Shin Megami Tensei IV to 3DS!

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

So the SMT game hinted at E3 2010 got a teaser site today:

真・女神転生IV

It really just has an animated version of this, but with more color.



For those unfamiliar with the main series (it sees tons more spin-offs like Persona, Devil Survivor and Devil Summoner as opposed to main entries), Shin Megami Tensei games are usually post-apocalyptic cyberpunk RPGs with demon summoning. They tend to be turn-based, monster-recruiting/battling affairs like Pokemon meshed with classic western moral alignments and all the foibles that come with that (Law not always being good, Chaos not always being evil, but only sometimes or you can go Neutral or even take other paths). That and the demon summoner can fight alongside his demons whereas a Pokemon trainer doesn't. Guns, swords and spells.

Unlike Pokemon or Persona 4, the tone is decidedly less upbeat and can get pretty dark, occultish and violent.

So take Pokemon, put it in the world after Fallout but instead of mutants there are demons, angels, fairies, Mothman and you can make friends with them, then store them away in your computer. You can level them up, fuse them to create new demons, earn their loyalty and all that good stuff.

SMT and SMT II tend to have some biblical and occult influences, the sort of stuff you'd read about in the Book of Revelation. Four Horsemen, thousand year kingdoms and all that. SMT III Nocturne was a departure that had its own kind of apocalypse on a parallel Earth. Strange Journey was originally considered to be SMT IV, but they changed the title and dropped the number. Its still considered a main series entry.

SMT IV, by the above image, seems to be returning to the sort of trappings the first two games in the main series explored. The above portion has something that looks like a little piece of utopia while below a city has clearly gone to hell.

Very excited about this coming to 3DS.

If you're curious to know more Hardcore Gaming 101 has a nice comprehensive look at the series.

Hardcore Gaming 101: Megami Tensei / Shin Megami Tensei

Also, there's an iOS version of the original on the App Store, but sadly it's only in Japanese and the GBA version was emulated rather strangely.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Shin Megami Tensei IV to 3DS!

Fans have already been poking around the web for comprable images:

This is from the site:



And here's the real place located in Ginza:



So yeah, its in Tokyo again.

[Aeni]

Re: Shin Megami Tensei IV to 3DS!

Ginza 4-chome, I believe that's Takashimaya. I remember seeing the man with the cosplay ferret there. Incidentally, the Sony building is near there, so I wonder if they're going to put it in the game. Hahaha.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Shin Megami Tensei IV to 3DS!

Someone already finished the 3DS version of Soul Hackers and unlocked the SMT IV trailer in its theater mode:

The engine looks similar to the one they ran with on PS2 for Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga, but a touch more cel-shaded. Still looking dark and creepy, though. I get the sense that they're going for the 1000 Year Kingdom theme SMT II could have resulted in, I don't really see a connection to Nocturne of Strange Journey here - but then, they had their own unique apocalypse scenarios on different parallel versions of Earth.

In this trailer, there are some guys with COMPs in Templar-ish gear and what looks like a castle from the Feudal Era (I forget its name, but SMT loves to use existing places within the post-apoc setting. So far there's this castle, possibly the 1000 Kingdom these Templar protect and the ravaged world outside, seemingly in a state of flux, but the real world portions outside are decimated, probably swarming with demons.

More will become clear when Louis Cyphre (sometimes Louisa Ferre) shows up. Lucifer has been a streetwise man, a young boy, and old man and sometime a woman that vaguely resembles Alice from Wonderland. He or she will say things that seem right or agreeable, but tend to be for his/her personal gain. In Nocturne he used the Protagonist's attractive home room teacher as an Eve-like lure, using her to offer knowledge to make you his powerful pawn in his war with YVWH.

SMT IV is coming out next year, hopefully early next year so the western version comes sooner.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Shin Megami Tensei IV to 3DS!

TGS pre-show trailer:

What I got out of it was:

- Armor and clothing options
- Random encounters be gone! Now replaced with Persona-like field encounters
- Combat is traditional 2D first person SMT, but with Nocturne's Press Turn system
- Looks like Metroid Prime-inspired field scanning and exploration may be back, which was a feature in Strange Journey
- Funky digital priest head in the demon fusion temple
- Demon art and environments are Kaneko's work, but not the character art... can't place the artist on that
- Either the main cast hails from the Law-centric, Messiah cult-lovin' Templar order or they really just like the color blue. Doesn't matter, they'll end up trying to kill each other anyway
- Environmental obstacles
- I threw my wallet at the laptop screen.

An extended uncut trailer is said to be coming during the show later this week and there will also be new details in Famitsu around the same time.

[Firewind]

Re: Shin Megami Tensei IV to 3DS!

Now to search for a small goat that I can make burnt offerings to whatever deity out there will help get this game released in the EU.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Shin Megami Tensei IV to 3DS!

There's a translation of the video over on Silconera now

Shin Megami Tensei IV English Subtitled Trailer For Your Viewing Pleasure | Siliconera

From what I could gather of this video and the Famitsu translations, our core cast hails from the fictional Japanese province of Mikado Country - a place that was distant from the events of the first two SMT games but seem to have access to demon-summoing COMPs all the same. They are young samurai, which explains the feudal castle that was displayed in the teasers and trailers.

