Atlus JP announced Strange Journey remake and Etrian Mystery Dungeon 2

[insukk]

What is known so far:

Staff

• Director: Eiji Ishida
• New Demon Design: Masayuki Doi
• Sound Composers: Shoji Meguro, Toshiki Konishi

The official website for the game has been opened.

More details for the game will be revealed in the March 30, 2017 edition of Weekly Famitsu magazine.

Shin Megami Tensei: Deep Strange Journey is set to be released in Japan for the Nintendo 3DS in Fall 2017.

Etrian Mystery Dungeon 2 will be released for the Nintendo 3DS in Japan on August 31, 2017.

There is also this:

Spoiler

It is nothing.

And this:

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Etrian Odyssey series, with the original game having released on January 18, 2007, and there will be a live stream event to celebrate on May 20th, 2017 at 7:00 PM JST. This was announced during the Atlus Announcement 2017 (Spring) live stream.

More information concerning the even will be announced at a later date.

 

[Zerth]

• New Demon Design: Masayuki Doi

Nice, Doi's artwork is one of many Megaten signs of identity.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

I'm really not sure I want to play Strange Journey all over again, all I remember about it is the endless backtracking, the stupid side quests that involved yet more backtracking, the preachy demons you encounter constantly repeating "you humans are terrible!", and the two main sidekicks having absolutely no personality or depth other than respectively "Every man for himself!" and "There must be a peaceful solution to this."

Atlus is smart to be heavy on the remakes though, they are cheap to produce and the fans are happy to buy them and allow the company to stay afloat. They announced a remake of Radiant Historia for 3DS as well.

 

[Morality Games]

They announced a remake of Radiant Historia for 3DS as well.

So, the temperately received illegitimate spiritual successor to Chrono Trigger needs a remake?

 

[karoliner]

Is kazuma kaneko still alive?

 

[xxxCatholicKillahxxx]

Unlike its DS predecessor hopefully there is a high probability of a PAL release for this one.

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

I'm really not sure I want to play Strange Journey all over again, all I remember about it is the endless backtracking

Same thing killed Dark Spire for me. Just endless walking back and forth in mid-game.

 

[Exhuminator]

I would pay legal tender for a localized Etrian Mystery Dungeon 2 with extreme gusto.

 

[Crospy]

Unlike its DS predecessor hopefully there is a high probability of a PAL release for this one.

Unlike the 3ds the ds had no region locking. Heck you can play the ds US release of SJ on the euro 3ds too.

It's not really an issue to not have an euro release of a game when there's no region locks, just order from amazon. The 3ds has been a major pain in the ass precisely because it takes so long for games to get released in Europe even when they do release them, just look at how long it took for us to get SMT IV here.

I loved SJ but I hope they put some effort into this remake to fix some if its flaws, like the dumb co-op system.

 

[xxxCatholicKillahxxx]

Unlike the 3ds the ds had no region locking. Heck you can play the ds US release of SJ on the euro 3ds too.

It's not really an issue to not have an euro release of a game when there's no region locks, just order from amazon. The 3ds has been a major pain in the ass precisely because it takes so long for games to get released in Europe even when they do release them, just look at how long it took for us to get SMT IV here.

Thank you. I was already aware of the region locking differences between the NDS and the 3DS. Apologies for not being more specific, since my hopes for a PAL release are more related to price. Strange Journey on the NDS still goes for 29,99 euros in addition to shipping. A 3DS version wouldn't probably have a much higher price.

 

[Crospy]

Actually considering pricing policies with Atlus on the eshop don't get your hopes too high for pricing. Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker is still 40 euros on the eshop and there's no physical media release in Europe so you can't benefit from the tendency that exists for amazon to sell the game cartridges for much less than nintendo asks for game downloads on the eshop.

Just like most atlus games these past few years, the European release will probably be eshop only so you're paying full price for a game tied to your 3ds system. At least cartridges can be sold if you're disappointed in the game or just think you won't replay it again. And with niche games on the 3ds the used price tends to be close to the retail price because they are always permanently out of stock so you don't lose much when you sell. And when they're not out of stock but just very low remaining stock the prices just inflate like crazy.

There's this curve on 3ds cartridges where the game is often cheaper on amazon on release, really fucking cheap 1 year after, then becomes overpriced once it's running on low stocks. Bravely Default sells for 48 euros at the moment on the french amazon for example. If you bought it when it was cheap, you'd be making a profit selling it right now on the used market.

