Shin Megami Tensei To Hit PlayStationMegami Tensei... A name that will not sound familiar in the minds of a lot of western RPG players, yet it's one of the most popular series in the history of RPGs in Japan. It originally debuted on the Famicom (Japanese NES) in 1987 with Digital Devil Monogatari: Megami Tensei (Digital Devil Story: Goddess Reincarnation) and has since yielded over twenty games, for systems such as the Super Famicom, PlayStation, Saturn, PC-Engine and Mega CD. The series has generated total sales of 4,000,000, and a number of spin-off series have emerged, such as the Game Boy's Last Bible series, the Persona series (only incarnation of MegaTen, with Maken X, to have partially reached American shores), Majin Tensei, Soul Hackers, or more recently, the Devil Children games for the GB. The games' distressing atmosphere and original system made it quite a unique series, and it has even generated an anime OAV (Shin Megami Tensei) and TV series (DeviChil).It's no big surprise, given the popularity of the series lately after the success of Persona 2: Eternal Punishment and Devil Children, to see Atlus announcing PlayStation remakes of the three Super Famicom MegaTen games, namely Shin Megami Tensei, Shin Megami Tensei II and Shin Megami Tensei if.... That's right, the three games will be re-released on the PlayStation, starting next Spring with Shin Megami Tensei (which by the way translates roughly to True Goddess Reincarnation)! The games will go through a complete graphical enhancement, with revamped dungeons, though the story will remain untouched. Also, the game's illustrations will be redone by Kazuma Kaneko, who has been the series' official artist since the 32-bit era. Shin Megami Tensei tells us the story of a young man (who has no name) living a peaceful life in Kichijouji, Tokyo with his mother. One day, he has a strange dream... A talking door A yound man hanged on a cross A young man tortured by demons A mysterious young woman who knows my name And then a strange ceremony..." After having this strange dream, he discovers the city is in a state of chaos because of an incident: a man committed suicide by throwing himself into the park's well. Something's wrong in the air, as if the demons were about to descend on earth... The confusion only increases as a large-scale coup d'état occurs in Shinjuku... The next day the young man finds a mysterious message on his computer, containing a "Monster Summon" program, enabling him to get demons to join his party... What will become to him? Are the demons attacking the city? That, we can't tell you, but you can nonetheless take a look at 15 screen shots and 5 pieces of artwork from the game! For the purposes nostalgia, we also put up two screen shots and the packaging of the original Super Famicom game. Shin Megami Tensei should be released in Spring, and it is now confirmed that the next MegaTen game, Shin Megami Tensei III, will be released on the PS2 sometime in 2001. No word on a potential US release for Shin Megami Tensei, though with the game's highly esoterical references and thrilling atmosphere, plus its computer/technology themes that may sound a bit old-fashioned now, it doesn't look like a release is likely at the present time. Though who knows what could happen, if Persona 2: Eternal Punishment does well... |
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