SMT Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers Remake to 3DS

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers Remake Coming To 3DS With Full Voice Acting | Siliconera


Well, it couldn't be the remake to the original Devil Summoner (Atlus kinda lost the original source code for it after the PSP remake) but its something to be look forward to because the last time was saw it was Sega Saturn. It's not directly related to the Devil Summoner games on PS2, but they're part of the same series and this is a highly regarded title within the entire SMT franchise

It comes as somewhat of a surprise, though, as many though the "SMT" slated for 3DS at E3 2010 is what Devil Survivor Overclocked turned out to be, but here's another remake and this time of a much older title. Here's hoping Atlus doesn't leave it feeling as antiquated as Persona's remake on PSP.

This remake will have voice acting and hit Japan this summer, as per usual we can expect Atlus USA not to say a thing until its out in Japan. Se we should be due for the Etrian Odyssey IV announcement since it just came out in Japan.

Here's a video of an older9 and fan-traslated) version of the game:

Now that I've seen the video, at least the choice of platform makes sense as in-game they talk about all this VR stuff and "seeing it in 3D." Well, polygons were a newer thing back then.

And some Famitsu pics of two characters from the game (who used to be palate swaps, now updated to not be):

http://i.imgur.com/kGxHF.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/j72HA.jpg

From the looks of it, they'll probably be using a version of the Etrian Odyssey IV engine to put the first-person elements into 3D. Unlike most recent SMT games, its certainly likely to retain its first-person dungeon roots, just with a modernized interface and some tweaks.

[Firewind]

Re: SMT Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers Remake to 3DS

I'm actually pretty interested in this since I've never played Soul Hackers before. Shame it's a 3DS game though since hacking a 3DS to play imports tends to be more trouble than it's worth.

Hopefully Ghostlight should pick it up and publish it in the EU, they have been pretty good since KOEI and then Square Enix stopped publishing Atlus games here. it's just being a tiny publisher, Ghostlight can literally only afford to bring like, 1 game a year to the EU.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: SMT Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers Remake to 3DS

Well, Soul Hackers makes a fuss of VR in its story (being that polydon games were still fairly new on Saturn at the time), that and Atlus seems to have acclimated the Nintendo audience to the cyberpunk leanings of the older installments by way of Devil Survivor and Strange Journey. 3DS makes sense in this regard. Meanwhile the Playstation audience is pretty much always "OMG I LOVE PERSONA!" to the point they equate anything SMT as Persona.

And so they get Persona 2: Eternal Punishment next for PSP and P4 The Golden on Vita. Nothing against Persona, mind you, its just more its own series now than it is a proper SMT game. Atlus seems to have divvied up the franchises this way.

Also those two girls I posted earlier. The brown-haired one is Hitomi - the protagonists best friend and love interest (d'awwww) and her palate swap is Nemissa who's a demon that possesses Hitomi's body. A cyber demon, at that. Thankfully, she's a good cyber demon, though kinda mean spirited at first.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: SMT Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers Remake to 3DS

JP site is now live with new info.

デビルサマナー ソウルハッカーズ

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: SMT Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers Remake to 3DS

Animated opening trailer:

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: SMT Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers Remake to 3DS

Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers 3DS Footage Shows Off Voice Acting And Dungeons | Siliconera

Couple videos following that link. From the looks of it so far, this version puts more character sprites on-screen than the original and otherwise just adds voice acting. That's not to say there isn't anything new. There's some demon you raise by way of Spotpass and new evolutions for Jack Frost and Pyro Jack, but enemies are just art stills like past games.

Well, they did get away with it in Devil Survivor and DS2 as well. Still I'm glad they tend to preserve it as it was rather than update it too much.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: SMT Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers Remake to 3DS

There's the pre-launch trailer for Japan. There's also news of three of the known Kuzunohas appearing as optional bosses. We should know about a US release in a month or so if the usual Atlus pattern holds, though they have been unusually quiet about Etrian Odyssey IV and the remake of Persona 2 Eternal Punishment.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: SMT Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers Remake to 3DS

I'm actually pretty interested in this since I've never played Soul Hackers before. Shame it's a 3DS game though since hacking a 3DS to play imports tends to be more trouble than it's worth.

I actually poked around the history of Soul Hackers and there's a pretty nasty history between Atlus and SCEA on this series.

When the PSX came out, Soul Hackers was still a fairly recent Saturn game and Atlus wanted to port it over (which being a Saturn game is a difficult process) and SCEA rejected the prospect of a US release for "no new content" and being an "old" game,. An updated version came out in Japan a couple years later with a few bits of new content, so Atlus USA asked again.

SCEA rejected it on the same basis as before.

Fast forward to PSP, a remake of the original Devil Summoner was made for the portable. Atlus USA again approached SCEA and SCEA turns down this entry of the series as well for the same reasons. I mean, screw all these people that never played it before - new content is way more important than pleasing consumers. What sucks even more is that after the JP version was done, the original source code was lost so a western release became impossible.

So now Soul Hackers is coming to 3DS and while its still mostly a Saturn game. The sprite count is higher, there's new content, new boss fights and now full voice over. Given SCEA's track record at rejecting this series (the Raidou games aside), I can't exactly say I blame Atlus for making it for Nintendo this time around with all this new content. I doubt it was to spite Sony, but I'm pretty sure for Atlus USA its still going to be a way of flipping off SCEA.