 

[Deflowerer]

Is kazuma kaneko still alive?

He is, but he has mostly resigned to give younger artists in the company chance to grow. I think it's a commendable choice on his part and the company couldn't rely on his designs alone, but the problem is indeed what plagues most of Japanese media industry: the new folks are otakus who grew up with games and anime so they have no real interesting influences beyond that, so all you got is this homogenized animu faggotry left. Sad.

 

[Martius]

Actually considering pricing policies with Atlus on the eshop don't get your hopes too high for pricing. Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker is still 40 euros on the eshop and there's no physical media release in Europe so you can't benefit from the tendency that exists for amazon to sell the game cartridges for much less than nintendo asks for game downloads on the eshop.

Just like most atlus games these past few years, the European release will probably be eshop only so you're paying full price for a game tied to your 3ds system. At least cartridges can be sold if you're disappointed in the game or just think you won't replay it again. And with niche games on the 3ds the used price tends to be close to the retail price because they are always permanently out of stock so you don't lose much when you sell. And when they're not out of stock but just very low remaining stock the prices just inflate like crazy.

But Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker had retail release, just like most of their recent releases on 3ds (unless you are talking about ds version?). Only exception is Shin Megami Tensei 4.

 

[Perkel]

Good. Strange Journey is by far best japanese crawler i played. If this remake will have less combat and more strange world stuff then it will be even better.

Strange Journey formula (as in lore) works a lot better with SMT crawlers and story start seems way more interesting than most of SMT clones.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Actually considering pricing policies with Atlus on the eshop don't get your hopes too high for pricing. Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker is still 40 euros on the eshop and there's no physical media release in Europe so you can't benefit from the tendency that exists for amazon to sell the game cartridges for much less than nintendo asks for game downloads on the eshop.

Just like most atlus games these past few years, the European release will probably be eshop only so you're paying full price for a game tied to your 3ds system. At least cartridges can be sold if you're disappointed in the game or just think you won't replay it again. And with niche games on the 3ds the used price tends to be close to the retail price because they are always permanently out of stock so you don't lose much when you sell. And when they're not out of stock but just very low remaining stock the prices just inflate like crazy.

There's this curve on 3ds cartridges where the game is often cheaper on amazon on release, really fucking cheap 1 year after, then becomes overpriced once it's running on low stocks. Bravely Default sells for 48 euros at the moment on the french amazon for example. If you bought it when it was cheap, you'd be making a profit selling it right now on the used market.

otoh Atlus eshop games do go on sale and when they do, they go for peanuts.

 

[grudgebringer]

So... it's kind of announced... Strange Journey remake and EOV localizations are coming to US. Case for EU will be foggy as usual.

Does anyone actually waiting for these titles? SJ is just a remake after all, and EOV... I don't know, seems to me like if you played one of them, you played them all.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Never liked SJ much and according to Hirato EOV is a step back from EO4 and the EOU games, so I'm not really holding my breath in anticipation for that game either.

 

[Dorarnae]

Never liked SJ much and according to Hirato EOV is a step back from EO4 and the EOU games, so I'm not really holding my breath in anticipation for that game either.

I personaly liked EO5 more than 4...haven't played untold2 but I didn't really like the first one, I'll have to play the original game one day to compare.(fuck the grimoire system).
SJ is a good dungeon crawler. not sure if I want to rebuy the game though, bit tired of all their ds remake...

 

[Haplo]

Strange Journey PC release in English when?

 

[Exhuminator]

So... it's kind of announced... Strange Journey remake and EOV localizations are coming to US.

Radiant Historia's remake is also coming to US.

These are much better ways to end my 3DS collecting rather than Miitopia.

 

[Hirato]

Never liked SJ much and according to Hirato EOV is a step back from EO4 and the EOU games, so I'm not really holding my breath in anticipation for that game either.

I don't even remember what I said to you...