There's nothing to suggest a connection to the first two SMT games, which can be read about here aside from the fact it takes place in Tokyo. Atlus maintains that Strange Journey is a main series entry, but that since it didn't take place in Tokyo it wasn't a numbered entry. SMT III Nocturne broke from the continuity from the previous games as well to establish it and them as worlds within a multiverse of parallel earths that eventually undergo a rebirth. There were very loose connections made to SMT II, but only that.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Shin Megami Tensei IV to 3DS!

Extended trailer was finally made public:

Just a little extra stuff, but nothing that really tells us more aside from the fact that the main cast seems to have a European origin. You to see some of the platforming and exploration elements they threw in, though, and I think that along with the player-initiated field encouters are a nice change of pace of the series. SMT has always rigidly followed the classic western CRPG format for years and while the PS2 entries did move away from that, things like damage panels and pit traps were still a bit annoying. I'm sure they still exist, but they way things are presented here gives me hope the exploration will be a lot less tedious now.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Shin Megami Tensei IV to 3DS!

Pre-order SMT IV, the sequel to SMT: Nocturne! Coming to Nintendo 3DS Summer 2013.

Confirmed for US release this summer, which is unusually swift even for Atlus all things considering this launches next month in Japan. According to Atlus team members from SMT Nocturne, SMT Strange Journey, Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers and Persona to all work on this game - though interestingly series lead artist Kazuma Kaneko only participated in scenario planning for this game - though tons of his old art assets to get used here. Masayuki Doi takes the role of lead artist this time (known for his work in Trauma Team/Center games and the Persona and Soul Hackers remakes. Shoji Meguro is also taking a break while his fellow composers Ryota Kozuka and Kenichi Tsuchiya. They've also had credits in Persona 4, Devil Surivivor, Trauma Team and Catherine.

US Box art

[Firewind]

Re: Shin Megami Tensei IV to 3DS!

Hoping that this gets released in the same way as Code of Princess via eShop. Atlus have been releasing some games on PSN and eShop themselves so hopefully they should realise that cutting out the middle man will avoid more controversy like the P4A and DeSu:O stuff. Don't really care who is "more to blame" for DeSu:O, Atlus should not be so uptight about third party developers having access to the Source Code and Ghostlight should have done some proper QA.

We never got Strange Journey over here so it would be nice to get a new game from the main SMT series.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Shin Megami Tensei IV to 3DS!

It probably will see a release similar to what Code of Princess has and Etrian Odyssey IV soon will for Europe. Whatever went on Devil Survivor Overclocked was probably set in motion back when DSO launched in the US. I have no idea why Ghostlight and Zen United drag their feet like they do, but the fact Atlus has moved some releases to eShop to get them in EU territories sooner seems to indicate a change, so hopefully Soul Hackers and SMT IV make it over like that as well.

As for Strange Journey, its still widely available on Amazon.com new for $30. Given its a DS game it has no regional restriction, perhaps that's worth considering. I don't know if you've played SMT: Lucifer's Call or Digital Devil Saga, but if you want a very good idea of what you're in for with SMT IV, those and Strange Journey would be good places to start. All the Persona games really get you on the same page for some of the combat jargon.

SMT IV doesn't seem to share direct continuity with any of the other main series games, but I can tell you right now there are references to SMT II, SMT Nocturne/Lucifer's Call and Strange Journey all over it.

[Firewind]

Re: Shin Megami Tensei IV to 3DS!

Strange Journey is the only one I've not played (mostly due to customs seizing it due to someone at the distributor not filling out the declaration form properly and me being unwilling to pay twice the cost of the game to get it released by the UK Border Agency). Basically out of the SMT franchise that came to NA; Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon, Devil Survivor 2 and Strange Journey are the only ones not available here, but two are Region Free and thankfully the 3DS does play DS games from another region. Devil Summoner 2...I doubt we will ever see that one though.

We can get most of the games you can now in some form:

SMT I and II can be gotten from the Japanese iOS store with a Jailbroken iPhone (Not sure if translation patches are out for them)
Nocturne (Lucifer's Call in the EU due to Copyright reasons) has been out on the PS2 for a long time.
Persona 1-4 are all on PSN (Persona 1 and 2's PSP ports, P3P and FES and P4G)
DDS 1 and 2 are on PSN and had PS2 releases
Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army got a PS2 release but is VERY rare
Persona 4 Arena is coming in May
Soul Hackers...We will probably get news about it after it's out in the US.
DemiKids games were on the GBA so could be imported.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Shin Megami Tensei IV to 3DS!

Dunno if you have an NA or chip-modded PS2, but you may be interested to know Devil Summoner 2 got a physical PS2 reissue just last Thursday. $30 on Amazon right now.

[Firewind]

Re: Shin Megami Tensei IV to 3DS!

I don't have a PS2 at all anymore since I have one of the old BC PS3s. I suppose if I really wanted to I could import the game, make an ISO of it and just play it on an emulator.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Shin Megami Tensei IV to 3DS!

Its the better of the two games, honestly. They dropped bullet management, replaced the old method of demon capture with classic negotiations and let you summon two demons in combat. Better overall story and characters as well. Nagi and her mentor Geirin were excellent additions to the cast.