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.”
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.
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.”
Finally, Atlus revealed what they’re using the Devil Hunter trademark for. Like Persona 3 Social it’s a net game.
Specifics were not released, but Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Hunter popped up in an Index Holdings financial presentation. It’s coming out next month and it’s a proper Shin Megami Tensei spinoff. Apparently Atlus is working on some kind of dating simulation game too.
Sister company Rosso Index is working on an online game based on Arcadia Saga and an unnamed “famous title” for December 2010.
Developer and publisher Atlus has seen its operations dissolved by its parent company Index Holdings.
Originally formed in 1986, the company has released a number of very memorable and popular games over the last few years including multiple Shin Megami Tensei titles, the Trauma Center series, and the hardcore DS dungeon games carrying the Etrian Odyssey name.
The reason for the demise of the company has been put down to a necessary business refocus by Index. The Index press release (translated) suggests that Atlus was not profitable enough as an independent company and therefore had to go. However, the Atlus name will live on in some form, but it’s unclear exactly what the plan is going forward.
As to the fate of games currently in development at Atlus, there may be good news. The director of Atlus’ horror game Catherinehas stated (translated) that his team intends to keep on working as will other teams. Either those teams haven’t been told their fate yet, or Index has decided to allow development to continue.
PlayStation Network has a big week in Japan with a surge of PsOne games. Top on the list, because its being sold at a premium price, is Shin Megami Tensei II. The enhanced PsOne port costs 1,000 yen ($12).
The ultra rare dream simulator LSD is also available and its only 600 yen ($8), way less than 18,000 ($210) on Yahoo Auctions.
Other (mostly obscure) Game Archives titles on PlayStation Network include Marionette Company, Ano ko Doko no ko, Love Game’s Waiwai Tennis, Dokapon! Rage of the Iron Sword, 0 Kara no Shogi, and a ton of budget games games like Simple 1500 Series: The Kendo plus Superlite 1500 Series: Hooockey!!.
Fans of the popular Shin Megami series love every release they can get their hands on. While US gamers have had the first Persona for a while in the US and Euro and Australian gamers have had hard copies of the game, it’s certainly good news to hear that the game is now available on PSN in those two regions. Atlus U.S.A., Inc. today announced that Shin Megami Tensei: Persona for PSP, the handheld remake of the first chapter in the critically-acclaimed Persona series, is now available on PlayStation Network in Europe and Australia.
SMT: Persona was well-received in North America, gaining multiple positive reviews. Our own Samuel Evans said of the game, “Persona is a classic game and while the Playstation version has become a hard to play relic, this remake is easy to pick up and play.”
Completely remastered for the PSP and now finally available in Europe and Australia, SMT: Persona boasts a fully redone English localization, all-new music from composer Shoji Meguro, beautiful new animated sequences overseen by famed artist Kazuma Kaneko, and enhanced graphics optimized for the PSP system’s widescreen aspect ratio. With new content, adjustments to game balance, and a number of technical and design improvements, this is the definitive version of one of the most sought after RPGs of all time.
If you’re new to the Persona series, getting into the swing of things can be pretty intimidating. The Persona games belong to the Shin Megami Tensei franchise of videogames, and the original Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 came out on the PlayStation 2 back in 2007. In 2008, publisher Atlus released an enhanced version of the game titled Persona 3: FES, which not only featured a handful of notable improvements but it also boasted an entirely new chapter of the story known as the Answer. Both titles were fantastic Japanese role-playing games which balanced social interaction and classical sim elements with traditional dungeon crawling and turn-based battles.
Now, the Persona 3 experience has almost arrived on Sony’s little black (or white… or silver…) handheld in the form of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Portable. The game takes almost all the content from the original Persona 3 and comes with a few of the tweaks from FES (though it doesn’t pack in the Answer chapter). With only a few omissions made, the developers have squeezed an awful lot of the PS2 experience onto one UMD.
As was the case with the original, Persona 3 Portable is set in modern day Japan. You’ll balance out living life as a student in high school while spending nights vanquishing the forces of evil. Yes, there are ample evil forces to vanquish, as every night at midnight the world enters a strange phase called the Dark Hour. During this time in between one day and the next, normal people are unknowingly entombed in coffins and dangerous Shadows roam the streets. The heroes of Persona 3 Portable are special, though; they do not transform into coffins and instead use the power of the Persona to fight the Shadows and unravel the intrigue of the Dark Hour.
The biggest addition in Persona 3 Portable is an entirely new playable female character. Although the story and gameplay will remain fairly unchanged, the female character will give players a different perspective on the events of Persona 3, which is an enticing reason for gamers that finished the first Persona 3 to go back and play through it again.
After choosing your character, you’ll soon find that Persona 3 Portable is a bit different from its older brother/sister. Instead of anime cutscenes, there are more in-engine cutscenes, as well as still pictures. These changes make sense, considering the size of the original Persona 3 and the addition of the new main character, but it was still a little disappointing.
Another notable change is that certain exploration segments, like wandering the high school and dorms, is now done on a static screen with points of interest marked by icons. Some players might lament the loss of free movement here, but on the other hand it’s a lot easier to move from one place to another and all the dialogue is still there.