But I'll reiterate what I remember of the game here for everyone else

• they got rid of the worldmap, you're once again in a 30-level dungeon you climb upwards.
• there are two types of gather points in the dungeon, material points and food points
  Material points are the same old, mine/take/chop for resources
  Food points give you, well, food items. You need to learn skills like "Fishing" to be able to use them, and these items don't appear to confer to you any buffs like food did in the old games, and primarily serves as a means for HP and TP restoration in the field. I could also vaguely make out something about poisonous fruits, and I saw something about animal husbandry while trying to use google translate to scan my 3DS' screen
• Initially, classes are race restricted, presumably you'll get the means to make them change classes further into the game than I played, ditto for sub-classes
• Not sure what's up with the skill/class system, there seems to be multiple pages for your class (like EO4 had), but I couldn't see the others, probably needs more levels
• Race skills are a thing, these primarily fall into three categories, field skills (eg, fishing), passives (eg, recover some TP if you cast a spell, bonus to TEC scaled to level), and Union Skills (basically party combat skills)
• Every character has their own union gauge, once it hits 100% they can initiate a union skill, this skill might require the help of 1 to 5 people
  The character who initiates the union skill can only use the union skills they have personally learned - ie if only your front line fighter has learned triple attack, you can only use triple attack via him
  Once you select a skill, you have to confirm the people who will perform it, everyone who partakes in performing the union skill have their union gauges reset to 0% - their gauges don't have to be at 100% to join in, and it doesn't appear to modulate effectiveness at all
  Not sure of the specifics, but it regenerates at ~10% a turn
  Also, union skills don't consume the character's turn, so they can perform a union skill in addition to a regular attack, item, or skill
• Mapping is kind of confusing
  they swapped some buttons around which takes getting used to, eg the paint tools used to be [Line] [Line Erase] / [Paint] [Paint Erase], it is now [Line] [Paint] / [Line Erase] [Paint Erase]
  
  
  
  I am quite peculiar about mapping untraversable areas, and here (at least in stratum 1), the untraversable areas use tiles that half obscure the block, but also look open, so I'm confused about whether to map it as a wall or as a block of water (eg, the very bottom of the above screenshot)
  The icon palette can be customised and rearranged, which is neat, but I don't really see what allowing it to be moved around on screen really adds - ditto to the colour tab for the paint brush.
  
• Some of your classes can summon help during combat, these go into a separate row in front of your party, eg your necromancer can summon ghosts to attack the enemy, defend your party, and sacrifice to invoke his skills - once summoned they stick around until you go back into town.
• The graphics are kind of crap, wall textures are very visibly pixelated, even on the 3DS's tiny 400x240 screen.
  
  
  
  All the tiles about 8 paces away just instantly pop into existence as you step towards them, and they've put lots of little bushes and foliage around the levels, a light level of detail likewise instantly pops in 5 tiles away, and the densest at about 3. EO4 and EOU had a much more consistent detail level and obscured any such pop-in with fog, it's really distracting until you get used to it (if you played the DS games, you're probably still used to it)
  
• Dungeon events have been replaced with 'Adventure Episodes' - they're still events by any other name, but you now get XP and occasionally other rewards for just going through them
• Level 8 once again has a super-tough enemy you're meant to come back to later in the post-game to kick its ass
• There's Voice acting - you can bet your ass we'll have to put up with yet another atrocious dub.
  The major characters have some lines voiced
  Your party members can pick from (40?) voices, half male, half female, each with a slightly different personality - you can even forego voice for your party all together.

And that's kind of all I have to say about EOV at the moment.
My Japanese is not good at all, and I can't read half of what is written here, and of the little I can read, I then go and mistranslate them (eg, "icicle line" became "icy cool rain" in my head (アイシクルライン read as: a-i-shi-ku-ru-ra-i-n)).
And so I kind of stopped after 9F, because I grew weary of being unable to understand much of anything, especially since I enjoy EO most for its puzzles, and brute-forcing your way through puzzles you don't understand just isn't very fun.



Also: in before Nintendo bans my console for CFW that gets rid of the stupid region restriction.

 

[Dorarnae]

Never liked SJ much and according to Hirato EOV is a step back from EO4 and the EOU games, so I'm not really holding my breath in anticipation for that game either.

I don't even remember what I said to you...

