Website and data research by 101Leafy.
Devil Survivor manual
Devil Survivor
The Japanese manual (Atlus, 2009) has 41 pages. These are its main points, translated by 101Leafy. The page numbers are the ones printed in the manual.
World
It is the summer of the hero's second year of high school. Their cousin Naoya calls them to the crowds of Shibuya, along with their friends Atsuro and Yuzu. Naoya never shows up, so they switch on the one clue he left, a handheld called the Communication Player, or COMP. Demons on the streets, the Yamanote Line sealed off, a hidden truth: as if it knew all of what was coming, the COMP tells them "Let's Survive."
Words to know
COMP: short for the Communication Player, a handheld game system. As the name says, it connects to the internet so its users can talk to each other.
Demon summoning program: a program already installed on the heroes' COMPs. How it works is unknown, but it seems to reach another world and call up the beings known as demons.
Shomonkai: a shady group going around saying that God, unhappy that the internet lets the whole world talk to each other, will bring back the tragedy of the Tower of Babel.
Tokyo lockdown: a huge barricade built along the Yamanote Line in a single night. No one may go near it. The government says it is there because of a poison gas leaking from underground.
Two parts
The game moves between the adventure part, where the player goes to areas on the map to start events and uses the COMP menu to get ready, and the battle part, where destinations marked "!" or BATTLE start a simulation battle with the player's teams.
Time
An event or battle marked with a clock on the map list takes 30 minutes. The Y button on the map moves time ahead in 30 minute steps. Several clock events can be open in the same time slot, and letting time pass can make the others go away, so choose with care. Laplace Mail and what people on the street say help with the choice.
Teams
Before a mission the player builds teams, cracks skills, and places the teams on the field. A team is a human leader in the middle with up to two demons beside them. A demon cannot lead, and locked characters cannot be taken out. Up to four teams go into a mission. Humans need certain stats to set a skill; skills they cannot set yet are shown in grey.
Macca and Magnetite
Both come from battles. Taking an EXTRA turn or winning without damage gives a Macca bonus that adds to the Macca earned, and the bonus never takes Macca away. Magnetite builds up by how the player fights. When enough is stored, the Skill Set Bonus lets the player teach a demon one command skill the party has cracked.
Kinds of skills
Command skills are used in battle: attacks, healing, support, and more. Passive skills work just by being set. Racial skills belong to each demon race; some work on their own and some are used as field commands. Auto skills can only be learned by humans and take effect when a battle starts.
Fusion
Fusion makes a new demon from two. In two-body fusion the player picks both demons from the list; after the first pick, X shows every demon it can make. In search fusion the player sets a race, owned or not, team, and other conditions, then picks from the pairs that fit. Before fusing, the new demon's skill slots open and the player chooses which skills it inherits.
Demon auction
The lineup changes every 30 minutes of game time. More stars mean a stronger, pricier demon. As the story goes on, more auction ranks open, switched with L and R. X buys a demon at its buyout price with no bidding. When the bids do not settle the sale, a Final Bid decides it: the highest final bid wins the right to buy. The winner may refuse to pay, but that lowers their auction rating.