It’s hard not to just start this review by restating everything I said in my of the Devil Episode 1 review from last year. It’s easy to fall back on the “it’s really good”s and “oh my gosh they went and did it again”s, especially when, well, of the Devil Episode 2 is extremely good and they really went and did it again.
of the Devil Episode 2: his due, picks up a month or so after the events of Episode 1, with our lead lawyer Morgan getting pulled into representing a bodyguard for the Ikariyas, one of the wealthiest families in its dystopian hell. Similar to Episode 1, she has personal ties to the case itself (albeit with a MUCH different context), leading her to wrestle with what she knows about the crime against what she can actually talk about or use in court. This struggle creates an incredibly interesting push and pull as she pieces things together, and really exemplifies the unique nature of the game’s perspective, how it can be utilized to sow misdirections and freshen up what would otherwise be well-trodden tropes.
What stood out to me immediately in Episode 2 was how things fire on all cylinders right from the get-go. Both the prologue and Episode 1 leaned towards treating the nature of Morgan as a serial killer with the gravitas of a twist ending, and I was a little concerned that most of her evil would be committed off-screen and handled as pure reference. Nth circle isn’t shy about their inspirations—unless you somehow missed the referential humor scattered throughout—and I’m glad to see that stays true for gradually utilizing Morgan more and more, the same way a similar character like Makima from Chainsaw Man slowly gains, for no want of a better term, hype and aura moments.
By making Morgan the perpetrator of most of the crime she has to defend someone else for, Episode 2 is able to have the tension of a Death Note “can she get away with it” without sacrificing the core mystery and investigative elements that make up the murder mystery genre. This is a great way of avoiding the common issues in mystery games, where key information has to be kept from the player’s perspective, even if they’re meant to be seeing what a specific character is seeing. A perfect example is Heavy Rain’s killer reveal, where they have to go out of their way to actively misrepresent a situation to the player in order to deliver their twist. By maintaining that Morgan “only knows what she knows”, the story can deliver intrigue in the same way suspense stories like Death Note or the better parts of Danganronpa do without falling apart in the process.
Equally impressive are the continued updates to animations and the consistent willingness to go off-model without becoming tonally inconsistent. Episode 1 has some really great Monogatari-style cutaways where the screen will change color and deliver a single line; but Episode 2 doubles down with noir-style typewriting, more non-ADV style visual novel sequences, and cute one-off bits like cutting to the old VN classic photoshopped jpeg of something in 4:3. Morgan’s big murder scene is a particular standout, changing the perspective from sprite-to-sprite communication to a more sinister front-facing shot that properly captures the darker and uglier side of the protagonist.
Every new and returning character is absolutely fantastic. It’s easy to describe of the Devil as an Ace Attorney-like, but where it really succeeds is the way in which it humanizes even the most annoying member of its retinue. Morgan herself is a bit of a fail-girl, but so is everyone, and seeing a little bit of that for the folks you run into helps capture the most important part of Cyberpunk fiction: the humanity subdued by the society. Cyberpunk is a genre that all too often fails because its works’ ideas of humanity are limited to either traditional conservative essentialism, or transhumanistic neo-religion. Here, there’s a distinct understanding that Cyberpunk is speculative fiction; it’s ideally formed from ponderances on where exactly society could go when scientific or societal shifts change the paradigm. All too often, though, (as seen in works like Cyberpunk 2077) these stories become a selection of aesthetic choices and tropes rather than considered analysis and critique. Ace Attorney treats its setting conceit of injustice and absurdity as a means to an end for a video game; of the Devil is intent on showing you exactly what makes its city, and the people in it.
And there are so many people to love! Android Serra continues to be a standout, leaning all-in to her martial-arts fetishism as it (sometimes) relates to the case. DA Emma Rockford works great as a continued rival, and the way the narrative plays with her absolute confidence really sells the way she acts and the intent of her actions. Both detectives Reyes and London return, and gain more interesting layers to their personalities that sets up future threads putting them apart from remaining the incompetent police lackeys to the real investigation. Robotic Adjutant 84 once again demonstrates you can improve on the standard old judge with a big beard by making them a manic blonde woman.