Dialogue is an extremely important part of Persona 3 Portable. By building your character’s Social Links (a fancy way of saying “makin’ friends”), the power of your character’s Persona will grow. These Personas are physical manifestations of a character’s mind and give the character abilities that they wouldn’t normally have access to in battle. So during the day, players need to build social relationships, attend school and lead a normal life. But come night time, the members of your party will head to Tartarus.
During the Dark Hour, a massive, haunting tower called Tartarus erupts from underneath the party’s high school. By exploring Tartarus every night, players will experience the dungeon crawling portion of Persona 3 Portable. Players must take a group of three students up the tower, floor by floor, and conquer the increasingly resilient Shadows that occupy the tower’s blood-stained halls.
The tower of Tartarus will challenge you.
Participating in a battle is fairly straight-forward, though there’s a lot of strategy in combat. But at its most basic, Persona 3 Portable battles are turn-based affairs where you directly control your main character and AI patterns handle control of the other two. By attacking with your currently equipped weapon and using your Persona to cast spells, you can defeat all the super creepy-looking Shadows that want you dead.
One of the best parts about Persona 3 Portable is the collecting of Personas, which have some of the coolest designs around. By collecting (and subsequently fusing) Personas together, players can give their characters a whole boatload of different abilities. And with an entire school year to play through and a dark tower to thoroughly explore, this has to be one of the most robust PSP games yet.
Persona 3 Portable hits store shelves and the PlayStation Network early next month.
Atlus USA has released the official full trailer for its upcoming Nintendo DS release of Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey. Here is a brief description of the story from the official site.
“A slowly expanding black spot has begun to cover the Antarctic, and if left unchecked, it could swallow the world. Don your cutting-edge Demonica suit and join an elite group of soldiers tasked by the Joint Project to enter and explore the Schwarzwelt, with the primary objective of destroying it from within, but stay sharp: there are things inside the Schwarzwelt man was not meant to know…”
Strange Journey will be the next game to carry on Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne’s demon negotiation system, which is used to get the various demons you will come across to join as allies with you and help you fight, once you acquire demons you can also begin using the demon fusion system which has always been one of my favorite parts about the Shin Megami Tensei games, as you can merge different demons together and make an even more powerful one, or sometimes weaker ones if you aren’t paying attention.
The game released in Japan October 8th last year, and will see its North American release on March 23rd, 2010.
In the near future, a mysterious, growing, black void appears at the Earth’s southern pole. Unable to determine its cause and powerless to stop its deadly encroachment, humanity sends an elite team of explorers into the heart of the phenomenon, just as Strange Journey’s look and feel represent a return to the heart of Shin Megami Tensei, bringing to mind the all-time classic Nocturne™. With over 300 demons to bribe, coerce, and negotiate with to gain assistance in battle, Strange Journey is every bit the deep, rewarding RPG experience fans have come to expect from the SMT franchise, yet delivered with a fresh new sci-fi story that taps into mature themes of morality and introspection.
Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, which already comes with a soundtrack CD packed in a collectible outer box (launch copies only), can now offer décor-concerned gamers who pre-order a copy of the game at GameStop with a nice mini-poster (available online and in stores while supplies last) with which to add class to their living area.
“Some of the best bonus items are the kind you can listen to, hence the soundtrack CD we’re including with launch copies of the game,” commented Aram Jabbari, Manager of Public Relations and Sales at Atlus. “Still, sometimes you want a bonus item that you can feel, something you can caress gently and hold against your face, something you can take a big whiff of and enjoy. That’s what the mini-poster is all about. With its gorgeous aesthetic, courtesy of master artist Kazuma Kaneko, Strange Journey stands out as a unique science fiction RPG experience, and this collectible mini-poster is the perfect way to show your friends that you are onboard for the adventure (and also, that you’re better than them).”
When the black spot appeared in the Antarctic, mankind became nervous; when it began to spread, that anxiety turned to panic. The Joint Project, convened to discuss how to deal with the expanding anomaly, decided to send in four ships carrying humanity’s finest soldiers and most cutting-edge technology. The mission: to investigate what lay on the other side of what had been dubbed the Schwarzwelt and find out if there was a way to stop it from eventually covering the Earth.
You are an elite soldier hand-picked for the Strike Team, outfitted with a Demonica environment suit and posted to the Red Sprite under Commander Gore. Upon entering the Schwarzwelt, the crew finds itself forced to deal with harsh conditions, supernatural interference, and throngs of demons populating the bewildering world. What exactly is the Schwarzwelt? What awaits at the end of this strange journey? It is entirely in your hands to find out…
Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey will feature a potent demon password system, allowing players to generate and exchange codes representing their customized demons, and introducing an all-new facet to the franchise’s beloved “collect every demon” gameplay.
Key Features
Shin Megami Tensei goes beyond — Strange Journey’s game mechanics represent a return to the proud tradition of the all-time dungeon-crawling classic SMT: Nocturne, while its story takes players into the near future on a mission to save Earth and to understand humanity’s position within the larger universe.
A dark turn into science fiction — Who or what is causing the black hole that is engulfing the Earth? A mission to investigate the cause uncovers a whole world of demons that humans knew nothing about. Do they seek your destruction or will you seek theirs? Will you decide to save Earth or choose another path for humanity?
Team up with demons — Demons may be friends or foes depending on your ability to negotiate, bribe, and coerce them to join your party. With more than 300 types of demons, you’ll have a huge variety of battlefield encounters and an equally large base of options on which to build your party strategy.
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