But I'll reiterate what I remember of the game here for everyone else

• they got rid of the worldmap, you're once again in a 30-level dungeon you climb upwards.
• there are two types of gather points in the dungeon, material points and food points
  Material points are the same old, mine/take/chop for resources
  Food points give you, well, food items. You need to learn skills like "Fishing" to be able to use them, and these items don't appear to confer to you any buffs like food did in the old games, and primarily serves as a means for HP and TP restoration in the field. I could also vaguely make out something about poisonous fruits, and I saw something about animal husbandry while trying to use google translate to scan my 3DS' screen
• Initially, classes are race restricted, presumably you'll get the means to make them change classes further into the game than I played, ditto for sub-classes
• Not sure what's up with the skill/class system, there seems to be multiple pages for your class (like EO4 had), but I couldn't see the others, probably needs more levels
• Race skills are a thing, these primarily fall into three categories, field skills (eg, fishing), passives (eg, recover some TP if you cast a spell, bonus to TEC scaled to level), and Union Skills (basically party combat skills)
• Every character has their own union gauge, once it hits 100% they can initiate a union skill, this skill might require the help of 1 to 5 people
  The character who initiates the union skill can only use the union skills they have personally learned - ie if only your front line fighter has learned triple attack, you can only use triple attack via him
  Once you select a skill, you have to confirm the people who will perform it, everyone who partakes in performing the union skill have their union gauges reset to 0% - their gauges don't have to be at 100% to join in, and it doesn't appear to modulate effectiveness at all
  Not sure of the specifics, but it regenerates at ~10% a turn
  Also, union skills don't consume the character's turn, so they can perform a union skill in addition to a regular attack, item, or skill
• Mapping is kind of confusing
  they swapped some buttons around which takes getting used to, eg the paint tools used to be [Line] [Line Erase] / [Paint] [Paint Erase], it is now [Line] [Paint] / [Line Erase] [Paint Erase]
  
  
  
  I am quite peculiar about mapping untraversable areas, and here (at least in stratum 1), the untraversable areas use tiles that half obscure the block, but also look open, so I'm confused about whether to map it as a wall or as a block of water (eg, the very bottom of the above screenshot)
  The icon palette can be customised and rearranged, which is neat, but I don't really see what allowing it to be moved around on screen really adds - ditto to the colour tab for the paint brush.
  
• Some of your classes can summon help during combat, these go into a separate row in front of your party, eg your necromancer can summon ghosts to attack the enemy, defend your party, and sacrifice to invoke his skills - once summoned they stick around until you go back into town.
• The graphics are kind of crap, wall textures are very visibly pixelated, even on the 3DS's tiny 400x240 screen.
  
  
  
  All the tiles about 8 paces away just instantly pop into existence as you step towards them, and they've put lots of little bushes and foliage around the levels, a light level of detail likewise instantly pops in 5 tiles away, and the densest at about 3. EO4 and EOU had a much more consistent detail level and obscured any such pop-in with fog, it's really distracting until you get used to it (if you played the DS games, you're probably still used to it)
  
• Dungeon events have been replaced with 'Adventure Episodes' - they're still events by any other name, but you now get XP and occasionally other rewards for just going through them
• Level 8 once again has a super-tough enemy you're meant to come back to later in the post-game to kick its ass
• There's Voice acting - you can bet your ass we'll have to put up with yet another atrocious dub.
  The major characters have some lines voiced
  Your party members can pick from (40?) voices, half male, half female, each with a slightly different personality - you can even forego voice for your party all together.

And that's kind of all I have to say about EOV at the moment.
My Japanese is not good at all, and I can't read half of what is written here, and of the little I can read, I then go and mistranslate them (eg, "icicle line" became "icy cool rain" in my head (アイシクルライン read as: a-i-shi-ku-ru-ra-i-n)).
And so I kind of stopped after 9F, because I grew weary of being unable to understand much of anything, especially since I enjoy EO most for its puzzles, and brute-forcing your way through puzzles you don't understand just isn't very fun.



Also: in before Nintendo bans my console for CFW that gets rid of the stupid region restriction.

you get the others skill when you finish the second stratum, you can select 2 path for each class(legendary name they call it if I remember?). only complaint is you cannot see what skill each path has before choosing.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

Does anyone actually waiting for these titles?

Since Strange Journey vel Doom RPG is the second best SMT titles (after Nocturne) I have a boner because of moar content.

New artstyle is awful though.

If they replace demon co-op in favour of press turn... eh...

 

[Hobo Elf]

If they replace demon co-op in favour of press turn... eh...

maybe then even I could give a shit about SJ.

 

[Latro]

Does anyone actually waiting for these titles?

Since Strange Journey vel Doom RPG is the second best SMT titles (after Nocturne) I have a boner because of moar content.

New artstyle is awful though.

If they replace demon co-op in favour of press turn... eh...

Your boner will wither, according to early articles they are re-working all the dungeons.

AKA, it's gonna be easy shit for retards. New art is also fucking terrible.