This review shall be made taking into account the game, I played it long before seeing this adaptation.
The anime had potential to become one of the best of this year 2013 if the creators had taken more seriously the game, in my opinion i believe that neither they played it and only guided themselves by summaries of the game (who knows? Seems like it to me).
I'll start by comparing the anime and the game in several areas:
Story: The story in this anime goes way too fast.
The game had many missions that didn't belong to the main story but that affected the course of history and all of them were not shown in this animation.
The anime is just 13 episodes and that affected the character/character development and the moste important, the finale ! I would not mind if the anime had 2 seasons if that meant covering all parts of the game.
I still don't believe they skipped the battle beetwen Hibiki and Polaris (major flaw!).
Characters: The characters are not well developed and some even only appear in 2 or 3 episodes and the relationships between some are a bit forced due to the reduced number of episodes. In the game, you have the opportunity to socialize and get to know better each character and their problems and their life before the invasion but the reduced number of episodes made it impossible.
Sound: In my opinion the soundtrack from the anime meets the recommended and has a great ending (better ending in this summer for me), as well as the OST fits well.
Battles: The battles in this anime were good but could have been more and better, if the anime had traversed the whole game we would have the opportunity to see more demons and various attacks.
The final battle (i do not want to spoil) is too short in my opinion and could have more drama and more action.
The games of the saga shin megami tensei are famous for having a great story to develop and its interaction with all the characters and addictive battles but the anime was slightly below expectations but i disagree when people say it was a failure because i found it nice to see one my favorite games adapted for television.
Who knows if they do not make the adaptation of the first game Devil Survivor, but this time done by taking better account of the game.
I hope this review helped you in some way and always remeber :
LET'S SURVIVE !
