrier isn't too bad as much of the text is in Kana and is understandable if you know it. The gameplay consists mostly of battling, advancing the story, and fusing demons to create new ones as well as strengthen your main one. The plot wastes little time easing you into things in that it's incredibly linear by simply talking to an NPC and moving through a dungeon and fighting a boss occasionally. Battles are mostly consistent of the same old SMT formula of recruiting demons through luck-based negotiation but the twist is that demons fight two on two battles with later places occasionally throwing reinforcements at you. Demons still learn magic and skills that can be utilized and inherited in the fusion process as well. Death in this game is brutal as you can lose money and storing it in the bank is a must as you go forward. It gets expensive having demons die as much of your cash could go toward consumables and Riser upgrades.