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Atlus’ Catherine Premieres Atop Japanese Software Sales Charts

Posted by on February 28, 2011 No comments

The PS3 version of the much-hyped, Atlus-published adventure game Catherine was the top selling title in Japan last week, selling over twice as many units as its nearest competition, the PS3′s Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

Catherine also handily outsold Marvel vs. Capcom 3 on the Xbox 360, with those versions of the titles finishing 7th and 8th for the week, respectively.

Last week’s top-selling premiere Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 3 fell sharply to 5th place this week, selling barely 10 percent of what it did during its launch.

Other previous top performers Samurai Warrios 3 Z and Monster Hunter Portable 3rd showed more modest drops to 3rd and 4th place this week, respectively.

Western-developed RPG Two Worlds II made a relatively strong debut in the usually insular country, finishing in 6th place on the PS3 and 15th on the Xbox 360.

Other newcomers to the weekly top 20 sellers this week include DS adventure title Hakuouki: Zuisouroku in 9th and PSP rhythm title DJ Max Portable 3 in 14th.

Catherine’s Jukebox Has Shin Megami Tensei Music In It

Posted by on February 8, 2011 No comments

You’ll be spending a lot of time at Catherine’s Stray Sheep Bar, so you might as well listen to some good tunes while you’re there. Luckily, Atlus have you covered. The jukebox at the Stray Sheep includes not only Catherine music, but also songs from Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, Persona games, and Digital Devil Saga.

Atlus also showed off a video of the Rapunzel arcade game at the Stray Sheep Bar, which looks very similar to the platforming in Catherine itself. Earning a top score in Rapunzel can open up new conversation events with other characters. Rapunzel has over 50 stages to complete.

It looks there’ll be no lack of things to do at the Stray Sheep. If you’re interested in trying it, there’s a Catherine demo up on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade that people have been discussing in a separate post.

Catherine Demo no longer available for Playstation 3

Posted by on February 7, 2011 1 comment

Sad news for PS3 owners, as Atlus, developer of Catherine has announced on Twitter that demo of the game for PS3 is no longer available for download. The reason given out by the developer for this decision was that the taster was in limited quantities.

On twitter Atlus said that PS3 demo downloads have hit the planned number so they are now pulling it out, and it will no longer be available. No such decision for Xbox 360 demo, and its still available on Xbox Live.

Catherine Details Emerge, Multiplayer Support

Posted by on January 26, 2011 3 comments
Catherine

New details have finally arrived for Persona’s first HD game Catherine. The game will feature online and multiplayer support. The main menu for Catherine will display four options: Golden Theater, Babel, Colosseum and Configuration.

Golden Theater is the main story mode and you can play on Easy (comes with “Redo” feature), Normal, and Hard. In Golden Theater it will have character Vincent in a love triangle with Katherine and Catherine.

Babel Mode has four stages of tower climbing and two players can participate in this mode.

Colosseum also offers two-person play, however this mode is simultaneous unlike Babel. Colosseum pits players head-to-head as they climb up a tower. This mode is unlocked after completing Golden Theater mode.

Catherine launches for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 next month in Japan.

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclock Coming Soon

Posted by on January 20, 2011 No comments

Good. I ate up Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor so fast that I barely tasted it. It was that good, folks. No indigestion, either. It went down so smooth.

It would have went down smoother on a portable with a bit more graphical power and bigger screens. A system like the 3DS maybe? Sure. This morning, at a Nintendo 3DS press conference, Reggie Fils-Aime listed the 3DS upgrade of SMT:DS among the launch window games for the US. That means that Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclock could be a launch game for the 3DS in the US. How delicious would that be?

In case you missed it, Overclock will be an upgrade of the Atlus SRPG that uses the 3D tech to have demons flying out at you. It will also use the increased graphical power to give us higher resolution maps, and more space for text and stats. And more demons. It will also feature full voice acting and brand new game content with a new episode called “8th Day.”

