IMAGINE Now Open to Everyone

Welcome to 2009! Here's to another year of great RPGs!

To get the new year started, Aeria Games announced on December 30, 2008 that Shin Megami Tensei: IMAGINE has now graduated to open beta status, and is welcoming any and all gamers interested to sign up for your own account.

IMAGINE remains free to play, though there are some special items within the game that need to be bought using real money.

Anyone interested in giving the beta a go should visit Aeria's IMAGINE site here.

If one of your new year's resolutions is to stop playing MMOs so much, I apologize for the temptation.

IMAGINE All the People

Aeria Games, a Western publisher primarily focusing on localizing free-to-play Asian MMOs, has announced via their official forum that they will be bringing Cave and Atlus' PC MMO Shin Megami Tensei: IMAGINE to North America and Europe.

Though the game has not received an official release date at the moment, Aeria has revealed that the game will be available in English, French, German, and Spanish.

Having been a member of the Japanese version of IMAGINE since its Beta-testing days, I can safely say that the game is quite fun if you are a fan of Megami Tensei, and fans who wanted to play the game but couldn't leap the language barrier should be quite excited.

I am currently not sure if this is the rumored MMO that Atlus has been hiring for or not, but I will keep my ear to the ground for any info regarding that rumor.

So, anyone excited to play IMAGINE?

Atlus MMO Coming to the Land of the Free?

Since we have no official word on this juicy tidbit, we are going to have to classify this as a "rumor," but on Atlus USA's job postings is an ad for a position with the company as a Game Producer who will reportedly be "responsible for overall game performance of a significant MMO title including revenue, game content, and community growth."

Additionally, the position is asking for someone who has experience with MMOs and/or PC game titles, so it seems likely that whatever game is forthcoming is for the PC. Atlus Japan currently has 2 MMOs in operation: Megami Tensei Online: IMAGINE and Perfect World, an original IP set in a high-fantasy world. Both games are free to play for Japanese Windows users, but generate revenue through special items that can only be bought with real money.

Megami Tensei Online: IMAGINE was developed by Cave and published by Atlus. I've personally had an account on IMAGINE since it started its Beta, and for the time that I did play it, I had a fairly enjoyable experience. The game allows the player to customize their character who will roam post-apocalyptic Tokyo, making contracts with and summoning demons ala most MegaTen main series titles like Nocturne. The game is constantly getting new updates (like new items and dungeons) and having events (I should know, the emails about them flood my inbox every other day).

Perfect World is actually a Chinese-developed MMO (developer: Beijing Perfect World) that is published by different companies all over the world. MK-Style, apparently somehow related to Atlus Japan, publishes the game in Japan. Further, it seems that Perfect World has already found a North American publisher (Cubinet Interactive), so it seems unlikely that this is the game Atlus USA is hiring for.

What do you think? Is Atlus USA bringing IMAGINE over to North America? Perhaps they are bringing a different game altogether? Or, maybe Atlus parents an MMO company that is already running an MMO? What do you think?

If I get to make a wish list, I'm gunning for IMAGINE. The game is fun in Japanese, but there's a limit to how much I want to play since most of the Japanese people I know don't play MMOs. Also, since it is a wish list, we is can have a 360 and PS3 version too?