Episode 2’s new characters are also exceptionally well presented. Every case-specific character in Episode 1 had something interesting to contribute, but they had to work double duty by being the functional introduction to the game’s world and the overall format of power dynamics the player has to acclimate to. Now that things are more or less understood, the characters can get more silly with it, and it really pays off. Every member of the Ikariya family is charming, even if they’re among the more morally questionable characters in the setting (which is saying something).
It’s easy to fall into tropes, especially when going for the more strict formatting of something like a trial-focused visual novel, but what matters is making the tropes fun to engage with through character dynamics and prose. Yes, new character Diamani is the archetypal Cyberpunk bartender, but his charm comes from the way he’s teaching Serra cringe memes and getting serious with Morgan. Han is half the lesbians I know. Makoto Ikariya is every cloistered rich-kid in an anime ever, but it works because the way he talks is incredibly charming, and seeing the way he bounces off the other members of his family (especially his grandfather, huoh) fleshes out their relation to the setting and what this world makes of its people.
The theme of focusing on humanizing everyone you meet, contrasted against Morgan’s sociopathy, just hits soooooo good. This isn’t a Death Note situation where you’re seeing one weird freak’s specific world view, and a lot of functional characters that serve to maintain a narrative conceit. You get a weird, messy, and inconsistent series of events that match the compromising world under late capitalism. Especially in a story with cops, arguably the most hateable group you could think of, being able to distinctly capture the humanity buried underneath the evil and performance without inadvertently forgiving their existence (a commonality of detective fiction) is an incredible feat.
It’s so hard writing about of the Devil because I genuinely get so effusive every time. I’ve said it in my last two pieces, and here again, but do you know how bad every single Cyberpunk work is? Do you know how hellish it is to play Cyberpunk 2077 or Shadowrun and see such a surface level engagement with politics on such a baffling level that you’d struggle to believe the people writing the game even come from the same world the rest of us do? The intricacies to which of the Devil goes to represent labor, medical exploitation, and economic divides comes across as far more real than the average “here’s the dirty cyber slums where the drug addicts (who are all crazed killers by the way) live”. Most of the plot for this episode revolves around the economic implications of a construction plan in poorer areas and just how big of a deal it would be! It’s real!
To go further, one particular plot point draws directly from something we’re seeing in our world right now; the way the different crime families engage with the legalization of a recreational drug. One of these organizations utilizes a front-facing pharmaceutical company which allows them to benefit directly from the legalization, while the other is about to lose access to this revenue stream they’ve established over the years, affecting various sectors of impoverished people. In the midst of learning about all of this, you can also read about the continued price gouging impacting sufferers of type-2 diabetes, even 60 years into the future.
This is exactly what speculative fiction should be doing! It captures a nuanced, obviously fictional take on a concept that we’re familiar with (the gradual legalization of previously criminalized substances changing communities in different ways across the world) and marries it with an even more concrete example of social commentary that’s a natural extension of the same environment, if not a different aspect to it. There is fiction in the concepts and names, but reality in the actual subject matter, which establishes the work’s theory and praxis. This isn’t Cyberpunk 2077’s nebulous and abstracted “cyberpsychosis.” This is a relatable critique that discusses and evaluates the real issues we’re currently facing, getting back to the genre underpinnings of warning at what is, and what could be.
So yeah, again, really excited about everything happening here. There are 3 more of the Devil episodes planned, and I absolutely cannot wait to see what the hell happens, and how the story will balance the prospect of a more focused main plot versus the procedural episodic nature. I’m excited to see whatever sick outfits the fantastically stylized art brings, I can’t wait to see Morgan kill more people, I can’t wait to see how Serra owns Morgan next, I-hey wait come back I haven’t finished telling you about how much I like of the—
Delightfully Devilish
Nth circle has continued to impress with their newest mystery, oozing style and smarts across every scene.