Persona 2: Innocent Sin Delayed

Posted by on January 7, 2011 No comments

The PSP remake of Persona 2: Innocent Sin has been delayed by about a month. The title was originally scheduled for a March 3 release, and Atlus has changed the date to April 14th. No reason was given for the delay.

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Headed To Nintendo 3DS

Posted by on January 6, 2011 No comments

Announced last year, some brand new details on the Nintendo 3DS Devil Survivor re-hash has come to light via Japanese gaming magazine, Famitsu.

Shin Megami Tensai: Devil Survivor is a tactical RPG originally released on Nintendo DS in Japan and North America only. The story follows a group of teens in modern day Tokyo trying to survive as the city is taken over by demons.

The Nintendo 3DS version, called Devil Survivor: Over Clock extends the gameplay in various different ways. One change is the storyline now goes over 8 days, rather than 7 of the original DS title.

The game also features over 150 different monsters, the original featuring 130. Over Clock will be fully voiced, the magazine stating there will be over 200,000 lines of voice work. Levels have been redesigned to take advantage of the Nintendo 3DS screen and the game also takes advantage of the 3D effect.

According to Famitsu, the game is around 90% completed, meaning a 2011 release is likely.

13-Year-Old Shin Megami Tensei Title Coming to the West

Posted by on January 3, 2011 No comments

Originally released in 1997 for the Sega Saturn, Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers is the sequel to Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner (also never released in the West) and a dark RPG that Hardcore Gaming 101 describes as “like .hack but without all of the extraneous nonsense”.

I’ve mostly heard great things about its mix of occult and hacker themes, but apparently Sony turned Atlus down when the developer/publisher sought to localize Soul Hackers‘ PS1 re-release years ago. Fan translation group Devil Hackers, which also released the Persona 2: Innocent Sin English patch, is working to fix that!

The team started working on the Soul Hackers PS1 translation last year and have just released a trailer showing off its progress. It hasn’t announced an expected released date, but one of its members shared some info about what he’s working on while making sure to trash TOSE’s work on the port:

“… I’ve written the more-or-less finalized variable width font (VWF) code for Soul Hackers, which means what you see can be almost considered final quality, at least visually speaking. I’ve been working on this code for a while, like since September, but I’ve been busy with University, other real life stuff, and translation-related side projects.For this particular hack I cheated a bit by writing 98% of the code in C instead of the usual 100% assembly; it was because SH uses a weird manner for printing text to screen which is caused by the fact that TOSE (a company well know for crappy portings, like all those rehashes of FF4-5-6) didn’t bother to actually reprogram the low level stuff and half assed some sort of emulation for several visual aspects of the game.

TOSE is not new to this kind of bullshit, so I had to equip myself with powerful means to tackle their idiocy efficiently: a high level language was the perfect solution. It’s not perfect yet (you can see weird glitches happening sometimes), but it’s decent enough for a teaser trailer.”

Atlus Prepping Catherine Demo

Posted by on December 28, 2010 No comments

Got a Japanese Network account? Interested in Atlus’ intriguing new project? We’ve got good news.

According to Siliconera, game director Katsura Hashino recently mentioned an upcoming demo for Catherine, the horrific/erotic blend of action, platforming and in-depth storytelling. We don’t have a release date for the sample but as the title is scheduled to hit Japan on February 17, we imagine it isn’t far off. The good news is that even though Atlus hasn’t announced any plans to bring the game to North America, you won’t have to import the entire product to get a taste…heck, we’ve all used our Japanese accounts for such things, right? We’re interested to see how Catherine pans out; everything we’ve seen and heard thus far has piqued our curiosity, and we always have plenty of faith in Atlus.

Persona Team Director: “Next Year, We Will Be Able To Announce New Titles”

Posted by on December 28, 2010 1 comment

Katsura Hashino, leader of the Persona team and director of Catherine, posted a tantalizing comment in his latest blog. “Next year, we will be able to announce various titles, I think.”

Right now, the only project project the team unveiled is Catherine, but with plans to hire more staff things are brewing in their office. Hashino thanked fans for giving their original title, Catherine, such a warm reception and said he hopes people will anticipate future projects from the “P team.”