Thursday, July 23, 2009

Atlus Announces Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey

As many of you already know, Famitsu has indeed cut the waiting game short on Atlus' recent teaser site, revealing Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey for Nintendo DS.

Strange Journey sees a formal return to the main Shin Megami Tensei series, and returns series veteran Kazuma Kaneko to a central role in the game's development.

Strange Journey takes place on Earth around the time when the human population on the planet has exceed 7 billion. A mysterious dark matter appears on the planet's South Pole. A subspace that continues to expand, reducing all it contacts to their basic particles, this phenomenon has been labeled the Schwartzverse by the United Nations.

In hopes of ultimately stopping the expanding Schwartzverse, the UN creates the Schwartzverse Research Squad, which is to obtain as much data on the phenomenon as possible, and ultimately find a way to eliminate it.

SMT: Strange Journey returns the series' 3D dungeons and demon conversation. Series staple demon fusion will also be returning.



Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey will be available for Nintendo DS on October 8, 2009 in Japan.

This is sort of a bittersweet announcement. On one hand, I'm glad that Atlus has returned to the main series, and the game certainly looks interesting, but on the other hand, I'm disappointed that the game will be another handheld title. 7th gen has brought a lot of disappointment in that regard, and this announcement just proves the console gamers are in for a lot more heartache.

Scans open for translation requests.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

It also looks like contacts are back. Negotiations can give you items, healing or contracts.

Also:
http://www.imagebam.com/image/c497da42782132
http://www.imagebam.com/image/02efad42782133

Resonance of Fate scans. :/ Looks like new characters, but not all of them look playable.

Anonymous said...

Whoops. Nevermind. Apparently I'm bad at reading.

Billy said...

Schwartzverse? For serious? ... Also, the suits that the characters are wearing look just like the main character from Dead Space.

Brandon said...

@anon: i was planning on posting the End of Eternity scans when some more legible copies surface. and yeah, i doubt any of the newly shown characters are playable.

@Billy: they'll probably change Schwartzverse to something less ridiculous for the NA release. or they might not. we'll have to see. (shrug)

Anonymous said...

*hangs head is disbelief*

LAME, good job atlus, wasting the great smt name on the crappy ds again, like devil survivor wasn't enough, it gets another game ?

good one.

devil summoner, devil survior i could care less for, and i'm sure the persona psp remake won't be too stellar either, an considering the dungeon crawling will be done in FP almost ensures that.

i guess all the good smt games are in the past, i hope not tho.

such a shame, after playing digital devil saga 1 and 2 (probably my 2 fav rpgs ever especially story/atmosphere wise) along persona 3 and some of 4, and now they're releasing games on the ds ? which are sub-par to say the least.

this really blows.

Brandon said...

there there, anon. Atlus has already confirmed that they are working at least on an Xbox 360 game (and rumors say a PS3 game as well), which I'm sure will be related to SMT in some way.

i agree that its a shame that so many Japanese developers seem to focus on handhelds (especially the DS).

but let's face reality: the market is very divided on consoles. a series like SMT is obscure enough without having to pick a console. sure, it could be multiplat, but that takes way more time and money than a single console, and there's no guarantee that multiplat will ensure good sales.

it also doesn't help that Japanese companies have lost a lot of favor with many gamers in the West, for whatever reason. the DS is a comparatively safe investment.

i personally think that companies should really just pick a console and stick with it and the fans will come, but when companies have nervous investors to consider, that can be dangerous too.

i guess i'm saying that i agree that SMT on DS is disappointing, but it doesn't surprise me.

i'm just hoping that we see an Atlus game on consoles sooner or later. (sooner is better than later)

Anonymous said...

i definitely agree, coincidently do u like first-person rpg's ?

i don't like em, i know atlus had some games in the past in fp, and i see is using this view again now.

not trying to be mean and nasty, but i can't take anymore of this ds crap, devil survivor wasn't bad but still you get my point.

we need new console smt games, like persona and dds were on the ps2.

hopefully they do announce something good for 360/ps3 soon, if not then i believe even more will jump in the anti-atlus pool.

Brandon said...

first-person RPGs are not exactly my favorite, but they don't ruin a game for me either. really, if the gameplay and story are good, perspective isn't all that big of a deal. but yeah, i prefer third-person.

i played Shin Megami Tensei and Shin Megami Tensei If on SNES. they were first-person and i enjoyed what i played of them. (a little too hard for my taste, but what can you do?)

as for a console Atlus title, i would say not to get too stressed over it until TGS has come and gone. console JRPGs (especially HD console JRPGs) are such a rarity this generation that it's common for them to be announced at or near big events.

Anonymous said...

icouldn't bother playing the old smt titles, too old and not my style.

nocturne was probably the first really good one, that i've played anyway.

but yeah i really hope something is announced at tgs.

heres to wishful thinking.

Anonymous said...

Devil Survivor I find is actually really fun (despite the fact it's a DS game) and this announcement is sort of a relief for me because I still can't afford the PS3 or XBOX360. :(

I've been focusing on replaying my PS2 games and playing my DS until I finally can invest in a console (after hopefully a price drop). I love SMT games and a good challenge, but I'm still iffy on SMT 1 and 2 for fear of an especially frustrating challenge. It's weird, isn't it? ReALLY hard RPGs? For a while I thought that was impossible.